ThePrettiestOne

bradkey:

raptorific:

raptorific:

callmedeath:

raptorific:

If you ever want to see a nerd just barely manage to show restraint, say “Jimmy Lannister” in front of them. Or call Magneto “Magneetus.” Get something just barely wrong and watch as they try to decide whether it’s worth it to correct you. 

don’t do this.

You’re not my supervisor

Also acceptable: pronounce “Jedi” like “Jeddy.”

Doctor Whom
Sean and Dan Winchester
Dance Dance Evolution
Saying Batman, Spiderman, or Superman like you might say “Goldman” or “Venkman”, like it’s a last name.

These are proven winners for me.

doubleadrivel:

iammissanna:

tzikeh:

the-fault-in-our-wifi:

oh my fucking god

Everyone go home. The internet is over.

Okay, you know what? I just reblogged this but I wanna get geeky over it. ‘Cause this is some high-class humor right here, and if you don’t get that you need to be educated so here I am about to do the thing you’re not supposed to do and explain the joke, because I’m just really impressed by this joke’s construction, okay?

So back in Paris in the 1920s, the surrealist movement in art was just starting to take off. The surrealist movement was born from the dadaist movement, which was a response to strict societal ideas of what was “art” and what wasn’t. The dadaists made a lot of works to try and challenge society’s ideas of what art even was in the first place, and this continued on into the more sophisticated abstract works of surrealism.

One such artist, Rene Magritte (also known for his paintings of people with invisible heads, or with fruit for heads), painted a work called “The Treachery of Images,” depicting a pipe, and underneath the words (in french) “This is Not a Pipe.” The words were meant to refer to the fact that the painted pipe was literally not a real physical pipe that a viewer could smoke out of, it was just a painting of a pipe.

The painting was extremely meta, and really challenged the habit of allowing oneself to get so immersed in a work of art that one forgets it is a created representation of life, and not actual life. Understanding that alone takes a good deal of abstract thinking ability. And really appreciating and enjoying it requires a certain amount of one’s own frustration with society’s habit of trying to put limits on the definition of art; and being unable to think outside the box and really see something from all possible perspectives, including the perspective of being completely outside the thing.

Now what’s even more fascinating to me is that modern art movements (and I don’t mean “modern art,” I mean actual contemporary art movements that are being led by our peers) are kinda doing the same thing the dadaist movement was doing, but in reaction to the art that came out of the dadaist movement. Things have circled back around again, and abstract surrealist art is now what society has decided “art” is. And our generation doesn’t accept that. Comics, video games, TV shows and movies, graffiti art, web series, even flash mobs, all of these are our generation’s way of saying, “no, society, you don’t get to define art as strictly as ‘if it doesn’t make sense to me it must be brilliant.’ Art can be simple to understand, art can be accessible to all people, art can make you beg to find out what happens next!” And that’s really interesting to me.

Flash forwards to 2006, when rapper Gucci Mane writes a song called “Pillz” in which the phrase “bitch I might be” was coined and used several times. In the song, it’s used as a sarcastic, somewhat indignant but not wholly angry way to say “it’s none of your business,” in response to a beautiful woman in a club accusing the rapper of being high. The phrase became a meme in 2013, following Gucci Mane’s indictment for assaulting a soldier, when a redditor photoshopped a screencap of news coverage of the trial to reference the song. The photoshopped image changed the previous on-screen text to read “Rapper Gucci Mane responds with ‘bitch I might be’ when asked if guilty”. Again, the usage of the phrase is a sarcastic and indignant “none of your business.” The phrase then quickly gained popularity and was added to numerous other photoshopped images.

Now, memes are really cool as a concept anyways, when you think about them hard enough (I mean, the speed at which an entire world full of young people are able to latch onto something as simple as a phrase that they all mutually find funny, and within a matter of days explore every possible usage and implication of that phrase, including how it might relate to other complex systems of knowledge and understanding such as the rich character and plot developments of stories that generate fandoms), but lets put that aside for now and talk about sarcasm, instead.

