#anti–geek feminism

[geezerwench]

X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

Black Panther is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

Captain America literally fought Nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance are Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual. Fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

Superman and Supergirl (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics is pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Supergirl.

Stan Lee said “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism, or any of the other things right wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side to begin with.

If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all.

Geek culture isn’t suddenly left wing... it always was. You just grew up to be intolerant. You became the villain in the stories you used to love.

****

Kenny Boyle - Actor and Playwright

07 June 2020

[glassknee]

Do you really believe Wildbow is Deaf? You don't have to be all that perceptive to realize that he made it up to distract from the racism, homophobia, misogyny, lesbophobia, ableism, classism, Sinophobia, anti-Semitism, fatphobia, genocidal rhetoric, neoliberal faux-centrist bullshit, Americentrism, Gamergate-style geek anti-feminism, bog standard MAGA tough-on-crime right-wing sentiment and general incel shittiness. Before repeating something, think critically about the source. You don't need to do the man's work for him. He's not Deaf, just a typical lazy and entitled overgrown little boy who won't even put a trigger warning on his own garbage.

Uh. Do u think they will just like. Put a cochlear implant in someone’s head with no tests? Or like do u think he is that committed to the bit. This is honestly just kind of a batshit thing to say. Also do u think Deaf people,,, can’t be racist and homophobic and all that stuff ?? Also kind of insane ngl. Also the no trigger warning is just. Factually untrue. You can go to the first page of any of his web serials and see the trigger warning Right There. What.

[sergessuperbsanctum]

X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

Black Panther is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

Captain America literally fought Nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance are Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual. Fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

Superman and Supergirl (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics is pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Supergirl.

Stan Lee said “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism, or any of the other things right wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side to begin with.

If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all.

Geek culture isn’t suddenly left wing... it always was. You just grew up to be intolerant. You became the villain in the stories you used to love.

*copied and pasted*

[spacefunclubs]

Actually makes me so upset looking up YouTube and Twitter in the Doctor Who and David Tennant tags and seeing so many transphobes and bigoted losers complain about the latest specials being "woke" over that small scene of Fourteen asking the Meep its pronouns and the metacrisis resolution between Donna and Rose.

It's actually so disheartening, seeing so many people missing the fucking point of Doctor Who, and these are also the same people who shat on Jodie's entire run bc BWAAAA, WAHMAN NO BE DOCTOR!!1!1! and lord knows what's gonna happen when Ncuti's run finally begins and what he'll have to endure with these bigoted losers with a huge ass victim complex. Doctor Who is a show that has been vocally anti-fascist since the beginning with episodes reflecting the UK recovering from the effects of WWII with the Daleks being a metaphor for Nazis, feminism, or hell, even episodes in the new run of Doctor Who way back when it started in 2005 talking about themes of slavery, government corruption, and even subtle LGBT+ themes with Jack Harkness being an openly flirtatious bisexual, Bill Potts being openly lesbian, and hell, even Martha being the first black companion in Doctor Who history (Bill being the second). Not to mention the Twelfth Doctor, who these "fans" claim they stopped watching the show after he regenerated but completely gloss over this fact, sucker punching a racist who was harassing Bill. Not to mention the Doctor as a whole character growing more love and empathy with every new regeneration and not being afraid to emotionally express themselves with love instead of having to hide it, something these "fans" fail to have or even see and understand. So yeah, your "pwecious wittle show" has always been this way, believe it or not!!

And I am SO tired of seeing posts of these bigots asking how much David Tennant got paid for saying that pronoun line or even seeing dumbass video thumbnails of David Tennant saying stupid shit like "RIP DOCTOR WHO" when these assholes gloss over the fact that not only would his character (or any incarnation of the Doctor in general) would HATE these types of people, but also David in general. This whole year, he has been openly showing his support for the LGBT+ community, ESPECIALLY trans and nonbinary folks, between pride pins, the "Leave Trans Kids Alone" shirt, and even voicing his support at certain conventions. AND not to mention his lips were on Michael Sheen in the last season of Good Omens this summer (and his character being a genderfluid demonic entity similar to the Doctor) AND even WAY before that (Richard II) AND playing a trans woman A WHOLE 3 decades ago WAY BEFORE his Doctor Who fame. So no, he wasn't paid to do this shit, he's been doing this for FREE, which is what it costs y'all to not be an asshole. And, not to boast, but when I met him at New York Comic Con last month, I felt so safe around him even with just those few moments when I met him. He's the most kind, humble, gentle hearted soul on this planet and basically the only celebrity I stan bc of all this, so no, I don't think he would support your ideals bc you're just sad and pathetic chronically online cry babies that never felt a touch of a real person.

