Blackmoor Vituperative

Here are some tips on how to have a happy marriage, from someone who has been married for 28 years, and is still happy about it.

1. Date plenty of people long before you even think about marrying any of them. Have at least a few serious relationships. Fall in love. Make mistakes. Have your heart broken. Get over it. Fall in love again. Learn from your mistakes and become a better, wiser person. (Also, learn how to have sex competently, because that is not automatic.)
2. Live on your own for a few years (but with a roommate if you have to). Be responsible for your own rent, your own food, your own laundry, and your own time. Learn who you are when you are not living with your parents or at a college dorm. Learn how to survive on your own. Learn who you are.
3. Date someone (or even better, hang out as best friends) for at least a few years before you even think about marrying them. Have arguments. Make up. Be wrong. Apologize. Go on long trips together. Learn how to communicate. Learn what it means to commit to caring about someone long term. Learn how to compromise — and when not to compromise.
4. When you are finally thinking about marriage, live with someone at least a few months before proposing. Go over the household bills together. Learn everything about each other’s finances. Share a bedroom. Share a bathroom. Learn what it is like to live with this person — and let them learn what it is like to live with you.
5. Don’t go into debt for the wedding or the honeymoon. Not one penny.
6. Communicate. Pay attention. Listen, and talk, and listen more.
7. Don’t lie. Ever.

ArmStreet just shared photos of a lovely set of actual functional SCA armor made of spring steel, approved by SCA wardens, providing better protection than a lot of approved SCA armors, and it got entirely sidetracked by smirking idiots complaining about “boob plate”.

Contrary to what some keyboard “experts” want you to believe, armor has often been decorative, as well as functional. The ancient Greeks were not the first or the last culture to incorporate an idealized human form into armor (for those that could afford it).

“Not dying is gender neutral” is a great sound bite, but it’s balderdash. Functional armor and decorative armor have never been mutually exclusive.

I have cat named Vixen. She is affectionate, and playful, and brings me toys so that we can play together. When I am gone, she misses me, and greets me when I get home.

Or she used to. About seven months ago, I brought home a kitten. I had hoped he would be a friend to her, a playmate and companion for when I’m not around. Unfortunately, he bullies her, relentlessly. She growls and runs, and he chases her. Or she growls and fights back, and they fight. This continues until I end it. She hates him, and she has good reason. She spends most of her time hiding from him. She doesn’t play anymore. And sometimes when I go to pick her up, she growls at me. If he has been bullying her, she might even bite me. I have a mark on my hand right now from where she drew blood a few days ago.

I’m not her enemy. I love her more than any pet I’ve ever had (and most people). But an animal who is angry and in pain can’t always tell who is a friend and who isn’t. They just lash out. All you can do is be patient, and kind, and hope they come around.

People are like that, too.

You see a meme from time to time that no one born with hate. That hate is learned. There is usually a photo of babies, or of Nelson Mandela.

I don’t think that’s entirely true. I think some people are born with hate — or perhaps, are born with something else missing. The part that feels compassion. The part that sees other people as people.

And I think there are more people like that than most of us realize. A lot more.

The stories told by Uncle Remus in “Song Of The South” are the stories of African-Americans. “Song Of The South” was based on stories compiled by Joel Chandler Harris — a white man, yes, but they were the stories of African-Americans, and Harris tried his best to tell them faithfully. Joel Chandler Harris was a journalist who actually cared about the people whose stories he was sharing. It’s easy to say, “Oh, those should have been shared by African-Americans,” but at the time, that wasn’t an option. If he hadn’t collected them, those stories might be lost now.

As for the movie, it is not the racist propaganda that people who have never seen it assume it to be. If anything, it’s the opposite. For example, it shows a world where black and white children play together — in a movie made at the height of the Jim Crow era. The songs won awards, and the wonderfully talented James Baskett won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Uncle Remus — the first African American to win one (he wasn’t allowed to accept it at the main ceremony, due to idiotic 20th century racism). The worst thing that can be said about the movie is that the live action parts are dull, aside from when James Baskett is singing.

I know it’s just a dumb Disney movie, but I wish people recognized that “Song Of The South” was a small step forward for our society, at a time we really needed it. As a work of art and a cultural milestone, it and the people who made it deserve far more respect than they get.

[sīəns fikSHən]
noun

“Science fiction” is that subset of fantasy that uses the vocabulary of science to lend verisimilitude to the story.

First known use: 1925

I’ve seen a lot of good arguments against oppressing women — and a lot of hypocritical and/or morally bankrupt arguments for it.

I’d not seen this take on it before. The place I found it had it as an image, so I have transcribed it here.

If my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood. Yes, even to save the life of a fully-grown person, it would be illegal to force me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.

See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this… cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon.

Like, we can’t even take life saving organs from corpses unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy.

To tell people that they must sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what you view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the vast majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died.

You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies.

(copied from a user called fandomsandfeminism)

Naturally, when I was looking for the original source for this (which I didn’t find), I found some hypocritical and/or morally bankrupt responses to it.

