So at this point, I am basically Howard Hughes, fandom edition or something.

(I mean, I stopped posting here because I had backed the whole thing up to a private WP install on my fandom domain and didn’t feel like doing that again, but I still connected with the outside world for a while.)

Hope you’re all well, or as well as one can be in 2020.

As for me, I am mostly AWOL from fandom at the moment and probably for a while. I still write, but most of my work (such as it is) is now no longer intended for public consumption, as my ability to handle fandom’s increasingly bizarre behavior around other people’s content is not a thing that exists.

I miss engaging with people, but I remain, as I have always been, a choose not to warn experience and some of my firmest convictions apparently run contrary to certain current fandom mores. I am not willing to shake those convictions for the sake of engaging fannishly (they are among the few things that will reliably set off my temper* in ways that I deeply dislike experiencing or inflicting and set it off in no time flat), so if anyone needs me, I will be sporadically on Dreamwidth and occasionally accidentally on Twitter and, once a year or so, here.

(* Despite general avoiding conflict, I do have a temper and a nasty and destructive one at that. I have survived two decades in Western Media Fandom—at times with a reasonably large profile—with minimal wank because I am good at stepping away before I hit the rage blackout and regret part of my temper. Thus the preemptive Audi going on here.)

minim-calibre:

sofiabanefics:

sofiabanefics:

sofiabanefics:

sofiabanefics:

sofiabanefics:

Yeah yeah yeah, not really here, don’t feel like backing this crap up again, blah blah blah, but dude: this is hilarious. 

(Still better than the U2 cover, tho.)

Update: I may have decided that this was as good a reason as any for any old-school title challenge. So, you know, if you’re bored or something, here is a thing that now exists: The Leonard Cohen Title Challenge (Any Freaking Song but “Hallelujah”)

I amuse myself. Clearly.

sofiabanefics:

sofiabanefics:

sofiabanefics:

sofiabanefics:

sofiabanefics:

Yeah yeah yeah, not really here, don’t feel like backing this crap up again, blah blah blah, but dude: this is hilarious. 

(Still better than the U2 cover, tho.)

(via shoshanah-ben-hohim)

minim-calibre-too:

minim-calibre:

So I backed up this Tumblr (and @badstacheshameboner) in December, and that took something like a million years, so I have been somewhat reluctant to use it again as a result (look, I have a million zillion posts dating back to 2010 on here) and then anyhow, life happened and then KEPT happening (tl;dr a family death, additional family hospitalizations, work as an ongoing ~thing~ and blah blah blah) and then I was avoiding Endgame spoilers (successfully!). I’m seriously considering putting up a second, ALTERNATE Tumblr just for, IDEK, low-stakes Tumblr engagement, which would probably mostly be me yammering on about whatever hundred words a day I’ve been hammering out and, again, blah blah blah. Right now, it’s about 50% the Push crap I keep working on (a 75% for public consumption/25% drawerfic split) and about 50% disjointed post-Endgame IDEK what to call it idficcing. I have this whole universe in my head. It keeps me happy. 

(I told my spouse yesterday that I feel my vocabulary is shrinking with age. I feel the blah blah blahs are indicative of this.)

IF I manage to do that, I’ll, IDK, link it here or something. I do read here sometimes. I am the lurker who supports you in email.

Until then, I can be found sporadically posting on Twitter as @MinimCalibre and on Dreamwidth as, well, minim_calibre, though that whole thing with life continuing to happen at me means I’ve been posting less and less everywhere but a couple of Facebook cosplay communities. 

My Facebook cosplay communities are of conflicting opinions about parts of Endgame, for the record. This makes sense if a: you’ve seen it; and b: you know my two main cosplay characters.

Apropos of that, I have decided to completely and totally embrace the Casual Endgame Natasha Lifestyle, @gothiccharmschool will be appalled by the, umm, joggers I’ve been purchasing, but I swear to god, they are SO FUCKING COMFORTABLE and it’s not like I leave my house much, anyway, unless it’s to go bother @teatotally. 

ANYHOW. HI! Hi, people. I miss you. 

Deep excite. @minim-calibre-too now exists.

