It’s coming out in the news today that a teacher raped their 13-year old student. That’s the truth of it.
But since the teacher is a woman, the media’s reporting it as “Engaged
in a sexual relationship” and dudes all over the internet are
congratulating the kid on getting laid. Some even express jealousy.
To reiterate: He is 13. He is under the age of consent. By textbook
definition, this is sexual assault, because he legally cannot consent.
It bears repeating.
You may have heard the term “Rape Culture”.
It refers to a society that implicitly and indirectly cultivates the
mentalities that result both in sexual assault happening and its not
being punished properly when it happens.
In other words: This.
This is Rape Culture.
It’s the idea that men and boys cannot be victims. It is the idea that
there are circumstances when minors can consent to adults regarding sex.
It is romanticizing something that is irrefutably assault.
It is disgusting. It is wrong. And it is shameful.
Absolutely everyone that thinks this is a laughing matter is an embarrassment.
I’ve already seen posts on facebook about how people are impressed that he can “get laid with that haircut” He didn’t “get laid” he was targeted and assaulted by a pedophile.
Women talk about rape and men shoot them down with “WHAT ABOUT MALE VICTIMS”, yet when there is an actual male victim? They’re CONGRATULATING him while it’s women stepping forward to say that this poor boy was absolutely 100% raped. So what is it, MRA types? What about the male victims?
You get a membership to a tiny rundown gym as a present from your eccentric uncle. It takes some time, but you begin to grow suspicious: Is every member here a…super hero?
Okay but if I was writing this I would drag out this person’s investigation to the last possible minute and be like NOPE, SUPERVILLAINS.
“My eldest daughter, Suldana, is in love with another woman. She is eighteen and she spends her days working at our kiosk selling milk and eggs, and at night she sneaks out and goes down to the beach to see her lover. She crawls back into bed at dawn, smelling of sea and salt and perfume. Suldana is beautiful and she wraps this beauty around herself like a shawl of stars. When she smiles her dimples deepen and you can’t help but be charmed. When she walks down the street men stare and whistle and ache. But they cannot have her. Every day marriage proposals arrive with offers of high dowries but I wave them away. We never talk about these things like mothers and daughters should; but I respect her privacy and I allow her to live.”—Diriye Osman, “Fairytales For Lost Children.” (via mamma-wolf)
Nurse:
"Sorry your boyfriend couldn't wait for you in the waiting room, it makes women feel uncomfortable."
Me:
"He wasn't my boyfriend and I don't see how it would make them uncomfortable, but that's my opinion. He was here for moral support. I understood, and so does he."
Nurse:
"So he's your...."
Me:
"Friend."
Nurse:
(During the question asking) "How many sexual partners have you had?"
Me:
"11."
Nurse:
"How old were you when you first became sexually active?"
Me:
"....Loaded question but....14, I guess."
Nurse:
"You're sexually active, then."
Me:
"Well....I guess...but..."
Nurse:
"How many times have you been pregnant?"
Me:
"Uh. 0."
Nurse:
"O...kayy...-Checks 'condoms' as my preferred use of birth control-"
do you ever look at Successful™ people your age and feel like you’re just floating your way thru life like a very bewildered and directionless bumblebee
Hold up - you mean there are people who watch Fight Club and don’t realise that Tyler Durden is meant to be full of shit?
I mean, his doctrine of radical individualism is a sham that ultimately reduces his followers to faceless conformity. This isn’t deep metatextual wankery - it’s the literal text of the film.
How do you see the film and not get that?
My ex didn’t get this. He loves Tyler durden. I’ve never seen fight club so I DIDN’T KNOW.
Yeah, in the film he’s a total con-man. His grand speeches sound good if you don’t think about them too deeply, but they’re not meant to be insightful - they’re meant to be a snake-oil salesman’s patter, calculated to bamboozle dumb, angry young men into doing his bidding.
Trouble is, they’re sufficiently well-written that apparently they work on the dumb, angry young men in the audience, too.
