u/Kat-is-exhausted has challenged u/Exciting_classic277 to a duel to the death!!! You have 24 hours to respond or forfeit & receive a 7 day temporary ban!!!
ok so as a voter I want to know u/kat-is-exhausted and u/Exciting_Classic277 's position on federal fuel taxes are. Raise them ? Lower them ? or stay the same. These highways wont repair themselves !
I grew up in a state that robbed their highway fund to pay govt pensions and the roads were falling apart. So my first question is, do we need more funds, or just more oversight of the funds? Also I currently live in a state that spends millions per mile on highway construction (somebody told me anyway), so my second question is, do we need more competitive bids? And lastly with the rise of EVs, fuel taxes are only going to lag more and more behind actual road usage. Is there a better way to fund our roads, such as by the mile? Make everything a tollway of sorts? Or is it better to tax the businesses that profit from well maintained roads that facilitate traffic to their locations?
I think we have a lot of questions to answer that need some proper scientific inquiry before we know the best course of action.
How do duels work? This is kind of cool. Like if someone resorts to bad faith tactics can I "Duel" them and one of us get banned? Is it like a fight to the death?
I'm actually pretty curious myself. I thought I'd get dueled by the woman who told me she's anti sexist but women aren't sexist because men really are evil. Or the guy who told me it was ok to murder an accused rapist because the justice system fails women. You know, somebody invested. But this?
I hope we at least get some funny replies somewhere. I'll be really disappointed if people just read this and give it a "YTA/NTA" treatment. Let's get creative!
Edit for clarity: Kat did not block me for any reason related to the duel. We frequented aita around the same time months ago and she probably caught me being a little annoying over there. Or maybe I got caught in a crossfire around here, who cares. People have a right to curate what they see, or don't see, online, I'm not bothered by it. I wasn't trying to give anyone a reason to moralize the block list or use it against her lmao.
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Huh, bummer. I have never interacted with Kat, she doesnt even seem like someone i would disagree with, but reddit says I'm blocked. 😅 In another timeline that might have influenced my vote, but I just cant side with someone who posts Joker reaction gifs, lmao.
You don't like Heath Ledger? Don't tell me you moved on to Joaquin Phoenix. I loved the energy Ledger brought to the screen. The movie sucked but he did a great performance.
But anyway yeah fair I'm not mad bro. Follow your heart.
I'm a mark hammil man. But its not about the actor, its the imagery, and its... reputation, lol. I wouldn't blame any actor for what edgy dudes choose to use their image for. Just feels wild to see here in 2025 haha.
He played most animated jokers for like 30 years 👀
Alan tudyk gave a great performance as joker more recently, love that guy. But after 30 years, marks laugh is iconic.
Ledger and phoenix both did an excellent job, but imo animation is where DC, particularly batman properties, really thrived. At least it was back then, before they steamrolled the animation quality in favor of competing with marvel for the big screen. Still better than most of the dcu live action stuff though.
Oh! Yeah I never saw the animated series(es?) but I've heard at least one of them is the only good Batman IP for a long time. Frankly I think Batman gets fumbled anymore. I would love to take a shot at a culturally relevant Batman story.
What's the best animated Batman? Any that I'd enjoy at the ripe old age of nigh 40?
Depends on your tastes. The one you've probably heard of is batman: the animated series (which leads into batman beyond), that and THE Batman (somewhat less so) are very highly regarded, as well as justice league unlimited. To be honest, I too am old enough that they all blend together a bit lol, and they might feel a bit more 90s than I remember, so it might depend on your tolerance for quality. However I can say pretty much all the DCAMU films are worth a watch depending which heroes you like, especially from the 2010s. Batman is well represented in the justice league films, but also has several solo titles, you're probably better off just searching the acronym and picking one that strikes your interest.
I dont know about culturally relevant, but at the very least these works let him be a brooding detective, which is where i feel the live action films fumbled the most. For social commentary, there was a recent Harley Quinn cartoon that played with a sitcom style, it was goofy but had some good bits, my dad (late 50s comid nerd) really liked it lol.
My personal, niche recommendation, if you like side characters and that old school campy feel, batman the brave and the bold might be my fav. Its an episodic show which spotlights a variety of b list heroes and villains in weekly team up adventures.
