Also, this argument is weird, because it implies that guys only like geek things because they've been forced out of other things that they really want. The women in this scenario aren't coming to geekdom to as a last resort, presumably, they are coming to geekdom because they want to be there. This kind of destroys any argument that might be made about how these men understand geekdom more than women can.
Ok, where to begin with this trainwreck.
Gaming was never yours. Never. It was not designed as a safe space for guys free of women and you have no exclusive rights to the medium in the same way that no gender have exclusive rights to film and television. If women said you were not allowed to read books because that is their safe thing you would think they were ridiculous, you do not own a medium.
Women are not required to want to hang out with you in real life in order to game, that is another bullshit standard you apply to them and not to men. If a guy is a jerk whom you wouldn’t want to hang out with in real life you don’t throw a tantrum.
Women are not a hivemind, we each have our own individual thoughts and feelings and judge you individually.
That being said, women don’t want to hang out with you, not because you’re socially inept, but because you are an entitled asshole who thinks that women owe you their time outside of games in order to be able to play games without hostility.
If men weren’t hostile towards women, who have just as much a right to game as them, and weren’t so hostile towards the concept of fair representation then there would be any changes to the “scene” required, because people would already have a fair and fun experience.
Games are not your sanctuary mate, they are a product medium and never once has it been yours. Get over yourself.
god bless you lady cause these white ppl out of hand
If modern art is supposed to challenge the viewer by posing the question, “What is art, really?”, it needs to be prepared for viewers to answer that question.
Art: what is art, really? Cleaning Lady: not this
I’ve said it before: if scattered trash is a legitimate art installation, then cleaning it up is legitimate performance art and she should also get thousands of dollars for her incisive commentary
…I would read the hell out of a series of a chosen eighty-five-year-old woman who goes on epic journeys throughout a dangerous and magical land, armed only with a cane and her stab-tastic knitting needles, accompanied by her six cats and a skittish-yet-devoted orderly who makes sure she takes her pills on time.
“I didn’t start publishing Pennsylvania’s Orange Street News so that people would think I’m cute. I want to get the truth to people, even if it makes grownups mad,” says 9-year-old Hilde Kate Lysiak, publisher of and reporter for the Orange Street News.
After reporting on a suspected homicide in Selinsgrove, Pa., Hilde was harassed by “disgusted” adults commenting on her site, saying her time would be better spent at tea parties and playing with dolls.
Either going to a great job as a respected and trusted reporter, or to overseas asylum after blowing the wrong whistle, but either way. Places.
Every time I see this, the same thought occurs to me:
A nine-year-old girl can’t be in the public eye without people commenting on whether or not she’s cute and how cute she is and what her cuteness means about her place in the world.
There’s no point in time at which girls and women are safe from judgment of our physical appearance, no matter how fucked-up it is for people to be talking about it.
also this is even more amazing when you go into extended canon
not only did rey grow up orphaned and isolated, but also dirt poor, working a thankless job for despotic boss in order to feed herself and sometimes not managing even that. if you read ‘before the awakening’ rey’s story is utterly fucking heartbreaking because it’s outright said that she has, on multiple occasions, gone so hungry she had trouble standing. despite this she loves building things so much that she’d rather keep the best stuff she’s scavenging for herself than exchange it for food. she built her speeder already several years before we meet her, so like, in her mid-teens and she’s very proud of it. she has a workbench in her home and she’s always tinkering with things. rey would literally go hungry to follow her passion.
finn is basically caught in the equivalent of an abusive educational system that’s forcing him in little boxes and teaches skills (which incidentally involve murdering civilians) at the expense of his humanity. not only that but finn is also the overachiever who’s constantly doubting himself. it’s fucked up but before he escapes the first order so much of finn’s thought process is ‘i’m always at the top of the class and they’re saying i have so much potential, so why do i feel like such a failure?’ finn rebels against the order by bringing out his humanity full force and holding it up to them. he’s such a giant fuck you to the system it’s incredible. if anyone is a rebel in this story, it’s definitely finn.
poe is so interesting because at 32 he would actually still be in the millennial age gap. he’s older, and by all accounts should be that disillusioned guy who understood long ago that notions of galactic peace and what have you are useless in real life. he should be that dude who embraced his cynicism and is maybe sort of patronizing towards these idealistic wide-eyed kids. instead he’s the opposite of all that, but that’s not really the point. poe, whose family fought to establish the new republic, wants nothing more than to do his part in rebuilding it. but at some point in the process he runs head-first into a wall of corrupt politics and shady business deals that would profit from a war. but instead of giving up and keeping his head down once he realizes what he’s up against, poe goes and becomes a leader figure in the resistance.
so basically you have three young people: one who works incredibly hard and is often unable to cover her most basic needs, but doesn’t give up on her passion; one who should have been broken by an abusive educational system, but instead broke the system by affirming his humanity at every point in the story; and one who didn’t succumb to cynicism and chose to act once he understood politics is always self-interested.
and the second they meet they do nothing but praise and encourage and lift eachother up, loudly and enthusiastically.
space millennials. my heart is so full of love for this story.
