Latest Posts by pessimism-central - Page 4

Untitled.

i made a comic in google slides for some ungodly reason

bungus

Her name is Katalin Karikó. Hungarian. Daughter of a butcher. Her thesis work became the basis of the mRNA vaccine technology. Read the article here.

POV: YOU ARE PRINCE PHILIP AND MARGARET THATCHER WELCOMES YOU TO THE AFTERLIFE💖🙏🏼✨

I got bored and finally made a uquiz where I ask you generic uquiz questions and tell you which dead meme you are.

It's my first time making one of these and I'm sort of proud of it.

I doodled this out a while ago but it’s always at least a little relevant to life.

*makes this noise at you*

me trying to plug in my phone blind and missing the jack like 500 times: you know i really should have known that bbc sherlock was bad way sooner

me trying to plug in my phone blind and missing the jack like 500 times: you know i really should have known that bbc sherlock was bad way sooner

me trying to plug in my phone blind and missing the jack like 500 times: you know i really should have known that bbc sherlock was bad way sooner

Source

PLEASE DON’T SCROLL

even if you only reblog, that’s enough

1st of February, 2021

i was debating on whether or not i should post this on tumblr but seeing as there haven’t been posts about this yet, here it is. i’m exposing my real location and nationality but it doesn’t matter.

if you have been active on twitter, you may already know #savemyanmar is trending. long story short, there has been a military coup. several nations have released statements but i want to share insight on what’s happening in the country.

memes about a coup have been circulating around for a couple days and when i slept at 2 am last night, we were still under the rule of the National League for Democracy (NLD). while they are not technically democratic, they are the closest we’ve got. when my mother woke up at 6 this morning, she was notified that the country was now under the rule of the military.

banks services are no longer available. wifi was cut at around 7-8. some people got wifi again earlier but many got it barely thirty minutes ago. this is bad for businesses especially ones that require international communications. additionally, international students like myself are experiencing anxiety; how do we pay for and attend classes if we’re not sure wifi is a given?

myanmar has a long, complicated history with military governments. the last time the military went into rule was in 1962 and only stopped in 2011, following the 2010 elections. there was a huge protest in 1988 lead by students that resulted in lots of death. during the military junta, resources like rice, water, oil, were scarce. the gist is military rule is bad for us.

all of my followers are not myanmar citizens, i’m sure but as part of the international community, please help us. here is a petition that you can sign (although i’m not sure if that can do much). there may be protests in front of myanmar embassies so look out for those. most of all, please help spread awareness. 

the people here are coping with dark humor, primarily in the form of memes but we don’t know how long this rule will last, even though the official statement said only a year. here’s something that pretty much sums up our coping mechanism:

again, even a reblog helps

update :: all telecommunication means will be cut off at 12 am MMT

On the issue of the ‘q slur’...

So, yesterday, I got into a rather stupid internet argument with someone who was peddling what seemed to me to be a rather insidious narrative about slur-reclamation. Someone in the ensuing notes raised a point which I thought was interesting, and worrying, and probably needed to be addressed in it’s own post. So here we go:

The word ‘queer’ itself seems to be especially touchy for many, so let me begin to address this by way of analogy.

Instead of talking about “queer”, let’s start by talking about “Jew” - a word which I believe is very similar in its usage in some significant ways.

Now, the word “Jew” has been used as a derogatory term for literally hundreds of years. It is used both as a noun (eg. “That guy ripped me off - what a dirty Jew”) and as a verb (eg. “That guy really Jew-ed me”). These usages are deeply, fundamentally, horrifically offensive, and should be used under no circumstances, ever. And yet, I myself have heard both, even as recently as this past year, even in an urban location with plenty of Jews, in a social situation where people should have known better. In short – the word “Jew”, as it is used by certain antisemites, is – quite unambiguously – a slur. Not a dead slur, not a former slur – and active, living slur that most Jews will at some point in their life encounter in a context where the term is being used to denigrate them and their religion. 

Now here’s the thing, though: I’m a Jew. I call myself a Jew. I prefer that all non-Jews call me a Jew – so do most Jews I know. “Jew” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Judaism, the same way that “Muslim” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Islam, and “Christian” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Christianity. 

In fact, almost all of the terms that non-Jews use to avoid saying “Jew” (eg. “a member of the Jewish persuasion”, “a follower of the Jewish faith”, “coming from a Jewish family”, “identifying as part of the Jewish religion”, etc) are deeply offensive, because these terms imply to us that the speaker sees the term “Jew” (and by extension, what that term stands for) as a dirty word.

