Here’s a horrible comment from Reddit’s always horrible White Rights subreddit that reveals some of the ways that the central ideas and obsessions of the manosphere are oozing their way into the thinking, such as it is, of the racist right. Birds of a feather flock together, and I guess the same is true of hateful shitheads.
What’s interesting to me is how easily Mr. Saturnine83 here is able to take the traditional racist paranoia about white women not popping out enough white babies to keep the white race going and make the whole “problem” about stuck-up ladies who won’t date him decent white men. For those filling out bingo cards, note the references to”disposible” men and “involuntary celibacy.”
Oh, we have no doubt you could go on and on endlessly. Guys like you always can.
If you’re interested in exploring further connections between “Men’s Rights” and “White Rights,” check out the MRMorWhiteRights subreddit, which tracks this stuff in an entertaining way, and which is where I found the link to Saturnine83’s little screed.
@LBT – Now I feel silly. I’ve read your comics before! I forgot.
They’re quite good, btw. I enjoyed them, and learned a lot, too.
“cultural misunderstanding of baths”
OK, I would like to read that.
@LBT
Porn works for me :p Thanks, bookmarked to read when I can focus 😀
@Lea – Oh, that’s awful!
Hey, look on the bright side. You’re raising someone who thinks it’s awful. You can be so proud of her!
RE: Michelle
OK, I would like to read that.
Your wish is my command! And I’m glad you enjoyed my comics. I enjoy making them!
RE: Marie
Enjoy your porn! (Don’t worry, Michelle, the cultural bath story is NOT porn.)
“Where are the teachers?”
My first thought was “hiding and trying to cover their butts from Special Snowflake parents who want the teachers to have all the responsibility, but have stripped them of authority.”
My second thought was “masticating” to the scene of a “goffik” girl changing clothes (again!) at Hogswarts.
I re-read “My Immortal” a few days ago, and that scene popped into my head.
Interesting note, Hot Topic does have some really cute clothes, including plus sizes.
@Marie –
OMG, you too?
@LBT and Beauty and the Beast – that sounds great!
@LBT – “guro/vore”? Whazzat? Is that like really bad poetry, or something?
OK, so I’m not into porn, so I won’t read the story, but I am glad that you wrote it. Plus, I agree with the challenge idea. If you’re going to write porn, write it *well.*
Ok, I’m way behind on both blog posts and comments, but the 9:46 pm May 21 skye isn’t me
I don’t think it’s so strange that the dystopia would feel localized, Marie. We write what we know, after all.
I mean, my neurocomputer world was intended to be a transhumanist libertarian utopia gone wrong, but I definitely drew from my personal experience with the disability system and institutionalized dehumanization. So yeah, it does look creepily local, but that’s very, very intentional.
@michelle
wow that’s a common experience?
But yup. Was weirder is that in the story society in general isn’t as sexist/racist as ours, but is still ableist/transphobic + transmisogynistic/ classist. And weirder too was seeing comparisons to USian police/army, now and in history. :/
Of course, some of the distopia comes from a large portion of humanity having died earlier. Maybe a cliche, but what can I say I love me some distopia tropes…
RE: Michelle
“guro/vore”? Whazzat? Is that like really bad poetry, or something?
Guro is really gory porn. Vore is sex that involves one partner devouring another. YOU’RE WELCOME.
@Skye
It’s good to clarify, but I could tell it wasn’t you by the avatar :3 But um, clarification still good. /rambles.
@LBT
I guess that makes sense. It was just like, wow, when it hit me. It probably helps that I’ve had a relatively privileged life, and the distopia I’m writing is POV characters who aren’t as privileged, and therefor have more personal stake in the distopia changing. But it can be kind of scary to realize even when I’m trying to make something like, seem end of the world-y, what I’ve exaggerated isn’t that far from real life.
Wow that was rambly I hope I made sense.
It’s cool, Marie. And well, there is the old tumblr saying, “A dystopia is taking our normal world and saying, ‘but what if it happened to WHITE PEOPLE?'”
So, I told my sister about my new idea for “The Adventures of Olga Millersdattir and Rumplestilskin.” I asked if he was originally a dwarf, troll, gnome, or what? We settled on a dwarf, because “dwarves are very upsetting.”
She’s now singing “Agony,” from “Into the Woods.”
So, in a nutshell, here’s the new story. The first night, Rumplestiltskin gets her ring, and spins the straw for her, to save her life. Over the course of the evening, they chat, and she realizes he’s not such a bad guy. Just short and hairy. Not so upsetting.
The next day, the king reneges on his promise to set her free, and doubles the work-load, again with the threat of death if she fails. Rumple comes back, and demands something in exchange for helping her. She gives him her necklace.
They spend the night chatting while he spins, and he tells jokes and funny stories, and gets her really laughing, even to the point where she forgets her danger. She realizes he has a really beautiful smile, and loves how his eyes twinkle, and his beard looks really soft and shiny.