Of course! See, modern animals have a lot of muscles, fat, fluff, etc, and end up looking very little like their actual skeleton. For example, look at how much fluff owls have:
However, lots of palaeoartists completely ignore this! They basically stretch skin over the bones and call it a day. One especially bad example that was featured on @palaeofail is this poor pterosaur:
It barely has room for its digestive system. It’s definitely missing the air sac system that allows it to breathe. It’s got virtually no muscles on the arms - how does it fly?? - on the head (no wonder its mouth is open. It has no jaw muscles to close it!), on the torso (it needs to flap), or on the legs (walking) It doesn’t have any fat at all, so it’s definitely starving (maybe because it can’t fly or close its moth?). The skin is much too thin; you can see all of the bones and its wing membranes should be much, much thicker. And it’s missing the hair-like pycnofibres that should be covering its body!
Many palaeoartists have started to strike back at this by drawing modern animals like we might draw them if we found their bones:
mental illness is weird because even if the toughest shit has been going on i didn’t shed a tear and then literally got a mental breakdown because i couldn’t find my watch the other day
do you want to see a movie where you have no idea what is going on for the first forty-five minutes? jupiter ascending is the film for you! other highlights include:
a ten minute long spaceship fight with no context or purpose, which destroys a city. “no one will remember” channing tatum growls as they leave the city, as if youtube does not exist
“here’s a latke for you, bitch”
someone using a menstrual pad as a bandage by slapping the sticky part onto the wound, leaving the actual blood-absorbing part just kind of…waving around
actors chewing the scenery so hard i’m surprised beautifully over-constructed bits of space metal aren’t just falling out of their mouths
a man trying to shoot thousands of bees in the middle of a cornfield
a gun that makes dog noises. it barks. the gun barks.
oedipus complexes so beautifully twisted and terrible that you will spend half the movie mouthing “oh my god” to yourself
related to that, the climactic line of the movie is “i’m not your damn mother,” so take that as you will
a breathtakingly gorgeous and complex universe used as a background for a romance between woman and a man. granted, the man is a wolf angel. but still.
I CREATE LIVES……………….
[whispers] and destroy them
no i’m sorry i have to keep going
“bees can sense royalty”
mila kunis having the powerful realization partway through that she is a furry, an epiphany that changes her life
“i love dogs” she whispers, eyes wide
SPACE BUREAUCRACY. A MONTAGE THAT IS JUST SPACE BUREAUCRACY. THEY FILL OUT SPACE FORMS. IN SPACE.
“bees can sense royalty”
channing tatum, shirtless in the void of space
a room FILLED WITH CANDLES
soylent green nectar…….is…………….peeeeoplllle
“bees can sense royalty”
sean bean’s apparent daughter, who shows up onscreen for a minute and a half, leaves to get supplies for dinner, and never comes back
yeah sean bean is in this too i didn’t believe it either
“bees can sense royalty”
a space wedding. it’s just like an earth wedding. BUT IN SPACE
mila kunis’ character’s name is jupiter
yes i am dead serious about this
she spends most of the movie falling
they really should have called it “jupiter descending” because that’s all she does
“bees can sense royalty”
All that repetition of how bees can sense royalty, and you leave out the fact that the bees were an alarm system set up by Sean Bean, who is part bee.
Did you seriously leave out Channing Tatum’s flying rollerskates?
Getting a firm handle on the geography of Ancient Greece both answers and raises questions.
On the one hand, the logistics of all those huge military campaigns make a lot more sense once you realise that many of the great city-states were basically within walking distance of each other. In many cases, those logistics boil down to less “establish a supply train” and more “well, make sure you pack a snack”.
On the other hand, all those episodes where great heroes spend years lost in the wilderness or adrift at sea become more difficult to reconcile. It’s like… how can you possibly get that lost for that long? If you found a good-size hill to climb, you can practically see your destination from your starting point!
It is a puzzlement.