So fucking tired of dudebros feeling like they're entitled to their "pwecious wittle show" over being "woke" (which BTW, that word has been so overused to death, I don't even think these people know what it even means anymore and just use it as a meaningless insult) when really, they're just coping and seething over the fact that this show ain't for them and wanna be angry for the sake of being angry. So by all means, fuck off and take your anger elsewhere bc we clearly don't need it and it's making me and every other sane fan uncomfortable with your unprovoked anger. It's a trend that I've seen grow between this fandom, the Star Wars fandom, or any other geek-centric fandom online ever since Trump was in power, and it's really sad to see this type of bigotry grow in fan spaces like this. Y'all are better than this, get some help.

[sawthatmountainburn]

I haven't watched the barbie movie and don't really plan to, I just have a problem with some arguments people have been making in its defense, as they are weak arguments regardless of what piece of media they're defending. specifically it's the "this is just feminism 101 for kids, it doesn't have to be a whole manifesto!" type of dismissive arguments.

first of all, if a movie is marketed as feminist and the fanbase praises it for its feminism, people who go see it will have certain expectations based on their own idea of feminism, since feminism is an umbrella term for different ideologies whose common trait is that they want rights for women. who counts as a woman, what specific rights they should have and how we should get them are all points of contention, without even getting into intersecrionality just yet. (very broad generalization, also some leftist feminists disagree with the 'rights' framing) there's only so many grains of sslt you can take, before you decide this is just too far away from what it was presented as and clearly, many women feel this way about the movie.

second of all, regardless of how a piece of media is marketed, it is always fair game for critism, whether that be from a feminist perspective, an anti-racism perspective, a leftist perspective or whatever else you can come up with. to demand that people simply not bring up these critiques because it's ruining people's fun or it's not that serious (but still serious enough that you call people misogynists for criticizing it?) is blatantly reactionary. it's the same thing angry geek boys do when you point out their funny little sci-fi and fantasy shows have weirdly few POC in them. you can say a criticism is in bad faith or based on a misreading of the text (I've seen this about the gynecologist scene, for example), sure, but what I'm seeing more commonly is just a total dismissal of these critiques and perspectives, as if the movie simply isn't subject to it for whatever reason.

expounding upon this, the "feminism 101" part of the argument is similarly reactionary. to reiterate what i said in my last reblog about this, the way people talk about this movie gives me the impression that it's way more suited to the ~2012-2014 pre-gamergate era of tumblr feminism, when people said stuff like "eyeliner so sharp it could kill a man" and feminist criticism was treated as more of a checklist of good and bad tropes. we're almost a decade past that era, with many events that changed the political and pop cultural landscape in the meantime, so what was passable back then might not be such now. we've talked extensively about intersecrionality, issues of race have been brought up time and time again, especially in light of the BLM movement and anti-Asian racism in the COVID era, queer issues have also been gaining more and more traction, etc etc, I can't and won't recap the last decade of political development. my point is, if you're a feminist in 2023 (or any other type of left-leaning politically active individual, but the barbie discourse is about feminism, so that's what I'm talking about specifically) you cannot simply ignore these issues and say multiply marginalized women will have their time, but they need to wait for the privileged women to go first. actually, it was always unacceptable to demand marginalized women support more privileged women while getting nothing in return, but it's even more obvious and ignorant in the current era, after we've been trying to make people understand intersecrionality for years.

it's also insidious how the implication is that feminism needs to be dumbed down for kids (a dubious claim in the first place) and for some reason, that dumbing down involves flattening everything to being about the most privileged women possible. why shouldn't young privileged girls learn about the issues that face their less privileged peers face? why should girls of marginalized groups have to sit and listen about the issues facing their privileged peers, but never being given the tools to discuss their own issues? whom does this dynamic serve exactly and why is it not only acceptable to continue to exist, but it also important to so vehemently defend?