I’ve actually written about this academically! There’s a really specific genre I call bro cinema that includes fight club, all of kubricks work, some Scorsese, and Tarantino (all of which I love TBH.) These directors don’t explicitly condemn toxic masculinity and instead trust the audience to have COMMON SENSE and realize that Alex from A Clockwork Orange or Tyler Durden or Travis Bickle are horrific misogynists. But without the film telling the audience how to feel about these characters, men misinterpret the objectivity as glorification. Fight Club is about how shitty masculinity is, but it’s been warped by men grasping for justification for their misogyny
I JUST REALIZED that this is why I love Fight Club but I hate that my dad loves Fight Club
shipping isn’t activism but let’s not underestimate the literally transformative power of oceans of happy life-affirming queer stories being available online free of charge to any terrified and confused kid who would like to be a little less terrified and confused
I spent thirty plus years thinking I was broken, and then fanfiction introduced me to the concept of asexuality in a way I could relate to. Don’t tell me this stuff isn’t valuable.
I went to a talk at my grad school where a professor of sexuality and queer studies found that gay fanfiction INCREASED sex positivity in LGBTQ+ teens.
Aka, reading fanfiction helped them feel better about their sexualities.
the stereotype that women talk more than men is infinitely amusing to me because men are literally incapable of shutting the fuck up
i hope this post gets popular enough that i hurt a man’s feelings
It’s not a stereotype it’s a proven fact you femanazi piece of shit.
lmao there it is
You wanna talk proven facts? This shit’s been done, son: researcher Dale Spencer in Australia used audio and video tape to independently evaluate who talked the most in mixed-gender university classroom discussions. Regardless of the gender ratio of the students, whether the instructor was deliberately trying to encourage female participation or not, men always talked more—whether the metric was minutes of talking or number of words spoken.
Moreover, men literally have no clue how much they talk. When Spencer asked students to evaluate their perception of who talked more in a given discussion, women were pretty accurate; but men perceived the discussion as being “equal” when women talked only 15% of the time, and the discussion as being dominated by women if they talked only 30% of the time.
Spencer’s conclusion, if I may parahprase: you only think we talk too much because you’d rather we were silent.
Darling, dear, love. Hamilton/Laurens Literally anything during the revolutionary era Perhaps even just how they got together. /Please/, for me? <3
Anything for you, Laurens.
Soooo…I know you wanted fluff…we’re not doing that. I don’t actually know if Laurens was in
Washington’s camp for this, but we’re going to assume history is flexible
because extensive googling did not produce an actual date or shit for this
battle (besides ‘between September 1777 and June 1778’), which was hardly a
battle at all. Also technically Lee sent
a letter but whatever, we’re doing Some Shit with history anyway, might as well
go hard.
to see our glory
The
message from Lee was greeted by a long beat of silence.
“My
sympathies, Your Excellency,” Lee said, doing a poor job of imitating poise as
his shirtsleeves dripped steadily on the ground. The word simper
drifted through John’s mind at the sound of Lee’s voice.
“Yes,”
General Washington said flatly, both hands braced on the table that had been
serving duty as a tactical map minutes before.
John couldn’t bring himself to look away from where the general’s little
finger had pushed aside the marker of a British fort, one that he and Alexander
had been bickering over not a day past.
“Thank you for informing me, Major General. You are dismissed.”
Lee
left, and the tent was deathly silent, the general still standing over the
table with his head down, John still fixed in place where he stood near the far
corner of the table, the handful of other men in the tent stony.
“Gentlemen,”
General Washington said, his voice perfectly controlled. “Please send for the Marquis, he will want to
know. If my aides would stay, it would
be appreciated. The rest of you are
dismissed.”
Something that a lot of people don’t realize is that abusers are capable of being nice. Yes, abusers can do acts of kindness. These acts of kindness do not mean that they aren’t abusive. They’re still abusers.
If your parents constantly tell you that you’re worthless, but provide you with everything you want, they’re still abusive.
If your boyfriend screams at you whenever you do something he doesn’t like, but cuddles you and calls you beautiful, he’s still abusive.
If your friend threatens to never talk to you again when you try to talk to other people, but is always there for you when you need them, they’re still abusive.
