FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: Which Hill Will You Absolutely Insufferably Die On?

Friends, countryqueers, please lend me your ears.

I am on a mood stabilizer that is working and I feel U N S T O P P A B L E! Which is great in one respect but could mean trouble in another. What do I mean? I mean this: now that I feel stable in my emotions, clarity, and all that (I’m guessing) neurotypical goodness, I am more stubborn than ever – in my community we call it hardheaded, which…leads to a soft behind, so not a good thing to be. Here is a short and incomplete list of things I have been ridiculously stubborn about in the past:

  • my meds
  • identifying as undateable (this isn’t a pitiful thing! the whole concept of dating confuses me, like let’s get married or what’s the point?)
  • that I did put the dishes away
  • that that is the actress who played a small part in that one show and I’ve got IMBD up already to prove it to you
  • refusing to let go of my anger towards people who even think about insulting the people I care about
  • Miracle Whip is not a condiment and shouldn’t be anywhere near food
  • At least 67.4% of the girls in my high school class are some kind of not straight
  • We didn’t get nearly enough energy for Poussey Washington compared to the energy we got for Lexa
  • Kiwi has no business touching any other fruit ever

I cannot be moved on any of these subjects and I am proudly insufferable about them all.

What are you stubborn about? Like no matter what anyone says, you will dig your heels into the ground and fall over on your side, much like a cow, in the freezing snow before admitting that you were wrong about it? Which hill (multiple hills?) will you absolutely insufferably die on?

Of course you don’t have to talk about that! I wanna hear about your life, what’s new, what’s old, what’s blue, what’s cold – all of that and more! I’m all ears!

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A. Tony Jerome

A.Tony is a black nonbinary artist out here to do good and to do gay. They are a 2015 Pink Door Fellow, 2016 Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Fellow, 2020-21 Afro Urban Arts Lit From the Black! Fellow, and have worked with Roots.Wounds.Words., Words Beats & Life, and Winter Tangerine among other places. You can find more of their work on their website and listen to them scream about poetry & other interests on Twitter.

A. has written 47 articles for us.

226 Comments

  1. I will go down fighting that My Best Friend’s Wedding is a fantastic romantic comedy, probably the best. The pantsuits! She’s so unlikable! So much singing! The ending isn’t what you expect!

    • I’ve never seen it so I’m gonna watch tonight just because of this! WAIT THERE’S SINGING I’m ready for all of this!

    • I rewatched this somewhat recently and was downright SHOCKED at just how unlikeable Julia Roberts’ gets to be in this movie. Weirdly subversive.

  2. I listen to the podcast Hysteria and they have a regular segment about the hills they’d die on and they get me good every time.

    I’m stubborn about stupid things like, The Little Mermaid does not have a happy ending, Maya St. Germain is alive, and that shallots and scallions are just lying onions and MUST BE STOPPED.

    • MAYA IS ALIVE Like I fell off the PLL boat around the time Paige and Emily got together (cause I needed them to stay together I couldn’t take another break up for Emily honestly) and I still can’t believe I haven’t seen an AS title going MAYA ST. GERMAIN IS ALIVE!!!!!!!! because that scene in the photbooth??? is all I care about. Like I watched that scene at least five times on the same night and this was before we had rewinding so I had to find one room where no one would bother me (ON A SCHOOL NIGHT) and just keep watching the repeat episodes like every hour and then three and five hours later the whole point of this is Maya is alive and well and I can’t wait for her to come home.

    • “shallots and scallions are just lying onions and MUST BE STOPPED”: I love you.

      Is this a deep-seated aversion, or merely shallot? If an onion lies but does it in rhyme, is it a rapscallion? Thank you and goodnight!

  3. Hmm…I should probably not be allowed to answer a question like this. I am famous for All of the Stubbornness. I shall restrict myself to one, and only one, hill I will absolutely insufferably die on.

    There is an objective, external reality that exists independent of anyone’s perception of it or feelings about it. We may all disagree about the nature of that reality, but it is there, and if every human being ceased to be in the next five minutes it would still be there. Four billion years of Earth’s history tells me so. We ignore this truth at our mortal and cosmic peril.

    • I was not prepared for it to get this deep this quick but I see you and also this is a mood

      “We ignore this truth at our moral and cosmic peril.” I’m just gonna be quoting you saying that to people all weekend

      “How are you doing?”
      “Pretty okay I guess.”
      “Just okay? You should cheer up!”
      “You and I disagree about the nature of this reality but it is here.”
      “Wait, what–”
      “–We ignore this truth at our mortal and cosmic peril.”

      :D

      • Hahaha…I like that! Go for it.

        But yeah, my rant above, while I 100% stand by it, is also Exhibit A of why academics/writers should not be permitted to run free in the comment section. We just – sigh – we just can’t help ourselves.

        • I think this is exhibit A of why you should be able to run free I feel enlightened as hell

  4. That Taylor Swift is gay and in a relationship with Karlie Kloss. (Yes, I am a diehard Kaylor. Come at me!) I mean…

    • YES. Taylor’s choice of “Curious” for her duet with Hayley Kiyoko cinched it for me. And, like, also Dress which is gay af.

