swankivy.com - links page

This page contains my favorite blogs and sites I go to or read, or favorite articles, divided into categories. Some use slightly off-color language.

ACTIVISM:

The Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN): Obviously this is the place where asexuals can read articles about our orientation and hang out in the forums to meet each other or discuss our issues, as well as work on projects to educate and make asexuality more visible.
Two Whole Cakes: Formerly Fatshionista, this is Lesley Kinzel's site about feminism and body politics, primarily relating to fat activism.
Alas! A Blog: "Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about." Has great articles like The Non-Trans Privilege Checklist.
Stop Street Harassment: All about what women put up with from people hollering at them on the streets and why this isn't a compliment--and what we can do about it.
Schrödinger's Rapist: A guy's guide to approaching strange women without being maced.
The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck: A Shakesville article that explains why women have been taught, through misogyny, that they often have a reason to not trust men.
Derailing for Dummies: While pretending to be a guide for privileged folks to continue oppressing minorities, it actually highlights all the poor arguments people tend to use when confronting marginalized people and why they're ridiculous.
Not Your Mom's Trans 101: Really like this article on Tranarchism regarding some popular misconceptions about trans people, sex, and gender. The rest of the blog is good too.
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack: The famous Peggy McIntosh article which has spawned other privilege checklists. This is a link to a PDF.
An Open Letter to Ann Coulter: A man with Down's Syndrome responds to Ann Coulter using the r-word.
Manboobz: A man ferrets out various examples of misogyny on the Internet and deconstructs it with lots of mocking. It's excellent.
Mansplained: A Tumblr made up of submissions featuring accounts of "mansplaining"--when academic men condescendingly explain things, usually to women, usually in the context of sexism.
Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is: John Scalzi writes about how privilege works, using a gaming analogy.
Truth Behind Fat: References: Tons of misconceptions about being fat debunked and discussed. If you want to know more about why being fat is NOT at all necessarily unhealthy, read this.
Sex to Save the Family: A takedown by blue milk discussing the ridiculousness of compulsory sex in a marriage and why women's consent being important these days is not an evil feminist plot to destroy the family.
MRA Deconstructed: An examination of various Men's Rights Activist myths and what's really behind some of the gender-specific problems men have--and it's not what MRAs think.

ENTERTAINMENT AND NEAT STUFF:

Neonflames generative art demo: Wow. Here, you basically can design something that looks like a nebula. It's sort of . . . hauntingly beautiful.
Nanaca Crash: A very addictive Flash game where you're a character who got booted into the air by someone's bike, and you have to try to control where you land (and on whom).
Pictriev: Upload your own photo and watch it rate your face on masculinity, femininity, and age, plus it shows you photos of celebrities who look kind of like you.

SCIENCE AND SKEPTICISM:

Pharyngula: Some of the best biologically oriented and snarkily skeptic articles around. This guy is quite a joy to read.
Skepchick.org: A nice blend of science, skepticism, and feminism that I love to read.

WRITING AND LITERATURE:

Impish Idea: Articles about writing and discussions of specific books, much of which revolves around criticism of books I myself have criticized.
Conjugal Felicity: This site makes fun of fiction and terrible authors in detail. Sometimes they quote or link to me because I make fun of the same stuff.
Slush Pile Hell: A Tumblr on which a grumpy literary agent shares his favorite query letter disasters.
Foreword Literary's Submission Guidelines: An April Fool's gag featuring ridiculous guidelines. You'll laugh if you know anything about the publishing industry.

FUNNIES:

Cake Wrecks: Photos of professionally prepared cakes gone horribly wrong. (My favorites are always the terrible typo cakes.)
Derp: Awkward and silly pictures of people and animals. All the Herp that's fit to Derp.
Eric Conveys an Emotion: Awesome. Watch Eric and his expressive face acting out emotions and situations too funny for words. He doesn't update anymore, though.
Homestar Runner: Umm, pretty much indescribable. It's a Flash site with various toons and amusing crap. Homestar Runner is a weird armless guy with a peculiar way of speaking and an even more peculiar way of acting. You can see him acting weird, and read the fan e-mails of his rival Strong Bad, as well as play fun Flash games and listen to goofy original music and stuff. It's just not something I can sum up, so go there and click the "intro" button to get an idea.
Hyperbole and a Half: Allie Brosh's fantastic comics about her life--her dogs, her childhood, and . . . oddly enough . . . her depression (yes, she makes it both funny and poignant).
Lousy Book Covers: What it says on the tin. This guy comments very briefly on poorly designed book covers.
Not Always Right: Customer service-related horror stories site which always has loads of accounts that remind me why I never want to work in retail again.
Not Racist But: This is actually more depressing than funny, but it's set up to make fun of these people so I guess it's more of a joke site. Features Facebook updates from public profiles involving people saying horribly racist things and then claiming not to be racist.
The Onion: Satirical news site which is actually less absurd than the real news sometimes.
Picture Is Unrelated: Pictures of stuff that is so bizarre you feel like there has to be a story there. BUT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS.
Reasons My Son Is Crying: A parent takes pictures of his kid crying and explains what "horrible" thing has caused the breakdown. He now takes submissions from other parents.
Shit My Dad Says: A Twitter feed featuring a young man's septuagenarian father and the advice, insults, and crazy shit this rambly old guy says. (He uses very bad language regularly.)
Shit My Students Write: A Tumblr featuring nuggets of, ahem, wisdom written by students when they're trying to sound smart.
This Is Photobomb: People "bomb" photos by doing something silly, creepy, or weird in front of or behind the intended subjects. It's often truly hilarious and occasionally disturbing.
Steve, Don't Eat It!: This is a hilarious blog in which Steve, our hapless protagonist, subjects himself to various food horrors and describes the experiences in frightening detail (with even more frightening illustrations, sometimes). I laughed until I cried. Beware the foul language.

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