it does still make me insane specifically how many queer people lovingly embrace astrology. I went to a poetry workshop yesterday that was genuinely quite good but also included an option to disclose astrology designations during introductions and so many people broke out some variation of “I’m a [x] sum but I have a [y] placement and it SHOWS” girl no it doesn’t. that’s meaningless correlation you completely invented the causation
I’d say that rejecting biological determinism in favor of space gas determinism isn’t the slay the astrology queers think it is but if I’m being completely honest I fear that many members of our community haven’t even really rejected biological determinism so much as sprinkled a layer of glitter on it
do you think the dc universe has a news site like the onion that’s just like…
“meddling parents still alive, preventing bruce wayne from adopting yet anther orphan”
“new study shows that 87% of all americans class superman as american citizen despite being born on a different planet, but only 49% avoided eye contact when asked about why martian manhunter doesn’t count”
“area woman thanking her lucky stars that batman and superman fell out on the same day she was due to go to boss’ niece’s bat mitzvah”
“arkham guard astonished by trip to iron heights, only now learning what locks are for”
“area man pretty sure he should be making more than $60k a year if his boss has 10 billion dollars to waste on robotic exosuit”
“breaking news: lex luthor sues superman for loss of earnings, claims that continually losing fights to him is negatively affecting his work ethic”
“Hub City mayor declares state of unemergency after two hours without a violent crime”
“grown man who dresses in halloween costume every night thinks clown his biggest problem”
“disappointed child realizes Booster Gold at birthday party the real one, not just a guy in a costume”
“drunk Aquaman rampages through ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ ride”
“new Teen Titan not attached to any Justice League member wonders why they’ve been issued a uniform with a red shirt”
“Earth totally not a tax haven, say Green Lantern Corps as they assign eighth lantern to same planet”
“’no one knows how to stop him’ says armed police officer as non-powered clown-themed supervillain begins 82nd massacre this year”
Halfway through these I forgot that these were supposed to be Onion headlines and not actual headlines for the DC universe.
Y'all have got to stop virulently hating men. Like, I’m sorry, I fucking hate the patriarchy too, but the patriarchy isn’t just men and saying it is just exculpates complicit women. I am the mother of a young boy, and I look at this precious, empathetic 8 year old boy I’m raising and I don’t know where online is safe for him. Places like this will say he’s evil just for his gender, and other places will say “we’ll be your friend if you hate with us,” and still others will radicalize him in other ways. Where is he supposed to go? Why are we saying the radicalization is the fault of the kids just trying to find a place to hang?
Like this is seriously getting urgent. You have got to fucking stop conflating the patriarchy and men. 53% percent of white women voted for Trump. Men aren’t the problem. White supremacy and Christian patriarchal structures are two examples of patriarchy-reinforcing structures that aren’t solely couched in maleness. Men aren’t the problem, and pretending they are drives more men into more welcoming extremist spaces and also ignores all the parts of this that are forwarded by people who aren’t men.
What I see happening all over is scared, depressed, lonely people looking for someone they’re allowed to hate automatically, unquestioningly - someone they’re allowed to place all the blame on. Fascism says people of color, non-Christian people, queer people, etc., are the ones they’re allowed to hate.
And way too many of yall answer that no, it’s leftist to hate men instead. You are doing *the exact same thing they are.*
Fucking knock it off.
The answer is we’re not supposed to hate anyone automatically based on their immutable personal characteristics. Hate the specific people who’ve hurt you. Hate the self-reinforcing systems that let them get away with hurting you. Hate the strangers who prop up those systems. Hate the fascists. Hell knows I hate Donald Trump, but it’s not because he’s a man, it’s because he’s a piece of shit.
Hate the pieces of shit, not the gender.
But don’t hate men just because they’re men. That’s unhelpful, stupid, insane, and entirely counterproductive. Fucking. Stop.
preach it sister
A guidline I’ve found helpful— if the generalized statements and things you’re saying would make a child feel bad or ashamed about something they can’t change, then the things you’re saying are wrong and you need to stop.
This also applies to things beside race, sexuality, and gender like hair/eye color, accent, body type, birth country, etc.