    • I actually cannot even be mad about this because I know I believed this for at least a year, those dissertations people write on Tumblr really got me believing all kinds of things

    • Wait but it is! We were so into it in college but finally one year when the little kid said “I HATE UNCLE JAMIE” I was like ME TOO WHAT AN ASSHOLE. And the scales fell from my eyes and I now hate every character in that movie.

      • Just kidding, not Laura Linney or Emma Thompson or Liam Neeson, and I guess the poor stand-ins are fine, but everyone else. And I guess Natalie is a victim of Hugh Grant, and Natalie’s family is nice. But EVERYONE ELSE.

      • I know you shall not be convinced but Emma Thompson crying about her husbands affair, and then putting herself back together again for the childrens concert, that will break me into pieces every single time forever and ever.

        • I mean, yes same and I can’t get over how mad I am at Alan Rickman for hurting Emma Thompson when I also Love Alan Rickman SO MUCH! So that’s part of why I hate this movie because I absolutely can. not.

          But I also respect your feels!

    • A hill I’d die on is what the fuck kind of kid is like “yeah it sucks that my mom just died but damn I need to get some with this American.”

      • H’okay but has everyone seen the deleted scene in the airport where that kid is actually a talented gymnast, and uses his gymnastic skills (via a 6ft stunt double) to avoid capture by the security. I roar with laughter every time. Highly recommend.

    • Completely fair I’ve rewritten the entire movie in my mind so I’m not too bothered, like I will still watch it every Christmas because I root for the black girl singing All I Want for Christmas but like this is definitely true

    • Like the fact that so many straight people love this movie should’ve been my biggest clue

  6. I am of the firm opinion you should not name your children shortened versions of names. Give them the full name and use the nickname! My in-laws named their son Jake and I still think it should be Jacob.

    • YES!!!! I so very much agree. Also, don’t give your kid a first name that you will never use and call them by their middle name instead. Just. Switch. The. Names.

      • Ok but we almost just did this. It’s really common in my family and we had our reasons. Went with a different name for our baby and honestly I prefer the middle name for her and I’ve considered just introducing her as such. It’s ok, you can judge

    • Can we also please cancel names that are permanent nicknames? Like my name, and Stacy, and I dunno Mimi, and there must be others. I want a chance to have a professional-sounding name and a casual-sounding name, like the Elizabeths and the Katherines and the Sandras and the Susans and the Andreas and the Margarets and the Danielles of the world get.

      Hmmm, I guess Sarah is a perma-serious name. There’s no common nickname for Sarah.

      • In the C19th and I think well before too, Sally was the familiar form of Sarah. Seems to have gone out of use since mid C20th though.

    • My very serious six year old self would agree, I tried to get everyone to call me Alexis (CAUSE ITS MY NAME) but they weren’t having it !

    • I totally agree. My children have overly fancy names (30 letters each, in total!) giving them plenty of choice on nicknames if they so wish. Marianne likes to be called Mimi, and Emmeline likes Emmy, but they have their “Sunday” names for when they want to be taken seriously (and their full names for when they are in trouble…)

  7. The Harry Potter Epilogue is terrible and shouldn’t be considered canon and I can give an itemized list and individualized rant about every single thing that is wrong with it, beginning with the general compulsive heterosexuality through the things wrong with each specific relationship and everyone’s career choices and the name “Albus Severus” and the lies it tells about everything working out without ever dealing with the deep institutional problems that made everything so bad in the first.

    • big +1 on this. same for any epilogue that throws compulsory babies ever after instead of therapy ever after at traumatized PTSD survivors, except maybe the hunger games because though i’ll die on the hill that she’s acearo-spectrum, SPOILER, katniss has always been family-centric and the exponential death in the books probably does need the hopeful repopulating-the-world-better-this-time-around moral. but none of that tragic annie cresta raising the baby after the unnecessarily dead husband crap. and definitely no harry potter. or pretty little liars. or a million other YA books and tv with flash-forwards. babies screaming and crying for hours can trigger panic episodes, dissociation can mean you didn’t realize the infant was suffocating or choking, ffs.

      the lack of addressing the institutional problems in harry potter instead of playing the welp we got him it’s all good now card is like… 97.3% of the reason i can’t enjoy that story.

      • Thanks to a long-ago AS thing about everyone’s favorite fanfiction, I found a really good remedy to these issues. It was quite long but at least when I read it it appeared to have been abandoned before its conclusion. Sigh. https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1994264/Vera-Rozalsky the “Amends, or Truth and Reconciliation” story (a lot of the others on that page are good too). Been a couple years since I read it but I remember thinking “this is a better job of writing what that world must have been like than the original!”

      • let me tell you how that explanation of hunger games has just changed EVERYTHING for me OF COURSE SHE’S ARO/ACE HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS OF COURSE OF COURSE now I gotta go find fic for it thank youuu

    • YOU ARE 500% CORRECT like. if I was Harry after all that trauma I’d magic myself into a therapy office I could just live in for four years. AND THE COMPLUSORY HETEROSEXUALITY YOU’RE RIGHT I cannot believe that at least half of them didn’t end up in gay relationships (if there must be a relationship at all!)

    • I agree completely! I listen to the Harry Potter books to go to sleep every night and completely removed the epilogue chapter from my iPod long, long ago.

