some of you think the bad terrible evil parts of the source material don't affect you because you only participate in fics and shared headcanons. and you're in for a nasty shock when you realize that mass headcanons with no basis in canon are often more stereotypical in a more racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, etc way than the source material ever could be.
good tags by @burning-moths
The way my classes this semester look in my calendar is endlessly funny to me. Fuck man I'm sorry, I can't hang out on September 22nd, I'm so busy.
no ao3 users, people switching from wattpad to ao3 is not colonization, and it should not be treated as such
Not to be a Mexican killjoy but if you’re white and you make ICE/MAGA/deportation/racist jokes about wattpad users I’m gonna assume all it would take is the right bit of propaganda to make you support ICE irl. What’s funny about ICE to you huh? You’re invoking our biggest fears because you’re inconvenienced. Yes thank you I’d like a side of screaming nightmares with my fanfic.
“It’s like colonization!” Did they kill you? Put you in a camp? No? Find a new word thanks
The new Odyssey adaptation has inevitably gotten people talking about a Muppet version of it, and they’re frequently suggesting Kermit as Odysseus, Miss Piggy as Penelope.
I’m sorry but that’s thinking way too small, hear me out:
We need to have Miss Piggy as Odysseus, and Kermit as Penelope.
Think about it… who’s the more fickle, prideful, warlike one in that relationship? Who is absolutely ready to go ham, at a moment’s notice?
It ain’t Kermit
Miss Piggy tied to the mast while Statler and Waldorf heckle her from the sea
I normally dislike these kinds of takes but this one works absurdly well. Who'd be the kind to brag with their full name to the cyclops? Who'd be immune to turning into a pig because they are already a pig? Who'd want to hear the sirens so badly that they'd tie themsleves to a mast just to ensure the sirens aren't as good singers as them? Who would get brutalized by hubris but still come home ready to kill a bunch of people for trying to get with their partner?
Microdosing on executive function by completing tasks in video games
Got thrown out of the tarot reading for counting cards. fuck this place
In my experience, one of the reasons the idea of "brain gender" is such a persistent gremlin even in ostensibly progressive spaces is that a lot of folks haven't really abandoned the bioessentialist framework of gender, they've just modified it to include trans people, and trans-inclusive bioessentialism falls apart if brain gender isn't real.
On the one hand I understand the impulse behind posts like this. On the other hand I actually think it's very worth talking about the ways that Rowling's bigotry shows up in her work, and the fact that it has not been an obstacle to her success any more than her tangible political actions have.
por ejemplo: for as much as we talk about things like the bizarrely pro-slavery SPEW plotline, or the portrayal of the goblins in the movies in particular, I have seen very few people engage with the fact that "a monstrous, violent brute is in the girl's bathroom, where it Does Not Belong" is a plot point in the very first installment of the series. that's pretty relevant when discussing the author's transphobia and transmisogyny!
It also helps put into perspective that she did not just suddenly fall down this radical pipeline. As someone from the UK, people like JK Rowling are a dime a dozen. Her politics were vaguely progressive for the time in which she was writing, enough for her to be held up as an “empowering female author” by her fans but still safe enough for mainstream British media to not feel in the least bit threatened by her (to an extent, I’m sure there were various fearmongering tabloids about her and her books during the 90s/2000s, but nowadays the media will pretend like she’s always been their Favourite Woman because nothing about her is actually threatening the status quo anymore). This allowed her to gain the level of influence that she did, having fans on all sides of the political spectrum. She was a bit of a feminist, in the sense that she was an independent woman who supported various feminist movements, but she was centrist enough to not really offend anyone except the loudest of bigots and conservatives, to which she could easily point them out and prove that she wasn’t as bad as them! She doesn’t even despise gay people! One of her characters is even gay it’s just never mentioned in the books at all and has zero impact on the story whatsoever and never has to be forced onto you if you don’t want it!
Her lukewarm yet radical politics are extremely UK-based, rooted in our class system, colonial history and Radical Feminist marches of the 70s and 80s. Every other white, middle class English woman thinks almost identically to JK Rowling. My mother thinks identically to JK Rowling. The politics in her books are an intimate look into the politics of “progressive” British society, and that is why it’s so impertinent that we do actually discuss them. TERF ideology did not spring from nowhere. It was a product of both its time and location, and JK Rowling was right in the heart of it. She was a young adult during the Reclaim The Night Marches (prompted by a string of murders of mostly sex workers by the Yorkshire Ripper, but which was twisted by white, middle class women into a march for them while simultaneously looking down upon the sex workers who were murdered; hence the origin of SWERF ideology) and would have been heavily influenced by authors such as Germaine Greer and Julie Bindel.
