Taking Chances

theconcealedweapon:

faqoloqy:

If you’re not amazed by the stars on a clear night then we won’t work.

(via smoak-luthor)

hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon:

batsarebetterthanpeople:

batsarebetterthanpeople:

here’s my hot take about my generation and people younger than me (I’m 22 years old)

The reason current teenagers and people in their really early 20s are conservative on accident and have such shitty takes on the internet is because our generation was much more sheltered than previous generations and because we were raised to be ok with orwellian servailence and that is 100% the fault of our parents, Reagan Era kidnapping panics, and the rise of technology all coming together to prevent us from doing the sketchy shit that sends parents into panic mode but which is also completely fundemental to childhood development. If your parents had even a crumb of money to their name and even a shred of free time they started tracking your phone as soon as it was possible to. I did not experience this because my parents are actively trying to live like it’s the 1990s and still have not gotten cell phones of their own, and did not let me have one until I was 18 years old and it was no longer their choice, but literally over half of my friends in middle and high school had their phones tracked by their parents at some point or other, and we would occasionally find this out, not because their parents told them, but when we were trying to do the aforementioned sketchy shit and their parent’s car would pull up. And I would, like a reasonable person after finding this out, encourage my friends to just leave their phones at home, and their response would be “What if I get kidnapped” or “My parents are just trying to keep me safe”

This in my estimation has lead to a combination of kids being terminally online because they do have internet access and are better at deleting search history than their parents think they are, but don’t have the freedom to go out and do shit without their parents’ knowledge or consent, so they have the most privacy from the people who control their lives while they’re on the internet, and kids not having the real world experiences they should have, not knowing how to connect with other people irl, not feeling comfortable leaving the house because of the horror story lies their parents told them to make them ok with the surveillance they were inflicting on their kids. Kids these days are growing up in the fucking panopticon when they should be out in the woods playing with knives or stealing cigarettes from their older sibling and going out to an empty parking lot to smoke them or whatever and that shit is sticking with them into adulthood. Things that were “tee hee we could get in trouble isn’t this so fun and daring” in the 1990s and 2000s have become in the 2010s and 2020s things that are “If I do that without texting my parents some sort of lie to excuse where my location is my parent’s car will pull up and I will get grounded for the next two weeks.”

Like even when I was 19 I had a 16 year old friend who would volunteer their time at a food shelf and that’s how we knew each other. We would talk about dungeons and dragons together, and the game store was 4 blocks from the food shelf. One day we left the food shelf earlier than they had told their parents they would and they got punished for that. We were literally just going to look at dungeons and dragons miniatures and dice, which was self evident if you could see where we started and how far we walked and where too. I have to assume that this isn’t uncommon. It’s wrong, but it’s not uncommon.

Ok it has become apparent to me that people do not understand what I mean by conservative on accident.

Nobody my age is voting republican. Let’s be clear on that. With the exception of a small minority of gamer gaters and people who were raised in actual cults most people my age are either commies or good liberals who votes straight blue down the ticket. This is because of the greta thunberg effect. We’re all afraid of dying of thirst because there’s no water anymore at the age of 35. Wealthy white children are no longer safe with the republican party which has become less of a political party and more of a death cult, and white children are less wealthy than they used to be (I specify white because POC by in large never voted for the party of the southern strategy for obvious reasons). We as a generation are so insanely blue that they’re trying to raise the voting age to 25 about it.