  9. Iced tea/coffee. Hot brewed drinks served cold are an abomination in the eyes of [diety or lack thereof]!

  10. Chicago-style pizza is the superior pizza type and New York-style pizza is just a shitty, sauce-covered cracker, eat my ENTIRE ASS.

    • chicago pizza makes me feel too committed to a task like……..theres so much bread will it ever end

    • Actual Chicago deep dish style isn’t actually a pizza tho, it’s a savoury pie with no top so technically it’s savoury tart.

      Anyway it’s pizza pie, not pizza only a leavened flat dough gets to be merely pizza.
      I say this from a place of love not derision as I’m an unrepentant strumpet for crust and maybe have in the past kept people as acquaintances because they didn’t eat their crusts.

          • HMMMMMM

            i was gonna say that bread is always leavened but clearly it’s not because people have unleavened bread at passover and stuff!

            i concede that flour tortillas are bread

          • See also pitta bread. And rye bread for an example of nonwheat based bread.

            Fun fact i was told recently. The netherlands was aware of coeliac disease earlier than other countries because during WW2 they made bread out of tulip bulbs, and people who were previously not doing so well suddenly bounced back once they stopped eating wheat bread and just ate the tulip bread.

    • like i would not go around proclaiming this because i can’t back it up but i can appreciate this logic cause now i’m like………….but aren’t they?

      i’m feeling similar to this the way i felt when someone told me cereal was just cold soup, like it could technically be true but im just gonna like ignore that for my own comfort lol

    • Sandwiches don’t have beans so a burrito CANNOT be a sandwich. Maybe you can make the case that a sandwich is a bean-less burrito. I dunno.

  12. I have a lot of strong opinions about TV. Duh. I’m here, aren’t I? But the hill I will die on is this:

    Luke is better than Christopher in every conceivable way, and he and Lorelai belong together.

    No one will ever be able to convince me otherwise. Come at me. I have receipts.

    • I will gladly join you on this hill. Christopher has almost no redeeming features and Luke is a total sweetheart!

      • Luke is NOT a *total* sweetheart. The whole April thing was a mess– but I squarely blame Daniel Palladino (for whatever reason).

        Christopher is decent looking and I get the charm of the highschool sweetheart/father of your child dynamic and I’m a sucker for a love triangle, SOOOoooOO I don’t *hate* him. BUT it was absolutely correct that Lor did not end up with him.

    • ive only known about this show tangentially and i definitely thought lorelai and luke got together i dont even know a christopher

    • Question, @arvan12: are there actually people in the world who believe otherwise?

      I mean, I know that Jess/Dean/Logan provokes a serious debate within the fandom but I’d just assumed it was universally accepted that Christopher was trash.

      • @pecola You would be surprised!

        One of my best friends – who is a biracial, bisexual, radical feminist human rights lawyer – is a HUGE Christopher fan. It makes no sense to me! We’ve argued about it a few times, to the point where we now can’t even talk about the show together. And her arguments are ridiculous! She’s actually said things like “Chris understands her better because he comes from the same background” and “Chris is her intellectual equal” and “Chris has loved her longer” and “Lorelai would have been good for Chris, would have made him a better man”! (those are all direct quotes FYI). They’re all dumb arguments to begin with, but I think I find them even more insane because of WHO they’re coming from. All her arguments are weirdly classist and anti-feminist and it literally makes no sense.

  13. Saying “8 a.m. in the morning” is redundant and absurd and I will not allow it.

    Saying “give it to [Name] or myself” is improper use of the reflexive pronoun and makes me crazy.

    Your second cousin is someone you share a great-grandparent with. Your first cousin once removed it the child or parent of your cousin (or the cousin of your parent).

    Seltzer/soda water/sparkling water is terrible.

    • YES!! It drives me nuts when people say ‘5 am in the morning’ because AM MEANS IN THE MORNING YOU JUST SAID 5 IN THE MORNING IN THE MORNING AHHHHHHHHHHH

    • Omg the second cousin/first cousin once removed thing gets me every time. Like what does it matter what people call their family? Nothing. But it’s just wrong!

    • Speaking of redundancy, I have a coworker who says “For your FYI” a lot, and even though she’s joking, I find it irrationally irritating.

      (Yes, we’re all editors. Buncha NERDS.)

    • I definitely agree on the last one / I can’t even speak to second cousins and stuff because I’m not even sure if I’m related to most of the people I call family so

      and most everything else has me thinking I’ve gotta brush up on some grammar soon

    • thank you anne
      THIS ‘MYSELF’ THING HAS GOTTEN OUT OF CONTROL
      i swear to g-d perfectly intelligent people are using it like it’s suddenly become a correct way to talk or even to think and IT IS NOT!!!!

    • There’s a guy I follow on Twitter who is an absolute stickler about people using “first ever” for things. Guaranteed to rile him up every time!

  14. If you ask my parents they’d probably tell you I am stubborn about multiple things. I think I am stubborn about my health. Like I prefer not to see a doctor when sick because I don’t want to deal with being gendered or waiting rooms. The only hill I will probably(or even want to) die on is the hills I go hiking. Maybe I am hiking to save the hill from being destroyed or deforested?