But here’s the thing: if your first reaction, on reading this, is to try and find some ethical loophole that will allow you to continue to oppress and enslave women while the tattered scraps of your conscience maintain plausible deniability, you are a terrible person. Take a long look in the mirror, and ask yourself how you became this shallow mockery of a human being.

I made some notes during “Avengers Endgame” (2019). Sadly, the condensation from my icewater rendered my nearly incomprehensible handwriting completely incomprehensible.

But I’ll try to decipher it. There are, as you might reasonably expect, “spoilers” below. (If you care about that. Personally, I think the movie is entirely predictable and that “spoilers” don’t apply. But you do you.)

• 20 minutes – Get on with it
• 40 minutes – Finally, some action… briefly
• 75 minutes – Thor is … The Dude
• 80 minutes – Is the movie going to start, finally?
• 105 minutes – Nebula is hard core
• 115 minutes – I know what this reminds me of: the extended edition of “Lord Of The Rings”, where they included all of the extra scenes which were interesting in a “DVD extras” kind of way, but which weren’t included in the theatrical release because they would have slowed it down and had people checking the time. All of these “Ant Man irons his pants” type scenes would be great in an extended director’s cut, to watch after one has seen the two-hour theatrical release. On the other hand, one of these scenes made me tear up a little bit. (I do not remember which one.)
• 150 minutes – Blah blah blah. Thanos loves to hear himself talk. Why does every wanna-be mass-murdering fanatic want to bore people to death listening to his manifesto?
• 170 – Can’t make it to the funeral on the day your dear friend is being interred? No problem! It’s a green screen funeral!

Final thoughts…

I thought it was an okay movie. It was entirely what I expected, which is what it is. It was a little more predictable than most of the movies that led up to it, but that’s a given, really. I mean, did anyone not say to themselves, “This is where Captain Marvel shows up,” about thirty seconds before everyone looks up and notices the big space ship isn’t shooting at them anymore? But you can’t really blame the movie for that. They set up the story arc and the characters in the previous few movies, and at this point it’s just dominos falling. But aside from all that, I enjoyed it, once it got going (which was a little over an hour after it started).

However, I do have some problems with the plot. As I have mentioned before, Thanos’ plan to cut the universe’s population would put us back to 1971 population levels. Not even 50 years. Whoop-de-doo (in the big scheme of things). On the other hand, what do you suppose would happen if the Earth’s population were to double suddenly? Like say, five years after everyone has adapted to those people being gone? All of the jobs have been filled or eliminated. Food supplies have been reduced to what’s needed. People who lost loved ones have mourned and moved on, and in many cases have remarried.

Imagine the chaos, the misery, the starvation and death that would follow when the population doubles in an instant. This is not a happy ending.

Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who art thou then if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly’s uncurbed steed,
Must, vainly shrieking with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.
Accursed, who striveth after noble ends,
And with deliberate wisdom forms his plans!
To the fool-king belongs the world.

— Friedrich Schiller, predicting the existence of anti-vaxxers and climate deniers

Just watched the first episode of Titans. It’s an interesting take on the characters. Sort of a dark, low-budget alternate universe interpretation. It’s better than any of the trailers and promo material made it look. Even their version of Starfire is actually pretty interesting, despite the liberties they took with the character.

On one level, I wonder why they bothered calling this “Titans” when the characters are so different from their comicbook and cartoon counterparts. It’s the same thing I wonder about Star Trek Discovery. It’s not a bad show, but it’s so clearly not Star Trek — why bother trying to piggyback on the Star Trek name?

But I guess that answers my question. Even though they are pretty good, these shows wouldn’t have a fraction of the viewers if they didn’t have a recognized name plastered on them.

Update: Up to episode 7, the one where the bad guys are precognitive and the good guys are morons: two of my least favourite superhero tropes. The show is paused and I am debating whether to just stop here and add this to the growing list of genre TV shows I stopped watching midway through the first season.

Update: I gritted my teeth and got past the dumb part, and it got a bit better. This was the worst episode so far. Most of the show has actually been pretty good, so I’ll keep watching it.

In general, I think this is an interesting “alternate universe” take on the Teen Titans.

Incidentally, you know what this episode felt like? It felt like the suits didn’t like the way the show was going, and forced the writers to make a detour. The same shit happened to the 2007 “Bionic Woman” remake.

Suits, man. 🙁

Update: They’ve done a much better job with Hawk & Dove than they did with Cloak & Dagger. I bailed on Cloak & Dagger after six episodes, and I would not have gotten that far if I didn’t love the comic and kept hoping the show would get better.

Update: Episode 10. I’m just of kind of rolling my eyes at it now. It hasn’t gotten any better since things took a suckward turn at episode 7. I’ll let it play out while I am working, but I won’t be looking for a second season of this, if there is one.

Final update: And I’m done. That’s 11 hours I’d like to get back. Re-watching the Teen Titans cartoon would have been a better use of my time.