Idk if you’ve heard of Night in the Woods, but it is seriously one of my favorite games visually and story-wise. I love their aesthetic and soundtrack, and I’m especially in love with Mae <3

She my bae

Gotta say, I agree with everything here. Sexism is terrible, but it happens to both genders...a fact that some people like to ignore. I once had somebody say to me that "Women can't be sexist towards men."

This is often cited as a major difference between misogyny and misandry, and a reason for the latter not to be taken seriously. “There may be individual instances of women hating men”, erasers will argue, “but there is no institutional oppression of men like there is of women”. I’m going to...

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

Christopher Hitchens, on Religion

Y'know, this is fairly accurate IMHO. People just need to chill the f*** out...

This clip is an extract from Zero Punctuation's review of 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand, over at The Escapist's Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheEscapistMagazine?feature=watch I do not own the copyright to this, and I highly recommend watching Ben's game reviews. They are very funny, if you're into acerbic, sarcastic humour with overly long metaphors and varying degrees of political incorrectness. XD

Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken.

Terry Pratchett.

If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.

Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

The planet is fine. The people are fucked.

George Carlin

"Feminism is the idea that we can make both sexes equal by focusing on the needs of one of them." [Edit: I want to clarify that I am an egalitarian and believe fully in gender equality...but I believe that focusing solely on one side of the issue will not fix it.]

TheAmazingAtheist

www.jointherealm.com

i love your blog -A.

Ahah, thank you :) I do my best :D

The Iron Lady... I will miss her.

Honestly? I can't see why there's so much hate for Maggie. She was one of the best PM's this country has had, and I find it disgraceful that people are partying and celebrating about an old woman's death. One left-wing writer compared her to *Hitler.* Sorry, how many world wars did Thatcher start? How many genocides did she commit? And, as this article will show, she did a far better job for the economy than Hitler did for Germany. The comparison is as idiotic as saying that an orange is like a chicken. You'll also notice that most of the "revelers" aren't old enough to remember Thatchers time in office, so are likely A) going off of left-wing propaganda, and B) using it as an excuse to bunk off, mess around and cause trouble. Now you can dislike her, that's fine. But celebrating her death as much as you have been? That's just disrespectful of a strong but caring leader who gave her all to doing what she thought was right.

She was a divisive figure; she had to be. Reaching consensus is almost impossible in politics, and if she had waited, nothing would have been done. She did what we needed, not what we wanted, and in actual fact, she won all three of her elections with over 40% of the vote, a landslide that most politicians today can only dream of.

Yes, she privatized much of the housing sector...but ours was draconic, and far, far behind the times. Even today, most of our housing is nationalised, and as such the government can't afford to build or keep new houses. Our nationalised housing sector is far, far bigger than almost anywhere else in the western world, and so are our housing issues. The insufficient number of housing is directly related to the fact that Thatcher did not, in fact, go far enough.

The most common criticism is that she closed the mines and shut down a "once-great industry." That is, quite simple, nonsense. The mining industry had been in decline for decades, and was crippled by excessive costs and fierce international competition. No government could afford to keep open unprofitable mines; the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. In actual fact, Harold Wilson - Labour PM in the 60's - closed more mines in his 2 terms than Thatcher in her 3. And Thatcher only wanted to close 12 mines; the "blame," if you want to blame somebody, lies with Arthur Scargill of the NUM. He called an illegal strike - he didn't ballot his members - and many mines shut down for a year, during which time the demand for coal decreased, so when the strike ended, the miners had no jobs left to go back to. On the subject of miners, remember that Thatcher vastly reduced the amount of power that the unions had and stopped them from effectively running the country, something that Labour would never have been able to do given that a large percentage - if not most - of their funding comes from the trade unions.

Tax cuts encouraged people to start working, and also encouraged small and large businesses alike to grow, create work and make industry better in the future. Yes, she increased VAT, but her extensive cuts to corporate and income tax more than balanced it out. During Thatchers time in office, the average income per head in the UK was second only to the USA. Our economy grew by 3% annually under Thatcher, as opposed to the 2% in the 70's and 1.7% in the 2000's under Brown. Manufacturing improved in quality and grew by 7.5% in her time, demolishing the myth that she ruined British industry. Yes, manufacturing lost some of its importance, but that was happening in most countries with a developed economy and was not unique to Britain. 