    How is everyone’s week going? Mines has been busy & particularly good. I spent a good portion of my Sunday just out and about. Went to a few different pawn shops just to get a fair deal on my bad camera & bought a replacement(one gen newer) off craigslist, thankfully from someone who takes care of his stuff. I also bought wine and blonde ale that was called Killer Bees and was told was named after the Wu-Tang Clan for Wednesday night. Rest of the week was good too.

    Wednesday went to the Hollywood Bowl to see Common and Queen Latifah perform. Went with my bff(in something with) as we are both fans, well she’s the super-mega fan, of the only Queen that matters, Latifah. I wore shiny lipstick, showed up with a rose, and did my best to make it a night to remember, which I think I did. The bad, Common is real whack live because he’s fucking pro-life(surprise to both of us), ewww. I’m only familiar(fan) with(of) his stuff post 1999, but in the 90s he wrote a song(which Lauryn Hill sings the hook on the album, she wasn’t there) about how the lady he was dating at the time had an abortion & he regrets that(wasn’t pointed at her, just the fact the abortion happened). Sorry, he just lost a fan. Queen Latifah on the other hand just owned the night with her rapping, singing(Chicago, and Hair Spray tunes), & even did a portion of the Living Single Theme(on the 25th anniversary that night, thank you Laneia & AAA for linking that article). She even had Mc Lyte(great bonus) on stage singing Ladies First with her. Just close to perfect of a show. The wine and beer was good choice too.

    Not sure what my weekend plans are, but possibly going to do karaoke Saturday. Sunday may go to a proud festival or maybe be on a hill somewhere hearing the sounds of nature. Will see what happens.

    We were sitting center kind of near the middle; closest I was able to zoom in.

    Thank you for viewing and reading my post. Have a positive weekend!

    • YOU GOT TO SEE QUEEN LATIFAH AND MC LYTE AND QUEEN SANG PART OF THE LIVING SINGLE THEME SONG THIS IS THE DREAM I’M SO GLAD YOU GOT TO GO

      i had no idea about that w common and honestly the way he’s been the past couple of years actually makes it less surprising i used to eff w him heavy in high school though so this is disappointing

      i hope you have a wonderful weekend! thank you for sharing!!

      • Thank you. I told a few people that Common is pro-life and all were like kind of surprising as he seems on the ball on this situations. The Queen really just made up for his mess with everything. Plus, Mc Lyte coming on stage was a delightful surprise.

    • @needlesandpin @asmithers Far be it for me to talk to defend Common but I don’t think he’s actually pro-life…or if he was, he’s certainly not anymore: he performed at a benefit concert for Planned Parenthood just before the Women’s March in DC. He also brought Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, up on stage at the Oscars when he preformed with Andra Day.

      That said, Common is a terrible actor and people need to quit putting him in movies.

      • mm okay! but youre right like just wright?? terrible also queen shouldve been a lesbian again but yes common shouldnt be doing any acting of an kind

      • I tolerated his acting, mostly because I liked his songs but, now, yeah he needs to quit acting(and making MS commercials that doesn’t include Ellen Page). It seems like the Queen Latifah fans who were at the show weren’t a fan of him either(with one calling him hot with terrible personality).

        I just googled the song and one link was to a Christian conservative site, that applauded his stance of being pro-life, and then made one of their typical and awful comparisons(which as a Jewish trans woman I am very familiar with their comparisons). Must have missed that link. If his views changed it’s not seen live as he still singing that song without adding an addendum Saying his views change. In fact, if I remember correctly before the song he was talking about his kids and how he misses one of them(?). To me, he comes off as a hypocritical.

      • yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

        Also Idina Menzel has horrible technique and completely destroyed her voice and can we stop hiring her to sing for things please because she’s a terrible example to the kids who come into my voice studio wanting to scream like her kthnxbye

        • Wait a sec…someone on AS knows Caroline, Or Change?! I didn’t know my lives could meet in such a beautiful place. You have made my day, Alex!

          • OMG Tony Kushner AND Jeanine Tesori on the same project!?! Featuring POC!?! I am so there!
            I used to sing opera but my heart was always in Musical Theater <3

    • like just the original or all of them? im a fan of a lot of different elphabas/glindas/i love anything that lets me headcanon as gay but i respect this!

    • Ok, thank you. Everyone was obsessed with it for a while in the mid-00s, and while it has a couple of semi-decent songs (maybe just one), mostly I found it aggressively mediocre.

  16. “Three Lions” is not an example of a one-hit wonder. The Lightning Seeds had other songs dammit!

    • i’ve never heard of either of these but i’m gonna go ahead and listen to other songs before three lions just so i know whats up

  17. There are SO MANY hills upon which I am willing to die, but probably the most recent one was an assertion on Twitter that “Holy water is Cher and Meryl Streep’s shared spit.” Happy Friday.

  18. I am so stubborn, but I don’t really share my stubbornness with others. I’m just an internal, stubborn person. Mental health is a prominent example. I’m very old school about mental health treatment because it’s what worked for me (and my parents are both in the field, and they’re very adamant about it). I had really severe panic attacks/panic disorder and depression and agoraphobia, but between psychoanalysis and medication, I don’t have panic attacks anymore. I know CBT is what’s popular these days, but I really think I was born in the wrong decade, because I totally should be of those women in the early 1970s who talks openly about her analyst. I need to take a deep breath because YOU DO YOU, and psychoanalysis and meds work for me, but maybe meditation and CBT or DBT work for someone else.