Acts of kindness do not make up for their abuse. This is a method that abusers use to keep you attached to them and make you less likely to leave them. You are not a bad person for leaving someone if they cause constant harm to you. Their kindness does not outweigh the harm and pain they caused you. Their kindness does not justify their abuse. Abusers can do good things for their victims and still be abusers.
Abuse is *never* justifiable.
The idea that abusers are cartoon bad guys who are constantly terrible needs to die. Nobody would form an attachment to an abuser or find it difficult to leave one if they behaved badly all the time.
And here’s the other thing: that popular misconception about abusers as cartoon bad guys with no redeeming qualities is ACTIVELY USED BY ABUSERS TO GASLIGHT THEIR VICTIMS. I’m not even kidding. The last conversation I had with my father, I was literally listing off incidents where his behavior had been abusive, and he came back with “but I took you kids to Europe when you were 16, how many kids get to do that? You had your own car at 16, traveled abroad, I paid for that nice house with the pool and the waterfall, sent you on trips” etc. He literally actually cited his good moments as if it were a reasonable “balance” for the abusive shit and therefore I should just be okay with it. Because that’s what people seem to think.
And I still doubt myself because of it! I still ask myself am I sure it was abuse, am I sure it really *counted*? My dad did love me, to the fullest extent that he’s capable of it, and he showed it in the ways he was capable of…but he was also abusive, and those things can coexist in the same person, same relationship, at the same time. Not acknowledging that supports abusers and disempowers victims.
Contractions function almost identically to the full two-word phrase, but are only appropriate in some places in a sentence. It’s one of the weird quirks of this language we’ve.
This post needs some kind of warning sign.
I did not see that coming.
Some people say the English language is confusing. To which I say… It’s.
gluten is not bad for you if you’re not allergic/don’t have celiac disease
superfoods aren’t real, they’re just healthy things with maybe some nicer levels of certain vitamins
vaccines do not cause autism or really anything else and the chemicals present in them that typically scare you are in such minute amounts that they do precisely fuck-all in your body (we’re talking scales of one part per million)
you cannot do a cleanse or diet to “rid your body of toxins,” your kidneys and liver have that covered
GMO foods will not kill you; most genetic crop modification just makes our crops hardier and produce more food (and genetic modification doesn’t inject more chemicals into your food, it’s just minor altering of DNA that is made of the exact same stuff your DNA is made from)
if you feed your cat a vegan diet I will personally come to your home with the skull of a long-dead predator, point out the shape of its jaw and teeth as indicators of predatory feeding habits, and then beat you with it
as a biochem major i get so salty when people give me shit for supporting GMOs like we’re not creatiNG CANCER CAUSING ALIEN CROPS it’s literally hey let’s splice this gene from this plant into another plant to give it properties of first plant
literally one of my favorite romance tropes of all time is character a is a really notorious gang leader/well known feared ruler of some kind etc and no one dares cross them or talk back to them etc because they won’t make it out alive but character b can literally get away with saying whatever they want and everyone knows it’s because they have character a wrapped around their finger and character a is gentle with character b and everyone wouldn’t dare laying a finger on character b because then character a would literally chop their head off
bonus points if character a is normally extremely serious (aka no sense of humor) but when character b makes a joke or a witty comeback they will actually smile and even laugh sometimes and all the other characters are just like ???????
“bless your heart” is NOT a sign of goodwill that person wants you dead and buried, preferably while they watch from the comfort of their porch rockers
bless your heart is literally the shadiest, most condescending thing a southerner can say
It’s the Fourth, there are fireworks going outside, I’m watching Liberty’s Kids (honestly fuck everybody, I love this show), and I’m feeling rather patriotic, so if anyone wanted to request a Hamilton fic, now would be an opportune moment.
July 3rd, 11:59 P.M.: This country is a festering cesspool
of corruption, ignorance, and violence. Every achievement is built on
the backs of millions of dead. The Founding Fathers-
July 4th, 12:00 A.M.:
July 5th, 12:00 A.M.: -would shake their heads in shame if they could see the state of this nation.
