that time walter cronkite died and the chicago tribune decided to refer to him as mr. cronkite in their obituary as a show of respect so they ran a program that replaced every instance of “cronkite” with “mr. cronkite” and do you see where i’m going with this
i love this.
reported here: “an editor must have used search-and-replace to make “Cronkite” into “Mr. Cronkite.“ There was some collateral damage.”
see also
Reuters style apparently avoids mentions of “the Queen”, instead favoring the full name “Queen Elizabeth.” [x] and once in this article about bees do you see where i’m going with this
and
the time American Family Association’s news site, who apparently aim to combat The Homosexual Agenda by removing all instances of the word ‘gay’…… reported on sprinter Tyson Gay’s victory….
it’s worth mentioning that the punchline to that joke has to do with Governor Mike Pence signing into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which basically made it legal to discriminate against same-sex couples if your religion *makes you*, and YES, THAT IS THE SAME MIKE PENCE WHO IS OUR CURRENT VP-ELECT
@notallbees Remember that thing you were saying (that no one wanted to hear) about the demeaning implications of expressing attraction by saying “I’m so gay”? I feel like this is as neat a real-life demonstration as you could wish for.
The reason this guy thinks “I’m gay for you” would be a sweet thing to say to his girlfriend is because 1) in classic homophobia, gay connotes attraction that manifests not only in the wrong direction, but also to an excessive, unseemly degree; and 2) toxic masculinity proscribes emotional displays from men. To him and many others, gayness is emotional incontinence; silly, over-the-top, can’t-help-yourself, embarrassing-everyone-around-you, blushing infatuation. To them, a gay man is a perpetual teenage girl. This is how a straight boy can carelessly launch himself at the massive hurdle of necessary cognitive dissonance involved in looking at a girl and thinking, Wow, I’m so into her it’s like I’m gay!! and soar over it like a bald eagle in a snapback.
I’ve had plenty of people tell me that it’s “disrespectful” to the authors if you interpret a character as queer without a clear textual indication. But the people who actually made these characters disagree with that.
MCU Cast & Crew:
The Russos are cool with it and have repeatedly validated the interpretation, even noting that a lot of women who worked on the movie are invested in that relationship. (Link 1, 2, 3, 4).
Sebastian Stan is fine with it, and thinks it’s great that people can interpret it however they want. (Link).
Chris Evans says he didn’t deliberately put it into his performance, but he has no problem with it and thinks a romantic relationship “wouldn’t be so bad.” (Link).
Emily VanCamp was excited to hear about it, and thinks it’s great that this is a conversation we’re having about a character like Captain America. (Link).
Hayley Atwell is a fan of bisexual Steve Rogers, and hates pretty much every ship for Steve but Steve and Bucky. (Link 1, 2).
Comics:
Ed Brubaker, the man who created the Winter Soldier, not only fucking loves it, but has also been known to tweet links to Steve/Bucky fan fiction. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
If you have a problem with interpreting this character as anything other than heterosexual, not only is that problem yours alone, but the character’s creator thinks you’re stupid. Stop hiding behind authorial intent, and consider why it bothers you so much that someone you thought was straight might not be.
Also, Hayley ships Cartinelli. ❤
Samuel L Jackson literally called Chris “LGBT Captain America” on a red carpet–in front of Chris, Scarlett, and a ton of press. Chris responded with a happy laugh.
For the fucking record, there’s no mention of Captain America’s creators in the above posts. Jack Kirby and Joe Simon created Captain America. SO, you’d better correct your statements as it applies to Disney’s Marvel only.
The fact that there’s no real evidence to support Captain is homosexual tells me he isn’t. Fan interpretations are just fans individualising and tailoring things they like to be more fitting for their lifestyle.
That is all.
Oh, and fuck Disney’s Marvel.
I find that it’s often somewhat difficult to ask dead people for their opinions on a topic. But I pulled out my ouija board just for you, and they told me they’re both cool with it.
They also wanted me to pass on, “F U C K Y O U”
Maybe that’s some sort of pet name you guys had for each other?
I know there are a lot of people terrified of a Trump presidency for a lot of reasons, but some of the most vibrant horror I’m seeing is coming from young queer people. These people were in middle school or grade school when Obama was first elected, when Glee came on with its revolutionary act of portraying a blatantly Disney-saccharine gay love story. RuPaul and Ellen are huge tv stars, Sulu owns Facebook. RENT is a musical theatre standby performed in high schools. Marriage equality and bathrooms have been their biggest fights. So this? Looks like the apocalypse.
It’s not. Within my lifetime, a president laughed at hundreds of thousands of people dying of AIDS. Within my lifetime, that was a death sentence, not a footnote on a Grindr profile. Within my lifetime, “transsexuals” only existed as cruel punchlines. The only trans guy I had even heard of at 19 was from a movie about him being murdered. Ellen was a pariah who had lost her show for coming out. Being gay was career suicide if you were anything but a hairdresser. It was automatic dishonorable discharge from the military.
This is not saying Trump couldn’t undo a lot of that. But not all of it. And even if, EVEN IF he did? Queer people survived. Flourished. Got to where it is now. And where it is now includes a younger generation who will not go back, and in another 20 years, will be the CEOs, the senators, the governors, the president.
If you don’t give up.