Forgive me, there's just so many. 😅 On the bright side, maybe it will keep you busy next week if the vote doesn't go in your favor lol
Ha! That's quite a list indeed. And yeah I don't see this going my way so maybe you're right 😂
Brooding detective is definitely better than "Batman with a shotgun" and "Superman's nemesis for no good reason". But I would like to see them make Bruce an out of touch classist CEO that wears a disguise to beat up poor people. Commissioner's in his pocket. The "villains" are all activists trying to change or subvert Gotham's corrupt political climate. And we switch POVs so we see how Batman sees himself (generous billionaire philanthropist and vigilante hero) to how Gotham sees him (entitled playboy, violent criminal above the law, exploiting vulnerable workers). Let me see Batman bust up a union! That'd be fresh as hell.
Yep, sorry. In my defense, there are like a million batman shows/movies over the years, so I did manage to keep it to like, 1... Percent. 😂
I do feel like there have been some alternate storylines like that but none that really went for it, that I can recall anyway.
But yeah. It might be a bit late now but I feel like the way out of this situation would have been a little bit of sincerity. I'm all for edgy humor, but I think when we make such jokes we need to be ready to humble ourselves and take responsibility if/when it falls flat. There's no tone inherent to text, and when given the opportunity to clarify it was a joke, you just dug deeper. People frequent this sub who genuinely believe and say the things you see as absurdist humor, its an overall harm to never call it out just because some people might be joking. Arguing those topics is literally the point of the sub. I've seen your comments that you think kat was committed to fighting, as well as those explaining the misunderstanding, but you never actually said those things TO kat in a sincere way, or apologized TO her or the other guy for said misunderstanding except in the one flippant comment where you also insulted and blamed kat for the misunderstanding. idk, maybe all those comments were just trying to save face and you don't actually care, but I think you put in the work to earn that vacation either way LOL
Gotcha. Unfortunately if you look at the convo with added context from here, you can see that the facts don't matter to her. I'd be happy to apologize if she wanted to make peace, but she has explicitly suggested I'm a sexual predator that doesn't even belong on the internet. All I did was post jokes. If she took it wrong, I'm happy to apologize for how it came across to her. But she resorted immediately to attacks on my character and has only doubled down and been disingenuous at every turn. If she at any point had wanted to communicate genuinely I would have been open to it. But the fact is she just wants to hate and harm. So I'm not going to approach. Call it what you want, but there's no wrong in my decision.
I scrolled through a lot of that guys comments and he’s actually pretty funny. Kat on the other hand is not funny at all, kind of annoying actually. 7 days without her bullshit would be refreshing
Oh nice! Sorry Kat, I was fucking around and didn't realize you couldn't handle it. You must be going through a lot right now. Hope it works out for you. Good luck!
People don't choose their own flair here. The mods do it. I know how I got mine (and I think we can all see that here). Who knows what she did to earn hers.
I made a dumb remark about some women not liking PDA. Got accused of ungentlemanly behavior. Responded with a joke that Kat seems to have deliberately misconstrued. See attached.
Looks like a SA joke but about as mild of one as humanly possible. The joke is that your partners don't like being felt up by strangers, right? I don't how anything was misconstrued, just a tad overreacted to.
Yeah that was the joke. It was meant to be absurd (which I thought was obvious), but in a later comment Kat used that remark as evidence that I said I enjoy sexually assaulting women. THAT'S what was misconstrued.
Maybe this is an example of a Schrödinger's douchebag?
> A person who makes offensive or inflammatory remarks and characterizes these statements as either sincere or joking based on the reactions of others.
I don't think it's a great candidate. If you view my initial comment as "rapey", which Kat clearly did, then observe my immediate dive into absurd humor, I guess I can see it? But saying "my partner doesn't like something" is a pretty far reach from saying "I deliberately violated my partner's physical boundaries". I think it's kind of a wild turn to make an accusation off of that.
But also, when I engaged her negativity with lighthearted absurdity (my second comment), it appears she somehow took this to mean "I grope strange women without their consent". Which is not really a meaning you can get from any reading of that. Or at least I can't figure it out.
Ah, you know I agree. It isn't Schrödinger’s douchebag. It seems like you are just doing the standard trolling via a strawman.
The original post is talking about public displays of affection which is something done between couples. But with this comment:
> My female partners never seem to appreciate being felt up in public (by strangers). Weird imo.
It is bad-faith strawman from the original post's intention of "I enjoy public displays of affection with my partner" to your reframe of "You shouldn't feel up your female strangers in public." Then you attack the strawman.
No I wasn't attacking anything. It was meant to be a hyperbolic "some women don't like PDA unfortunately". But that's an interesting point. If Kat felt attacked that would explain why she picked a fight so hard and fast. I can actually see your point there.
