It’s Friday, at least in my part of the space-time continuum, so here’s an open thread for you all. No trolls, MRAs, Trump fans, etc.
And since I’m posting weirdly filtered pics, here’s a weirdly filtered pic of my cats in their kitten days:
And some random ladies having a drink:
Finished teaching my last class for the semester. Now I can relax a little.
@RosieLa
I wasn’t really hoping for an exciting answer :p and I can see how that’s bad, seeing as next year is in like two weeks…
Hope you get it fast.
@SFHC
I’m still laughing at that gif. I LIVE for video game glitches. My entire Xbox feed is pics or videos of glitches. My favorite is a Vertibird that crashed right in the middle of a conversation with a guy in Fallout 4. I was in that area with the concert shell where you have to rescue someone from what seems like a cult. Mid-sentence while the leader of the group is talking to me, there’s this huge boom, the screen shakes, the conversation stops, there’s fire and everyone running and screaming and losing HP, I’m running around trying to V.A.T.S. in every direction. I finally realized what happened when I ran into half of a burning Vertibird in the center of the open area. Better yet, when I picked the lock to the room where you find the person you have to rescue, what I found instead was the other half of the burning Vertibird. Fully enclosed in the room. No idea how it got there. Just opened the door to a fiery hunk of metal.
That was before I started playing with the mods, too. My feed is a lot busier now.
The semester is over!! I get to see my dog tomorrow.
I made good art this semester, and a kina shitty zine I manage to be proud of because of the content. I don’t feel adequate as an illustrator yet, but I’ll get there.
I get to play video games with my friend too. I miss him.
@ryeash My kids used to be thrilled when the horse their character was riding would suddenly rise into the air and then fly into the distance.
@Fishy Goat
That one’s always fun. I’m teaching myself to make games now, and my most common movement glitch is my character just wandering off the screen like they decided they had something better to do at that moment. I’m guessing it’s the smaller-scale version of that bug.
@ Policy of Madness,
Ah, the tight trousers of the 60s.
I must now rewatch the Rutles.
Shucks. Wrong link.
@Croquembouche
Actually the 60’s fashions are fine. But the storyline has taken an unmarked turn into 1795, and it’s the 1795 trousers that are kind of distracting.
I’m not crying about the time travel, because the 1795 plot is way more interesting than the 1967 plot, and the actors are clearly having a ton of fun with it. But whenever one of the male actors is dressed in light-colored pants, I get super distracted. How did this pass the censors?
@ PoM,
Adding ‘trousers’ to list of reasons to finally get around to watching Dark Shadows. I need distraction.
@Croquembouche
Dark Shadows: come for the visible boom mikes and the actors struggling to remember their terrible lines, stay for the bizarre and addictive storylines and the trouser bumps.
I’m thinking I need to get a black cat to match my orange one–that seems to be a thing.
And it’s vay cay shuuuunnnn….
Hey Mammotheers !
http://i.imgur.com/FomqBQm.png
Please be merciful. This is literally my first attempt at drawing in five years. File this under the “at least I tried” folder. And no, this is not an accurate depiction of my eyebrows. Just kind of a signature thing. (yes, those are eyebrows)
So, I’ve got a little pet project here. Nothing too big or difficult, but I thought I’d ask y’all if ya wanna contribute, because the subject matter is relevant to what goes on here in more than just one way, as evidenced by the amount of support that goes on between commenters.
Getting sick of the false equivalence being made in the media between fucking nazis and ess-jay-dubyas ? Me too. There’s already been loads written on that, but apparently still not enough. So I wanna add another brick to that wall. It’s gonna be a beautiful wall, a big, beautiful wall.
Erm. Sorry. I get sidetracked easy. ‘nother reason why I kinda need help.
