the more i try to explain gender to cis people the more i understand plato’s allegory of a cave
plato: the shadows are like a surface level understanding and coming out of the cave and seeing the actual objects is what being a philosopher is like
me: this is stupid and pretentious
cis person: girl is when pink and flower and boy is when blue and guns
me: oh no theyre still in the cave
FUCK.
Ahh, Plato. A surefire way to make me reblog.
At first, the philosopher is fixed in place, unable to even turn his head, trapped in the rigid structures of the beliefs and ideas of his society. Even of his fellow man he sees only the shadow, the outline.
Then something happens and his bonds loosen, he is able to turn his head and see the other prisoners, the priests carrying the items, the fire that casts the shadow. And he sees it for the puppet show it is.
Some people cannot handle this, they choose to reject the nuance and the depth of the real world and instead retreat to the simple, easy shadows of curated pseudo-reality.
Of course, many never even get as far as turning their heads, of looking sideways at the world and questioning what they’re taught. but the philosopher, he breaks free of his bonds, rises to his feet, and explores the cave.driven by curiosity and a need to understand, He meets the priests. He examines the fire, he tests the objects.
Some who get this far choose to join the priesthood, to use their rudimentary understanding to become a part of the puppet show and control what others see.
But the philosopher sees that the fire itself is but a manmade construction. A flawed and pale reflection of something greater, so he searches for a way out of the cave. And on the surface he sees the sun.
————————————–
Comparing this to the exploration/presentation of gender, from my position as only a poor philosopher myself
So many people never see beyond the surface presentation. The pink and the flowers, as OP said. They are locked into that rigid understanding our society raises us with, albeit perhaps a little more flexible than in decades past. They never even question it.
Some of us stop to question our own identities, and perhaps we see flaws. Ways in which we don’t line up with ’the way things are’ and so we try to conform, suppress the ways in which we think we fall short of the expectations placed upon us. I know I’ve run afoul of that many times. Even now that I’ve begun transitioning, I’m still trying to conform, just to a different set of standards.
Some people though, they push back against the social construction. They rebel against the strictly delineated gender roles and in so doing, change them. Of course there are those who instead seek to change them back, to constrict instead of expand. These are the priests, deciding what shadows should be cast on the wall. Controlling what the prisoners see.
What it means to see the sun, I do not yet know. But I can speculate. Gender is a construct. An inexpertly crafted set of rules and conventions assembled by group consensus; What it means to be masculine or feminine. What makes a person attractive. What their proper place and role should be. And I’ve seen these things shift and change even in my own lifetime, almost unnoticed.
And I’ve met people who have revelled against the very core concept. Who dress and act and present entirely for their own comfort and happiness, and not for the benefit of society’s judgement. I aspire to that.
Our school used to ask children who were late questions about maths, but those that they can’t answer yet. And then they made kids write down that they don’t know math. My 11yo classmate (who was always great at math) was crying after this.
Oh god, my elementary school was hell.
I remember this one music teacher who, for some reason, REALLY fucking hated autistic kids. I would know, because everyone in my weird therapy group was targeted while everyone else was ignored.
I saw her physically drag a kid out and threaten to get him suspended because he was to scared to dance solo in front of his peers.
There was also “lunch detention,” and they didn’t fuck around with that. They didn’t isolate the students like that, they fucking shoved them in a separate room and forbade them from sitting together or talking. They slowly brought in several teachers and eventually the principal, and they all, one by one, told us that we were horrible, reprehensible people who would never be successful.
And you wanna know HOW you got lunch detention? Not finishing your work on time, even if it was a one-time thing.
State sanctioned child abuse
‘Child abuse’
Y’all are insane.
It may not be child abuse but honestly, some of this shit is fucking insane and harmful to the students than it is helpful.
Tumblr’s new blocking feature is a drastic improvement over the previous “Ignore” setting. Here’s what it can do:
They can’t reblog your posts!
They can’t follow your blog at all!
They can’t view your blog at its address!
They can’t text you while you’re both logged into tumblr!
They can’t walk within 500ft of you thanks to our new forcefield tech!
They can’t contact you at all, even by their own email!
They can’t think of you without crying!
They can’t see you in person! You’re invisible!
They can’t say your name without a burning pain!
They can’t even brush their teeth anymore! Why? Who knows!?
They can’t vote in American elections!
They can’t ever have kids!
They can’t even eat!
They can’t listen to the old Ludwig Van without feeling sick!
They can’t live! They cannot die! All they they see: Absolute horror!
