Kills Me Dead

#never 4get that rey was excited to meet han because of his criminal activity#not because of his war heroics#lolololol I LOVE HER#light of my life#han solo#finn#gifs#tfa

I love Chewie in the background shrugging at Finn like ‘war hero is a bit strong tbh mate’

this is it, this is the best video on the entire internet, everybody can retire now

yes, this is exactly what you think it will be

this website is really uniquely terrible in nearly every way but where else am i gonna put my posts about batman being named after bruce springsteen. do i post that on facebook? do i email my mom 

The best explanation of Tumblr’s appeal that I’ve seen

And One Time He Didn’t. NC-17. Vlad/Don, Fluff and Angst, Political Intrigue, Fisting

Women have more power and agency in Shakespeare’s comedies than in his tragedies, and usually there are more of them with more speaking time, so I’m pretty sure what Shakespeare’s saying is “men ruin everything” because everyone fucking dies when men are in charge but when women are in charge you get married and live happily ever after

I think you’re reading too far into things, kiddo. Take a break from your women’s studies major and get some fresh air.

Right. Well, I’m a historian, so allow me to elaborate.

One of the most important aspects of the Puritan/Protestant revolution (in the 1590’s in particular) was the foregrounding of marriage as the most appropriate way of life. It often comes as a surprise when people learn this, but Puritans took an absolutely positive view of sexuality within the context of marriage. Clergy were encouraged to lead by example and marry and have children, as opposed to Catholic clergy who prized virginity above all else. Through his comedies, Shakespeare was promoting this new way of life which had never been promoted before. The dogma, thanks to the church, had always been “durr hburr women are evil sex is bad celibacy is your ticket to salvation.” All that changed in Shakespeare’s time, and thanks to him we get a view of the world where marriage, women, and sexuality are in fact the key to salvation. 

The difference between the structure of a comedy and a tragedy is that the former is cyclical, and the latter a downward curve. Comedies weren’t stupid fun about the lighter side of life. The definition of a comedy was not a funny play. They were plays that began in turmoil and ended in reconciliation and renewal. They showed the audience the path to salvation, with the comic ending of a happy marriage leaving the promise of societal regeneration intact. Meanwhile, in the tragedies, there is no such promise of regeneration or salvation. The characters destroy themselves. The world in which they live is not sustainable. It leads to a dead end, with no promise of new life.

And so, in comedies, the women are the movers and shakers. They get things done. They move the machinery of the plot along. In tragedies, though women have an important part to play, they are often morally bankrupt as compared to the women of comedies, or if they are morally sound, they are disenfranchised and ignored, and refused the chance to contribute to the society in which they live. Let’s look at some examples.

In Romeo and Juliet, the play ends in tragedy because no-one listens to Juliet. Her father and Paris both insist they know what’s right for her, and they refuse to listen to her pleas for clemency. Juliet begs them – screams, cries, manipulates, tells them outright I cannot marry, just wait a week before you make me marry Paris, just a week, please and they ignore her, and force her into increasingly desperate straits, until at last the two young lovers kill themselves. The message? This violent, hate-filled patriarchal world is unsustainable. The promise of regeneration is cut down with the deaths of these children. Compare to Othello. This is the most horrifying and intimate tragedy of all, with the climax taking place in a bedroom as a husband smothers his young wife. The tragedy here could easily have been averted if Othello had listened to Desdemona and Emilia instead of Iago. The message? This society, built on racism and misogyny and martial, masculine honour, is unsustainable, and cannot regenerate itself. The very horror of it lies in the murder of two wives. 

How about Hamlet? Ophelia is a disempowered character, but if Hamlet had listened to her, and not mistreated her, and if her father hadn’t controlled every aspect of her life, then perhaps she wouldn’t have committed suicide. The final scene of carnage is prompted by Laertes and Hamlet furiously grappling over her corpse. When Ophelia dies, any chance of reconciliation dies with her. The world collapses in on itself. This society is unsustainable. King Lear – we all know that this is prompted by Cordelia’s silence, her unwillingness to bend the knee and flatter in the face of tyranny. It is Lear’s disproportionate response to this that sets off the tragedy, and we get a play that is about entropy, aging and the destruction of the social order.  