Because sarcasm is a very sophisticated, complex, and subtle form of wit. It’s a difficult thing to be able to understand, through tone of voice alone, that what someone says, and what they mean, are two different things. And to be able to discern the actual meaning when the words were not said. As wikipedia says, “different parts of the brain must work together to understand sarcasm.” It’s even harder when those words are typed and not spoken audibly, as the reader must imagine the tone in the first place. That’s a lot of brain work involved in even understanding the true meaning behind that simple little phrase.

And sarcasm is popular right now. More than popular, it’s a hallmark of our generation. People have been writing lengthy articles and psychological, sociological, and anthropological studies and musings on why we’re so sarcastic. As this article suggests, it’s because we’re so angry. We’re a generation that was promised a lot and the world didn’t deliver. We’re disenchanted, and jaded, and mad. And we vent that through sarcastic humor. We laugh at things older generations don’t think are funny. We have come to expect so much disappointment, that we no longer afford “serious” things the respect we’re told they deserve. Because we no longer believe they deserve it. As the article states, “We are a generation that believes nothing is sacred. And if nothing is sacred everything becomes profane.”

One could even go so far as to make the argument that the popularity of the statement on the above image is due partially to the attitude amongst today’s youth (especially on tumblr) that one’s own life and choices are one’s own, and not the business of anybody else. This attitude can be seen in everything as simple as the “be yourself” and “follow your dreams” statements many of us were raised on, to the more serious issues we deal with today of discrimination against the LGBTGA+ community, fat shaming, slut shaming, prejudice against muslim people, etc., to political issues like free speech and government invasion of privacy, and even into more subtle ideas present in social media of privacy settings, controlling who gets to see what posts, block and ignore features, and even the philosophy of “nobody can tell you what to post in your own space. If somebody doesn’t like it, they can unfollow.”

None of this would be happening consciously, of course, but we can’t help but be influenced by the world around us. And a phrase whose meaning is essentially “it’s none of your business” is very likely to resonate strongly with a group of people whose fundamental philosophies of polite interpersonal conduct revolve roughly around the same concept.

Taking all this into consideration, this joke is taking a lot of pre-knowledge and putting it all together to kind of say, in a funny way, “stop acting like you have it all figured out, because you don’t. And some things are just not for you to figure out anyway.”

So to sum up, to understand the above image, you must:

1. have a descent grasp on art history to recognize the original painting.
2. have good abstract and/or creative thinking skills to understand and appreciate the original painting.
3. have a good grasp on modern pop culture, internet culture, and current slang and memes (basically, be an active participant in the wider world).
4. have the complex emotional and interpersonal understanding necessary to understand the subtleties of sarcasm.
5. understand enough of what’s going on in the world around you that you are disenchanted enough to appreciate sarcastic humor.
6. participate in our generation’s general philosophy of life and how to interact with other human beings in the world at large.

So basically, if you laughed, you’re smart. :3

Well shit.

Don’t sweat the small stuff!

---

 

Hey Party People! Here’s some fun stuff that’s been going on:

• We released our bundle of BEYOND: The Queer Scifi/Fantasy Anthology! We have it bundled with some goodies, so grab your signed copy. This book is the only place you can find our post-apocalyptic queer fantasy comic, ‘The Next Day’ so don’t miss your chance to read it, along with loads of other amazing queer stories!

• Our Queerest Wedding is trucking right along! We’ve been updating our Wedding Blog with venues, food ideas, decor ideas and even questions for you to weigh in on! Access to the Blog is a GoFundMe Reward, so if you have any interest in some queer party planning, be sure to check it all out!

• We made a Fairy Tale Podcast for Patreon, and EVERYONE is invited to listen! It’s a bit eccentric — we have a habit of telling each other ‘bedtime stories’ and they tend to have many diversions. This one includes standards of beauty (weasels, apparently), Bill & Ted, flamingos and a Princess who eats onions. Surely, it will become a classic. Take a listen over at our Patreon! And if you liked that, we have lots of different themed PodCasts that are Patreon-Only, including sex-ed, whiskey tastings and even (surprise) stuff about cats!

