I commissioned this art from @boopliette (who gave me permission to post it), it is my favorite passage from “The Thrill, Basis Determined” by Ridiculous Mavis.

talking about Rosie The Riveter, fun fact: while the We Can Do It picture has become the most-well known depiction of her in modern times, it wasn’t really a famous image when it was made—in fact, it wasn’t even intended to be her

the most famous depiction of Rosie The Riveter during WWII was probably Norman Rockwell’s painting 

note what she’s resting her foot on

This is my first fanart and I had so much fun in drawing it.  She is Maud Lilly, my favorite characters of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

adult life might be full of pain and suffering but at least we dont have to do PE anymore

I feel like the key White Pathology that explains Trump is this idea that everything in life is graded on a curve, not just wanting to have good things, but to have MORE of those things than other people. A pathology that’s both the opposite of stronger together and the opposite of the Lake Wobegon Effect.   A hypothetical Trump voter (especially the white woman voter who unexpectedly swung Trump) wants her child to go the BEST school.   She doesn’t want the schools in Detroit to improve because then her child’s school will be less dramatically BEST.  Or the Trump voter who is making a fine amount of money, owns his own business, own his own home, but feels that the success of the Pakistani-American engineer who lives down the street lessens his own success in some way.  It might even be more satisfying to see things get worse overall, as long as they get More Worse for other people.

I’m not saying I know how to combat it, but I guess it starts with naming it.

I can personally testify that a lot of people who tend to vote Republican in general have this weird-to-me tendency to fret about the possibility that someone, somewhere might be getting money, resources, or a lucky break that they “don’t deserve.”  This is different from the worry that a less “deserving” person might take something away from a more “deserving” person.  Even if no one loses anything, and there’s plenty to go around, they’ll get worried and indignant that someone might get more than they “deserve.”  It’s even more bizarre that members of this group often have stated theological beliefs that seem completely at odds with that attitude.

this makes me think a lot about Weber and the growth of capitalism-as-ethics in the wake of the Reformation.

for those unfamiliar, Max Weber was an early sociologist who posited that modern capitalism grew out of the psycho-social conditions created in western Europe by the destruction of the pervasive institutions of the Catholic church. his thesis was that prior to the Reformation, people were comfortable in the assurance of their salvation as long as they received the sacraments of the church and acted (more or less) under its authority. but with the security of the Catholic hierarchy and claim to One True Churchness gone, most people did not have a sufficiently developed personal spirituality to feel assured of salvation anymore. this was particularly acute amongst Calvinists because of the belief that God had already predestined who was going to Heaven and who was going to Hell- but there was no formal institution to tell you that you were deffo predestined for Heaven, no worries buddy, so you had to find ways to constantly reassure yourself.

and of course if you were one of God’s Chosen Elect, your life would surely be pretty great, and you’d be rich- or at least better off than those bad awful sinners who were born going to Hell. so you worked hard and made your work a spiritual calling, and you weren’t profligate with your money because you needed it to prove you were living the blessed life of the elect. and eventually accumulating money became an ethical end in itself, intertwined with other aspects of virtue- this was a big thing for Benjamin Franklin, amongst other major figures in the founding history of the USA. this also went hand-in-hand with disdain for the kinds of charitable practices that are central to Catholicism- if a person was poor, it was a sign of their non-electness, and they deserved to stay that way. the whole system requires that some peoples’ lives are shit, because then otherwise how can you be sure who’s going to Heaven?

and the same principles apply to white supremacy. it was easy to be confident and comfortable in your belief in the inherent superiority of white people when you had vast social institutions backing you up. in the Jim Crow south, you could be a poor as shit white person, but at least you got to drink from the ‘whites only’ fountain. but now those institutions are gone or going, and despite every effort against them people of colour are clawing their way to economic and social equality. 

there’s nothing left to reassure the white supremacist. they can’t look at the corridors of political power and feel a bit better, because the head of state is a highly-educated black guy. they can’t even go the Calvinist route and pile up a big soothing stack of money, because you can’t tell by looking who’s God’s Deserving Elect, but you sure as hell notice when a black family moves into your suburb and are driving a nicer car than you do.

but if you can fuck yourself over in a way that you can be dead certain is going to fuck over people of colour worse, well, that just proves you were right all along, huh? now you’ve got more money than that black family, even if all of you are worse off.

tl;dr: requiring there to be people worse off than you as proof of your innate superiority is one of the founding socio-ethical principles of the USA and Protestant societies in general, which maps neatly onto the white supremacist need for people innately inferior to you to be worse off.

I think there’s a lot more to be said about Weber, Calvinism, and the development of white supremacy as an ideology, but I am no longer an academic so

On that topic, here’s an excerpt from an article published in the local legal press recently:

Han is all “there’s to much Vader in him,” without mentioning that there is too much Vader in Leia too. 