I'm not trying to tell people not to like the barbie movie, that's really not what I care about. I'm saying the types of arguments being made reveal a failure of intersectionality and a dismissal of multiply marginalized women's issues, coupled with a self-centeredness which should be unacceptable to any serious feminist. stop making excuses for a hollywood blockbuster funded by a multi-billion(!!) dollar toy company and start giving a shit about the women in need right in front of you!

[agrownupgeekgirl]

• X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

• Black Panther is about colonization. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

• Captain America literally fought nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

• The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance are Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars. • Doctor Who was about an alien fighting for all of humanity in spite of totalitarian regimes. If you don't get that, you don't get Doctor Who.

• The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

• Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual. Fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

• Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

• Superman and Wonder Woman (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics is pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Wonder Woman.

• Stan Lee said, “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

• The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

• If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms. Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism or any of the other things right-wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side, to begin with. If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all. Geek culture isn’t suddenly left-wing... it always was. You just grew up to be intolerant. You became the villain in the stories you used to love.

[donnatroyprincessofthemyscira]

FOR THE UNEDUCATED.

• X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

• Black Panther is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

• Captain America literally fought nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

• The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance are Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

• Doctor Who was about an alien fighting for all of humanity in spite of totalitarian regimes. If you don't get that, you don't get Doctor Who.

• The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

• Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual. Fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

• Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

• Superman and Wonder Woman (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics is pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Wonder Woman.

• Stan Lee said, “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

• The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

• If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms. Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism or any of the other things right-wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side, to begin with.

If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all.

Geek culture isn’t suddenly left-wing... it always was. You just grew up to be intolerant. You became the villain in the stories you used to love.

Please Share.

[motsimages]

I had seen some gifs of Santa Clarita Diet and it never caught my attention because they depicted a white couple doing seemingly average white couple things (+ the name, ugh), only when someone mentioned the plot was I interested. And then bf told me it was funny.

Now, it is super funny but what I am finding too is, probably because it isn't that famous, layers of feminism that many other series don't have. It doesn't go for the Feminist Check, but within the seemingly boring "white upper-middle class family" premise, it hides some gems.

Here are some of those gems:

It makes feminism with men too. In other series, Joel would be the butt of the joke because he is soft and devoted to his wife. He would have been laughed and even his wife would have looked down on him because of it. Not here. His wife loves him *because* he is soft and loving and caring and so does everybody else. Nobody laughs at him. He is presented as a good husband, good father and good neighbor. His teenage neighbor sees him as a father figure and he accepts the role, he cares about him, and is not bothered by his presence. Also, he is comfortable with hugs, and there is at least one long hug with a friend in a moment of need. Part of his plot is that he can't speak to anyone and he wants and needs to speak about his problem to someone. When he finds *another man* to share his problem with, he does it. Men speaking about their personal situation with other men, men reaching out to other men so they speak about their feelings.

Speaking of Eric, the teenage neighbor, he is presented as the geek and shy boy, but again he is not laughed at. He is actually useful and valued by the family. He is allowed to be weird and to feel insecure. He is allowed to seek support in Joel.

Mothers have sex. Women reaching menopause are sexual, express their sexual desire, look for sex and speak about it. Explicitely. It is one of the jokes because for the teenage children it is an ordeal to hear/see their mothers like this, but it happens.

Mothers have other interests that are not taking care of the family. They may want to succeed in their career, they may want to go to party (the first episode includes the neighbour women, all mothers, going out on their own), they may want to leave the baby for the weekend to go to a concert. This is part of some of the conflict/catharsis in many episodes.

Teenage girls dress and make up like teenage girls do, and women dress and make up like adult women. Sure, they are all too polished and film-like, and the actors playing teenagers are probably in their 20s, but I am sick and tired of having the popular girl dressing like a 30 year old lawyer to go to high school.

It is all very white, but the little anti-racism it does, it does well.

Overall, and as the saying goes, I came looking for bronze and found gold.

[machine-saint]

a think i think about sometimes is that back in the day of 2011 or so, when "geek feminism" was really taking off i saw a piece about how some study found that women perceived that spaces full of nerd pop culture references (star wars, whatever) were more unwelcoming. and the article, rather than going "hmm, these things aren't intrinsically hostile to women, how do we fix that perception", instead suggested that the nerd spaces should remove their pop culture references

a few years ago i saw a paper written by some academic i don't remember the name of that was a "close reading" of STEM syllabi at some college, and it pointed out that some course had verbiage to the effect of "this is a very difficult course" in the description. the author pointed out that women are disproportionately discouraged by difficulty in STEM fields, and this was more proof of institutional anti-woman bias; it's okay for a course to be hard, but it shouldn't mention that (I suppose it should be left for students to figure that out through the grapevine)

i think these are two instances of a pattern i have insufficient data to generalize to

[prettygeek]

What are some good right-wing, anti-woke type accounts to follow here on tumblr? Especially if they are geeky or kink related?