They are setting off fireworks in the city. OBVIOUSLY, because it’s the Fourth, I get it, I’m patriotic for 24 hours a year too guys. But they’re setting them off IN THE CITY. Like. In the STREETS.
ISN’T THIS A FUCKING FIRE HAZARD????
LET ME CLARIFY.
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT SOME FUCKING FIRECRACKERS HERE.
I AM TALKING ABOUT FULL-SCALE FIREWORKS SHOWS WITH PROFESSIONAL-GRADE FIREWORKS THAT ARE HAPPENING TOO LOW FOR ME TO SEE FROM THE FOURTH FLOOR OF A BUILDING ON TOP OF AN EXTREMELY TALL HILL.
Jesus, at least there’s three hospitals and a nursing school in town in case shit goes awry.
Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.
Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.
You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.
That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?
You really want a human.
you know fantasy dragon soulbonding fic i want more of that where the humans are the dragons, like, we’re huge, we’re old, we’re scrappy as hell, and if you are small and cute enough we would be delighted to carry you around on our back
holy shit that’f b amazing.
also imagine an alien being like
‘I THINK A HUMAN IMPRINTED ON ME THEY KEEP HANGING AROUND ME’
But imagine aliens that only form social bonds under very specific circumstances having to deal with humans though:
Like, they will bond with a group, and if they move they just bond with a new group while still talking to their old group. They will bond with other species. They encourage their children to practice bonding with inanimate objects. They can have more than one mate in their lifetime. Sometimes they have more than one mate simultaneously. Once they bond with you they’ll start trying to bring other humans they are bonded with to bond with you.
If you stand around them long enough they’ll probably just wander over and try to pat you, this is how they bond with other species. You may have accidentally bonded with a human without knowing it.
“Help the human in our party bonded with a grafknap and now they want to bring it with us”
“I don’t see what the problem is.”
“We’ve already got like five of them, and then there’s the orlaps and vanghus.”
“krrrk sor krrkr going thr krrk -bula spike krrk”
“Companion Mar, how do you sustain these high levels of interpersonal relation?” “Uh… hanging out, I guess.” “Hanging out of what, exactly?” “Sorry, that’s a human phrase used to describe spending leisure time in the general proximity of others for entertainment.” “But we are very far from your past companions, and yet you have continued to express interpersonal relation to them, in spite of the lack of proximity.” “Oh, well, I comm them now and then.” “Interesting. So you posit that physical proximity and verbal communication are key to this relational anomaly?” “I mean that’s part of it.” “… great Glarbnack, you’re doing it right now, aren’t you?” “Oh, come on, Kursp, we’ve been friends for ages, you know that!” “No! Stop! I can’t believe you would - oh, Glarb, what’s the word? - vefriendle me without even asking me first!” “Befriend. The word is befriend, Kursp.” “Ugh, humans! Well I know I can’t stop you but at least try not to emote all over the place.” “Sure thing, buddy.” [Enraged squeaking]
OMG THIS ONE IS FANTABULOUS
Humans.
Will.
Pet.
Anything.
Ok but what happens when humans are brought aboard an alien spacecraft to travel to the far side of the galaxy, and the ship stops to refuel on Planet Kro’Chenpotyl 6, and there are warnings all over the place to PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE THE SPACE STATION and the humans are just like “why?” and the aliens are all “Captain Steve, have you never encountered a Horgler before?” “no, whats a horgler?” “They are very dangerous, Captain. Please do not leave the space station as they roam freely and we do not wish to communicate with your superiors anything about injuries to you or your crew.”
and then two hours later Captain Steve has a giant Horgler in tow and everyone else is just “!!!!!!!!” and Steve is just “yeah, this is my new pet. his name is Fluffy.”
it keeps getting better
This makes us sound so badass.
And then there’s the one group:
“Now Max,”
“Yes?”
“Do not touch the natives.”
“But why?”
“Because they’re poisonous.”
A few hours later, Max is in Sick Bay, mumbling “worth it” over and over.
They are setting off fireworks in the city. OBVIOUSLY, because it’s the Fourth, I get it, I’m patriotic for 24 hours a year too guys. But they’re setting them off IN THE CITY. Like. In the STREETS.