---

 

YES, so i recently wrote a paper about jewish pirates and merchants for a thesis and used a shit ton of archive information and secondary sources (which are detailed below).

As we know, Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. Some remained behind, known as conversos, who managed to hide their Judaism and remain behind. Others went into Calvinist Holland, but a majority of them went to Brazil, which was Portuguese-owned. The Jews there were known as marranos (pigs), but they were the first group to begin harvesting and collecting sugar by themselves. The marranos grew to have nearly 200 sugar plantations that they worked themselves— they traded with the Dutch, primarily. Sugar was hella expensive and Spain was hella jealous.Once the Iberian peninsula split (~1640s), Spain came in and took the land for themselves, either massacring or otherwise coercing the Jews to give up their Jewishness. They were kind of out of options, because Holland was engaged in war with Portugal and England was still not super friendly to the Jews, so they moved to the Caribbean.

Jews had been on Jamaica since about 1510, though they called themselves Portugals. They managed to get together a plea for England to get into Jamaica before Spain took it over, so Cromwell sent the English.

During the time in-between, Jews (Moses Cohen being the most famous Jewish pirate) roamed the seas with other “Brethren of the Coast”s. Because the Iberian diaspora had sent them all across the Old and New World, they had vast intelligence networks. Jewish merchants in Jamaica knew when ships in Spain were leaving, what they were carrying, and where they were going. Jewish pirates took revenge on the Spanish and, unlike the English, release the slaves from their bonds and either kept them on or took them to Haiti.

Jews are the best don’t let anyone fucking tell you otherwise.

Regarding the Jewry, Hereby Expelled from Spain, 1492. trans. Aaron Marx, coll. Jacob Rader, The Jew in the Medieval World (Cincinatti: Hebrew Union College Text), 1999.

Amsterdam Jewry’s Successful Intercession for their Immigrants and Businessmen, January 1625, trans. Jacob Marcus, coll. The Jew in the Medieval World.

Blacker, Irwin. Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics and Discoveries of the English Nation, 1596-1600. Vol 3.

Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1661-1668. (National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England), 7/24/1667.

Taylor, John. Taylor’s History of his Life and Travels in America and other parts, with An Account with the most remarkable Transactions which Annuaille happened in his daies (1688), trans. John Robertson.

Ockley, Simon. The History of the Present Jews throughout the World, 1791, coll. Jacob Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World.

Secondary Sources

Davis, David. Inhuman Bondage (Oxford University Press: New York), 2006.

Finkelstein, Norman. The Other 1492: Jewish Settlement in the New World, (iUniverse: Nebraska), 2000.

Glitz, David. The Religion of the Crypto-Jews, (UONMP: Albuquerque), 2002.

Holzgerg, Carol. Minorities and Power in a Black Society: The Jewish Community of Jamaica, (Lanham: North-South Publishing), 1987.

Kritzler, Edward. Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, (Anchor Books: New York), 2008.

Selzer, Michael. Kike! A Documentary History of Anti-Semitism in America (Oxford University Press: New York), 1972.

Taylor, S.A.G. The Western Design: An Account of Cromwell’s Expedition to the Caribbean (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica and Jamaican Historical Society), 1969.

Tolkowsky, Samuel. They Took to the Sea, (London: Thomas Yoseloff), 1964.

Zahedieh, Nuala. The Merchants of Port Royal, Jamaica, and the Spanish Contraband Trade 1655-1692 (Leicester: Leicester University Press), 1978.

georgewashingwoes:

janestreetdog:

impossible-barry:

janestreetdog:

This is from a biography of Benjamin Franklin but this small part was about Hamilton.

Basically Hamilton, at the constitutional convention or during that time, dared/bet someone to annoy Washington. AND THEY DID IT.

Oh my god my APUSH teacher told us this story once and she said that in one of Morris’s journals or something he wrote that right after he put his hand on Washington’s arm, the whithering look Washington gave him made him want to melt into the floor

Thank you for this contribution!