Like, Bail Organa, bless his poor poor soul, tried to politician the Vader out of her. He tried SO FUCKING HARD. 

But the fact that she abandoned politics to be a General in the Resistance says a lot about her similarities to Anakin Skywalker. 

See, people get it wrong. They assume because Luke got the blond hair and the lightsaber that he is Anakin’s child. He’s not. He’s Padme’s.

Leia, though. Leia is very much Anakin’s child. She is the one with the deep anger in her. She is the one who will bring peace to her new empire freedom and justice back to the galaxy whether the galaxy wants it or not. She is the one who commands armies and amasses followers as easy as breathing. She joined the Rebellion while she was in her teens. She is the one with the spirit of a warrior.

Don’t get me wrong; Bail Organa did his damnedest to raise her in the mold of her mother, fighting her battles in the halls of power with words as her weapons. And she was very good at it. But unlike Padme, Leia’s words always had an edge to them, her tone and meaning always a little too sharp, a little too angry. 

Peace and mercy are the trademarks of Luke and Padme. Justice and order, obtained by whatever means necessary, are the marks of Leia and Anakin.

#you just know if she had a lightsaber on the death star she would have pulled a tusken massacre on the bridge #tarkin vader the techs everyone #dead as soon as she could reach them

How the throne room scene actually should’ve gone:

“If you will not turn to the Dark Side, perhaps she will.”

“Pffffthahahahaha yeah, okay Dad, let me know how that turns out. Look, the reason I’m here instead of her is because I want you alive and not a cloud of vaporized plastic. You know she strangled Jabba the Hutt with the chain he put around her neck, right? That’s what she does to people who try to control her. Better tell your Emperor you’re not allowed to have any more ideas.”

#this is so true it’s beautiful#I bet Vader almost felt glad every time Luke turned up with the lightsaber when they faced off#Vader was like ‘Oh thank the Force it’s the nice one that got the lightsaber skills’

I live seeing analyses like this that I wouldn’t’ve thought of myself.

lets start wearing cloaks and swords again. its time

23 science facts we didn't know at the start of 2016

1. Gravitational waves are real. More than 100 years after Einstein first predicted them, researchers finally detected the elusive ripples in space time this year. We’ve now seen three gravitational wave events in total.

2. Sloths almost die every time they poop, and it looks agonising.

3. It’s possible to live for more than a year without a heart in your body.

4. It’s also possible to live a normal life without 90 percent of your brain.

5. There are strange, metallic sounds coming from the Mariana trench, the deepest point on Earth’s surface. Scientists currently think the noise is a new kind of baleen whale call.

6. A revolutionary new type of nuclear fusion machine being trialled in Germany really works, and could be the key to clean, unlimited energy.

7. There’s an Earth-like planet just 4.2 light-years away in the Alpha Centauri star system - and scientists are already planning a mission to visit it.

8. Earth has a second mini-moon orbiting it, known as a ‘quasi-satellite’. It’s called 2016 HO3.

9. There might be a ninth planet in our Solar System (no, Pluto doesn’t count).

10. The first written record demonstrating the laws of friction has been hiding inside Leonardo da Vinci’s “irrelevant scribbles” for the past 500 years.

11. Zika virus can be spread sexually, and it really does cause microcephaly in babies.

12. Crows have big ears, and they’re kinda terrifying.

13. The largest known prime number is 274,207,281– 1, which is a ridiculous 22 million digits in length. It’s 5 million digits longer than the second largest prime.

14. The North Pole is slowly moving towards London, due to the planet’s shifting water content.

15. Earth lost enough sea ice this year to cover the entire land mass of India.

16. Artificial intelligence can beat humans at Go.

17. Tardigrades are so indestructible because they have an in-built toolkit to protect their DNA from damage. These tiny creatures can survive being frozen for decades, can bounce back from total desiccation, and can even handle the harsh radiation of space.

18. There are two liquid states of water.

19. Pear-shaped atomic nuclei exist, and they make time travel seem pretty damn impossible.

20. Dinosaurs had glorious tail feathers, and they were floppy.

21. One third of the planet can no longer see the Milky Way from where they live.

22. There’s a giant, 1.5-billion-cubic-metre (54-billion-cubic-foot) field of precious helium gas in Tanzania.

23. The ‘impossible’ EM Drive is the propulsion system that just won’t quit. NASA says it really does seem to produce thrust - but they still have no idea how. We’ll save that mystery for 2017.

Some good (and interesting!) news from this shitfuck year

I love Zoe Heller. (via sashayed)

careers for women that we need to bring back

If my cave can have wi-fi I will gladly become a decrepit cave sybil.  

People come to me for help in grand quests.  They ask hard questions they do not know how to answer themselves.  I nod sagely and retreat behind a curtain of slimy moss. I play a mystic chant on my iTunes while googling the answer and composing a cryptic, yet catchy, rhyming riddle that answers the question. For effect, I switch to a track of me screeching wildly.  I turn off my iTunes and emerge to croak out my cryptic, catchy riddle that somehow rhymes and then they leave me an offering.  I go back behind my slimy moss curtain and read gay fanfiction.  I have done my duty and may rest.

