The Magic $20K

Seems like everyone I know was either attacked by a dog or hit by a car as a child, receiving a settlement of $20,000 on reaching adulthood. They wasted it on computers which were immediately obsolete and that kind of thing. More recently, I know someone who received $20,000 in life insurance payout from a parent’s death, and that person was a jumped-up maniac that wasted his money on endeavors that nearly killed him. Why is it always $20,000 and why can’t I get that? I’d spend half on top surgery for a trans dude I know and save the rest for taxes and bills and such. What would you do with the magic $20K?

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Giving You Pause About the ACLU

I remember Kurt Vonnegut cussing about the ACLU on TV once. He didn’t like that they protected the free speech of nazis. They have, in the past, invested their resources in defending the “peaceful assembly” of homicidal racists. I used to be a bit on the fence about that, but then, I’m white and I used to have the luxury of being more politically moderate, to see that bullshit as abstract rather than a personal attack. Now everything I hold dear is being targeted for destruction by the nazis in power, who were given more air time than ever should have been possible.

So good job ACLU for working against the travel ban. I find myself waiting for the other foot to drop, to find you’ve spent donated money helping someone like Yiannazilos. And I remain tired.

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More Tumblin’

Random things I’ve seen on tumblr. I’m on hiatus with all my tumblrz, but that’s just from reblogging, and the attendant chore of sorting / tagging content. But these should be shared anyhow. First some tweets which I encountered on tumbl because fuck having to see the comments on twitter:

tweet by ryanlcooper

ryanlcooper: “don’t have a strong take but worth remembering the whole point of fascism is to leverage liberal tolerance to dissolve the liberal state”

tweet by ryanlcooper

ryanlcooper: “fascists will be whining about free speech and being bullied right up to the point they overturn democracy and start the purges”

tweet by rosesurnow

rosesurnow: “I guess my favorite thing about the @BarackObama administration was being able to sleep at night.”

Then “fandomsandfeminism” on tumblr had this to say about why things were fucked even before we had fascism looming this large:

Every human being inherently deserves safe food, clean water, and adequate medical care.

The greatest moral failure of capitalism is that it turned these necessities into commodities.

The greatest moral failure of capitalists is finding ways to justify withholding what we need to live while it is in abundance for the sake of profit.

Nothing to add to that.

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It’s Telling What Speech They’ll Allow

Content Warnings: Nazis, Rape, Child Abuse

I e-mailed the University of Washington about Milo YianNazilos to discourage them from allowing his appearance there. He went, someone got shot, and shit was generally fucked. You can imagine the copy paste response I got – “Some may find it offensive but…”

Free speech, sure, yeah. Anyhow, what if nambla was doing a visit? What if advocates of “lovingly” fucking your small children were giving a speech? Why are advocates of white supremacy not equally reprehensible to you? Because they choose to eschew the labels of white supremacist and nazi, while using the exact same rhetoric? Is labels all that matter?

I don’t know, maybe they’d be cool with nambla too. After all, they don’t call themselves the National Association for Lovingly Penetrating Your Babies. “Some may find it offensive, but…” When are people going to learn that some speech – while it should exist in some publicly available quarantine for the purposes of education and forewarning – should not be given a platform, should not be allowed to advocate for itself?

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Edgie Comics: on TV

Content Warning: Statutory Rape, Homophobia, Biphobia, Eating Disorders,
Fatphobia, let me know if u think I should mention anything else…

Social justice score: 1 out of 5

So Archie Comics got hella weird in the Nü Millennium, with attempts at maintaining relevance by reaching different audiences. One of those tacks was to make a series of serious adult-ish comics with edgy elements written by Mark Waid. Now adult-ish edgy Archie is on The CW and to kill a minute I’m watching the first episode. Thoughts as they come…
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Unfollow’d Geeks

Looking for content to distract me in 2016, I happened upon the youtube channels of some comic book geeks. I think you can see where this is going. I watched them for some months and they mostly succeeded in being non-political and non-shitty about diverse new characters and such. Just an odd hint here and there of banal shitty geek attitudes, I could deal.

But then one that I do not follow posted some video about how “Diversity is Killing Marvel Comics,” some sites apparently had articles about comic book boys being racist, and foolios felt the need to respond / engage. The realities of the situation I don’t care to get into, not in the comments below or anywhere. Suffice it to say Marvel has been doing some brave things with diversity at the same time as they’ve had sales go into a slump. Whatever.

So at first I managed to avoid watching the one guy’s response video. I imagine he might have even had a half decent thing to say on the subject, but I didn’t wanna risk losing something passable to watch over finding the guy is a crudlord. But then I ended up catching some of it, and he’s whining about the journalists saying comic nerds are racist, calling it irresponsible journalism.

Hey, right now, of any time in recent history, calling out racism has become FUCKING VITAL. Call me racist. I don’t care as long as I learn to be a better person at the end of the conversation. Getting defensive? I don’t wanna hear it. Blow me. Unfollow’d.

Then the other banal moderate probably not a nazi comic nerd I follow was commenting about some bit of media news that mentioned triggers and he said, “Make all the trigger jokes you like.” Nuh. Don’t. Fucking unfollow’d.

Lately at work I’m trying to convince people to stop talking about political issues and these geeks I work with are all like, “Well, sure, I don’t even care about politics.” Which I find almost as offensive as saying you voted for Trump. Fuck you, geeks. I wish I had the ability to unfollow IRL, but I’m pathologically incapable of ignoring words spoken around me. Maybe I’m autism spectrum or compulsive or something. I can’t not listen to you fuckos being fuckos, so please, leave everything even vaguely political at home. I’m trying to get through the day without being fired for going off on a fool.

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Doing One’s Part

If I missed a day of work I’d be fired at this point, so rather than join the protest, I spent the day’s wages on donations to people. I was going to donate to an org but had trouble making indiegogo work on my computer, and one of the people I was going to donate to I couldn’t figure out how to make a one time donation. So anyhow, my hot 80 bucks got spread around mostly at The Orbit. Now I’m gonna buy a “Make Racists Afraid Again” hat and call it a night. >_<

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Pitfalls of RP: NonAdventurers

In this post I’m going to assume you’re familiar with the terms I’m using.  Ask for clarification in the comments if you like.  I’m also going to address this in part to GMs and in part to players, but I’m coming from the perspective of someone who is almost always the GM.

As GMs, we assume players want to play.  They showed up for a game, right?  But this is not a safe assumption.

There are many reasons why someone who came for a game might end up recalcitrant and useless.  Many roleplaying gamers are children, making them prone to rapid mood swings and erratic behavior.  Some people may feel compelled by social circumstances to show up for something they don’t want to do, and play their characters as inert lumps.  Sometimes a player is being antagonized by a crappy GM or other players, but doesn’t feel bold enough to quit the situation.

Those are all legitimate enough.  It would be nice if people could just admit when they don’t want to be around and have the means and wherewithal to bail, but it’s not always the case.  Still, there are some more cryptic reasons why players don’t play.  I’d like to discuss those a bit…
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Not MLK, but Relevant

Engraved Langston Hughes quote at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

“You tell me that hitler
Is a mighty bad man.
I guess he took lessons
from the ku klux klan…
Cause everything that hitler
And mussolini do,
Negroes get the same
Treatment from you…
I ask you this question
Cause I want to know
How long I got to fight
BOTH HITLER-AND JIM CROW.”
-Langston Hughes,
“Beaumont to Detroit: 1943”

Still fighting.
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