I don't care what gender you are. Put on this slutty top and these tight shorts.

"Not me, though, I'm too fat."

You're the target audience.

passports…should not expire

actually i have decided that passports shouldn’t exist at all

i love it here

Me when I'm about to do a terrorism but I am stopped by a cop asking for my passport

im dying over this thread of algorithmically-generated/otherwise low-effort Kindle covers

don't forget

grossly inappropriate copy of animal farm that is on my nightstand at this very moment

...When you're getting ready to design a book cover and you're not sure what you do is going to be good enough.. it's always reassuring to see something like [all of the above].

Broke: Acknowledging that a character who is an objectively terrible person is also a complex and intentionally well thought out individual with different levels of nuance you can empathize with in some ways while not in others is immediately “woobifying” or “poor little meow meowifying” them.

Woke: “This character is a bad person” and “this character is still a person” are two statements that can, should and do coexist and admitting that they exhibit nuance and depth and are more than just their bad actions doesn’t immediately excuse or condone their bad actions or mean that you’re ignoring or trying to soften the canonical version of the character.

Bespoke: That’s the whole point, that’s always been the point, to be made to empathize with horrible people so you can understand that they can be anyone, that bad people can be likeable, can be interesting, can be human, are human, and it’s scary to think about all the ways they’re just like you and all the ways they’re just like everything you hate, forcing the use of critical skills in media analysis, forcing a confrontation of the duality of man.

Whatever Level is Above Bespoke: But sometimes, yeah, sure, maybe they are a poor little meow meow, what are you gonna do, get a lawyer

...Not to get weird and dark on a useful/amuzing writing post, but...

Years and years ago, I read someone's experience of finding out that his mom's boyfriend was a serial killer. How much it sickened him to put together odd bits and pieces of their experiences together, recontextualizing them, suddenly understanding new and horrifying things.

But while that was awful, what really fucked him up later wasn't the clues he'd missed or anything-- it was that, one time, they'd been working together on some kind of home project, and he'd been on a ladder and suddenly gotten off balance-- and his mom's boyfriend had immediately reached out, yanked him back, both of them frightened and swearing and then gasping in the aftershocks of panic, and how grateful he'd been that the boyfriend had been there, how they'd both started laughing as the adrenaline washed through them and out again, hugging fiercely, how grateful he still was that the boyfriend had been there, because he owed his life to this man, this almost-father that had kept him safe and had been afraid for him, and the cognitive dissonance of that, the visceral disgust and the aching love and what it meant to be beholden to a monster for the gift of that moment--

And that's why we need to practice the little lies of fiction, where we can see that characters may not always be rendered in black and white-- it helps us learn how to live in a world that may serve us the worst people we may ever know doing us the greatest kindness of our lives.

dm, there's a sad and lonely knight in my game

just an fyi for people who've let their social skills atrophy by spending too much time on tumblr:

this is generally not a good thing to say to a stranger on a nonsexual post

Tags of people who hit the nail on the head better than I ever could

This 14th century door at Exeter Cathedral, UK, is thought to be the oldest existing cat flap.

A cat was paid a penny each week, to keep down the rats and mice in the north tower, and a cat flap was cut into the door below the astronomical clock to allow the cat to carry out its duties.

Records of payments were entered in the Cathedral archives from 1305 to 1467, the penny a week being enough to buy food to supplement a heavy diet of rodents.

See More: https://artifactsmuseumhistory.blogspot.com

I sat with a crying second grader today. (The age range is outside my wheelhouse but I was the most convenient adult.) He was crying, the other adults said, because his brother took a phone he was playing on. “Phone addicted,” everybody said. “If he would get up and play games with the other kids he wouldn’t be crying.”

He told me everyone lets his brother take things from him because his brother is younger, and doesn’t know better. He told me he doesn’t want to play because he’s tired, he has too many extracurriculars this summer and can’t get good sleep because “everyone in my camper is so loud when I’m trying to sleep.” He’s exhausted and only eight. His mom’s an acquaintance and told me she and the kid’s father are going through a separation — mom and four kids left the house to stay in a camper.

