#only one of which they actually legitimately endorse

[olderthannetfic]

This NaNoWriMo stuff with AI is largely unsurprising to me. I don't know how many people have gone beyond reading the viral clipped out bit about classism and ableism, but there was a follow up statement on that, in which they claim to take a very neutral stance. That their initial intent was apparently trying to curtail harassment of those who are using AI and they at least apologized for their confusing and unthoughtful wording of their original statement. Which seems legitimate enough to me. I'm sure they are sorry, considering the swift and unforgiving backlash they received. What I find kind of bizarre about this whole thing is, like, if you are running an event surrounding writing and making guidelines for what is and isn't okay in general-- then wouldn't it be a perfectly reasonable addition, to set out some level of encouraged practices for how one should or shouldn't use AI for during said event. Guidelines that are encouraged, that follow what everyone believes to be the spirit of the event (sitting down and actually writing a little every day for a month) would seem like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, to me. Like, am I off base here? With the rise in AI this seems like the natural progression. Even if only in spirit, not allowing generated works specifically seems like it would be a completely understandable guideline that keeps the event fair to those trying to do it the way it's meant to be done. And if you wanted to be neutral about it, it could be presented alongside a more lax policy around using AI to say, generate a plot bunny when experiencing writers block or create names for places/characters. People have been using tools like that for ages so there's precedent to allow "thoughtful" use of AI for these purposes. Anything at all, even if it can't be completely enforced, seems like it would have been better. The random endorsement of AI for people in certain circumstances from their follow up statement, and how it can be life changing, if one were to take their meaning in the most charitable way possible, does not feel like it's on topic here. Like, all this effort to be "neutral" on their part is not really coming across that way it's all just so damn clumsy. I try to always assume positive intent, not attributing to maliciousness (such as capital gain at the expense of creatives, which is one of the major problems with AI generated work) what can be better explained by ignorance, but even taking all that they've said in such a fashion, it largely feels like they didn't want people arguing about AI but also didn't want to have to make rules around AI that they would then have to, even if only in spirit, enforce. I can sort of understand that, considering it would be (most likely) impossible for them to differentiate between generated work and stuff that was written by a person. But again. They could have just said that it wouldn't be possible for them to police AI usage, blah blah blah, honor system (which again is already part of how NaNo works-- an honor system) but that targeted harassment campaigns of individuals for any reason would not be allowed within these spaces, up to and including suspected use of AI. Like there were so many different ways this could have been approached to accomplish what their stated goal was. Without??? Accidentally taking a very strange and not well thought out direct stance on AI that they later had to halfway walk back and apologize for. I don't think NaNoWriMo ever intended the message to be "We allow AI generated works now" (unless there's something I missed) -- That's not explicitly something they said, but rather the at large and reactionary interpretation of it. Now, I just have to wonder, what the hell happened to their September update post from last week, that was apparently addressing other issues. One thing I'll say for this whole mess, is it's at least amusing to watch the absurdity of their slow motion collapse hitting the speedrun stage toward total implosion. The org has had major internal problems for years now.

--

Honestly, I think the reaction is at least as much about longstanding issues with the organization as about people's fears of AI. Poorly thought out corporate idiocy feels in-character.

[asurrogateblog]

[hg-aneh]

will you ever come back, or is this an indefinite hiatus/straight up dipping?

i don't know

all the i miss yous are making me want to come back but ik i would just be terrified and motionless as soon as i do

Vent-ish Rant downstairs

CW: Pedophilia, Antisemitism, Suicide, Ableism, Harassment, Bullying, all the important words except for murder basically

i want to fix things in private with the people who hurt me so things can be okay and I don't out them for being wieners

but i also want everyone to know who hurt me, yet I'm aware it's not the right choice to make. social media outrage barely leads to anything, specially where minors are concerned

hell,now that i think about it, considering the fact that they genuinely don't believe people older than them are allowed to have feelings, I don't even think talking would be the right move

it's scary, its fucking scary

fuck. the whole thing started with a person mocking the way i spoke about crowley telling me to stop babying him because i was a legal adult and shouldn't be speaking like that

i had just turned 18 and the person was only a year younger than me

like when it's gone to that point and shit is that fucked up, what can one person even do

i remember i laughed about it back then but truth be told, every single little thing I've been told and that I've listened to coming from the people who hurt me has fucking destroyed me as a person

I looked at my older Discord messages, from before this whole mess started. I was so fucking happy and shameless with my joy, now look at my sorry ass

i just.

it's crazy that i have to go around masking in social media of all places because there are people that take such offense to me being cringe that they legitimately turn into high school mean girls

it's crazy that there are people who claim I'm something i am not because they want to make me look bad in the eyes of their little circlejerking friend groups so they can feel like the hero of the story

it's crazy that empathy goes completely out of the window when an account is big, that people don't see human beings as human beings when they're behind a screen

"just log off lol" i am a lonely shut in motherfucker due to my autism (that, surprise surprise, hinders my ability to socialize), you do not understand what you're asking of me, specially while being in this country and at this point in time where I'm actively craving to kick the metaphorical bucket, at daily risk of doing so, and what basically is house arrest for my own safety and well being

(aka, avoiding to physically yeet myself into upcoming traffic or buying something to actually seal the deal)

thus far I've been accused of antisemitism, pedophilia, being too self-centered (which. bro, the reason why i talk about myself is because it's the one thing i can comment on without being scared of some random person coming to tell me "NuH uH" about it out of nowhere or worse, having their feelings hurt because I don't agree with them 100%), proshipper (which, to those people, the word implies wonderful labels such as "incest apologist" "pedophile" (again) "abuse endorser" among other things) ((sidenote, I'm on neither side on that particular discourse. my friends from both sides know this. I would elaborate on my stance if this wasn't already long enough, but it is, so I'm leaving it at an "I don't care, you do you, but please leave me out of it")), being... mean... because i blocked someone...? (this one is just. that's how the second wave of hate started btw. yeah, because i blocked someone. holy fuck), and there's probably a handful of other things I haven't seen yet. fuck it, there's probably someone out there calling me a zoophile because of my catboy au

My friends who I will not name because I don't want the high school mean girls crusade to get to them, have helped me stash out evidence for all of the accusations and bullying.

fuck, they were the ones who let me know about it on the first place, both actions for which i am eternally thankful for because it means I can defend myself properly should the occasion arise (dios no quiera)

I've already had to make a post on Xitter responding to the antisemitism and pedophilia claims, in which, for the latter, i had to reveal extremely personal information for the people who started this to give me respite if only for a while

and. ugh

What I'm trying to get at with all of this is. it's. coming back is scary. i want to but at the same time I don't think I can take this shit anymore

I wish I had people defending me like this when the harassment started because I'm a spineless little bitch who'd rather talk things out and at least be neutral with people than clap back and tell them to stop being stinky

but what's done is done and now i just gotta figure out how to fix my head before i do something stupid

this is not the full story obviously, I'm cutting off certain details as well as more personal depression stuff to not make this bible longer than it already is

fuck

TLDR: I need a hug, idk if I'm coming back, I probably will cuz I can't say no to people, and some teenagers are horrible

[raleighrador]

The Bear S3 - Plot and Sydney

Sydney is perpetually frustrating to me and I love it.

I really loved a lot of what happened in her story this season, especially: her not opening the partnership agreement despite multiple reminders (and what she allows her dad to believe); the competing offer from Shapiro to start a new restaurant with her as CDC (I REALLY hope she takes the job); her and Carmen's (lack of) communication.

All of this is underpinned by the general sense of Sydney being very talented, thinking of herself as very talented, and being frustrated by what she sees as a lack of respect and equal treatment. Envy is a big component here - I loved the contrast of her reading all the profiles of Carmen vs the single review of her dish pinned to her fridge in the finale. She thinks she is every bit as good as Carmen and wants that to be recognised.

I love this. I also love how it plays out through the 3 elements I most enjoyed.