When the king once again reneges, and then triples the work load, but adds that if she succeeds, he’ll make her his queen, she is terrified. That night, she tells Rumple about the Catch-22. If all the straw is not turned to gold by morning, she will be killed. If it is, she’ll be forced to marry the horrible man, and who knows what he mind demand of her, next!
Rumple offers to help, but his dwarf-union requires him to get something in return. She has nothing left to trade, and bursts into tears.
He comforts her, gently, and suggests that she give him her first-born. She looks at him, horrified, feeling betrayed, but as she splutters, he continues. “You can give me your firstborn, and your second, and all the children we have together. Marry me! I can write up a pre-nup to satisfy the union, and you and I can be happy together. We’ll get away. Money isn’t an issue. We’ll spin our way throughout the world. Where would you like to go? Want to see the pyramids in Egypt? A few bales of straw should pay for that. Want to see the Great Wall of China? How about the rain forests? I can take you anywhere you want to go. And I love you. I swear, I’ll do all in my power to make you happy.”
Well, shucks, how can she resist? Were she not under dire threat of death, maybe she could, but in her situation, no. Besides, she already likes him better than any other man she’s met.
They do have quite a task before them, though, with the triple-batch of bales. So, he teaches her the trick of spinning straw to gold, and she spins, while he uses his magic to pop out, and discover an alternate escape route for her. After he makes arrangements, he gives her a chance to rest, while he takes over the spinning, and they tag-team it for the rest of the night, all the while planning out their honeymoon.
They do manage to spin it all by morning, but just barely. When the king declares that he will marry her, she uses the escape route, and disappears in a puff of smoke (smoke bomb provided by Rumple), and they dash away, carrying with them just enough straw-gold to purchase a spinning wheel and a bale of straw.
They do marry, and travel the world for a few years before they finally settle down in a lovely country manor, and Rumplestiltskin “collects” his fee, several times over.
@michelle
Sounds like a cool story :3
^though I admit I’d probably be able to compare better if I remember more from the original rumplestilsken (sp?).
Either way I can google for comparison, so it’s not a passive-aggressive link ask, just an observation.
@LBT – OH, I laughed so hard at that bath story! It was beautiful. Thanks!
I’m definitely bookmarking your stuff for more future reading.
@LBT – Thank you so much for the definition, so that I did not have to read any more detail than that. It’s enough to know I never want to go there.
Sometimes, Googling something is a baaaaaad idea.
@LBT – Re dystopia. Once, about 5 years ago, I started a dystopian story. I was reaaaalllyyy upset about something, and this was my catharsis. Also, just getting into feminism.
So, the story begins in a country where women have few rights, and are basically considered the property of their fathers, until they are sold to their husbands. A very few men get that this is not right (it’s not a world-wide thing, after all, and some men travel and learn from it). One such man is not only smart, but he’s also rich, and when his beautiful daughter is born, and his wife dies from complications, because a doctor would not attend a woman, he hides his daughter. He then builds a bunker-house, which looks normal on top, but has a hidden home underneath, sort of like “Blast From the Past.”
Anyway, he doesn’t know what’s coming, but he knows that something is, so he hides his daughter down there, where she will be safe, and goes on above-ground, as if he has no daughter, at all. No one questions him on it, as it is assumed his child died, along with his wife.
Not too long after that, things come to a head. One woman has had enough. She decides to commit suicide. But something makes her realize that only killing herself isn’t really going to change anything. She knows that the girls in her family will grow up to experience the same pain. She talks with the other women, at the only place they are allowed to socialize: the farmer’s market. Women buy food to cook. The men buy everything else.
At the farmer’s market, though, the women can talk, and they do. When this woman declares her desire to kill herself, because she just can’t take it, any more, other women respond similarly. What keeps them going? Their love for their children.
Another woman, however, responds that she loves her daughter, and can’t bear the thought of her beautiful little girl being sold in marriage to a man who will treat her the same way she has been treated. And what else could the girl expect? Haven’t ALL the women here in this conversation been treated badly? Perhaps there were some who were treated well, but not in their particular group.
The women realize that is true. So, they make a pact. On a certain day, they will all kill themselves, in a protest. They also plan to spread the word, by shopping at different farmer’s markets to tell the women there, and ask them to spread it so they can quietly plan a country-wide suicide.
On the day, the majority of women kill themselves, and many kill their daughters, as well. They all leave behind a note explaining their protest (many of them copied word for word from the leader’s note). Some women don’t participate, and some are stopped before they can succeed. However, this is a fairly low percentage. The few women and girls who are left are faced with the devastation that follows.
You see, instead of making the men see that they were wrong, the majority of the men view this as an excuse to crack down even harder on the women. All remaining rights are revoked, and they are declared official slaves.
Many of the men, desperate for women, demand that the remaining women be turned over to the government, and a “comfort women” communal agency be set up, for the men to use the women, in exchange for good behavior.
Other men push for a war against the neighboring countries, in the hopes of stealing their women, as spoils of war.
Still others advocate for BOTH, with the comfort women being used as payment for soldiers.