[chaoticlimes-sys]

!!Temporary pinned!!

Hi welcome to our page!

We are the Chaoticlimes system

The host is Denny, Me (Pepper) and Spamton are co hosts, I am helping Denny with making this pinned post

We are a system of 15, we are a DID system (yes we have DID)

We are intersex and we collectively are systemfluid, genderqueer, daisy gay, abrosys and polyamsys and our collective pronouns are He/they/it, our collective name is Limez

»»————-　♡　————-««

Members and pronouns

Denny - They/it/xe/ne/bun (He/him accepted) (Xe/xim, xe/xem, ne/nym, ne/nem)

Pepper - They/it (she/her accepted if only referring to Pepper)

Luca - It/zem (They/them accepted)

Rick - He/him

Yosh - He/him or name

Tash - Void/he/it

Stocks - He/xim

Spamton G. Spamton - He/it/them/nya

Jevil - He/they/it

Mia - they/it/nya/meow

Minmin - They/it

Nacho - He/it/they/ze

May - They/them

Zwapz - He/they

Razch - They/it/vamp

»»————-　♡　————-««

We are extremely tired of system discourse, queer discourse, neurodiverse discourse and disability discourse

We (especially Denny and Yosh) are not afraid of fighting back or biting scumbags

If you’re here to start fights or discourses over small things like flags, identity, gender, orientation, mental health, systems/plurality, personas, oc’s (especially Mary/Gary stues), disabilities and/or neurodivergency please fuck off, we do not have time or spoons for you - Denny

»»————-　♡　————-««

Not sure what you're looking for

»»————-　♡　————-««

BYF

We post content involving clowns, horror, body positivity, feminism, LGBTQIA2S+, MOGAI, anarchy, furbies, animatronics, furry, body horror, food, Pokemon, My Little Pony, space related stuff, frogs, autism acceptance, neurodivergent acceptance and anti ableism

Art that we post usually have this content

Horror, clowns, body horror, horror, gore, My Little Pony, Pokemon, animatronics, robots, demons, angels, anthros, ferals, humans, humanoids, aliens, monsters, certain kinks, nudity, violence, vent art, self ship, self insert, body positivity, trans bodies, queer couples, fat bodies, chubby bodies, anarchy, feminism and characters from media (Take Undertale and Super Mario Bros as some examples)

»»————-　♡　————-««

WE ABSOLUTELY DO NOT ACCEPT THIS

Ableism, demonisation of cluster b disorders, fatmisia/fat phobia, queermisia (queerphobia), flag or sexual/romantic/tertiary orientation discourse, flag discourse, exorsexism (anti enby), intersexism (anti intersex), anti xenogender, anti neogender, demonisation or stigmatisation of mental illnesses psychosis or disabilities, general nastiness, catcalling, think it is okay to harass minors or anyone in general, harassing our alters or us in general, harassing individuals for their hobbies (geek, furry etc.), general nasty people, people who send unsolicited gore (fictional AND/OR IRL) to people to trigger people

DNI

General DNI criteria, if you stigmatize or demonise cluster B disorders (This includes using narcissistic and/or narcissist as insults), if you stigmatise or demonise mental illness disabilities and psychosis, if you believe or do eugenics, BMI scale, Anti-recovery, act like assholes towards individuals struggling with addiction, Sysmed, Proana, Promia, Fatmisic, Ableist, Kodocon (loli/shotacon/both), Proship/Neuship/Comship, Anti-anti, Pro/neu/com contact (you’re a predator), Overall nasty people, Pro-fetus, Pro-birth, Pro-life, TERF/SWERF/TIRF/TEHM, Radfem, syscourse/flagcourse (People are literally fucking dying out here Susan), exclusionists or neutral on exclusionism, exorsexist, intersexist, anti cringe, support/promote or even neutral on Autism Speaks and ABA

Scott Cawthon endorser, JKR endorser, Emily Gwen endorser

Think mspec sapphics can't: use butch/femme, reclaim the d-slur, use the ⚢ symbol, call themselves lesbians

Think that fiction can't or doesn’t affect reality (It indeed can)

Teeth divider by @mmadeinheavenn

[lenbryant]

• X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

• Black Panther is about colonization. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

• Captain America literally fought nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

• The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel Alliance is anti-fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

• Doctor Who was about an alien fighting for all of humanity in spite of totalitarian regimes. If you don't get that, you don't get Doctor Who.