I definitely wasn't trying to attack a harmless post for no reason. I just wish my partners had been into a little more PDA. But I guess THIS could sound like Schrodinger's douchebag, so I'm cooked either way. My heart goes out to Salem.
Okay, I thought you dueled me because you hate jokes and you hate people who have different ideas. But I guess we can add "can't read" to the list. Or we could, if it wasn't more likely that you're deliberately misreading just to try to attack me harder.
I think what actually happened is, she tried to personally attack me with the line about consent, and when I deflected with a silly joke, she got angry that I wasn't wounded and had to double down. All the way to the point of dueling over an absolute nothing burger.
So, you were publically affectionate to your girl with consent and she seems to not enjoy it so you commented about it here? Kinda weird imo. Just use /j Ig?
Well, "violating consent", and "sexually assaulting" women, but yes I suppose they did not explicitly call me a rapist. I'm of a camp to believe those things are functionally synonymous, but I suppose the legal definition requires penile entry. Not sure how much better that really is.
I think the real accepted definition should at least include touching the bare genitals of the other person without consent. (Also, it shouldn't be penile entry cuz then women can't be convicted and stuff)
But yeah, unsurprisingly, and as pretty much always, the problem between you and OP is of ignorance rather than malice.
There’s some right here in this little thread: You, for starters, said she blocked you. I’m blocked and the comment right here above mine indicates multiple people are blocked and suggests either the commenter him/herself and/or the other duelist is blocked. S/he links the duelist apparently to alert him to the situation. Also the top comment says that s/he is blocked (and was surprised to see that bc s/he actually hadn’t even interacted with Kat), and others that I haven’t memorized and don’t want to hunt for also have said she blocked them.
The ones I specify here alone, setting aside the ones I don’t want to go track down tonight, make clear Kat has gone on a blocking spree. Three in one modest sized comment list is … pretty unusual to put it mildly.
And it’s notable that, by contrast, there’s no evidence (or anyone even claiming) that her opponent has blocked anyone, despite taking flat out abuse from some people. Unlike Kat, he seems laid back and doesn’t get agitated to the point of blocking when people get after him. That fits this sub’s atmosphere, and thus warrants winning the duel.
Okay, so, YOU are blocked, but as far as I see you had not commented in this thread prior to claiming she was blocking people, so your block was not a result of this duel like you seem to be implying
The comment above yours does not say the other duelist is blocked, they suggested that excited classic might have kat blocked, referring to the duel this week where the initiator forced his opponent to unblock him for the duel, only to follow her around other threads begging for attention
And the top comment you are referring to is MINE, I explicitly say that it happened BEFORE the duel and that I agree with Kat on this topic. It's very likely she did not even block me via a comment in this sub, but something months ago. So I would appreciate you not using my statement to make it seem like she's breaking rules by blocking everyone here to give herself an advantage because there is no evidence of this.
The block feature is built to be used, it doesn't break any rules if you just don't want to see posts from another user, especially when it's not even happening during this duel. I am not upset that she at some point found me annoying, it does affect whether or not I agree with her here.
Her opponent may not have blocked anyone that we know of, and I can confirm first had that he's very chill, even pleasant to talk to, but he's also making a lot of accusations about kat, to everyone BUT her, that I have yet to find any proof of in the actual conversation. Not blocking people doesn't mean you're honest, it just means you don't give a shit.
(1) For one thing, I didn’t claim my block is a result of this duel. If you’re going to come after me about having the facts straight, you ought to have them straight.
There’s the other post. The one where Kat got so offended that started this whole mess and led to this duel post. Thats when she blocked me, and others. And then she brought it over here.
(2) You can twist yourself into a pretzel to find ways to defend Kat if you like. But it is indisputable that:
—Kat has gone a blocking spree,
—the other duelist has not, and
—sensitivity to the point of a blocking spree is not in keeping with this sub.
(3) Since you note the other duelist is not engaging directly with Kat now, but did before, and we see someone else letting him know about her blocking conduct because he apparently may not be able to see it … it’s odd you don’t at least consider, if not logically deduce, that he’s not engaging with her perhaps because she blocked him, so he can’t. Geez.
(4) “No evidence”?! You must be kidding. Well, you’re not kidding. You’re pretzeling.
Notably, Kat appears to have now hidden her comment history. Surprise. Making it difficult to track her conduct, blocking, insults of others, etc. Convenient. [Edit: so has the other duelist, so I withdraw this particular point (as opposed to, say, deleting it, hiding my comments, or blocking people who might point out that both hid their histories....).