But people will seriously not listen to kids crying over seemingly minor things because on the surface it looks like a tantrum. If kids are given the space to articulate themselves they often will.

I’ve found that if a child is capable of having a conversation (that is, old enough to speak and express themselves, not injured or upset so badly that they literally cannot stop crying, and not behaving violently), then 90% of the time their reason for being upset is legitimate, or at least understandable.

Please remember that this also applies to teenagers and preteens, they might be acting like a knowitall who doesn’t give a shit, or a first class jerk, but chances are fair they feel like shit for one reason or another and adults just chalk it up to teenage angst instead

one more week to preorder here

extremely funny when AI artists feel the need to put watermarks on their images

like oh you're worried about misattribution and image theft huh. you're worried that someone's gonna take the image you made and claim it as their own. or strip away the context and your name. or use it in ways you didn't consent to. boy that sure would suck huh. i bet that would feel really bad. i bet that would be really annoying. i b

So the James Webb telescope just took a picture of a galaxy that is 29 million light years away.

If that wasn't cool enough NASA decided to peel away all the cosmic dust in order to see the bones of the Galaxy itself.

AND IT'S BREATHTAKING

“Oh [other profession] wants better working conditions? WELL [MY profession] is HARDER I work TWENTY HOUR DAYS and I am NOT ALLOWED BREAKS and I’m PAID FOR SHIT and I have NO INSURANCE and I NEVER SEE MY CHILDREN so WHY are YOU COMPLAINING LOL”

have you considered that maybe YOUR job ALSO should not suck that much

Story time. This is not so much for OP but for anyone else who might not have union experience: Bear in mind that there is a strong propaganda effort to get people to this viewpoint. They’re not being willfully obtuse.

I spoke to a neighbour the other day. She’d just taken voluntary a lay-off from her factory job because she had an ongoing injury and they wouldn’t let her adjust her hours in a sensible way. She’d been struggling to make it work anyway but her back was getting really bad. So when they put the word out that they were looking for volunteers to take lay-offs, she put up her hand. Still, she was proud to tell me that she was considered one of their best and fastest workers, even with the injury. She was frustrated that one of the newer workers seemed to have gotten various accommodations, even though that worker was nowhere near as good.

I could tell that she’d been having similar conversations with her coworkers on the factory floor for years. Who got extras they didn’t “deserve.” Who was a shoddy worker and made life harder for everyone. Who came in to work even though their parent had just died to make sure that nobody had to pick up their slack. And all of that pervaded with propaganda about “greedy unions” who slim down your already-skinny paycheque just because they’re all lazy slackers who don’t want to pull their weight and don’t appreciate the nice boss for hiring them. (This is the same across all types of jobs. Next story time I’ll talk about two university profs who grew to fame and fortune via unions and the social safety net and yet both engaged in union busting.)

My neighbour’s injury, incidentally, was a result of her work at the factory, but she didn’t want to try for compensation or anything else. She’d “never taken a single sick day in 20 years” and wasn’t “the kind of person who made waves” so she was just going the regular unemployment route but finding the systems obscure and challenging. She was hurt and shocked that her old employer would treat one of their best workers this way and leave them to deal with the fall-out by themselves.

Meanwhile, Canadian (federal) government workers were striking in Ottawa. And she expressed frustration that they felt “entitled to strike” when the (provincial) services she was accessing were so shoddy and difficult to navigate. Why did they “get to” strike if their work was apparently so poor? She had no sympathy for them.

I pushed back gently. Her factory floor job wasn’t union, but the admin staff was union. They seemed to get a better deal. We spoke about strength in numbers, and how hard it is to try and get your due from your employer without anyone to help you. And how they make all these forms complicated on purpose so it’s easier to deny you money or other support. And how it would be great to have someone to go to meetings with you, who knew all the legal stuff, and who could help you with the forms, and get you the money for the medical services you needed.