There are exceptions to the rule. I’m sure a lot of you are crying out “but Lady Macbeth!” and it’s a good point. However, in terms of raw power, neither Lady Macbeth nor the witches are as powerful as they appear. The only power they possess is the ability to influence Macbeth; but ultimately it is Macbeth’s own ambition that prompts him to murder Duncan, and it is he who escalates the situation while Lady Macbeth suffers a breakdown. In this case you have women who are allowed to influence the play, but do so for the worse; they fail to be the good moral compasses needed. Goneril, Regan and Gertrude are similarly comparable; they possess a measure of power, but do not use it for good, and again society cannot renew itself.

Now we come to the comedies, where women do have the most control over the plot. The most powerful example is Rosalind in As You Like It. She pulls the strings in every avenue of the plot, and it is thanks to her control that reconciliation is achieved at the end, and all end up happily married. Much Ado About Nothing pivots around a woman’s anger over the abuse of her innocent cousin. If the men were left in charge in this play, no-one would be married at the end, and it would certainly end in tragedy. But Beatrice stands up and rails against men for their cruel conduct towards women and says that famous, spine-tingling line - oh God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace. And Benedick, her suitor, listens to her. He realises that his misogynistic view of the world is wrong and he takes steps to change it. He challenges his male friends for their conduct, parts company with the prince, and by doing this he wins his lady’s hand. The entire happy ending is dependent on the men realising that they must trust, love and respect women. Now it is a society that it worthy of being perpetuated. Regeneration and salvation lies in equality between the sexes and the love husbands and wives cherish for each other. The Merry Wives of Windsor - here we have men learning to trust and respect their wives, Flastaff learning his lesson for trying to seduce married women, and a daughter tricking everyone so she can marry the man she truly loves. A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The turmoil begins because three men are trying to force Hermia to marry someone she does not love, and Helena has been cruelly mistreated. At the end, happiness and harmony comes when the women are allowed to marry the men of their choosing, and it is these marriages that are blessed by the fairies.

What of the romances? In The Tempest, Prospero holds the power, but it is Miranda who is the key to salvation and a happy ending. Without his daughter, it is likely Prospero would have turned into a murderous revenger. The Winter’s Tale sees Leontes destroy himself through his own jealousy. The king becomes a vicious tyrant because he is cruel to his own wife and children, and this breach of faith in suspecting his wife of adultery almost brings ruin to his entire kingdom. Only by obeying the sensible Emilia does Leontes have a chance of achieving redemption, and the pure trust and love that exists between Perdita and Florizel redeems the mistakes of the old generation and leads to a happy ending. Cymbeline? Imogen is wronged, and it is through her love and forgiveness that redemption is achieved at the end. In all of these plays, without the influence of the women there is no happy ending.

The message is clear. Without a woman’s consent and co-operation in living together and bringing up a family, there is turmoil. Equality between the sexes and trust between husbands and wives alone will bring happiness and harmony, not only to the family unit, but to society as a whole. The Taming of the Shrew rears its ugly head as a counter-example, for here a happy ending is dependent on a woman’s absolute subservience and obedience even in the face of abuse. But this is one of Shakespeare’s early plays (and a rip-off of an older comedy called The Taming of a Shrew) and it is interesting to look at how the reception of this play changed as values evolved in this society. 

As early as 1611 The Shrew was adapted by the writer John Fletcher in a play called The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed. It is both a sequel and an imitation, and it chronicles Petruchio’s search for a second wife after his disastrous marriage with Katherine (whose taming had been temporary) ended with her death. In Fletcher’s version, the men are outfoxed by the women and Petruchio is ‘tamed’ by his new wife. It ends with a rather uplifting epilogue that claims the play aimed:

The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed were staged back to back in 1633, and it was recorded that although Shakespeare’s Shrew was “liked”, Fletcher’s Tamer Tamed was “very well liked.” You heard it here folks; as early as 1633 audiences found Shakespeare’s message of total female submission uncomfortable, and they preferred John Fletcher’s interpretation and his message of equality between the sexes.