    I’m actually working on a mental health project and can use help from you beautiful Straddlers…

    I am producing a concert in NYC of brand new songs written by musical theatre writers, inspired by true stories of those living with mental illness. I’m conducting online interviews for stories to get turned into songs.
    If you’re interested, please fill out the form: https://goo.gl/forms/eiOnc2TpcF7BbV553
    It’s completely anonymous, and you don’t have to actually have an in-person interview if you don’t want. You’re more than welcome to just fill out the form.
    I greatly appreciate your help.
    Thank you!

  19. I am known for my willingness to die on many insignificant molehills, including but not limited to:
    Snape/Lily was very creepy and not at all romantic, all of Rory Gilmore’s boyfriends were terrible, and Amy Adams should have won an Oscar for Arrival.

    • Seriously, right? Dude, she was not in love with you, MOVE ON, and why on earth does “I wanted her several decades ago and she was not in love with me” translate to “therefore I have a right to be an asshole bully to her traumatized orphan son”? I mean what? Mutter mutter toxic masculinity entitlement bullshit mutter mutter.

      The short story Arrival was based on is my all-time favorite short story ever (worth reading even if you already saw the movie – no shade to the movie, I liked it) and its author, Ted Chiang, has written a lot of other excellent short stories too.

    • Definitely definitely definitely about Snape and Lily and I love Arrival! I didn’t know it was based on a short story I’m gonna have to check it out

  20. Dear Evan Hansen is a bad musical that tries to redeem unredeemable, abusive behavior under the guise that it’s a symptom of Evan’s mental illness. I can’t stand it.

    • I’m seeing it for the third time this fall. I keep wanting to like it and give it a chance, but then I’m disappointed. Everyone in the audience is bawling, and I’m like, uhhhhh…. Have you seen Come From Away? Same season on Broadway. Much better.

      • IM SCREAMING this is my favorite gif and I never get these things to work its such a good day and yeah im aware im talking to myself

    • I read The Argonauts and underlined a bunch of bits that felt important and valuable. Then when I finished the book, I flipped back to look at the underlined bits. Every single one, without exception, was Maggie Nelson quoting somebody else. So.

  24. ok here’s mine: musicals suck. nearly all of them. yes, even your fave. no, not hamilton, that transcends, obviously.

    it’s just weird to be an adult watching an absorbing play when all of a sudden people start belting out these songs that highlight a nice subtle plot moment with some REALLY OBVIOUS lyrics that sledgehammer that subtle plot point into the center of your forehead forever.

    • But….Annie? Oliver? Not even Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat???

      Nah jokes i get you. Defs prefer musicals when they are wacky and wild and ridiculous anyway.

    • Haha, you’re just not watching good musicals. Or maybe we’ll just have to agree to disagree, but as someone with 2 degrees in musical theatre, who’s devoted her life to the craft, I’m at least going to try to persuade you. ;)

      • i mean it’s true I’ve never seen a musical on Broadway, so I should technically reserve judgment until I possibly do, but…

    • Omg this! After seeing Hamilton I was like “wait maybe I do like musicals?!?!” and tried to see another one… and LOATHED IT. Hamilton only, fools.

    • as someone who fucks with musicals mad heavy i can’t rock with you on this one BUT i respect what you’re saying also i love that everyone is trying to suggest a musical you might like which means i must also do the same have you tried next to normal

    • you know, I hadn’t even entertained the idea of not liking musicals before but I actually agree now that I think about it!
      I think Hamilton is an exception in part because there are no words to interrupt – it doesn’t feel artificial in the same way.
      I also still love Crazy Ex-Girlfriend because I feel it acknowledges the absurdity of bursting into song in a very enjoyable way.

  25. I hate “little free libraries”. I think most of them are poorly curated drop off sites for books no one wants and they let privileged people think they’re doing something good for society when, in reality, the neighborhoods that need access to quality reading materials are far less likely to ever see a little free library pop up.

  26. The Oxford comma. Use it. I will die on this hill.

    Also, Harry Potter is just okay, and there is way better teen fanatasy.

  27. -Kristen Stewart is a good actress.

    -Cursed Child is awful and it is NOT canon.

    -Jenny killed Jenny.

    • I ignore the Cursed Child, I know they tried to get me because they made Hermoine black but surprise! I always knew she was black so it doesn’t matter

      i honestly have to watch the l word because i have no idea what anyone is talking about and it seems like these discussions are a riveting good time

      and i get you about kristen! like i’m really excited to see her in lizzie she looks v good!

