jeepers, gang!

but can we TALK about the racialized subtext of "his wife has filled his house with chintz" linking together femininity, indian export goods, commercialism, and superficiality vs "to keep it real I fuck him on the floor" linking together masculinity, AAVE, authenticity, sexuality, and vulgarity? if our aim as critics of poetry is to reevaluate this text and arrive at a feminist interpretation then we must also consider the poem's vexed relationship to race so as to not be anti-black in our criticism of the piece's presentation of masculinized sexuality nor uncritically reproduce and elevate its image of orientalized femininity.

also, from looking at the original post (non-explicit gay sex photo but still a gay sex photo so you've been warned): there isn't even any chintz in the photo. the design elements in the room all look broadly western european with the exception of a tall ceramic vessel that may be decorated with a reproduction of a chinese ink painting. chintz is an indian textile pattern, you'll see it on dresses, bedspreads, wallpaper, tapestries, upholstery, etc., but nothing like that is in the image. to imply that the house's interior design is frivolous, artificial, and unusable, the poem utilizes "chintz" despite the obvious lack of chintz because "chintz," as a popular asian export good that went on to be imitated by european manufacturers, is considered kitsch, cheap, and womanly. and, though the angle partially obscures them, the two men in the photo both appear to be white, so the poem uses the AAVE phrase "keep it real" despite the lack of black people to invoke the perception of AAVE as raw, crass, and primal. in both cases, the racialized language is being ascribed to european/white subjects to impart the white subjects with different moral values.

there’s this very vocal very tradwifey subset of adult adoptees I keep seeing who are like. adoption is inherently immoral, a child belongs with its biological parents no matter what, sperm and egg donation is abuse and children will be traumatized if they do not share their parents’ dna. and on one hand it’s really sad because I’m sure these are people who were mistreated or unloved in ways they directly connect with their adoptions, and both the adoption and foster care industry are fucked. but jesus christ.

Seeing people who look and act like you is important in the sense of race and culture. It’s also just not something guaranteed to be shared by natal family. Adoption can be a violent severing of context and personal identity but DNA does not actually inherently provide these things. Like I fully believe that transracial and transnational adoption are often or usually a form of (usually Christian) colonialism and adoptees deserve a right to those attachments. But the presence of the specific individual sources of gametes is not inherently and biologically a good thing.

again, if you grew up with your biological family you have no place to say how important it is or isnt. listen to adoptees when we try explaining why and how it is important. deadass why is it so hard for non-adoptees to listen to our lived experience, DNA is important.

I do listen to adoptees. That does not mean I am going to agree with the biological essentialism of radicalized Christian tradwives spouting misogyny.

It's such a shame to see people who are so morally weak they feel threatened by the existence of fiction that portrays bad behavior without explicitly condemning it.

(eyes snap open, as if from a beautiful dream) the last sensitive white boy has abandoned all hope

i don't really want to weight in on the "using big words in your writing is ableist" discourse happening on tiktok because i'm like 90% certain it's an anti-intellectual psyop to stir up drama in online circles to promote the use of ai to summarize literally everything and thus feeding the LLMs and lowering the populace's mistrust of such tools but i also have to say: dictionaries and thesauruses are the most accessible they've ever been. if you use an e-reader of any kind you can look up a word without leaving the page. there's a plethora of online dictionaries and if you just type a word + "meaning" into google it'll usually give you a definition. we used to have pocket dictionaries we used when reading in class. i have two on my shelf right now that i used in high school. stop letting the fascists purposefully misuse anti-ableism rhetoric to trick you into never thinking again.

Does anybody know how to fix it

Trying to do a good job as status quo restabilizer monarch when your three advisors are your uncle who groomed you who is your husband saying “BURN EVERYONE WE WILL INVADE DORNE AND ESSOS AND YI TI AND CROWN A NEW EMPIRE OF THE DAWN WE SHALL RULE AS GODS anyways I’m leaving see you never, your girlfriend who is your uncle’s ex girlfriend whispering about how the most important factor in maintaining monarchical power is of course just consent of the peasantry you are governing you ought to alienate yourself from your minor nobility completely and permanently to appease the people, and your middle school girlfriend you are repulsed by the thought of displeasing going you have to do shit that makes me mad to rule effectively but I will be mad. and also you have no fuckingggg money

And all of them want you

One of the funniest things about Mormonism is that I’m sure Joseph Smith never believed any of the bullshit he said. There are some religions and cults where you have faith the original prophet actually thought they were talking to angels or believed the set of principles they laid out for their followers were for the greater good. Joseph Smith was a dumbass but like PT Barnum he realized a sucker was born every day and he was one step above the average 1830s sucker. He went from making people pay him to look at a rock in a top hat and ‘locate buried treasure’ to receiving lost bits of scripture, through the rock and top hat method. His wife caught him cheating and he said an angel visited him and told him men should be allowed multiple wives and not obeying that would send her to hell. I’m fairly convinced that dude was an atheist. He was on that hustler grindset. Brigham Young might have actually believed some of the shit he said but I don’t think Joseph Smith genuinely had faith in Mormonism or gave a fuck about humanity in the slightest.

one of these big new indie cartoons should release with an exclusive adopt of like the main character. pay up 10000 dollars to be the only one whos legally allowed to draw pomni. i feel like the resulting fandom drama would change the face of the internet it would be so cool

yeah hi this is actually a horrible idea why would you want this

i like when bad things happen