So after the many many posts mourning the passing of Stan Lee earlier today I’ve started seeing an inevitable wave of backlash about how he actually wasn’t a good person and we shouldn’t be mourning them. And these posts are par for the course when a celebrity dies because no one is all good or all bad, and that’s fine. And Stan Lee was human, he was a person with a complicated life and a complicated legacy, and I’m not here to whitewash any of that. However, I’d like to refute a couple of the points I’ve seen people making.
And while your mileage may vary on how much you agree with him there, it’s a far cry from him cruelly declaring Peter Parker having a boyfriend would be an affront before God and man and an insult to his authorial intent or whatever. Also, I think the original post that started this story was about Andrew Garfield saying something while doing press for Amazing Spiderman 2 and Stan Lee writing the contract as a result, but the contract is from 2011 and the first Amazing Spiderman came out in 2012, so the timeline doesn’t work. I could be misremembering the post though. There’s also this implied narrative that Andrew Garfield got axed for saying his Peter Parker was bi, but uh, no. No, they cancelled the franchise because Amazing Spiderman 2 bombed at the box office.
Now, to wrap it up, was Stan Lee a good and perfect man? No. His legacy is very much a mixed bag, especially when it comes to his relationship with his long-time co-creator Jack Kirby (although that’s a whole other suitcase to unpack some other time). I would like to point out, however, that the posts praising him aren’t all just blindly hero-worshipping him and being willfully ignorant. When someone you admire dies it’s natural to forget about the bad parts of them for a bit and get a little misty eyed, and not everyone’s gonna be totally objective about this man that they never met but who represents something important to them. I think that speaks more to the way we interact with celebrity as a culture than it does about the way Marvel fans see Stan Lee frankly. And hey, we gain nothing by pretending that Stan Lee wasn’t an important figure in comic book history, one who co-created the first black character in mainstream comics just two years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, who fought the Comic Code Authority censors to use comics to tackle heavy subject matter, who helped bring legitimacy to the art form and humanity to its characters. So as long as I’ve got you here I’m gonna leave you with his thoughts on racism in 1968, words that feel just as relevant today:
Hey, not-so-friendly reminder that acting like your whole world is crumbling because a story didn’t end how you wanted is incredibly immature.
And resenting the creators of a thing because your personal fantasies about the thing didn’t come true is pathetic.
Yes, the story meant a lot to you, I get it. But at the end of the day, that is because YOU decided to become so personally attached and possessive over SOMEBODY ELSE’S work. They didn’t make it to adhere to your fantasies. They made it to tell the story THEY wanted to tell.
You just decided it was yours, instead. But you don’t get to make that decision.
How dare you act offended and personally hurt just because you couldn’t control something that was never yours to begin with? How low can you get?
i dont understand this at all and america scares the fuck out of me
This is the america they don’t want you to see
i love america
This is what you call Waffle House at 2 am when the bars close and everyone is drunk and hungry
*group of people having fun* this site: wtf this is so scary
People having safe fun at a waffle house is scary for most Tumblr bloggers, reports say.
Some context for those not familiar with Waffle House Culture:
Waffle House is one of the few chains in America that’s open 24/7/365, and where you can get both breakfast and lunch/dinner options at any time (I have had so many Breakfast Cheeseburgers at Waffle Houses). The food is really good, and people eat there at all times of the day or night, but it’s particularly popular as a late-night post-drinking spot because it’s all that’s open and it’s the kind of food that tastes especially good when you’re hammered.
Part of Waffle House Protocol is that all the servers and cooks greet every single customer as they come through the door. It sounds lame, but I’ve never been to a Waffle House where that greeting didn’t feel completely heartfelt. My mom is a health nut who could barely find anything on the menu she was willing to eat and yet she describes the Christmas Day lunch we had there one year as one of the nicest meals she’s ever had because everyone was so warm and welcoming. That sense of camaraderie gets turned up to 11, of course, at 2 a.m. when everyone’s shitfaced.
