E.P.I.C. and Other Adventures

30-something she/her

[caracorder]

I’m off work for the day, so I was able to accept the delivery of a huge box for my oathsib.

I just am now very curious as to weather the horse riding machine is a sex toy or a regular toy, because it could go either way.

[theconcealedweapon]

[lawbreaker13]

THIS Y’ALL

[roach-works]

also although this works as a convenient analogy for racism, it is also just a factual description of how the vast majority of buildings and public infrastructure in use today do not accommodate the disabled. like please don't overlook that part. this is literally just how it actually is for disabled people.

[transarsonist]

This isn't at all an analogy, it's just reality

[albatross-the-pen-chewer]

While taking a nap today I dreamt there was a hazard sign called "never found" which was used to indicate a location where people disappeared never to be seen again

[albatross-the-pen-chewer]

it looked like this

[lethesbeastie]

The imagery and vibes of this were so visceral I had to do art about it

(Grayscale version under cut)

[mindhost]

Dutch longsword fencer Tosca Beuming

Photographed by Martin Philippo and Andress Kools

[historicalfightingguide]

Happy International Working Women’s Day!

If you are interested in learning how to use a longsword check out these few links.

Remember to check out  A Guide to Starting a Liberation Martial Arts Gym as it may be useful on your martial arts journey.

Fear is the Mind Killer: How to Build a Training Culture that Fosters Strength and Resilience by Kaja Sadowski may be relevant as well.

Worth checking out are this blogs tags on pedagogy and teaching for other related useful posts.

Consider getting some patches of this sort or these cool rashguards to show support for good causes or a t-shirt like to send a good message while at training.

And stay safe

[headspace-hotel]

Art reference go brrrrrr

[bampablo-deactivated20210509]

hello everyone!! if you have time, please consider watching rick astley’s “never gonna give you up”. i don’t want to inconvenience anybody but i’m trying to troll you. thank you very much! please pass this along to help me troll your friends if you can!!

i’ve included the video in this post so you can easily watch it

[prismatic-bell]

You done got me, damn. Best troll, 10/10.

[dateamonster]

honestly imagine being mary shelley. its the fucking early 1800s. we’re barely out of the era when people thought women reading novels would lead to like debauchery and premarital sex. the weather is just fucking bonkers in yonkers. everybodys clothes looked like they oughta weigh two hundred pounds. everyones goth but goth isnt a thing yet so they dont even know it. your kids are dying. your husbands dead. your friends are all probably doing coke. your doctor is also both doing and maybe prescribing coke. no electricity. people are out there just staring into the void and having clandestine affairs in graveyards or some shit just because theres nothing else to do. and whats that? youve just written frankenstein. girl what the fuck even–

[dateamonster]

today is mary shelley’s birthday. honor her legacy by looking at the completely bonkers shit happening all around you and just saying well might as well fuck around and invent an entirely new literary genre

[caracorder]

So . . . Most of this absolutely true. Except the bit about the clothes. There was this funny window between the 18th century and the Victorian era when comparatively comfortable clothes were in. Mary Shelley’s corset was more similar to a modern bra (and a sports bra at that) than what we think of when we hear corset. Fashionable dress for women was often short sleeved with an empire waist (this era is when the term was coined). The skirts were loose, but not full. If you were feeling sassy you would damp your skirts to show your legs off—that’s how thin the dresses were.

[glumshoe]

Everyone loves polite villains to contrast with brash and sarcastic heroes, but consider the dynamic of polite villains clashing with equally well-mannered heroes. It’s very good. Very civil. Very alienating to everyone around them.

[star-anise]

So “queer” isn’t just an identity that’s broadly inclusive because, I don’t know, we like big parties. There’s actually an underlying ethic, a queer theory, that has political implications.

Its name reclaims a slur because the point is to say, “I am different, but that’s not a bad thing.” The queer movement is about upholding the right of all people to deviate from an oppressive cisgender, heterosexual, patriarchal norm. Broadening the spectrum of acceptable diversity; questioning and dismantling the social pressures that police and punish deviance. Changing not just our own lives, but how our entire society thinks about sex and gender.

That’s why “queer” embraces so many different groups. It’s not trying to erase their differences, but to try to coherently understand the complex overlapping pressures that affect each of them, and to extend our reach beyond the LGBT+ community. It’s about the right of lesbians to live without men and the right of trans and nonbinary people to be who they are, the right of asexuals to define for themselves what’s significant in their lives, the right of straight men to be vulnerable and emotional and nonviolent. When the great queering project is done, you will see the changes everywhere, not just in small LGBT+ enclaves.

