"Is it a safe space to say i hate-" NOT IN THE MAINTAGS IT ISNT

"I hate [character] from [show] soo much #character, #characters's full name, #show, #character's boyfriend's name"

ARE YOU INSANE

Main tags are for everything related to the media. Not for positivity. Hating a character is just as much a valid form to feel and self express as loving them, and both belong in the main tags. Let's not create an artificial hierarchy of which feelings matter and which don't.

I very much understand why the doctorwho portrayers need to be grade a++ actors first and foremost but its always so fun when they cast someone with Extra Skills. by which i mostly mean i ADORE it when the doctor is a musician its so correct to the character to bring your real instrument in there, but also, shout out to whatever mr sylvester mccoy was up to. in this house we respect his clown diploma and what not

I totally forgot the most important part which is that they are ALSO both plagued by sinister old men who are into them for all the wrong reasons and are trying to manipulate their respective countries for their own suspect ends (Gandalf and Grima)

Now that the presentations from the Tolkien Society’s seminar are up I can share one of my favourite slides from Cordeliah Logsdon’s presentation >:3

The left are all quotes about Eowyn, the right are quotes about Denethor. Their relevance is even more pertinent when you hear the passages read aloud and in full on the video. 

Remembered something I needed to add to this but Aragorn’s final confrontation with Eowyn and Gandalf’s final confrontation with Denethor are LITERALLY the same scene, same character motives, same despair and with the same defiant end. 

Versus!

DO YOU ALL SEE HOW IT’S LIKE... TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN? Eowyn, whom has never had control of her life or been able to fight back against the ever growing despair haunting all of them, caged by duty, just wants to spend her last moments in angry ferocious defiance and battle. MEANWHILE DENETHOR, who has been caged by duty into always struggling and battling, having all the responsibility that comes with his position but none of the freedom, forced to ‘spend even his sons’ in Gondor’s defense, wants to spend his last moments with his son and for them both to be safe from this perpetual war and pain forevermore, DO YOU SEE HOW IT’S LIKE THIS GENDER ROLE REVERSAL THING DO YOU SEE?? With Gandalf and Aragorn serving as mouthpiece for the paternalistic society they are both rebelling against? I go insane about it. Did you know that in draft versions of lotr, Eowyn died? I hate this book so much

⚠️ BEWARE ⚠️

the homoerotic girlbestfriend situationship CAN and WILL kill you

love shakespeare. did a hamlet run tonight, looked someone dead in the eye to say “am i a coward?” during a speech and the fucker shrugged and nodded

we literally ruined society when we invented the fourth wall. let’s bring back call and response. heckling, even. fuck you hamlet you dumb piece of shit kill your uncle or shut up

"When we took Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” into a maximum security woman’s prison on the West Side… there’s a scene there where a young woman is told by a very powerful official that “If you sleep with me, I will pardon your brother. And if you don’t sleep with me, I’ll execute him.” And he leaves the stage. And this character, Isabel, turned out to the audience and said: “To whom should I complain?” And a woman in the audience shouted: “The Police!” And then she looked right at that woman and said: “If I did relate this, who would believe me?” And the woman answered back, “No one, girl.”

And it was astonishing because not only was it an amazing sense of connection between the audience and the actress, but you also realized that this was a kind of an historical lesson in theater reception. That’s what must have happened at The Globe. These soliloquies were not simply monologues that people spoke, they were call and response to the audience. And you realized that vibrancy, that that sense of connectedness is not only what makes theater great in prisons, it’s what makes theater great, period."

Oskar Eustis on ArtBeat Nation

I was in the front row of a Hamlet performance where the "Am I a coward?" was directed at me and I, being a no-impulse-control gremlin, hollered back "Yes!!" (they'd primed us ahead of time that audience interaction was encouraged). Hamlet got right up in my face as he kept talking and just kept going until I gently pushed him back; I forget what line it was on when it happened but he took the direction of the push and reeled away across the stage.

This meant that I had marked myself as someone willing to be fucked with, and so during the graveyard scene later he approached me again. "Here hung those lips that I have kissed--" he booped my mouth with the skull's "-- I know not how oft."