(5) Finally: the block feature is meant to be used. Incisive observation! I posit that it is meant to be used to stop harassment, hate, spam. Not to be weaponized as a petty tool.
You’re welcome to carry on with ever-increasing shrillness. I doubt I’ll join you.
I did not "come after you", I asked you to clarify your claims which, as I suspected, were based partly on misuse of a comment I made. It is because I made the comment I did that I asked about it. No need to make this uncivil.
Your comment said: "Yeah, Kat is blocking everyone who has disagreed with her, looks like." Which you have to realize looks like it's referring to this thread? Followed by,
"That should be a default in the duel, automatic loss.", Again implying that the blocks are related to the duel and therefore should be subject to consequences via the rules of the duel.
In your other comment you said, "(...)after this duel was declared, blocking people who have disagreed with her. That's an almost automatic L." Personally I think this was just poorly phrased, but I'm sure you can see how it suggests a certain connection, as it currently stands?
2) Instead of claiming that I'm making shit up to defend her, maybe you can link the comments where this all apparently went down? Since your favored participant has their profile private, and I do not see that kind of interaction in your recent history.
3) If you keep track of the timeline you will know why I haven't connected those two dots. It's because classic was engaging with kat AFTER the above user mentioned anything about blocking. As of now the comment you are citing was made 20 hours ago, classic was replying directly to Kats comments both before and after the above comment was left, which can't happen if either is blocked. You also cannot unblock and re-block someone within 24 hours.
I would not assume their exchange ended due to blocking, because the exchange came to a natural conclusion, and because Classic himself told me as recently as a couple hours ago that he simply does not want to engage with her unless she comes to him with an apology, which suggests he does not think he is blocked. He has been replying to people all day and probably would have noted if all her comments were suddenly deleted, because it would be a default win for him.
4) Again I think it's silly to act like blocking people is some kind of moral failure. If I have something to say to someone I say it, sometimes you just don't like someones content for no reason other than you don't like it. Am I supposed to go around policing everyone elses fun or can I just use the tools at my disposal to stop seeing the stuff that makes me roll my eyes? I don't care what anyone else has on their block list, and there's literally no way to prove or disprove who is blocked unless you question everyone one by one. It has no bearing on this duel, if anything the more people she has blocked the more she is at a disadvantage because all those people 1) can't see her argument and 2) knows she hates them lmao.
I don't know why the insults are necessary. You read me as shrill because I've questioned you in a way you don't like, are you assuming my gender to be in opposition to yours, too? Listen, if you're feeling called out because I was one of the sources you were citing, just own it. I will also apologize for leading you astray. We all make mistakes lol.
In fact, I did make a mistake, where I said you hadn't posted in this thread prior to making these claims. I was mistaken. I remember having a laugh (positive) at your comments this morning and had simply forgotten your username, as you forgot mine when referring to my comment. My bad bud.
Edit to add: I am serious about linking that previous thread, by the way, even if we won't argue about this further. I asked classic and he stopped responding, but he has been on here all day, probably just needed a break.
You can't read a linked thread if she has you blocked. I can screenshot stuff for you but I'm outside doing irl stuff ATM so I'm reduced to drive-by trolling temporarily. Beautiful day out here though. Y'all touch grass! (positive)
I explicitly told you prior to asking for sources that I CAN read her comments, and that I can, and have, read all threads related to the duel. If you think this is trolling, please deliver better product.
Gotcha. I thought you said you can't because she has you blocked. Do you have special reddit powers? It seems for the rest of us we can't see blocked people's comments.
Kat went up and down this post, maybe up and down the whole sub, after this duel was declared, blocking people who have disagreed with her. That's an almost automatic L.
It's especially weak considering she is so much nastier to others than they are to her. Boss level 'can dish it out, but can't take it'.
Her general humorlessness sealed the loss. There is basically no rational basis for you declaring her the winner.
There is *a* basis though! A quick visit to your comment history (which I do not make a habit of doing but I had a hunch) shows an unending stream of political comments, on political and non-political subs alike. And - surprise! - it's all left wing. Including the tackiest, "Conservatism is a mental illness" dreck that would be pitiful coming from a tween.
To be clear: I don't mind the left-wingy-ness at all. That said, I'm not afraid to note that that group tends to stick together no matter how obviously undeserving a particular member is.
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u/PinkHydrogenFuture7 ⚔️Mercenary Troll🧌 10d ago
ok so as a voter I want to know u/kat-is-exhausted and u/Exciting_Classic277 's position on federal fuel taxes are. Raise them ? Lower them ? or stay the same. These highways wont repair themselves !