Something I’ve been thinking about today: no amount of declaring a joke “not funny” for political reasons will make it actually cease to be funny.
Humor is a really primal thing. You can have the best, most thoughtful politics in the world and still find your funny bone tickled by horribly offensive shit. That doesn’t make you problematic. It makes you a human being with human neurology, which means what trips your laugh wire is pretty damn arbitrary and often not within your control.
Have you ever tried telling someone who’s losing it at an inappropriate time to shut up and stop laughing? It doesn’t work. That’s the human brain for you. You don’t have to enlighten yourself out of basic physical responses.
This is exactly why the whole SJ emphasis on “stop finding *ist jokes funny!” baffled me even when I was a feminist.
I get that SOMETIMES a person’s sense of humor can reveal that they are bigoted, but I’m baffled by the assumption we can tell that about most people by what they find funny.
Yeah. Personally, I don’t mind any joke as long as I’m sure it’s a joke. Offensive jokes with an undertone of “haha but actually” make me terribly uncomfortable, but jokes I’m positive are jokes are fine. Context really matters.
People who make 9-11 jokes probably do think taking terrorism-increasing risks is more acceptable and terrorism is less of a major problem than people who don’t make said jokes.
…I find “stop being amused by that!” to be perfectly intuitive. It’s…basic conditioning, isn’t it? If a stimulus (a bigoted joke) is routinely followed by a punishment (exposure to Discourse), one soon ceases to feel positive emotions toward the stimulus. My visceral reaction to someone telling a bigoted joke is something like “you fool, you’ve doomed us all! shit, I’d better get out of here before the enforcers arrive”.
(This means that “don’t be around people who laugh at bigoted jokes if you can avoid it” also makes sense. If they haven’t even been trained out of laughing at forbidden jokes, what else haven’t they been trained out of? (And what training might they have received instead?) If you don’t know what culture someone is from, you’re going to have a much harder time predicting their actions, and it’s often best to avoid people when you don’t know what will set them off.)
Tags:
#reply via reblog #our roads may be golden or broken or lost #this is not the first time Skye has made a post #that seems to rely on an underlying assumption #that people’s emotional ranges are much richer and more complex and more resilient than mine actually are #mostly I find reading funereal-disease reassuring but occasionally it makes me wonder if I’m incomplete #*sigh* #*shrug*
So for a moment there I thought they’d put “undefined” on purpose, like one of those Mastercard “priceless” ads.
Then it flipped, and revealed another “undefined”.
Also, the fact that they’re reminding me to vote for American president means they’re either extremely competent (they noticed me talking about how I’m an American citizen, and recognised that this supersedes my geographical location in Canada when determining my American voting eligibility) or extremely incompetent (they didn’t notice I’m in Canada). I know which one I’m guessing.
I’m not even considering putting a voting-registration button on my Tumblr until they have demonstrated to my satisfaction that it will not completely fuck up my blog in a cascade of horrific bugs.
P.S. Also, the “Learn More” button just opens another tab of my dashboard, exactly the same as the original tab. No “learn more” information on it.
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#also go vote or something #my absentee ballot arrived recently I should really deal with it soon #The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #oh look an original post #home of the brave #bluespace
[Does anyone have a list (or better, a gif set?) of all the silliest lines from Voyager over the years? You know, like “get the cheese to sickbay” and “I feel like we’re being pecked to death by ducks” and “there’s coffee in that nebula!” so on and so forth? Cause I need such. Because of reasons.]
Concept: an immortal who doesn’t shy away from photos or paintings. Draws self portraits on cave walls. Photobombs everything with a pout and a suave pose. Commissions numerous portraits of themself as a literary Romantic before faking their death. Tries to be at least slightly famous every time they have a new identity. Creates a conspiracy blog linking all their past photos together before mysteriously disappearing in mysterious circumstances. Mysteriously. Usually only disappears for 10 to 20 years after “”dying”“ before making another appearance. Everyone else in the immortal community lowkey hates them. “Ah, fuck. You’ll never guess who’s resurfaced again.” “Fucking… Dave?” “Fucking Dave.”
Once upon a time, I was running a DnD game for some friends. The player characters were checking out reports that a local town had been having trouble with monsters. They’re informed that it was true, a few years ago, but a copper dragon set up a lair in the mountains and chased all the awful creatures out. A dragon slayer showed up shortly thereafter and neither dragon nor slayer were heard from again. Players are disappointed at first, but then quickly perk up when some other plot threads become apparent.
A few sessions later, the place they were staying burned down (their fault), forcing them to check out the more expensive tavern in town. There, they meet Allie Cohol, a half-elf woman with red hair that owned and ran the tavern. She was cheerfully greedy, but still helpful and always ready with a cheesey joke… And after only the third joke, one of the players, Bill, froze and locked eyes with me. “You fucker. She’s the copper dragon,” Bill says.