My brother recently bought a house in the rural outskirts of his city, and apparently it’s a real fixer-upper, but that’s always been the kind of thing he loves doing. So he has a truck now (to haul stuff for all the repairs he’s doing on the house). He’s already fond of flannel. He bakes his own bread.
And now a cat has turned up, so he has a cat.
With Christmas rapidly approaching, it’s dawning on me that my own brother is, in fact, Hallmark Christmas Movie Small Town Man.
If he shows up to Christmas dinner with a bewildered hedge fund manager who got stranded in his town and fell in love with him over an ice sculpture carving competition or some shit, I’m gonna have to stage an intervention.
My brother recently bought a house in the rural outskirts of his city, and apparently it’s a real fixer-upper, but that’s always been the kind of thing he loves doing. So he has a truck now (to haul stuff for all the repairs he’s doing on the house). He’s already fond of flannel. He bakes his own bread.
And now a cat has turned up, so he has a cat.
With Christmas rapidly approaching, it’s dawning on me that my own brother is, in fact, Hallmark Christmas Movie Small Town Man.
If he shows up to Christmas dinner with a bewildered hedge fund manager who got stranded in his town and fell in love with him over an ice sculpture carving competition or some shit, I’m gonna have to stage an intervention.
My brother recently bought a house in the rural outskirts of his city, and apparently it’s a real fixer-upper, but that’s always been the kind of thing he loves doing. So he has a truck now (to haul stuff for all the repairs he’s doing on the house). He’s already fond of flannel. He bakes his own bread.
And now a cat has turned up, so he has a cat.
With Christmas rapidly approaching, it’s dawning on me that my own brother is, in fact, Hallmark Christmas Movie Small Town Man.
If he shows up to Christmas dinner with a bewildered hedge fund manager who got stranded in his town and fell in love with him over an ice sculpture carving competition or some shit, I’m gonna have to stage an intervention.
asked my cat if he wanted dinner or the slop that kills him and my twin was like “he can hear you, you know?” and when I looked down at my cat he was like this
that’s the face of a cat that wanted the slop that kills him but couldn’t answer your question
For historical context, this is about making a panel for the AIDS quilt, a memorial project which began in San Francisco in 1985. Due to the stigma surrounding both homosexuality and AIDS during this time, victims of the epidemic were often cremated and disposed of or buried without ceremony, their bodies unclaimed by their families or origin or held by hospitals rather than released to same-sex partners.
Each panel in the AIDS quilt memorializes a life lost to the disease. Each panel is 3′ x 6′ (approximately 1 meter wide and 2 meters long), the approximate dimensions of a cemetery plot. The quilt, which then consisted of 1,920 panels representing 1,920 individuals lost to AIDS, was first displayed in Washington DC in 1987. The public response was immediate, positive, and overwhelming, and the quilt began taken around the country to be displayed in more cities. At each stop, the names of the dead were read out loud. At each stop, more panels were added.
By the time the quit returned to the US capital in 1988, it had more than 8,000 panels.
The quilt continues to grow. Today, it has over 50,000 panels memorializing over 100,000 of our dead. It’s too large now to physically display in its entirety, but you can view the entire thing online. There are also curated virtual displays of just panels which honor the Black and native people killed by the virus because in the US (and likely abroad, although I don’t know enough about public health elsewhere to say so with confidence), communities of color are disproportionately impacted by epidemics, as we have seen time and time again.
You can learn more about the quilt and its history here, and you can learn how to add a panel to the quilt here.
If you’re unable to access the quilt, here’s a zoomed in screenshot of the bottom left corner:
The quilt is made up of several panel, each panel itself consisting of 1 to 8 quilts.
Here’s a screenshot of the whole thing:
This is only about half of the people - our people - who were left to die because the government didn’t think “the gay disease” was a problem. This is why we march.
The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
I’ve had AIDS for 33 years. And yeah, I want a medal - for every single damn one of us, alive and dead.
My disease is not a “content warning” or a “trigger” or anything that should cause you to flinch.
It’s how I live. It’s my infrastructure. It’s what makes me tangible, perceiveable, real.
If every shred of HIV was taken from me, I would still have AIDS. It’s *mine.* We say it like that: “my AIDS.”
Once upon a time, it was the worst thing in the world, but I was undaunted.
