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Another Corner of the Internet

@abundantexpression

linguist | she/her | INFJ 1w9 163 | old enough to unironically use emojis | disabled | Started as an MBTI (re)blog, now mostly miscellany

every time i see people trying to normalize fatness by sexualizing it i think of that post thats like “what are you gonna tell a fucking 12 y/o? dont cry dude youre so thick? stop it” bc like. truly. not only do i personally not want my body to be sexualized lol but also its so harmful to kids like?? being fat is normal in all contexts not just when youre in lingerie with a beat face looking pouty at the camera like can we talk about the variances in human bodies without resorting to making them normal only when theyre sexy, my god

your body is good, not because it is desirable to others, but because you live in it

hey folks, I’m gonna introduce you to two very important fandom terms and they are watsonian and doylist 

they come (obviously) from the sherlock holmes fandom, and they are two different ways of explaining something in a story. say I’m a fan and I notice that, in the original books, watson’s war wound is sometimes in his leg and sometimes in his shoulder. the watsonian explanation is how watson (that is, a person within the story) might explain it; the doylist explanation is how sir arthur conan doyle (a person in real life) would have explained it. 

sherlock explains the migrating war wound by making the shoulder wound real and the limp psychosomatic. the guy ritchie films explain it by having the leg wound sustained in battle before the events of the film and the shoulder wound happen onscreen. the doylist explanation, of course, is that acd forgot where the wound was.

this is very important when we’re discussing stuff like headcanons and word-of-god. I see this when people offer watsonian explanations for something, and then a doylist will say something like “it’s just because the author wrote it that way,” and I see it when a person is criticizing bad writing/storytelling (for example, the fact that quiet in metal gear solid v is running around the whole game in a bikini and ripped tights) and someone comes back with “but there’s an in-story reason why that happens!” (that reason being she breathes through her skin).

there’s nothing wrong with either explanation, and really I think you need both to understand and analyze a text. a person coming up with a watsonian explanation has likely not forgotten that the author had real-life reasons for writing something that way, and a person with a doylist interpretation is likely not ignoring the in-universe justification for that thing. 

but it’s very difficult (and imo often useless, though there are exceptions) to try to argue one kind of explanation with the other kind. wetblanketing someone’s headcanon with “or it could just be bad writing” is obnoxious; dismissing someone’s criticism with “but have you considered this in-universe explanation” is ignoring the point of the criticism. understanding where someone is coming from is important when making an argument; acting like your argument is better because you’re being doylist when they’re being watsonian or vice versa is not.

it’s been 5 million years but this thing still gets notes with like “can someone explain this to me in a shorter, easier way” so here it is:

watsonian: the enchantress cursed the eleven-year-old prince from beauty and the beast and all of his servants because fairies don’t understand why humans would think that’s insane and unfair. I am using in-universe evidence to explain why the character might think or act a certain way, as if belle and the prince and the enchantress are real people.

doylist: the writers didn’t realize that the prince would have been eleven when he was cursed until it was too late to change it, and the servants are also cursed because talking furniture is funny and allows for unique character design. I am explaining this plot point based on an outside knowledge of how writing works and how writers think.

Disabled Person: “I struggle with this.”

Ableist: “I don’t believe you. It’s not normal to struggle with that.”

Disabled Person: “I struggle with this because of a disability.”

Ableist: “I don’t believe you. Unless you’ve been diagnosed, you don’t have a disability.”

Disabled Person: “I struggle with this because of a diagnosed disability.”

Ableist: “I don’t believe you. You’re high functioning. Disabilities are overdiagnosed. You’re nothing like those low functioning people who actually struggle.”

Watch this stir up a shitstorm because you’re not REALLY disabled if you could find the will to get on the computer and type this out

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I mean, given the Way Humans Are, we can never completely rule out the possibility that some of those hard-to-decipher inscriptions were made for the explicit purpose of annoying and confusing future generations. Spending dozens of hours bashing glyphs into solid rock for no other purpose than to troll hypothetical future observers is absolutely a thing some people would do.