She has literally been offered a partnership stake in the Bear. All she needs to do is take 10 seconds to click "yes" on a DocuSign. Isn't this what she wants? Why hasn't she done it yet? Carmen is clearly supportive, Sugar is supportive, Cicero is supportive. All the key players in the Bear have made it very clear that they want her as a partner. They think she should be a partner.

That is the most explicit endorsement they could possibly give her. How much more recognition does she want? And why doesn't she the sign it?

Part of it is that she cares less about the partnership and the money than she does about having control in the kitchen, cares less about it than she does Carmen actually including her in decision making. That is legitimate. But she would probably have an easier time actually landing that point if she was a fully onboarded equity partner.

I think it is also because signing the agreement, actually being a partner, the most explicit confirmation that Carmen does think she should be an equal, fundamentally undermines the narrative she has about herself.

In general - she wants these opportunities, she's good enough, the only reason she hasn't yet succeeded is no one gave her a chance/something outside her control went wrong.

That no longer sticks if she signs the agreement. Carmen's not listening to her is much more clearly a communication problem to be overcome than a reflection of his true feelings.

I especially loved the detail that she allows her dad to believe that the Berzattos are lying about the partnership offer. His perspective seems to be: Syd told him the Berzattos offered her a partner stake. They have then NOT delivered on that promise. Ergo, they are dangling a false carrot in front of her. Even Sydney's "defence" of the Berzattos is "oh they are still working on it". All that does - from her dad's perspective - is emphasise that Sydney is being charitable and naive.

She doesn't say "I literally have the offer in my inbox but I haven't opened it". Why not? Why does she choose a lie that still makes it the Berzattos fault?

Because as much as she desperately craves authority and respect and to be her own boss she is actually terrified of taking that step up.

This is again highlighted in the offer from Shapiro. It is everything Sydney wants! Her own restaurant, total creative control, a partnership stake etc. So why the hesitation?

Her not opening the offer from the Berzattos becomes a neat tool to put off the decision - she doesn't know what she is turning down, she needs to have both offers before she makes a decision. Not opening the Berzatto offer means she can - "justifiably" - put the decision off for as long as she wants.

Pete ruins that by laying out the terms of the offer (which are ok but worse than Shapiro's offer).

Why then does she continue to hesitate? Because the actual point is she is terrified of taking the sort of control she spends her life craving.

Being given total control is awesome but it is also terrifying. She also presumably feels some sense of loyalty to the Bear and guilt about leaving etc whatever. Those are also important but I don't think they are the key. Even if they are, it just reveals a different crack in Sydney's self image: she values friendship and community more than being given control and achieving excellence.

I also like that we, the audience, are able to contrast and compare Sydney's options in a way she cannot. Shapiro's offer is almost ideal from her perspective. More money, more control, Shapiro says he doesn't want to cook everyday so he won't even be in the kitchen etc vs the dysfunctional Berzattos and Carmen with the promises but incredibly bad behaviour.

However, we know that Adam is actually a control freak perfectionist (who blames others for his mistakes). He spent a whole week screaming and shouting and swearing about a smudge (that he left) on a plate. So is his restaurant going to be some kind of peaceful, well adjusted utopia? Probably not.

Will she learns as much from an Executive Chef who doesn't want to cook everyday? Will she be even less patient with an Executive Chef who doesn't cook everyday?

But it is easy for Sydney to imagine it will be an utopia, just as much as it is impossible for her to imagine the Bear being anything but a hurricane of dysfunction.

I really, really want her to take the job. I want her to grab the screaming hot pot handle with two hands. I want her to back herself.

And I want her to realise it basically fucking sucks. It is harder than she imagined, it is lonelier than she imagined. I hope she realises that for all her talent she doesn't know everything. I hope she has huge success and it ruins her life.

Basically I like that Sydney and Carmen are narrative foils and I love the idea of that being explored by Sydney growing past Carmen but not past herself. Delicious.

The final thing I really enjoyed was her communication problems with Carmen and - spoiler - how they are at least as much her fault.

The clearest example here is the scene in Episode 8 where after service Carmen is playing with the meat dish and eventually invites Sydney to Ever's funeral service. A few really interesting things play out:

The whole "keep up with me". First, Carmen says not to worry about it because he has been doing this for longer. Sydney takes offence and says "I didn't mean from a skill level". Carmen accepts this.

Is Sydney as skilled as Carmen? Maybe but it seems doubtful to me. I am sure she is very, very good, and we have been shown lots of scenes throughout the show demonstrating that. Carmen is also meant to be a special talent though, and does just have way more experience than she does. Her defensiveness therefore seems a little misplaced. She also seems to miss that Carmen then just accepts her correction. He assume she is worried about a (reasonable) skill gap and wants to reassure her. He then also immediately accepts her assertion that actually she is just as good as he is. No defensiveness, no putting her in place.

It is also in line with Carmen's attitude to excellence more broadly - nothing is ever enough. Every dish can be better. Every chef can be better. Implying that to be true of Sydney is not actually insightful into how good he thinks she is. He also thinks that of himself.

This is also delightfully contrasted with the whole invitation to Ever. Carmen, as ex Ever & famous chef, has been invited to the funeral service. Other exceptional chef's have bene invited. The invite requirements seem to be: at least 1 of worked at Ever and/or world class chef. We know that Sydney never worked at Ever

Sydney says that it isn't her place but Carmen insists that it is.

It is clear that Carmen DOES believe Sydney is at the same level, is of the same calibre, should consider these people her peers (and his peer, hence the partnership offer). That is totally consistent with still having more to learn and not quite being at the level of her Executive Chef.

The other interaction is Sydney saying she wants to discuss something (presumably the partnership offer & competing offer from Shapiro) before then avoiding the conversation. Carmen makes it explicitly clear that he is available to talk. He reassures that "you (she) got me". He checks that she is sure before dropping it.

How much more are you looking for, Sydney? Your boy is here and ready to talk. The issue is it would require her taking ownership of the conversation and actually being the one to lead the discussion. This is also echoed in Carmen's apology about being hard to keep up with. He says he: "I've been wanting to talk about... about... I don't want it to be so hard. To keep up with me." He then stops talking and makes direct eye contact with Sydney.

In my personal experience when I am in a conversation with someone and they end a sentence before making eye contact with me they - not always but usually - are expecting me to say something. They are expecting a reaction. They are expecting my opinion. They are not expecting me to just stare back at them for a full 15 seconds (I went and timed it) before saying "ok got it."

If that isn't an invitation for Sydney to ask "how do you want to do that" or "why do you do the things you do" or even share some ideas of things she would want to see from him then I don't know what is.

It again reflects a pattern whereby Sydney always wants the other person - and specifically Carmen - to be the one in control. To be the one making decisions, coming up with ideas etc. Despite what she says, when she gets given opportunities to be in the pulpit, she backs away. That way it is never her fault, never her failure.

She also - to my mind - leaves that conversation with Carmen frustrated with him. Frustrated that he didn't give her what she wanted.

Maybe he would, if she just asked (just like he gave her the partnership offer).

The final contrasting communication/Carmen's treatment of Sydney where I think Sydney reads it wrong is the whole menu thing. In Episode 7 Sydney discovers Carmen has changed the menu and makes a number of suggestions that are all shut down. This is presented to us - and Sydney - as evidence of the fact that Carmen doesn't listen to her or take her views into account. There isn't even a discussion, he just "no we will do x instead".

However, this needs to be contextualised by and contrasted with a very similar interaction in Episode 5. While discussing Ever closing down Carmy is playing with his meat dish (at this point it has bernaise foam). Sydney (gently) teases him about it and suggests how to change it. He invites her to explain and she does. He takes the feedback. They then move to discussing the day's menu. Sydney asks about the pasta dish:

Carmen: uh I don't know I was thinking a potato gnocchi?

Sydney: with beef cheeks?

