today at work i let someone into a dressing room and they said “thanks” and half of me tried to say “you’re welcome” and the other half tried to say “no problem” and i ended up saying “your problem”
this post had me in tears
I was hoping the notes would be full of similar stories, but they’re not, so I’ll add my story for anyone else looking for more laughs:
I had to go to a library to pay a fee and I was practicing in the car between “I have to pay a fine” and “I have to pay a fee” and I walked in and firmly stated “I have to pee” and slapped a five dollar bill on the counter (the fee was like ten cents), and walked out. This was like three years ago and I still haven’t been back,
My friend was driving and we were almost past our turnoff so I tried to say “quick” and “fast” at the same time and I ended up screaming “QUACK” which ended up with him judging me very hard and missing the turn
Recently someone in class asked me how I was doing and I started off saying I was good but switched to I’m okay in the middle and ended up saying “I’m gay.”
Which, while kind of accurate, was not what I meant to announce to my classmate.
This Halloween I was handing out candy and a child said “trick or treat” and I smiled gave them their candy and apparently my mouth betrayed me and I said “Merry Christmas” and proceeded to sit down and look up to the sky for answers while their mother laughed at me :)))))
I was switching between “Bye Deanna” and “Goodbye” and I ended up saying “Go Die”
Sometimes I try to say “I fucking love you” but it comes out in the wrong order and then everyone’s uncomfortable.
When I first started my coffee shop job, I was still getting used to greeting customers as they came in the door. A man walked in, and in the jumble of trying to say, “How are you doing?” and “What’s up?” I ended up demanding “What are you doing here?!”
something really cool happened once at the office and i started to say “i’m so amazed” but halfway through my mind changed to “that’s really amazing” and i just ended up saying “i’m really so amazing”
one time i was out in the woods in the spring when the birds were just beginning to come out again and i went to say “i’m so pumped for the birds” and “i’m so hyped for the birds” and instead i said “i’m so humped for birds”
Once I was walking to school and there was a guy walking his dog and the dog came to me and started sniffing me and I was in such a good mood and when I passed by his owner I wanted to say like “hello” or “good morning” or “cute dog” or something like that and I ended up looking up at him, smiling real big, and saying “thank you”.
I was at the convenience store and I was going to buy a drink, but i dropped my keys and the drink when I got to the register so I got caught between “my drink!” and “my keys” and ended up screaming “MY KINK.”
I walked up to this register,in a target. When the cashier finished checking me out she said have a good day, and i wanted to say “You have a good day” and “You too” so it came out “You have a good do do”
I FUCKIN H HIT MY HEAD ON A CHAIR FROM LAUGHING TOO HARD AT THIS FUCKING POS T
This post is too good. I once tried to say have a nice day or have a good day to a customer and said ‘Have a nude gay!’. Still haven’t recovered.
OOC: i get really used to working nights or days at my work so i’m often jumbled between “have a nice night” and “have a good day” so often it comes out as “have a nice neigh” or “have a good date” or occasionally even “have a night die”
in first grade someone apologized to me and i responded by saying “you’re welcome” and i still haven’t recovered
one time while working at a summer camp I poured milk into some kids cereal looked him straight in the eye and said, “thank you”
One time I was checking our fridge and went to ask “Is anyone gonna have this cake” as I was reading the “chocolate” label on it, and cake/chocolate got mixed up in my brain so it came out as “is anyone gonna have this cock?!”
I went to see Star Trek Beyond again the other day and I noticed something that I hadn’t before: the escape pods on the bridge of the Enterprise were specifically called Kelvin pods. At every other point, crew referred to escape pods until the bridge crew specifically began to evacuate. We saw the pods after ejection: escape pods were larger, presumably could fit multiple crew members (going by previous Trek history, really, and the size and number that we glimpsed), and had to be got to. The Kelvin pods were streamlined, single person carriers and built straight into the walls of the bridge. Accessible from any point in that space, effectively.