  28. Hi, uhm, veering ever so slightly off topic, but I have a sex question, well,more like a link request.
    I’m off on vacation time at the moment, and I’ve chosen to reconnect with people, take care of things,etc. in the next few weeks.
    This has led to reaching out to the refugee girl I’ve been mentoring, and we’ve met for drinks yesterday.
    She is getting sexually active and had all of these questions for me.
    What I got was that she finds penetration uncomfortable and only enjoys clitoral stimulation and gets shamed for that amongst presumably her (female) partner and lesbian friends.
    Now, since we were sitting outside at a bar and an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in years sat down at the table with us, I couldn’t really explain about what a clitoris is and that a lot of women don’t get off on penetration, etc.
    I promised her a link at parting though, because I felt that I had read something on here, but the roundtable that I found was a+ content and the epic and wonderful piece Heather had written once was focused on endometriosis.
    So my request would be for a link, if any of you have one handy? (English is fine!)
    Googling that stuff is a bit dicey.
    If you should have a link, please keep in mind that she is from a country with about zero sex ed.
    We were talking about “on top” and “inside” because vocabulary for female parts is an unexpected feminist achievement that is not commonplace everywhere.
    Who knew?
    Anyway, I’d be ever so grateful.
    So,so grateful.
    Hopefully that way I won’t have to endure any more, what I like and what I enjoy questions.
    At this point I’m probably going to win a prize for quantity and quality of overly personal questions on my absolutely non existent sex life.

  29. Some medical and mental health practitioners really really suck! And telling someone “Just go see a doctor” or “Just go see a therapist” is not solving the problem because they still have to go through the process of trial and error and looking for recommendations until they find one who will actually listen! And it’s even more difficult when they have a very limited budget so can not afford to keep getting second opinions.

    • A social worker in the ER rolled her eyes at me once while I was getting stitches put in. A nurse in the psyche ward told me I just needed to pray to god for forgiveness. So, yeah some do more harm. And because I’m on disability and have Medicare I have more resources available to me than a lot of people.

    • I know you mean gross but for a minute I imagined an adorable Marshmallow Revolt and it was so fantastic

      • Tortillas are not marshmallows Gilbert.

        My sense of humor gets ever more surreal/absurdist as I get more sleep-deprived…

        • Hahahah even i could concede that maybe tortillas are no marshmallows. But not in public, I’m too stubborn.

          • 20+ years ago when my hubby and I were not even dating yet, we walked to school together a couple times per week when our schedules coincided. Every time we passed a particular bush I would be like “ah this honeysuckle smells so good.” And he would say IT’S NOT HONEYSUCKLE. I figured ok, he was probably right, but why should I admit it? No fun there. I still will only refer to it as honeysuckle.

  31. I have a lot of strong feelings about anything in the entertainment category but the one that constantly sticks with me is that Grace Kelly won an Oscar over Judy Garland.

  32. as a black jewish genderqueer human the hills I will always die on are
    1. the way white society has consistently pit black people and jewish people against eachother in city communities.
    2. the way many of my queer activist circles delegitimize the fears, dangers, and stigmatism of jews in queer circles. Not thinking im jewish people will say things about some friends of mine “oh she wants to be oppressed so bad” or whatever. yo. like as a biracial queer lemme tell you some things about intergenerational trauma and continued vitriol against jews in both the left and right communities.

    3. let me live my life. im black. im jewish. im genderqueer. im me. and i cant change any of those things and it doesnt make me any less anything

    4. antizionism is often thinly veiled antisemitism in my activist and queer circles. i constantly get into arguments with people who have no idea about OG black israelis and brown israelis and that most jews even my ashkenazi cousins can trace their lineage directly to the middle east/north africa. NO ONE RECOGNizES THIS

    5. zoe kravitz and tracy ellis ross are my biracial jewish queens and will forever stan

    6. kehlani and hayley kiyoko are baes

    • As an trans woman-ish West Asian Jew, I very much agree with #1 & 4, & very much understand #2.

      I think my earliest memories of famous bi-racial Jewish woman was Lisa Bonet in the 90s., then Tracy in Girlfriends. I was searching Persia White to see if she’s part Iranian(she’s not), found that Tracy is half-Jewish. Really wish Black-ish brought this up, especially since her brother on the show is Daveed Diggs another bi-racial Jewish actor.

  33. Also all beer tastes the same and no I don’t want to just try this other fancy one that will change my mind

  34. Dryer sheets are not just pointless, they are actively making laundry worse. Like, it’s clean already! It literally has just been washed! Why would I put smelly smells on my fresh teeshirt?!

    • Ick dryer sheets are NOT for scenting things, they’re supposed to reduce and eliminate static electricity.

      • So I grew up never using them, and my husband grew up using them, so when we moved in together he had a box and I was like sure whatever. When we got near the end of the box I was like OK before we buy more we are sciencing this! So I did four loads of laundry, using dryer sheets on two of them and not telling him which was which. His guesses were one true positive, one false positive, one true negative, one false negative. So we said the heck with it and haven’t used dryer sheets in the decade+ since.

        tl;dr Dryer sheets are a conspiracy of the capitalist heteropatriarchy and MUST BE STOPPED. Oooh I think I just found my hill!

        • I uh have a lot of metal in my clothes, when I forget the dryer sheet in load that aren’t just socks and undies I get shocked.

          Maybe your laundry is just more sensible than mine? xD

    • Also, whatever the hell they use to make things not staticky can cause migraines in sensitive people, so there’s that. I tried using them for the first time this winter and it ended very poorly.

    • “No cat is play-attacking you, my friends. There is only attacking and not-attacking, and I am consistently amazed at the number of people who think it’s cute to be pounced on in the dark, in your own home, by something with razor-wire claws.”