Life has since shown me that the world contains much worse, and I remain undaunted.
I’m not your trigger warning or an example or a wake-up call or a Skeletor cosplayer, despite my ravaged and disfigured face.
I’m just an old queer with AIDS who fought like hell and got lucky and blessed.
Image description: a warning that reads “Attention! It is now Foxgirl Friday. happy Foxgirl Friday to the following: furries, trans women, Linux users, people who work in conservation. All others: seek shelter immediately.” There is pixel art in the bottom left of a foxgirl with orange hair, ears, and a tail, wearing a red shirt and a mischievous expression. End description
its crazy that windows has enshittified to the point that you’re better off without it despite 30+ years of software exclusivity
I am the sort of person that, if you told me two years ago what Linux is and that in a couple short years I’d be really into it, I would not have believed you, because this stuff is 100% Not My Thing.
But, I was bored one weekend, and I had recently read about this weird Linux thing that used to exist in the 90s in a period computer science article. Figured I’d look up if it was still around and kill some time reading up on its history and timeline.
A day later I was digging through thousands of opinions on the best distros, and digging through my desk drawer for a USB stick that I didn’t mind wiping. Just wanted to fuck about on a spare partition, figured someone who knows the basics of computers and serves as her extended family’s free tech support could do with picking up some Linux skills to complement her Windows skills and general subject knowledge.
After a few weeks, I had to boot into Windows again.
The best way to find out how much you hate something, is to get some time away from it, with something that’s less horrible.
I’d been just quietly tolerating Windows ever since XP died, and took with it my enthusiasm for ripping the system apart and customizing everything to look and work how I want it to - what’s the point learning how this new system works, when I’ll have to learn a newer one in a few years, over and over and over.
hey can we stop it with the “[maladaptive trauma response] is actually selfish” line. “people pleasing is selfish” it’s a defence mechanism. “refusing to communicate your needs is actually selfish in the long term” it’s a defence mechanism. “expecting reassurance from others is selfish” it’s! a! defence! mechanism!
these behaviours are not ideal. hence me using the word ‘maladaptive’. but they don’t come from nowhere. if someone is people pleasing that hard it is likely because there was a time when harm would come to them for not doing so. reframing that behaviour as “selfish” does not do anyone any good. it just makes them feel worse for. you guessed it. how they inadvertently make other people feel. someone is not going to recover from obsessive people pleasing by being told “the real people pleasing behaviour is open communication :)”
now. my specific kind of trauma makes it really hard for me to exist peacefully alongside an obsessive people pleaser. I freak out if I feel like people are lying to me. so I understand the urge to reframe those behaviours in this way. but even purely from a practical standpoint it just isn’t helpful or useful advice for someone to take on. it really isn’t
Accommodation I should have: someone to follow me around and whisper in my ear, medieval court advisor style, how to correctly respond when presented with different social situations
“My liege, that was a rhetorical question you just heard. Do not answer it.”
“Sorry I have a boyfriend” is of course a time-tested and reasonably reliable no-fault rejection strategy. But what many tacticians may not realize is it has an even more powerful counterpart, the preemptive boyfriend name-drop. This is when a conversation with a stranger veers into high-alert territory and you make up a guy named Raphael (my boyfriend) who you mention due to his extremely-relevant interest in the current topic of conversation.
Raphael is a powerful tactical piece here due to his simultaneous love or hatred of every single topic ever, due to he’s not real.
You’re an ancient Greek man coming home from 4 months of war to find your wife 3 months pregnant. Now you’ve embarked on a solemn quest: to punch Zeus in the face.
Soon after you begin your quest, you encounter another man in a similar situation. You decide to join forces, as two mortal men stand a better chance at punching Zeus than one.
Two villages over, you encounter a woman who had relations with Zeus and was left with a highly aggressive half-boar half-man offspring. She too feels your anger and offers to join your quest.
By the time you reach Mount Olympus, you’ve amassed a large and formidable army of cuckolded/ravished mortals, demigods with daddy issues, mythical creatures with scores to settle, and a seamstress who you’re pretty sure is Hera in disguise.
Zeus never stood a chance.
What I find best about this scenario is that the original wife probably expected to be murdered for her infidelity at worst or have her relationship with her husband ruined as he grew to resent her baby, at best.
