October 2011
14 year old:
Yes, I’m white. However, I have thought about that and please don’t imply that just because I’m younger than you that I’m immature. My thoughts regarding the orcs, elves, and racism are different though. If you’re talking about racism between colored people and white people there is one large difference. The orcs were savages where colored people were not.
Me (being nice):
If you don’t understand that racism can and does manifest itself in the dehumanization and demonization of people of color [The term you mean to use is POC, not ‘colored people’ which is offensive. POC was created to reappropriate the term in a positive way] and minorities, I don’t know how you can have critically considered this before.
Other person (being Nice):
As for maturity: I never called you immature, but I believe you have a few gaps in your worldly experience. Would you prefer that I assume you used a slur like “colored” knowingly and deliberately? That’d probably get you banned from this website, or at least a warning. I imagine it was just youthful ignorance. If that makes me sound supercilious, sorry, but you still got something to learn.
Mod (losing their shit because how dare people say that “colored people” is not okay to use anymore this is fucking 2011):
NOTE FROM MODERATOR: I doubt anyone meant any offense to anyone else on this thread, so do not get up in arms.
Do not turn this thread into a debate on the proper terminology. Do not accuse others of having prejudiced views. Do not jump to conclusions. If you feel offended by anything anyone has posted, step away from the thread.
I’ve already had to shut down more than one thread because of the above issues, so please stick to the question at hand. Thank you.
Gee, thanks Nanowrimo! That’s all I needed to know - that if someone says something offensive and I tell them it’s not the term they mean to use, and/or I get offended, I can go fuck myself because ~board harmony for the white people~ is more important.
I’m looking at the Nano forums guide right now:
“All other forums not marked as all ages have fewer restrictions: though you may use strong language we do not allow material that is abusive, pornographic, graphically violent, hateful, or threatening.”
So racial slurs don’t count as abusive or hateful. Good to know.
September 2011
14 year old:
Yes, I’m white. However, I have thought about that and please don’t imply that just because I’m younger than you that I’m immature. My thoughts regarding the orcs, elves, and racism are different though. If you’re talking about racism between colored people and white people there is one large difference. The orcs were savages where colored people were not.
Me (being nice):
If you don’t understand that racism can and does manifest itself in the dehumanization and demonization of people of color [The term you mean to use is POC, not ‘colored people’ which is offensive. POC was created to reappropriate the term in a positive way] and minorities, I don’t know how you can have critically considered this before.
Other person (being Nice):
As for maturity: I never called you immature, but I believe you have a few gaps in your worldly experience. Would you prefer that I assume you used a slur like “colored” knowingly and deliberately? That’d probably get you banned from this website, or at least a warning. I imagine it was just youthful ignorance. If that makes me sound supercilious, sorry, but you still got something to learn.
Mod (losing their shit because how dare people say that “colored people” is not okay to use anymore this is fucking 2011):
NOTE FROM MODERATOR: I doubt anyone meant any offense to anyone else on this thread, so do not get up in arms.
Do not turn this thread into a debate on the proper terminology. Do not accuse others of having prejudiced views. Do not jump to conclusions. If you feel offended by anything anyone has posted, step away from the thread.
I’ve already had to shut down more than one thread because of the above issues, so please stick to the question at hand. Thank you.
Gee, thanks Nanowrimo! That’s all I needed to know - that if someone says something offensive and I tell them it’s not the term they mean to use, and/or I get offended, I can go fuck myself because ~board harmony for the white people~ is more important.