So yes. The message we can take away from Shakespeare is that a world in which women are powerless and cannot or do not contribute positively to society and family is unsustainable. Men, given the power and left to their own devices, will destroy themselves. But if men and women can work together and live in harmony, then the whole community has a chance at salvation, renewal and happiness.  

bitch got TOLD

smallangrynerd

A Christmas Carol is so wild to me because it takes not one, not two, but like four fucking ghosts to convince this dude not to be the biggest douche in the universe. Like, four fucking ghosts came back from the dead, rose from the Goddamn grave to be like, “I came back from the dead because you need to quit your shit.” Fuck. How big of an asshole do you have to be to have four fucking ghosts tell you to stop?

u kno what asshole?? scrooge was into it after the second ghost. he was along for the ride. he himself fuckin told the ghost of christmas future that he knew he was there to teach him a lesson and that he was open to learning whatever was to come. he didn’t need all those ghosts, they were just icing on the cake. so u can stfu

Things are heating up in the Christmas Carol fandom.

reblog for vintage interracial mermaid lesbians

Surya Bonaly, world renowned French skater whose trademark move is her backflip, where she only lands on one blade in order to keep the move legal. She’s amazing!

Yoooooo

it always amuses me when I remember the ice skating community banned this phenomanal move because a black person literally had raised the bar and white people were too bitter to do better so they banned a move that would add progress to the sport.

and then she raised the bar again 

someone make this into a movie. fuck it, i’ll do it

ok ok so every time this post shows up on my dash, i get a little miffed because it presents this narrative that isn’t consistent with reality. it misrepresents surya’s career. first, there seems to be this implication that the isu banned the backflip because surya was the first skater to perform the backflip, and they didn’t like that because she’s black. 

i mean, surya did not pioneer the backflip. she herself stated that her coach suggested that she start doing backflips on ice because of a skater named norbert schramm who was performing them in europe at the time. scott cramer pulled off 10,032 backflips over the course of his career, and he retired seven years before surya even began competing. surya is THE FIRST AND ONLY skater in history to perform a backflip and land on one skate in competition, but the most important part of it wasn’t the feat itself but WHY SHE DID IT. 

and ok, the first person to successfully do a backflip on ice was skippy baxter in an ice show in the 1940s. there has only been one legal backflip performed in actual competition by terry kubicka in 1976. immediately after he pulled it off, the isu banned the move from competitions. please note that yes, terry kubicka was a white male figure skater. and for context, surya was born in 1973. i sincerely doubt that the isu was banning the backflip because of a THREE-YEAR-OLD. 

the isu had very good non-racism related reasons for banning the backflip because well, figure skating is fucking hard. i think we frequently underestimate just how difficult it is because of how easy they make it look. i mean top figure skaters are still working on consistently landing quad jumps in competition. it’s so easy to flub a jump and get injured, and it’s super common for skaters to spend huge chunks of the off season not training because they’ve injured themselves.

SO DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA JUST HOW FUCKING DANGEROUS IT WOULD BE IF BACKFLIPS WERE ALLOWED IN COMPETITIVE SKATING???? if you mess this move up, you’re not just going to break an ankle or fuck up your muscles, you’d break your neck on the ice. you could FUCKING DIE. and this is by no means the first or last move to get banned by the isu for being too dangerous. (the one that comes to mind is the head banger death spiral because seriously what a name).

the reason why this is just so upsetting to me is because i feel like you guys are really simplifying surya’s narrative. yes, surya was a FUCKING BADASS. LIKE HER FIRST SEASON IN SENIOR COMPETITIONS, SHE LANDED A BACKFLIP DURING PRACTICE RIGHT IN FRONT OF MIDORI ITO, THE FAVORITE FOR THE 1992 OLYMPICS. IN THE SAME COMPETITION, SHE BECAME THE ONLY WOMAN TO EVER ATTEMPT A QUAD TOE LOOP IN COMPETITION, and the first time anyone had even successfully pulled that off was a mere three years earlier. 