She tightly controlled spending growth to far below actual economic growth to avoid inflation, debt and recession, something that Labour has proven in recent years to be incapable of doing, and her ruthless privatisation of key companies actually helped reduce public spending and grow said businesses by taking the expense out of private coffers rather than the countries. 

Yes, she made mistakes, but that is only human. Even the Iron Lady is allowed to make mistakes, and on balance, most of her critics criticisms have little basis in actual fact. She, for a time, saved Britain from economic decline and transformed British society for the better, something that only became undone after her terms were up and Labour took over. Blair and Brown undid the hard work that Thatcher started, and unlike her, their mistakes far outweighed their successes. I would take Thatcher over Brown any day. She was a truly great Prime Minister and, for a short while, made Britain Great again.

There we are! I can see me using this gif a lot...

EDIT: my last one had a watermark on it...this one doesn't, and is slightly better quality! ^_^

"Compassion is not the same as weakness"

Ky Kiske, Guilty Gear XX

50 Shades Review as promised.

Oooookay…at the time of writing, I’ve been putting this off for the best part of an hour, and I really need to get it done so I can move on with my life. The sooner I’m done with this, the better. The other week, I ordered 50 Shades of Grey, for those of you who didn’t see my update, from Amazon for a fiver. I knew very little about it, and thought “hey, I have nothing to read and it’s a fiver…it’s worth a punt.” Well, I’ve punted, and I’m going to post a brief (for me) review. I must warn you, this review WILL have spoilers in it, so don’t read it if you’re going to read the books…at the least, skip ahead to the last, concluding, paragraph which will not have any spoilers in it at all.

First things first, did I like it? In a word…no. I found the entire premise of the novel distasteful and mortifying; a young (virgin) girl signing a contract that allowed an arrogant and self-important asshole to control her entire life? Yeah, that’s a good idea [/sarcasm]. The fact that she didn’t sign the contract in the end is besides the point; she wanted to, and that’s what I find odd. I can understand liking that kinda thing in the bedroom – it takes all kinds, after all – but in every day life, signing yourself up to be a slave is not exactly how I would get my kicks, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable keeping a slave myself, either…I wouldn’t be a very good Dom; I’d feel guilty and start apologising halfway through, but that’s besides the point.

The idea that the ‘bad boy’ is really nice underneath it all is not a new idea, and it’s an idea that I dislike very much. What you’re encouraging girls to do by presenting a sympathetic ‘bad boy’ is enter into destructive relationships with guys who are only going to hurt them, and damage their self-esteem and outlook for the future. Ok, some bad boys may simply be using it as a defence mechanism, but if they really are ‘bad boys,’ they will not care about the girl, and will sleep around and abuse the girl simply because they can. The number of sympathetic and changeable bad boys in the world is very, very low and you should stay away from bad boys and girls if you don’t want to get hurt.

Which brings me onto something more specific; the characters themselves. I disliked Christian Grey – the main male “protagonist” – intensely. He has all the hallmarks of somebody I would just want to punch, hard; he’s arrogant, egotistical, controlling, self-important, selfish, stubborn, domineering, jealous and massively hypocritical. He is fundamentally unlikeable, even when he is being presented in a “carefree” light; as per the theme of the novel, he attempts to control every aspect of Anastasia’s life, from her clothes to what she drives to what she eats and who she talks to. It’s ok to feel perhaps a little threatened by another man, and when Anastasia goes down to the bar with Jose and doesn’t tell him, I can understand why he would be suspicious…however, she only doesn’t tell him simply because she knows that he is jealous and has a short temper; if he didn’t overreact all the time, she wouldn’t have to conceal it from him, since he would have reacted the same way anyway. In that, I think he is so totally overbearing that putting any trust in him is severely ill-advised. In fact, the author appears to realise her mistake about a quarter of the way through the novel, and the attempts to make Grey likeable are transparent and laughable; he donates to charity, he attempts to solve world hunger, he is concerned for Anastasia’s safety (though there is a difference between concern and his complete lack of faith in her ability to keep herself safe, despite the fact that she is still alive at 21 with no serious injury or trauma in her life thus far) and he occasionally feels guilty about hitting her with things. Despite his “tortured past,” I find him very unsympathetic. I don’t care what happened in his past, he’s still an asshole, and I will speak of him as an asshole. Anastasia I find to be annoying too, if only because of her constant whining and her inability to walk away from Christian simply because he’s hot and a “sex god” (direct quote). That is so unbelievably shallow and unintelligent I can’t even begin to explain…I get annoyed when real girls are stuck in poisonous relationships, and I myself have suffered a particularly nasty one (though I didn’t get smacked around with canes and the like, thank Odin), and I find it even more annoying when a supposedly intelligent female protagonist gets caught in the same trap…it doesn’t help females out of the problems they have with relationships…in fact, it increases them.