Organize a multi layered protest to :
- withdraw most of your funds and go with credit unions or online banks that do not charge you exorbinant fees
- find every old panther, brown beret, queer rage, radical poc elder and start talking about starting community electoral drives TARGETING any elected official who doesn’t support a COMPLETE redress of banking fees REGARDLESS of party. If Jim q republican will vote that people be tried and pay … Fuck it I’ll cross that line. You really wanna save teh middle class , good ole boys CROSS OVER>
- FLOOD SAID ELECTED OFFICIALS WITH LETTERS DETAILING THEIR LOBBYING MISCONDUCT
- Call Warren Buffet and ask him to draft a financial plan don’t care if it works don’t care if it’s plausible but see what he says . PUBLISH IT EVERYWHERE
- hold a day where EVERYBODY EVERYBODY YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS WITHDRAWS MONEY a
- prepare community gardens etc for supporting each other when the goverment starts threatening you with shut downs and the like
- PAY FOR IT IN CASH and tell folks why
- MAKE SURE TO CONTACT BBC AL JAZEERA LE MONDE and ever non american paper and SHAME THEM into reporting it
Insta attention , allows folks small ways to participate that DO NOT FUCK TEHIR LIVES UP
If you have every intention of hurting your own financial standing and that of countless other people than I suggest you do what this girl is saying. There is horrible corruption in this world, but this goes against every shred of common sense.
Do you want the economy to improve, guys? Quit listening to garbage like this.
How ? How does it go against every shred of common sense. People are unemployed with no money already. And teh terrible corruption in the world isn’t about ” your own financial standing” it’s about people dying in the street.
Oh right this is garbage and not form many people who have held similar successful protests before. And hmmm…….. most of it isn’t even financial
it ‘s
make sure someone who doesn’t represent your interests isn’t elect
make sure peopel KNOW their political lives depend on improving our futures
getting rid of teh bullshit excuse of banks wont give us money so we should allow them to take eve more of it as the charge us usurious rates
and starting infrastructure to support folks who want to take such measures
If your only concern is your financial standing
( which by the by tell me how this affects and if you use the term credit rating I’ll know your self induldged underinformed nitwit who pays no attention because most people are talking about NOT HAVING CREDIT RATINGS WORTH A DAMN ANYWAY)
why are you even talking. Or is it cause I didn’t use terms like fiscal or resource generation or generating artificial market scarcity .
Or an over extended history lesson in how the dust bowl and monopolies led to depression and by forcing popular visible market change connected to politics would force govermental engagement?
But please more glib and unuseful responses to things you obviously don’t know or care much about so you cna be ever so clever in how stupid the rest of us are.
People over money.
Imaginary Feminism is monolithic.
This is very important. Anything said by anyone calling themselves a feminist can be assumed to be true of anyone else calling themselves a feminist. Some random thing Andrea Dworkin said in 1973 is tattooed on all IF’s chests backward so they can read it in the mirror. All IFs simultaneously subscribe to the beliefs of Valerie Solanas, Catharine McKinnon, Betty Dodson, Phyllis Schlafly, Twisty Faster, and that person who wrote those weird articles about Firefly. Or, I mean, all the beliefs you know about. Don’t feel over-pressured to actually learn anything about these people.
If an IF tells you she does not hold a particular belief, there are two possibilities, and only two:
- She’s lying. She’s got the SCUM Manifesto printed on her ceiling so it’s the first thing she sees when she wakes up, and you know it.
- She’s not really a feminist at all! And she didn’t know it, poor thing! She’s been suckered! Pat her on the head for being “one of the good ones” and welcome her into the MRA fold.
Imaginary Feminism is playing a zero-sum game against men.
“Women’s rights” are entirely obtained by reducing men’s rights. For example, when women got the vote, men saw the value of their votes decrease by half! There’s no justice in this world. And they want to push it further. The ultimate goal of IF is for women to have all of the rights and men to have none of the rights, and the only way to oppose them is to advocate the opposite. “Feminism helps men too” is a meaningless statement, because the very definition of feminism is opposition to men.This can be applied to just about every issue, although you will have to sorta squint at times. For example, when IFs ask for reproductive rights, that’s their way of evilly killing men’s babies… or evilly bearing men’s babies and then having the gall to want child support. Or when IFs ask to be protected from sexual harassment and assault, that’s their way of setting up men for false accusations!