and yes, surya had to deal with A LOT of racism. because of her skin color and her build and her athleticism and her style, she didn’t fit into the “ice princess”. they pegged her as a rebel, and they treated her as such. the judges were constantly nitpicking her skating style and criticizing her artistry because she wasn’t this light and graceful skater that they thought female figure skaters should be. (black ballerinas suffer from the same plight). she was constantly pushing the boundaries, but she consistently got lower scores than her white counterparts. and despite that, she was A THREE-TIME WORLD SILVER MEDALIST, A FIVE-TIME EUROPEAN CHAMPION, AND A NINE-TIME FRENCH NATIONAL CHAMPION.

in the 1994 world championships, surya’s final score tied for first place with yuka sato’s. it came down to a tiebreaker vote, and the judges picked yuka because she fit in better with the ice princess image. surya knew why she the judges didnt pick her. during the awards ceremony, she refused to step onto the medals podium and took off the silver medal. she was crying, and the crowd was booing at her.

the 1998 olympics was going to be surya’s last hurrah. she knew that the 97-98 season would be her last. when the judges gave her a low score on her short program for surprise surprise racist reasons, she knew that there was no way that she could win. 

so surya decided to make a point. 

she hadn’t planned to do this from the start because she knew that the move was illegal and doing it could get her disqualified, but after seeing her short program score, surya basically on the spot decided to replace the triple in her free skate with the backflip landing on one skate. she hadn’t been training for this move specifically, she just pulled it off right then and there on the olympic stage. and while the backflip was banned for being too dangerous, another reason for it to be banned was because the skater would land on both skates, and jumps are always landed with one skate.

surya pulling off this banned move was basically her last FUCK YOU to the judges because they’d been screwing her over since the start of her career. she was challenging them by making a previously illegal move technically legal. the judges didn’t disqualify her, but they didn’t accept the move as legal either, and they deducted points from her score, so surya placed 10th overall. BUT THAT DIDNT MATTER. when surya finished her program, she turned her back on the judges (a huge no-no because it is highly disrespectful) because she didn’t care about their opinion at this point. SHE’D MADE HISTORY. their decision wouldn’t change that.

(surya performs the backflip at 3:28)

X  X  X  X  X  X

THESE NEW DETAILS MADE IT BETTER

This article doesn’t mention, not even once, the fact that nearly all the important male roles were given to men of color, and that this is by far the most racially diverse movie in the entire Star Wars franchise.

A White Feminist™ mess, that’s what this mediocre analysis is. @hellotailor, do better next time. Everyone else, use your time reading this incredible piece by Kate Gardner on how revolutionary the MoC in Rogue One are:

Jyn Erso Isn’t Revolutionary; Her Co-Leads Are

There are no Black women, no Latina women, and No Asian women, so I’m sorry but this shit still isn’t revolutionary to me. How you have one white woman and all these men of color and NO women of color???

And I’m not doing this to hate but the star wars universe has always been welcoming to white women and DOMINATED by white men so yea all the men of color are great but they were always there even though it was in a small portion.

Landon Calrissian Mace Windu Jango Fett Boba Fett Finn Poe Dameron

And now all these new actors. And yea I’m upset too that there weren’t more men of color before but damn how y'all add NO women of color to the cast? And no Lupita doesn’t count because she was a CGI character and I had to figure that out afterwards.

This is revolutionary for men of color and white women but it doesn’t do anything for women of color. We do not see representation in white women and the men of our race. Yes it’s good to see but that’s not representation for us. And Star Wars still can’t a proper Black female character to the cast like I’m honestly appalled that they put Lupita in CGI and I’ll never get over that.

hey everyone, lets talk about how syphilis didnt appear in Europe till after Christopher Columbus came back from America but didnt exist in people from the Americas either until then. lets talk about how the only animals syphilis was found in before then were llamas.

no im not kidding we need to talk about this

#are you implying what i think you are

Christopher Columbus’s only achievements in life were stumbling idiotically onto a country he wasn’t looking for by accident, attempted genocide and giving the human race a new STD by fucking llamas and yet somehow he gets a public holiday

So yeah, be sure to wish your friends and family a Happy Llama Fucker day each and every year as we celebrate the man who gave the world the gift of syphillis

surely Christopher Columbus never even saw a llama, aren’t they on the west side of South America, a place he never reached?