Carmen: yes good done

So it is not universally true that Carmen disregards Sydney's opinions on the menu or food. In fact, when she has a very clear idea and volunteers information he either listens and asks her to explain or he just unquestioningly accepts her suggestion and moves on. He respects her, he trusts her, so if she has an idea and he doesn't he just goes with her. If he does have a clear idea he does that. It isn't at all clear at any point that he is opposed to discussing these things IN GENERAL. However, they need a new menu every day, so if he does have a very clear idea for the menu today, the discussion isn't necessary. So he doesn't actively solicit Sydney's input because he doesn't think it is needed. He also doesn't imply that she CANNOT express it anyway (or, I don't know, write those ideas down and then the next morning she can short cut the menu setting process).

From Carmen it seems much more like an expression of cognitive load management than dismissiveness or disinterest. From Sydney it is an illustration of how interactions that frustrate her and prove her narrative about Carmen get weighted highly and remembered, but moments where he treats her as an equal are dismissed (or at least not lingered on).

[comikadraws]

sasuke stans on this site perceive any discussion of sasuke's behavior that isn't 100% endorsement as "hate" and even aggression towards them as fans. that's why they think the fandom actually hates him. it does not, and it never has.

Okay, dear Anon. As you can see, I delayed this ask for a week before responding to first get a couple of additional opinions by running polls and collecting data (I was hoping it's just my perception for a while, haha).

The thing is, the majority of my followers and I seem to agree with this sentiment (at least to a degree). And not just them, but the statistics I've gathered tell a similar story of Sasuke stans perceiving Sasuke and his fanbase as victims of a cruel fandom (though I did not measure the legitimacy of Sasuke criticism in any way, but I commented on it here).

And frankly, all of this effort is probably making me look rather silly. However, this is actually pretty important to me because Sasuke stans are the bane of my existence as a regular, not die-hard Sasuke and Itachi fan.

Before I continue, let me clarify that I personally differentiate between Sasuke fans and Sasuke stans. There are Sasuke fans (a minority) that match Anon's description and there are those (the majority) who don't. Also, the polls and counts I made are not necessarily representative - if at all. But they are the closest thing to objective data I have.

First of all, people's opinion about Sasuke stans (particularly what I assume to be Itachi fans but that is not to say non-Itachi fans don't agree*). The overwhelming majority agrees that Sasuke stans are very defensive when it comes to legitimate criticism of Sasuke and will be particularly hateful toward other characters.

Second, people's opinions about Sasuke and Itachi and who gets more hate/defense posts in comparison (particularly what I assume to be more Sasuke fans than Itachi fans*). The overwhelming majority perceive that Itachi gets better treatment from the fandom than Sasuke.

Also, beware that many of my followers are pro-Itachi and that several Sasuke stans may have already blocked me. This may have affected the results.

Now, let's compare this with actual numbers. I counted Tumblr posts with the following tags from 01.01.2024-06.09.2024:

Posts tagged "pro Sasuke": 247 Posts tagged "anti Sasuke": 16 Posts tagged "pro Itachi": 27 Posts tagged "anti Itachi": 54

The method is not perfect (there are most certainly anti-posts and pro-posts not tagged as such; it is entirely possible that Sasuke fans and/or Itachi fans are better at tagging) but this result seems to contradict the perception that many people apparently have, which is that Itachi gets treated better or is more loved than Sasuke by the fandom.

In fact, the pro-Itachi posts on this site get drowned out by anti-Itachi posts. Sasuke-positivity, meanwhile, overshadows absolutely everything else.

To visualize this discrepancy (even though the nature of the statistics is not exactly comparable), I put the statistics and poll results in comparison. It highlights just how many fans believe that Sasuke is more hated than Itachi - when actual data shows that the reverse is true.

The truth is, of course, that Sasuke is one of the most beloved characters in Naruto. Take follower counts, for example.

On Tumblr, the #sasuke tag has 15k followers. For Itachi, it is 9.8k.

On Twitter, the daily Itachi account has nearly 6k followers. For the daily Sasuke account, this number is nearly 41k.

In 8 out of 9 character polls, Sasuke won against Itachi - the only exception being a contest for "who gets a designated manga chapter" that is not representative, considering the attention garnered by minor characters like Sakumo Hatake and Shisui Uchiha (who, until that point, never even made it into the top 50 during character polls).

But back to hate, characters that are not Sakura or Hinata (who usually become the victims of ship wars instead) usually receive most of their anti-posts through Sasuke fans.

Specifically, the statistic about "anti Itachi"-tagged posts reflects my personal experiences, which is that almost no Itachi fan on Tumblr will be a Sasuke hater, but conversely, particularly hardcore Sasuke fans often tend to be Itachi haters.

Results include posts from @/naruto-general-opinions and @/naruto-shipping- confessions which cannot be attributed to either "pro Sasuke" or "not pro Sasuke" accounts due to their anonymity. They have been counted in as "not pro Sasuke". Had they not been counted, the results would've turned out in favor of the notion that "pro Sasuke" accounts post more hate.

And we are not just talking about legitimate criticism in these cases. There are posts literally calling Itachi "born rotten" or a "bootlicking shitstain on the world". Somebody reblogging my poll requested more Itachi hate from the fandom while tagging it #pro sasuke. And I still hope it was all bait.

If you want to read more about me venting about the double standards that Sasuke stans have for Itachi and Sasuke, you can read this rant, which further comments on Anon's ask.

But without getting into details, Sasuke stans are souring my fandom experience - both due to their hatred of Itachi as well as their opinionated behavior when it comes to Sasuke (which, sometimes, seems inseparable from one another, despite being hypocritical).

I've personally gotten harassed by a Sasuke stan before for an opinion unrelated to Sasuke. Other people had their intelligence insulted. When I see fanart of Sasuke, memes, shitposts, or analyses of his character, I wonder to myself "is this a hardcore Sasuke stan willing to be hostile to me at the drop of a hat" rather than "hey! what a cool post. can we be friends?".

And I don't want to play any victim cards about "oohhh, my favorite character, and his fans have it so much worse than you" because that is honestly not the point. The point is that I am tired and that my followers and I wish for Sasuke fans to dial it down or call out this type of behavior. Many of us are Sasuke fans as well but we cannot engage with this part of the fandom because it has become so toxic as of late.

It is genuinely driving down my motivation to create or engage with any pro-Sasuke content and I am considering just stopping engaging with any of it altogether.

*I've managed to somewhat identify the fan groups who voted based on my other polls. The main takeaway is that my blog is very pro-Itachi, hence it attracts more Itachi fans than posts appearing in Tumblr's #sasuke tag would.

The first poll (opinion on Sasuke stans) was designed not to be shown to Sasuke fans. The second (anti vs defense posts) had multiple sister polls. An origin poll about "who gets better treatment" from the fandom (which appeared in the #pro Sasuke #pro Sasuke Uchiha #Sasuke #Sasuke Uchiha #anti Itachi #anti Itachi Uchiha tags and scored similar results to the hate vs defense poll above), two polls about "who gets more hate" and "who gets more defense" (that did not appear in any tags, only on my followers' dashboards, and scored results contradictory to the ones above), and multiple other polls about "who has worse trauma", "who is prettier", and "who is more genocidal" (all of which had more sympathetic results toward Itachi, which is typical for my blog but, evidently, not the majority of Tumblr).

It is safe to assume that my other polls genuinely did not breach into the pro Sasuke bubble.

[chryza]

Presidential debate SICK ASS REACTIONS.

“The microphones will only be turned on during their turn to speak” thank the lord they finally learned

“VP Harris you and President Trump (sic.) were elected four years ago” I hope to god that it was a slip and not an omen.

Harris coming right out and attacking project 2025 is pretty pog anyway I hope she kills him. I’m still skeptical about her in a lot of ways and I’m not a fan of the continuing imperialist military industrial complex ie genocide. but fuck me she’s not a raving lunatic or a decrepit dude with dementia so like. Fuck man I’ll take it.

he keeps saying “as she knows” to try and ruin her credibility which might be effective if he didn’t immediately then verbally veer off the road and crash into a tree

WHY DID THEY TURN HIS MICROPHONE ON. THEY SHOULD HAVE JUST LET HIM FUCKING TALK TO AN EMPTY STUDIO IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO FUNNY.