Today on Phrases That Made Me Feel Really Old:

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer Modern AU”

oh my gods

*softly*

no

Like, if you gave them cell phones, it would solve about 95 percent of the episodes’ conflicts.

source

“It will be full of gays next”

They did it, they fucking did it.

holyfducjk

HISTORY

holy shit!

can someone explain this to me

Thirty years ago a legendary ET game came to fruition, so awful that as the tale told, all unsold copies of it were buried in a pit in New Mexico. A documentary film crew has just unearthed the stash, proving the legend true.

I don’t think people fully grasp just how awful it was. This one game, by the sheer merit of its unmatched shittiness, destroyed the video game and console market so thoroughly that the at home video game nearly went the way of the 8-track player.

It was literally so awful that it nearly changed the entire course of technology.

how can a video game possibly be that bad

People don’t really understand why it was terrible though, and the reasons why are extremely important and relevant especially today.

The game itself is bad, yes. It was built up to be an exciting hit for kids to play at Christmas in 1982. So much in fact, that retailers bought WAY more stock then could every be sold based on the hype.

However, people at the time liked the game. It looks bad now, but the game itself was pretty on par with the times. It wound up selling 1.5 million copies. Which would be great, except Atari was expecting to sell 4-5 million.

While initial reception was positive, critics started panning the game as critics do. While it was no worse than most other games at the time, it was stil frustrating and hard to play. It could not live up to the hype that had been built and negative press built up quickly.

But what was ALSO happening was a flood of cheap imitations on the market. ET is a licensed game, and like all licenses comes at a higher markup. So if you wanted to buy a game for yourself or your kid, would you buy 1 game, or 2 for the same price?

Atari was also screwing around with how they handled their distributors. Just before the game went to public, but AFTER the game had been bought and shipped, Atari announced that they were cancelling every existing contract with distributors and signing with only a select few.

So distributors, now pissed off and with an abundance of games that were NOT selling and with prices slashed horribly to sell games that people were quickly losing interest in, retailers put their claims to return a collective 2.5-3.5 million copies back to Atari. Atari, unable to recycle the cartridges or resell them in any way, wound up burying them in the Nevada desert.

This caused the Video Game Crash of the early 80s that put a dark mark on video games until Nintendo (and in some small part other game companies) to revive later. 

 It was the perfect storm. An over-hyped overpriced game sold to an increasingly frustrated and over-saturated market with retailers scrambling to make a dime while Game Devs blame the market for poor sales.

Some say the proverbial planets are aligning again, with way too many consoles putting way too samey games on the market at way too high a cost with a strong dependence on Pre-orders and pre-order exclusives.

Wanna give the game a shot?  Internet Archives actually has a copy of it at this link:

https://archive.org/details/E.T._The_Extra-Terrestrial_1982_Atari_NTSC

this is like the dutch tulip bubble of our times

Two things to note:

1) This is why Japan dominates the video game market to this day–Atari was an American company and the Video Game Crash almost entirely contained to North America, while the Japanese video game market and developers were mostly untouched.

2) The lengths to which Nintendo had to go in order to sell a console in the U.S. were pretty hilarious, but also long-term disastrous. Specifically, they had to convince stores that the NES wasn’t a video game console, it was a toy, which is why they initially packaged it with R.O.B. But toys in the U.S. are heavily gendered, which led to consoles being labeled as “for boys” despite there being as many girls as boys playing them. Long-term result: the horrifying cesspool of reactionary misogyny that is gamer culture.

Well, E.T. plunged a steak knife in the heart of a market that had already kicked in the balls with a steel boot… and then hit by a car. The Atari version of Pac-Man was also a major financial disaster just what, a year or less before E.T.? Which made people leery about buying new super-hyped games from the market leader (Atari was like 80% of the market), and there were many many competitors popping up and flooding the market, including pissed-off former Atari employees.

E.T. was just the kind of severely stupid move to obliterate a market leader who’d set themselves up for a fall.

Just kiss already.

Cameron Howe and Donna Clark 

#this remains such a beautiful magical unicorn of a scene #and something i didn’t know i wanted to be part of every coming out story until i saw it #you are not alone and i’m sorry you had to carry this secret by yourself #instead of: i love you despite your gayness #is just such a lovely thing and supergirl said it so it’s true forever via @swashbucklery

Male writers writing female characters:

“Cassandra woke up to the rays of the sun streaming through the slats on her blinds, cascading over her naked chest. She stretched, her breasts lifting with her arms as she greeted the sun. She rolled out of bed and put on a shirt, her nipples prominently showing through the thin fabric. She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards.”

‘ She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards’ is the greatest fucking sentence I have ever read.