I don’t know about Columbus encountering llamas, but the history of syphilis is actually super interesting and contentious. The bit about syphilis only being found in llamas is just… not true. It apparently affects great apes and (certain strains) rabbits, but I can’t find any mention of llamas. Syphilis is a subspecies of a bacteria called  Treponema pallidum, which has several major disease-causing strains, significantly yaws, pinta, and bejel, or “non-venereal syphilis”. Bejel and yaws are historically found in the Eastern Hemisphere, while pinta is from the Americas. The major difference about syphilis, or Treponema pallidum pallidum, is just that it’s venereal/sexually transmitted. Diseases evolve over time, and in this case, it seems that T. pallidum is an “heirloom disease”, strains of which have affected humans, human ancestors, and our primate relatives.

What is generally accepted is that Columbus introduced modern venereal syphilis to Europe after picking it up in the Americas. Pre-Columbian indigenous Americans were affected by some form of treponematosis, but what’s less certain is whether or not it was transmitted venereally prior to being brought back to Europe, or if it evolved into an STI rapidly in a new population. Here’s one of the articles I’ve been reading.

syphilis was actually already in Europe well before Columbus was even born. There are skeletons preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that have been discovered and certain indicators on the bones have lead scientists to declare that these indicators were most likely caused by syphilis. The skeletons are of a pair of twins around the age of 12, meaning that they would have had congenital syphilis (as in, they were born with it).

Other cases of pre-Columbian osteological evidence have turned up elsewhere in Europe, with a decent short summary here. Besides the evidence of congenital syphilis from Pompeii, Hippocrates may have described symptoms of venereal syphilis in Greece earlier.

One earlier medieval burial site in East London had multiple skeletons showing signs of damage. Brian Connell said, ‘It caused a bit of stir when it was found because the symptoms are so obvious.’

How could people in medieval Europe have missed it before the 1490s?

Douglas Owsley, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, also put forward the idea that syphilis had existed in both hemispheres but was mistaken in the medieval period for leprosy–it is simply coincidental that the mistaken leprosy symptoms flared up in virulence at the end of the fifteenth century. Other molecular geneticists have argued that it’s likely syphilis emerged in Europe spontaneously, possibly from related bacteria already rife in the Old World.

Which sounds totally plausible, considering other strains were already there.

*raises finger* ok but did you know that ARMADILLOS are one of VERY FEW ANIMALS that can actually get leprosy

that has nothing to do with anything but I find it bloody hilarious

tumblr + history

george lucas directed star wars (1977) after only making one studio film but ok kathy

(1 2 3 4)

This is absurd??

There’s also been a great response to this in Forbes.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2016/11/28/female-directors-dont-need-experience-they-just-need-to-get-hired/#3380279f23a3

@fuckyeahwomenfilmdirectors

I saw this when it was first reported and was going to ignore it because it is so patently stupid and wrong, but what the hell, since someone @’d me I’ll throw my two cents in: THIS IS COMPLETELY STUPID AND WRONG.

Again this is really indicative of a culture in which women are held to higher standards than men that complete bullshit because no matter what standard you hold a woman to there are women that actually fit that criteria and are getting ignored anyway. 

If you only want to consider a woman who has done big budget scifi/action before: Patty Jenkins, Lexi Alexander (WHO HAS SPECIFICALLY EXPRESSED INTEREST IN THE STAR WARS FRANCHISE), Mimi Leder, Anna Foerster, Ava DuVernay (not even going to include the Wachowski sisters or Kathryn Bigelow because they are so obviously overqualified it’s ridiculous).