Don’t you fucking dare give up.
i’m scared and angry and tired because yeah, i marched in the 80′s, when people threw rocks and bottles at the pride parade, and i thought we were fucking DONE with that.
but don’t for one second think i won’t fight again if they make me. don’t for one second think i won’t fight to my last breath.
trump voters are an extinction burst. the last diaper baby tantrum of straight whites who are terrified that the loss of their privilege means they’ll be treated the way they’ve always treated others. if we hang on through this, if we keep fighting, we will prevail.
so quit planning your fucking suicide, kidlets. let uncle jesse show you how we do it when we’re fighting against The Man under threat of death, not sending anon hate to shippers. you think you can’t do it, but i did it when i was your age, thinking all the while that russia was gonna nuke us any second, and i’m still here.
don’t get me wrong, babies, i wish you didn’t have to see this. i’d protect you from it if i could. i tried to protect you from it. but assholes persist. so i’m taking the old sword down from over the mantel, and i’m gonna show you how to take a swing.
Valhalla does not discriminate against the kind of fight you lost. Did you lose the battle with cancer? Maybe you died in a fist fight. Even facing addiction. After taking a deep drink from his flagon, Odin slams his cup down and asks for the glorious tale of your demise!
Oh my god, this is beautiful.
A small child enters Valhalla. The battle they lost was “hiding from an alcoholic father.” Odin sees the flinch when he slams the cup and refrains from doing it again. He hears the child’s pain; no glorious battle this, but one of fear and wretched survival.
He invites the child to sit with him, offers the choicest mead and instructs his men to bring a sword and shield, a bow and arrow, of the very best materials and appropriate size. “Here,” he says, “you will find no man who dares to harm you. But so you will know your own strength, and be happy all your days in Valhalla, I will teach you to use these weapons.”
The sad day comes when another child enters the hall. Odin does not slam his cup; he simply beams with pride as the first child approaches the newcomer, and holds out her bow and quiver, and says “nobody here will hurt you. Everyone will be so proud you did your best, and I’ll teach you to use these, so you always know how strong you are.”
————
A young man enters the hall. He hesitates when Odin asks his story, but at long last, it ekes out: skinheads after the Pride parade. His partner got into a building and called for help. The police took a little longer than perhaps they really needed to, and two of those selfsame skinheads are in the hospital now with broken bones that need setting, but six against one is no fair match. The fear in his face is obvious: here, among men large enough to break him in two, will he face an eternity of torment for the man he left behind?
Odin rumbles with anger. Curses the low worms who brought this man to his table, and regales him with tales of Loki so to show him his own welcome. “A day will come, my friend, when you seek to be reunited, and so you shall,” Odin tells him. “To request the aid of your comrades in battle is no shameful thing.”
———-
A woman in pink sits near the head of the table. She’s very nearly skin and bones, and has no hair. This will not last; health returns in Valhalla, and joy, and light, and merrymaking. But now her soul remembers the battle of her life, and it must heal.
Odin asks.
And asks again.
And the words pour out like poisoned water, things she couldn’t tell her husband or children. The pain of chemotherapy. The agony of a mastectomy, the pain still deeper of “we found a tumor in your lymph nodes. I’m so sorry.” And at last, the tortured question: what is left of her?
Odin raises his flagon high. “What is left of you, fair warrior queen, is a spirit bright as fire; a will as strong as any forged iron; a life as great as any sea. Your battle was hard-fought, and lost in the glory only such furor can bring, and now the pain and fight are behind you.“
In the months to come, she becomes a scop of the hall–no demotion, but simple choice. She tells the stories of the great healers, Agnes and Tanya, who fought alongside her and thousands of others, who turn from no battle in the belief that one day, one day, the war may be won; the warriors Jessie and Mabel and Jeri and Monique, still battling on; the queens and soldiers and great women of yore.
The day comes when she calls a familiar name, and another small, scarred woman, eyes sunken and dark, limbs frail, curly black hair shaved close to her head, looks up and sees her across the hall. Odin descends from his throne, a tall and foaming goblet in his hands, and stuns the hall entire into silence as he kneels before the newcomer and holds up the goblet between her small dark hands and bids her to drink.
“All-Father!” the feasting multitudes cry. “What brings great Odin, Spear-Shaker, Ancient One, Wand-Bearer, Teacher of Gods, to his knees for this lone waif?”
He waves them off with a hand.
“This woman, LaTeesha, Destroyer of Cancer, from whom the great tumors fly in fear, has fought that greatest battle,” he says, his voice rolling across the hall. “She has fought not another body, but her own; traded blows not with other limbs but with her own flesh; has allowed herself to be pierced with needles and scored with knives, taken poison into her very veins to defeat this enemy, and at long last it is time for her to put her weapons down. Do you think for a moment this fight is less glorious for being in silence, her deeds the less for having been aided by others who provided her weapons? She has a place in this great hall; indeed, the highest place.”
And the children perform feats of archery for the entertainment of all, and the women sing as the young man who still awaits his beloved plays a lute–which, after all, is not so different from the guitar he once used to break a man’s face in that great final fight.
Valhalla is a place of joy, of glory, of great feasting and merrymaking.
And it is a place for the soul and mind to heal.
THIS! This is the Hanged God who owns my loyalty, Old One-Eye who’s call I answer above all.
He is not one to turn the brave aside, asks no more than what one can give (Even if, at times, it doesn’t look that way.)
Steel Phoenix Studios 