You may be noticing at this point that everything IFs do is really about men. This is correct. For example, when IFs set up women’s shelters, they’re doing that specifically to exclude men—the whole “sheltering women” thing is kind of a side effect. When IFs advocate for more representation of women in media and government, this really means less men. The actual impacts of these things on women are secondary.
IF has no real grievances.
Women got the vote in 1920, and since then, IF has been totally irrelevant. The truth is that our current society is totally ruled by women. For example, IFs claim that women earn less than men, but the truth is that men do all their work to support women—every woman has a supporting man and spends her spare time on the couch eating bon-bons. [What even is a bon-bon? Is it a chocolate thing? I’ve seriously never had one.] Or IFs claim that women are kept out of high-status professions, when really women just don’t like being powerful or successful and don’t choose those paths.
Worst of all, IFs claim that women are subject to harassment, intimidation, and violence, when a cursory glance at crime statistics will show you that men are also victims of violence. This makes violence against women okay, because as long as violence is something that happens to everyone, it’s kind of a non-issue and we should all just suck it up. Plus, the fact that women sometimes abuse men proves that women are evil anyway.
Imaginary Feminism is virulently opposed to sex.
IFs hate porn because it’s sexy. IFs hate sex work because it involves sex. IFs hate pick-up Game because it gets men laid. IFs hate women being sexy because, you know, sexy. IFs are sticklers about consensual sex because asking for consent is never sexy, and because they know that if men have to ask for consent they won’t get laid. IFs favor a world of gray coveralls where women are never troubled by men’s baser needs.
There are three possible explanations for this, which aren’t contradictory in the slightest:
- IFs are uggos who can’t get laid, so they want to ruin the fun for everybody else.
- IFs are actually very traditional ladies who want people to only have sex after making a major chocolate-and-diamonds commitment, and they’re pissed that men are getting away with having casual sex.
- IFs, like all women, have no sex drives of their own. But unlike other women, they don’t understand that they’re supposed to sell their sex to men for money or ego boosts or to award a particularly deserving man.
Imaginary Feminism is recklessly sexual.
Forget everything I just said. IF is all about letting sluts be sluts. IF believes that women should walk down the streets with their boobies out, fuck tons of men and run away without any consequences. IF just wants to enable hypergamy, which is women’s desire to fuck successful, confident, and attractive men, which is horrible of women. So maybe it’s most correct to say that IFs want to deprive nice decent guys of the sex they deserve, but bed-hop relentlessly between aggressive hyper-masculine Alpha Males. That’s the real meaning of “sexual empowerment”—chasing their biological urge toward hypergamy.
IFs also want to tease men with their bodies, put themselves in compromising positions with men, and then get out of having sex. This doesn’t accomplish any basic female goals, it’s just funny.
IFs love to shame men into silence.
Any time an IF calls you a “sexist,” “misogynist,” “chauvinist,” or anything along those lines, she is merely trying to shame you into silence, and you shouldn’t fall for that old trick. In fact, the shaming language just got you out of listening to anything else in her argument! Anything an IF says is invalid in toto if she failed you to address you as “Gentle Scholar.”
Particularly note the old IF trick of acting “angry.” She does this to shut you up and intimidate you. Women never actually experience anger. Feel free to test this by needling and insulting her repeatedly, and watch how her facade of reasonable answers to your questions quickly crumbles as she gives in to acting “angry,” an IF’s last and basest resort.
Remember: if anything, ever, makes you feel bad about yourself and your actions, it’s because people are evilly trying to make you feel bad! Don’t fall for it.
Any time a man does something good or a woman does something bad, this disproves Imaginary Feminism.
Well, duh. The entire thesis of IF is “women are better than men… just better,” so this is a direct contradiction.
IFs are just old-fashioned proper ladies at heart.
You know what an IF really wants? She wants a man to commit to her and take care of her, kill mastodons for her and give her lots of babies. She’s just going about it all wrong.Amazing article by The Pervocracy
OMG those linked Firefly livejournals are GOLDEN.
Sigh.
Today in the neighborhood coffee shop, I spotted a poster made by a local designer for an upcoming music festival. Hence the sigh.