‘Kelvin pods’ or their equivalent haven’t been seen before in Star Trek (as far as I know) and definitely have never been referred to before in the Kelvin timeline. The USS Kelvin bridge crew had to leave the bridge to evacuate, and George Kirk had no point of escape after he set the ship on its fatal collision post. Given the name of these pods, it’s safe to say that these were installed after that incident to ensure that no Starfleet officer would ever have to go down with his ship in that way. Had there been pods in the bridge, George Kirk would have been likely to survive.
And I think that this is a thought that occurred to Kirk as he stood there, watching his ship be ripped apart too logn after the last of his crew (darling Checkov) had abandoned ship. As he lingered and made that decision to go. To live. To save his crew like his father would.
I noticed this when I saw it and remembered thinking what a beautiful little piece of world building it was.
It’s a very casual kind of way to remind the audience, not only the reaching effect of the Kelvin incident in-world, but also how hard it is for Jim Kirk to escape the circumstances of his birth.
There he is, able to get his crew to safety and follow them off the ship because of something that was created to prevent what his father had to do. In a way it’s George Kirk getting Jim off a crashing ship all over again.
It’s details like this that show why Simon and Doug need to write the next one if you ask me.
The level of emotional wreckage this movie has caused in my life is ASTOUNDING.
Here's the anon from Pirate fic!! Oh my gosh thank you for writing your headcanons, and oh dear we live on opposite ends on the earth so it wasn't 1am for me!! You're a lovely person and your fics (here and AO3) are really great, have a good day and all the love!! <3
Oh, trust me, babe, don’t feel bad about the 1 AM thing, I have zero impulse control and a desperate craving for pirate AU’s of everything, ‘tis no one’s fault but my own. Besides, it was a ton of fun. And I’m so glad you liked it (and my other fics, oh my gosh, you’re so sweet, I’m dying)! You have a lovely day too, honey!
there were a lot of moments in Star Trek Beyond that emotionally compromised me, but as i am irrationally attached to the Enterprise herself i need to vent feels about my very favorite dilithium-powered inanimate object.
The previews made it pretty clear that she was going to be destroyed so it wasn’t a surprise; but watching the extended, gratuitous destruction scene - every puncture to her hull, seeing her nacelles severed, watching the drone ships pick her apart piece by piece - was still painful.
but…
when Chekov & Kirk are standing looking at the burning ruins of her saucer and kirk says “She still has a few tricks up her sleeve, ” i. lost. mY. SHIT. OF COURSE SHE DOES BBY. SHE WILL GIVE THE LAST PIECE OF HERSELF FOR YOU. SHE LOVES YOU ALL.
And even at the bitter end, when the wrecked saucer is being COMPLETELY DESTROYED, she saves Kirk and Chekov one more time. I almost fucking bawled.
cashiering is the most thankless job i s2g you have no control over anything and customers seem to expect you to leave your station and personally attend to their needs
I feel so bad every time like, something is wrong and a cashier has to tell us. The other day at a Five Guys I ordered a coffee milkshake and a few minutes later the dude had to tell me they didn’t have any coffee left and he looked like he was bracing for impact. And I was just like “Dude it’s fine, let’s do this flavor instead” and he looked relieved. And honestly, that breaks my heart. Be nice to people that work in these positions man. It’s a thankless job and they could use the niceness.
i used to work a cashier job and the worst is when they complain about how expensive shit is??? like what do you want me to say? what do you want me to do about it??? theres nothing i can do. why you tellin me. i know.
also keep in mind that not only are cashiers a) the frontlines for dealing with horrible people and b) mostly powerless, a lot of places have cashiers standing in one position for upwards of six or eight hours. when I worked for Hell Incarnate (aka Panera Bread) I was less a human and more a unit they could station and work endlessly. Moving a leg or a foot after endless hours of standing in one place was torture. So often times, when you’re dealing with a cashier, keep in mind that they’re probably under physical strain as well.