During Victor Hugo’s funeral, most of the brothels in Paris closed down because all the prostitutes were in mourning for their best client #trufax
“No way that’s true,” I thought as I looked this up, thus starting the day by proving myself terribly wrong.
“A police source informed Edmond Goncourt that the brothels were shuttered and the city’s prostitutes had bedecked their crotches with black crepe in honor of the great man’s passing.” x
I’m sorry, but the OP thought that the fact that the brothels closed was the most impressive part, and not the fact that the prostitutes WORE BLACK CREPE ON THEIR CROTCHES IN HIS HONOR?
Okay so your French History lessons are delightful, and I am an American with a terrible school system and an affection for historical factotum, please tell me something--anything--I don't know about the history of France. (Also your blog gives me life, you're fantastic, and have a lovely day.)
OKAY SO HERE IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES!
Louis XIV was known to have a lot of sex when he was young and later in adulthood. Like. A lot.
His brother, Phillipe d’Orléans, was known to be gay and quite publically so, and though he did obey his brother’s wishes to marry and have children, he kept lovers under his sleeves all his life
So when he was older, Louis XIV married one of his mistresses, Madame de Maintenon, who was a devote Jansenist. So the King had a sort of religious crisis and became SUPER CATHOLIC. So much so that he told his brother to “stop his indiscretions”, talking about his gay lovers. And Phillipe roasted him on a spike saying:
“Well let me remind you you fucked more girls than there are beads on your rosary, so STFU” (I believe he said something along the lines of “Vous avez enfilé plus de filles que de perles à votre chapelet” in French which is fucking SAVAGE)
I just got husband to attach a round scrubby brush to the end of his power drill. This is the best thing we’ve ever done, omg I don’t have to apply pressure when scrubbing the bath tiles anymore it just whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirzip and everything is clean. SUCK ON THAT GROUT STAINS
as someone who loathes tub scrubbing, i consider this a signal boost-worthy post!
Wait, I need details, how is it attached? What kind of scrubby brush? Photos pls I need to implement this in my life, my grouting will thank you
Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.
Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.
You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.
That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?
You really want a human.
you know fantasy dragon soulbonding fic i want more of that where the humans are the dragons, like, we’re huge, we’re old, we’re scrappy as hell, and if you are small and cute enough we would be delighted to carry you around on our back
holy shit that’f b amazing.
also imagine an alien being like
‘I THINK A HUMAN IMPRINTED ON ME THEY KEEP HANGING AROUND ME’
But imagine aliens that only form social bonds under very specific circumstances having to deal with humans though:
Like, they will bond with a group, and if they move they just bond with a new group while still talking to their old group. They will bond with other species. They encourage their children to practice bonding with inanimate objects. They can have more than one mate in their lifetime. Sometimes they have more than one mate simultaneously. Once they bond with you they’ll start trying to bring other humans they are bonded with to bond with you.
If you stand around them long enough they’ll probably just wander over and try to pat you, this is how they bond with other species. You may have accidentally bonded with a human without knowing it.
“Help the human in our party bonded with a grafknap and now they want to bring it with us”
“I don’t see what the problem is.”
“We’ve already got like five of them, and then there’s the orlaps and vanghus.”
“krrrk sor krrkr going thr krrk -bula spike krrk”
“Companion Mar, how do you sustain these high levels of interpersonal relation?” “Uh… hanging out, I guess.” “Hanging out of what, exactly?” “Sorry, that’s a human phrase used to describe spending leisure time in the general proximity of others for entertainment.” “But we are very far from your past companions, and yet you have continued to express interpersonal relation to them, in spite of the lack of proximity.” “Oh, well, I comm them now and then.” “Interesting. So you posit that physical proximity and verbal communication are key to this relational anomaly?” “I mean that’s part of it.” “… great Glarbnack, you’re doing it right now, aren’t you?” “Oh, come on, Kursp, we’ve been friends for ages, you know that!” “No! Stop! I can’t believe you would - oh, Glarb, what’s the word? - vefriendle me without even asking me first!” “Befriend. The word is befriend, Kursp.” “Ugh, humans! Well I know I can’t stop you but at least try not to emote all over the place.” “Sure thing, buddy.” [Enraged squeaking]
OMG THIS ONE IS FANTABULOUS
Humans.