It’s recognizing that something that harms or oppresses one of us is pretty likely to harm all of us, so we all benefit from taking it down together.

[star-anise]

For everyone who’s like “Whoa, I was with you until you threw straight men in there”:

Homophobia is a huge part of how all men are policed. If a man isn’t strong, tough, aggressive, and dominant? He gets called gay. So this isn’t “Soft straight men are totally LGBT+ and belong in your gay support group!” but it is “Part of the work of disassembling homophobia is changing how it affects straight men.”

It’s the same way that men aren’t the primary intended beneficiaries of feminism, but part of the work of feminism is addressing and changing toxic masculinity. If you’re effective enough at changing the system, you change it for everyone.

[rabbitindisguise]

Also getting really tired of that criticism of any activism that dares talk about how it might benefit Straight™ men

Maybe straight men not being as miserable … shouldn’t be an automatic negative, especially not if the whole idea before that addition was to benefit marginalized groups?

Also it’s not just homophobia, it’s toxic masculinity which is the manifestation of hating women so much it impacts their own gender, and also transphobia and transmisogyny, where any deviation from the gender assigned at birth is heavily policed with violence

[donna-dot-paella]

I really disagree here, and not because I don’t think straight men should have more occasions to be vulnerable and emotional, but because they as a group benefit from the oppression of everyone else

I get it, of course they would in some ways know some positive changes in a less patriarchal/heteronormative society - but maybe let’s not forget who patriarchal/heteronormative society benefits to? Because like. A straight man who is vulnerable and softspoken won’t be as oppressed as a gay man, no matter said gay man’s personality!

I don’t think anybody thinks it’s a good thing straight men are miserable but like are they really? are they miserable? Compared to everyone else? 

They’re the norm the queer movement deviates from!

[star-anise]

Do they? Broadly, as a class? Is every single straight cis man benefiting from privilege more than every single gay cis man? 

I think that men are promised the rewards of privilege. They are told that being homophobic and straight will make them fundamentally better than gay men. They are told that being male and masculine will make them fundamentally better than women. And yes, the people reaping the rewards are generally straight cis men.

But it’s like a pyramid scheme: Every member, when they join, is promised the INCREDIBLE REWARDS they could receive, if they only get a few people to join at a lower level than them! And some members ARE making absolute bank. But when you look at the balance sheet, you see that 90% of active members are earning absolutely no money, and meanwhile the top 1% are fucking millionaires.

I think that, yes, if you look into the lived experiences of men in our culture, masculinity is making them actively miserable. There’s a reason men are, on average, more depressed, more isolated, more violent, and more likely to die by suicide. “Toxic masculinity” wasn’t a term coined to talk about women’s experiences.

The straight-cis-men-always-win argument especially falls to pieces once you look outside the realm of sex and gender–there’s no arguing that things like class, money, race, immigration status, incarceration, disability, and mental health don’t also have huge impacts on peoples’ quality of life. There are a lot of ways queer people can have, comparatively, a lot of privilege compared to straight cis men.

So really, does it benefit us, as a group, to outcast and demonize groups of people who are fighting the same forces as us? Do we want to pit large swathes of the population against each other and stage the Oppression Olympics endlessly? Or do we want to recognize that it’s probably 99% of the population getting fucked over by the massively powerful people at the top and doing something about that?

I want to recruit straight cis men to be my allies, not typecast them as my enemies because I think that homophobia is the only kind of evil in the world.

[just-a-zuki]

When I said, “cops are oppressed under capitalism,” this is the kind of shit I mean. Oppressor/victim isn’t binary. I particularly like this ‘pyramid scheme’ conception of privilege.

[star-anise]

Particularly because pyramid schemes rely on an endless chain of recruitment. The way to move slightly up the ladder is to have people under you. Just slide into a higher role…

Be a shift manager. Get promoted to Corporal. Move from floor staff to the sales desk. Make it onto the police force. Put all your effort into being the best little cog in the whole machine. Someday it will pay off. Someday you’ll move up high enough in the ranks. Oh, you’re still poor? Work harder. Get a better job.