A tomahawk and feathers had somehow made their way onto the poster for a West Coast band consisting of three bearded white guys. As I stood in front of the poster, noting the word ‘primitive’ in the write-up below the piece, I looked over and saw a blond girl with a Pendleton-style bag and a guy wearing a knitted Cowichan sweater… or maybe a look-alike he bought at The Bay. Another sigh.
[ Editor’s note: the poster in question does not appear anywhere in the body of this post (though it was later shared by someone else, in the comments that follow); what images do appear here were taken from other sources as a way to illustrate the author’s general arguments. We’re sorry for any confusion this has caused. ]
Headdress a la hipster
Non-native hipsters, I know that native imagery is trendy right now, that your friends are wearing it and the blogs and magazines you read are telling you to join in the fun. But when you and I look at those dreamcatcher earrings at the mall, I’m pretty sure we see different things. So I’d like to take a few minutes of your time to share my perspective, as a real live native person. Maybe in exchange for wearing my culture on your chest, you could allow me to suggest a slight re-jigging of your fashion trend.
I come from a family of artists, so I appreciate the aesthetic value of our artwork. My family is full of carvers, weavers, dancers, and singers. I’m lucky that way. But it isn’t just luck that allowed these artforms to be practiced today, it is years of political struggle and resistance.
For close to 100 years, in an effort to get rid of “the Indian problem” in Canada, the Indian Act made it illegal for us to practice our traditions. You see, non-native hipsters, your ancestors wanted to obliterate us in order to clear up the land for colonial expansion, and getting rid of our artforms and cultural practices was at the heart of those efforts. It was only the mid-1950s that this was written out of Canadian law, so that my relatives were no longer imprisoned for using our masks, blankets and other regalia in ceremonies.
I know you probably didn’t learn this in school, but it is a part of the local history that accompanies native culture. Each Indigenous culture around the world has its own history of suppression, its own story of resisting attempts to obliterate them so that industrial capitalism could flourish. Hey, you in the sweater — do you know what it took to maintain Cowichan knitting practices in the face of residential schools, intense poverty and assimilative policies?
Separating native people from our culture, and the politics and history from the images, serves to erase us. It makes it easier for native people like me, and the woman who knitted that sweater, to remain marginalized and silent while our imagery becomes a consumer object as part of mainstream culture. This is an old tactic, part of broader political efforts to forget the history of colonialism upon which this country is founded. Sports teams, band names and brand names which use Indigenous words and icons contribute to turning a marginalized people into a commodity.
This separation of imagery from politics doesn’t just happen here at a local level, but internationally as well. My ancestor’s ceremonial masks are in museums in Germany, England and New York. Mini totem poles are being manufactured in China and then sold in tourist shops in Seattle, Honolulu and Toronto. In the 1800s, they used to put real, live native people on display as well, remnants of a supposedly dying race. But now it is only our hard-won cultural icons and practices, like dreamcatchers and sweatlodges, that are of interest.
So a tomahawk is not just a tomahawk. It is a symbol of my silence. It is a history of resistance turned into a symbol of cool, devoid of any meaning or political significance. As the write-up below the poster notes, images like tomahawks are seen as ‘primitive,’ as are the ceremonies, laws and ways of life native people still practice.
It is no coincidence that when I go to indie music festivals, I see a whole lot of Cowichan sweaters and not a lot of Cowichan people. Yet it is with great surprise whenever I see a native artist or native musicians – actual Indigenous people – included in such mainstream cultural events. It is not the norm.
Likely, many of you won’t care about all this: apathy has had a long-term love affair with consumerism. It’s a classic co-dependent relationship. But a few of you might ask why you should care, what’s in it for you? Well, for starters, I am trying to save you some energy. Maintaining your hipster culture requires a significant amount of effort in order to deny or forget the history I’m talking about. And in fact, it is far from ‘history.’ On the West Coast, we are constantly reminded about the unfinished business of land claims in this province. The current struggle over the Juan de Fuca Trail is a prime example, where elders from local First Nations are speaking out against development.