I hope Kamala kills him. I’m obsessed with the way she keeps laughing at him. KILL HIM.

“She’s a marxist” this is the only time in my life I wish trump was right I fucking wish Kamala Harris was that cool.

[on abortion] “When the baby is born they will decide what to do with the baby and they will EXECUTE the baby” i don’t even have a quip to add the quote speaks for itself

Live Kamala Reaction your opponent just said Tim Walz wants to “Execute Babies”

The MODERATOR being like “there is no state where it’s legal to kill a baby after it’s born” is KILLING ME

Harris does sound legitimately incensed about abortion rights which is a massive W for her, I fully believe she would crack down on restrictions to women’s healthcare

Harris “I invite you to attend one of trump’s rallies and what you’ll hear is him talking about fictional characters like Hannibal Lector, how windmills cause cancer, and you’ll see people leaving early out of exhaustion and boredom” YES. BLOOD. BLOOD.

SHE KNEW EXACTLY WHAT SHE WAS DOING HE IS NOW SOOOO MAD SHE IMPLIED PEOPLE WERE BORED OF HIM AAAAAAHAHAHA I AM MAKING TRIXIE MATTEL SEAGULL NOISES RN

Shown: watching Trump take the bait hook line and sinker

My mom sent me memes so I knew about this beforehand but

“THEYRE EATING THE PETS OF THE PEOPLE OF OUR COUNTRY”

*further trixie bird noises*

[Harris] “This is why I have the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney” that’s NOT A GOOD THINGGGGG I don’t know if it’s like trying to be bipartisan but girl this is NOT the way

I need them to stop turning on Trumps microphone. Just leave it off

I TOOK A BULLET TO THE HEAD BECAUSE OF THEM

KAMALA I SUPPORT FRACKING HARRIS EVERYONE

WHAT ARE WE EVEN TALKING ABOUT ANYMOREEEE THIS IS SUCH A SHITSHOW

“Strength as a leader is not about beating people down it’s about lifting people up” Bold words from a woman who is actively delighting in mocking her opponent, to be clear I think it is an objectively good thing, I simply think this is a hilarious thing to say ten minutes post Live Kamala Reaction

“NOW SHE WANTS TO DO TRANSGENDER OPERATIONS ON ILLEGAL ALIENS IN PRISON”

Most of what trump says is just bloviating nonsense but I am noticing that Kamala Harris is very good at making her words sound nice while not actually saying much of substance. This is not a specific indictment against her because it’s a very Politician thing, but she isn’t actually saying much here.

[moderator] So do you acknowledge now that you lost the 2020 election

[trump] No it was obviously sarcasm

[moderator] I did watch all of the videos where you said that and I didn’t detect the sarcasm.

Trump, on Biden: I’ll let you in on a little secret, [Biden] hates her *pointing to Harris*

Okay so Harris is a proponent of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and is opposed to civilian mass-murder. I don’t even know how to begin to touch that with a ten foot pole and the whole situation feels so confusing to me in general. Overall she seems Anti-Civilians-Being-Slaughtered in the name of self-defense but then in the same breath assures that Israel needs support to defend itself from Iran so. Wow sounds like a whole mess of colonization practices that have deliberately destabilized a region that can’t easily be nuanced in a single answer

[Trump] “If she becomes President Israel won’t exist within two years” God I wish Harris was half as cool as he makes her out to be.

“I WOULD GET [PUTIN AND ZELENSKY] ON THE PHONE AND GET THE WHOLE THING SETTLED.”

Kamala Harris PUTIN WOULD EAT TRUMP FOR LUNCH put that on a check and take it to the bank I love national television

I love Harris essentially dishing the hot goss on Trump negotiating with the Taliban. Is this the platform to do it? No. But this is practically kayfabe at this point anyway. Do I even care

What a shitshow. Harris has zero high horse here, she refused to answer basic questions about position in an attempt to remain bipartisan, Trump endlessly blathered about nonsense. Kamala Harris won the debate, but to be frank, trump could lose to a mildly literate dog.

[swampgallows]

there is absolutely no world in which i would ever tell people not to vote. voting is a hard-won right, esp if you're a woman or black or indigenous or any other person of color. i just think more can be done in terms of getting involved in your community and local politics than ticking a box once every four years and acting like that's going to magically cascade down to every other concern and inequity you have.

especially the 'vote blue no matter who' shit. because i live in california we have plenty of blue bitches on the ballot and some of them are drastically underqualified for the position, or they hold views that completely contradict any sort of good they might be doing, or theyre just republicans rebranded with a blue coat of paint. for instance something EXTREMELY common is that theyll toot their horns on womens rights and gay rights (considered "radical" compared to The Opposition, hoping they can coast on that bare fucking minimum) then perpetuate the narrative about being "tough on crime" and nimby-ass "cleaning up the streets", because obv california has a huge homeless crisis. no candidate is 100% perfect but when people vote based on "blue" and vibes and not even looking at a candidate's endorsements regardless of party i would also consider that throwing your vote away.

voting consciously is HARD and can be convoluted but people crowing about doing their civic duty and then at the same time acting like voting is this totally mindless flippant process that you do once every couple of years and then forget about only contributes to people being completely tuned out of their civil and social existence. it's no wonder so many people readily adopt the 'vax and relax' mentality for covid and believe that anyone else saying "actually things are still incredibly shitty" is some kind of dissident shrew rather than the person being most brutally fucked by everyone else's apathy.

im in this headspace because ive been reading how to survive a plague and about the GRUELING effort that queer people (particularly gay men) had to endure, both from external sources and infighting within their own community, to get people to stop fucking dying and the people in power to ACKNOWLEDGE let alone actually treat the disease. the fact that someone reblogged a post from me and was lauding fauci on it for his contribution to aids research is so deeply contrasted from the years of paternalistic rejection from fauci described in the book, not to mention the petty squabbling over fucking patents and jingoism between gallo and the french over 'who discovered aids' and the decision to use the faulty american tests over the more accurate french ones. people dying by the fucking thousands, over 65% of ALL men in new york at the time being actively infected with the virus, and suits were arguing about fucking stocks and citations. jesus christ.

basically just.. i think it's naiive to believe that these people actually care about you. they dont. they want your "vote" so they can continue to do whatever they need to in order to stay in power. and every time you vote you're saying "i agree with this", even if there are parts you dont agree with. but if you never voice your disagreement and mobilize to take action on it, your silence will ALWAYS be considered tacit acceptance by the ruling class and your peers. so this idea that we cant even VOICE our concerns without being decried as fascists or trump supporters or "letting the terrorists win" is legitimately not democratic.

[queersatanic]

I've been smashing that follow button on whichever platform I see you after reading your takedown of TST. Because of that being my first impression of you, I thought something like "huh, that's pretty cool, an actual Satanist calling out the bullshit of the guys that just use the label to be assholes", assuming you (with "satanic" in your handle) derive your own values from a Satanist ethos, surely Laveyan. Then I just read your post on LaVey himself (brilliant as well) and I basically was left with the question of how exactly does satanism look like to you? Clearly it's not a larp, but it's also not the "actual" (or shall I say "Main-Stream") brand of it, the goal of which as I've come to understand it being basically to become a Bad Motherfucker.

I haven't looked if you've actually written something about that, do let me know if you have. Went for an Ask so I can let you know I am a big fan 😁

Spite and self-worship are probably always going to be some of the root animating forces of anyone's conception of satanism, and that's true for ours too. In our case, that's not just spite against White Christian Morality, but also spite against TST for being Scientology for mall goths, and spite against COS for both its historical chumminess and outright endorsement of reactionary tendencies, and also for its intellectually bankrupt charade that the adulation of power for its own sake should somehow be considered "apolitical." TST and COS are both just competing for hegemony on a smaller scale, both of them are perfectly sincere and legitimate expressions of satanism (and we mean that as an insult to satanism) - and we spite them both for being deliberately, institutionally unable to address any of the myriad crises facing the world today, and particularly the crises faced by the people most immediately and constantly threatened by the Christian nationalists for whom satanism ostensibly exists to confront and depower.