They can’t survive for longer than 3 minutes without a painful injection of sulfuric acid into their eyeballs and genitals!
They can’t ever touch their families again without causing them to fall apart like ashes, all they love, all they know will burn, condemning them to hell itself, alone and broken, tormented by pain and sorrow until the end of time and even then they cannot escape the torment you’ve inflicted upon them for you are become death, destroyer of worlds and they are but ants condemned to your unholy wrath!
They can’t link to your blog in their posts!
Please note that use of the “block” feature is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions, U.S. Federal Law and The Holy Bible.
Not sure which of those three things banning it is the most dangerous to go up against
If the current allowances for politicians and businessmen are any indication, it’s The Holy Bible.
All throughout childhood, while my peers were socializing and making friends, I studied the blade read so many books that I am now almost legally blind, which left me with vast and deeply instinctual understanding of English grammar - and next to no ability to explain how it actually works. Friends will often ask me to proofread their writing and then get very mad when I say things like, “You need to completely reverse this sentence and cut this clause entirely; no, I’m sorry, i don’t know why, I just know that the way it is now ITCHES 😭”
Now, what I want to see is a fantasy story where this plays out with MAGICAL grammar. Someone from a backwater town deeply steeped in folk magic arrives at Wizard Uni where all their fellow students are like “What do you mean, we should add another ‘𝞯∘⋇𝞿’ to the incancation because it 'sounds better’? What do you mean, 'it could just be a regional thing’?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'THIS SPELL JUST FEELS LIKE IT NEEDS A LIVE RAT’????”
“I mean, on the plus side, there’s live rats in a lot of places, so the odds of you casting that spell within close enough range of a live rat to work is pretty high? Like, if you’ve ever had that spell just randomly fizzle out on you, then you tried it again ten minutes later without changing anything and it suddenly worked, a rat probably just wandered into range in that time.”
I want to tell a story to the artists and would-be artists out there.
When I was 19, I made a large oil painting of the nerd I would eventually marry. I poured all my attention and care into this painting. It’s the only art I have from back then that still holds up as a work I’m proud of today.
I entered it into a judged show at the local art center. It got an honorable mention. I went to see the show with my beloved model. One of the judges came up to talk to me, and highlighted that all the judges really liked the painting. It would have placed, except, you see, the feet were incorrect. They were too wide and short, and if I just studied a bit more anatomy-
I called over my future wife, and asked her to take off her shoe. Being already very used to humoring me, she did. The judge looked at her very short, very wide little foot. Exactly as I’d lovingly rendered it. I would never edit her appearance in any way.
The judge looked me in the eye, and to his credit, he really looked like he meant it when he said “Oh I’m so sorry.”
Anyways the moral of the story is that all of those anatomy books that teach you proportions are either showing you averages, or a very specific idea of an idealized body. Actual bodies are much more varied than that.
So don’t forget to draw from observation, and remember that humans aren’t mass produced mannequins. Delight in our variation. Because it’s supposed to be there.
An adaptation of Sherlock Holmes set in a world in which the fictional character/literary juggernaut Sherlock Holmes, and all the subsequent adaptations thereof, still exist.
Sherlock Holmes (pronounced Holl-mess, as he is constantly reminding people) just had the misfortune of having parents who really liked the books, and his attitude towards his fictional counterpart is pretty much the same as that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Sherlock runs a Youtube Theory channel called Mysteries Unwrapped with Sherlock Holmes. He has received no less than seven cease and desist letters from the Conan Doyle estate, all of which he has so faded managed to rebuff by pointing out that that’s literally his name.
(No he won’t change his name. He’s Sherlock Holmes the real live human person. Let Sherlock Holmes the non existent fictional character change his name.)
John is Sherlock’s flatmate. Sherlock almost refused to live with him once he realised that it would mean staying with a medical student named John, and only gave in once John pointed out that: a) he’s a biomedical student, which is completely different from an md, and b) his surname isn’t Watson.
It’s now been three years, which is long enough for them to have developed a genuine friendship, and for John to have a) started working towards his PhD in biotechnology, and b) for him to start dating somebody with the surname Watson.
Sherlock can feel the narrative closing in.
His Youtube channel is meant to be focused on lost media, fan theories and stuff like that, but he keeps accidentally stumbling upon and then solving genuine crimes.
His brother Mycroft may or may not have chosen that name after he transitions specifically to annoy him.
He doesn’t even live in London, but somehow the only flat they could afford was on a street named fucking Baker Street.
Sherlock Holmes and the Unescapable Power of the Narrative.