I have stories related to me from those at Blackfriars, the American Shakespeare Center (they play in a replica of the original Blackfriars, with modern safety conventions like lightbulbs in the chandeliers, but a great dedication to the way structure shaped the original work in the original Blackfriars. Their house is only about 45 ft deep (roughly 15 m I think), which is about the max distance two sighted people can be from each other and still make eye contact. They play with the stage and house equally lit, they talk to the audience, they enter from the audience, they whip up crowds from within the audience. It’s fantastic. But anyway, on to the stories.)

#Oh I have SO many stories from peak audience moments at the American shakespeare center#I have been to plays there that legit felt more like rock concerts#And I don't even mean the parts of the show where the cast is also a live band and they play#Covers of songs relating to the show#Fair maid of the west with Ginna Hoben#We were all SO on her side we absolutely lost our whole shit any time she even entered or exited#Knight of the burning pestle where Rick would pick a random audience member to be his lady love he was fighting for every night#And one time (I saw it thrice) he picked an older lady#And there's a part of the show where iirc he like gets almost defeated?#And he calls out to his lady love to like inspire him to keep fighting smth like that#And she Got Up Out Of Her Seat and went over to him and kissed him on the cheek#And no one was expecting that least of all Rick#And we all lost our shit whooping and hollering#They did a hamlet where...I forget who was polonius that year but there's a line where he's like 'what was I gonna say again'#And he paused SO long on that line you were legit unsure if he the actor had actually forgotten it#And once someone in the audience called out the next line and he was like 'oh that's right' and carried on#It was scripted though there were other nights no one said anything and we all sat there#In wonderful horrid awkward silence#Until he resumed#Please go if you get a chance#And sit stateside (via @rootingformephistopheles)

[Plaintext:

Oh I have SO many stories from peak audience moments at the American shakespeare center

I have been to plays there that legit felt more like rock concerts

And I don't even mean the parts of the show where the cast is also a live band and they play

Covers of songs relating to the show

Fair maid of the west with Ginna Hoben

We were all SO on her side we absolutely lost our whole shit any time she even entered or exited

Knight of the burning pestle where Rick would pick a random audience member to be his lady love he was fighting for every night

And one time (I saw it thrice) he picked an older lady

And there's a part of the show where iirc he like gets almost defeated?

And he calls out to his lady love to like inspire him to keep fighting smth like that

And she Got Up Out Of Her Seat and went over to him and kissed him on the cheek

And no one was expecting that least of all Rick

And we all lost our shit whooping and hollering

They did a hamlet where...I forget who was polonius that year but there's a line where he's like 'what was I gonna say again'

And he paused SO long on that line you were legit unsure if he the actor had actually forgotten it

And once someone in the audience called out the next line and he was like 'oh that's right' and carried on

It was scripted though there were other nights no one said anything and we all sat there

In wonderful horrid awkward silence

Until he resumed

Please go if you get a chance

And sit stateside

(via @rootingformephistopheles)

/End plaintext]

OOPS I MADE ANOTHER ONE

OOPS I MADE ANOTHER ONE

OOPS I MADE ANOTHER ONE

OOPS I MADE ANOTHER ONE

OOPS I MADE ANOTHER ONE

Oh, look at that. You can see the whole body!

Trans flag + sickle&hammer in bio is such a rabid combination. Not only because of completely irrational denial of the fact that they are advocating for the regime that would have had them killed/institutionalised for "perversion"; but also because 10 times out of 10 they are spreading russian propaganda, thus giving a helping hand to the movement that is actively trying to eradicate people like them today.

And it would have been just a sad but funny example of human idiocy, if they weren't tolerated and listened to as a valid source of information.

It's almost as if trans socialists wanted a symbol that showed how they're both trans and socialist . . .

Jeez, I wonder what symbol has been used for the better part of a century and a half by nearly every major socialist organisation globally to portray socialist ideologies?

Y'all really don't understand that to several million people in more than half a dozen countries where the symbol was held and born it represents a regime that did unspeakable harm. Socialism doesn't need to keep riding the USSRs coatails of blood. Pretending the symbol is somehow disconnected from USSR is disingenuous. Like sometimes symbols become so drenched in harm you have to let them go or be very careful how you use them. The swastika has a long history before the Nazis and is still used today, but you don't just put a swastika in your bio then constantly attack a certain group of people who suffered under that symbol then claim it's just a symbol that doesn't mean Nazis.