This liberalism and party affiliation doesn’t preclude them from being conservative on accident. What I mean by that is… Well

No kink at pride is a great example. The assumption that pride should exist at all makes them think that they’re immune to conservative logic but they’re still trying to enforce a dominant ideology onto a minority group. That person who made the tweet about how you shouldn’t have sex in houses where there are children in the other room and if you can’t avoid it you’re a sex addict. That’s a great example of like straight up puritanism coming out of the mouth of someone who proports themselves to be a leftist

If you ever see a discourse that feels like an obvious psyop as an adult and you can’t understand why these supposed leftist youths are falling for it it’s because that kid has never had sex in the woods and had to try to buy plan b under their parent’s nose. My generation is dumb about sex. We’re dumb about drugs. We’re dumb about theft. We moralize literally everything. We’re so dumb about stranger danger that we never learned how to community organize so while the vast vast majority of us are crushed by existential dread about debt and climate change but we never do anything about it because we just don’t know how to organize because we’re raised to see everyone else as a threat and we never went to or organized parties as teens because our parents would always know and stop us.

They managed to invent a generation that hates capitalism but fully buys into individualism and who is supportive of queer people and way less monogamous than previous generations but who still buys into the base assumptions of the nuclear family and thinks sex is evil. The levels of politics going on here are way weirder and stupider and more complicated than “young people vote republican and watch Fox news”

I’ve never seen anybody explain it so well

(via sashaforthewin)

lasesmed:

dykefaggotry:

it’s like. I used to think my autism didn’t really include the need for routine but what I’ve found is that when it’s a Planned divergence in routine that’s fine (going on trips etc) and when I can Choose to divert my routine bc I know I can handle it that’s also fine (like deciding to go out for drinks or deciding to go to a movie or deciding to change dinner plans). but when Other People or Circumstances change my routine without prior warning that’s when my brain goes absolutely fucking insane.

and I feel like that’s not talked about enough bc I’ve always seen “needs routine” represented as someone who is unwilling to divert from their routine when like. no it’s absolutely fine just as long as I’m the one deciding when and how to divert it or I’ve been given plenty of advance warning that it’ll be changing.

A cat may go in a box of its own accord but it does not want to be put in a box

(via lailaliquorice)

lookninjas:

prismatic-bell:

silverhand:

the-cimmerians:

right now it’s almost halfway through 2023, and 2024 is an election year in the US. I have started to see a growing proliferation of posts suggesting that there is no difference between the republican and democratic parties–the exact same kind of posts I saw an awful lot of before the last major election here. I am unfollowing folks who post or reblog these sort of posts, as I consider these posts to be fascist propaganda framed as leftist discourse, designed to suppress anti-fascist votes and voters. 

Prepare yourself to vote for Biden now, because the only other option is someone who will make 2016-2020 look like a picnic.

You work with what you’ve got, not what you wish you had.

I detest Biden more with every passing day (and he was not in my top 10 candidates in 2020). 2024 will be an election between:

• Biden/The Former Guy
• Biden/DeSantis
• Biden/Republican Fascist to be Named Later

No Labels is an op. It’s being funded by unknown parties to defeat Biden and the Democrats. Their election scenarios are fantasy football for political junkies.

No Third Party has a road anywhere outside statewide offices (Bernie is the exception that proves the rule, and he’s a Democrat for all intents and purposes).

Arguably the rosiest scenario is that TFG breaks with the Republicans to form his own party and tanks any chance the Republicans have, but that’s not looking as likely as it did two years ago.

If you’re pissed, get involved in your local elections. Ensure that no position is running unopposed (and that includes if you’ve got a conserva-Dem somewhere now–primary them).

Get the House back in the Democratic hands (unless you’re up for two more years of this only with MTG as Speaker this time). Increase the margin in the Senate (and send Selema to her post-senate career). Make sure your school board isn’t full of flat-earthers. Wake sure your county counsel isn’t going to shut down your libraries if they have a book someone doesn’t like.

As Stonekettle says, if you want a better country, but a better citizen.

There’s a reason we call it a civic DUTY, not a civic privilege.

Starting mid-April I’ll be posting to-do lists and action items for people who’ve never gotten involved before. One party wants you dead. FIGHT.