Consumer culture depends on you divorcing the politics behind native imagery from the history of struggle it has taken for it, and us, to be here. This is an active forgetting, requiring you to spend energy keeping current issues separate and apart from the images you emblazon on your t-shirts, the ‘tribal’ designs you get tattooed on your shoulder or the native names you use for your bands (Geronimo being a good example).
It isn’t necessarily that there is a problem with wearing Indigenous art or symbols – in fact, my family’s success as artists depends on people like yourself buying their jewelry, t-shirts or masks. The challenge is maintaining a connection between the imagery and the practice of our cultural wealth (including artwork, language, ceremonies, and law) and the history and politics that have ensured their survival. So here’s what I suggest.
Why not take another trend and put it to use here – I’m thinking here about the local food craze. ‘Eating local’ involves creating connections on a small scale, lessening the distance between the ground where your food was grown, and your plate. It involves meeting your local farmer at the market, buying a potato they grew themselves and picked that morning, and eating it for dinner that night. Why not take these same principles and put them to work with native imagery and artwork? Rather than buying a Pendleton-style bag mass-produced overseas and sold at Urban Outfitters around the world, why not buy a t-shirt, sweater or earrings from your local Indigenous craftsperson. Meet them, find out where they’re from, and the history behind their particular craft. In the process, you will be educating yourself about local Indigenous history and political struggles, and putting food on the tables of local artisans.
I know this isn’t a complete solution to cultural appropriation, but it’s a start. And with this local approach, you’ll be better informed and can still look cool while doing it.
An excellent post by Sarah Hunt. Hai hai & hychga siem!
ALL OF THIS.
So apparently ijustforgot is still following me?
After displaying a huge amount of JUST. NOT. GETTING. IT. Despite a whole lot of GETTING TOLD.
Also, history fail re: the nature of the 19th century and the roots of appropriation. Apparently not grokking Beyond Victoriana despite having been given links. Not getting what appropriation is and is about.
I mean, maybe it’s cool that she’s lurking and maybe it shows that she’s still willing to learn. I guess.
- 1) Put your iTunes on shuffle. Give me the first 6 songs that pop up.
- 2) If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
- 3) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.
- 4) What do you think about most?
- 5) What does your latest text message from someone else say?
- 6) Do you sleep with or without on?
- 7) What's your strangest talent?
- 8) Girls.... (finish the sentence); Boys.... (finish the sentence)
- 9) Ever had a poem or song written about you?
- 10) When is the last time you played the air guitar?
- 11) Do you have any strange phobias?
- 12) Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?
- 13) What's your religion?
- 14) If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?
- 15) Do you perfer to be behind the camera or in front of it?
- 16) Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?
- 17) What was the last lie you told?
- 18) Do you believe in karma?
- 19) What does your screen name mean?
- 20) What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?
- 21) Who is your celebrity crush?
- 22) Have you ever gone skinny dipping?
- 23) How do you vent your anger?
- 24) Do you have a collection of anything?
- 25) Do you perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online?
- 26) Are you happy with the person you've become?
- 27) What's a sound you hate; sound you love?
- 28) What's your biggest "what if"?
- 29) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?
- 30) Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.
- 31) Smell the air. What do you smell?
- 32) What's the worst place you have ever been to?
- 33) Choose: East Coast or West Coast?
- 34) Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?
- 35) To you, what is the meaning of life?
- 36) Define: Art.
- 37) Do you believe in luck?
- 38) What's the weather like right now?
- 39) What time is it?
- 40) Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?
- 41) What was the last book you read?
- 42) Do you like the smell of gasoline?
- 43) Do you have any nicknames?
- 44) What was the last movie you saw?
- 45) What's the worst injury you've ever had?
- 46) Have you ever caught a butterfly?
- 47) Do you have any obsessions right now?
- 48) What's your ?
- 49) Ever had a rumor spread about you?
- 50) Do you believe in magic?
- 51) Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?