The man with the bunker-daughter is horrified, and now desperately wants to get his daughter out of the country. However, he is being besieged by men wanting him to help fight the war (he’s a scientific/military genius, and they want him to design their weapons).
His daughter, meanwhile, has been watching the news, and wants him to join the few men who are advocating equality and freedom for women, saying that if the men would repent of their past, then they might be able to form a brighter future for their sons. If they can create a country that has equality, and guarantees that women would be treated well, and create opportunities for women, then in time, women would naturally emigrate there, and the sons, who were not guilty of such hateful misogyny, would eventually be able to marry, and have happy, egalitarian relationships.
And that’s as far as I got before I had to stop.
I don’t have this actually written, any more. I deleted it. It was just too darned dark. I don’t do dystopia well.
@michelle
Well, it certainly sounds dark. :/ Probably not my taste, but I tend to write more Sci fi or fantasy with other elements.
Like the distopia I mentioned had distopia, but also super humans, and robots :p Less realistic stuff.
@Marie – the original Rumplestiltskin is written with Rumple as the villain.
In the story, a miller had a beautiful, but lazy, daughter. In order to get her a husband, the miller bragged about her. Eventually, the bragging turned to downright lies, and he was heard bragging about how she could spin straw into gold.
The word spread, and the king heard that one of his subjects could make him filthy rich, and she was pretty, too. So, he had her arrested, and put in a tower.
He filled one room of the tower with straw, and told her she had one night to spin the straw into gold. If she spun it all into gold, by dawn, she would be set free. But if she did not succeed, she would be executed.
Of course, she couldn’t do it, so she sobbed. Suddenly, a dwarf appeared, and asked what was wrong. She told him of her plight, and he offered to spin the straw for gold, for her, but only if she gave him something. She had a ring, and offered it in trade, and the dwarf accepted it, and spun the gold.
He was an ugly dwarf, so she didn’t talk to him, but just sat in the corner and watched him, quietly. By dawn, he had spun it all to gold, and he disappeared.
The king came to inspect the straw, and found it all turned to gold. He was so happy, that he took her to an even bigger room, and ordered it filled with straw. Then he commanded her to spin all of that into gold before dawn, or else he would have her executed. He conveniently forgot his promise of freedom, and no one dared point it out to him.
Again, she sat in her room full of straw, and sobbed. The dwarf appeared again, and she told him her plight. He offered to spin the straw to gold for her, if she would give him something of value. She gave him her necklace, and then went to sit in the corner and watch him spin.
The next morning, after the dwarf had finished and disappeared, the king came to inspect the room, and was delighted to see how rich the girl had made him. So, he took her to another room, three times as large as the first one, and had it filled with straw. He told her, “If you spin all this straw into gold, by dawn, I shall make you my Queen. But if you fail, I shall have you executed.”
She was devastated. Each promise of freedom had been forgotten, and now her only hope was to spin all the straw into gold. But even if the dwarf did appear again, she had nothing else of value left to give him.
When the dwarf appeared, and she told him of her plight, he asked for another reward for helping her, and she confessed she had nothing else for him.
“I will help you, if you promise me your firstborn child. When you have married the King, and become Queen, the first child you bear to him will be mine.”
Being faced with death if she refused, she agreed to his terms, and hoped to find a way to keep her child, later.
The ugly old dwarf sat down at the spinning wheel and got to work. There was much straw to spin, and he only barely managed to finish the task just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. He disappeared in a puff of smoke at the very moment the king walked into the room.
The king was delighted, and immediately proclaimed that she would be his Queen. They were married at once.
A year later, the Queen gave birth to a beautiful little boy, and the whole country celebrated a holiday in honor of the Crown Prince. Of course, with the whole country celebrating, the birth could not be kept a secret from the dwarf, who came to the Queen to collect his due reward.
She begged him for a reprieve, and since she was so pretty and cried so abjectly, his heart was softened. He said that he would give her three days, and if she could guess his name by the third day, she could keep her child.
The first day, she guessed every name she knew, but each time, he would laugh and say, “No.”
The next day, she gathered books from all over the world, and searched through them, trying every foreign name she found, but each time, he would laugh and say, “No.”
That night, she sent out servants, and told them to look for an ugly old dwarf, and find out his name. The next morning, one of them reported back to her that they had found an ugly old dwarf.
“He was dancing and singing, Your Highness. And it was so strange. He sang about how soon he would have a prince of his own, because no one knew his name was Rumplestiltskin.”
So, when the dwarf came to let her guess, the queen smiled.
“Is your name Aloyisius?”
“No.”
“Is your name Wigglesworth?”
“No.”
“Is your name Rumplestiltskin?”
The dwarf screamed, jumped up and down, gnashed his teeth, and flailed his arms, until finally, a hole in the floor opened up and he fell down into the pits of hell. Or at least the cellar.
And he was never heard from again.
The implication that dwarves are upsetting is kind of not on. They do exist, and they are people.
@Michelle
Wow. It makes more sense to change it with the king as the villian, then, having read it.