When those of us from the places where that symbol meant terror, death and suffering, see that symbol the ideology we envision isn't some detached socialist ideal removed from the reality of USSR.

Or that many of these groups who do use it openly promote and praise the USSR more often than the criticise it. So let's not act like it's a blank slate of "socialism" because it isn't.

Hell, half the shit we have to hear is about runic symbols that apparently mean someone is a Nazi, regardless of how old those symbols are or how varied their use may have been. Because there's something to that and we understand this.

The problem is that you lot have decided that the victims of the USSR, which number in the millions and range in origin and ethnicity, are not ones you will recognize. That they all deserved it somehow or whatever makes it feel ok that they suffered for the great experiment id communism (tm). So you don't see the problem of using a symbol that very much does stand not for the theoretical ideology of socialism but a very specific enactment of the idea, one that was arguably a failure and a nightmare.

It's like the way words become slurs and you don't get to tell the target of those slurs that you are going to keep using the word because you don't find its meaning offensive. It's just you don't think our history and experiences matter enough to actually hear that, don't respect us enough as people to try to understand that yeah, wearing that symbol, for an eastern European, or a Crimean Tatars or a Georgian or a Chechen or a Qazaq, or a Fin may be kind of offensive and weird when coupled with claims about being liberal (not liberal with an L as in "I'm a liberal" but simply as opposed to conservative") or for social justice.

So if any of you actual want to build international solidarity with the left and socialists outside of your bubble, you will need to learn this or just admit you're in it for identity making and cosplay not any actual change action.

Today's tankies are a study in total inability of people who see themselves as champions of the oppressed to extend an ounce of empathy to those with a background different from theirs.

If you want a symbol to signal that you're socialist, use the rose. Or fist and rose. Or bread and roses. Those are all traditional SOCIALIST symbols.

@worstfaithinterpretation can you guess which regime used this symbol:

you could literally say the same thing about swastika. you can’t simply undo the genocides by saying “there was multiple parties in different countries using it”. well guess which one is the most famous? which one colonized various countries some of which are still under russian rule? which one committed literal and cultural genocides that have tens of millions of victims? and then there are people from the americas who give zero shits about victims of imperialism if it’s not done by the US and wave their red fash flag so proudly. here’s your straw man.

This photo is from Mariupol. Y'know, the vibrant, beautiful port city in Ukraine that's been bombed to rubble by the russian invaders, who then raised this flag in the ruins. But sure, some Western queer using the hammer and sickle to promote their idea of a "communist utopia" is totally washing the blood off and making this a "non-problematic" symbol to use. 🙄

Soviet Communism was always the Russians trying to appropriate the concept of communism and be THE central source and power and authority of socialist/communist doctrine and rule, as a concept and globally, so you couldn’t divorce the two. It’s why the USSR and Maoist China eventually broke up. The Soviets wanted everybody that joined the union to Russify, while the Maoists wanted to Sinocize. Both wanted to be THE defining vision and institution deciding communism and dictate to the other.

The hammer and sickle is a distinctly Russian flavor of socialism, as the entire symbol exists because of a contest that was had and a committee decided upon it. You cannot divorce the hammer and sickle from the USSR and affiliate culture to it.

And then you have the people trying to act in praxis to generationally, arbitrarily, divorce the hammer and sickle from USSR crimes, when you in fact cannot divorce them. The hammer and sickle is the USSR and the USSR is the hammer and sickle. It’s the symbol of a group that believes it is inevitable and the embodiment of socialism, and that you can’t have socialism without Russia or Russian culture.

To add insult to injury, the exact same group of people that would argue there IS NO WAY to reclaim or excuse using the swastika, because, “some symbols are just unsalvagable.”

Right as they wave [MODERN CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL UNITY FLAG HERE] + the Hammer and Sickle to marry the two subjects together. Effectively Courtney Loving USSR socialism to the hot cause of the day.

And irony of ironies, the same people will view using a heraldic eagle on a flag as, “fascist” or “imperialist,” and argue it’s a faux pas to do that given, “the past crimes and history of injustice associated with those regimes.” Rules for thee, but not for me.

