AlternateMan

Bi, 21, fan of many things, mainly Doctor Who and Star Trek right now

[downback1]

is this anything

[discoursedrome]

The opposite of “the elephant in the room” is “the centipede in the room”: something that’s not actually an issue but everyone is freaking out about

[weirdmageddon]

i am fixated on this peanuts scene in particular. its so unsettling and dreamlike. lynchian in nature, down to the fucking sound design

[the-pirate-captain]

Ain't this how Count Dracula climbs?

[gayleafpool]

sometimes i think love triangles should be resolved by polyamory but badly like everyone’s still mad

[ironinkpen]

best thing about uncle iroh is that if you pay attention he is actually just as much of an idiot as zuko but has just mastered the art of coming across as a wise old man. the even better thing is that zuko is the only one on the planet who somewhat realizes this and no one would ever believe him because he's zuko

[ironinkpen]

like uncle iroh 100% does dumb shit on purpose sometimes to get people to underestimate him and keep zuko from capturing the avatar, but other times he just, and i cannot emphasize this enough, does impulsive dumb shit for no reason other than the fact that terminal stupid presumably runs in the royal family's blood

[ironinkpen]

uncle: "you never think things through, prince zuko!"

also uncle:

once got captured by the earth kingdom army buck ass naked bc he really wanted to go to a hot spring in enemy territory

betrayed zhao at the Northern Water Tribe with no escape plan and then spent 3 weeks starving on a boat

immediately went to a spa resort upon publicly committing treason

ate a poisonous plant and, in the spirit of Two Fish Hook Sokka, was going to solve the problem by eating another potentially poisonous plant

decided the safest place in the world they could go was the city he once FAMOUSLY laid siege to for 600 days

instead of lying low or giving a modicum of a shit about people recognizing him, overachieved himself into becoming one of the most well-known restaurant owners in said city

in fact overachieved so hard that he got an invite to meet the earth king (whose city he, again, once FAMOUSLY LAID SIEGE TO) which he fucking? accepted????

[prettybirdy979]

#no wonder zuko was constantly frothing at the mouth! he's the only one who knows the truth!#god just imagine the number of times people have seen zuko yelling at iroh#and assumed zuko was just being mean#when zuko was actually yelling at his uncle for wasting all their money bartering with pirates AGAIN#everyone assumes iroh is babysitting zuko but really they're pingponging responsibility back and forth#and zuko at least has the excuse of being 16#anyway I love Uncle Hypocrite so much; funniest motherfucker on the planet (via OP)

[mini-wrants]

The thing that’s always missing from the “women didn’t fight for the right to work they were already working they fought to get paid” is that many women also very much wanted to work.

Women wanted to be lawyers and engineers and chemists. They wanted to use their brains in challenging and interesting ways. They wanted to get the satisfaction from solving problems and inventing new shit and getting attention for it.

I know not everyone is born with intellectual curiosity or drive or determination but some people are and many of those people are women.

[aqueerkettleofish]

For those who have missed it, a tourist in Hawaii decided it would be fun to chuck a rock (a BIG rock) at a monk seal. He missed, but he was captured on video, and when told it was illegal to interfere with them, said "I'm rich, I can pay the fine."

Is the best part that he got doxxed? No.

Is the best part that he got tracked down by a local and beaten? No.

Arrested on state at federal charges, looking at up to 5 years and 50K? Nope.

The best part is the local city council's reaction.

And the best part of that is the look on the attorney's face.

[json-derulo]

I'm not gonna articulate this well, but there's this phenomenon I keep seeing on the left that I'll call "bean soup rhetoric," wherein someone fails to understand that they are not the target audience for a particular message, or just can't conceptualize why a speaker would craft their message differently to resonate with a target audience that doesn't already completely agree with them.

