I really hope people online aren't getting the wrong impression of unions and that they're flawless Things that will protect them from any and all mistreatment and that strikes are fun little treats union workers get

Unions are People not Things. Union leaders can fuck up. Unions can definitely operate in a way that gets you low wages and poor benefits if you're not being represented well.

A union by itself does not guarantee you anything. Unions take work and money to run. You pay dues, you go to meetings, you vote. You protect each other in a union. You don't join a union and magically have everything taken care of for you.

Strikes are a powerful tool but are scary. They're not a goal to achieve. Unions don't aim to go on strike during negotiations.

Also things do not become morally good or bad based on unions. The police unions that are all over the news being shitty about the idea that their members should be held accountable? Yeah those are still unions. The workplaces are still unionized workplaces. Because unions are just collective groups of people that get together to protect their interests.

Whether those interests are good for anyone other than those in the union or not. One of the struggles locally (that is, my province) is that the interests of the labour unions of a bunch of different industrial fields are genuinely in conflict with, for instance, a large number of kinds of environmental legislation.

Unions are a tool and a process by which you attempt to balance out the disproportionate power held by those with money or with overarching control over a particular area of work. They are a good idea and a good thing overall, but they aren't magic - as OP says if they're not run well they're not effective, and they are only as ethically or morally good as the people they represent choose to be. And a strike is literally the Final Weapon in a union arsenal, and are hella hard on both society (if they matter at all) AND on the strikers themselves.

And like I do want to draw out: unions are a good idea and a good thing. Unionize/join your union/prefer unionized jobs.

Just be aware that they are only as good as the people in them and to make them good you also have to show up and be part of making them better. It's organizing, not magic, and yeah strikes are the last nuclear option: they're part of a strategy, they're something you do to get a specific result that you're looking for.

Effective labour organizing is incredibly strategic, a lot of work, and very worth it. It's not magic wand and strikes are not a magic ritual where Do Ritual, Get Good World. They're a strategic and tactical tool utilized for a specific, articulated, considered purpose.

One of the things that made Captain America: The Winter Soldier so good was that it really went out of its way to establish character’s competence before they fought the big climax of the story, so you really feel the stakes. 

Fury escaped a whole set of police cars and weaponized teams and being shot at from all sides, but then comes the Winter Soldier and bam just like that he’s down. Steve took out a set of pirates and Batroc at the start of the movie, then an entire elevator full of STRIKE agents, brought down a plane with his bare hands, but then bam the Winter Soldier slams into him like nothing else before. 

And with Winter Soldier we see him take out Fury twice, go toe to toe with Steve, hurl Natasha around, yank a guy from a car, jump from a bridge, he’s restrained in a room filled with people with huge guns and he slams a guy halfway across the room, and then Pierce goes ahead and slaps him, because he can.

I remember watching that movie in theatres back in 2014 (2015?) when it first came out, and gasping in shock when Pierce slaps the Winter Soldier across the face. This guy has super-serum, and Pierce is an old man. The Winter Soldier could have killed Pierce with his pinky finger. I was expecting him to react violently to being slapped, and for Pierce to end up as a red smear on the nearest wall.

When the Soldier just accepted his punishment, I was deeply creeped out. That’s when it really hit me that he is a victim. He’s been brainwashed so thoroughly Pierce has zero hesitation in getting violent with him. Pierce KNOWS he’s the one in control, and the Soldier would never dare to fight back.

Pierce can hit him with impunity, and the Soldier being a supersoldier is irrelevant. Yeah, he’s physically extraordinarily strong, but he’s not a person, he’s a tool. Pierce expects unquestioning obedience from him, and he always gets it. The Soldier’s mind is not his own, and he’s been enslaved.

P.S. Now I’m nostalgic for the days when Marvel used to make movies that didn’t suck. Yeah, there were some turkeys back in the day, but there were also some movies that were really GOOD. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, they convinced Robert fucking Redford to appear in a superhero movie, and he was amazing. Pierce wasn’t your average supervillain.

He was much scarier than that, because he was just a charming, genial, unscrupulous human being who had accumulated far too much power. He had no superpowers at all, but he was a terrifying villain because he didn’t NEED superpowers. He had his brain and his position, and he had a bureaucracy to ensure his decisions get implemented. Plus, the Winter Soldier programmed to carry out Pierce’s every order and treat him like he was God. Pierce didn’t need to get his hands dirty.