So my angle is empathy and compassion. Those fuckers have worked tirelessly to remove these qualities from themselves and their “alt-right”. Just look at Anglin’s cherry-picking, selective “reporting” of black on white crime. Do you ever see any kind of compassion toward the victim there ? Nah. Smug satisfaction instead, because they think it supports their point. Remember Pox Bay’s “burn de coal” puddle of vomit ? Victim-blaming all the way, little else. Right now I’m staring at Anglin’s take on the failed attack yesterday night in Germany. The one involving a 12 year old boy with a nail bomb. He’s laughing. Literally laughing.
This is my whole point.
These are the people with whom we supposedly have a “difference of opinion”. Like, we’re supposed to debate with them. Fuck. That. Noise.
So yeah, since apparently exposing their rabid racism, raging misogyny, swivel-eyed homophobia and [I can’t think of another adjective, see, this is why I need help, ’cause I can’t engrish] transphobia doesn’t work, I wanna try with another angle.
And I’d be honored to get some help and make this a community work. ’cause that’s exactly the thing : we care about each other and support each other, and cooperate with each other. So it’d be fitting.
It’s gonna involve some wading through the fever swamps, some writing, stuff like that. But hey, if we’re more than one, then we can focus on specific tasks and if you don’t exactly wanna read nazi shit straight from the source, don’t worry, I got your back on this one.
So there we go. Anyone who wants to contribute, you’re welcome and I’ll be honored to take anything you want to add to this. We can work out the details to get in touch here, but there’s no need to post email adresses or the like, because EJ kindly offered a way a few months back.
@EJ
Do you still have that handy junk-shield email adress that you can post anywhere without worrying about a troll finding it ? ’cause now is a pretty good time to use it 🙂
If not, ehh don’t worry, I’ll make one meself.
@guest
YES! DO IT!
@wwth
Repost here? 🙂
@Sinkable John
So what exactly will we be doing?
@Karalora
Basically writing work : documentation, then the writing itself. Whichever you want, or both. The documentation aspect is not only the fever swamps, by the way.
I’m thinking a collection of examples and commentary for each, but there’s probably other, better ways. Just don’t expect me to think of them in my current extremely tired state – I’ll make a lot more sense tomorrow though. Probably. Hopefully.
The general angle is that we need to refuse, categorically, to give any ground to fascists. It’s not “a matter of opinion”, it’s not equally valid views that need to be settled in a debate. They don’t even want a debate anyway, so there’s no point.
The idea is that their ideology relies on fully denying empathy and compassion, as well as acceptance of anything that differs from their particularly sad view of what the world needs to look like. Pointing out the hate and stupidity hasn’t worked so well so far, because apparently racism and misogyny are now totally okay, y’know, “just different opinions”. But it’s pretty clear that they also hate even the people they favor, as shown by their reaction when those people are harmed by “the others”. Maybe showing that’ll have a different kind of impact.
I won’t lie, I got a sorta selfish reason for this : it doesn’t feel right to sit here on my ass on another continent watching and doing nothing. I got another six months or so before that rogue wave reaches my own shores, so I’d rather start doing something now, if only to prepare. And since the only thing I know how to do is write and wade extensively through the fever swamps, well I might as well do that. Otherwise I’m just gonna feel powerless. But since I ain’t that selfish, I’m sharing it, heh. I know I’m not the only one feeling powerless. I think you do, too, you’ve shown it when you mentioned the “evil you” that wants to just use their own tactics against them.
It’s self-care, really, but in a way that feels a bit more productive. I think we need that right now. Plus there’s momentum : there’s already a huge movement of resistance being built right now. Might as well add something to it, even if it’s only yet another particular take on the situation. It’s not much but it’s still something, doesn’t matter if it’s so small.
@Sinkable John
I don’t know how good I’d be at that sort of thing. When you have a piece to show, I can look it over and get a better idea of my skill at doing the same thing.
@ Sinkable John:
It sounds like you have a writing-related project in mind. I’m not sure what kind of writing it might be, but it seems interesting.