Be a man. Catcall women. Get dates. Have a girlfriend. Have children. Produce an entire family of people who have to respect you as its patriarch! Oh, that’s not happening? You must not be manly enough.

It’s similar to the way colonialism works, where the children of one conquered country are used to fill the ranks of the army that invades the next one, because when colonialism has destroyed your country, being your oppressor’s footsoldier is one of the last viable careers left.

The biggest lie the system sells is that if you cooperate well enough, you’ll get to run the show someday. We have to have the wit and awareness to understand that the entire system is rigged, and we need to take apart the systems that dominate and control people, instead of just replacing the people on top.

Which is part of why I get very nervous about straight-white-cis-abled-man bashing. A lot of people don’t sound like they want people to not be treated badly based on demographic characteristics they have no control over; they just want to be the people wielding the whips.

[alarajrogers]

The other thing to consider is that straight-man stereotypical, toxic behavior is actually profoundly unnatural and we should remember that it is. It is heavily enforced by men on other men, with some participation by some straight women, because that is the only way it can even exist.

Look at straight women, gay women, gay men. What’s one thing they all have in common? They are all free to look up to the person they love. Not to put them on a pedestal, but to think of them as a leader. To follow that person when they have good ideas, to obey them when it seems like the right thing to do. To respect them and consider their opinions vitally important.

Now look at what most straight men do. Women are honored for their attractiveness and for caretaker traits, but a good portion of the time, straight men do not respect the opinions of the women they love, because they have been taught that a Real Man doesn’t listen to a woman’s opinions. They don’t look up to women they love. They don’t follow them. 

This is not normal. Normal human behavior is what is evidenced by everyone who is not a straight man and not under enormous pressure to behave as if the people they’re biologically compelled to love and want sex with are inferior, subhuman beings. Love is supposed to make you respect and honor and listen to the person you love. It’s supposed to make equal partnerships. because when you take the pressure off to do something else, that’s what people do.

Homophobia is, in part, straight men reacting violently to the notion that a man can still be male, and human, and have all the same rights as another man, if he doesn’t religiously police his own behavior to be sufficiently misogynistic. Doing “feminine” things – which includes loving another man – has to make a man subhuman, just like women, because if it didn’t, then straight men have everything to gain by treating women well. Contrary to what the NiceGuys whine, women really do prefer men who respect them and honor their opinion. If there were a lot of men who did that, the men who don’t wouldn’t be able to get laid, because natural competition… the only reason women settle for men who don’t respect them is that that’s the only kind of men they know. 

In order to maintain male privilege, straight men must attack any man who seems sympathetic to women – including fellow straight men who actually respect women, gay men, trans women (who they see as being feminine men), and anyone who challenges the binary. If they do not do so, then natural behavior – respect the person you love – reasserts, and also, men who respect women and don’t exercise privilege over them get women more easily, and cultural evolution destroys male privilege. So the stakes are high, but in order to keep their privilege, they have to practice subtractive masculinity – a component of toxic masculinity that says “anything that women do is feminine and men can’t do it.”

Keeping a clean house? Feminine. Caring about how other people feel? Feminine. Eating enough vegetables to be healthy? Feminine. Having a close relationship with friends you can be emotionally open with? Feminine. Loving pets, especially cats? Feminine. Wiping your own ass? Feminine. (Seriously, I’ve seen men argue that wiping their butts properly is “gay”.)

As “being good in school” becomes defined as a thing women do and therefore feminine, men have to start making themselves deliberately into idiots. As “reading” becomes defined as a thing women do, men have to reject it. There are seriously forces at work in our culture trying to turn men into apes because women were allowed to do all the things that define us as human, and now men can’t do them… if they participate in toxic masculinity.

Straight men would be infinitely better off if they just gave up the privilege and accepted being equals. And everyone else would be better off too. Just because straight men would benefit from an end to toxic masculinity doesn’t make it a bad idea.

[oneshipmentofotp]

Problems for a villain who’s fallen in love with the hero

How to make a plot villainous enough to attract they attention but tame enough they won’t get hurt

Would calling their cell for a random chat because like villain-creepy or stalker-creepy? Or both?

Okay so when they wink at me after a great comeback, is that just their charismatic arrogance or do they maybe like me back?