- 52) What is your astrological sign?
- 53) Do you save money or spend it?
- 54) What's the last thing you purchased?
- 55) Love or lust?
- 56) In a relationship?
- 57) Are you a virgin?
- 58) Can you touch your nose with your tongue?
- 59) Where were you yesterday?
- 60) Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?
- 61) Are you wearing socks right now?
- 62) What's your favorite animal?
- 63) What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?
- 64) Where is your best friend?
- 65) Spit or swallow?(;
- 66) What is your heritage?
- 67) What were you doing last night at 12 AM?
- 68) What do you think is Satan's last name?
- 69) Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?
- 70) Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?
- 71) You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?
- 72) You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?
- 73) You can only have one of these things: trust or love.
- 74) What's a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?
- 75) What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?
- 76) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?
- 77) How can I win your heart?
- 78) Can insanity bring on more creativity?
- 79) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?
- 80) What size shoes do you where?
- 81) What would you want to be written on your tombstone?
- 82) What is your favorite word?
- 83) Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word: heart.
- 84) What is a saying you say a lot?
- 85) What's the last song you listened to?
- 86) Basic question: what's your favorite color/colors?
- 87) What is your current desktop picture?
- 88) If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?
- 89) What would be a question you'd be afraid to tell the truth on?
- 90) One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren't really doing anything, they're just standing around your bed. What do you do?
- 91) You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what's even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?
- 92) You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?
- 93) You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
- 94) You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?
- 95) You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
- 96) Do you have any relatives in jail?
- 97) Have you ever thrown up in the car?
- 98) Ever been on a plane?
- 99) If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?
- 100) Give me your top 5 favorite blogs on Tumblr.
Note: This was written in reaction to the “Mommy, I am your baby” post that is currently circulating around Tumblr. Thought it was about time we hear from the person who is actually self-aware and not just the clump of cells residing inside of them.
Hi, Fetus,
My name is Bria and I am the person whose uterus you are currently residing in. I am 28 years old and I actually have beautiful brown eyes and brown hair. Like, right now. Not “will” in nine months or so, but have it currently. I already have one child. His name is Ryatt and he has my beautiful brown eyes and brown hair. He is three years old and loves Thomas the Tank Engine. You? You don’t love anything, because right now, you are really just a clump of cells that has no cognitive development. You can’t love anything. Not me, not Thomas the Tank Engine, not flowers and birdies and sunshine. You get all your sustenance from me and cannot live on your own outside of my uterus.
But enough about you, let’s talk about me. Like I already said, I am 28 years old. This puts me in the majority age range for people who get abortions. (People in their 20s account for more than half of all abortions; people aged 20–24 obtain 33% of all abortions, and people aged 25–29 obtain 24%.) Like I said, I already have one child to care for (like 61% of people who obtain an abortion) and I currently have no place of my own and am living with my mentally and emotionally abusive mother. I have no job and don’t even qualify for social services because I have not lived in the state I am currently residing in for over 3 months. This is also pretty common among people who obtain abortions - 42% have incomes below 100% of the federal poverty level and 27% have incomes between 100–199% of the federal poverty level. I am looking for a job, but the economy is tough and there is not a lot out there. It’s even tougher for me because I was forced to drop out of college due to mental health issues that I am still dealing with today. So I have no college degree, which qualifies me only for menial jobs in retail or food service. Because these jobs pay so very little, I would never be there to raise you and would have to rely on others. This would probably be a complete stranger at a second-rate daycare center, as I am unwilling to leave you with my mother, have no other family and I can’t really afford to put you in a fancy, bells-and-whistles daycare.
These are all actually pretty common reasons why people obtain abortions. Three-fourths of people cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner.
Because I know when I am supposed to get my period, I knew I was pregnant almost right away. Turns out, this is pretty common, too, as over 61% of abortions are performed at less than 9 weeks from a person’s last menstrual period (which would be about 7 weeks from conception). At this point, you really have no thoughts or feelings because, remember when I said you were a clump of cells? I meant it. Those are pictures of what an abortion looks like when done between 5 and 6 weeks. Pretty stark contrast from the gory images that are normally shoved down your throat, huh, fetus?