As to the self-worship part? For us, this isn't actually terribly difficult to reconcile with our unabashedly leftist positions on the world. No one is an island. My ability to become my best self is contingent, at least in part, on the society in which I live, and the material conditions that exist therein. Your mileage may vary of course, but I don't think it's contradictory at all to say that in the pursuit of my self-interest and my own apotheosis, my satanism obliges me from time to time to also pursue the ascendance and wellbeing of the people around me. There is just no good reason that my wellbeing and that of others inherently have to be in competition with each other, and I think it's great to be self-indulgent enough to reject that as a false dichotomy, and to pursue both as its own form of self-worship.

I think a big part of what it means to be a satanist in this light is to be critical, often to the point of hostility, to the arrangement of the world as it is today. The powers that be put incredible amounts of energy not just into committing atrocities, but also in conditioning the rest of us that these atrocities are justified in the pursuit of profit, efficiency, the so-called right of states to exist, whatever. We are conditioned to never be so audacious as to expect these atrocities not to occur in the first place, and that we should accept atrocities as the background noise of regular life lest we be doing "purity politics" by demanding better. But this is just a modernized divine right of kings - at the end of the day, it is a deliberate project to stunt the political imaginations of billions of people into thinking that There Is No Alternative even as the oceans boil. And that is a project that we should not only reject as satanists, but whose mechanisms and reproduction we should actively sabotage, at the very least, as an expression of self-defense.

To quote the late Michael Brooks - "Be kind to people, and ruthless to systems." That's a better summation of what our satanism means than anything LaVey ever said.

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

Susan Kay's 'Phantom' Read: Part I (Madeleine)

I'm gonna start by voicing a deep dislike and annoyance for the endorsements on the back.

"Adds new depth and perspective, moving well beyond the familiar bounds of the story..." -- Publisher's Weekly

... No, it doesn't. It offers ONE person's take while actively circumventing, contradicting and ignoring canon. You can't "add new perspective" to someone else's work by making up your own shit. This is nothing more or less than Fanfiction. And Fanfiction is by no means bad, but just because it follows the basic timeline outlined by the original author, that doesn't make it any more legitimate than any other transformative/derivative work just because it's in book form.

Even more aggravating is this, from School Library Journal:

"Phantom of the Opera fans no longer need to ponder what was in Erik's past, as Kay has created one for him in this deeply moving, poignant story . . . This sad, but beautiful, novel will be especially popular with [those] who have enjoyed the current musical."

I hate that this is actively encouraging readers to accept this dross as canon. "No need to draw your own conclusions, just ape off of this author!"

All of my above statements about how THIS IS VERY MUCH NOT CANON AND SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN CONFLATED WITH LEROUX CANON TO THE EXTENT THAT IT WAS stand.

Like whether you enjoy it or not, IT'S NOT CANON.

Anyway, onto 'Madeleine'

My first question is, did Kay name her this so that later, when Erik talks about marrying Christine at the Madeleine Church, she could point back to this and go "Haha! Mommy issues!"?

Now that's aside...

So, I actually liked the writing quite a bit. There are some decently witty phrases here and a few even made me chuckle.

I personally think she spent way more time than she needed to on Madeleine, who is, I won't mince words here, an OC. There's so many details I just don't want or need.

I will be honest, I think Kay did a good job capturing Erik’s troubling characteristics and applying them what he would perhaps have been like as a child.

My biggest problem is the Renesmee of it all.

I dislike the fact that infant Erik is portrayed as having a kind of consciousness. Of course, Madeleine is an unreliable narrator, so it could easily be that she simply projected an unnatural consciousness onto him out of fear, but I somehow doubt that this is what Kay was aiming for. The way she has Madeleine describe Erik as an infant seems to indicate that, from the moment he was born, he has understood himself to be afflicted and different, which I deeply dislike.

It has always seemed to me, that, whatever skills and gifts Erik employed, Leroux's point was that, under it all, he really was nothing more than a man; that, had he been treated with acceptance, he would not have been very different to any other man. No bizarre consciousness bestowed upon him as a curse on his mother for the sin of vanity made Erik into the haunting soul that he is.

And that really does seem to be the implication here, which is a problem for me. Its one thing to write Erik's mother regarding him as a punishment from God, its quite another to actually support that idea in the text by having him develop, not only intellectually, but physically, beyond the bounds of humanity. Crawling at six months, sure. Speaking at six months and walking at 9? No. Absolutely not. We're not doing this.

Even his deformity is treated as something supernatural (which is REALLY annoying, since we know that Leroux prided himself on even his outlandish writing choices being based in reality and accepted medical knowledge of the time. We KNOW he consulted doctors about potential diseases upon which he could base Erik’s disorder (which is likely either congenital syphilis, or Gunther Disease).

Erik became what he was because he was a child like any other and couldn't understand why he was denied the affection and attention he craved as a basic instinct, what nature dictates as natural; denied his first and most basic human right--a mother's love.

It's so much more meaningful and logical that hope should be drained from him gradually as his mother continually rejects the natural order; that he should gradually come to conclude that he is an exception to Nature's established rules, and this then is what drives Erik to build himself into something extraordinary, using the exceptionally favourable gifts he was granted by God and nature.

Now I've heard about what a bitch Madeleine is, but honestly she's not half as bad as what I was expecting (at least from her own narrative). That she takes the trouble to try and educate him herself is interesting to me, but also kind of silly. Kay grants child!Erik an intellect and developmental speed that is "Nothing short of preturnatural". If you're going to treat him like a supernaturally intelligent being then why spend so much real estate on his education?

I'm also not sold on the idea that canon!Erik's mother would ever have put that much effort into fostering his intellect.

But then in my head-canon, Erik's mother put it about that Erik died in the cradle shortly after his birth and kept him hidden for his entire childhood (which frankly, I think, is the more realistic scenario--but then I would, its my headcanon).

Also, you remember when I talked about Kay ignoring and contradicting canon?

Erik has "mis-matched eyes" in this book. That's from the musical. Also he's Christened a "Erik" here (his mother tells the priest to give the baby his own name). Erik isn't actually Erik's birth name in Leroux. It's a name he adopted "By chance" in his adult life.

Overall I found this whole section very tedious, but perhaps the most upsetting thing about it for me was this.

I was told that Erik's mother is a bitch (big surprise, we all knew that).

So I was expecting gross neglect, constant verbal abuse, physical abuse etc.

Well it was surprisingly light on all of that. In fact Madeleine is self-aware enough, with the help of another OC, her friend Marie (who is the only person in this book with any rights, imho) that she's lacking as a mother, and feels guilty about this.

She even ***Spoilers*** comes around to a point where she comes to terms with having Erik for a son... just in time for him to run away after his beloved dog gets killed by a mob of local boys.

What NO ONE MENTIONED and what I found just absolutely, insane, unnecessary, and repugnant, is the treatment of Erik's voice as being inherently sexual from birth.

This excerpt, from page 7, describing Madeleine's first experience of hearing Erik cry as a newborn, sets the tone for the first half of her narrative:

And then he cried! I have no words to describe the first sound of his voice and the extraordinary response it evoked in me. I had always considered the cry of a newborn to be utterly sexless--piercing, irritating, curiously unattractive. But his voice was a strange music that brought tears rushing to my eyes, strangely seducing my body so that my breasts ached with a primitive and overwhelming urge to hold him close.

And is followed by these little gems:

I had begun to be afraid of the manner in which his voice was manipulating me. It seemed evil somehow, almost . . . incestuous.

Whatever spiritual ecstasy Father Mansart derived from those throbbing notes, my response was utterly and unequivocally physical.

The words were for God; but the voice, the exquisite, irresistible voice was for me and it pulled like a magnet somewhere deep and unseen inside my body.