If anyone would be proud of Harry’s sass, it’s Lily. Like mother, like son, y’know? Everyone lives AU - Lily’s the one who cheers Harry on and highfives him when he slaughterssomeone Malfoy, Lily’s the one who massages Harry’s back before he gets on the train to Hogwarts and whispers pro tips in his ear, Lily’s the one who ignores Sirius’ loud laughter and calls Harry tiger - “go for the jugular, NO MERCY” - James is in the background falling in love all over again
Buffy Summers is a depressed, suicidal college drop out who works a minimum wage job to support her family and she still keeps fighting and that is so inspiring to me
Today I got called by someone claiming to be the IRS. They left three
identical
automated voicemail messages before I woke up, telling me that I needed to call them immediately and that it was urgent.
Upon calling them at the number they gave, I was told that due to some mistakes with my taxes there was a WARRANT FOR MY ARREST, and that if the matter was not solved DURING THAT PHONE CALL, police officers would come ARREST ME AT MY HOUSE in 30-35 minutes.
They used a bunch of scare tactics and sounded fairly convincing.
I told them I was going to verify with the police, hung up, and called the local police. Before I got out more than “Someone called me claiming to be the IRS–” the police officer said “Oh that’s a scam. The IRS will never call you on the phone.”
After talking to a handful of people about this today and looking it up on
the IRS website, here’s what I’ve learned:
The IRS will never call you on the phone about taxes owed without first having mailed you a bill.
The IRS will never
ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone.
The IRS will never
threaten to bring any law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for not paying.
The IRS will never
use email, texts or any social media to discuss your personal tax issue involving bills or refunds.
If the IRS has a problem with your taxes, you will be given months to handle to situation. The government does not call you and require immediate action. If someone is calling you requiring you to respond instantly, they are not the government. It’s a scam.
This one might be obvious but just in case: NEVER give out your Social Security Number over the phone, or in any other context unless it is absolutely vital.
These scam artists try to scare you into making fast choices based in panic and fear. If someone contacting you is trying to scare you into giving them money, they are not the government.
If you know anyone who has anxiety, English isn’t their first language, or who has reasons to be extra afraid of the threat of police, or any other reasons for this type of scam to be especially stressful or effective, please make sure you give them this information. Tell your friends, your siblings, your coworkers, your parents, your grandparents. Please spread this information.
Another variant claims to be from the treasury department.
The government LOVES paper trails. Phone contact is nearly never their preferred way of getting in contact with you, and those few exceptions are generally things where you made phone contact first (like using the phone application option for the national ACA health marketplace).
You know what, looking back on it, my friends and I survived the Bush Presidency
We would have survived a McCain Presidency
We would have survived a Romney Presidency
I honestly worry that there are some people who would not survive a Trump Presidency
I don’t care how much you love Gary Johnson, or Jill Stein. On November 8, 2016, one of two things will be true: either Hillary Clinton will be elected President, or Donald Trump will be elected President.
Which one, HONESTLY, would be worse?
This isn’t the year to “vote your conscience.”
There’s a fucking dangerous man one election away from being President.
This is the year to vote to survive.
Any other year, this would be an exaggeration. We survived Bush, we could have survived McCain or Romney. This year, Trump’s danger is no exaggeration.
Don’t vote your conscience, vote to survive.
We will not, not, NOT SURVIVE Trump.
The LGBT community will not survive.
The communities of middle eastern descent will not survive.
Women, especially women who want a right to choose, will not survive.
The black community will not survive.
The latino community will not survive.
The disabled community will not survive.
I guarantee that there are more groups.