That reveal was supposed to be a big thing later, so I’m kinda on the spot. Fortunately, another player, Fran, pipes up and says, “nah, that’s stupid. The dragon in the mountain is a red herring. We’re here for the cultists.” The cultists were in the sewer and the PCs were actually working for the cleric Big Bad without them knowing.
“No, listen,” Bill continued. “Red hair. Greedy. Bad jokes… Her name is Allie Cohol.”
Everyone around the table gives him a fairly blank look, but I’m sweating bullets. Threads that I had spun oh so carefully were half a heartbeat away from unraveling. Bill is getting this real wild look in his eyes and pounds a fist against the table. “Allie Cohol. HER NAME IS ALCOHOL.”
Fran then slowly pans over and looks me dead in the eyes. “The deadly joke ability. She’s a goddamn dragon.”
this is beautiful
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#I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog
Emotion Infusion, which is apparently a combination of “ability to enchant weapons”, “innate energy weapon”, and “ability to alter others’ emotions”.
I suppose that if this were fiction, the character archetype I’d be shoehorned into is “well-intentioned extremist trying to wirehead the world”. In reality, I don’t think I would go that far, although I could maybe hook up @wirehead-wannabe. (And you never know when an energy weapon will come in handy, even if I might very well end up reflexively stunning someone who startles me with a blast of paralysing terror. Oops.)
This is a place for aces, graces, and demis to talk about those things that you might feel uncomfortable bringing up in other ace circles. Masturbation. Kink. Sex toys. Partnered sex as an ace. Things sex ed didn’t teach you, but you’re curious about. Sexual activities, non-sexual intimacies, and so on. If it’s inappropriate somewhere else, it’s probably appropriate here.
This space is for aces, by aces, and about aces. There are other places on the Internet that talk about these topics, but very few that explore them from an asexual perspective, in language that makes sense to aces. If you’re not ace, you’re welcome to read what’s here, and may respectfully ask questions or engage in conversations, but always keep in mind that this place is not about you. If you’re disrespectful, intrusive, invasive, or offensive, we will show you the door.
Leave your shame and embarrassment and judgement at the door. No question too weird, no topic too icky. We’ll talk about anything that’s safe and respectful.
That means some of these topics might be outside of your comfort zone. And that’s okay. If it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing, but maybe the next topic will be more your speed. We have a “Don’t yuck my yum” policy around here. That means that it’s uncool to slam someone else for liking something you don’t like. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to say anything about it. You might think some of these things are “weird”, but keep in mind that someone else probably thinks something you like to do is “weird”, too.
We accept submissions and asks (Including anonymous), so if you want to share what you do, how you do it and why you do it, or if you’re just curious about something, please feel free to write in. I see this space as mostly submission driven. It’s about what YOU want to talk about and what YOU want to know. A few ground rules, though:
18+ only for submissions and asks. If you’re under 18, someplace like Scarleteen would be a much better place to discuss these issues (Scarleteen is ace-friendly, too!).
This is not an advice site. We can answer general questions about general things, but I really can’t help with your specific scenario.
This is not a doctor’s office. If you have a genuine, pressing medical concern, talk to someone qualified about it. I’m not even pretending to play a doctor on the Internet, so what would I know?
Be open, be truthful, don’t be embarrassed or ashamed.
Assume positive intent. If someone says something offensive or exclusionary or otherwise troublesome, assume it wasn’t done maliciously. Correct them gently instead of launching a thermonuclear flame war.
No wankfodder. You can certainly be explicit (In fact, you’re encouraged to be as open and direct as you want), but avoid being deliberately pornographic for prurience sake. You can talk about porn, but don’t be porn. This isn’t Letters to Penthouse or the Lemon tag of AO3.
Content warnings would be appreciated! They allow you to get as detailed as you like without worrying about who’s reading, while at the same time, give people who aren’t interested a chance to turn away.
And so, with that, the ask box is ready for your questions and the submission box is ready for your posts!
(And one final note, if you are not comfortable with the topics which are being discussed here, I have flagged the entire blog as NSFW and I encourage you to block this so it won’t show up at all (I won’t be offended!). I will try to put appropriate content tags in the posts, and put potentially objectionable images behind a Read More.)
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#asexuality #sexuality and lack thereof #oh look an update
I wasn’t going to reblog this, but it’s the first tag-yourself meme I’ve seen that’s actually accurate. (Which is saying something, considering how many tag-yourself memes I’ve seen.)
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#lawful/neutral ace #I have no idea where I would even *get* flamingo feathers but other than that #asexuality #meme #there is probably some warning tag I should put on this but I am not sure what #homophobia?
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Brinens and Things 