And, fetus, while I may be a little sad after you are gone, a lot of really smart people have done a lot of really intensive studies and they have concluded that “post abortion syndrome” as a wide-spead occurrence is myth. Also, some more really smart people have assured me that abortion is pretty much one of the safest medical procedures I can undergo in the United States today and, that when performed in the first trimester, it poses little to no long-term risk to future pregnancies, should I ever decide to become pregnant again.
Fetus, as you can see, this is really the best decision for me and for the beautiful little boy who is sleeping with his arms curled around me. I want to go to school to become a sign language interpreter so I can hopefully get a place of my own and not have to rely on other people for my food and shelter. I want to provide a good, healthy, stable life for the child I already have and for any children I may have in the future. And I have thought about it a lot (because abortion is not something anyone enters into lightly) and I could not do that while caring for another child. I would apologize, but there is really nothing to apologize for. I am doing what I know in my heart is the absolute best thing for me and my son. You will not feel any pain, as you are not able to do that until about 24 weeks old, and you don’t even know you exist, so I doubt that you know that you are now gone.
Every abortion is just…
One more person exercising their right to bodily autonomy and self-determination based on what they feel is the best choice for them.
REBLOG IF YOU ARE PRO-CHOICE.
(All statistics, unless otherwise linked, have been provided by the Guttmacher Institute.)
Seeing as how I’ve done both the top ten for best and worst superhero costume redesigns, I feel obligated to put my money where my artistic mouth is and take a stab at fixing or updating some of these costumes. I’ve picked five here based on:
- It’s a particularly awful outfit that doesn’t fit the character, or
- It’s a solid character who just needs some updating or tweaking
I’ll list these in order of “reboot depth:”
5. Starfire
What’s wrong: In the wake of DC’s “new 52” this felt like a no-brainer. Starfire is a decent character who’s always, in my opinion, gotten the short end of the costume stick. I get that she’s supposed to be sexually liberated and somewhat polyamorous, and that’s fine, but dressing like a John Carter’s Princess of Mars-themed stripper doesn’t cut it. Really, up until the Teen Titans cartoon she’s always been in the most awkward and impractical getups for someone fighting crime.
The Fix: I went for the simple route and took some notes from the cartoon (notably the skirt). I wanted to make sure it kept the bubbly, innocent feeling of the character while also hinting at some power (with the exposed arms here). The overall effect is meant to convey someone who’s tough, cheerful and comfortable flying around in the air.
4. Dr. Strange
What’s wrong: I love Dr. Strange, but he’s always had the worst outfits. For a guy who basically hangs out in his house in the West Village, he seems to always wear the most ostentatious getups. He’s not an alien from another planet or from some culture that would dress that way, he’s a grown man who became a wizard well into adulthood. Nothing wrong with having some style while you’re maintaining the balance of the mystic planes.
The Fix: Two parts Vincent Price, one part Christopher Lee and one part Dr. Orpheus, this Dr. Strange is still magical, but with a more coherent design direction.
3. Ms. Marvel
What’s Wrong: Simply put, I think it’s embarrassing for Marvel to showcase a prominent character like Ms. Marvel and have her wearing that outfit. It’s just so tacky, and tells us nothing about the character. Basically they just changed the colors of Jean Grey’s Phoenix costume and exposed more skin. Come on, guys.
The Fix: Since her origins are ostensibly tied with Captain Marvel, I decided to go a route that’s more along the lines of the Ultimate Marvel version of that character, where her abilities come from alien technology rather than vague space magic. The notion that she’s, for example, permanently bound with this technology that she doesn’t fully understand can make for some interesting stories. There can be some potential with this character again with just a little bit of tweaking.