Israel just released a video claiming every civilian house in Lebanon has a giant missile launcher in it.

No evidence, no proof, just a low grade CGI video. Just like the one they made about a Hamas base under Al Shifa hospital in order to justify its complete obliteration even though it had been debunked time and time again.

They’re justifying killing Lebanese civilians. They’re justifying the deaths of innocent men, women, babies and children.

Israel is a blood thirsty state filled with psychopaths. They will not stop until they’re forced to stop and I will pray everyday that Hezbollah burns that cursed state to the ground. For the sake of humanity.

Israel is a huge threat to the world. It needs to be abolished and wiped off the world map.

NO IT DOESN'T!!! Blaming an entire population of innocent Israelis (many of whom have been protesting against this for decades) for the fascist genocidal slaughters (on down) of the entrenched Netanyahu regime is nothing but it's own genocidal bigotry -- trying to slip antisemitism in under the “but some Jews are genocidal too!” rubric.

Yeah, Jewish people are human, some humans do horrible things, therefor some Jewish people do horrible things. That doesn't justify blaming entire populations. The tags I've put on this reblog are #Netanyahu regime #genocidal bigotry #always wrong #no matter what #no matter who .

Shut the fuck up, you reblogged this from a Jew who wants Israel to be destroyed

people will use the most disgustingly, blatantly ableist language possible when talking about pretty much any political topic, like not even just using a slur or a word with obscure ableist origins but outright dedicating multiple sentences to describing a variety of disabled person as a negative comparison to something, dedicating a whole paragraph to descriptions of disabled traits as a disgusting horrifying thing that must be stamped out, and then when a disabled person says "hey, this topic is important and i don't want to take away from it, but please don't discuss it in this way, we can talk about it without throwing disabled people under the bus" we get violently dogpiled for derailing REAL problems with our stupid privileged MADE UP problems that we only have because we're super privileged and definitely 100% white middle class americans because they're the only people who care about MADE UP problems like disability. lmao.

Permahypomanic

[ID: An 8 stripe flag, with the top two and bottom two stripes being bumpy. From top to bottom, the stripes are purple, pink, yellow, pale yellow, white, dark grey, pink, and purple. In the center is a purple smiley face with a dotted outline.]

FLAG 4 MA HEADMATE!! Permahypomanic is an identity in which one feels permanently hypomanic or wishes to be permanently hypomanic!!

[ID: This user is pro para and pro transid]

ps ur free to interpret the colors as whateva u want but here’s ma thoughts

Purple: Sleep issues including insomnia and odd dreams

Pink: Impulsivity issues such as overspending or addiction

Yellow: Mood issues such as extreme happiness or annoyance

Pale Yellow: A general looming sense of excitement

White: Extreme positive thinking

Dark Gray: Extreme negative thinking

This conversation is so fucking funny to me

this is what im talking about like the first person is fighting to make audiobooks “count” as reading bc they assume reading is inherently better than listening and don’t want people who listen to audiobooks to feel bad. but why is it necessary to create a hierarchy at all

I agree they're different things and this is such a strange cope, but reading is sort of a more psychologically sophisticated process than simply listening (reading is often called passive, but it's much more 'active' than listening to something), so people might be reaching to create a hierarchy out of that idea. people whose only exposure to books is through audiobooks because they're "too lazy" to read in another way actually are limiting themselves in a way those that read aren't, so it's only natural they might feel a bit bad about this. it's no one else's responsibility to change the definition of reading to accommodate these people though--if they're going to feel bad about it, they could just start reading if they wanted to.

the reason it's so bizarre is that, especially when they bring blind people into the argument, is that blind people can read... they read braille. and it actually would be a problem, and actively discriminatory, to deny blind people literacy because of the popularity of audio content. I imagine loads of places would never even consider braille books anymore because audio exists, but if they stopped being made altogether this would truly be a huge loss for the blind.

that is actually such a good point because at my library we don't have very many braille books in the system at all and buying them isn't a priority either

Children and adults need to learn and practice actually reading. If a student with a disability enters a classroom, and they are exclusively read to and never given the expectations of actually practicing their reading, they are being failed.

I have worked with many students with disabilities, and teaching READING is always a priority. Audiobooks are a way of experiencing texts, but they will not teach you to read or develop your reading skills.