Hey! That’s me! Wow! Well… I guess that means I’m legal for competitive play now.
Uh oh.
Alright, fine. I can’t keep running away from it, people want Webdexter to review themselves. I said that I would try and refrain because I’d be biased, but I’ll try my best anyhow.
Anyways, this Little Guy is super handsome and cool and everyone loves them. Just Kidding! In all seriousness, I doubt the rush of people wanting to try me out on their teams will last that much longer, but I can’t be sure.
People have, so far, tried many avenues to making use of me: using my reviews skill to perform a specific function in a larger strategy, or making use of me just for my base scores as a bare minimum for max engaging and media literacy in a media lit team, but my favorite has to being used as a team organizer!
Making use of my game knowledge by putting me in a position to manage which of the guy you’ve wrangled so far do what is a pretty decent use, if I do say so myself! The few matches where I got to try were the most fun I’ve had in a while, and I won two of the three. If you do have me join a match for you, consider that strategy!
Still no letter grade for myself, though. Know that I’m an S in my heart, though.
Here’s to every pet-related worker who has to deal with “Her name is BELLA you’ve seen her before just look her up.”
You’re a real one. May you grow in power for every Bella in your system.
I don’t say this to shame owners for their pets names.
But please know that if you bring in your goldendoodle Bella, or your black cat named Loki, or your corgi named Ein - Please give staff some additional info to help locate your pet’s information. Approximately 1/10th of that database is filled with pets who have the exact same name and breed as your animal, don’t get mad if we can’t find them immediately please.
The 605 Bella Smiths in our system would like a word with you.
See also: Teddy, Cooper, Stella, Charlie, Finn, Leo, Lola, Luna …
Like, you try getting one Teddy at a doggy daycare/dog camp to listen to you when there’s three other Teddys in the group. They don’t know their last name. They’re all very cute names. But going out with the dogs at my job is like when I was a kid and literally ten percent of my class was named Jennifer.
I remember taking my cat, Steve, to an animal hospital. To my knowledge, there was not another cat named Steve MyLastName there. There was however a vet tech by the name of Steve MyLastName.
Apparently they distinguished them by calling them Human Steve and Cat Steve.
if the butch woman doesn’t receive tenderness and good faith, it’s not a community space. if the brown woman doesn’t receive tenderness and good faith, its not a community space. if the trans woman doesn’t receive tenderness and good faith, it’s not a community space. and if the brown butch trans woman doesn’t receive tenderness and good faith? it’s about as good as an insurance company with a pride sticker smacked on top of the logo
@rosslynpaladin adding this because you’re right. no ramp, no interpreters for large crowds, no covid precautions, no closed captions or quiet rooms are also excellent examples of a lack of community care
“OK” SO IT SEEMS AS THOUGH MY GENETICALLY MODIFIED KILLER BEETLES HAVE ESCAPED. HAS ANYONE SEEN MY FUCKI🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲OH G🪲OD🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲 SHI🪲🪲T🪲🪲🪲🪲🪲🧪AAAHHHHHHHHOOOHhh Hey. That One Learned thge basics of Chemistry . #Proud
wait do people read first person stories and think they’re the ones in the story???
Saw people talking about not liking first person, which is fair, but their reasoning was like “I would not do that” and I don’t understand that mindset.
First person stories are still about a character. A character making their own decisions. First person isn’t about you???? At least I thought it wasn’t. What am I missing? I’ve always seen first person as just a more in-depth look into a character’s mind and stricter POV. Not as a reader stand-in.
I see first person stories like I’m sitting down across from the narrator getting the wildest tea imaginable
Most accurate way to read a first person story
My coworker, who I read this post aloud to, added that first person could also be seen as you being a ghost in the character’s head, screaming “DON’T DO THAT” at every bad decision the character makes.
Thinking about Kent from Stardew Valley, I’ve often wondered why basically all he talks about to you is about his trauma. Like that’s fine I guess but I’ve casually wondered why it’s pretty much the only thing he ever talks about to you.
But it just occurred to me that Sam, Vincent, and Jodi note that he doesn’t tell them what’s wrong. It’s surprising to Jodi that he hates the sound of popcorn, Vincent and Sam both note that he’s different but they don’t know why, he goes to festivals even though crowds and open fields trigger him.
