The Line-Storm Clouds Fly Tattered and Swift

ace-ish, she/her, IA, 28. please talk to me, im lonely

[inthetags]

Reblog and name the most haunting scream you’ve ever heard from a fictional character on screen, in the tags

[stuckinapril]

I think part of getting better is complete ego death. Like you’re not above setting a timer for 5 minutes and focusing on a task. You’re not above doing a very simple 3 minute workout to start. You’re not above reading for 10 minutes a day when you first get out of your reading slump, even if you used to read for hours. You’re not above starting slow and then building up to where you want to be/where you once were. What you are above is total inertia. Doing something really is better than doing nothing. Radically accept where you are, radically accept your limits, and go from there. Don’t let your ego get in the way.

[unsolicited-opinions]

“you’re not immune to propaganda” applies to you too

Yes, it absolutely does!

Propaganda is baked into our daily reality so seamlessly and thoroughly that it mostly feels like common sense.

It's why we defend brands like they're old friends.

It's why we discuss celebrities we've never met and who don't know we exist as if we know their hearts, defending or condemning them based on how talented their publicists are.

It's why we confuse relatability for trustworthiness

It's why we mistake emotional resonance for moral principles.

It's why we think our opinions are purely self-generated despite being nudged by countless carefully curated narratives which have more (and more subtle) ways of reaching us than at any time in human history.

It's why we treat people's lives, public policy, and geopolitical matters like team sports.

It's why we need to constantly interrogate our own assumptions, habitually subjecting them to fact checking, methodical scrutiny, and cynicism.

It's why we need media literacy and media ecology to be taught to kids of all ages.

It's why everyone should read Orwell, Huxley, Neil Postman, and Marshal McLuhan.

It's why we should all study logic, rhetoric, and ethics - so we can understand and apply moral reasoning based on principles.

The point isn't whether or not we're affected by propaganda, because we all are.

The point is whether or not we know we're affected...which ironically is the exact blind spot that makes people think they're immune.

The moment you assume you're above that influence? That's when it's working best.

That's why, Anon, the post you're responding to didn't say "you are not immune to propoganda."

It said:

If you think you're immune to propaganda, that means the propaganda is working.

Hope that helps!

[unsolicited-opinions]

About an hour after posting, I got another Ask which I think is from the same Anon:

That was what...500 words? So Anon's problem is aliteracy.

That's ironic because aliteracy makes one much more vulnerable to propaganda.

[daughterofstories]

"You're not immune to propaganda"

"You're right! No one is! That's why we all have to put constant effort into identifying and resisting harmful propaganda!"

"OMG, I didn't, like, mean it. I just thought it was a quippy way to call you stupid."

[unsolicited-opinions]

Reblogging solely because I love how @daughterofstories words this.

[teaspoon-of-stars]

Theres the lil thang

[dramatic-dolphin]

and if i said nolan's odyssey starring no greek actors and with no recognizable aspects of greek culture or involvement by greeks, is the direct legacy of white supremacist colonialism that treated ancient greece as not just the pinnacle of ancient culture, but of an artificially created "european" culture, which white western europeans and their settler descendants, as the new pinnacle of culture, were the sole spiritual inheritors of.

[maxknightley]

everyone more pretentious than me is an insufferable poseur and everyone less pretentious than me is a clueless philistine

[maxknightley]

romantic and sexual partner.

[quietwingsinthesky]

favorite thing in the whole wide world when a story is about how a typically “negative” trait is the one essential to saving the day. a character whose anger pushes them further than any of their kinder aspects. someone so stubborn that they cross a finish line no one else could reach. greed that becomes justification to protect people. ruthlessness that gets the job done right. the coward who becomes a hero because they were the only one with the sense not to face something deadly head on. selfishness that keeps you alive.

I love when our ‘worst’ impulses are shown to be as important to who we are and how we handle things as the best parts of us. sometimes you don’t conquer what everyone says is wrong with you; sometimes you learn how to make use of what comes naturally instead of fighting against it.

[tsarina-anadyomene]

it really is quite bad for your military to have an image of itself as a warrior class. what you really want is for your soldiers to think of themselves as boring professionals who will fill out a report form if someone gets a little too warrior ethos out there

[gsot]

[drmajalis]

[renthony]

It's wild to watch the phrase "tumblr sexyman" morph into "man that tumblr thinks is sexy," because when I first saw the phrase come into use, I always saw it used in reference to the phenomenon of "when presented with a wide array of fictional characters, tumblr will always pick the skinny white man to obsess over, and if the fan-favorite character has no canonical human appearance, the fandom will inevitably create a popular fanon of the character as as a skinny white man."