We as a country will not survive a Trump-Pence Presidency
The people in the apartment below me are playing “Never Have I Ever” and I’m smoking on my porch creeping on their game
Guy 1: Never have I ever INTIONALLY walked in on my parents having sex Gal 1: fuck you brandon! It wasn’t intentional! I didn’t know what they were doing!!! Brandon (Guy 1): Shut up Katy no one is THAT oblivious take your drink
Katy: Never have I ever LOST a wet tshirt contest
(Good job Katy. You do you. Proud of you boo)
Gal 2: Never have I ever pierced my genitals Brandon: IT WAS IN FOR LIKE A MONTH! Katy: Whatever bitch, take a drink you Prince Albert having douche Brandon: I’m being singled out I hate you all
Guy 2: Never have I ever had a threescore [Pause] Guy 2: WHAT THE FUCK KATY?!?!?!?! Katy: Shut up Andrew it’s before we even knew each other this was years ago!!! [Pause] Andrew: And you won’t even watch porn with me…
(the family is disintegrating)
Brandon: Never have I ever been in such a confrontational game of Never Have I Ever….
[People saying ‘cheers’]
(stop fighting guys you’re tearing this family apart…..)
Andrew: Never have I ever had sex WITH a piece of food. [Pause] Andrew: Dude Brandon: Dude Katy: Dude omg Gal 2: what? Omg EVERY girl has practiced giving head with a banana! Katy: Um no Ester. SOME of us just practice on dicks. Ester: what the fuck though. Whatever.
(Don’t let them kink shame you Ester I still love you)
#TeamEster #BananaSplits
Andrew is testing a banana. Go for it andrew. Explore your wild side #TeamEster #TeamKink
Brandon: Never have I ever been called a fuckboy Katy and Andrew: TO YOUR FACE Brandon: Go fuck a banana Andrew
#TeamBananaFucking
Ester: Never have I ever had a crush on a family member Brandon: [random fumbling noises] Katy: brandon omg ew Andrew: yeah man come the fuck on wtf man its 2016 Brandon: SHE WAS MY COUSIN AND I WAS 13 IT’S NOT LIKE SHE WAS MY SISTER AND IT WAS JUST A CRUSH NOTHING HAPPENED Ester: methinks thou dost protest too fucking much Brandon: NEVER TELLING YOU SHIT AGAIN Andrew: Chug your drink, Sir IncestsALot Brandon: Chug a fucking banana Andrew
#TeamBananaFucking #TeamWhatTheFuckBrandon
Katy and Andrew have gone home in an Uber to apparently sex it up. Alway use a designated driver, kids. And always put protection on your Banana.
“Washington heeded the doctors’ stark warning that he should get more outdoor activity. On June 6 he accompanied Jefferson and Hamilton on a fishing trip off Sandy Hook.”—
Also the Vikings were known to be complete dandies. They sought bright colors, jewelry, imported Persian silks. Ribbons. Little mirrors sewn onto clothing, in Sweden. The men had long hair that was scandalous to Christians, and they carried combs and earspoons and such things with them. I recall seeing documents where the eastern Norse were big on baths and one of their demands in a particular negotiation was “we get to have baths drawn for us whenever we want”, which was often.
They used soap with agents designed to bleach hair to try to make themselves blonder.
I’m sorry longhaired prettyboy viking men in gaudy clothing and jewelry, bleaching and combing their hair, doesn’t match with your Conan-the-Barbarian manlyman aesthetic.
…or the fact that a significant portion of the Norse were traders, fishermen, farmers, and herders, and weren’t raiding, pillaging warriors or hired Byzantine thug-bodyguards.
I also like the parts about how maybe women didn’t dress as modestly as some interpretations of the evidence suggest. And, like, putting BIG METAL CLIPS and STRANDS OF BEADS right across the breasts … kind of draws the eyes right there.
beatsandblades considering that you just posted something Viking related - thought you might be interested in this.
Oh my god, I LOVE THIS.