Also, that movie is an interesting outlier compared with other MCU movies. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is barely a superhero movie. Yes, it features 2 characters with superserum, and it has plenty of action scenes. But at its core, it’s really a spy thriller.

the other side of infinity (director‘s commentary)

For the handful of readers who like seeing my process.

Just after Infinity War showed, I was on tumblr skimming through, and someone had linked to the theory: What If The Infinity Stones Are Like The Elder Wand?

And my brain went: OOOH!

I’m always up for a version of a story that involves the background characters taking frontline positions - after all, I write Maria Hill, who’s the most background of backgrounds for even fans who like the female characters - and this idea was perfect. The characters who were Masters of the infinity stones were all dead, the comics had already done the ‘trapped in the soulstone’ storyline for Infinity War, and it gave me the chance to tie in the relationship connections that must exist behind the scenes if we’re to believe the characterisation of the people who aren’t in the foreground, as well as the way the scenes play out in canon.

The result was the other side of infinity.

Keep reading

Anyway here's some additions from the Maasai and Kikuyu, two grassy plain-dwelling groups from Eastern Africa that I think count as unfuckwithable

Feel like Poland should be included since we're literally called "people of the fields" according to the etymology of Poland.

Also look at her GO

I’m Métis, here’s some of ours! You’ll notice it looks remarkably similar to the above.

We also have some less intricate clothing (if it looks a bit Victorian to you - that’s pretty much the right era for most of this!)

Can’t believe no one’s done it yet I will be the person to add the cowboys: Latin American focus.

Here is the Chilean huaso:

Gauchos, from primarily Argentina where they’re a large national symbol close to the level of cowboys in the US. Also gauchos are in Uruguay.  Their pants are called bombachas and the other garment wrapped around them are called chiripas.  They work in grasslands called pampas, known for being really fertile:

While they’re not as dressed up as the others or have as prominent of a culture, for a broader Latin American cowboy context, I feel like also adding llaneros, who are from Colombia and Venezuela, in the llanos region, a type of tropical grassland similar to the pampas, hence the name llanero. Pampas get annual flooding and these guys would go barefoot a lot, and you can see that the stirrup on the horse’s saddle is really different than what you’re probably used to seeing, to accommodate for that, which is what I want to point out as an aspect of plains cultures developing clothing/accessories/tools to suit the environment. 

Cowboy culture happened wherever Spanish colonial influence and grassland biomes came together.  They differ based on the grasslands having different climates (ex tropical in South America), and the local indigenous influence (ex, backtracking to gauchos, they would use this tool called bolas to catch animals, which were basically two balls tied to a string that you threw and it spun around an animals legs, and were an indigenous invention):

I would love to keep posting cowboy dress lol but will stick to the post’s theme of grassland of course.  

Adding to the post, I, hereby, present people of Kalash and Chitral:

Chitral means ‘field’ in the native language Khowar. Both Chitralis and people of Kalash are known to be indigenous people of Asia.

it’s too bad crossover ensemble films are wasted on superheroes I want a murder mystery mashup extravaganza. shawn spencer and hannibal lecter meet and instantly think “there’s something very wrong with you”. benoit blanc (shawns celebrity crush) tells them that they’re both on international watch lists. the scooby gang is there for five minutes but can only spare scoobs for the actual case. sherlock insults all of them to which shawn replies “so you and watson are like me and gus except gayer”. veronica mars is there. so is detective pikachu

Disabled Representation Has Come Farther Than You Think

You’ve Just Been Conditioned Not to See It.

I recently got into a huge fight with an abled friend about disabled representation, in which he was completely convinced that the stance he held was that of an ally. He’s a long time friend of mine and I know he really did think he was fighting for us and coming from a place of trying to help us.

And it really got me thinking about the way abled people perceive disabled people. And how that message is internalised and reinforced in so many ways.

My friend was trying to say that characters like Cyborg, Misty knight, Daredevil, Toph, Edward Elric, Bucky, Nebula, etc were not good representation. And he at first refused to listen to me (an actual disabled person) when I was like; no, we like that. we love that. we LOVE seeing badass and competent and sexy disabled people. It’s validating and empowering.

His argument was that it didn’t really count because nobody saw them as disabled and that it would be the same thing as saying Gamora is black representation.

While I understand where he was coming from, both of us also being black, it was hard to get him to understand how it wasn’t the same thing.

Gamora is a black actress painted green to portray a green-skinned alien. She has black features, yes, but within the narrative she very much is not a black woman. She’s an alien.