One of the greatest moments of my life was when I realized the entirety of the Odyssey, which is described like this grand globe spanning adventure, probably just all took place around one tiny ass sea
Yeah, something that often throws modern readers is that most Ancient Greek cultures didn’t really have a concept of ocean voyages as we think of them. They relied heavily on coastal landmarks for navigation, which forced them to stay in sight of land. Very often they didn’t even stay on the ships full-time, instead going ashore to camp out each night. The closest they usually got to actual trans-oceanic travel was island-hopping - i.e., a series of short jaunts with daily stops at conveniently located islands along the way. If you ended up spending multiple days on a ship, that meant somebody had screwed up.
The upshot is that when you read those accounts of epic ocean voyages spanning dozens of far-off lands, you’ve gotta bear in mind that the places they’re describing are typically less than a day apart by sea.
its so weird how ur gender supposedly dictates which shapes and textures of fuckening cloth u are permitted to drape over ur flesh prison
I like to imagine that a demon who is trapped in their human vessel is saying this
demon: and tbh wtf is up with hair like??? some genders have to have longer strands of dead proteins emitting from their scalps but other genders have to keep their protein strands short??? weird shit
possessed person: yes the gender binary is stupid and arbitrary can we be quiet now
demon: also this whole makeup thing is suspect as hell like why cant all humans put pigment all over their oral openings why would that be an issue
possessed person: craig please i am trying to sleep
WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT. JUST MAKE IT HAPPEN
Why is this even being asked? Is there an option that isn’t “DEARGODYESOMG”?
i fear time travel shenanigans, but i don’t fear them enough to overcome my deep desire to see this teamup
what if no time travel shenanigans. what if it’s little old i’m not dead yet you sanctimonious fucks peggy carter who would like to die with her boots on, and natasha is actual the only agent in the world who can actually keep up with her when she sneaks out of the hospital, steals a few wallets, digs up a few old shield weapons caches, and toodles cheerfully off to europe to go out in a blaze of nazi-hunting glory like she wanted to before her damn grandkids came over all fussy and took her guns away.
natasha romanoff has been trained as a remorseless and deadly superspy since she was a baby and she is so, so, so glad that she was never assigned to keep up with agent carter before the two hip surgeries, a knee replacement, and a case of alzheimer’s took a bit of her edge off.
natasha calls steve every night and bitches about what deranged death-defying shit the ancient hellbat has managed to live through today and steve just giggles at her over the phone.
‘put peggy on,’ he says.
‘i will not, the two of you just encourage each other.’
And so after slaying the giant, the fierce warrior woman took in all of the children that the giant had orphaned by it’s vicious attacks upon the lands.
As the race for the Democratic nod comes closer to an end, and the Hillary vs. Bernie showdown gets more fiery, each candidate is focused on getting the support of that one key demographic. No, not millennials—we're talking about superdelegates. Though you've probably heard the term over and over, how much do you know about these mystical people?
On this week's episode of her show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, the host clarified some misconceptions about the power of this overhyped figure, starting with the position's conception.
After Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination in the 1968 election, against the wishes of most constituents, Bee explains, the party changed its rules "to give power to the people"—starting with reform commissions created to shift away from 'party bosses' and toward primaries and 'rank and file' party voters. "The people," Bee explains, celebrated these new changes in the rules by "dropping a shit-ton of acid with Hunter S. Thompson and nominating George McGovern." McGovern went on to win only Massachusetts and Washington, DC in the general election.
So "in 1982, the grown-ups said 'ENOUGH,'" Bee continues:
From now on, Democratic governors, members of Congress, and party movers and shakers get a say in the process. We shall call you 'ex-officio delegates'—that way, everyone who speaks Latin will know how you got this job. Normal people will call you 'superdelegates' and have no idea.
The only job of the superdelegates is to act in the best interest of the party. "That's why they have never tried to overrule the will of the voters. Not because they care about us—they don't—but because pissing off the voters is bad for their party, remember?" If Bernie Sanders receives more votes than Hillary Clinton, Bee says, her superdelegates will drop her and switch allegiances, just like they did in the 2008 presidential election.
But if superdelegates won't act against the wishes of the constituent majority, what purpose do they serve? "Think of them as the driving instructor with her foot hovering over the break," Bee jokes. "She'll only use her power if the party is about do a Thelma and Louise."
So superdelegates are not there to protect the party from candidates like Sanders, Bee says, but to protect the party from candidates like Donald Trump. It's safe to assume Republicans really wish they could use more of them right about now.
Honestly, I think this nonsense is at the heart of the whole Obama-birther mess.