The jukeboxes have Waffle-House-themed songs on them (once you have heard “Raisins in my Toast” you will be earwormed forever) and there is an arcane system of hash brown ordering: scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, topped, diced, peppered, and/or capped. The hot sauce bottles say “Casa de Waffle.”
Once, in Oxford (UK), my husband and I walked past a kebab van very late one night and he said “why do I smell Waffle House”
The location of most Waffle Houses means there’s some… classism that tends to get tied up with Anti-Waffle House Discourse, which is probably lending itself, in part, to this being such a fraught topic. (I’m looking at a map and apparently I was born and raised right in the middle of the Peak Waffle House Density Zone)
FEMA actually uses waffle houses as part of their metrics for disasters. it’s an unofficial metric but it is literally called The Waffle House Index.
The Waffle House Index is an informal metric used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to determine the effect of a storm and the likely scale of assistance required for disaster recovery.
“lf you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad… That’s where you go to work.”
sitting at home and feeling sorry for yourself is such an easy trap to fall into, i know because i’ve done it for years on end. but bemoaning how no one loves/likes you is such a self-fulfilling prophecy.
i keep seeing all my friends out there giving up on love and relationships at like the tender ages of 20-22. idk maybe its my capricorn sun but seeing ppl give up on something they’ve barely even tried is wild to me
nobody’s asked you out? ask them out! what fucking era is this? if you’re specifically waiting for someone to ask you out and refuse to do it yourself you’re just shooting yourself in the foot my dude
all your past relationships sucked? well that’s why youre not in them now! now there’s a whole world of people who are better than your last relationship, go snag one! or two! who cares!! finding whoever you want get married to is endgame shit, of course it’s gonna take more tries than you want to get there!
not meeting people? dating sites and school clubs! take a class! or go to a bar idk!! you’re not gonna find love if you dont put yourself out there in some manner! no one will know you exist if you hide away!
#attractive people privileges
my dude i am fat, acne’d, scarred and stretch marked, and a nervous wreck to boot. i can’t even tell you the amount of people who have told me i’m unattractive, but it way outweighs the people who do.
love is out there and its stupidly easy to find
Also you don’t have to be attractive to be loved? Or find love? There’s tons of assholes out there who could probably love you the way you wanna be loved. Go out into the world and find them. You might even have fun or learn something about yourself doing it
^^^ this times a million!! love gets so much easier to find when you like, actually get vested in people for who they are instead of what they look like.
If you would report an undocumented immigrant to ICE you would have reported me to the Nazis and I don’t fucking trust you
A note:
I live in a state where you “have to” report anyone you suspect of being undocumented (that wonderful hellhole of Arizona). Now in practice this law has fallen far short, thank goodness. But if you live in such a place and they start enforcing it, here is how you get around it:
Assume everyone who doesn’t speak English is visiting.
Never ask about their job, because if they tell you they work here then you know they’re not visiting. You see them a lot for several weeks or months? Hm. Someone in the family must be ill. That’s terribly tough. They always dress in old, ratty laborers’ clothes? I feel you, my dude, I can’t afford new clothes either, and my dad has the fashion sense of an aardvark, so sometimes it’s not even about “affording” them. They say they’ve been here for years? You must have misunderstood. Spanish isn’t your first language, after all. First and last name? It never came up, or you don’t recall–you meet a lot of people.
And then, if you’re asked: no, you haven’t seen anyone residing illegally in the United States. Just people visiting.
Very good very important addition
Essentially, this is the civil society version of a work-to-rule strike.
Don’t do more than is expressly asked of you, and do what you are asked with such an intense attention to protocol that not asking you at all becomes more effective than even bothering.
In this case:
“Have you seen an illegal immigrant?”
“Could you describe an illegal immigrant, officer?”
*officer describes a person who is in the country without appropriate paperwork, or who has crossed the border illegally*
“No, sir, I haven’t seen any illegal immigrant.”
