happy Women’s History Month I really think the impact of misogyny on dress history as a field of study cannot be overstated

the Met Gala exists because the Met Costume Institute is the only branch of the museum that has to provide its own funding independent of the Met proper. gee, I wonder why?

how many of the dress history myths floating around today boil down to “women are stupid and will do anything for fashion/male approval?”

the earliest foundations of the field in the 20th century were a few(mostly) men going on at length about the follies and foibles of Silly Vain/Coquettish/Prudish/Parsimonious/Spendthrift Women [mix and match according to your interpretive whims]- while one of the first solo female dress historians was the only one to actually MEASURE what a 17″ waist would look like, examine extant 19th-century women’s garments, and say “this was not remotely widespread, guys”

and of course, it’s only recently begun to be taken seriously as an academic field at all- because clothing is frivolous and unimportant, of course, and just coincidentally happens to be strongly associated with women. no link there, though, right? </s>

(T*RFs, fuck off)

what in the ai hell

People in notes mentioned a video, and here it is:

Aww they used to just be photoshopped and now they’re AI!

Seed scams use fake photos to sell seeds. This scale has existed for YEARS, with some of the oldest Jasc Paint Shop Pro manips on the internet being the bright blue watermelons, strawberries and roses generated for this scam.

Because you have to wait for weeks until even normal seeds “work”, and months before they “flower,” there are no negative consequences to the sellers; you’ll time out of your consumer rights, lose interest or lose steam, or simply forget about it long before you ever complain. They, for their part, can simply change the name of their online storefront. The cost is low enough that people won’t retaliate (about $20) and gardening is such a black box of skill anyway that normal people may even blame themselves for not getting the desired result. after all, even experienced gardeners - and legitimate seed sellers - don’t bother much with refunds for seed failures. At most you write a review saying it was a disappointing variety, and the seller sells a different variety next year. So even people who know what they’re doing wouldn’t bother with consequences, which is why the scam is evergreen.

AI does drastically increase the ability to generate appealing images for free, but the scam is the same. 

You do receive seeds in this scam, but apparently they are just generic flower  seeds. A Redditor who ordered them drunkenly apparently had them ID’ed as pansy or petunia seeds.



So many people do not understand the relationship between climate change and cold weather.

If you see this post it is important to send it to someone else so they too can understand

People hardly ever change their minds in front of you...the conversation becomes one of a series of slow drips that builds up to a realization

hope is a skill

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

favourite additions

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

full scansion:

metrical form: dactylic tetrameter catalectic rhyme scheme: AABBCCDDEE other notes: Line 1 replaces the second dactyl with a trochee. There is arguably a caesura after the second foot of each line: it’s the point at which the line 1 irregularity occurs and it’s often a sense break.

hello! poem author here. i am in love with you if that’s ok

There.

Positive content.

did you know? if you do your laundry you can get your clothes back

not the socks.

Imma post it like this cuz y'all can't just leave this in the comments

I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…

Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?

I have been so confused by this discourse. I gobbled up the 90s fantasy doorstoppers and these sorts of expressions were such mainstays that they've never tripped me up.

I remember a reader was annoyed by my use of the phrase "the column of her throat" once and I suddenly realised not everyone reads copious amounts of fanfic or historical romance growing up, either. I always loved that phrase: "column of [her/his/their] throat." It makes you imagine marble smoothness. Annoying if overused, sure, but a well-placed one is evocative.

They're simply shorthand for various creative expressions or nice images. Darkened: dangerous or horny. Softened: fondness, vulnerability. Snarled: animalistic anger (v. useful if you're writing a dragon character in human form). Writers need to have physical reactions and emotional beats for rhythm, pace, and flow, no? If you say the emotions too straightforwardly, the writer gets dinged for "telling, not showing."

Maybe a higher percentage of the population than I thought has aphantasia? Or have reading tastes really changed that much in the last few years?

The whole "the brain isn't fully mature until age 25" bit is actually a fairly impressive bit of psuedoscience for how incredibly stupid the way it misinterprets the data it's based on is.

Okay, so: there's a part of the human brain called the "prefrontal cortex" which is, among other things, responsible for executive function and impulse control. Like most parts of the brain, it undergoes active "rewiring" over time (i.e., pruning unused neural connections and establishing new ones), and in the case of the prefrontal cortex in particular, this rewiring sharply accelerates during puberty.

Because the pace of rewiring in the prefrontal cortex is linked to specific developmental milestones, it was hypothesised that it would slow down and eventually stop in adulthood. However, the process can't be directly observed; the only way to tell how much neural rewiring is taking place in a particular part of the brain is to compare multiple brain scans of the same individual performed over a period of time.

Thus, something called a "longitudinal study" was commissioned: the same individuals would undergo regular brain scans over a period of mayn years, beginning in early childhood, so that their prefrontal development could accurately be tracked.

The longitudinal study was originally planned to follow its subjects up to age 21. However, when the predicted cessation of prefrontal rewiring was not observed by age 21, additional funding was obtained, and the study period was extended to age 25. The predicted cessation of prefrontal development wasn't observed by age 25, either, at which point the study was terminated.