GWash death glare confirmed

how much you guys wanna bet hamilton and whoever else was around watched morris do the dare like a fukcing gaggle of high school girls

what do you MEAN i saw an article that made me mad! Crazy.

 

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“Destroy the idea that men should respect women because we are their daughters, mothers, and sisters. Reinforce the idea that men should respect women because we are people.”

- (via masalaoflife)

“He is lighting fires. He is turning people against people. He is misstating the facts of what’s happening domestically, what’s happening with Muslims.”

-

Andrea Mitchell, commenting on Donald Trump, the fascist ‘human dumpster fire’. (via liberalsarecool)

We need to stop being so polite about this and saying things like “misstating the facts”.

Donald Trump is a liar. 

It’s that simple.

Donald Trump didn’t misstate facts.

Donald Trump is a liar.

Source: Planned Parenthood Action

How you can help:

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/get-involved

http://plannedparenthoodaction.org/

Source

Source: 1 in 3 Campaign

Read the full statement here 

#1in3 #StandWithPP

she-got-the-jazz:

latestbutgreatest:

Never Forget.

Ever

“Can we all just agree that the greatest tech advancement in Star Trek is a universal video format? Klingon ships, Romulan ships, Vulcan ships, Human ships … not once does a captain say “On screen,” followed by a plugin error message.
- (some guy on Facebook, anonymously quoted on reddit)”

-

“Stand by, Captain — it says we need to update the Java plugin so we can run GoToMeeting.”

“Why didn’t they just use WebEx?”

“The Romulans must not have a license for it.”

“But it’s free. Isn’t it?”

“If they’d Skyped in, we could’ve just used the ship’s webcam.”

“Captain, the warbird doesn’t show up on my list of Facetime contacts.”

“I think we need to sync our address book.”

“We should’ve just used Tinychat.”

“Why don’t we start a Google Hangout?”

“Shut up, Wesley.”

(via flavorcountry)

callmebliss:

wufflesvetinari:

mary poppins fits the mythological role of a trickster god, discuss

I don’t see much to discuss, this statement is clearly accurate

fuck-yeah-feminist:

via Toby Morris

iv0611:

My photoshop finger slipped. >.>;;

“My message to all men is that you have to kill pride. You’ve been taught that pride is a manly thing, that pride is a good thing. But the problem with pride is that it stops you from growth. When you’re so proud that you won’t change, you’ve got problems. … When you kill that pride, instantly, you become a better person, because now you’re listening. Now you don’t know it all. Now you’re humble. Now you can grow and get smarter.”

-

’Terry Crews, the Feminist: “Millions Have Died Because of Male Pride”’ [x]

In which Crews, a big strong male (also Brookyn Nine-Nine actor, former 6-season NFL player, and supporter of the Polaris Project) breaks down how to be an ally.

(via bastianpagez)

Terry Crews is a national treasure.

(via ubermichael)

geekygirlgab:

New Footage from Captain America: Civil War. It looks good.

bisexualbarbaragordon:

adventurecomics

• Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton look alike contest to a fucking drag queen.
• Charlie Chaplin once failed to even place at a Charlie Chaplin impersonator contest.
• Hugh Jackman went to comic con as Wolverine, only 2 people noticed him and one told him he was too tall.
• Christopher Reeve use to go to a restaurant in costume when filming Superman. When he went in the Superman costume he was mobbed by people all the time. When he went in the Clark Kent costume no one realized he was Christopher Reeve.
  

Yes, he’s a terrorist.

- commentaires
- via: www.autostraddle.com

naamahdarling:

mr-esperanto:

Names have power.

They want us to call them ISIS, or the Islamic State. But they are not Islamic, nor a state. Arabs call them Daesh, an acronym of their Arabic name, and they hate it because it sounds like “an imposing bigot”, “one who sows discord” or “one who crushes things underfoot” from the verb دعس within the name.

This is their true name.

The French government has changed its official name for the group; Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said “I will be calling them the ‘Daesh cutthroats’.”

Let’s follow this example. Stop flattering them by calling them ISIS. Spite them by calling them Daesh, and help stop the division between Western and Middle East. Our battle is not with Arabs or Muslims, but with bigots who sow discord and crush others underfoot: Daesh.