The "War of 1812 Scented Candle", complete with miniature White House near the wick, is, I cannot emphasise this enough, AN ACTUAL REAL PRODUCT THAT YOU CAN BUY (even if it's currently sold out).

The candle is funny enough by itself, but the ad copy on the maker's website is gold (and surprisingly astute):

It goes on to add:

We should also note that even though the British Army DID burn Washington, it was only after Americans had burned and looted the capital of Canada, as well as a bunch of other Canadian cities. But no one ever makes a candle about that! (Including us.)

THE BEST PART AND MOST 🔥🔥🔥 TAKE:

You forgot one thing :

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I don't think people realize how some people need abortions because they want to be pregnant. I really genuinely want a child. However, if abortion becomes criminalized, it becomes incredibly dangerous for me to be pregnant. I am physically ill and have multiple health problems that make me susceptible to having various pregnancy complications, miscarriage, and birth defects (that lead to stillbirth). Hell, I have a higher chance of maternal mortality than most women. Banning abortion puts me at severe medical risk. Miscarriage is now under legal suspect and is continuing to be seen as "potential" abortions or just flat out manslaughter; I could be interrogated by the police or even prosecuted in the court of law for having a miscarriage. I could have a pregnancy complication that cannot be resolved because a law prevents me from having an abortion, and I could, at best, be rendered infertile or, at worst, end up dead. I could be forced to go through an excruciatingly long and painful birth so that I can hold a dead infant in my arms because the law wouldn't let me get a "late-term" abortion. The list is endless. Don't let anyone tell you pregnancy is a safe procedure. It is not. Abortion is healthcare.

As someone raised in a right wing family, I do want to explain that a lot of right wing people think that situations like this will have exceptions. They think there will be exceptions for all sorts of 'legitimate' reasons to have an abortion. (We can unpack the classism inherent to that thought in another post)

There won't be. Even in places where there are, people die waiting for committees to grant them exceptions for medical emergencies.

If you have pro-life family, the best way to convince them that abortion access is a healthcare right is to ask them what exceptions should be made... And then ask them if they trust a government committee to come to the same conclusion before someone dies.

if i'm being 100% honest I don't think anyone who isn't disabled tries to get disability i legitimately do not believe it. "x amount of people make false claims" no, x amount of people who make claims are declared not disabled by the government, an institution that doesn't give a shit about disabled people and wants to find any reason to deny us assistance. if somebody goes through the effort of applying for ssi, which isn't a simple process, just for the CHANCE to get a max of $794 a month (but likely less.) and not even be able to save that money up. they are genuinely struggling with something. nobody would choose this if they had other reasonable options

plus the fact every once in a while the government will make you prove you are still disabled and if you aren't disabled enough they'll stop paying you

I applied for SSI, got denied twice, appealed both denials, and was finally approved for SSI by a judge.

Fun Fact! SSI will give you back pay for the time between your first denial and eventual approval (which for me was OVER A YEAR) and that seemed really cool until they told me they would be paying be in chunks.

$2,349 dollars every 6 months until they had paid the full back pay amount. Some of you might already see the problem here, but for those who don’t, let me explain.

SSI has this fun rule that if you ever have more the $2000 dollars in any account, you are immediately disqualified for SSI benefits.

And $2,349 dollars is, in fact, more than two grand.

So every six months for a year and a half, I would get my back payment and the same day get a call from SSI asking me why I have more than two thousand dollars in an account, when they literally gave me that money themselves.

TL:DR- SSI tried to kick me off disability benifits because I received those disability benefits.