And another thing…there is not an ugly character in the whole book. Not. One. Every female is a supermodel and every male is a muscled, tan hunk. It’s…embarrassing. It reads like some weird fantasy of the authors…the only “plain” person is the narrator herself, Anastasia, and even then that’s probably untrue given her low self-esteem. By all descriptions she’s a “babe,” to quote one of the characters, and her clumsiness is an obvious attempt to disguise her Mary-Sue character; despite having never danced, she is suddenly an awesome dancer, and even though she is only a virgin, she is supposedly amazing in the sack. She can fly the glider first-try, and she has literally every male character in the novel (save for four, two of whom are married and one is her father) falling at her feet. In this, I can quite easily believe that it started as a Twilight Fanfic. I am willing to believe that the somewhat-attractive protagonist has an attractive female friends; it is a law of physics that attractive girls congregate and travel in gaggles (that is what a group of girls is called; a gaggle or girls). I am willing to believe that somebody as self-important, narcissistic and arrogant as Christian-bloody-Grey would only have attractive blondes working in his office. I am even willing to believe that Grey is fairly good looking, especially considering that he is rich enough to afford the best plastic surgeons…but I am not willing to believe that there is not a single bad looking person inSeattleor the surrounding area. It is physically and statistically impossible that everybody there is beautiful…if I am wrong, someone let me know so that I can book a ticket to Seattle immediately; beautiful, slutty girls? Yes please (that was a joke; I have nothing but respect for the (more intelligent) members of the fairer sex…unless they do something to lose that respect, of course).

Anyway. Moving on.

The lengths the author goes to to make Christian as perfect as possible in his physical appearance and abilities is laughable too…he is a multi-billionaire in his late twenties, which is hard enough…instead of working hard, which he would have to do to maintain that fortune, he has time to stalk Anastasia – what is with girls these days that they find stalking romantic? IT. IS. NOT. A. GOOD. THING. If you start telling girls that stalkers are ok, you are risking a lot of harm, particularly the younger, more idealistic and impressionable ones – learn to play the piano, fly a glider and helicopter and Thor knows what else…he’s a complete Gary Stu, at least in his abilities, and nobody likes a Mary Sue or a Gary Stu.

The writing style itself is…OK. There are many, many times when a removed word would make the sentence flow far better, or when a word is used incorrectly, or even when a character who was not there before suddenly appears with no explanation and no reaction from the characters, or when a character who was facing one way is suddenly facing another as if they were facing the new direction all along, or sudden jumps in time that don’t make sense, or paragraphs that are completely pointless…all of these little points together mean that the style is never going to be more than “not bad”. I don’t think the author knows what the subconscious is, since Anastasia constantly refers to it as arguing with her, even though the subconscious is SUB-conscious…if it is conscious thought, than it is her conSCIENCE, not her conSCIOUS. Two completely different things; the subconscious doesn’t think or offer opinions or arguments…it affects your behaviour subtly and behind the scenes, working off of experiences and personal desires without you realising. It does NOT speak to you directly, which is something the author fails to grasp. Despite these drawbacks, I am saying it is ok because there are certain moments where a sort of wit shines through, and there are moments in the book that do make me chuckle, or phrasings that made me smile. Not enough to redeem the book as a whole, but enough to mean that reading the book wasn’t totally unbearable.

As in Twilight, the interesting characters – Kate and Jose, for instance – only get momentary parts and no real development, and the author contradicts herself several times; she claims that Kate is driven to find out more and does not stop until she finds out what she wants, but she appears to be very easily distracted – due to her own vanity, I suspect – and not at all difficult to discourage. The oft-referenced “Kavennagh Inquisition” appears to be all thunder and no lightning.

