The only kind of man who says, “Not all men are assholes,” is an asshole. If you really were a “nice guy,” you’d be saying, “Wow, lots of men are fucking assholes to women. Let’s do something to change that.”
There it is.
Reblogging this in case I haven’t already.
(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
This was my favorite moment being a fan of comics.
The Westboro Baptist Church had announced that they were going to boycott San Diego Comicon. They said that we were worshiping false idols (seriously, they were talking about Superman), and that the tolerance of gay people was bringing God’s wrath down upon us.
People picketing the con for religious reasons is no new thing, you can hardly walk to the con from a block away without facing someone with a sign. But the vast majority of those protesters are fairly civil and unobtrusive, and for the most part, their message isn’t hateful, not like the creeps at WBC.
They made good their threat. They showed up in a van, and brought out lots of horrible signs. You’ve seen the signs, you know what they say.
People have a lot of weird theories about the WBC but I will say, after studying them for years and having encountered them a couple times, what they care about is press. Lots and lots of press. They knew every news agency had a reporter here for this event, they do every year. And they knew they would get a lot of publicity for their shitty, hate-filled message.
But they really, really misunderstood the cosplayers and fans at SDCC that year.
There was to be a counter-protest. As soon as I heard about it, I knew we had to be there, for sheer numbers, if for no other reason. I blew off a meeting I was supposed to go to and we made it as the counter protest had just been going on for a little while.This is where the WBC’s plan went all backfire, and it was one of the happiest moments of my life.
There were cops surrounding the counter-protesters. Not to keep us from becoming a mob, really, but to make sure no one attacked the WBC people, because they are famously litigation-happy.
There were very few WBC people, I think I remember four or so. They each held a BUNCH of signs, to blow themselves up like a puffer fish and look like a bigger splash.
They were immediately hateful, screaming and singing hymns where they had changed the lyrics to make them about how gay people were going to hell (but much worse). They looked like nothing so much as Manson family members to me, disheveled and unkempt, like they’d been eating nothing but their own hate for days. Up close, they are extremely creepy…it goes beyond what you see on tv. They just exude hate.
On our side though, we had COSPLAYERS.
And that made all the difference. We had Bender and Jesus from that Kevin Smith movie and Fry and lots of superheroes. And here’s what made it so great.
They met that wave of hate from the WBC, not with matching rage or contempt, but with humor. When the WBC were signing their awful songs, the much bigger cosplay crowd started signing songs back, but with filthy sexy lyrics. It was absolutely hilarious and joyful.
The cops, who clearly were on OUR side, were smiling and talking casually to the cosplayers, complimenting their costumes…the WBC have had several campaigns applauding the death of cops. They got no support from the police at this event.
When the scraggly matron of the WBC started singing about gay people burning in hell, a chant from our side went up.
“What do we want?”
“GAY SEX!”
“When do we want it?”
“RIGHT NOW!”
Someone handed the Bender cosplayer in this photograph a bullhorn. When the WBC lady screamed something foul, he yelled back, “BENDER SAYS BITE MY SHINY METAL ASS.”
Honest to god, I have never been so proud to be a nerd.
And here’s the thing. We beat the WBC. We didn’t just win, we sent them fucking PACKING.
Because they wanted publicity. And they were about to get it, reporters DID show up.
Only, there was a better story, you see. Do the reporters film these unphotogenic and screaming zealots, or do they film the partying, laughing, singing people wearing costumes and having a blast? Do you film the lady with the badly made signs and dirty van, or do you film the cartoon robot cosplayer and the attractive Power Girl cosplayer?
Reporters know what works. They completely ignored the WBC.
And this infuriated them.
We could see them start to act unsure of themselves. Cars were going by honking and waving for us, ignoring the WBC signs entirely. The cops turned their backs, wouldn’t even LOOK at the protesters. The reporters all stopped to ask questions of US, not THEM. And it was something they had never experienced. They were being outgunned entirely.
To be blunt, they threw a tantrum and no one was watching.
And it was the best feeling in the world. Their songs got quieter. Their voices cracked. One of the protesters just gave up and seemed to wander off a bit. The lead screecher lady, her voice finally just cracked in the middle of a chant when she realized not only was no one outraged, no one was even paying ATTENTION.
So the protest, which was supposed to go on all day, ended abruptly. They just got in their van and left. And they looked so defeated, so perplexed, it was ALMOST possible to feel sorry for them.
Almost.
That night, the news all over the world was COMICON ATTENDEES STAGE COUNTER-PROTEST TO WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH and every story I saw barely mentioned the WBC at all.
Hate fought Bender and Bender won.
I was never, ever so proud of comic readers as that day. And this is just one of the reasons that if you start bashing cosplayers in my presence, be prepared to face my wrath, because cosplayers are goddamn awesome.
And the WBC have never come back.
:)
(via johanirae)
what a time to be alive
just fuckign kickstart greece
(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
GenderJam NI now has a Northern Ireland Chest Binder Scheme! Are you a young trans, gender variant and/or intersex person, or are you questioning your gender? Do you live in Northern Ireland? Do you need a chest binder?
You can now get a free chest binder (delivered or collected) with no cost whatsoever.
Request a binder here: genderjam.lgbt/binders
We rely on donations to run this scheme and our other work. Support us here: genderjam.lgbt/supportus
Please reblog & get the word out about this!
feministcaptainkirk, wanna boost for your northern friends?