My only interesting/ notable talent is that I can make baby alligators RUN to my feet solely by making this annoying sound

i don't care if you have fuckall going for you otherwise, please marry me

Because this is getting popular and some have voiced safety concerns in the notes (and because I’d hate for you to think me of me ~your future spouse~ as reckless), I hope you won’t mind me derailing this post to talk a bit about alligator behavior and what I’m doing here! The noise that I am emulating in the video is my attempt at the contact call of the juvenile American alligator. I am NOT trying to make a distress call, which is what a baby alligator would use to call mom for help, and is a different sound entirely. Instead, contact calls are typically used in communication between juvenile gator siblings that live together in groups called crèches. While a mother gator will certainly swim towards a hatchling distress call (up to a certain age) to protect her young, the other babies will typically swim away from the sound, meaning a correctly done contact call shouldn’t cause a hostile reaction in a nearby momma gator. That said, everyone with safety concerns is absolutely correct to consider the possible implications for doing contact calls in the wild, and much like performing bird calls in the wild there are ethical considerations that must be taken into account. I’d love to give my three personal rules for performing this call!

1. If your feet are on dirt, grass, or water, do not attempt a contact call. If you watch till the end of my video you’ll see a shadow that shows I am standing on a raised boardwalk with a rail, which is the optimal situation for safely observing gators. This way even if you somehow do make a sound that attracts an aggressive alligator, you are not at risk of a dangerous encounter.

2. If the alligator is less than 2 feet in length, do not attempt a contact call. While I did say “baby” in the original post, a better word for this animal would be juvenile, as their length and head shape indicates they’ve reached at least a year or two in age. You should absolutely never make any kind of noise to intentionally disturb hatchling gators that are small and highly vulnerable to predators! Once a gator has gotten to about 2 feet in length they’re usually around 2-3 years old and have typically left mom at this age.

3. If you are planning on interacting with the alligator in any way, do not attempt a contact call. It is imperative to both our safety and alligator wellbeing that we do not condition them to seek human behavior by feeding them. I once saw a tour guide call over gators using this method so that he could feed them cocktail shrimp for the delight of tourists. Shouldn’t have to say it but don’t do this! Don’t feed them, don’t touch them, and don’t get within 20 feet of them, for everyone’s safety. Wildlife is wild and should stay that way.

I probably should have spelled all that out in my original post so please forgive me the omission! Keep gatoring on everyone 🐊

(Interested readers may refer to my tags for additional information on the contact calls and alligator behavior described here!)

op this is me standing on a boardwalk watching you ethically and responsibly do contact calls to juvenile 2 foot long alligators

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When I was very small I heard of boysenberry flavored ice cream

But I thought they were saying "poison berry"

And since I was somewhat familiar with the yew and bittersweet nightshade that grew by my home, I figured those were the poison berries in question.

But I was no dummy--I knew all about the existence of artificial flavors. Obviously they weren't selling ice cream that contained REAL poison.

So, therefore, someone must have eaten the poison berries and described to a team of food scientists what they tasted like, in their last moments

Just like

The ultimate dedication to flavor

the funniest thing about being ftm is the implications of the fact that I can post shirtless pics on tumblr now. I am allowed to inflict images of my nipples on this website any time I want and before I wasn’t but like. it’s the same nipples. literally the exact same ones. I just paid a guy to take them off of the tits they were once adjoined to and plonk them back down on the newly created titless wasteland of my chest. they’re. the same. I mean they’re a little phantom of the opera looking now because grafts, but still. I can’t get over that my nips are now certified sfw because they fuckin changed address. the logical conclusion then would be that the boob itself is the problem but it’s clearly not because you can post a picture of a naked boob on tumblr as long as the precise area of the nipple is censored and clearly you can post a picture of the nipple as long as it doesn’t live on a boob anymore but for some reason if you combine them together they become powerful enough to destroy the psyche of anyone between the ages of approximately three and exactly eighteen who gazes upon them. censorship laws are the absolute dumbest invention of humanity and I’m saying that as someone who owns a novelty plastic goat that screams and has watched the movie eragon. this is more stupid than both of those things.