It also should be noted that they had tweezers and ladies used them to shape their eyebrows and keep their faces neat. It should also be noted that they had the most civilized laws toward women pre christian era in europe. Women were allowed to fight, allowed to inherit or acquire wealth, allowed to have bastard children or be raped without it being a mark against their honor and virtue. In fact, if the family of a raped woman wanted justice, they were free to kill the rapist under the law. Women were also free to divorce their husbands.
Viking men also composed POETRY as a sign of their virility and reciting poetry to a woman without her father’s permission was considered unseemly, because that was part of courtship and the young man had to take care that he wasn’t challenged or killed for doing so.
The men also had magnificent purses as status symbols, as demonstrated by the find of amazing purse cover in the Sutton Hoo burial ship, which was generally a fancy fancy archaeological windfall. And why not? This suggests most anything made of fine quality materials and made with painstaking craftsmanship could be a status symbol, with little evidence of modern gender panic about the function of ornamentation.
BONUS: after their colonization of Britian, the native menfolk thought they were unfair because they took all the women folk by being handsomely groomed and BAthiNG regularly HOW DARE THEY. There’s a post about that floating around on tumblr you could probably find if you believe in yourself hard enough.
The modern interpretation of vikings, as with most distorted views of the barbarism of previous ages, was pretty much invented by British Victorians as a combination of a sort of sensational hyper-masculine nostalgia (”remember when we were like being constantly invaded by those barbarians? That’s because they were brutes, but damn it those MEN were MEN*. I mean, they have to had been. They invaded us.”) and as a sort of self-congratulatory “well at least we aren’t like THAT any more” cultural asspat. It’s similar thing that happened with Renaissance scholars about the so-called “medieval period”, lots of facts were distorted or outright invented to make the current age and location look better. Which is not to say the Victorians also provided their own more romantic and chivalric idea of that period, too, which further distorts things. IN ANY CASE Here’s a summary and extract of a book about Victorian ideas of Vikings, in lieu of me being too lazy to find a more comprehensive or succinct paper.
*see also Weimar Republic-era German fascination and cultural connection with their own idea of “Viking”. But that had a more vengeful edge and was informed by social discontent and near-destroyed national pride. And of course NOTHING BAD EVER CAME OF THIS PROPAGANDIC VIEW OF HISTORY.
Pillaging your village while looking positively FABULOUS at the same time~
Your PoC post just reignited my desire for Les Mis pirate fic; also Elizabeth Swann is my favorite character in the entire series
Okay, first of all, liking Elizabeth Baddest-Ass-Sailing-The-Seven-Seas Swann best is an indication of exceptional taste, I approve, you go.  Second of all, it’s way too one-in-the-morning for me to write actual fic, but I’m gonna cast the fuck out of a pirate AU, because motherfucking pirates.
Enjolras: the captain, of course, of the buccaneer ship Abaisse.  It’s small, easily crewed by half a dozen in a real pinch, and as long as no one takes any injuries their little crew does pretty well.  Abaisse–or ABC, as they affectionately call her–is a whip-quick little boat, too, their attack method to strike like lightning and raid even the biggest merchant ship in minutes.  Enjolras was the son of a wealthy merchant–he bought Abaisse with the last of his own money, after he left in a rage upon discovering that his father’s lucrative new business venture was based on human cargo.  Abaisse’s first strike was on one of his father’s merchant ships, crossing the ocean to bring slaves to the New World–her crew took the ship like a hurricane and earned themselves the nickname Les Amis, after they turned the ship over to the captured men and women.
As someone who has been “thin-shamed” I can say it does Not at all go hand in hand with fat shaming. People “thin-shaming” me was mostly verbal harassment- you’re too skinny, you look like a boy, eat a fucking cheeseburger, what’s wrong with you why don’t you like food?