“BUT WAIT” – I hear you say – “didn’t you just say that Jew is used as a slur?!?”

Yes. Yes, I did. And also, it is fundamentally offensive not to call us that, because it is our name and our identity.

Let me back up a little bit, and bring you into the world of one of those 2000s PSAs about not using “that’s so gay”. Think of some word that is your identity – something which you consider to be a fundamental and intrinsic part of yourself. It could be “female” or “male”, or “Black” or “white”, “tall” or “short”, “Atheist” or “Mormon” or “Evangelical” – you name it.

Now imagine that people started using that term as a slur.

“What a female thing to do!” they might say. “That teacher doesn’t know anything, he’s so female!”

Or maybe, “Yikes, look at that idiot who’s driving like an atheist. It’s so embarrassing!”

Or perhaps, “Oh gross, that music is so Black, turn it off!”

Now, what would you say if the same groups of people who had been saying those things for years turned around and avoided using those words to describe anything other than an insult?

“Oh, so I see you’re a member of the female persuasion!”

“Is he… a follower of the atheist beliefs? Like does he identify as part of the community of atheist-aligned individuals?”

“So, as a Black-ish identified person yourself – excuse me, as a person who comes from a Black-ish family…”

Here’s the fundamental problem with treating all words that are used as slurs the same, without any regard for how they are used and how they developed – not all slurs are the same.

No one, and I mean no one (except maybe for a small handful of angsty teens who are deliberately making a point of being edgy) self-identifies as a kike. In contrast, essentially all Jews self-identify as Jews. And when non-Jews get weird about that identity on the grounds that “Jew is used as a slur”, despite the fact that it is the name that the Jewish community as a whole resoundingly identifies with, what they are basically saying is that they think that the slur usage is more important than the Jewish community self-identification usage. They are saying, in essence, “we think that your name should be a slur.” 

Now, at the top I said that the word “Jew” and the word “queer” had some significant similarities in terms of their usage, and I think that’s pretty apparent if you look at what people in those communities are saying about those terms. When American Jews were being actively threatened by neo-Nazis in the 70s, the slogan of choice was “For every Jew a .22!″. When the American Queer community was marching in the 90s in protest of systemic anti-queer violence, the slogan of choice was “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” Clearly, these are terms that are used by the communities themselves, in reference to themselves. Clearly, these terms are more than simply slurs.

But while there are useful similarities between how the terms “Jew” and “Queer” are used by bigots and by their own communities, I’d also like to point out that there is pretty substantial and important difference:

Unlike for “queer”, there is no organized group of Jewish antisemites who are using the catchphrase “Jew is a slur!” in order to selectively silence and disenfranchise Jews who are part of minority groups within Judaism. 

This is the real rub with the term queer – no one was campaigning about it being a slur until less than a decade ago. No one was saying that you needed to warn for the word queer when queer people were establishing the academic discipline of queer studies. No one was ‘think of the children”-ing the umbrella term when queer activists were literally marching for their lives. Go back to even 2010 and the term “q slur” would have been basically unparseable – if I saw someone tag something “q slur”, like most queer people I would have wracked my brains trying to figure out what slur even started with q, and if I learned that it was supposed to be “queer”, my default assumption would be that the post was made by a well-meaning but extremely clueless straight person.

I literally remember this shift – and I remember who started it. Exclusionists didn’t like the fact that queer was an umbrella term. Terfs (or radfems as they like to be called now) didn’t like that queer history included trans history; biphobes and aphobes didn’t like that the queer community was also a community to bisexuals and asexuals. And so what could they possibly say, to drive people away from the term that was protecting the sorts of queer people that they wanted to exclude?

Well, naturally, they turned to “queer is a slur.”

And here’s the thing – queer is a slur, just like Jew is a slur, and no one is denying that. And that fact makes “queer is a slur so don’t use it” a very convincing argument on the surface: 1) queer is still often used as a slur, and 2) you shouldn’t ever use slurs without carefully tagging and warning people about them (and better yet, you should never use them at all), and so therefore 3) you need to tag for “the q slur” and you need to warn people not to call the community “the queer community” or it’s members “queer people” or its study “queer studies” – because it’s a slur!

But the crucial step that’s missing here is exactly the same one above, for the word “Jew” – and that step is that not all slurs are the same. When a term is both used as a slur and used as a self-identity term, then favoring the slur meaning instead of the identity meaning is picking the side of the slur-users over the disadvantaged group! 