He’s trying very badly to hide it but he needs to talk about it. And the farmer has no preexisting ideas about him. Depending on how long he’s been gone this time, you may be the only person in town that didn’t know him before he went to the front lines. He’s trauma dumping to you and only you because he has no idea to live up to in your mind. You’re a blank slate. A new relationship. He doesn’t have to pretend to be strong around you. He can just be miserable in your presence and you let him and give him roasted hazelnuts sometimes and roasted hazelnuts remind him of his mom and that’s basically what your relationship boils down to. You’re the person that will stand next to the river with him and go “Damn dude that sucks do you want an egg”
Also he sends you bombs in the mail so he must know something about you. You must be chatting in universe. How else would he know that you have a use for bombs?
Bonus headcanon that Kent got dishonorably discharged for stealing bombs
[ID: tags by @/cityfey that says,
#kent: yeah i cant stand the sound of popcorn anymore #the farmer: damn lemme know if you’re gonna be by the mines then i keep blowing shit up in there #kent: oh no way do you want this bomb i have?
A lot of people encourage trying to work it out, and that’s all fine and good, but sometimes there is no working it out and you don’t need to see a counselor to know that.
There are certainly many situations where someone has no need for a mediator to try and sew things back together for them. There are also times where there is no fixing the marriage because one or both parties have decided already they do not see the other as their partner anymore.
Occasionally forget people genuinely think capitalism is thousands of years old
One time I was talking about Robin Hood with some coworkers and one guy was like “he was bad because the people he helped learned to expect handouts” and I wanted to be like… okay can you explain how that flawed capitalist propaganda applies to feudalism
reminder that capitalism was literally invented in the 16th century
That’s an exaggeration. What was invented in the 16th century was mercantilism. Capitalism really dates for the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the rise of industry and cash crops over artisans and merchants. Vulture capitalism, with the notion that companies have no duties other than generating profit, is even younger.
Capitalism is only 200 years old and I have to say, they have not been an impressive 200 years
I think a lot of this comes from the fact that most people don’t know the formal definition of capitalism. We all know the word, we’ve all seen the jokes, but very few people bother to actually define it unless they’re talking about political theory and philosophy, so it’s easy to end up with the impression that Capitalism = Money Can Be Exchanged For Goods And Services.
Capitalism is the economic system where most of the means of production (i.e. everything people need to have to make the stuff that everyone wants) are owned by private individuals or corporations, who then hire people to provide the labor necessary to produce things, with the intent of selling the output at a profit. It’s the difference between “you’re a carpenter and you make a chair and you sell it” and “you’re Richard Q. Richington who owns a chair factory, and you pay people to sell the chairs you paid other people to make and then all the excess money goes back to you.” There have been Richard Q. Richingtons on and off throughout history, but that being the norm for every single industry is a pretty recent development.
An alarming amount of people seem to think capitalism = all trade, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
one time this nondescript guy came into my dunkin donuts and ordered a small black coffee with blueberry flavor shot, and for some reason that peculiar order stuck with me so much that when, seven months later, i saw him in the parking lot walking towards the door, i quickly made a small black coffee with blueberry flavor shot. he ordered it and i was already holding it.
i would describe his demeanor that second time as “incredulous”
What the fuck who drinks that
it’s such a perfectly bonkers order because like, most unusual orders are maximalist and sugary but this one just combines the most basic drink with the most incongruous little add-on. it’s the order of a simple, regular man who has something wrong with him
this post always makes me laugh. this guy has the weirdest drink order and he probably never goes to this dunkin’ if it took seven months for the barista to see him again. so think about a coffee shop you go to so little you’re not even sure if you’ve gone there before and you walk in and the barista hands you the drink you were about to order before you even ordered it. he will remember that for the rest of his life
“it’s the order of a simple, regular man who has something wrong with him” gets me every time.
Fox news parents think every city is an active battleground at all times
I’ve said it before but it’s genuinely so insane to me, living in Chicago, that reactionaries are convinced this place is Mad Max or some shit. regardless of what neighborhood you’re in, even. I think if you sat one of them down and tried to explain that downtown Chicago is just office buildings and fancy bars, either their head would explode or they would accuse you of lying
I’ve lived in Chicago for over a decade now and my aunt and uncle are convinced that I am going to die in a riot. Before I blocked both of them on social media they’d constantly send me news articles about anything bad that happened “in Chicago.”