She wasn’t pro-union by the time I left, but we’d agreed on a few things, and I’d framed a few of her concerns in a way that made her more ambivalent about strikes (rather than outright hostile). Still, as we were saying our goodbyes, she said, “let’s hope they hurry up and get back to work eh!”

Because imagine what it would cost her to turn around and agree that unions are good, and strikes are good, and you should fight your employer for your fair compensation and your rights. Twenty years of taking no sick leave, working herself to the bone on not enough money, laid off and struggling with the system for basic support. She’s proud of her suffering, all the times she didn’t complain, all the times she pushed on even as the going got harder and harder.

Because if she can’t be proud of it… then what? She’s dumb for taking a non-union job? She should’ve organised and could’ve had better pay and a severance package and free physiotherapy for life? If she accepts that unions and strikes are good, she’s still in pain, still unemployed, still stuck with her lack of support, but now also feels like a fucking idiot for giving 20 years of her life to a boss who threw her out without a second thought.

So. Don’t put up with union busting and do talk to the people in your life about solidarity, but do realise that being anti-union isn’t just folks being aggressively wrong for the sake of it. They’ve been lied to. And they possibly have a lot of complex grief and identity and other experiences tied up in this.

“If she accepts that unions and strikes are good, she’s still in pain, still unemployed, still stuck with her lack of support, but now also feels like a fucking idiot for giving 20 years of her life to a boss who threw her out without a second thought.”

This.

And this applies to a lot of other things you might want people to change their minds about.

For years I've heard that those booby mousepads are actually really good for a person with carpal tunnel syndrome but didn't decide to test that knowledge because I don't want to buy a booby mousepad that would make me some sort of sex pervert, I was raised Catholic I'm a good boy not a sex pervert. But earlier this year I bought a Gigan body pillow as a joke only to find out body pillows are actually really comfortable sleep aids, so... so I bought one... I bought a booby mousepad.

...and my wrist feels so much better when I'm using it.

How many other comforts and aids have I forsaken because they're embarrassingly horny? How many discomforts have I endured purely out of a societal shame about expressing anything sexual? This world is fucked man.

For those curious why exactly this is, it's because booby mousepads are pretty much the only ergonomic mousepads which still use silicone gel. Basically everything else has switched to either air-filled memory foam or a cured silicone rubber – like the kind used in silicone bakeware – because it's not prone to springing leaks and oozing everywhere; unfortunately, it also doesn't work nearly as well.

(In theory, if you're not a fan of boobs you could get a silicone gel wrist pad without the booby design. In practice, good fucking luck; consumer fraud is rampant in non-prescription medical and assistive devices, and the overwhelming majority of non-booby mousepads which claim to use silicone gel are straight up lying – what you actually receive if you order one will be air-filled memory foam or solid rubber at least 80% of time, regardless of what the product description says.)

In general, I think it's currently really important for progressive Christians to be very loud about being both progressive and deeply religious Christians, and for everyone else fighting for progressive values to be supportive of them doing just that. I know that's like, idk, counter-intuitive or cringe or whatever, but seriously folks, the alternative is that progressive Christians have to be quiet about their faith to be accepted within broader secular and interfaith progressive advocacy, which means that the regressive asshole Christians (a) sound that much louder and (b) dominate the USian religious landscape all the more. That's a problem, for all of us.

We need people pushing back within the faith as well as outside of it, because that destroys any edifice that this is about Christianity and religious freedom.

You can be a devout Christian and also:

And in before regressive Christians come shouting at me that (1) what do I know, I'm a Jew and (2) no lol you can't because of ___ reason:

My source is that I've personally met and talked to Christians of great faith and integrity - people who embody the closest forms of kindness I've seen to what Jesus himself advocated - who are each of these things.