If you say or tag “q slur” you are sending the message, whether you realize it or not, that people who use “queer” as a slur are more right about its meaning than those who use it as their identity. Tagging for “queer” is one thing. People can filter for “queer” if it triggers them, just like people can filter for anything else. Not everyone has to personally use the term queer, or like the term queer. But there is no circumstance where the term “q slur” does not indicate that you think queer is more of a slur than of an accurate description of a community.

If I, as a Jew, ever came across a post where someone had warned for innocent, positive, non-antisemitic content relating to Judaism with the tag “J slur”, I would be incensed. So would any Jew. The act of tagging a post “J slur” is in and of itself antisemitic and offensive.

Queer people are allowed to feel the same about “q slur”. It is not a neutral warning term – it is an attack on our identity.

Hey guys,

I’ll make this short. Today a racist idiot burned our car completely. It can only be sold for scrap because the motor, brain and sensors are fried.

We’re a family of black latine immigrants. we did not get any stimulus checks. I was forced to drop out cause I can’t pay for college so I’m using my shop to sustain my family, and without a car this is just so, so much more difficult.

I beg of you. If you’ve ever used these:

Please. please consider boosting and/or donating. I’m in complete shambles over this. 

http://paypal.me/mothcharm  http://ko-fi.com/swordknight  https://mothcharm.bigcartel.com

Thank you ♥

Honestly wouldn't have thought people possible of such cruelty

WARNING: ANIMAL CRUELTY

Apparently people have been adopting dogs and either killing them themselves or dropping them to a kill shelter (and one even said they were flying them to poor Asian areas to be eaten) under the Twitter hashtag #pitbulldropoff

This is completely cruel and evil and word needs to get around about these demons so everyone knows what these demons are planning to do to dogs once they get ahold of them.

If you know someone or if you yourself is planning to give away a pitty by craigslist soon, DONT and wait for awhile!!!! They act like they’re going to adopt them and act all nice then they get rid of them, don’t be fooled!!

DM me for uncensored names!!!!!!!!

Don't let this die! This is the full scene in Spanish, confirming that Dean says "y yo a ti" after Cas's romantic "te amo."

Taken from here: https://twitter.com/knjbabygirl/status/1331485318458056704?s=21

Twitter

heller, diana heller on Twitter

“HERE IS THE SCENE IN SPANISH A BIT MORE EXTENDED AHHHH https://t.co/VKL6wRYcHv”

In South America, after Cas says "I love you", Dean says "and I you, Cas".

If the reciprocation was in the original script and the CW cut it off cause they decided to go with that shitty ending, this is the proof. They forgot to tell their homophobic plans to SouthAmerican countries.

Fuck off homophobic CWUSA. We win.

A good thread on whether “queer” is a slur and if it should be used or not.

wh……….

I want diwali/hinduism/india/desi to be on top 10 trending today. It's a festival no one can ignore. Halloween, Christmas gets to be on trending page hell i want my sweet sweet diwali too!! Please charge!!! Diwali moodboards, posts with wishes, fill the desis inbox, even desis with particular fandom blogs! Diwali diwali everyyyywhereeeeeeee let's make history oh man I'm so charged up help meeee hshshhshsshhhs

Bro YOU HAVE A POINT!!!!!! NOW I ALSO WANT DIWALI TO BE ON TOP TRENDING! :0

Almost 200 people were murdered in Armenia in 3 days and y'all are still ignoring us.

This is not a war, this is a massacre Azerbaijan and Turkey are committing against the Armenian people.

Turkey's president literally admitted that he wants to finish what his ancestors started. He wants to commit another genocide, and this time he wants to kill us all.

Silence is violence

a new law is about to be passed in Saudi Arabia that will allow the government to execute people for coming out or being openly gay online.

ignoring the fact that this is literally something out of some kind of dystopian novel, in the interests of safety i’ve emptied out my face tag and may temporarily deactivate or password protect this blog.

please reblog this and get the word out, and if you pray, please pray for me and my fellow Saudi LGBTQ+/MOGAI family.

I'm going to start crying this is the cutest thing in the world they're both so lovely

patti and dolly harmonizing to an acrylic nail beat

I FOUND IT GUYS I SPENT HALF AN HOUR LOOKING FOR THIS VIDEO AND ITS HERE

PSA on Britney Spears and the #FreeBritney movement for anyone that needs or wants more information on what is going on with her. It’s a fucking rabbit hole, so buckle up.