      ……………..ive got to rethink some things

  36. Severus Snape did not deserve a redemption arc. Further, he’s an incel. Finally, had the books been set in a magical version of the world we currently live in, he would’ve for sure magically tapped into Lily’s phone and leaked her nudes on a reddit thread to spite her.

    My mind cannot be changed.

    • i was already with you about not deserving the redemption arc, but putting it in this reality……you’re so right

  38. GET YOUR FLU SHOT.

    It’s not for you. It’s for babies, old people, anyone going through chemo, anyone immunosuppressed.

    I get so worked up about this bc it feels like the epitome of “This is why we can’t have nice things.” Obviously there are a few very real reasons why some people can’t get the flu shot, but it’s stunning to me how some perfectly healthy people skip it out of laziness or willful ignorance. Like, other people die because of this very preventable thing! But it doesn’t have to be that way!

    It’s almost September, get your flu shot!

    • theres only one or two people i know who don’t usually get there’s and they got us all sick last year so i’m with you on this

    • Thank you, thank you, thank you!
      Sincerely: an autistic women with a chronically ill younger sister.

    • I love you all and I will join you on this hill as long as there are no dryer sheets on it.

      Ask your doc/pharmacist for the quadrivalent version, not the trivalent. (I think maybe this is becoming standard?)

    • I always have a bit of a cold when flu shot time comes around and they weren’t very effective anyway, but I vowed to get one this year. Thanks for the reminder.
      Actually I did mean to get my hep b, etc freshened up, too.

    • Omg nurses not getting their flu jag because they dont believe in them makes me SO ANGRY. In the UK they arent recommended for everyone, just specific groups. A few years ago they introduced it for all children aged 2-10 and whilst complications for flu in that age group didnt really change much, hospitalisations in the elderly for flu related reasons dropped dramatically. Which i love so much!!!

  40. I really think it’s a bad idea mixing romance and work place BUT I DO IT EVERYTIME I CAN AND SHOULDNT.
    I can’t help that I need a lot of contact to feel attracted to someone.
    Also, there this cute nurse that I, really low key, was getting vibes and yesterday found out she’s queer! And she keeps asking me to help her at work, finding topics to talk about, like, I’m trying not to fuck this time (no I’m not ??‍♀️).

  41. Bathroom mirror selfies. I don’t get it. Like,why is it so hard to flip the camera over, put on the timer and take a damn picture? All of them always look the same! Blah! Also, I hate the term “bratty bottom”. I mean, I get the descriptor for flirting purposes but really? /old man yells at cloud

    • I agree, I’ve been seeing these since the MySpace days and it never made sense to me(more so back then one some had cameras with articulating displays that let you take selfies easily).

  42. I kind of need some affirmation. My activism includes organizing events for fun and healing, and I am currently creating a zine for femmes which drops the Autumn Equinox. I feel like this is my activism. Creating spaces where we don’t have to constantly rehash trauma, but a space where we can enjoy each other as POC. But sometimes I feel invalid, like activism is standing in the streets yelling. I recently held an after Pride meditation and people where crying and healing. Like I’ve never seen people share like that. So I know that is a form of activism healing, but sometimes I get jelly of the folk who stand in the streets.

    • This is most definitely activism and we need this. I think I’ve been like saying this randomly all year but I love that Madame Ghandi said, “I wonder what our stories would look like if they were rooted in our nuance and not out oppression.” and it’s something I’m trying to answer and I believe you’re doing the hard work of answering it too. I’m always jealous of the people who stand in the streets, but Alyssa said something at camp that really stuck with me, (not an exact quote) “You can’t force yourself to do things that will hurt you more just to help others. You can help in a specific way and it’s okay that it doesn’t look like the ways others are helping.” This is important work you’re doing and it is activism. We can’ all stand yelling in the streets and we’re not supposed to. We’re supposed to help our communities and if we all do the same thing we’re not really doing our best to help one another because we’re not all the same.

      You’re doing great work. I’d love to support if I can (do you have a link I can boost?) and I hope you keep going.

  43. “We didn’t get nearly enough energy for Poussey Washington compared to the energy we got for Lexa”

    YES. Poussey’s death was WAY WORSE IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE and made Lexa’s death look forgivable by comparison. The 100 probably would have kept Lexa if they’d been far-sighted enough to sign her from the beginning for a longer contract. They did a poor job of managing that situation, but OITNB had no such dilemma. They terminated the job of a black lesbian actor who didn’t want to leave their show. They modelled her death scene on the murder of a real person, invoking the real trauma of violence against black people for the sake of television drama and teaching white audiences a lesson.

    When it comes to disasters in representation, are we willing to hold progressive white women accountable to the same standard we hold for the clueless producers of teen shows on the CW?

    • I want to love this comment a billion times I can’t even properly articulate all my feelings about this because it took me like months to get out of my anger last time but yes yes yes I get Bury Your Gays is traumatic in its own right but adding trauma that we (as black people) still aren’t surviving yet??? just to serve as a shitty plot point? i don’t even have the words for how angry and disgusted i am like they don’t even let us grieve before they turn it into “entertainment” / it’s like theres some shitty game where everyone has to show how much they don’t believe black people are actually people and they need to see who can win and we don’t want to play this game

  45. Dogs are good, but cats are better.
    “The Silmarillion” is superior to “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”.
    Related to the above: Dwarves are better than Elves.
    Morning People are just an urban legend.
    Cockroaches are essentially elder gods.