And this is correct. You have NOT seen an illegal immigrant, because you have no way of knowing if Jose Fulano is here legally or not. And since you can’t see his paperwork (or lack thereof), and did not personally see him cross the border illegally, you are only answering precisely the question asked.
I’m not American, and I have like, three followers, but this is important.
So one of our new vocabulary words is “malus”, meaning “bad”, and I asked my students if they could think of any English derivatives, telling them that just about any English word that begins with M-A-L is going to mean something “bad”.
I’m expecting stuff like: malice, malcontent, malnourished, or even malware or Maleficent.
Instead I get this one girl in the back of the room say “male” with the most dead-eyed expression.
This has the same energy as two years ago when another student said she remembered “vir” meant “man” because “it looks like virus, and men are a virus”.
One of my Latin students, whenever I’d ask if they wanted a couple extra minutes to review before a test, would always say, “No, we die like men.” And so finally I asked her why it was always ‘like men’. She said, “We die like men, unprepared and useless.”
RIP Stan Lee (December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018)
“Let’s lay it right on the line. Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today. But, unlike a team of costumed supervillains, they can’t be halted with a punch in the snoot, or a zap from a ray gun. The only way to destroy them is to expose them – to reveal them for the insidious evils they really are.
The bigot is an unreasoning hater – one who hates blindly, fanatically, indiscriminately. If his hang-up is black men, he hates ALL black men. If a redhead once offended him, he hates ALL redheads. If some foreigner beat him to a job, he’s down on ALL foreigners. He hates people he’s never seen – people he’s never known – with equal intensity – with equal venom.
Now, we’re not trying to say it’s unreasonable for one human being to bug another. But, although anyone has the right to dislike another individual, it’s totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race – to despise an entire nation – to vilify an entire religion. Sooner or later, we must learn to judge each other on our own merits. Sooner or later, if man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance. For then, and only then, will we be truly worthy of the concept that man was created in the image of God – a God who calls us ALL – his children.”
– “Stan’s Soapbox”, Bullpen Bulletins, December 1970
If I see one more person on this hellsite say that adults can’t write young adult books or focused media I’m going to scream. Who do you think writes the movies, books and tv scripts for those demographics? Sometimes teens or college kids yes, but usually it is someone over 20. It isn’t grooming. It isn’t ‘gross’. Its how you are getting your media you like. Its fiction.
Remember all those books you read in high school with sex scenes and kissing scenes between teenagers or college students because that is the market it is targeted to. I was a sex crazed thinking teen like a good number of people (not everyone) and I read those books all the time. Guess what, most of those were written by adults. Going after fanfiction writers for the same thing is beyond stupid. Stop it.
Not to mention a vast majority of fan fiction writers are in fact teenagers themselves or young adults. I do not want to see any more posts on my dash about telling these people to kill themselves, jump off bridges, drink bleach, “pee their pants” etc. Learn the laws and learn the difference between fiction and reality. And screaming “pedophile” at a 16 year old for writing about other sixteen year olds is stupid. Yelling pedophilia at a 21 year old about high school au ficts is stupid. All of you need to stop.
If I see one more person on this hellsite say that adults can’t write young adult books or focused media I’m going to scream. Who do you think writes the movies, books and tv scripts for those demographics? Sometimes teens or college kids yes, but usually it is someone over 20. It isn’t grooming. It isn’t ‘gross’. Its how you are getting your media you like. Its fiction.
Remember all those books you read in high school with sex scenes and kissing scenes between teenagers or college students because that is the market it is targeted to. I was a sex crazed thinking teen like a good number of people (not everyone) and I read those books all the time. Guess what, most of those were written by adults. Going after fanfiction writers for the same thing is beyond stupid. Stop it.
If I see one more person on this hellsite say that adults can’t write young adult books or focused media I’m going to scream. Who do you think writes the movies, books and tv scripts for those demographics? Sometimes teens or college kids yes, but usually it is someone over 20. It isn’t grooming. It isn’t ‘gross’. Its how you are getting your media you like. Its fiction.