I find these so particularly repugnant because after a little while this fixation with Madeleine sexualizing her son's voice... just stops. It goes nowhere, and there's no real reason given for why it stops being a theme. I'm completely baffled and disturbed as to why this is in here at all, especially because Leroux describes Erik's voice in many ways (angelic, sweet, beautiful, pure, triumphant, powerful, sinister) but he never explicitly attributes sexual attraction to it, even from Christine's perspective. Christine is so viscerally transported by the beauty of his song because it is beautiful music and she's a freak for music, not because his voice's default setting is "automatic aphrodisiac".

Erik does seduce Christine with his voice, that's absolutely true, but only because that's what he intends it to do, not because that's just what it does on its own.

Masterpost

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

I’m always sensitive to the ways internet culture pressures people to adopt certain performances of how to be a person. And it feels like the most aggressive of these pressures are about how to be a modern woman.

For example, there’s a well-meaning but casually destructive trend that’s prevalent on Instagram. These memes idealize a state of impossible self-regard in women, an unachievable narcissism that’s justified through a garbled kind of feminist empowerment. You are not merely to be a healthy and functional adult who rises above the depredations of everyday sexism. You have to be some sort of Amazon warrior queen mystic who “manifests” what she wants through sheer force of will. It’s not hard to see where such impulses might come from. Women are systematically robbed of confidence in essentially every human culture, unless it’s in the specific arena of physical attractiveness or motherhood. I don’t know how you’d go about denying that. [...]

Unfortunately, the way that meme culture has responded has been to produce images like the one at the top.

There’s an endorsement of absolutely deranged self-confidence, an impossible level of self-belief that I imagine is actually only achievable while high on PCP. The meme I’ve included is in fact a pretty tame example of the genre. The idea seems to be that because women often lack confidence for bullshit reasons, we should convince women to try and pump themselves up with confidence like a child overfilling a balloon. Ideas common to these memes include that you don’t care about what anyone thinks (you do and should care), and that normal emotions are beneath you (they’re not). The problems in your life, no matter how mundane, are all the product of sexism or haters or sexist haters, and there is no such thing as a legitimate conflict between two sincere people who both have defensible desires. Anything that obstructs your goals, including people with their own autonomy, is merely an obstacle to be stepped over without a second thought. The standards of self-love here are so lofty that they seem just as unreachable as all of the other social standards that woman can’t possibly meet.

I find the attempts to embody this trend pretty sad. You may get a pretty standard picture on a woman’s Instagram, completely innocuous, and the caption will be like “watch out bitches, I’m finally ascending to my final form.” It’s all a little… strange.

Sadder still, this stuff comingles with the batshit generalist mysticism that is so common on social media today. Horoscope stuff, obviously, but also Tarot and numerology and (let me calculate the necessary number of quotation marks) “““““““energy”””””””. The previously-mentioned notion of “manifestation” has endured as a zombie grift 15 years after the publication of the book that popularized it, The Secret. Manifestation or “the Law of Attraction” tells people that everything they get or don’t is the product of their desires and intentions, so stop complaining about your leukemia, thanks. How this fits alongside the Zodiac stuff, which asserts the exact opposite of you being solely in charge of the events of your life, is unclear. One way or another you end up with an incomprehensible set of beliefs about the world that are both exacting (if you don’t tend to your energy you deserve what you get) and opaque (who could actually follow all this shit?). As an atheist this concerns me. As a feminist it offends me: apparently now women need literal magic to escape oppression. For whatever reason, the popular conception of the paths to women’s liberation just gets more convoluted and inscrutable over time.

I don’t know, to me being a badass bitch doesn’t seem fun. It seems alienating and tiresome. Also I’m so sick of the constant modern insistence that we love ourselves. Stop telling me to love myself all the time. Mind your business.

Here’s what I suspect: mentally healthy people, if they still exist, aren’t healthy because of the constant presence of positive feelings of self. They are healthy because of the habitual absence of any feelings of self at all. (I guarantee you this is already a thing in psychology or some 19th century German philosophy but it’s proving stubbornly resistant to my Googling.) Where we’ve gone wrong as a civilization in terms of understanding confidence is in thinking of it as a presence, as an emotion. But I think what we perceive as confidence is simply not constantly thinking about yourself and your value. That’s more real and sustainable to me than thinking about yourself all the time and consistently feeling good about what you find. Unfortunately it seems like not thinking about yourself is what many modern people find hardest of all.

Bad folk wisdom about confidence is all over our culture. [...] Whatever the case…. I am not a woman and I have no idea what it’s like to experience the endless swings in society’s perception of not just What Women Need to Be Now but also Why Women Need to Reject What Society Thinks Women Need to Be Now. I don’t want to condescend, nor do I want to do the Good Male Ally routine. I just want to say as a typical dude that it’s not that men don’t feel much pressure to conform to gender stereotypes. We do. It’s that we don’t have to deal with the meta layers women seem to have to navigate, the sense that you can’t just resist societal pressures to act according to gender expectations but rather have to swing wildly between one conception of femininity to another, endlessly made to worry that you’re doing it wrong as you try to shake off one bogus caricature of your gender while leaping to another. [...]

There was a version of this post that included a bunch of the weird empowerment/yoga/girlboss/mysticism/juice cleanse memes I’m talking about and made fun of them. But I realized pretty quickly that it would be a shitty thing to publish. The women who are making and sharing those memes are just trying to navigate a bewildering array of choices about how to exist in a sexist world, and if they’ve arrived at a cartoonish version it’s only because all the more mundane approaches seem to have failed. It’s certainly possible that I overemphasize meme culture and that it’s all ephemera that nobody takes that seriously. But I suspect not. Memes are a language of the youth, and it appears that the youth are facing the same old challenge of forces that pressure women to be everything and nothing all at once.

[pinktwingirl]

Hamas actually does represent most of Palestinians in Gaza. They won the elections there, in recent events you can see videos of people cheering on viachles entering Gaza, carrying dead bodies of Israeli civilians and soldiers as well as giving out candy in celebration. This was posted on Arab social media btw, by private people. So it can’t be Israeli propaganda. The day I woke up and saw the war in the first few hours, Arab and Israeli twitter was literally flooded with these videos. Also if you watched some of these videos you will see a lot of the people crossing the border and attacking seem to not carry any weapons and are in civilian clothing. These are Gaza citizens which decided to join on their own accord to the massacre, meaning they are not employed by Hamas. Hamas actually went ahead and said they originally intended to only kidnap and fight men but non Hamas members joined and they were the ones who mostly harmed civilians. Which is probably not entirely true, but either way it shows a large civilian involvement and endorsement from Palestinians.

What do you think about this?

If you legitimately believe that most Palestinians are Islamic fundamentalists, then I don’t know what to tell you other than you’re wrong and also extremely racist. Palestinians are an extremely diverse group of people. There are Jewish and Christian Palestinians. The reason why many Palestinians are behind Hamas is because they see them as their only option of having any hope of freedom. What the fuck else are they supposed to do? Sit back and accept being murdered and terrorized while the rest of the world turns a blind eye? And don’t say peacefully protest because, newsflash, they’ve been doing that for decades and guess what? The IDF still killed them. Hamas only exists because of the Israeli occupation of Palestinians. That is the simple truth of the matter. What exactly are you trying to prove here? That all Palestinians are terrorists that deserve to die? That is textbook dehumanization as a justification for genocide. Keep in mind that 50% of the people living in Gaza are under the age of 18. They are literally CHILDREN. But sure, they clearly must all be Hamas operatives, so it’s ok to bomb them. /s

You are deflecting away from the cause of the problem because you don’t want to recognize that Israel and the western world is responsible for the violence that is happening right now. So many of y’all would’ve absolutely supported South African apartheid and it shows

[cin-cant-donate-blood]

You actually DO have to give credence to Hamas to criticize Israel. A lot, in fact, because those dumb fucking mongrels on their stolen patch of land are why Hamas exists in the first place, and it’s their own fucking fault October 7th happened. They funded Hamas because they didn’t want Palestinians to have socialist leaders, and now they’re paying the price.

Long live Hamas and viva Palestina libre, liberal. May your country collapse next.