    • Cockroaches are essentially elder gods honestly makes so much sense, I just keep thinking of that episode of the Powerpuff Girls where th cockroaches took over the world and the only thing that could stop them was a big ass jar so this definitely checks out

  46. Respect for people’s boundaries.
    Children are counted in this because they ARE people, small, annoying half baked people that don’t 100% know how to act but bellowing commands at them and treating them like property isn’t going to teach them how to act right or empower them to act for themselves when they’re grown.

    Wannabe nazis and white nationalists don’t deserve respect as being one of those things has announced to the world they disrespect others so much they want them dead just for existing.
    That is not a thing that can be tolerated, protecting hate speech is not protecting free speech.
    Death threats aren’t free speech.

    You can’t separate the slavery issue from the Confederacy or the Civil War. Bang on about states’ right all you want mom cause guess what they believed slavery was their right. It’s right there in their constitution.

    I don’t have any small hills?

    I think paisley is ugly, baked fruit tastes like an abomination, Bangel’s my NOTP, good bagels don’t need any condiments, yellow cheese is gross, feta is the best cheese, bacon is gross, cold cuts are an abomination, beer makes me think of tourist pee and just tastes rank, leafy greens taste like grass, cabbage is the grossest veggie, but those are personal quirks not hills I’d die on because different strokes for different folks. I know my sense of physical taste is more sensitive than the common person and I respect the differences and boundaries of others too much to impose my tastes on others.

    • Okay but these are hills I will sit with you on and I love the different strokes for different folks, always a good reminder like as long as its not about peoples’ lives and stuff

    • “Respect for people’s boundaries” especially including children in this – exactly! Wow I could say so much but I will just toss out a couple kids’ books for any fellow parents of young ones: Lulu and the Brontosaurus and Lulu Walks the Dogs, both by Judith Viorst. I read them with my 7-year-old; they’re fun and we got to talk about characters trying to control each other vs. showing respect, how friendship didn’t work until they got from ‘control’ to ‘respect,’ how yes it’s good to be nice and polite and kind and sweet and all that but sometimes that strategy has its limits and then you are indeed justified in standing up for yourself even when that means doing things that other people might not approve of.

      You can have great conversations with kids if you listen to them like, you know, people.

      Also can I just put in a plug for a very strict “tickling ONLY with consent” rule? I hated getting tickled as a little kid because I couldn’t get away, I knew I’d be in trouble if I actually kicked or bit or anything, and “no! stop!” wasn’t listened to. My daughter, on the other hand, asks us to tickle her multiple times a day, because she knows she can set limits on what we are allowed to tickle and we will stop as soon as she says. We all have way more fun plus it’s building her foundations for being able to ask for what she wants and expect “no” to be respected later.

  47. Kale is disgusting! It tastes bad! I have conditioned myself to enjoy other things to great degrees of success and I cannot and will not bring myself to do it with kale!

  48. Not every intelligent fictional character belongs in Ravenclaw house, especially Susan Pevensie who seems to be sorted there on the strength of film lines about logic and the urge to have one Pevensie kid in each house, and Quinn Fabray who only values knowledge as far as not suffering fools but is not actually motivated by its pursuit.

    Yesterday was my pet charity’s street appeal for which I organized cosplayer volunteer signups and though I’ve participated before, being part of the process this time made me so much prouder of my fellow nerds’ generosity with their time. ♥

    • wait i thought we all agreed quinn was a slytherin

      that sounds so lovely! im glad you h ad such a great time :)

  49. Just thought of something insufferable!

    It’s pa-caun not PEE-can

    New Orleans not New OrLEANZ

    And I don’t care about some rando midwestern town cutesy butchered version of how to say La Croix, it’s French and there is a correct way to pronounce and a wrong way.
    Is something to do with being part of an ethic minority whose language is dying why I’m stupidly salty and unusually rude about how to say a phrase? Yes, yes it is.

    • Thank you!! I know it’s “supposed” to be pronounced La-croy because it’s named after some mispronounced river, but IDGAF about your Wisconsin landmarks, the can says La Croix. It’s French. ARGHH!!

    • oh most definitely at least in the past if not in the time the stories are told to us

  51. A small round bread bun is called a barm. Fight me, but I have almost all of North West England on my side.

    Also, put a butter pie inside a barm with some Lancashire cheese. Amazing.

  52. this is one of my favorite friday open threads ever

    my current hill to die on is that all those DNA testing companies like 23 and me are horrifying and i cannot believe so many smart cynical humans i know and love are just WILLINGLY giving their DNA away YIKES PLZ STOP SAVE YOURSELF

    ok that’s all

    oh no wait, grease 2 is better than grease

    ok now that’s rly all xoxo

    • YES like just aside from the political ramifications/etc. we’re about to get a whole bunch of clones we don’t want because of 23&Me !!

      ive got to watch grease 2 but i trust your judgement tbh

    • Agreed, Gattaca needs more viewership.

      I understand the curiosity but THE DATA, where does it go and who gets their mitts on it!?!

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