No, not all blind people read Braille. Not all blind people are comfortable being referred to as "the blind." Audiobooks are accessibility, and, to be clear, do you think medieval nobility were more "psychologically sophisticated" than the largely illiterate peasantry? Do you think that early modern Europe was more psychologically sophisticated than the populations of parts of the world where mass literacy took longer to take off? Because that's where the idea of moralizing literacy came from!

What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t think individual illiterate people are worth less. But, to be clear, large groups of the population being illiterate is a SOCIETAL FAILURE. Do you seriously think that the medieval society you describe was perfectly ideal and egalitarian? Keeping entire populations illiterate is a form of oppression. Learning literacy skills is empowering. Being illiterate in today’s day and age is a nightmare. I will continue teaching and promoting literacy until my final days. Acting like certain populations can never be expected to read is classist, racist, and ableist. Promoting illiteracy is a brain dead take.

I think that many people take their literacy for granted. If no one had ever taught you to decode printed text, your life would be vastly more limited.

It's almost like there's an extremely significant difference in meaning between "Literacy is a valuable skill that everyone should have access to" and "Reading is more psychologically complex than listening, audiobook listeners are lazy, and audiobooks aren't an access need because blind people can just read Braille."

I never said that audiobook listeners are lazy. But the reality is that reading IS more psychologically complex than listening. That’s why I teach literacy 6 hours a day. That is why people with all sorts of disabilities deserve access to high quality literacy instruction. Blind students not being taught Braille literacy is a systemic failure.

"Psychological complexity" isn't even a meaningful, let alone measurable concept. Sure, you "don't think individual illiterate people are worth less" (how magnanimous), you just think they have less "psychological complexity," literally an argument used to support aristocracy and colonialism.

And shockingly, there are blind people who aren't students! Blind adults, even! (Before we even get to "There are disabilities other than blindness that impair reading.")

I teach literacy for a living. Promoting and teaching literacy does a thousand times more good for all communities than acting like some individuals will never be able to read. I am doing more to empower people through literacy than you are by yapping at me.

Reading IS a more complex process than listening. That is why it takes so long to learn. Never did I say that illiterate INDIVIDUALS are less complex. All individuals have the ability to improve their literacy skills. It is a SOCIETAL failure if they are not given the resources to do so.

Acting like literacy is just a cool skill to learn and not a human right is what drives societies to ban certain populations from school.

Some individuals will never be able to read. Why is that a reason to exclude them from access to information?

Access to information is a human right. Reading and writing is one tool to achieve that. A very useful tool, but still a tool.

You're shifting terminology by saying that "reading is a more complex process than listening." Okay? So what? The term I objected to was "psychologically complex."

"All individuals have the ability to improve their literacy skills." No. They don't. There are, in fact, individuals who simply cannot read printed text, either with their eyes or their fingertips. They do exist.

And they're not even the primary people harmed by print moralizing. "Reading is psychologically superior to oral communication" is ableist, yes, but the ableism is more of a splash damage effect. The intended target is people with primarily-oral language systems. Who are told that their cultures don't constitute "civilization," that their past doesn't constitute "history," that they're just less moral, less human, less evolved, less psychologically complex than people from societies that use written language. The goal of print-supremacist ideology is racism and classism, but individual people with reading disabilities get vaguely thrown under the bus as well.

I mean, my point is not "No one should ever read, or learn to read" or "Reading is not a valuable skill." In fact, in the world we live in, in 2024, in the global social context that human history up to this point has built, literacy is a fairly essential life skill. I would know, since I work in a community where 27% of adults read below a 3rd grade level, because of, you know, educational neglect. I'm not even above strategically appealing to literacy moralizing do advocate better education. But that's not the point. The point is that "Audiobook listeners are somehow not thinking as hard and not as psychologically complex as book-readers" is the ideological descendant of centuries of specifically European colonial-era propaganda to delegitimize, and therefore justify the colonization of, oral-communication-based cultures.