2. Wonder Woman
What’s Wrong: Wonder Woman, in my opinion, is a character that’s always been on the cusp of being really neat but never quite making it like Superman or Batman. Although a feminist pop icon, her origins are too tied up with creator WIlliam Marston’s obsession with bondage. Because of this (and an all-too-frequent parade of poor or sexist writing), she’s never had a solid, progressive design. The 21st century can update this character.
The Fix: One part Thor, three parts Xena. I’d push the mythological angle further. Just as nobody thinks of Thor as “Superman with a hammer” I don’t want Wonder Woman to be “girl Superman,” as she’s sometimes seen. I’ve also tweaked her origin slightly, making her a more literal “statue come to life.” This isn’t as extreme as it seems: in regular canon, Wonder Woman’s origin was that she was formed out of clay by the queen of the Amazons, and imbued with the powers of the Greek Gods. This, I think offers more story possibilities if she’s less literally human, physically. Her personality would remain the same (nothing more fun than the perspective of an Amazon in the modern world), but we now have an added Pinnochio-style layer.
The costume change is mostly conservative. Because of the strong fetish associations (and overall impracticality for a fighting Amazon), I’ve removed the lasso in favor of more traditional Greek weapons. The overall effect is intended to push Wonder Woman’s core themes further while making her also stand out as more than just “the female superhero.”
1. Superman
What’s Wrong: Since his creation, Superman’s drifted from being a progressive champion for the common man to a patriotic middle-America boyscout who represents the establishment and traditional values. When he was developed in the 30s, Superman was very much a Depression-era hero, mostly going after villains like crooked money lenders and saving people who were being abused by the system. His superpowers came from the fact that he was from a more advanced society, and his morals too were because he was simply a brainier, more sophisticated guy. During and following WW2 and into the Cold War, though, he became an official symbol for American values in particular (it was originally “Truth and Justice,” without “the American Way”). He was now not just an alien, but an alien raised by simple Kansas farmers and his abilities had a more generic “superpower” explanation. This is all fine, really, but I think the original concept is more compelling these days.
The Fix: ”Superman: the Man of Tomorrow, Strange Visitor from Another World.” I really want to push that. First off, Kryptonians should actually look like aliens and not white people. Here I have Kal-El from a race of beings who are essentially post-human (in that they’ve long since merged with technology). They’re strange to our mortal eyes but mean well. I’d keep the “destroyed planet” origin but more heavily emphasize the “non-interference” part of Superman’s mission statement.
If you’ll remember from the 70s movie, his father Jor-El told him he was forbidden to interfere with the course of human history, but when you think about it, that’s kind of vague. What I’ve done is added a Star Trek or Uatu the Watcher kind of prime directive to all advanced species: Kal-El can’t let people know that he’s an alien, nor can he openly interact with them using advanced technology. Still, he’s a compassionate guy and wants to help, so he takes the form of “Superman” to inspire the mortals in a constructive way. Also, the notion that he can take on different forms means that the Clark Kent secret identity need not be as bad as it currently is.
The costume redesign holds to the basic themes but makes it a little more working class. The buttons at the top are meant to invoke overalls, and the sleeves are cut a little higher for someone working with their hands. I’ve removed the spandex and gone with looser fitting slacks, while keeping a short cape and boots, since he’s still an adventurer.
Overall I want to evoke a classic Superman feel while making it a little more modern in its exploration of the sci fi themes. He’s still basically the same guy: an alien from another world looking to fight injustice, but without the overt patriotism and a quirkier execution of the secret identity.
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So there you have it. I’ve hope you’ve enjoyed my superhero costume trilogy!
That Superman is… probably the best redo of Superman I have ever seen, both in looks and backstory. Bravo!
cool stuffff
female-fronted crusty hardcore punx
that tackles rape culture and other hard topics
and we’re going to be called Trigger Warning
being able to take time off from work/school (especially for long periods like w/ occupy wall street), being able to get arrested without getting deported (which is what happens to non-citizens when they get arrested), not having disabilities that prevent you from being there, not having children to take care of
you get the idea
sometimes i get annoyed with activists who assume that everyone can go to these things