But guess what, I don’t have a problem finding clothes that fit me. There aren’t companies that refuse to make clothes for my size. There is no shortage of messages telling me that despite the harassment of some, I am still beautiful and ideal even if I’m unhealthy. Despite being thin-shamed, I still PANICKED when I started a medicine that made me gain weight, and I had to really analyze that, because no matter what my culture will still say that “fat is unideal” “fat is bad” and “honestly its fine to starve yourself / but shameful and bad to overeat.”
So “thin-shaming” is shitty because it’s shitty to be judged and have people make assumptions about you. But Fat-shaming is institutional, it’s not just individuals harassment and judgement, it’s potential jobs, it’s clothing companies, it’s media and advertisement, all telling you you’re bad as you are. Like what a way shittier thing.
“paul rudd ages so well” yeah well chadwick boseman is gonna turn forty in november and he looks about twenty-five
For those of you who, like me, probably couldn’t remember an actor’s name if it was tattooed on their forehead, that’s the goddAMN BLACK PANTHER, HOLY SHIT.
“Same-sex marriage may be legal in the U.S., but there are plenty of places where Americans can still get fired for being gay or transgender. The fight for equality based on gender identity and sexual orientation has emerged as a new battleground for employment rights.
As that struggle plays out, many LGBT job seekers are hard-pressed to find work at employers that won’t just honor their rights but welcome and support them. Here’s a guide finding LGBT-friendly employers in that evolving landscape.”
OKAY, so, I have an overwhelming need for soulmate AU’s of every-damn-thing and a love for Elizabeth Swann that burns like fucking Greek fire, so of course we were going to end up here eventually.
There are three people in the world who could be Elizabeth Swann’s soulmate. Depending on your AU of choice, these are the three people who see color when they meet her or have her name or first words printed on their skin or what have you. All of them are in love with her.
Commodore James Norrington knew when he was a teenaged, freshly-minted Navy officer, meeting a nine-year-old girl with solemn eyes and a pretty, lilting voice, that he was going to love her. When she was seventeen he was in love with the coiffed, well-heeled mask she wore, completely gone on her. He was horror-stricken to find that he loved the steely, vicious creature of sea and storm underneath even more. If he has a mark, it rings his wrists like cuffs, because for all that he might love her, James isn’t a pirate at heart, and being chained to one kills him as sure as a sword.
Will Turner loves the flashes of gentleness through her fire-bright shell, the way she always sounds startled when she laughs, the way she holds his face in her hands–gentle, like he’s made of crystal, but hard and immovable as steel. Will’s mark, if this is a universe with marks, lies like a necklace at his throat, close to the curve of his neck. He thought of it as a necklace, before he met her, before he knew her well. Now he thinks of it as a collar, a mark of ownership–he is Elizabeth’s, full stop, hers to keep, and he has come to love being kept by her.
Captain Jack Sparrow loves the heart of her, as hungry and dangerous as a fire at sea, loves her for the glint of lust in her eye when she looks at a fine ship or a sharp sword or a gold ring, or Will or James or Jack–the glint of wanting, of greed, of that is mine and I shall have it. When he looks back on it, remembering, he thinks that he fell in love with her when she burned the rum, and the flame in her eyes was brighter than the flame on the sand. His mark, if such exists, stretches across his shoulders, like wings, like lash marks, like a weight that makes free.
Elizabeth cares for them all, loves them all in a way, but none of them can be everything to her, the way a soulmate is supposed to be. None of them is the world entire, none of them is the ocean from horizon to horizon, and nothing less will satisfy her.
Elizabeth has no mark, if this is a world with marks. Or perhaps she does–a skull and crossbones, a coiling ocean current, the brand of a pirate, the words ‘Gentlemen, hoist the colors’ in bold black letters across her fair skin.
If this is a world where your soulmate’s touch stains your skin with colors, the three men are splashed with cerulean, azure-emerald-silver, and Elizabeth’s skin is clear. Until she faints over the edge of a cliff and plunges into the ocean below, and she is drawn out with her skin swirled with ocean-blue, coiling down her limbs and over her heart, arching over her cheeks and around her eyes.