Helps to reblog from the right account…

So I backed up this Tumblr (and @badstacheshameboner) in December, and that took something like a million years, so I have been somewhat reluctant to use it again as a result (look, I have a million zillion posts dating back to 2010 on here) and then anyhow, life happened and then KEPT happening (tl;dr a family death, additional family hospitalizations, work as an ongoing ~thing~ and blah blah blah) and then I was avoiding Endgame spoilers (successfully!). I’m seriously considering putting up a second, ALTERNATE Tumblr just for, IDEK, low-stakes Tumblr engagement, which would probably mostly be me yammering on about whatever hundred words a day I’ve been hammering out and, again, blah blah blah. Right now, it’s about 50% the Push crap I keep working on (a 75% for public consumption/25% drawerfic split) and about 50% disjointed post-Endgame IDEK what to call it idficcing. I have this whole universe in my head. It keeps me happy. 

(I told my spouse yesterday that I feel my vocabulary is shrinking with age. I feel the blah blah blahs are indicative of this.)

IF I manage to do that, I’ll, IDK, link it here or something. I do read here sometimes. I am the lurker who supports you in email.

Until then, I can be found sporadically posting on Twitter as @MinimCalibre and on Dreamwidth as, well, minim_calibre, though that whole thing with life continuing to happen at me means I’ve been posting less and less everywhere but a couple of Facebook cosplay communities. 

My Facebook cosplay communities are of conflicting opinions about parts of Endgame, for the record. This makes sense if a: you’ve seen it; and b: you know my two main cosplay characters.

Apropos of that, I have decided to completely and totally embrace the Casual Endgame Natasha Lifestyle, @gothiccharmschool will be appalled by the, umm, joggers I’ve been purchasing, but I swear to god, they are SO FUCKING COMFORTABLE and it’s not like I leave my house much, anyway, unless it’s to go bother @teatotally. 

ANYHOW. HI! Hi, people. I miss you. 

Unintentional hibernation continues.

I see Tumblr is having issues.

Still on Dreamwidth (same name as here).

Mostly on Discord.

Honestly, mostly on the fountain pen Discord, because apparently, that’s what I’ve got the mental energy for these days. It’s very focused, a politics-free zone, and it enables my bad spending habits. What’s not to love?

What’s up, peeps?

prismatic-bell:

Tumblr likes to spin its wheels and spend time yelling at each other, so here’s a nice comprehensive guide. Five Things You Can Do Now That You Know We Were Serious About The Antisemitism:

1) Accept that if you’re in this to be an ally, you’re going to have a tough road ahead of you. We’re traditionally very wary of outsiders in our spaces because when we welcome them, well … this happens. In fact, if you want to convert to Judaism, you traditionally get rejected three times, just to make sure you’re serious and not shitting with us. Expect wariness. Expect to get your feelings hurt, because a lot of us are very raw right now. Stick with us anyway–once we know you’re not just bandwagoning us, you’re going to end up with a lot of friends who are relying on you. Nobody said allyship was easy.

2) Learn about Judaism. Note that I DO NOT MEAN LEARNING WITH INTENTION TO CONVERT. We don’t proselytize and it would be against Torah for me to even suggest it. What I mean here is, you can’t call bullshit if you don’t know what we’re about. Some good basic resources are The Jewish Book of Why by Alfred Kolatch; My Jewish Learning; and for a strict Orthodox standpoint, Chabad. You’ll find that some things in these sources contradict each other. That’s pretty par for the course in Judaism; we don’t have a single dogma or point of view.

3) Consider calling a local synagogue and asking if they have volunteer work for a gentile ally. Introduce yourself, explain (briefly) what got your attention, and offer your services–to stand outside during services, to walk folks to and from shul (this is particularly important in Orthodox communities, where driving on Shabbat is forbidden), hell, to help stuff envelopes for whatever vigil or service they may be holding in memoriam. Anything will help.