My newest villain monologue was gonna include this bit about my rough childhood but idk that feels like a fifth date fight subject

Should I update my outfit again? I think they like my new boots but the cape didn’t get the reaction I was hoping for

[sixtailedcat-deactivated2020101]

look, I wasn’t gonna engage in any online fandom stuff for Cruel Prince/Wicked King/whatever, but if fake-woke antis come after Jude/Cardan shippers I will make it my next otp and I will dance on the front lines of the ship war.

This era of fandom needs to end.

[caracorder]

I mean, I get it. Jude is pretty awful, but that’s sort of her appeal.

[adreadfulidea-deactivated202402]

I think a surprising amount of writers don’t realize that tragedies are supposed to be cathartic. They’re intended to result in a purging of emotion, a luxurious cry; the sorrow caused by a great tragedy is akin to fear caused by a good horror movie – it’s a “safe” sorrow, one that is actually satisfying to the audience. It can still be beautiful! It’s isn’t supposed to just be salting the earth so nothing can grow.

But that’s how you get grimdark: writers who don’t realize that they’re supposed to be doing something with the audience instead of to the audience.

[waller-bridge]

This is the employment Steve, reblog for bountiful job opportunity.

[redgoldsparks]

My latest comic for The Nib was written by my friend Mike Thompson- it’s his first published comics work! 

The Nib has been a steady source of income and a huge support to me and many other indie cartoonists for years. They publish amazing work, but will be cut loose by their financial backer in July. You can read the official post about it from editor Matt Bors here.  They are still running their kickstarter-funded print magazine, but have to put digital publishing on hiatus until they figure out their next steps. If you’ve been thinking about supporting their membership program, now would be a good time. They have levels from $2 to $40 per month. I really don’t want this to be my last Nib piece! 

instagram / patreon / portfolio / the nib / etsy

[ruffboi-mags]

you know what, THIS is how you address historical queer folks of all stripes in a respectful way. you refer to them the way they chose to be referred to, and you say “it’s impossible to know how they would’ve identified in today’s society, but they’re part of our history regardless”.

[caracorder]

I had c-section. Dr. Barry may have my life. Breech births are risky.

[tempest-caller]

I keep seeing people saying kink is an alt-right thing.

So do you mind doing me a favor?

If you’re politically on the left- anywhere on the left, whether that be liberal, socialist, communist, etc.- and you have at least 1 kink, could you please reblog this post?

I get not wanting to admit something like this in such an anti-kink climate, but maybe if we show the world that kinky people come in all shapes, sizes, genders, orientations, and politics, we can change the way people view kink.

❄💙 Aria 💙❄

[vaspider]

This is an unprecedented amount of wtfery. Kink is an alt-right thing?

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AROUND HERE ANYMORE?

[findingfeather]

Yeah I’m gonna go with this one being spread by people who are actively trying to attack solidarity. It’s also absolutely bullshit.

[star-anise]

You hear from time to time about right-wingers being involuntarily outed as kinky, but most members of the kink community I know are hardcore leftists.

This one’s playing on what makes the papers (“Conservative pastor found dead in compromising position!”) and what you can see at a distance (“Those kinksters at Pride are wearing pleather military uniforms! They must be alt-right!”) and depends on people being ignorant of who actually identifies as kinky and what the kink community is actually like.

[caracorder]

I am extremely kinky and a lifelong liberal and democrat.

[natrasharomanova]

i work at a children's hospital. as per hospital regulations, all employees have to go through regular fire safety trainings. most of it is pretty standard. and then there's the Baby Vest.

it looks like this:

it fits six babies. and in the event of a fire we're literally supposed to just put it on, fill it with babies, and then evacuate the building.

[pileofknives]

strapped with multiple babies in holsters like a golden age pirate

[caracorder]

I want one of these for my childcare center. It would stress the kids out so much less than the evacuation cribs.

[sixtailedcat-deactivated2020101]

I think this year I’m gonna finally try again to write a solid draft of the original story.

The first few tries were really bad. So bad I took a step back and spent the next ten+ years re-learning how to write. I made some more recent starts that were on the right track, but then I learned a thing or two about myself and realized I needed to genderbend a couple characters. 

I think I’ve got it all figured out now, though.

[caracorder]

So . . . World Refugees, now with 500% more gay?

[zestydoesthings]

Four unconventional Unicorns from tonight’s Creature Feature stream! Horse+Goat, Tapir+Narwhal, Rhino+Rhino Beetle and Dik Dik+Stag. It’s so much fun to push the boundaries of what could be considered a “Unicorn”!