Instead this man looked at his beloved and said, “who did it?”
And she replied “Zeus,” accepting he probably wouldn’t believe her.
And then he sighed, strapped his sandals back on and said, “I’ll be back before the baby is born.”
“Where are you-?”
“The lord of the sky came into my house, molested my wife in my bed and ate my food. I am going to settle the score.”
“Darling, he’ll kill you.”
“He may try, if he would like.”
You’re so right, that IS the best part.
I’m personally caught up on the seamstress.
“The pathway up Olympus is guarded by dozens of traps and perils strong enough to thwart even the Titans. How are we going to get past all of…” the shepherd boy with golden eagle feathers gestured uselessly at the slopes above them, particularly the herd of eight-legged goats snorting fire.
“There’s a way around,”
Yiorgos
said, though he was not specifically asked. But he had been the first to begin the march on Olympus, and so felt obligated to take the lead whenever possible, “In the stories there’‘s always a way around whatever obstacles the Gods place in our way.”
He hadn’t meant the words to come out as a question, but they had that lilt to them none-the-less. And even though he hadn’t meant it to be a question, much less a question directed at anyone specific, it was directed at one all the same. Just as the eagle-feathered shepherd boy’s had.
“Way I heard it,” a woman’s voice said. Rough with the Mycenaean Greek equivalent of a backwoods accent, and with the depth of a farmer’s wife who straps cattle to her back to carry to market, “there’s a back path. Hidden behind an invisible door that only one key in the world can open.” Everyone’s eyes had turned to the broad older woman in heavy shawl sitting amidst supplies in the foremost cart. “Least, that’s what my grand-mammy always told me.” she added after a moment of dozens of eyes on her.
“Oh, we were so foolish!” That was Lydia, a lithe waif of a woman, many months pregnant, sitting opposite the seamstress in the wagon. “Of course there’d be a.. a quest. They’d keep such a key in the depths of Tartarus or in the golden chariot of Apollo, or, or-”
“Or”, the older woman cut her off in a voice both firm, but much gentler than she used on anyone else, “he’s like all husbands and has been promising to move the key someplace better for the past three thousand years but hasn’t gotten around to it.” She gestured vaguely to the hillside, “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was under, say, that bush right over there.”
It was. Of course. And everyone in the caravan agreed that it had been a very lucky and wise guess from the nameless woman and for the upteenth time since she first sat herself down in the front wagon and announced she was coming along with no further explanation, each and every last member very purposefully gave no further thought to the matter.
Honestly I think people really underestimate the power they have as individuals, to work to change people’s minds and society at large. Like there’s power in every single one of us, strengths and weaknesses etc that I wish more people could see in themselves. It may not always feel like you’re making an impact, but each little difference for the better you help to bring to the world does matter. Each good we do matters, it may not change the world singlehandedly but it’s a team effort. Love you
my earnest hope for 2025 is that everyone embraces being a little weirder and freakier and less judgmental bc we will all be better off for it like to charge reblog to cast
Admitting that he had never been more conflicted about a ruling in his life, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was reportedly torn Monday over a case in which both sides offered compelling scuba trips. “While there’s a strong historical precedent for a lavish excursion to Bali, the plaintiff has instead taken a more unorthodox approach and presented an all-expenses-paid diving trip off the shores of Aruba,” said a thoughtful, inquisitive Thomas, adding that while he had supported taking vacations with donors to Southeast Asia for years, he was starting to see the appeal of visiting the white sandy shores of the Caribbean.
nimble, a border collie-papillon mix, wins the 12” class in the 2024 masters agility championship. the first time a mixed breed has won at westminster ever.
do not. respond to my doylist criticism with a watsonian explanation.
just because i don’t see an explanation in the notes yet
‘Doylist’ and 'Watsonian’ are basically two different lenses to use when analyzing a story. A Watsonian approach comes from within the story, exploring and explaining it in the way a character would in-universe, hence the name referencing John Watson. Doylist (as in Arthur Conan Doyle) is analysis from an outside perspective, treating the story as a story written by someone and focusing on more meta aspects.