When I hear "tumblr sexyman," I think of Cecil Night Vale being constantly depicted as a skinny white man instead of literally anything else. I think of the background character white men who get elevated over protagonists that are women, people of color, or otherwise not the white man power fantasy.

"Tumblr sexyman" is, like. An insult. I DON'T want any of my blorbos to win a "tumblr sexyman" poll. "Tumblr sexyman" is the exact opposite of what I want my own OCs to be. If any of my characters ever get called "tumblr sexyman," I will have to immediately re-evaluate myself and the art I'm making.

[renthony]

Things I think of when I hear "tumblr sexyman":

Cecil Night Vale, as previously mentioned.

Oncelercest, because if there aren't two skinny white men to ship, tumblr fandom will start shipping the skinny white man with himself.

Bill Cipher inexplicably being fanon'd as a white twink despite being a fucking triangle.

Everyone fawning over Marvel Loki while shoving every woman and Black person in the MCU aside.

The way nearly every single character in Hazbin Hotel has the same "tall and skinny" body type, along with all the criticisms Black audience members have made about the issues with Alastor's design.

The way tumblr got obsessed with the white man villain in Sinners.

[xplr-americasfavladies]

Genuine question. Does Stolas still require weapons made of angelic steel to get hurt because he is still technically in the royal family or is that just something that comes with his powers(meaning he can get hurt with normal weapons)?

Can he get hurt with normal weapons now?

Yes

No

Different theory (plz comment it)

Remaining time: 6 hours 14 minutes

[whineosaur]

i made this in 2024 and it somehow never popped off even though it is objectively funny

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

Me, finishing my cocktail: “Man, I should make that post. Really kick the hornet’s nest.”

Pip: “You should. Drinky post time!”

Me: “It’s gonna make people really mad.”

Pip: “Time to hurt some 🎶feeeeeeeliiiiiings🎵~!”

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

They gotta stop aging Robin up I swear to god. He’s like fully an adult man half the time and it fucking sucks. Make him recognizably a child or don’t bother including him at all. “But it makes people uncomfortable” yeah dude! Because it is! You’re never going to make it okay so make it interesting! Make it mean something! Like Robin is fully just a grooming story. I don’t mean sexually but it’s a narrative about a man convincing himself that his relationship with a kid is so special and unique that the normal boundaries between child and adult can be suspended, that the child’s circumstances and capabilities and needs are so extraordinary that they are rendered a kind of un-child, and that the scale of their eagerness and want counts as consent. Robin’s already traumatized, so what is there to lose?

Everyone wants Batman to be morally complicated so they make him a huge douchebag for no reason but flinch away from the actual parts of his character that are really troubling. The “is it wrong to have Robin?” question is always brought up and then neatly solved in a way that absolves Batman. But like. One of Batman’s most consistent character traits is that he’s able to convince himself of anything no matter how stupid.

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

Batman is a hyper-intelligent, hyper-powerful Sherlock Holmes character piloted by the ghost of a lonely child. He’s a genius who uses his intelligence to justify acting upon the emotional impulses of an 8 year old with horrific trauma and unmet needs. He uses children for his own emotional gratification and convinces himself that, while it might not be right, it’s not wrong enough to stop doing it.

And, well, many such cases!

Honestly I think the cognitive dissonance of like a 9 a year old Robin does so much more to establish Bruce as a psychologically complicated and morally gray character than any amount of the pointless assholery people just keep piling on to his personality.

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

TBH I actually think it’s even weirder in stories where the larger DCU and other child heroes exist.

The higher the stakes, the more Batman has to be depicted as The Most Specialist Smartest Boy In The Whole Entire Universe to justify pitting him against intergalactic psychic wizard tigers from beyond time. His importance scales with the stakes. Everyone has to be awed and impressed with him at all times.

Other sidekicks have psychologically fraught relationships with their mentors but somehow Robin and Batman are always weirder. Robin is written like he’s in an abusive cult but because it’s Batman leading it, this is treated like it’s ultimately a good thing.