Will.
Pet.
Anything.
Ok but what happens when humans are brought aboard an alien spacecraft to travel to the far side of the galaxy, and the ship stops to refuel on Planet Kro’Chenpotyl 6, and there are warnings all over the place to PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE THE SPACE STATION and the humans are just like “why?” and the aliens are all “Captain Steve, have you never encountered a Horgler before?” “no, whats a horgler?” “They are very dangerous, Captain. Please do not leave the space station as they roam freely and we do not wish to communicate with your superiors anything about injuries to you or your crew.”
and then two hours later Captain Steve has a giant Horgler in tow and everyone else is just “!!!!!!!!” and Steve is just “yeah, this is my new pet. his name is Fluffy.”
Don’t tell your daughter that when a boy is mean or rude to her it’s because he has a crush on her. Don’t teach her that abuse is a sign of love.
My mom always taught me yell or fight back. Boys would be mean and I would yell back. I would get my ass pinched and I would smack them as hard as I could.
Who alway got in trouble? Me.
They would call my mother and she always came in and lectures my teachers and threatened to sue for making her miss work and treating me poorly.
She always taught my brothers to respect women. The only fights my brothers ever got in was defending women from someone else.
The school tried to call my father once instead of my mother on us. He came in in his full preacher outfit (being a preacher and all) and gave them an entire sermon on what would Jesus day of he was called in. They decided dealing with my mom was better.
I think my favorite story of this is when some kid snapped my bra and I turned around, didn’t even think about it, and punched that little motherfucker right in the nose.
So naturally, I end up in the principal’s office, refusing to apologize.
“He shouldn’t have put his hands on me and I wouldn’t have hit him!” That’s the only thing I was saying.
These people had the unfortunate luck of catching my dad at home, instead of my mom. So he comes fucking sauntering in there, like he’s Clint fucking Eastwood in some western movie and looks at me.
“Melissa, did you punch him?”
“Yes.” I said.
“Why?”
“Because he snapped my bra strap.”
And he turns his squinty eyed glare to the principal and says, “You’re telling me my daughter is in trouble because that squirrely looking kid put his hands on her and she chose to defend herself? That’s what you are saying to me.”
“Well, sir-” The man kind of stuttered because my dad is kind of intimidating in the quiet sort of way that kind of whispers in the back of your mind that this person could be dangerous. “Melissa did make it physical.”
“No. That kid put his hands on my daughter. Are you saying my daughter cannot defend herself when some boy decides to put hands on her? Is that what you are teaching my girl?”
I didn’t get suspended that day.
*slow clap for excellent parenting*
This is the parent I want to be omg
I went to a nun school.
The nuns there were like, so rad.
It was a party organized for the end of the school year, and I was helping in the kitchen to prepare stuff with a nun and a bunch of little girls. There was one of the girls’ little brother who was there.
There was a little girl who was carrying a bowl of tomato sauce and was going outside, but the boy was just in front of her and he slammed the door in her face. She dropped the bowl on the floor and got all messy.
So what happened?
The nun went outside, took the boy by the arm, and gave him an epic speech going around the lines of: “Would you treat the Virgin Mary like that, young man?” “Nnnnno…” “Then treat every girl like she’s the Virgin Mary.” Not only the boy had to apologize to the little girl, but he also had to clean up and he was put on kitchen duty for the rest of the day.
Then another day, in catechism class (I was a in a girls’ school, mind you), the nun was there telling us: “If a guy touches you in a way you don’t like, punch him in the face. It’s not a sin against charity. On the contrary, you’re being charitable by showing him he’s sinning by impurity and you’ll save him from going to hell.”
So I was at my desk during class looking like this:
Does it ever strike you that Cap 2 begins with a challenge from Batroc: who are you without the mask?
And the rest of the movie is literally Steve showing us? Who he is with, and without, the mask? The depths of his humanity? The breadth of his super soldier strength? The limits his body and soul meet time and again and then transcend?