Ladies and others: an average or even unusually smart tankie.

Do I even have to list what's wrong with this? First of all, do not fucking call Israelis "mongrels", Jesus Christ. The problem with Israel is not that its people are of mixed descent, or their descent at all. I will attribute your heinous words to ignorance rather than malice, since I assume you're rather young and didn't actually know what "mongrel" means. Either way it's a bad look.

Next, there's something about socialist leaders in Palestine? While the accusation that Israel broadly and Netanyahu specifically have funded Hamas has not been proven, it hasn't been disproven either, so maybe I should give you a pass on that. It is certainly true that Netanyahu benefits enormously from Hamas being the only powerful pro-palestinian group. The twist that there is some particular vendetta against socialism is quite funny, though. I've not heard that one before, though it is a natural consequence of replacing your understanding of geopolitics with red fash buzzword miasma. The CIA couped socialists in Latin America, therefore all the bad shit that happens in the world is motivated by anti-socialism in particular. Or something.

Next, there's the simultaneous acknowledgment that Hamas is a consequence of the monstrous behavior of Israel (and the additional claim that they are funded by Israel, again, not proven) and an endorsement of Hamas. Which way is it? Is Hamas part of Netanyahu's master plan or are they the legitimate freedom fighters who will bring peace to Palestine? (Spoiler: theocratic fundamentalists do not bring peace with their victory, but tyranny.)

I think the "liberal" at the end is the cherry on top. The venom is tangible. I'm sure you thought it sounded very edgy, but I mainly associate that kind of use of the word with teenagers whose main political motivator is desperately needing to be more radical than their parents. I'm not a liberal, for what it's worth.

Anyway, I hope you'll be as embarrassed about what you just said in a few years as I am to read it. Here's to a genuinely free Palestine – under secular democracy (socialist democracy, preferably, but anything is better than the current status quo).

[itsawritblr]

"‘Barbie’ is bad. There, I said it." Thank god, someone I can agree with!

Opinion by Pamela Paul for the NYT, January 24, 2024.

We can all agree 2023 was a good year for the movies. Critically and commercially, several movies did well, and only one of those successes took place within the Marvel cinematic universe. Even the 10 Oscar nominees for best picture, announced Tuesday, included nine actually good films.

Is it safe now to call “Barbie” the outlier? Can I say that, despite winsome leads and likable elements, it didn’t cohere or accomplish anything interesting, without being written off as a) mean, b) old, c) hateful or d) humorless?

Every once in a while, a movie is so broadly anticipated, so welcomed, so celebrated that to disparage it felt like a deliberate provocation. After “Barbie” so buoyantly lifted box office figures, it also felt like a willful dismissal of the need to make Hollywood solvent after a season of hell. And it felt like a political statement. Disliking “Barbie” meant either dismissing the power of The Patriarchy or dismissing Modern Feminism. You were either anti-feminist or too feminist or just not the right kind.

Few dared rain on Barbie’s hot pink parade.

Those who openly hated it mostly did so for reasons having to do with what it “stood for.” They abhorred its (oddly anachronistic) third-wave feminist politics. They despised its commercialism and dreaded the prospect of future films about Mattel properties such as Barney and American Girl dolls. They hated the idea of a movie about a sexualized pinup-shaped doll whose toy laptop or Working Woman (“I really talk!”) packaging couldn’t hide the stereotypes under the outfit.

For those who hailed it, there was a manic quality to the “Barbie” enthusiasm, less an “I enjoyed” and more of an “I endorse.” How fabulous its consumer-friendly politics, its I-can’t-believe-they-let-us-do-this micro-subversions, its prepackaged combo of gentle satire and you-go-girl gumption. They loved it for reclaiming dolls and Bazooka-gum pink, its Rainbow Magic diversity, its smug assurance that everything contained within was legitimately feminist/female/fine. They approved of the fact that Weird Barbie’s quirks could X out Stereotypical Barbie’s perfection on some unspoken political balance sheet. That by being everything to everyone, a plastic doll could validate every child’s own unique and irrepressible individuality. To each her own Barbie!

And now there is a new Barbie cause to rally around: the Great Oscar Snub and what it all means — and why it is wrong. Neither Margot Robbie nor Greta Gerwig was nominated for best actress or best director, respectively. “How is that even possible?” one TV host exclaimed.

“To many, the snubbing of the pair further validated the film’s message about how difficult it can be for women to succeed in —<em> and be recognized for </em>— their contributions in a society saturated by sexism,” CNN explained. Ryan Gosling, nominated as best supporting actor for his role as Ken, issued a statement denouncing the snubs and hailing his colleagues.

But hold on. Didn’t another woman, Justine Triet, get nominated for best director (for “Anatomy of a Fall”)? As for “Barbie,” didn’t Gerwig herself get nominated for best adapted screenplay and the always sublime America Ferrera get nominated for best supporting actress? A record three of the best picture nominees were directed by women. It’s not as if women were shut out.

Every time a woman fails to win an accolade doesn’t mean failure for womanhood. Surely women aren’t so pitiable as to need a participation certificate every time we try. We’re well beyond the point where a female artist can’t be criticized on the merits and can’t be expected to handle it as well as any man. (Which means it still hurts like hell for either sex — but not because of their sex.)

Robbie had far less to do in “Barbie” than she did in “I, Tonya,” for which she justifiably got an Oscar nod. In this movie, she was charming and utterly fine, but that doesn’t make it a rare dramatic achievement.

With “Barbie,” Gerwig upped her commercial game from acclaimed art house to bona fide blockbuster. She was demonstrably ambitious in her conception of what could have been an all-out disaster. She got people to go back to the movies. All of these are successes worthy of celebration. But they are not the same as directing a good film.

Surely it is possible to criticize “Barbie” as a creative endeavor. To state that despite its overstuffed playroom aesthetic and musical glaze, the movie was boring. There were no recognizable human characters, something four “Toy Story” movies have shown can be done in a movie populated by toys.

There were no actual stakes, no plot to follow in any real or pretend world that remotely made sense. In lieu of genuine laughs, there were only winking ha-has at a single joke improbably stretched into a feature-length movie. The result produced the forced jollity of a room in which the audience is strenuously urged to “sing along now!”

A few reviewers had the gall to call it. The New York Post described it as “exhausting” and a “self-absorbed and overwrought disappointment,” a judgment for which the reviewer was likely shunned as a houseguest for the remaining summer season.

In our culture of fandoms, hashtags, TikTok sensations, semi-ironic Instagrammable cosplay, embedded anonymous reviews, sponsored endorsements and online grassroots marketing campaigns, not every critical opinion is a deliberate commentary on the culture or the virtue-signaling of an open letter. Sometimes an opinion isn’t some kind of performance or signifier.

There’s a crucial difference between liking the idea of a movie and liking the movie itself. Just as you could like “Jaws” without wanting to instigate a decadeslong paranoia about shark attacks, you can dislike “Barbie” without hating on women. Sometimes a movie is just a movie. And sometimes, alas, not a good one.

[thatstormygeek]

Though this has had paltry returns historically, I can name one Democratic president who did in fact do very important tangible things that seriously helped unions and their workers: Joe Biden. I believe Joe Biden should drop out because he is too old and is going to lose, and I believe he is guilty of a tremendous moral crime in Gaza, but his whole bit about being “the most pro-union president” is true. He ain’t perfect on labor stuff but he’s miles better than his predecessors going back decades. Which is to say that even in the standard rubric of two-party elections that unions face every four years, Biden is the one Democratic president whose record could be used to make a legitimate case that the hundreds of millions of dollars that unions funneled to him actually paid off. Also he is running against a legitimate fascist who not only will oppose all the laws that increase labor power as Republicans always do, but also a guy who crossed a picket line when he was making a TV show and who was kicked out of his own union for being such a piece of shit. I’m not going to rehash here the tedious point by point refutations of the idiotic premise that Republicans under Trump are some sort of “working class party.” You can Google 100 pieces doing that. I will say that if you ever want to know which elected national politicians are pro-union, just look and see if they are endorsing the PRO Act, the big labor law reform bill which would drastically increase union power in this country. Let me tell you that Democrats in Congress ovewhelmingly support it, and no Republicans do. “Not even Josh Hawley and JD Vance and the other guys who wave their hands about being pro working class???” No they do not. This is the simplest way to tell that they are all talk. Any major union leader who fails to understand this has a child’s concept of politics.