• The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

• Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual, in fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

• Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

• Superman and Wonder Woman (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics is pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Wonder Woman.

• Stan Lee said, “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

• The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

• If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms. Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism or any of the other things right-wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side to begin with.

If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or you have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or you want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all.

Geek culture isn’t suddenly left-wing... It always was left-wing. You just grew up to be intolerant.

You became the villain in the stories you used to love.

Copy / Paste, Don't share.

#ArtImitatesLife

[djgir]

Sharing this because it's relevant rn.

FOR THE UNEDUCATED.

• X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

• Black Panther is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

• Captain America literally fought nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

• The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance are Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

• Doctor Who was about an alien fighting for all of humanity in spite of totalitarian regimes. If you don't get that, you don't get Doctor Who.

• The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

• Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual. Fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

• Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

• Superman and Wonder Woman (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics is pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Wonder Woman.

• Stan Lee said, “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

• The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

• If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms. Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism or any of the other things right-wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side, to begin with.

If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all.

Geek culture isn’t suddenly left-wing... it always was. You just grew up to be intolerant. You became the villain in the stories you used to love.

[osberend]

On not adding insult to injury when making omelettes

Reposting here because guild chat is ephermal; I’m not sure if my guild chat post will be deleted for length, tangentialness to the guild’s subject, arguing with mods, or any other reason, and because it’s applicable to more than far more than just Habitica anyway:

Context: I made a snarky aside about the phrase “ran out of health,” as a euphemism for “died” (that was not always used) when reporting a bug involving duplicate death notifications. One of the mods replied:

@osberend : The "ran out of health" message was added to replace the death message when we received a lot of feedback that "death" was unmotivating and was causing some users to abandon Habitica. It's not intended as a euphemism but as a way of making more people more comfortable with using Habitica. For those of us who weren't bothered by the death message, it's not a significant disadvantage to read "ran out of health" instead. If you'd like to suggest changes, Help > Request a Feature would be the best place. For the trouble with the death behaviour, please report it to the app developers through the app's menu at About > Report a Bug.

This was my response (not blockquoting because it’s long, and runs through the end of the post):

I'm not going to try to argue whether the change was on balance a good one or not here. I know that it's useless, it's either banned or close to it, and, in any event, doing it properly would depend both on statistics that I don't have, and knowledge priorities that I have never seen explicitly laid out.

I've stopped posting messages just to complain about that sort of thing, although I do occasionally put a mildly snarky aside in a fundamentally informative message, like I did in my last post. If necessary, I can try to stop doing that too.

But even if it is the right decision, I still find the "there are no real costs to this"--type rhetoric very off-putting and, well, demoralizing. You say "For those of us who weren't bothered by the death message, it's not a significant disadvantage to read 'ran out of health' instead." And I'm sure that's true for you. It's very likely true for a sizeable majority of people who weren't bothered by the death message. But it's not true for me.

Every time I see that "ran out of health" message, it annoys and repels me. Every. Single. Time. (And my combination of playstyle and level of executive dysfunction means that "every single time I die" is *a lot*.) It actually makes me less likely to promptly open up Habitica in the morning if I know that I took lethal damage at cron, which is of course a very bad thing, in that it means that being badly unproductive on one day increases my chances of being badly unproductive on the next.

I have a very strong negative reaction toward the use of euphemism in an attempt to avoid upsetting me, or to avoid upsetting anyone who may be upset in an audience that includes me. (That last isn't quite optimally phrased, but I'm not sure if there's a terse way to express the intension of what I'm reacting to. If you actually want me to elaborate, I will.)