If you only want to consider women who have done mid-tier (between 20-60 million budget) movies: Julie Taymor, Karyn Kusama, Catherine Hardwicke

If you only want to consider women who have done low-budget scifi/action or TV so you can cultivate their talent: Michelle MacClaren, Jennifer Phang, Ana Lily Amirpour, Jennifer Kent, Mary Harron

This holiday season, instead of blindly throwing your dollars at Star Wars see one of the many great indies out there directed by women. Because you need to support the films they are making right now instead of hoping that one day a producer might wake up and toss one of them a bone. 

Laurie Penny on why The Great British Bake Off is the best thing on television (obviously, as discussed on episode 12).

(via srslypod)

I’ve heard that too. That they just curse and repeat brand names until their faces are blue just to a) save the contestant the humiliation and b) make them laugh because who isn’t gonna laugh when you have Sue and Mel screaming “TESCO, ASDA, SAINSBURY’S” in front of an exasperated crew.

(via lisajp4)

I dug up proof because I needed to know if this was true - so here is Sue talking about it

(via dracofidus)

I adore the great british bake off

(via frizztastic)

Most of the assholes who scream “Blue Lives Matter” have never heard of any of these heroes. They’re too busy defending murderers like Darren Wilson, Daniel Pantaleo, and Timothy Loehmann.

“Not all cops are bad.” No shit. The cops shown in the photo are good cops, and there are many more like them. So why are you only defending the bad cops?

Didn’t include one of the most egregious cases of all, the time the NYPD had a cop involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. He was released after a week when the doctors determined he was fine and not ill in any way. He had reported fellow cops for brutality.

The officer’s name is Adrian Schoolcraft and the hospital still billed the family.

the headers on the beach boys wiki make them sound like a small troubled nation 

x

i just discovered the term ‘black knighting’ courtesy of reddit and i want to vomit :) 

i can never believe how much men hate women. it just keeps getting worse and worse

I’ve never heard of that. Is it new? And what is it? I have a bad suspicion… :(

no idea how new it is, as i typically avoid reddit like the plague (but i discovered this term through the link to the gendercritical subreddit) 

“A Black Knight is someone who pisses women off for entertainment.“ as opposed to a White Knight aka someone that stands up for women in order to try and get sex :/

here are some excerpts, courtesy of theredpill

on the subject of a woman walking away from you at night: “I’m just a man who decided to run an errand at night. Next time this happens jog after her. There is no law against jogging. Chase her for a while and then stop. Enjoy the fear you created. Woof woof you stupid cunt.”

on the subject of what they called “biological warfare”: “How do you exploit these two weaknesses? Start baking for the office. See how much butter and sugar you can make the little piggies eat. With sustained effort everyone will be up ten pounds in three to six months.”

“Fructose has various nasty biological effects when consumed in excess. Main ones we are interested in are raised blood trigs, adiposity and increased appetite (outside of normal insulin fuckery, but related).“

“Try replacing the fructose with a sugar alcohol like sorbitol. For a portion of the population, it causes “gastric distress” - diarrhea and gas, mostly.”

another story that im gonna paraphrase: guy didnt like his female boss, she was stressed over a project, someone “accidentally” sent flowers to the wrong desk- to HER boss- with a note saying “the interview went great and we look forward to working with you next month!” to make it look like she was secretly searching for another job. she got fired within the week.

using the womans bathroom at starbucks, which one man described as “empowering in a red pill way” because of course most women are going to look confused if not upset… clearly beyond the red piller to imagine reasons a man might enter a womans restroom besides to go to the bathroom

some things fairly innocuous like leaving empty condom wrappers in womens restrooms and stuff…. to intentionally trying to intimidate women, getting a woman fired, etc. men harassing women in various ways, “for teh lulz” i guess. 

We could never hate men as much as they hate us.

Andrea Dworkin recommended for the women of the 21st century to harden our hearts and learn to kill. Perhaps she was right.

women who hate men want to distance ourselves from men, have our own communities, when women hate men, we want to get away from men. When men hate women they do the exact opposite, they invade our spaces, harass us, intimidate us, stalk us, are violent against us. It doesn’t matter how much women hate men, we don’t hate men the way they hate us.

^^^ the last comment is so important

That last comment really hit the nail on the head, I was just trying to articulate that exact thought earlier today.