Speaking as a Michigan resident:  Look at the laws being passed in Michigan.  Now look at the laws being passed in Florida.  Spot the difference?  That’s because Michigan is being governed by the Democratic Party, and Florida is being governed by the Republican Party.  That’s the difference.  They’re different parties.  It is not the same.

You want what we’ve got?  Vote for it.

(And you want Michigan to stay the way it is and not slide backwards into the shit we had to deal with with Rick Snyder, or even just the way it was when the House and Senate were Republican-controlled?  Keep fucking voting.)

(via deadbiwrites)

absentlyabbie:

bittenwrath:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

listen I ended up regretting saying anything about this on my old blog because people will interpret literally any and every statement maliciously on this hellsite but I want to start like. a helpline for people who are like “hey I pretty much only read YA but I’m like 22 now and don’t relate to teenagers as much, it’s such a shame that there are no fun books written for adults :(” because boy HOWDY are there some fun books for adults 

maybe I’ll start a big google doc or something one day but for now *deep breath*

• The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - absolutely BUCKWILD romance with a dash of telekinesis; nonstop high society drama and misunderstanding from start to finish, happy ending guaranteed. STRONGLY recommend if you, like me, are a basic bitch who enjoys a bit of Pride and Prejudice. 
• Binti (Nnedi Okorafor) - a math prodigy runs away from Earth to become the first of her people to attend a prestigious university in space, but shit gets real when a crew of hostile jellyfish aliens attack her ship. 
• Chilling Effect (Valerie Valdes) - a spaceship captain and her crew take on a series of convoluted missions in order to rescue the captain’s sister, who’s been frozen and held for ransom. 
• The City of Brass (S.A. Chakraborty) - an 18th century conwoman and a mysterious djinn team up to go looking for a legendary hidden city.
• The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin) - a scrappy bunch of Chosen Ones have to band together to defend New York City (which is very much alive) from a huge ass monster. 
• The Empress of Forever (Max Gladstone) - a lady supervillain gets blasted into space and meets an even bigger, planet-destroying evil space empress. literally WHAT is not to like?
• The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - high fantasy royal drama about a woman making her way to power in the wake of a political marriage that left without friends or allies. 
• Escaping Exodus (Nicky Drayden) - a space-faring clan are creating their latest spaceship from the insides of a giant monster when absolutely everything goes to shit (as things are wont to do in science fiction stories). 
• Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (Kai Cheng Thom) - a trans girl runs away to the big city, where she uses her martial arts skills to team up with other trans woman and form a vigilante gang to defend their own when police look the other way. a fascinating blend of poetry and prose and magical realism. 
• Finna (Nino Cipri) - two exes working at an IKEA have to team up to save a customer who disappeared through one of those interdimensional portals that all IKEAs have laying around. you know how it is.
• Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) - come on, you’ve heard about this one. it’s the one with the lesbian space necromancers? yeah, that’s the one. you got it.
• In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard) - a Beauty and the Beast retelling based in science fiction and Vietnamese fantasy, featuring a young woman falling in love with a “beast” who’s actually a motherly dragon after becoming a tutor to the dragon’s two powerful children. 
• Jade City (Fonda Lee) - urban fantasy gang wars, pitting one magically enhanced family against rivals and a new drug that lets anyone mimic their abilities. 
  