In his speech last night, O’Brien said: "The American people aren’t stupid. They know the system is broken. We all know how Washington is run. Working people have no chance of winning this fight. That’s why I’m here today. Because I refuse to keep doing the same things my predecessors did. Today, the Teamster are here to say: We are not beholden to anyone, or any party. We will create an agenda and work with a bipartisan coalition ready to accomplish something real for the American worker." Will you? Will you create an agenda and work with a bipartisan coalition ready to accomplish something real for the American worker? No you won’t You won’t because the Republican Party is still existentially opposed to the growth of genuine union power and worker power in this country. How do I know? Because they don’t support the PRO Act. How else do I know? Because I have eyes and a brain and I have read the news for the past decade. Making the Republican Party less hostile to the interests of the working class is a nice goal but if you think that this will be the result of electing a fascist who tried the steal the last election and who famously stiffs people who work for him and who is an egomaniac and who has never supported the electoral agenda of unions and who lies constantly and who is running on a racist platform of demonizing immigrants—you are stupid. You are a patsy if you think this. Donald Trump is a billionaire and JD Vance is a scumbag venture capitalist from Yale who is the protege of a billionaire named Peter Thiel. Which one of these guys is going to rein in big business, again? Which one is the working class champion who wants to rein in the power of billionaires, again? Please remind me.

Sean O’Brien also said this: "The Teamsters are doing something correct if the extremes in both parties think I shouldn’t be on this stage. President Trump had the backbone to open the doors to this Republican Convention, and that’s unprecedented. No other nominee in the race would have invited the Teamsters into this arena." This is how shitty newspaper columnists talk. “I got letters from both left and right calling me a moron, therefore I must be correct.” This is the self-help mantra of idiots. Oh, President Trump had the backbone to allow you to help him trick working class voters into electing a president who will usher in an administration that will decimate the political agenda of organized labor? Was he nice enough to do that? And you even got to stand on a big stage and hear yourself talk about it, too? Wow.

[hussyknee]

Listen, I'm grateful for the RWRB fandom for keeping me in fic, but way too many of you deadass keep saying that being queer and fucking PRIDE isn't political. What the fuck.

Political means being subject to governance. The very definition of marginalization is your right to exist being subject to external governance. It's what being politicized means– the politicization of bodies, of identities, of the right to choice, safety, equality. You are not allowed to simply be, like everyone else.

It's why it's very necessary to understand that the Royal Family is the absolute anti-thesis of all these things. In order to exist without impugning on the democratic process, they claim to be neutral and apolitical. Except that remaining neutral in the face of discrimination and violence is political. Neutrality in the face of oppression is to favour the status quo. Passivity endorses injustice. The ability to remain "apolitical" is embedded in privilege– the fact that you're not the ones suffering under systems that benefit you.

And obviously the Royal Family endorses inequality and the power of the elite– its very existence depends on it! Either you believe that all humans are created equal and should be judged according to what they do instead of who they are, or you believe that something called "royal blood" exists, and this one class of people have the right to sovereignty and ownership because of a bloodline arbitrated by the church.

That's the entire point of Prince Henry. As a gay man, he automatically lost the privilege that allowed the rest of his family to "remain apolitical". He was born outside of the status quo, and his health and happiness and basic human rights were all imperiled by this institution that was actively threatened by his existence.

Allowing him to be with a man is a political choice. Allowing him to marry one is to flaunt the rules of the church that they're literally the ceremonial heads of. Allowing him to marry a man of colonized origins from a country birthed in opposition to the monarchy is to challenge its very foundations. Recognizing any children he may have via adoption is to reject inheritance by blood, and recognizing children born via surrogate is to accept that children begotten outside of a church-sanctioned marriage are no less legitimate than one sired between two married people.

So basically, accepting the legitimacy of a same sex union with a brown man and their family into the royal institution involves:

Picking a political side

Disagreeing with the church whose legitimacy is embedded with the monarchy's own

Accepting that they aren't superior to everyone else, despite everyone else having to kowtow and walk backward for them

That blood isn't what makes a family

That inheritance shouldn't be predicated on the blood of a union sanctified by the church

That the very concept of legitimate children is heinously fucked and the fact that this is how they pass down their gold hat is pretty vile actually

ALL OF THIS IS LITERALLY WHAT A MONARCHY FUCKING IS. That is why The Firm went out of its way to keep Henry contained and suppressed. Not just because the Queen thought gay people were icky. The Firm is actually way, way bigger than just the queen and senior royals; it's an entire ecosystem that keeps the institution running as it's meant to. Casey McQuiston didn't do a very good job of delving into that, but then they were only out to write a gay romance with some token nods at racial diversity. They did at least grasp that the monarchy is a bad thing, which is more than can be said for their hopelessly USAmerican fandom. The Fourth of July truly is just a jingoist BBQ to y'all anymore. Jesus Christ.

TL;Dr – if you're queer, it is absolutely essential that you understand that your very existence is political. That's the entire point of Pride.

[nangbaby]

A lot of people condemn the scene in Queen Wasp where Marinette reconciles Chloé with her mother, Audrey. Marinette tells Audrey that Chloé is as abusive as her, thus encouraging the mother and daughter to connect by being abusive. In retrospect, especially with the direction the series has taken, this scene is problematic.

But there is an important nuance many of these critics miss.

In that scene, Marinette is insulting Chloé and Audrey their faces and both of them take offense, as Marinette intends. But why is Audrey affected by this insult to the point where she re-evaluates her relationship with her daughter? And why is Chloé able to make a genuine connection with her mother even if it's in abusive way?

Because both of them legitimately do not see themselves as bad people. The implication is while Chloé and Audrey are mean, neither of them want to be bad people and think they actually do care what other people think of them. Audrey puts on a demanding attitude to get what she wants, and Chloé does it because she's mirroring her mother, but Marinette's insult hurts them both because that's not who either want to be. The whole episode was about Chloé wanting to not only be exceptional, but wanting to be a hero. Audrey does want to be a good mother at least at this point. And Marinette has called both of them the horrible people they actually are.

Unlike in Style Queen, where Audrey falls victim to the akuma because of her pride, in Queen Wasp Audrey is hurt and not just because she was denied. She's hurt because a protégé she was impressed by dared call her incapable of love and accused her of not loving her daughter. In her mind, she clearly does love Chloé, not thinking of her as a possession or a trinket.

Compare this to Season 5. If anyone had said this to Chloé and Audrey, neither of them would care. If anything, they would take the insults as compliments.

The reunion scene in Queen Wasp would not be as damaging a scene if both Audrey and Chloé had been allowed to evolve in later seasons. With the way the scene is framed, their vitriolic attitudes are clear covers for the good people they could genuinely develop to be. Yes, there would still be the problematic idea of "abuse as humor" and how Audrey and Chloé lash out at other people but are rewarded by it, but it could also lead the two to begin to connect in other ways as both Audrey and Chloé became better people.

This would even work even without a Chloé redemption. If Chloé were to still end up falling from grace and descending into perma-villainy, this could have been balanced with Audrey being mean and cruel but working on being better for Chloé's sake. After all, that's precisely what the Season 3 finale was implying. With the reconciliation of Audrey and Andre in the finale, Audrey's demanding nature would balance against Andre's permissive parenting and the two were going to be a unit. It wouldn't be a "redemption" but the showrunners could have had Audrey become a better person while Chloé became worse in Season 4 and Season 5. This would show people could change for the better and the worse. At least, then, Marinette's speech in Queen Wasp could have saved one of them. Instead, it just became an excuse to have Audrey stick around with no change in behavior, which is a de facto endorsing of abuse.