Daesh it is.

It refuses to acknowledge their importance.

“So the insult picked up on by Daesh is not just that the name makes them sound little, silly, and powerless, but that it implies they are monsters, and that they are made-up.“

From this link right here; a piece about the word, the linguistics of it, and how anglophone media has gotten its origins, meaning, connotations wrong, and also about the importance of using Daesh instead of ISIS or ISIL.  That was the most solid deconstruction of it I could find on short notice.

Names matter…

dear-tumb1r:

dear-tumb1r:

i-n-m-h:

testingforcake23:

dear-tumb1r:

testingforcake23:

dear-tumb1r:

you guys remember when PETA stole people pets off their porches and euthanized them?

you guys remember how it came out that PETA kills about 90% of the animals it takes in, including healthy and adoptable puppies and kittens, stating “ We could become a no-kill shelter immediately. It means we wouldn’t do as much work”?

you guys remember when PETA advocated killing all pit bulls for the crime of being pit bulls?

you guys remember when PETA handed out these comics to children when there were no adults looking?

you guys remember when they made a porn site and then filled it with videos of animal abuse, and (also in that link) claimed cats should be vegetarian?

you guys remember when PETA lied about sheep shearing, got caught, and defended the lie as true even after they admitted the sheep in their picture wasn’t even real?

you guys remember when they tried to excuse their horrifying ways by claiming that the person who exposed them was manipulating the facts by taking them and putting them in the wrong context?

Because I remember. I remember everything. 

And I’m gonna make sure everyone else remembers too. 

Why would they kill pit bulls they’re sweeties

Because PETA does not care about animals. they do not care that these dogs live and breathe and feel and want love like every other dog. they do not care about the history of human/dog bonding and co-evolution, they do not care that dogs and human beings have relied on each other for millennia, they do not care that its cruel and morally repugnant to put down an animal just because you can, they do not care about animals. 

PETA cares about money and publicity, its a corporation run by a psychopath who is afraid of pitts as it states in the link: she was apparently bit by one, and now she hates them. 

PETA doesn’t give a rats ass about animals. They just want to kill and make money off of idiots who fall of their spiel.

Some celebs support them

ah c’mon, dear-tumb1r, I think you’re being a bit harsh. I mean, okay, PETA’s done some questionable things, but it’s not like they’ve also

-spread false information about milk causing autism based on outdated bullshit information

-used holocaust imagery to compare the meat industry to concentration camps (no pictures)

-used a young man’s brutal death as a way to say “yeah that’s awful but it happens to animals every day and nobody cares about that” (tw: no pictures but the way the guy died is described and it is really horrible)

-dressed up in KKK robes and protested outside of the Westminister Dog Show to protest breeding/pure bred dogs (tw: racism)

-offered to pay the water bill for literally the poorest neighborhood in Detroit if and only if they all went vegan for a month (tw: self-righteous shitheads)

-and they definitely didn’t have two of their workers accept perfectly healthy animals from an animal hospital, with the implication that they would give them good homes, clarify that these animals were all healthy and well-tempered, and then euthanized them all in the back of a kill-van before dumping their dead bodies behind a grocery store (tw: PICTURES OF DEAD ANIMALS, animal death)

-and they totally didn’t get off pretty much scot-free for it because PETA has loads of money and lawyers to defend themselves, which coincidentally might be why the Cerate family hasn’t seen justice for their kidnapped and murdered dog, Maya. (tw: animal death)

Nah. PETA’s not that bad.

(/the heaviest of all my fucking sarcasm, I am salty as a fucking winter road, lord do I fucking hate PETA)

Did you think i was fucking joking, PETA?

I will make sure everyone fucking remembers what you’ve done. 