(Source: ellenfromnowon, via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
i was 14 and i was walking through a mall by myself at 12am after my shift at coldstone creamery lol and a bunch of men started whistling and meowing and getting really close to me and they kept asking me questions and i kept not answering until i didn’t know what else to do so i said “i’m only 14” and almost in unison they said “we don’t care” i was so fucking scared i didn’t know what to do and they kept talking about how i looked and how my body looked and what they would do i was on the verge of tears i was all alone in a huge mall i knew i couldn’t outrun them all i felt totally hopeless until a maintenance worker came up to all of us with a huge industrial broom in her hand, i thought she was going to yell at all of us for being in the mall after hours bc she probably thought we were all friends but instead she cursed all of them out in spanish, threatened to press a panic button on her belt and then proceeded to walk me to the basement garage and waited with me until my mom got there to pick me up she had a death grip on her cart the whole time and a face of steel she looked so strong and i just kept saying thank you and she kept saying not to thank her because she had to stop them.
that was the moment i realized women were the most important beings on this planet and we have to protect each other bc nobody else is going to, she didn’t even know me, we couldn’t even communicate that well because of the language barrier, she could have lost her job for waiting with me in the parking lot but she looked out for me when she didn’t have to, she had nothing to gain from it, i’m 21 now and i tell everyone this story even though it happened 7 years ago, what she did that night helped me form and shape lot of my beliefs early on.
i was at a grocery store really late one night and some old guy kind of eyed me as i walked out of the store next to this other lady. She and I made eye contact and i knew she was scared too. we loaded up our groceries into our cars as fast as possible and I had way more bags than her so she got done faster than me. I panicked because i was sure she was going to leave so i just hurried faster, shaking a little, and then i noticed she sat in her car, watching me and making sure nobody came near. She waited not until all my groceries were loaded, or until my cart was put away, or until I got into my car. No, she didn’t drive away until I drove away.
And that was the moment that I realized how much women need other women. That we can’t win this war without each other and we have to be looking out for each other, every second.
my last year in new york city, i got off the subway around 9 or 10p.m. i only lived about 5 blocks from the f train, but i hadn’t gotten more than two before a woman’s hand suddenly touched my arm.
“that guy behind us is following you,” she said. “he was watching you leave the train car and followed you up.”
i hadn’t noticed him, or at least not noticed him following me. when we stopped outside a grocery store, he stopped half a block back and loitered. the woman linked her arm with mine and walked me several blocks out of her way to my front door and made sure i got inside safely.
another time, nocigar and i were walking home and at a stoplight a stranger grabbed my arm when i wouldn’t respond to him and tried to physically drag me over to him. she—who is, by the way, not a very physically imposing girl—ripped his hand off my arm and snarled, “don’t fucking touch her.”
protect your friends. protect strangers. there are good men in the world, but don’t wait for them to do something if you can do it yourself.
I was at a club once and my friend left with her boyfriend so I finished my drink and was heading out to the parking lot when three girls came up to me and basically surrounded me.
“Those guys behind us were talking about following you. We can walk with you.”
I have MMA training but have never in my life had been offered the protection and sanction of my own gender. This is so important.
GIRL CODE. FUCKIN’ GIRL CODE. LEAVE NO GIRL BEHIND. EVER.
(Source: goths7, via lupinatic)
theres a difference between shipping Wolfstar and trying to invalidate Remadora.
(via lupinatic)
yeah seriously tell us how wizardry’s done in the new world tell me how the wizards from france and spain and britain stamped out the brujos and the medicine men and set up their own schools tell me what the fuck the british raj did to fucking india because the patel twins are going to school in scotland and what are they told about their history, tell me about native american kids learning to say wingardium leviosa with hate in their hearts and tell me about wizarding rabbis bickering about whether you can use potions on the sabbath tell me about the slaves on their ships with their wands broken, mouthing curses in the dark tell me about the runaways that made it with garter snakes wrapped around their wrists that told them when they tasted dogs in the distance, tell me about the underground railroad and abolitionists with unbreakable vows and home-spun invisibility cloaks and disilusionments, using obliviate, using imperio, knowing that they served a higher justice, tell me about what happened to black wizards in the fifties, about what gates they were storming in the sixties tell me about queer wizards taking love potions every morning in their coffee to stay married to their husbands and their wives because what else could they do?the world only begins and ends with straight white christians if you don’t bother looking any farther than that and too many people don’t and i am tired, tired, tired
Oh.
but I started crying halfway through this.
(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
Last night I got up at 3 am to feed my cat. So I picked him up, noticed he was purring loudly, and thought in all seriousness:
“Very cat. Much purrs.”
…then realized I may or may not spend too much time on this fucking website.
As your husband I feel I should inform you that you said that out loud.
OH MY GOD THAT’S EVEN WORSE
(Source: kittenfeathers-blog, via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
My grandfather got suspended from Catholic school for referring to Jesus Christ and the twelve apostles as J.C. and the Boys.
(via thepainofthesass)
so maybe this is only important to me, but about a month ago we had a pretty ‘typical’ suicide patient in my ER. she was 19. we gave her charcoal and made her throw up and gave her lots of fluids and she was able to leave our ER to get better help that next morning. but once she was awake, i went into her room and held her hand while she cried. i pulled her hair back while she threw up and rubbed her back because no one was there with her.
Last night, she walked back into my ER and asked for me by name. I came outside and she gave me the biggest hug and we talked for a while.
But let me tell you something: the first time i hugged her she smelled like blood and charcoal and puke. And the last time i hugged her, she smelled like flowery perfume and chlorine and chocolate ice cream. And it’s the most wonderful change i have ever experienced.
Don’t ever think that you don’t mean enough. Don’t ever think you aren’t worth it.
There is always someone who wants to hold you while you cry, even if you haven’t met them yet.
(Source: arealarchaeopteryx, via yea-lets-do-this-shit)