A little backstory first. Britney was a child star starting at the age of 4 years old on Broadway, and then worked her way to the Mickey Mouse Club, and eventually the solo career we know today. Her career has been on autopilot her entire life. If you look back at her music, she’s been telling everyone for years she’s too controlled and treated as a product if you listen to the lyrics of most of her hits. Examples include: Lucky, Overprotected, My Perogative, Circus, Piece of Me and Gimme More. Her music videos, social media posts, tour props and photoshoots regularly show her in a cage or in chains. If anyone has ever seen videos of her when she was younger, you’d know her REAL singing voice is very similar to Christina Aguilera’s. Her record label didn’t like it, as they were both on the Mickey Mouse Club and about to release their debut albums at the same time. So they had her voice retrained to sing in the baby voice we all know today because they believed it to be more iconic and would create a brand and career for her instead of her real voice. It’s unhealthy, and it’s been destroying her voice over the years, thus why she is known for lip syncing. She wanted to make an acoustic type pop album in 2006 titled Original Doll and reinvent herself using her real voice. The album was shelved and cancelled once her label realized she would be singing in her real voice. She isn’t allowed to sing live because she will either fail terribly, or she’ll have to sing in her deep voice that she isn’t known for. Her entire career she has been treated like a product meant to sell.

Now, for the real tea.

Everyone remembers the 2007 meltdown. Everyone. Leading up the meltdown Britney was going thru a public divorce, had two children under the age of 2 at the time and was VERY much the focus of the public. We all saw her on every magazine cover. We all also saw the photo of her with one of her kids on her lap while driving. Go on YouTube once and look up ‘Britney Spears paparazzi’. You’ll watch her be chased and followed by hundreds of them, even trying to get into a public restroom to photograph her, videotaping her in tears asking them to leave her alone, and even filming her thru the windows of an ambulance while she was naked being taken away for her final mental health hold.

After the public meltdown, shaving her head, locking herself in her home with her children, speaking in a british accent on regular basis, wearing the imfamous pink wig everywhere, and shopping naked, she was hospitalized twice. After the hospitalization, her father petitioned the courts to be a TEMPORARY conservator to her until she was mentally stable and for only one years time. 2 months after her hospitalization she did a guest appearance on How I Met Your Mother. 6 months after her hospitalization, she drops the Womanizer video and starts to promote her new album Circus with its worldwide tour that grossed $131.8 million. If she’s so unwell, why did she start working right away?

Her father after one year petitioned the courts for the conservatorship to become permanent due to her ALLEGEDLY having EARLY ONSET DEMENTIA in her TWENTIES. It passed and has been that way ever since. For 12 years to be exact.

Now for everyone that doesn’t understand what that means let me break it down for you.

Britney Spears is a now 38 year old woman who is not allowed to do the following without her fathers permission or he can legally lock her up in a mental health facility:

• drive a car

• vote

• get married

• have children

• spend HER OWN MONEY

• see how her money is being spent

• see her children (she has 30% custody of both of her boys due to her dad assaulting one of her sons)

• leave her home

• hire her own lawyer

• have any control over her career

• speak about the conservatorship publicly

• do interviews that aren’t scripted and all final cuts are approved by her father as well

• use a cell phone without being monitored

• use social media unmonitored

• contact ANYONE without being monitored or having them extremely vetted. (Iggy Azalea allegedly had her house searched for drugs top to bottom when they collaborated on a song together)

• go shopping

• go for a walk

• get Starbucks

A conservatorship is meant for people with mental health issues or decaying health. Most likely grandparents or people with actual dementia etc. They are meant for people who literally cannot take care of themselves. If she is so unwell that she isn’t mentally capable of doing anything for herself, why is she still working? Since the conservatorship began 12 years ago she has:

• released 4 albums

• done 3 worldwide tours

• did a FOUR-year Vegas residency

• was a full time judge on X-Factor

• released multiple perfumes and a lingerie line

• made $138 MILLION DOLLARS or so A YEAR

In January of last year, Britney was placed in a mental health facility for 3 months after being seen driving her car to In-N-Out with her boyfriend without permission and for refusing to take the sedating medications her father has doctors prescribing her to keep her under control. She testified to a judge in documents that she was held there against her will by her father. After it was leaked to the press that she was there against her will, the Free Britney movement picked up speed causing a judge to open an investigation into the impact and legality her conservatorship has on her life. Britney’s mother Lynn was also liking and commenting on Free Britney posts saying she agrees that Britney is trapped by her father. Britney’s team had Twitter disable the Free Britney hashtag, and regularly threatens any celebrity that speaks out using the hashtag with a lawsuit if they don’t remove their support for the movement. She was seen shortly after leaving a hotel thru the front door (99% of celebrities park underground to avoid paparazzi unless they WANT to be photographed) stumbling while carrying her shoes, and out of it. Her team used that moment to justify to the public that she needs this conservatorship. She is not allowed to have any say in the hiring or firing of anyone on her team. Every year she pays $1.1 million dollars in fees for the conservatorship to continue, including paying her father a solid $100k+ salary and paying a lawyer she isn’t allowed to choose. She is allowed an allowance of around $1,500 a week for bills, shopping and essentials. Her net worth is $250 million.

So, when everyone sees her on Instagram walking up and down her hallways like it’s a fashion show. That’s all she is allowed to do. She has NEVER had control over her life. I don’t care if you personally like her or her music, NO ONE DESERVES THIS. All this woman wants is to see her children, make the music she wants to make, and go get a frappuccino in her car. She is a light of sunshine in this world, and we must protect her at all costs. So please, do not make fun of her, support the Free Britney movement, and send good vibes her way. She has a court date this month to review the conservatorship and decide if it is abusive or will continue to be in place. There are so many details to this that i left out that would make this post entirely much longer than it is, but a simple search will show you what else is out there. Spread this far and wide. ❤️ Free Britney

something that i haven’t seen in the hamilton discourse is how it does a really good job at humanizing bad people, but that that can be a good thing

we like to pretend like bad people™️ are bad in every aspect of their lives and that if we were alive back then we would’ve seen right through thomas jefferson’s bullshit.

but in reality how often do we see a politician/celebrity/ex boyfriend and at first glance they’re great. but then after a while you do some digging and realize oh shit this person is the worst. 

of course glorifying slave owners is never okay do not get me wrong on that

but i guess what I’m trying to say is that hamilton does a really good job of showing us how people justified supporting the founding fathers, and by extension calls us to examine the politicians and people we’re supporting.

because history repeats itself and in 200 years kids will be reading history books and wondering how we let x y and z happen. so just because someone seems nice and like they’re working for your cause – and maybe they are – don’t forget that everyone has the capacity to do awful things. you and me included. 

and again – don’t take this as me defending the actions of those who owned enslaved people, or those who supported them. but instead take this as an opportunity to examine how easy it would have been to be deceived by them – and then consider how that can still happen today on issues that we might not even know are issues yet. 

we have to be humble enough to recognize that we are capable of falling prey to dangerous ideas, because if we’re not then how are we ever going to fight them?? nothing can ever change if we can’t admit that our views are sometimes wrong. 

If you live outside of the US, you can still demand justice for George Floyd’s death by emailing police@minneapolismn.gov. Here’s a script i used for my email:

My name is ___ and I am a resident of ___. I'm emailing today on behalf of the George Floyd case. I'm calling for the prosecution of Derek Chauvin #1087 and his partner Tou Thao #7162 to the fullest extent of the law. George was arrested under an implied, nonviolent crime, and bystanders claim that he never resisted his arrest. The approach that the officers chose to take resulted in murder. This crime should not be pardoned or ignored because it was committed by the so-called officers of the law. Black lives matter.

ways to support the blm movement

this google doc includes a list of petitions to sign, resources to help educate yourself and others, organizations to donate to, and contacts of law officials to get in touch with to express your support for the george floyd and black lives matter movements. this includes ways to help even if you don’t live in america. please read it and support the movement. 

use your voice. use every platform you have, no matter how big or how small. nothing will change if you just sit there and watch. if you think you’re the exception, you’re not. remaining indifferent will only support the oppressor. do something.

write to your legal representatives. express your support for legislation that would bring justice to the unarmed civilians who’ve been murdered by law enforcement officers. demand for justice. 

call 612-324-4499 ㅡ this is a hotline that will coach you on how to get connected with the people who can arrest the officers that murdered george floyd. 

create serious conversation. stop demeaning people who disagree with your philosophies on how to overcome. it is useless and no better than the practices of the oppressor to silence. we need to listen to each other with respect and really consider how we can combine our perspectives to create practical change. 

please feel free to add any links or resources or information that you think will be helpful and also reblog to spread awareness. the systems we are fighting against were literally created to oppress marginalized communities and therefore will not go down without a fight. we need to collectively stand up and do something about it.