If what you mean is "Reading is a necessary skill in today's world and everyone should be taught it," say that. I'll agree with it! But when you frame preferring alternate methods of communication as "laziness," you're being ableist, and when you frame the virtue of reading over oral communication around "psychological complexity," you're being not only racist, but 18th-century racist.

what the fuck

#it’s NOT inexplicable#it’s bc someone based it on the unicode 6 yellow heart#which is colorless but shaded with halftone dots#and someone interpreted that like stubble#and drew this#which is SO FUCKING FUNNY via @animusbell

OH MY GOD

THE REASON THE YELLOW HEART IS SHADED THAT WAY IS BECAUSE OF FUCKING HERALDRY HATCHING ISN’T IT

FUCK YEAH AUTISM LET’S GOOOO

I cannot emphasize enough that this "fuck your art eat exposure and a small tip" shit has been happening for YEARS, long before genAI.

Again, the problem is not fucking age generators.

It's the REFUSAL TO PROTECT THE LABOUR OF ARTISTS.

Correct. On this very website, artists have been pointing out for years that most people taking commissions as hobbyists undercharge and aren't anywhere near making wages off of their work, and people comparing that to professional art commission rates is an apples-to-oranges comparison. This is not an AI scammer offering to make work at a rate absolutely no craftsman ever would, this is a client with an inflated sense of self-importance thinking that they can mindread the effort artists put into their work.

i have been in community with profoundly developmentally disabled peers and peers with brain damage my whole life, bc i had a childhood diagnosis. i have also been leftist my whole life; my mother was a marxist and raised me that way, and while their politics were absolute dogshit, they were lefty dogshit.

my entire life, i have seen leftist educators throw mentally disabled people away as "lost causes" because they couldn't engage with the material the way it was being presented. leftist outreach and education does, genuinely, have a massive lack of accessible material. to be blunt, people are not interested in retrofitting their leftist outreach to be accessible to people who learn best through episodes of sesame street.

as in, i have repeatedly faced outright laughter and cruelty over the idea that this could be a priority. or even something that we consider doing at all.

"people who are that mentally disabled don't need to know about these things," the kindest interpretation goes. ("people who are that mentally disabled don't interact with the world, anyway, they're all in institutions or monitored 24/7 by their parents," the uncharitable underlying assumptions go. "they wouldn't be a worker who needs a union. or a library attendee. or a member of the community garden. or a volunteer at the food bank. or or or")

the people i have seen this hurt the worst, over and over again, are profoundly mentally disabled people of color whose lack of access to accessible antiracist education is causing real danger in their lives. institutionalized disabled people of color who have learned racist ideology and behaviors from white authority, whether they were adopted by white families or incarcerated in care institutions run by white staff. who are treated lower than garbage by leftist educators, who view them as "lost causes," as unworthy of time and effort and attention, as deserving of their abuses because they... what... internalized the abuses that make up every aspect of their lives since birth?

i see people saying things in this conversation like "disability isn't an excuse for racism or transphobia or whatever, people have the obligation to improve themselves." oh, believe me, i have seen again and again how many privileged disabled people utilize their disabilities to punch down on others, try to escape accountability for their punching down by citing disability. but individual weaponization of identity is just that: weaponization of identity.

the power structures at play are what they are. it is a noble and admirable goal to want leftist outreach and education to be more accessible to all. if that is truly your goal, you must eventually reckon with the existence of people who do, actually, really need it presented in a picture book. or an episode of bluey. or a conversation where you only use examples of people they know in real life, using things that happened to them personally. the existence of people who cannot grasp forms of abstract reasoning, who need information presented as rules, or as guidelines, or as categories. the idea that yes, fully grown adults who need daniel tiger to explain racism to them are human beings who not only deserve access to that very thing, but who also deserve to be a part of leftist spaces and benefit from leftist organizing. are people for whom it might be INTEGRAL they get to be a part of leftism. are victims of racism themselves and suffering without access to antiracist spaces and community and support.

and you will need to reckon with the abject cruelty of your peers who laugh and mock the very idea of this. you need to reckon with the fact that a lot of people you respect, a lot of leftists doing genuinely good work, will respond to this by making fun of the people you're serving, even outright telling you their violent fantasies about these people. that is the experience of organizing in leftist spaces for profoundly disabled people. that is why so many of us burn out so fast. there IS a structural problem with mentally disabled people being seen as disposable and not a part of community. and it is EXTREMELY present in leftist organizing and outreach efforts.