That is odd! But I don’t have any experience contacting deities. Followers, any ideas?
Honestly I usually set up an altar to them and use pendulums or tarot to communicate. Though I know many people use meditation or astral while others use prayer work.
Update: I really hate the screenshots of the new pokemon movie. they just look creepy to me.
actually, most adults ARE pedophiles and evil! and only now have we become liberated enough to realize it
if you read something problematic and enjoy it at all you’re training your brain to associate pleasure with the problematic ideas, here’s some neuroscience to back it up
only teens should teach other teens about sex because an adult graphically discussing sex with teens is abusive
how can we tell big industries to change when our own communities do the same things, that’s hypocritical, we have to clean up our own backyard first
if you read enough fanfic about incest you’ll get turned on when someone tells you they suffered incestuous abuse and you’ll lose your ability to empathize with them
Adult sexuality is inherently predatory and dangerous
What…..what do they do when they turn 18?
brains aren’t finished developing yet so 18-22 year olds aren’t REALLY adults, unless they disagree with us
being older than 22 is so far in the future that we’ll definitely only be interested in taxes and Tom Clancy novels and a desk job by then
i keep seeing all my friends out there giving up on love and relationships at like the tender ages of 20-22. idk maybe its my capricorn sun but seeing ppl give up on something they’ve barely even tried is wild to me
nobody’s asked you out? ask them out! what fucking era is this? if you’re specifically waiting for someone to ask you out and refuse to do it yourself you’re just shooting yourself in the foot my dude
all your past relationships sucked? well that’s why youre not in them now! now there’s a whole world of people who are better than your last relationship, go snag one! or two! who cares!! finding whoever you want get married to is endgame shit, of course it’s gonna take more tries than you want to get there!
not meeting people? dating sites and school clubs! take a class! or go to a bar idk!! you’re not gonna find love if you dont put yourself out there in some manner! no one will know you exist if you hide away!
me, a teenager: Wow all my friends sure are horny and having sex
me, a few years later as an adult: *writes teen characters as sexually active since that is my perception of teenagers based on my own adolescence*
tumblr: why are you SEXUALIZING MINORS im UNCOMFORTABLE and this is PEDOPHILIA you literally want to FUCK TEENAGERS because you think they have SEX
Me, a teenager: wow I sure am horny and wanting a lot of sex
Me, a few years later as an adult: *writes teen characters as sexually active or desiring sex since that is my perception of teenagers based on my own adolescence as well and my friends’*
Tumblr: why are you SEXUALIZING MINORS I’m UNCOMFORTABLE and this is PEDOPHILIA you literally want to FUCK TEENAGERS because you think they have SEX
I’m also going to mention most to all young adult authors who right those raunchy young adult books I at least personally loved as a teen (and many other teens loved) were and still are adults.
I found this screenshot cleaning up my desktop and holy shit I thought we as a society had moved past book burning but I guess antis just want to sound like radical right wingers
(submitted by anon)
Man that’s just… Kinda sad. This discourse really sucks because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with liking yaoi manga, yet this person has been convinced there is to the point of actually contemplating burning queer literatureI mean
Damn.
That’s just not okay.
But if op wants to send me all of their yaoi I’d take it gladly, someone should give it a good home. I sure as hell hope they didn’t fucking burn it.
“Should I burn these books because they’d be enabling someone else’s problematic behavior” is such a deeply
terrifying
thing to say
Part of me is ‘how the hell does someone end up that brainwashed and completely self-hating?’ another part of me sort of pities them. Then there’s the completely chilling possibility that, under the guidance of the right sort of authoritarian goon, this person could end up in a frenzied, book-destroying crowd (as we’ve seen multiple times during the last century) with almost nothing in the way of self-examination and realization that they’re caught up in a nightmare.
After filling out that personal thing i feel i need to try to make time for things. SO! Anyone have some good books, comics, mangas, tv shows, movies and other to recommend and why? I would love to tackle a few more things during my few bits of downtime. Thank you!
Willow Wisp's Witching Corner 