I’m more of a comedic writer in my spare time, mostly doing song parodies, but I’m fairly versatile. Seconding what Karalora said, though.
@ Troubelle; @ dlouwe
If I’m reading this correctly, dlouwe recorded Troubelle’s “Allegedly Free”??? Is it public, yootoob or ??? I wanna check this out!!!!
@Karalora, rogue angel
I’m bad at explaining myself, ain’t I* ? See that’s why I doubt I can do this on my own… I just can’t seem to get that whole structure thing. That’s how I failed my studies, by the way. I also get sidetracked pretty far by the smallest things. By now you’ll have noticed that my posts are often much longer than needed.
I’m more of a fiction writer. Articles and essays never were my thing, meh.
I’ll… try to make meself clearer tomorrow, and possibly provide a few examples, after I’ve had some of that much-needed sleep. To be fair I was already extremely tired when I came up with the idea, which means it’s probably either bad or definitely above my intellectual means. As long as it’s not the first one, it shouldn’t be a problem if someone smarter than me (easy : that’s everyone on WHTM) helps :p
I’ll get some sleep, try and organize my thoughts, and come back with something clearer.
ETA : *Case in point.
Yes ! That’s what I’ve been trying to say !
I’m really bad at this.
Hope you might not mind if I try to pick your brains a moment – does anybody happen to know who/what bodies are (financially/in any other way) behind “Scenarios USA”?
Or just, anything about them?
Many thanks for any info!
@Sinkable John
Oooo, I like the face. The facial hair in particular is really nice and, like, the chin that you made without drawing a jawline. I have no idea but I just really, really like that part. (I’m not very good at facial hair myself so maybe that’s why.) And I rather like how expression seems to have a bit of an attitude to it, like, they’re slightly disgruntled, but that may be mostly because of the cigarette and thick eyebrows. (Thick eyebrows A+.) Best part is how the detail of the beard and the more cartoonish look of the mouth, eyes and eyebrows clash–not in a bad way, but in an interesting way that I can’t quite explain.
I like it.
(Also draw more hands.)
@Sinkable John
There’s potential here, but I’d like to raise a couple of issues.
It’s true that these are folks stripped of basic human empathy and decency, even toward those who are supposedly “superior” in their book. Unfortunately, focusing too closely on that ends up erasing all the so-called “inferior” people from our discourse, and if that happens, who will stand up for them?
That of course should not stop us from doing our best to show that the fascists’ promises are empty, that they lead their followers by the nose with lies, and that they use those lies to get power without responsibility, authority without accountability.
Also, let’s not be too quick to concede that “racism and misogyny are now totally okay, y’know, “just different opinions”. They are to some people. But they are not necessarily even the majority, let alone the totality. There is no need to concede that the alt-right, or the Trump regime, speak for “the people”. Even if it sometimes appears that truth counts for nothing and that people generally “don’t care” about bigotry and misogyny, that is just the appearance that the far-right propagandists are doing their best to create. Let us never, ever, EVER mistake that appearance for reality!
I just found out a good number of white people I know are okay with Trump because he’s not Clinton. They bring up how she was on the wrong side of video games in the 1990s and how the Clinton Foundation is pay for play (a fact I haven’t vetted so have no opinion on). And when I ask how it is that White Supremacy isn’t a deal breaker for them they just say it won’t be that bad. I guess it’s just that easy for evil to win…..
How do you all talk to reasonable* liberals** about Trump?
*I don’t think you can call yourself reasonable if you are okay with White Supremacy
**I don’t think you can call yourself a liberal if you are okay with White Supremacy & anti-abortion & kleptocratic policies
“Ok with Trump because he’s not Clinton” is a non sequitur. “Not Clinton” does not imply OK!
It’s also an irrelevant comparison. Might as well say Trump is OK because he’s not Atilla the Hun, or Trump is ok because he’s not Zoroaster.
Focus the conversation on Trump, since he’s president-elect now. What is Trump doing that they actually like?