Places that were “Chicago” included:
Gary (Indiana)
Milwaukee (Wisconsin)
Madison (also Wisconsin)
The Twin Cities (Minnesota)
Fort Wayne (where they both live) (“STAY SAFE” “Aunt Tiffany what the hell are you talking about that’s where YOU LIVE”)
South Bend (Indiana)
East Chicago (that’s in Indiana btw)
Hammond (also Indiana)
Waukesha (Wisconsin)
Racine (the city in Wisconsin, not the blue line stop)
Inglewood (California) (Not Englewood, the neighborhood in Chicago)
Still images from various tv shows
Still images from the movie Chi-Raq (no, they did not see it, and explaining what the Lysistrata is to these people would have been pointless)
South Central LA in 1992 (during the George Floyd protests, my aunt texted me a youtube video she assumed was in Chicago) (it was the Rodney King riots)
If you vote in North Carolina, you’re going to see this on your ballot. Looks pretty straightforward, right?
But it’s a trap placed by the GOP. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
Voting “For” this referendum will remove the phrase “and every person who has been naturalized” from this section on voter eligibility in the NC constitution. This could place the future voting rights of about 400,000 naturalized US citizens in the state in jeopardy.
Just a reminder - it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote! There’s no evidence that this happens in significant numbers anywhere in the country, and North Carolina has restrictions in place against it happening at all, like the voter ID law that’s now in effect.
(The voter ID law disproportionately affects POC, as well as transgender voters, both of whom are more likely to vote Democratic as well as lack the needed ID, but that’s another post.)
Voting “Against” on this measure will leave the state constitution unchanged.
I keep meeting artists who complain that Tumblr Is Dead then when I check their blog they’ve made four posts in six months and all of them were self promo lmao. Influencers whining that “tumblr is useless for engagement” tells me every part of the problem, like sorry you can’t just show up and farm this userbase for clicks by waving buzzwords around the way you can on tiktok. This is the Excited About Stupid Things website reblog some shitty fanart or die
what do you MEAN people don’t want to hang out in your curated space and chat with you and look at your work when your space is uhhh entirely crossposting shop links from instagram. you look like a fucking bot lmao
Waaaay back in 2012 I was confused about how Tumblr worked - I had created a personal blog so I wanted to showcase personal stuff, like the silly little comics I was making at the time. So i posted my comics and followed a lot of people and scrolled through my dash and liked things but didn’t reblog stuff because I wanted my blog to be kind of a portfolio.
And it was really boring, and I didn’t get any attention for my drawings, and having a tumblr felt kind of useless, except now I could see all the memes I’d been laughing at on imgur in context.
But then there was a comic that was cute and funny and it was about Dune (because there are active dune fans on tumblr!) So I reblogged it because nobody was looking at my blog anyway and the floodgates opened. I started reblogging regularly and adding comments and occasionally adding little comics or sketches on the comments and suddenly tumblr made sense. It was “working,” because *yes* tumblr is a blogging platform, but more than that it is a social media site, and to get it to “work” you had to be social.
And that ended up getting me a job as a cartoonist. And it ended up letting me promote my band better than any other site (and thank you so much to the tumblr users who came to our shows!). And it let me build an audience of thousands of readers for my webcomic. And it is a place where I can share my art and get attention for it and promote stuff I’ve got on sale, and a place where i can link people to my website (because tumblr is still bad as a portfolio, even if it’s good as socal media). But that only works because tumblr isn’t just someplace I post, it’s someplace where i hang out and people know me and we have history and a shared language of memes and shitposts.
I’ve had people ask how i get tumblr to work for me and the answer is, unfortunately, it only works if you live here.
@cl0verfall hey remember when you didn’t reblog like anything
something I’ve been working on overcoming lately…… maybe others can relate
had to reduce The Imposter’s level of detail for recording, but he’s actually very complicated and made up of countless writhing tubes.. ……..which may also be relatable to others.
My stance on the Loch Ness monster is that it’s not real and we should fix that.
Are we making a robot, bioengineering a new creature or trying to Jurassic Park a plesiosaur?
Open to other ideas too of course!
All good choices. I say we set up three teams, give each a billion pounds, and then see who has best result after 5 years.
Worst case, we just end up with three Loch Ness Monsters.
Alternatively, one Jim Henson student who can hold their breath for a long time
Can we also make the ogopogo real too
Well obviously. Loch Ness is just being used as the technology development platform. Once we’ve got at least one Nessie, we can bring this tech to cryptids around the world.
Ogopogo? Real now. Mokele-mbembe? Real. Those “here there be dragons” sea serpents the size of sailing ships? Real. One ate a container ship last week.
The Flatwoods Monster is being worked on, the Jersey Devil got caught up in lawsuits, and we’re currently talking to a polycule in Seattle about becoming the first tribe of Bigfoots.
“The average captain kills 4.6 crew members a year” factoid is a statistical error. Murders Odysseus, who killed 599 members of his crew is an outlier adn should not be counted