If someone asks, “Why did [Character X] say [Y],” a Watsonian explanation would focus on the in-universe factors: the character’s backstory, motive, personality, beliefs, and so on, all things that someone within the story could perceive. A Doylist explanation might focus on thematic relevance and highlight authorial intent; why did the author choose to write that?
Both forms of analysis are valuable, and ideally, a story should hold up to both internal and external scrutiny, and those analyzing a story should recognize and use both perspectives. The reason a Watsonian explanation can’t be used to counter a Doylist critique (per the original post) is that it fails to recognize the core of the critique. A post about how strange it is that an author chose to write something a certain way cannot be countered by providing the in-universe explanation, because those are the exact choices the Doylist lens is criticizing. In the same sense, you can’t counter a Watsonian critique by explaining authorial intent or some such. (Authorial intent is not authorial success.)
🫁
ID: grainy image of a white woman glaring at someone in a beanie and hoodie who has their back to the viewer
do not. respond to my doylist criticism with a watsonian explanation.
just because i don’t see an explanation in the notes yet
‘Doylist’ and 'Watsonian’ are basically two different lenses to use when analyzing a story. A Watsonian approach comes from within the story, exploring and explaining it in the way a character would in-universe, hence the name referencing John Watson. Doylist (as in Arthur Conan Doyle) is analysis from an outside perspective, treating the story as a story written by someone and focusing on more meta aspects.
If someone asks, “Why did [Character X] say [Y],” a Watsonian explanation would focus on the in-universe factors: the character’s backstory, motive, personality, beliefs, and so on, all things that someone within the story could perceive. A Doylist explanation might focus on thematic relevance and highlight authorial intent; why did the author choose to write that?
Both forms of analysis are valuable, and ideally, a story should hold up to both internal and external scrutiny, and those analyzing a story should recognize and use both perspectives. The reason a Watsonian explanation can’t be used to counter a Doylist critique (per the original post) is that it fails to recognize the core of the critique. A post about how strange it is that an author chose to write something a certain way cannot be countered by providing the in-universe explanation, because those are the exact choices the Doylist lens is criticizing. In the same sense, you can’t counter a Watsonian critique by explaining authorial intent or some such. (Authorial intent is not authorial success.)
🫁
ID: grainy image of a white woman glaring at someone in a beanie and hoodie who has their back to the viewer
do not. respond to my doylist criticism with a watsonian explanation.
just because i don’t see an explanation in the notes yet
‘Doylist’ and 'Watsonian’ are basically two different lenses to use when analyzing a story. A Watsonian approach comes from within the story, exploring and explaining it in the way a character would in-universe, hence the name referencing John Watson. Doylist (as in Arthur Conan Doyle) is analysis from an outside perspective, treating the story as a story written by someone and focusing on more meta aspects.
If someone asks, “Why did [Character X] say [Y],” a Watsonian explanation would focus on the in-universe factors: the character’s backstory, motive, personality, beliefs, and so on, all things that someone within the story could perceive. A Doylist explanation might focus on thematic relevance and highlight authorial intent; why did the author choose to write that?
Both forms of analysis are valuable, and ideally, a story should hold up to both internal and external scrutiny, and those analyzing a story should recognize and use both perspectives. The reason a Watsonian explanation can’t be used to counter a Doylist critique (per the original post) is that it fails to recognize the core of the critique. A post about how strange it is that an author chose to write something a certain way cannot be countered by providing the in-universe explanation, because those are the exact choices the Doylist lens is criticizing. In the same sense, you can’t counter a Watsonian critique by explaining authorial intent or some such. (Authorial intent is not authorial success.)
🫁
ID: grainy image of a white woman glaring at someone in a beanie and hoodie who has their back to the viewer
You know you’ve fucked up when you go to a doctor and the thing you have wrong with you has been named after an occupation that isn’t a thing anymore. Like imagine a doctor looking at you and going “yeah you’ve got ox-drawn ploughman’s disease. We don’t even test for that anymore. Yeah the reason you’ve never heard of it is because the last known case was in 1927 and happened to some guy who was like 98 years old and didn’t believe in modern medicine of the time. What the fuck have you been up to.”
all this talk of people who like winter are sickos no actually people who like summer are insane Well i think the whole beautiful world is worth loving so jot that down
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