I won’t even mention the “adult” scenes beyond this; they were dull, generic, unrealistically fast and gratuitous. If I had a relationship where every time I wanted to talk seriously my partner distracted me with sex, I would get very annoyed, very quickly. It seems that Christian uses sex to avoid talking seriously and openly, despite his requests that they do so, and Anastasia Steele, unlike her namesake, is far too weak to resist due to her own shallow view of Christian in regards to his appearance, and her own unrealistically uncontrollable lust. I’m a teenage male who has never ever got any, and even I don’t think about sex as much as Anastasia seems to.

Anyway. I’m not going to rant any longer; this is my conclusion.

50 Shades of Grey is possibly one of the most disturbing books I have ever read, simply because it is encouraging females to find a rich stalker who wants to control every aspect in their lives, simply because they might change. Yes, you could argue that the end tells girls to draw a line, but considering what is likely to happen in books two and three, she will go back for more. None of the main characters are particularly interesting, being vaguely annoying at best and completely unlikeable at worst, and the effort the author goes to to make these unlikeable characters likeable is laughable. Despite the odd chuckle, the writing style is bland and frequently uses incorrect words or phrases, and the funny moments only distract temporarily from how much of an asshole Christian is. The book is encouraging girls to find a guy who is controlling, arrogant, self-important, sadistic, stalkerish, moody, hypocritical and jealous who will only hurt them in the end and is only likely in it for the sex rather than going for the nice guy who genuinely cares about them and is likely to make them happier. I don’t know why stalkers are all the rage right now, but seriously…girls, if you’re going to read and believe this tripe that stalkers and abusive boyfriends really love you, please stop complaining that you always get hurt by men…it’s because you’re letting yourself get attracted to these assholes because you claim the nice guys who would treat you well are boring. Perhaps it was inevitable that I disliked this novel…perhaps not. Honestly, though, I don’t care; it’s the first time I’ve ever said this, but here goes…

I will not be finishing the series. I just think that by the end of the third novel, I will hate this series more than Twilight, and I don’t have time to hate something that much. I have better things to read.

Premise:

Disgusting premise that reads like the authors twisted fantasy. 1/5

Characters:

Mainly bland and uninteresting characters…the only characters that were even vaguely interesting were sideline characters that showed up once every few pages in a supporting capacity. 1.5/5

Writing style:

Occasional glimpses of wit help take away from but do not overshadow the misuse of the English language and the general blandness in what are supposed to be pivotal scenes. 2/5

Overall:

1.5/5

This world is not simply black and white, divided into good and evil, the righteous and the wicked. You have good people and evil people, yes, but the world is full of grey areas. If a boy is starving in Africa and he steals a loaf of bread from a baker who will barely miss it in order to survive another week, is that evil? If a man kills in the defence of his family or a defenceless child, is that evil? Morality suggests that the world is clear cut and that a universal law dictates us all...that is a gross fallacy. If you don't recognise that there are grey areas, you will never fully understand this world or how it works.

Me.

50 Shades

So. I recently purchased 50 Shades of Grey.

DON'T CLOSE THE BROWSER! I can explain. I've been looking for something else to read for a short while, ever since I got close to finishing the trilogy of books I've been reading recently (The Strain, by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Torro) whilst I wait for the other series I'm reading to release their next books (Wheel of Time, Song of Ice and Fire, Discworld, etc)...I was talking to one of my friends, who mentioned 50SoG, and I thought I may as well give it a chance. I found it on Amazon for a fiver, and thought it was worth a punt. It arrived today, and I'm about to start reading it...I've avoided reading too much about it, just googling it to get a general idea as to the plot and the opposing sides of the argument...although it seems very similar to the Twilight debate - a debate that I come down staunchly on the side of the haters in - I am going into this with an open mind. At the very least, I cannot form an opinion on something that I have not read, so I intend to read it and then post a review of it on here. Any questions? No? Good. 

It should take me a few days to read it, perhaps more...I don't foresee it being particularly long. Maybe a week, at most...until then, Auf Weidersehen. ^_^