If this is a world where you see color when you meet your soulmate, she grows up with it, and the colors always flare brightest when she stands at the bow of a ship and looks toward the horizon, where the water and the sky kiss.
(There is a fourth soulmate for Elizabeth Swann, a fourth body stamped with a simple name, no matter the universe. This one, perhaps, is the truest soulmate. Tia Dalma, Calypso, Oceana, the queen bound in her bones, wears the name on her mortal form, and whenever Elizabeth steps onto the deck of a ship, the woman-goddess smiles, slow and secret.)
(Every queen must have a king, after all. And Dalma-Calypso-Oceana
is proud of her king, straight and proud and fierce as a sword of folded steel. She loves her king like a hurricane loves a ship, like her king loves her lovers, hungry and desirous. Her love is blessing and curse by turns–her king’s ship has sweet winds and raging storms, blazes into Navy flotillas and skates away by a finger’s length. Her king stands in the winds and laughs and laughs, fierce and wild and free, and so, so in love.)
I am watching Curse of the Black Pearl, and I am still super fucking committed to Elizabeth Swann, she of the wild eyes and voice like Damascus steel and hungry heart of a pirate.
Why do so many people assume that liking Eponine means you want her to end up with Marius? Like, no, I want Eponine to end up with supportive parents and a nice flower garden
“And how do I spell that?” if I’m using my full name, or “And what does that stand for?” if I’m using R. Also I have a lot of people ask me about college and my plans for the future, to which I have to say…look, folks, I’m a college student, I’m struggling to plan my next meal, what do you want from me.
w - worst habit
Procrastination. Right this moment, I’m procrastinating a report, a presentation, and a poster, all of which are due in about ten days. You’re enabling me, which I appreciate.
Men are so annoying with the whole girls fuck over nice guys like do you know how many guys fuck over nice girls? Girls that will do ANYTHING for them? Girls who want them exclusively and cherish them and try to put up with them while the man cheats and treats her like shit? Like bye with that I don’t feel sorry for y'all. Everyone is capable of being shitty but you don’t hear us girls crying about nice girls finishing last shut the fuck up.
• It’s annoying. • It gives an imperfect metric for how many followers you have. (I would estimate about 25% of my “followers” are porn blogs run by bots). • It makes pulling up your activity page iffy even if you use Tumblr strictly for SFW content. • It’s problematic for individuals who have struggled with sex and/or pornography addictions, especially since many of the blog names are not obviously porn names, causing you to preview the blog. • It exposes minors to illegal and harmful content.
And to many of us: • It’s disgusting. • it’s degrading to human beings, especially women. • It makes Tumblr a less classy, less reputable place.
Please share this if you agree this is a serious problem.
I already reblogged a thing about Mad Max: Fury Road and Avengers: Age of Ultron and the contrast between how they deal with motherhood, infertility and what it means to be a woman.
It’s surreal to think that these two movies came out just two weeks apart from one another in the US. In a way I feel a little bit sorry for AoU, because it would have looked like a perfectly okay summer blockbuster if Fury Road hadn’t come barreling down right on its tail and smashed all our pathetic lowball expectations to flaming shards in the sand.
When AoU came out, I had a lot of discussions with people about Natasha’s plotline. Because my gut reaction was certainly a massive eyeroll that the one female Avenger’s deep, dark secret is that she can’t have babies. But also, it’s not like a story about a woman who underwent forced sterilization is something we shouldn’t care about. (And in the US, this is a particular form of restriction of reproductive rights that’s disproportionately affected poor women of color.) And if she internalized the line that was fed to her, that she couldn’t be both a killer and a mother, that certainly doesn’t make it her fault.