But a disabled character is always still a disabled character. Regardless of how high tech or SciFi or magical or fantastical the world or universe is; an amputee with a prosthesis is still an amputee. They are still disabled. Yes, even if their prosthesis shoots lasers.

And other characters, like Toph and Daredevil, who are both blind, have superpowers/superhuman abilities that allow them to overcome their disability. That does not make them less disabled.

Their blindness still impacts their everyday lives. They can’t read. They can’t draw. They don’t know what things or people look like, or what color things are. They can’t read someone’s facial expressions during a conversation. They can’t follow a map without assistance.

When I asked my friend for examples of what he considered good disabled representation he said Professor X, Oracle, and the Thinker. And that made me pause and I won’t lie, it upset me. It felt degrading. I got kind of angry at him and it got a little heated.

Because what he was saying is: the smart one in the wheelchair that never actually joins the battle because their body is too frail? Those are the only good disabled characters? The ones who still need to be protected and treated tenderly and are physically weaker?

Do we only exist when you can view us as some subhuman lesser other that you can take pity on?

But it’s not only my friend who thinks this way.

I’ve seen quite a few arguments online about people who don’t think Edward Elric is disabled, despite being an amputee.

Who don’t think Cyborg is disabled, despite the fact that his entire power set is due to a life support and mobility aid device.

And my friend was shocked that I, and many other disabled people, find these depictions of strong and confident and capable disabled people empowering. He fully expected that I would find those depictions offensive.

And that’s when it really hit me.

The issue is not that characters like Bucky or Toph or Daredevil are bad representations of disabled characters.

The issue is that people don’t perceive them as disabled. They’ve internalized this belief that disabled people have to be weak and delicate and fragile and in some way physically inferior.

They’re only considered disabled if they’re tragic and/or weak. Or ugly. People love to project a tragic subhuman otherness onto disabled people who are ugly.

If they’re cool and badass that confuses them. That doesn’t fit with the narrative that’s been built in their heads.

The idea of a competent, confidant, and strong disabled character, especially a cool disabled character is just so completely foreign to them that they don’t even consider it.

Now I’m not saying that depictions of disabled characters like Oracle or professor X are bad or harmful. We need representation of disabled people who aren’t strong and don’t have superpowers and maybe don’t feel particularly empowered. That’s a genuine representation of many disabled people.

It just isn’t the only one.

I think the issue with disabled representation is not that it doesn’t exist (as I’ve seen many abled people online claim in our defense) but that we need to shift the way we think of disabled people so we stop overlooking a lot of the really cool and badass and awesome disabled characters we do already have.

So if you read this far through this essay, please stop for a moment and consider the preconceptions you have about disabled people.

Have you ever overlooked a disabled character because they were strong, powerful, charismatic, or, (God forbid!) SEXY?

And if so, I’d ask you to take some time to examine in yourself why you don’t think of disabled people as being able to be those things.

Mod Izzy

Every heist team needs to fill these four roles.

sylphrena!💙 this has been in my wips for too long.. I’m always meaning to do more cosmere art but I’ve gotta catch up on the books first 😭 most of the way through rhythm of war rn, I’m nearly there!!

motherfucker said PROFESSIONAL

Here on tumblr we are all professionals.

it's the same in danish pretty much

This is an important message.

I will never NOT reblog this.

The US dropped more than 270 million bombs on Laos during the Vietnam War, making it the most heavily bombed country in the world.

They didn’t even declare war on Laos beforehand, they started doing this in secret and it was only exposed on the 16th year of the Vietnam war

This is also significantly more bombs than were dropped in total in WW2.

Quetzalcóatl :::

Arte de:

Feel freel to say how your relationship with your parent(s) is in the tags.

The Creative Act of Listening to a Talking Frog

Kermit the Frog gives a talk on creativity and creative risk-taking

did a puppet just fucking give some of the best advice ever.

I hope you heard this in Kermit’s voice, just like I did.

Livejournal veterans seeing people freak out about Twitter (potentially) closing down

Made a new poster! :)

If I were bloodthirsty, I'd tag @emporium.

Photo of the Day – The Scaled Fruiteater (Ampelioides tschudii) is a large cotinga of the Andes. Although this is a stunningly-plumaged bird, it is furtive canopy-dwelling, which means it can often be missed. One of the best ways to find one is by listening out for its loud, hawk-like whistle.

This photo was taken by Dušan Brinkhuizen in Ecuador

“The Barbie movie is just brand propaganda and you’re giving in to capitalism” I really really don’t care like I REALLY don’t care and btw marx isn’t going to fuck you