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

Tailoring the argument to the things she already cares about does not mean we're forgetting that she has more privilege than most—entirely the opposite, in fact. A privileged ally can be extremely valuable. Jennifer votes in every election. And so do all the other ladies at her book club, and church, and in the PTA, and those folks listen to Jennifer. There's a reason both parties were courting suburban women so hard in the last election cycle! If we can find common ground with her on this, if we can get her calling her representatives and talking to her friends and phone-banking and door-knocking and making a stink, that's how the needle starts to move. If I can convince her to take her support away from the candidates who are actively restricting my rights and throw it toward those who want to restore and expand those rights...then I'm sorry, but Jennifer is a more valuable ally to me than the people who agree that the legal boundaries of gender ought to be abolished altogether but refuse to actually do anything except complain online about how both sides are equally bad because the right is trying to force everyone to drink the cyanide kool-aid while the left keeps serving bean soup and they don't like bean soup

[vaspider]

"Meet people where they are" is Activism 101, and people seem to be allergic to seeing that this is exactly that.

"Bean Soup Rhetoric" is a very good concept.

[oldbutchdanielmolloy]

i do appreciate the way that we tumblr users have evolved our language to discuss our feelings related to The Character/The Guy. you used to have to just say he was hot or he was making your ovaries explode or he was a precious cinnamon roll even if he looked bad or was just kind of standing there or whatever. now you can say things like “the creature” or “he looks so sopping wet here” or “i want to chain him to my radiator” like it’s just more inclusive and adaptable to the situation

[twobeesornottwobees]

as someone on the asexual spectrum, this shift in language genuinely made me feel more comfortable and happy in fandom spaces. i've never once wanted to lick a man's abs. i HAVE wanted to chain a man to my radiator. and that's beautiful.

[marlynnofmany]

Rotating the blorbo in the microwave of your mind just says so much. No specifics needed.

[inthevasoline]

guys what should my 10,000th post be

[inthevasoline]

im so fucking stupid

[ginger-crvsh]

i'm crying laughing this is so funny

[bethanydelleman]

Everyone, we can fix Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet if we just switch the leads.

Romeo wakes up in Hamlet's body and meets the ghost of "his" father telling him to kill his uncle. So if course Romeo just fucking does it, because he never considers consequences, and then gets onto more important shit, like romancing Ophelia, political fallout be damned! But given that he's the son of the murdered king, he'd probably end up on top.

Hamlet wakes up as Romeo and is told that he can't marry the love of his life because his family hates her family. Instead of killing Tybalt and getting Merucio murdered, he's planning elaborate meet-cutes for the two warring families. He's putting on plays about blood feuds and how to overcome them. He either succeeds in bringing the families together or bores Juliet enough with his indecision that the glow wears off and she moves on; both positive options. Everybody lives.

[ekjohnston]

This is much funnier than switching Hamlet and Othello.

[truthandshadow]

This is really funny because Juliet and Hamlet are not compatible.

Juliet is a doer, her actions drive the play. Juliet meets a boy, makes a plan, and marries him the next day. She and Hamlet are both schemers rather than followers, but Juliet makes a plan and commits to it, and it’s only forces out of her control that doom her. Everything would have been fine if that messenger had made it to Romeo before news of her death did.

Hamlet on the other hand overthinks. He spends months debating what to do. Every detail and implication has to be thought through. He can’t commit to a plan, and he can’t commit to Ophelia. Hamlet’s playing chess, Juliet’s playing capture the flag.

Juliet would say, I found a priest, we’re getting married today. And Hamlet would immediately pump the brakes. So either the play ends there, or it becomes a comedy about Juliet trying to persuade Hamlet to marry her.

[third-thoughts]

"I do or I do not? That is the question"

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

For anybody not caught up: Tennessee just passed a new map that pretty much makes it so black neighborhoods have no power in local votes. Two things about this. While protestors were chanting "No Jim Crow", white Tennessee lawmakers were caught laughing on video. On top of this, Representative Justin Pearson and his brother KeShaun Pearson were arrested for trying to give their takes on the matter (which is not only their legal right but literally his job). If you give a shit about black people, help fight this. We can't allow a return to Jim Crow.