4) You may wish to make a donation to a local synagogue or Jewish charity. I strongly recommend the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), which is a Jewish charity focused on combating antisemitism. Jews traditionally give monetary gifts in sums of $18, which corresponds to the numeric value of the word “chai,” or “life.” The last time this happened I made a post about this tradition and got accused of being a Nazi because of the whole 1-8 A-H thing, so let’s just nip that right in the bud: yes, we know. It’s a horrible coincidence. We’re not giving up a few-thousand-year-old tradition because of some dipshit with a bad moustache. If you can’t afford $18, consider moving the decimal over and donating in multiples of 18, like $3.60. Your meaning will still be perfectly clear, and anything helps. If you wish to make a donation in memory/in honor (which many synagogues appreciate), I suggest either choosing the name of one of the shooting victims–giving tzedakah, or charity, in their names is considered a great mitzvah and a blessing to their families–or using the phrase “am Yisrael chai.” It means “Israel lives.” Although the country in the MENA region is called Israel, this is not what the phrase refers to–the traditional patriarch of Judaism was named Jacob, and renamed as Israel following a wrestling match with a messenger of G-d. To say “am Yisrael chai” is to say his people, that is, the Jewish people, live.

And on that note …

5) In the coming days and weeks, you’re going to see a lot of people making this about Israel or Zionism. Please tell them to shut the fuck up. Israel, Zionism, and Jews are three completely different, albeit related, things. To wit: Israel is a geopolitical country situated on the site of our ancestral homeland and currently headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Zionism is the belief that Jews deserve a safe homeland; and Jews are a group of people spread across six continents and most countries who are united by a common group of ancestors from the Levant (the part of the world now occupied by the geopolitical entity known as Israel). Saying the victims of this shooting had anything to do with the political situation in Israel would be like saying I, personally, am responsible for Vladimir Putin because I have a Russian ancestor. I speak exactly two words of Russian, have never been to Russia, have no family left living there (and haven’t for four generations), but I’m totally responsible for Russia. You see how ridiculous that sounds? The same applies to Jews and Israel. Please, please, PLEASE do not conflate this event with Israeli politics. I’m not saying Israeli politics aren’t a topic worth discussing–I’m saying this is not a discussion they belong in. Don’t let the powers that be (or the alt-right sleaze that sucks the dicks of the powers that be) distract from the topic at hand, which is “out of control guns meet out of control xenophobia and antisemitism,” by throwing OMG ISRAEL AND ZIONISM AND GLOBALISM into the mix.

And finally: yes, gentiles, this is okay for you to reblog. In fact I encourage it. And I will answer any questions you have to the best of my ability, if they’re asked in good faith. Please just follow the most basic tenet of Judaism, which is: don’t be a dick.

If you’re ready to stand and help, now is the time.

(via prismatic-bell)

Tiny Winter Soldier is now almost normal-sized Spider-Man.

grendelsmilf:

autisticauthorgabs:

The bisexual stereotype is true. I am bi and I can’t decide anything. I have never made a decision in my life.

(via tinyfloatingwhales)

beardedchrisevans:

Outtakes from Sharp Magazine (2014)

(via theagingfangirl)

returnofthejudai:

mariusgaaazzh:

antisemitism in the Soviet Union: shit no one talks about

There is a tendency on tumblr to romanticize Communism. If you think Communism is the answer to the world’s problems, fine. But white-washing the evil done by Communist governments is not necessary for that process. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, these men were responsible for the deaths of millions of people who lived in their respective countries. 

The USSR was brutally anti-semitic. Stalin had plans to ship all the Jews off to Siberia, but died before the plan could be implemented. He and his successors banned Jews from joining the Party, banned Jewish institutions both religious and secular, prevented Jews from holding positions of importance in academia for fear of Jewish influence, blamed Jews through euphemisms like “Rootless Cosmopolitans” and “Zionists” for any and all problems the Soviet Union had, routinely encouraged, allowed and ignored attacks on Jewish citizens, executed Jews for trying to preserve their culture or advocate for better treatment, and when Jews demanded to leave, they found that the doors were slammed in their faces. 

I’m tired of people trying to erase this history because it’s inconvenient for their political beliefs. If you are a communist, if you believe that communism is the solution to global economic and political strife, then learn from the people who did evil in its name and do better. Don’t live in denial. Refusing to learn from the actions of others is dooming yourself to repeat them. That’s basic history, folks. The Soviet Union treated Jews as “unpersons” at best. The campaign to rescue Soviet Jews was incredibly active in the 1980s. We are forgetting recent history. Do better.

(Source: rex-sidereus, via lauralot89)