Steve is more than the weapon he wields or the costume he wears. He’s more than the weapon he’s become. And in Cap 2, we begin to see that.
In Cap 3, we see his shield actually GET TAKEN AWAY. We rarely see him in his mask. If the shot of him HOLDING A HELICOPTER IN PLACE armed ONLY WITH HIS DESPERATION AND SUPER STRENGTH is any indication, we’ll see more of plain clothesed Steve, fighting massive battles in just very tight t shirts and an earnest expression.
In the end, Steve is my favorite because we see his humanity and struggle in everything he does. Even in his physical prowess–it’d be so easy to portray his feats of strength with a casualness meant to highlight just how powerful he is. Instead, you see him strain. You see his muscles bulge and his jaw grit and you see uncertainty and determination war on his face. You see him WIN against all odds, and the sheer impossibility of odds are what make the victory so breathtaking.
Behind and without the mask is Steve Rogers, not Captain America. Unluckily for Batroc, and other villains, that’s still a pretty f*cking amazing hero to contend with.
Steve Rogers isn’t a hero because he’s Captain America. Captain America is a hero because he’s Steve Rogers.
oh my word he was the gayest and his most notable male lovers were
Joshua Fry Speed
a bed salesman/ inn keeper
he and Lincoln met when he was 28 and Speed was around 22 b/c Abe was practicing law and he was poor so he had to rent out a room
when Lincoln couldn’t afford a room and bed Joshua was just like “why don’t you share my bed with me 😘”
they lived together for four whole years
also when Speed had to go back to Kentucky (they were in Illinois together at this point) Lincoln actually suffered what historians consider a nervous breakdown, he wrote in his diaries a lot about how depressed he was during this time
they still wrote each other letters though and remained friends until Lincoln died
David Derickson
the commanding officer of his guards while he was President
he even had his own special bed in the White House that they would share
they had their own getaway cottage on the outskirts of the White House’s borders I kid you not
ALSO
HE ACTUALLY LEGITIMATELY WORE LINCOLN’S NIGHT SHIRT OKAY
THEY WERE NOT SUBTLE
THOMAS CHAMBERLAIN HAD THE TEA ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP, HE WROTE IT ALL DOWN
this is an excellent time to talk about my home alone sequel idea
its 25 years later. a group of men track kevin down to an american-style suburban house deep in the jungles of cambodia. they stagger into his office, bruised and covered in feathers.
“you’re a hard man to find mccalister”
“not hard enough”
jump cut. a military officer is talking to a cia spook.
“you don’t understand. he’s the best. i saw him take apart a taliban kill team with nothing but the contents of a hardware store and a box of toy cars.”
cut to afgan desert. adult kevin in modern military gear presses a detonator. several cuts show a rube goldburg device launching paint cans into startled assassins via planks of wood.
cut back to dark office.
“he’s dangerous. unstable.” the spook says
intercut of a man trying to sneak up on maccalister when he steps on a rollar skate and falls down some stairs. there’s punji stakes at the bottom.
“that’s why he’s the best.”
lights cigar
cut back to officer talking to kevin
“your country needs you.”
“i needed my country, and it wasn’t there for me. why should i be there for her?”
cut to shady military black ops in the jungle, vietnam war style. kevin, in tiger strip special
forces camo, watches a helicopter take off and fly away. cut to inside.
the team, weary, sits in dejected silence, when one of them suddenly
bolts upright.
“MACCALISTER!”
cut back
“we need you for one last job. we’ve assembled an elite team.”
zoom on kevin’s face
“no. i work… alone.”
HOME ALONE 3
cut to man strapped to chair in dark room. kevin is in the background, fetching something. he circles around him, rubbing his hands together.
“you’re going to tell me what i want to know.”
“fuck you.” the man spits.
kevin claps his hands to either side of the man’s face. He screams.
COMING THIS CHRISTMAS
kevin watches a city burn. a man points a gun at the back of his head.
“no fancy traps to protect you here. what you got to say to that, maccalister?”
kevin whirls, disarms him, and kicks him off a balcony.