When the mainstream press got hold of these results, the conclusion that prefrontal rewiring continues at least until age 25 was reported as prefrontal development finishing at age 25. Critically, this is the exact opposite of what the study actually concluded. The study was unable to identify a stopping point for prefrontal development because no such stopping point was observed for any subject during the study period. The only significance of the age 25 is that no subjects were tracked beyond this age because the study ran out of funding!

I gets me when people try to argue against the neuroscience-proves-everybody-under-25-is-a-child talking point by claiming that it's merely an average, or that prefrontal development doesn't tell the whole story. Like, no, it's not an average – it's just bullshit. There's no evidence that the cited phenomenon exists at all; if there is an age where prefrontal rewiring levels off and stops (and it's not clear that there is), we don't know what age that is; we merely know that it must be older than 25.

Any time somebody argues that you should avoid the use of obvious pop culture references and current slang in prose fiction in order to avoid "dating" the text, I'm reminded that our primary evidence for when several of Shakespeare's plays were written is that their dialogue quotes specific pieces of contemporary popular media, and that there's strong evidence many of the words he's credited by modern authorities with inventing are literally just contemporary youth slang. Like, if it's good enough for Shakespeare it's good enough for me, buddy!

(Besides, trying to deliberately cultivate "timelessness" in one's work is a fool's errand because it's a state which any work which survives for long enough achieves without effort. Shakespeare reads as "timeless" to modern audiences not because of anything he did, but because only dedicated students of a specific twenty-year slice of early modern history are able to catch the references. If your work is still being read in four hundred years, the experience will be much the same!)

the right hairstyle for your face is the one that makes you smile when you see yourself in the mirror btw.

this applies to clothing as well!!! being happy and comfortable with yourself is ALWAYS more important than adhering to some stupid made up rules about body types. shave your head. wear the crop top.

i cant believe you guys. NOT EVEN ONCE

This is a major public health victory and the result of years of work. I know the in thing on tumblr is to kid around about people being uncool for not having sex or going to the club or whatever but those things don't give you lung cancer or a myriad of other health problems. Cigarettes are bad and the only reason you think they're cool is big tobacco poured astonishing amounts of money into marketing.

"you dorks haven't even knowingly given yourselves lung cancer? oh my GOD what DORKS what is WRONG WITH THIS GENERATION"

like. come on now, OP

May the Fourth Be With You

Don’t forget to wear glitter, take your meds, and practice self-care in honor of our dear departed Space Mom.

Blessed Be She Who Drowned In Moonlight, Strangled By Her Own Bra

New discourse: it's actually predatory to date someone with a different star sign than you, because the differences in your personalities means you'll never be able to have exactly the same life experiences, thus leaving a knowledge and power gap between the two of you which will inevitably lead to an abusive relationship!

also if you're a Sag and you're dating a Taurus, that means you're secretly seeking a May-December relationship, which is age gap coded!

Also, humanoid signs like Aquarius, Gemini, and Virgo absolutely cannot date animal signs. That is interspecies erotica coded fucko and animals CANNOT CONSENT.

Aries, Capricorn and Taurus dating each other make me sick, they're all bovidae it's so obviously incest I-- 🤢

#if you're different in any way that's abuse#if you're the same in any way that's incest - holy shit I think @kubleeka just summed up the heart of every Discourse in two sentences

"You can't ship that!"

lol what are you gonna do, climb inside my mind and shut off the imagination switch?

This kind of response always fascinates me, so while I've got you here, can I just ask: legal by what standards? Do you mean real world standards, where laws vary from country to country, and in the case of the US, state to state? Or do you mean the fictitious laws set in place in the fictional setting of the ship? What standard exactly should we use to tell people "you're not allowed to enjoy this fictional thing?"

I know you didn't mean any harm by your response, but I feel it's important to reiterate that nothing gives anyone the right to police what people do in a fictional setting, full stop. Because at the end of the day, it's fiction, it's a fantasy, none of it is real, and so real world rules and standards do not apply. So, as long as you are not actively causing harm in a real world setting (i.e. harassing real people over fictional ships) then you do you.

a very important addition

Something that also drives me NUTS with this "uwu if it's legal" shit is like...

Y'all only EVER. Say it about sexual stuff. "Oh wow well if it's LEGAL-!" bitch my ass is out here playing DnD. I roleplay a devil-them who KILLS PEOPLE FOR A LIVING and yet I don't see y'all rushing to tell me that those thoughts are illegal and bad and noooo you can't do THAT, murder is ILLEGAL.

It's because y'all are a bunch of puritan weirdos about sex and I reblogged a post that hits why right on the nose but dear FUCK y'all need to really unpack all of your weirdness about sex. Like. Right now. Because it's all conservative bullshit.

Also: as OP says, what are you going to do, climb inside my mind and shut off my imagination?

Legality, morality, NOTHING can stop people’s thoughts. Nothing can stop people’s fantasies and imagination, not even themselves. Thought crime is not a thing, and anyone who says otherwise is spouting some deeply Christian bullshit.

Reblog to kill it faster

This is to good to get buried in the tags

They are the very first people on the list of people we should (and must!) criticize!