[icemankazansky]

Heyyy guess where I live

A local paper had some great photographs, all taken by Nicole Hester:

The day before, Rep. Justin Pearson tries to attend a Senate Committee meeting and is barred access by the Sergeant at Arms.

Lawmakers and protesters link arms as the descend the capitol steps.

Once inside the chamber, Democratic representatives continued to stand together with arms linked.

They continued standing together with arms linked as votes were cast.

Democratic representatives take a group photo protesting the redistricting.

Rep. Justin Jones burns a photo of the Confederate flag with the words, We will not go back.

And stomps the ashes.

KeShaun Pearson being escorted from the building by the Staties.

KeShaun Pearson (left) being taken into custody. Rep. Justin Pearson (right) showing his support of his brother.

Additional information: State lawmakers have been gunning for Pearson and Jones nearly their entire terms. Most notably, in 2023, the House expelled them for participating in a protest at the Capitol. Their districts had to have special elections to have them reinstated.

Pearson is one of the plaintiffs of a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the redistricting.

The city most affected by the redistricting is Memphis, where locals are fighting against xAI's data center, which has been operating with very little oversight and is poisoning the people who live there. Here is a previous post on that with more information and more sources.

[doctors--sunshine]

i dont really know how to articulate this but some people seem to think "fiction does not affect reality at all" and "if you see something in fiction it will inevitably become okay to you in real life" are the only two options

[josephbrassey]

“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

And I refuse to let the cynics own a chunk of my heart.

[gudamor]

Happy Smallpox Eradication Day

[essaimart]

☝️ one

[essaimart]

she needs a lot

[dragon-in-a-fez]

thinking about the time some terf dipshit on twitter said "you weirdos will be saying TREES are a social construct next" and I got nerdsniped and waded in like "trees ARE a social construct. there is no fundamental binary characteristic that separates trees from other plants" and well, I'll spare you the details but the conversation ended with the dipshit yelling "PALM TREES HAVE WOOD" which is hilarious because "wood" actually does have a pretty unambiguous, binary definition and palms in fact do not qualify

[dragon-in-a-fez]

a handful of terfs are being super weird in the notes and some of them are providing absolute gems like this

like this is actually such an incredible insight into the terf belief that every interaction has to be morally delineated based on definitions and classes and not actions. the reason cutting down your neighbour's tree is a crime isn't because it's a tree you fucking grenade brain. it's because you destroyed someone else's shit. that's the bad part. who the fuck cares if it's a tree.

I don't think I can fully explain this without going completely insane, but this is exactly parallel to the mental framework that terfs apply to sex crimes. everything is about whether or not you had a penis at the time of the incident and not about what you did

[starlight-shadowbanned]

ironically… “cutting down your neighbor’s tree and then trying to argue ‘what really are trees?’” is exactly what terfs are doing.

they’re attempting to remove access to hormones, to bathrooms, to safety for transfemme prisoners, to any number of other things… and they couch it in terms of categories and classifications and semantic designations. likewise the concern trolling “i think nonbinary identity is regressive” pseudoterfery that’s popped up on tiktok lately.

it’s less important to arrive at the ideal philosophical understanding of gender than it is to make sure people can access hormones and surgery and can pee in peace. but terfs are always playing a smoke and mirrors game and pretending it’s about philosophy while they’re actively trying to remove people’s access to material things. “what is a woman?” i don’t know. i do know that she should be able to get estrogen if her system doesn’t produce it endogenously and that she should be able to be safe.

[omittedharpy]

appreciating that there’s not really age gap discourse about garak/bashir (at least not in the circles I’m in, maybe it’s different elsewhere). people recognizing that what they’ve got going on is weird and dysfunctional enough that that’s the least of their issues. and also that the weird dysfunction is a feature, not a bug