It would require a thesis to explain exactly how every single questionable belief in Harry Potter is rooted in the politics and the history of the UK, and unfortunately without that context, it’s hard to discuss exactly how TERF ideology came about and why JK Rowling was so susceptible to it. We do need to discuss the contents of HP, including the homophobia, transphobia and racism that is so common amongst “progressive” Brits of that generation because otherwise we can’t protect ourselves against it. TERF ideology is rising exponentially throughout the globe without people understanding where it came from and why it specifically originated in the UK. The UK was built upon oppressive and violent systems. Our society has historically been segregated, not just by race, but also by class and gender. Our school systems are notorious for being segregated; you can throw a stone anywhere in the UK and you will hit a Boys’ school or Girls’ school. In my town alone, there’s about four. Everyone in my family went to a single-sexed school. Almost everyone I know went to a single-sexed school. Almost everyone in the government went to a single-sexed school. I cannot emphasise enough how the UK breeds bioessentialism like we will die without it. JK Rowling is not an outlier. She is white, middle class British society perfectly encapsulated into a single person, and her books are no different.
Oh this has cracked the lid on a thought I have been brewing about how girls-only and boys-only schools are framed as a sort of... Cozy? Nostalgic? Maybe specifically cozy and safe in a posh way, because they're associated with posh boarding schools more than borstal now.
It's a dangerous thing, related to other dangerous things too.
“don’t romanticise your disorder” actually I’m just trying to enjoy being alive
I’m just making the most of an existence I never planned on. this is my life. least I can do is live it!
I say this gently because I was the same a good few years ago: if you tell a disordered person trying to look on the bright side that they should be miserable 24/7 in order to gain basic consideration and respect, or in order to just be seen as real, you have a little bit of work to do when it comes to being an ally to people living with disorders.
You can accomplish every goal you have no matter what that goal is - without romanticizing disorders.
No one saying "don't romanticize" is saying "be miserable". Mk? Mk.
sorry, it seems as though I need to clarify a few things, based on your response! what you've said tells me you may have misunderstood what I'm trying to say.
this post is based on years and years of personal experience with people leaping to tell me I'm living my life wrong because I'm mostly happy with my life, while also living with a lifelong disorder that caused my consciousness to permanently fracture at a very young age due to trauma.
I'm not saying to romanticise disorders! I'm saying disordered people are allowed to be happy in our lives without strangers telling us that any happiness means we're giving our OWN DISORDERS a "bad name"!
even a casual, neutral mention of my disorder gets people riled up and acting like I'm "making light of it" when it's just... my life. has been for longer than I can remember.
this post is aimed at people who are mistakenly identifying a disordered person's peace of mind as a harmful behaviour. it's NOT saying "pretend your symptoms are enjoyable!!!" it's saying "finding positives in a shitty situation is in no way immoral".
I'm going to be deleting my blog in the next couple of days because I am sick of trying to fight the same fight as OP is here, among other reasons, but just throwing out there that many of the things people on this and other platforms consider "romanticizing" are, for anyone who actually knows what they are talking about, signs of genuine recovery.
Improved system relations and no longer being in a disordered state because everyone is able to work together? That's not a sign someone is faking, that's literally textbook signs of improvement.
Developed skill with deliberate switches and being able to do internal space work? Not a sign of someone being deluded or manic, once again, literally textbook signs of improvement.
Being happy? Working with our crews to meet all their needs? You guessed it.
Even in older resources that chase integration above all else (increasingly recognized as just a way to live, rather than the end goal all systems should go after) focus on the importance of helping every member of a system shift out of a disordered state and into one where they feel safe and are able to express their needs.
All of the syscourse and fake hunting is the kind of shit that just makes our lives worse and harder. Being happy with our lives is the fucking goal of treatment. Being plural is only a Problem if it's DISORDERED, aka, if we're unable to live the lives we all want because our suffering and struggles are preventing us from doing what we want to do.
There are many beautiful things about being a system. It's an incredible adaptation. There are many ADVANTAGES that can come with being a system as well.
Too often what people mean when they are talking about 'romanticization' is "a person is being happy in a way I disapprove of, because I regard the thing they are happy about as incompatible with a Normal Life", and it is often rooted in deeply internalized ableism. I've seen people cry romanticization about folks with ADHD....not hating themselves. Not even celebrating their condition, just not self-flagellating.
I've seen people cry romanticization about folks with my connective tissue disorder dressing up nicely and taking care of ourselves, because if we do not look like we are in extreme pain 24/7 how is anyone looking at us supposed to know we're Not Normal?
Not saying that last person thinks that way, but making one more plea to anyone who feels disdain or derision at seeing people with various mental, physical and emotional differences in states of even just neutrality, let alone joy, to seriously sit with that and do some introspection. Why should our expected state be one of endless suffering? We're still people.
REALLY well worded!!! thank you! a lot of people are, deep down, uncomfortable with the idea that someone can choose to keep living in a way they can't imagine dealing with. it's Wrong for us to choose healthy recovery that doesn't involve being "cured" because it's Wrong to exist this way at all. but that's not the case! we're allowed to choose our own lives and we're allowed to pursue recovery and happiness without needing to be "cured". let's live on our own terms.
"Cave Johnson here. Human beings only use 10% of our brain. And personally, I think that's way too much. Thinking burns calories and food ain't cheap. I bet we can get it down to 7%. Maybe even 5. Way more efficient."
"Cave Johnson here with a few updates. Turns out humans use 100% of our brains. Which is probably why our Aperture Science Unthinking Cap didn't increase employee efficiency one bit. On the bright side, we discovered a new method to create zombies. That's the third one this month. Good job, team."