One of the more baffling arguments of “this character HAS to be white” is “they’re born in [US city], so”
… Guys, I don’t know if you know this… sit down, just in case, I
don’t want you to hurt yourself falling down from shock, because this is
a biggie…
… America isn’t all white people.
I KNOW, I
KNOW. Breathe. It’s okay. But seriously, look around. Americans are
made up of every possible skin color imaginable, from every kind of
background you can think of. A character was born in Philly? Well good
for them, but I have no idea why that makes them automatically white.
So please, for the LOVE of all that is holy, stop using THAT excuse
when you’re talking about a character’s race. Because last time I
checked, America isn’t all-white all-the-time. And those who aren’t
white weren’t automatically born in another country before coming here.
That’s now how this works. That’s not how ANY of this works.
Use
other reasoning for a character being white all you want, whatever. I
don’t know WHY this gets argued so much, it’s not like we’re running low
on white characters and you feel the need to defend a dying breed here,
but whatever floats your boat. Just… PLEASE stop the “he/she was born
in America” as foolproof evidence. You just look ignorant, son.
A Superhero For Generation Why: In which I attempt to unpack the Ms Marvel miracle for a TED audience. While wearing a dress that was TOTALLY SHEER UNDER THOSE LIGHTS OH MY GOD
You know, I'm not a huge fan of the prequels, but I think that they did get one thing right. I remember everyone wailing and moaning that Anakin was whiny and unlikable, and I just remember wondering why people thought that the man who would become Darth Vader should be anything else. I mean, yes Vader was cool in a "doesn't talk a lot and is way too twitchy on the old force-choke trigger" kind of way, but he's the bad guy. We're not supposed to like him, we really shouldn't want to be like him, and we certainly shouldn't be fetishizing his aesthetic as much as we should. The prequels took the icon of dark, malevolent power, pulled back the curtain, and showed us that he was just a whiny asshole who got pissy when he couldn't have everything he wanted. The prequels really should have been praised for their iconoclastic presentation of Vader.
“
The parallels between Finn and Kylo Ren are the most direct (and stark) in terms of toxic masculinity. Finn seems to reject this toxicity, whereas Kylo Ren is constantly hung up on performing and proving himself strong enough. They are opposites: especially evidenced by the way they treat Rey – how they define themselves against the chief female presence of the movie.
Like Finn, Kylo Ren is also interested in and impressed by Rey. (And he also first meets her when she attacks him.) But instead of treating Rey like a person, Kylo acts out of aggression, objectification, and self-centeredness. He immediately immobilizes her, Force-faints her, and then carries her, bridal-style, to his ship: old-fashioned, exploitative, and gross. His language towards her is incredibly patronizing: “So this is the girl I’ve heard so much about…” He proceeds to insult her friends and threaten and torture her: violating her mind, using her as a tool but also relishing the show of his own power and the taking of something personal by force. “I can take what I want” is simultaneously a threat, a statement of power/entitlement, and a declaration of how Kylo fundamentally views Rey: an object, something controllable to serve his purposes. When the tables turn and Rey reads him, he is incredibly shaken by the subversion of his own authority and control, and when she escapes, he storms around looking for her in a blind rage, pursuing her with a weapon. Even as she’s beating him in the ensuing lightsaber battle, he has the gall to mansplain her own power to her: “YOU NEED A TEACHER!”
Unlike Kylo Ren, Finn uses Rey’s name throughout the movie. Kylo never calls her anything but “the girl” or “the scavenger,” even when addressing her. While Finn helps others without question, is vulnerable, and demonstrates affection, humor, feelings, and honesty, Kylo Ren is the opposite – all about projecting his own power and lashing out. He takes himself and his image incredibly seriously, valuing himself over others and their goals, treating underlings callously and with violence. Meanwhile, Finn accepts BB-8 as something deserving of his respect and speaks to the droid like a person.
While Finn easily cooperates with those around him, Kylo competes and chokes and throws tantrums, exchanging insults with Hux and belittling him at every opportunity, locked in a power struggle even with his allies. As Finn resists hurting the innocent and then straight-up defects over this, Kylo Ren is the one who orders their murders and then tortures his captives. Where Finn removes, and then ditches, his helmet at the first opportunity, Kylo Ren clings to his completely unnecessary, fabricated mask — a face that is not his own, versus Finn’s sincerity. It’s a powerful metaphor, putting on another face to become something else, to assume power. To disguise one’s true nature. The dark side, like gender, is performative — and the mask, in this case, is literal.