• The Library of the Unwritten (A.J. Hackwith) - hell’s librarian gets sent on a quest to find a runaway soul. 
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Becky Chambers) - aka one of my favorite books ever, essentially slice of life science fiction following an interspecies crew of deep space truckers making the longest and most complicated delivery of their lives. very warm and fuzzy. 
• Mort (Terry Pratchett) - one of many MANY Discworld books, but a very good one to start with, following the adventures of a boy named Mort after he’s taken on as Death’s apprentice. you know, like the Grim Reaper? that Death. 
• River of Teeth (Sarah Gailey) - historical AU in which the United States imported and domesticated hippos in the Mississippi River; follows a crew of hippo-riding crooks and hooligans as they plan one heck of a caper. 
• Space Opera (Catherynne Valente) - a washed up rock star and his old bandmate get roped into performing in an intergalactic singing competition that will determine the fate of the entire planet Earth. full of aliens, attempted assassination, art, and emotional turmoil. 
• This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone) - time-travelling assassins from rival factions fall in love in a poetic and breathless story that spans centuries and reality. 
• Under the Pendulum Sun (Jeannette Ng) - fairyland is real, and Victorian England is sending missionaries. a woman and her brother attempt to bring the good word to the fair folk, but start to suspect the queen might just be screwing with their heads. PEAK gothic horror with a creepy fairy twist. 
• Witchmark (C.L. Polk) - a doctor and former soldier with magical powers of healing is trying to live a quiet life and avoid his controlling, aristocratic family’s plans for him, only to get tangled up in a massive political conspiracy when one of his patients mysterious dies. accompanying him in his investigation is a mysterious and gorgeous faerie man. romance ensues. 

• The First Sister by Linden A Lewis. Three protagonists and all of them queer, a fun space opera. It’s not out yet, but I can tell you it’s really, really good. I highly recommend
• Gods of Jade and Shadow another Silvia Moreno-Garcia book. It takes place in 1920s Mexico and has Mayan gods. A fun breezy book.
• Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep. If you like YA fantasy but want a little more swearing, violence and sex then this novel is for you.
• The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle Jensen. This one I really enjoyed. If you like the winner’s curse then you’ll like this book.

Books I haven’t read but I’ve heard good things about

• Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson. This one isn’t out it but I believe it’s got a black protagonist.
• Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri. An Indian inspired fantasy novel. I haven’t read this one but I’ve heard good things about it.
• Rage of Dragons by Evan Winters. A black fantasy novel.
• The Unspoken Name by AK Larkwood. I haven’t read it but I know it’s got a lesbian protagonist.
• Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope. Just started this book but I believe it’s for adults.
• Tiger’s Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera. Lesbian protagonists and it’s still on my tbr.

may as well throw a few into the ring:

• The Goblin Emperor (Katharine Addison) - this little dude is the unwanted half-goblin bastard son of the emperor and has been stashed very “out of sight out of mind” with an asshole for a caretaker pretty much all his life. his shit dad and the three legitimate heirboys to the throne all unexpectedly kick it, leaving the court aghast to discover oh no, the embarrassing half-goblin bastard is the freaking EMPEROR now? he’s just a kiddo with a shitload of anxiety and trauma who is socially awkward and now has to rule an entire empire while a lot of people try to manipulate, bully, use, and backstab him. fortunately, there are some not-shit folks around too while he figures himself out, learns to stand tall (he a literal short king tho), investigates his estranged family’s murders, deals with politics, and maybe realizes he’s been a worthy person all along and can be a good ruler to his people.
• Sunshine (Robin McKinley) - vampires! alternate world not unlike our own, and our family-bakery protagonist gets herself caught up with vampires (mostly truly horrible and ghastly and gross) and magical-governing agencies when she just wants to bake her cinnamon-rolls-as-big-as-your-head and try a new chocolate cupcake recipe. family secrets drama, hidden magic drama, romantic drama with a really lovely and chill boyfriend but also a bizarre and not-as-gross vampire. neil gaiman endorsed this one when it was new, if that tells you about the kind of weird, dark, and very rich atmosphere it has.
• Villains duology (Vicious and Vengeful) (V E Schwab) - the bad guys are kind of the good guys, but not in a leverage way because they’re definitely bad guys and damn is victor vale an asshole. eli ever is just a much bigger, worse, more sanctimonious asshole who styles his serial killings as heroic. (bizarre ex-bffs but shit went bad between them in college and really spiraled from there.) superpowers, ace protagonist, homoerotic tension, absolute bastards, more found family than you can shake a stick at, action and clever plotting abound. listen to “put it on me” by matt maeson for a preview of The Vibes.
• The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells) - the mortifying ordeal of being known, triple aaa style (agender, asexual, aromantic.) murderbot just wants to watch its favorite shows and not be perceived, but unfortunately it’s really good at helping people, mostly because it stumbled onto some unexpectedly decent ones it kinda would prefer alive, and humans are so damn bad at doing their own security it’s downright embarrassing. our hero is a robot-human construct trapped in a capitalist hellscape in far-future space and solves mysteries, is hilarious (inside its own head mostly), kicks a lot of ass, and very reluctantly explores what this whole autonomous personhood deal is about while trying to deal with trauma and depression without actually having to admit it.
• The Sixth World duology (Rebecca Roanhorse) - indigenous amercian myth and magic in a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy series in which most of the world is underwater now and our heroine deals with magic, murder, making friends and also enemies, and some gods who are definitely not to be trusted. there is romance and it matters, but the plot and worldbuilding rides lead.
• Magic for Liars (Sarah Gailey) - the unspecial twin watched her sister turn out to be a magical teen superstar, go away to magical adventure school, and grow up to be famous and beloved and teach at her alma mater. the sisters grew apart until they became estranged adults, with the unspecial sister becoming a depressed private investigator–who is now being hired to investigate a murder at her sister’s magical school. family tension, mystery, flawed characters muddling through their messy selves and lives, some romance, and lively worldbuilding. for the ones who loved things like harry potter but grew up to see where it tarnishes.
• Fourth Wing (Rebecca Yarros) - the younger daughter of this fantasy country’s intimidating general is forced into the dragon-riding side of the military’s academy by aforementioned mother, despite that she is small, a little prone to being sickly, and has a disability that will make things much harder on her in this grueling setting where most of the students don’t survive the first year. she thrives unexpectedly by utilizing her own strengths, refusing to twist into the sort of vicious shapes she’s told are her best chance of survival, makes diehard friends, and navigates an alarming amount of tension of many kinds with the most badass young man at the academy–who happens to hate her because her mother killed his father for leading a rebellion. dragons and magic and action and politics and character development, oh my. more than a little romance, done well, and several queer characters.
• The Stand-In (Lily Chu) - freshly fired by an extremely shitty boss, our canadian lady lead gets caught up in a whirlwind of shenanigans when a world-famous chinese actress she just so happens to look a lot like (like… a lot like) ropes her into being her double because she just has too damn many things on her plate and she’s dealing with some shit. the money is good, the starlet’s boyfriend is hot, if unfortunately a jerk who actively distrusts her, and this will be just what she needs to figure out what to do with her life now that her former career is over. what could go wrong? no one will ever realize she’s someone else entirely, and there’s obviously no danger of getting involved with the boyfriend when he’s so suspicious of her and unfriendly… right? at least the starlet is nice! maybe they’ll even become friends.
• The City Between series ( W R Gingell) - our australian protagonist has been squatting long-term in the house her parents were brutally murdered in as a child and is dead-set on never leaving. this becomes rather challenging when a gruesome and bizarre murder occurs across the street three highly suspicious dudes who seem not-exactly-human buy the house she’s been living in all this time. turns out they are in fact not human at all, and when they discover her, she can either die, or get mindwiped and kicked out… or talk them into taking her on as their sunshine-perky human pet who happens to be a great cook and make excellent tea. there’s a lot more to the world than Pet ever realized (actual layers, in fact), and she seems to be weirdly good at navigating it, which complicates the three dudes’ murder investigation which crosses into magic, elven royal politics, werewolves, ghosts, and zombies, not to mention the vampire who refuses to speak anything but his native korean living in her house and pestering the daylights out of her. and the deeper she gets into all this, the more Pet starts to think it all connects back to her own parents’ deaths. there’s a great deal of complex urban fantasy worldbuilding, found family, fascinating magic systems, humor, friendship, mystery–and rather more action than you might expect, some of it rather brutal. this series is a helluva ride.
• Hench (Natalie Zina Walschots) - our heroine (lol) here is a temp/floating henchperson for the local villainous community. it’s not ideology, she’s just trying to keep rent paid and have food around semi-regularly. a pretty routine temp assignment goes horribly wrong when it puts her on the wrong end of a superhero/villain showdown, leaving her with a permanent injury and a growing fury over the massive collateral damage the so-called heroes do to property and bystanders alike. the power of grudge-driven spreadsheets gets her recruited by the most terrifying villain alive, who happens to be the best boss she’s ever had, and a new and dangerous purpose. she might actually save the world a little, though.