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

Also the “and they all look Just Like Bruce” thing is so under-explored. Even in the more Bruce-critical stories it’s treated like a total coincidence that Batman keeps finding little blue-eyed, black-haired, light-skinned boys that all mysteriously share the same disease for which the only treatment is becoming an extension of Bruce Wayne and a mirror into which he can stare at himself.

Weird that this disease only affects kids who are Bruce’s Type™️ but ummm it’s fine because word of god says it was the best and only viable choice for them.

[xylophonetangerine]

I didn't even know they had a category for that

[innerchildabortionclinic]

Hollywood really could have that category

[innumerable-voices]

The thing is if the antikink crowd wasn't so ridiculously transmisogynistic I think we could have some really interesting conversations. If you browse the tag you'll mostly see people making really good points about kink and misogyny

"Choking for fifteen seconds leads to a significantly increased risk of a stroke" that's great information and part of why kink educators like me are constantly warning people about the seriously under stated risks of breath play

"Men often use kink as an excuse because they want to be able to hit and control their partners like their grandfather did" I've been fucking saying!

"And that's why we need to abolish kink and sex work and porn" OK you tripped at the last hurdle there but I think if we talked about it we could understand each other

[innumerable-voices]

"The stereotypical dominant woman in tight leather and holding a crop is often put forward as an empowering image but at it's core it's misogynistic, the woman is a sex object even if she's supposed to be in control" yes!

"The stereotypical image of a muscular aggressive black man taking your girlfriend and fucking her in a way that's demeaning to you and her is a based on an wildly racist idea that many people actually believe and that's caused the deaths of countless innocent racialised men" yes!

You're absolutely right and you should say it, now stay with me, trans women are seen as inherently predatory too, we also get killed for much the same reasons and many countries don't even consider it a hate crime, what's more when we're not being portrayed as needy bottoms desperate for any praise or affection we're shown as aggressive dominant tops ready to fuck anything both of these are ways of reducing us to sex objects even if the second is supposed to be in control

We are oppressed and targeted in so many of the same ways, why aren't we allies, why do you hate us

[innumerable-voices]

Sex work isn't going anywhere, it's no different than any other type of manual labor and it's been around literally longer than humans. You won't get it to go away by sticking your head in the sand and pretending it's a product of our society specifically. You aren't protecting anyone by trying to crack down on it or making it more illegal, you're just empowering those who would happily exploit others for their own gain. If you want to end sex trafficking and stop people from being forced or coerced into doing sex work against their will, if you want sex workers to be safe and protected then the way forward is legalising and regulating the industry. Let sex workers form unions and work in controlled environments with people in place to make sure they're OK. Plenty of people have said this better than I ever could

But the next step is 'kink' is just as old and just as inevitable. People get off on weird shit, always have always will. And in fact calling it a 'kink' or a 'fetish' is a step towards protecting people, it means that you can look up safety tutorials, you can find information to do things properly. Gathering in groups, having places that are semipublic to go where there's a better chance of you getting help if the person you're with turns out to be either badly educated or have bad intentions is a step towards protecting people. And I will be the very first to admit it's not perfect, imo the vast majority of kink is done badly, but that's why we need education instead of preaching shame and abstinence

[byjove]

Right before every election, I try to get people to go vote for legislation that mitigates the damage America is doing and brainless dumbasses in my replies are like “I refuse to participate in this evil system, the only solution is revolution.” and another year passes and more Killing People and Locking Them Up legislation comes into effect and there is also still no revolution. Not the fault of these online leftists but infuriating anyway. We need to abolish America and until we do, America will continue to work as an evil explorative force globally and you will continue to live here. The least you can do is try to go out and vote against sending unlimited money to Israel and stripping healthcare from the 340 million people who live here. If voting did nothing at all, the GOP wouldn’t be trying so desperately to meddle in elections and discourage people from voting. You live in a society. It might not be the one you want but you live in it. Call me a stupid lib or whatever but you’re doing fuck all to help anybody and being so smug about it.

It is one thing to not be able to vote and another thing entirely to brag about not voting when you could. That is not something to pat yourself on the back for.

[fnordseer5]

our idiotic ancestors used to believe stuff that's not true but luckily we've now figured out all the true things to believe in

[saurons-advice]

Who is this club loves psychosexual tortureeeeeeeeee!!!! Can I get a HEEEEELLL YEAAAAH? A YIPPEE for psychosexual torture? Can I get a WOOOOOOOO? A little bit of WOOOOOHOOO?