Bringing it back, because it’s charity season and people need to know NOT to give charity to these fuckers. 

absquatulate:

socialnetworkhell:

The whole “I’m not like other girls” movement should really be called the “I don’t want men to treat me the way they treat other women” movement because that’s what it really is. Women know that a girl who wears makeup is as respectable as a girl who wears none. A girl who’s played every Final Fantasy game is as respectable as a girl who digs Candy Crush. A woman who started her own law firm is as respectable as a single mom who works in the service industry. A girl who enjoys casual sex is as respectable as a girl who has never had her first kiss. A lesbian who has no interest in men is as respectable as a straight girl who loves her boyfriend. A girl who reads People magazine is as respectable as a girl who reads Dostoyevsky.

Women have been extensively shamed for saying “I’m not like other girls” when what they are really saying, maybe without knowing it, is “I’ve heard the way men talk about specific types of women, typically women who do things that they don’t understand or relate to, and I really, really want them to separate me from that and see me as a person who is worthy of being respected.” How much respect a woman gets from men is very rarely indicative of how much she deserves.

“I don’t want you to treat me the way you treat other girls, because you treat other girls like shit.”

Fucking truth, because I used to be one of those girls.

theinturnetexplorer:

Local police department unlawfully entering unlocked vehicles to prove a point.

WHAT

Asset forfeiture laws have been delivering a windfall to police departments across the country for years, but the increasing use of these rules passed an Incredible milestone in 2014.

In 2014, for the first time ever, law enforcement officers took more property from American citizens than burglars did. ...

Officers can take cash and property from people without convicting or even charging them with a crime — yes, really! — through the highly controversial practice known as civil asset forfeiture. Last year, according to the Institute for Justice, the Treasury and Justice departments deposited more than $5 billion into their respective asset forfeiture funds. That same year, the FBI reports that burglary losses topped out at $3.5 billion.

From the Armstrong Economics blog:

Between 1989 and 2010, U.S. attorneys seized an estimated $12.6 billion in asset forfeiture cases. The growth rate during that time averaged +19.4% annually. In 2010 alone, the value of assets seized grew by +52.8% from 2009 and was six times greater than the total for 1989. Then by 2014, that number had ballooned to roughly $4.5 billion for the year, making this 35% of the entire number of assets collected from 1989 to 2010 in a single year. According to the FBI, the total amount of goods stolen by criminals in 2014 burglary offenses suffered an estimated $3.9 billion in property losses. This means that the police are now taking more assets than the criminals.

Armstrong’s blog also points out that police have frequently been confiscating property in violation of the law, and that property is rarely returned.  But hey, all those tanks and drones aren't free. Oh, wait … unfortunately, they are.

(Note: linking this data shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement of, or belief in, Armstrong’s economic theories. It’s just that he deserves credit for spotting and highlighting these numbers. )

“I don’t work for you” is a wonderful phrase. Remember it.

Whenever we receive hate mail or read hilariously attempted mean comments (the most amusing to date has been “You sound like 12 year old goth kids at Hot Topic”) they are immediately deleted once we see “this is not a customer service issue.”

You work for yourself.

Figure out what you want to be, what you want to look like, and study how it is done well. Hair, make up, clothing, art, knowledge, engineering, cosplay, crafts, poetry, writing… whatever you are interested in, study it.

Take notes, build up a library of resources and inspiration, prototype, practice, buy the basic student-grade and entry-grade supplies to start with and muck up until you get the basics down, then slowly replace cheap, ineffective material with quality product.

And stop rushing. You work for yourself, and ergo, your boss didn’t give you a specific time table.

Whatever your villainous heart is driving you towards will lead to one of the following, all valid, conclusions in a few years:

1. “This is fantastic fun and I am terrible at it. But it is fun, so I shall keep doing it.”
   
2. “This… is… terrible, I actually hate it. Time to try something else.”
   
3. “This is fantastic, I’m pretty good! I have found my weird passion.”
4. “I can do this for pocket change, possibly for a living, and I don’t mind the work. Hexcellent.”
   

You are your own boss.

You chart your own course.

Dream, experiment, refine, test, refine, build, refine, make better, make better yet.

In all things: clothing, make up, hair, cosplay, crafts, photography, art, music, poetry, writing, research, fashion, cooking. In all things.