(via absentlyabbie)

biglawbear:

this-is-not-a-slow-burn:

aurumacadicus:

In before I start seeing people bitching about rainbow capitalism MY favorite rainbow capitalism story is about Subaru. Yes the Japanese car company.

In the nineties, they were struggling. They were competing with a dozen other companies targeting the main demographic at the time: white men ages 18-35, especially after a failed luxury car launch with a new ad agency. “What we need is to focus on niche demographics,” they decided, and then focused on people who enjoyed the outdoors. The Subaru was excellent at driving on dirt roads that many other vehicles couldn’t at the time, so it was perfect for all those off-road campers; they started making all-wheel drive standard in all their cars to help with that. And the people who wanted cars to go do outdoor stuff? Lesbians.

Okay. Of course it wasn’t only lesbians buying Subarus. They’re on the list with educators, health-care professionals, and IT people. But the point is, this Japanese car company interviewed this strange demographic (single, female head of household) and realized one important factor: They were lesbians. They liked to be able to use the cars to go do outdoorsy stuff, and they liked that they could use the cars to haul stuff rather than a big truck or van. Subaru had a choice to make then. They had four other demographics they could market to, after all–the educators, the health-care professionals, IT professionals, and straight outdoorsy couples. Their company didn’t hinge on this one “problematic” demographic.

And they decided “fuck it,” and marketed to lesbians anyway. This included offering benefits to American gay and lesbian employees for their domestic partners, so it didn’t look like a cash grab. (This was not a problem. They already offered those in Canada.)

Yes, there was some backlash. They got letters from a grassroots group accusing them of promoting homosexuality, and every letter said they’d no longer be buying from Subaru. “You didn’t buy from us before, either,” Subaru realized, and ignored them. It helped that the team really cared about the plan, and that they had many straight allies to back them up. There was also some initial backlash when Subaru hired women to play a lesbian couple in the commercial, but they quickly found that lesbians preferred more subtlety; “XENA LVR” on a license plate, or bumper stickers with the names of popular LGBTQ+ destinations, or taglines of “Get out. Stay out.” that could be used for the outdoors–or the closet.

Subaru said “We see you. We support you.” They sponsored Pride parades and partnered with Rainbow Card and hired Martina Navratilova as spokeswoman. They put their money where their mouth is and went into it whole hog. In a time where companies did not want to take our money, Subaru said, “Why not? They’re people who drive.” And that was groundbreaking.

It wasn’t blatant, it was cheeky and pretty low key, but really really effective. It played into the “if you know you know” vibe in exactly the right way.

Oh THAT’S why lesbians love Subarus

(via wvearp)

batsarebetterthanpeople:

Between Ryan Gosling Ken and Benoit Blanc I’m starting to think that it’s some sort of animal abuse to keep casting big name actors in stoic macho manly man rolls instead of giving them goofy little guys to play. Like look at them their coats are shiny, they seem so much more lively and energetic. We need to make sure all actors have enough goofy little guys to play before peta gets involved.

(via absentlyabbie)

radiofreederry:

Lol

ladyshinga:

depsidase:

despazito:

Adult website and period tracker

mostly-funnytwittertweets:

(via bigmammallama5)