But it still frustrated me, and my frustrations were really, really well articulated by this article. You should go and read the whole thing, because it’s excellent. But this is the relevant quote:
There’s nothing wrong with stories about women who are housewives or stories about women who struggle because they were forcibly prevented from having kids as a condition of whatever mission they chose to undertake. The problem is that with so few women in superhero movies, each of these portrayals stands not only for the choices Whedon made, but for all the choices he and many others didn’t and don’t make. The portrayals of Natasha and Laura rankle at some level, for me, not because they are stories about a woman traumatized by not having children and a woman waiting for her husband to come home, but because it’s another story about those two women rather than any of the other bazillion women who could exist in this universe and don’t. If you had five butt-kicking women in this movie, it would seem perfectly logical that one of them might have a story related to getting pregnant or not. Why wouldn’t she?
These, for me, are scarcity problems. They are problems because there are so few opportunities to show women in action blockbusters that I tend to crave something very much capable of moving discussions of what those portrayals can be like forward.
…Scarcity will always drive us back to these same conversations about how every woman carries the obligation to represent What This Director Thinks Women Are For, and absolutely no answer to that question will ever be a good answer.
I think this is an interesting discussion in the context of Fury Road, because, intentionally or not, the movie takes on the scarcity problem in a couple of different ways.
On the most basic level, it gives us lots of women. In a context where studies have found that even background crowds in movies are on average only 17% women, Fury Road is FULL of women. Young women. Old women. Women who are disabled. Women who are physically strong and as skilled with weapons and vehicles as any of the men in their world. Women who are not physically strong but fight anyway. 80-year-old women who ride motorbikes and talk about all the kill shots they’ve made.
Look at the shot at the top of this post. Twelve women on screen at once! That’s more women in a single frame that some movies have speaking parts for.
Max may have his name on the title card, but he spends the movie surrounded by women. Team War Rig starts out as one man and six women; later it’s two men and five women; then it gets supplemented by a bunch more women in the third act. It’s almost an exact flip of the 20% rule of thumb, where one woman for every four men seems normal.
But Fury Road deals with the scarcity problem in another way, too, one that I think is particularly important given the film’s content. It gives us six women all reacting to the same circumstances of slavery and sexual violence, and allows them to have different, individualized, and sometimes contradictory reactions, all of which are presented as valid.
So we have Toast, who counts bullets and loads weapons, who hacks off her hair to spite Joe, who grabs his gun at a key moment and gets pistol-whipped for it, who spits on his corpse when he’s dead. Angharad, who self-injures, who uses her status as Joe’s favorite against him, who can be fearless, or reckless, with her own body, but also clings to nonviolence even when that tactic has limitations in a violent world, who stops Furiosa from killing Nux, but then pushes him out of a moving vehicle seconds later. Capable, who holds onto kindness, understanding and compassion, despite all the violence around her, who trusts Nux when Furiosa is pointing a gun at him and growling, “Get out,” and proves to be correct in her instincts. Dag, who retreats into her own head, but is often the first to sense danger, who hurls insults at her abuser, and also at Max while he’s pointing a gun at them. Cheedo, who gets scared and tries to run back to the person who hurt her, but then later uses her perceived fragility as a weapon. And Furiosa, who holds on to her rage even as she fights her way up the ranks to become Joe’s trusted lieutenant, and finally uses it to end him.
And none of these reactions are treated as better or worse or right or wrong or the correct way to be a survivor of violence. It’s okay to be angry; it’s okay to be kind; it’s okay to be scared. Because there are so many women in the movie, each one of them gets to be a unique character instead of an avatar of What This Director Thinks Women Are For.
Extend that to all of filmmaking, and to all the many kinds of identities that are underrepresented on screen today. That’s how you deal with the scarcity problem.
also guys i think it’s time to start spelling ‘small’ right again,, it’s been long enough
see the thing is, at this point, smol isn’t even a “mispelling” of small anymore; it has its own connotations. while small is a regular adjective, smol acts more like a diminutive marker, which English has been lacking
in essence, a smol dog will always be a small dog, but not all small dogs are smol.