And it is a euphemism: The mechanism is a fairly typical RPG "character death" mechanism. It was called "death" initially, and how it works was not changed when its name was. You describe it as "death" yourself in some other posts on this page. Etc. I understand that it's meant to avoid demoralizing players (which is a commendable goal!), but that's kind of what a euphemism *is*: Not calling something what it really is, to avoid listeners having some sort of negative reaction, whether that's anger, offense, fear, or anything else, including demoralization.

I'm autistic, and I suspect that that's connected to, but not the sole element of, my reaction. I used to get angry back in pre-school when the teacher would say "I need you to sit down," in an attempt to soften what was effectively a command to sit down, when I didn't want to. Because she didn't (at least absolutely) *need* me to sit down, she just *wanted* me to sit down, and she was *lying to me* in an attempt to get me to do what she wanted. I'm told that the phrasing she used tends to *mollify* most children. That baffles me.

Again, my purpose in this post is not to argue that the change was bad on balance, really. The fact that it was bad for me doesn't necessarily mean that. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and in this case, you can't *not* make an omelette without breaking (a different set of) eggs, either.

But as one of the eggs getting broken (or at the very least a bit bashed-around; it's not like this is making it impossible for me to use Habitica at all, but it does genuinely make Habitica less useful for me), I find it offensive and upsetting when people react to complaints by saying "This helps some people, and it's not like it really hurts anyone." It hurts *me*. And just switching to a justification more along the lines of "There were a lot of people who found the old message deeply upsetting and/or demoralizing, and who are fine with the new message. While we recognize that there are some people who were fine with the old message but are deeply upset with and/or demoralized by the new message (either the message itself, or the decision to switch to it), it is our belief, based on number of comments received, that there are many fewer of them than there are of the other group" would at least avoid adding insult to injury. (Actually doing a poll to try to establish the truth of that would be even better, as would adding some sort of toggle to allow people to choose between a softer, fuzzier Habitica, and a harsher, blunter one. If and when I ever get around to setting up a local installation of Habitica (executive dysfunction, again), seeing about adding a "language" ("blunt English?") to at least approximate that is on my long list of changes and subsequent pull requests to make.)

This same sentiment also applies (at least for me) to a number of other changes meant to make Habitica friendlier to new users (and to plenty of things unrelated to Habitica at all; this is a broad social trend that is very upsetting to me): It may very well be the case that the the number of people you're seriously helping is substantially greater than the number of people you're seriously hurting. But don't dismiss the latter's existence out of hand, just because there are fewer of them, or because it's harder for you to imagine *how* you're hurting them than it is to imagine how you're helping the others. Don't add insult to injury.

And especially please don't, as I see happen a lot on other sites (I haven't seen it happen here, though a few responses I've seen from other mods to various complaints have gotten kinda close for comfort), declare that anyone who's hurt must be a gatekeeping elitist who wants to keep others out, and that their pain is just them getting butthurt about efforts to be more inclusive.

(For extra fun, stick one or more of "cisgender," "heterosexual," "white," and "male" (even if none of those four demographics are actually relevant to the changes being made in any way) in front of "gatekeeping elitist," and "of [the corresponding minority groups]" after "inclusive," so [generic] you can declare their pain to be evidence not just that they're *bad*, but also that they're *bigoted*. I haven't seen that at all on Habitica, but I've seen it a ton elsewhere.)

[sawthatmountainburn]

there's something to be said about anti-sjws on various websites, especially youtube, making mountains out of molehills and deliberately misinterpreting feminist points and other manipulation tactics, but geek feminism/social justice was not doing itself any favors by making the most ridiculous dramatic media criticisms ever conceived by humans. people like to blame christian upbringings and "puriteens" for this shit now, but no motherfuckers the same fandom bloggers who self-id as proship were happy to share posts about how liking certain movies makes you a violent incel and how you're racist if you like the wrong dragon age character and how any show where a female character experiences pain is misogynist. you did this to yourselves. i refuse to forget.

[all-or-nothings]

Gatekeeping is good

The definition of a nerd is someone who is obsessed with something and knows a lot of facts about it. You can’t be a “nerd” if you’ve gone no further than watched the movie adaptation, liked a couple of posts on social media related to it and bought a t shirt. People only get upset when someone quizzes them because they don’t know the answer and therefore look like an idiot. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy something because they don’t know everything about it, what I’m saying is don’t go around claiming to be a “huge nerd” because you’ll only end up embarrassing yourself when the people you lie to end up talking about said fandom and you only know the basics. Trust me, it’s better for everyone.