"In the past, workers were paid low wages and had to live at work for which they were charged rent" hahaha hahaha so glad we don't do THAT anymore could you imagine?!
The second year of my masters degree I spent at a conservation lab in Denmark. I lived on the premises, the bathroom and my room was separated by the archaeology offices so one time when I was sick I had to walk past my colleagues in my pyjamas to go throw up in the toilet. I was charged rent and utilities, even though I was not paid a single øre for my work. I was given the grimiest or most tedious of tasks to do, such as draining the wet wood tanks of stagnant fetid water and refilling them again, or hauling crates and sacks of PEG crystals, or surveying thousands of virtually identical iron objects until I told them I wouldn't do that project any longer, or cleaning out jars of poisonous 19th century medicine at which point I discovered a plastic carrier bag containing loose mercury, or cleaning lab glassware with alkaline fluid so caustic it would've eaten down to the bone in seconds if it got past my rubber gloves. Again, zero remuneration, but rent was exacted. I relied on a bin bag full or borderline stale but nonetheless free bread from the local baker that arrived every Monday because it meant I could eat. Once I left and moved to Germany and subsequently lost both my jobs in the first lockdown, I was chased up for further rent payments because they 'discovered that I was undercharged' almost causing me to lose the home I was clinging on to for dear life.
All this was done with the justification that I was in academia and in fact I should be grateful for the opportunities 'given' to me. I now have over seventy grand in student debt, the little savings I had were wiped out before I even started making my way in the world, the wages of my first year of employment post university were in effect garnished to settle the rent remittance, and I have not worked a single day in professional conservation and restoration since.
What a fucking world.
Capitalist exploitation pervades all facets of the nations in which we live. Nothing is left out. I've had my labour exacted just as much by a public museum as I have by a private company. They take and take and take and give as little back as they feasibly can. And that's not even mentioning how those stories of cruelty that we see in museums about the 19th century in Europe and America? That still happens, it just happens in the global south, to people you can't see and will never meet. The exploitation never ended, it merely adapted, obfiscated, hid. And they try to get you to doff the cap and thank them in return, try to convince you that one day you'll be the one wearing the boot, get you invested in their system so you don't pull it apart from without. Revolting. The dividend drawing class will not cede a centimetre until we have a bayonet at their throats.
It’s actually so misogynistic to assume hetero Jessica doesn’t also jerk it to twinks in panties
everyone loves to hate terfs until they realise that it actually entails rejecting bioessentialism entirely and then suddenly you’re “taking things too seriously” and you “don’t have a sense of humour” like i’m sorry but saying protect the dolls doesn’t make you immune to terfism it has seeped into every corner of mainstream feminism and unless you’re actively searching it out and checking your own biases you will always be at risk of sharing a space with terfs
“Only women can—” nope. “But all men—” nah. “The divine femininity of—” gonna stop you right there. “Everyone born ama—” if you finish that sentence I’ll kill you. “Men don’t experience—” you’re wrong. “Gender isn’t real but sex is imm—” *loud incorrect buzzer*
It also goes without saying that bioessentialism inherently can’t be trans inclusive no matter how hard you try. “All men including trans men—” probably not. “This is only a woman’s issue—” is it really? “Afabs only—” why? “All trans men are like—” what? what are they like? finish the sentence i dare you.
I put it everywhere, no joke. Everywhere. It might be my fav trope. When it's in a media I kick my feet on my bed while hugging my pillow.
i know it feels really good to dog on the Out Group, but what we really need to get better at understanding is that when there's a mass exodus from one social media site to the other is not that these new people are all inherently untrustworthy and going to ruin your beloved safe space, but that when a large group of people cluster together, inside them there will always be people who take new spaces for granted, and it's not because they're from wattpad, or from reddit, or from twitter -- some of the biggest pro-censorship assholes are on tumblr and ao3 -- it's because large demographics will always have varied opinions, some of which you won't agree on. putting up signs saying "wattpad users are so stupid and childish and evil" doesn't tell me that you're a good, noble, anti-censorship citizen of the internet, but at the risk of yall accusing me of reading too much into this, it does make me wonder how you see other groups of people "invading" other spaces you occupy.
sometimes i see an out of context discourse post and im like "hm this really sounds like op is strawmanning a reasonable argument and making up a guy to be mad at." and then i check their blog for context and realise theyve spent the past 72 hours arguing with the human embodiments of the strawman. like damn nevermind im sorry for doubting you. you are fighting battles so cartoonishly evil i cant even fathom them as real. good luck out there.
The "Gandalf is old as balls" meme is textually inaccurate. As one of the Maiar, the fullness of Gandalf's existence pre-dates the invention of sexual reproduction, so strictly speaking he's older than balls.
#does this imply that Gandalf reproduces by mitosis? #does this also call into question the source of his big naturals? #in this essay I will be pondering the origin function and indeed existence of Gandalfs various orbs (via @creepyspacewizard)
While Gandalf is older than balls, he is not in fact older than big naturals, on account of Eru Ilúvatar's own massive honkers.
The music of the spheres, yeah.