It is 100% possible; you just choose to believe otherwise.

At this point I think it's time to start preaching and claiming the moral high ground here.

Right-wing evangelical Christians want you to think that they're the moral ones, when they EXPLICITLY defy the word of God. They routinely:

.......and plenty more. These are not just a few bad actors; this lifestyle is ENCOURAGED by this irresponsible and immoral cult. They are leading people astray into a life of sin and a culture of callous cruelty.

Is this the Christianity you want the world to know you by?

Hi @blessedarethebinarybreakers,

I just wanted to draw attention to your tags:

You very correct that there is a balance, and it can be hard to identify when to step back and when to step up. I am obviously only one person and I'm sure you have lots of your own ideas and experience with approaching this issue. (Notably, I've seen your posts and you are someone I respect a lot for your wisdom, compassion, and spiritual insight.) I certainly won't lecture you on what to or not to do, but I think the points you put in your tags create a great opportunity for suggestions for folks thinking about how they might balance these competing values.

I would say that some key things are:

I hope that clarifies a little of what I was saying and provides folks with some food for thought.

Hey. OP here.

This post has blown up, which like. Good. I'm glad it's reached a receptive audience.

However, I've seen a lot of surface level engagement with it and not a lot of deep reflection about what I'm actually saying here.

So let me be more blunt:

We don't need you to push culturally Christian ideas on the rest of us, which is a form of soft proselytizing. We need you to do some tochecha at your fellow Christians and become a bulwark against christofascism. We need you to walk the walk.

This is not a drill!

That is my point to you, progressive Christians who want Christianity to be a religion of love and justice. That is a promise in the New Testament that has remained unfulfilled. My point to my fellow yidden and other non-Christians is that if you are doing the work, that work should be valued, respected and appreciated, and that you should feel welcome in progressive spaces as your whole self, faith included. I'm Jewish. I know what it means to be told to check your religion at the door. I know how profoundly not okay that is and how much it hurts. I am also painfully aware of how much Christianity has been used to hurt my people and numerous other peoples, both throughout its history and in our present day. I need you to make yourselves painfully aware of this reality as well. I need that deep understanding to not paralyze you from action, but instead spur you into righting those wrongs.

Christianity is not going anywhere. We are at a crossroads: you can choose to allow the status quo of a blood-soaked Christianity to remain, or you can choose to envision and build a better future.

Which one do you think your God asks of you?

@catididnt your tags here are really important:

This is it. This is exactly what I am asking people to do here, and so thank you for putting it so succinctly.

(appended to this version of this post because I would like to hammer home this particular point)

tumblr punk problems: Can you still be punk if you are a Mormon missionary real punk problems: YO!!! ANYONE GOT A LINE ON TODDLER PISS??? SPEEDBALL MIKE HAS TO KEEP HIS NEW MOHEL'S ASSISTANT GIG UNTIL HE CAN PAY OFF THE COUNTY FOR THAT ILLEGAL ROADWORK AND GET HIS TRUCK BACK. CAN'T PAY CASH BUT HIS EX-WIFE IS HOLDING

Speedball Mike, Whom Sobriety Forgot is a pillar of his community but he keeps trying to paint bike lanes into local intersection and community service is against his religion so he owes the county a lot of money. They stole his truck while he was doing it once and he's too stupid to realize they're not allowed to hold his truck hostage so he got a job helping a mohel circumcise babies. The mohel is an old college buddy of the most stressed-out transsexual woman you'll ever meet in your life. He doesn't know Speedball Mike from adam but he likes his drive and energy. That kid's going places, thinks the mohel, not knowing that he mostly goes any given place to buy meth, or rescue unemployable weirdos from the consequences of their own actions, or perform illegal roadwork

Unaccountably, Speedball Mike is a lamed-vavnik. If he stopped getting high, God's grace would turn away from the earth

"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.

Tired of your players killing all your monsters? Set this on them. Bonus points if you make the tiny mosquito tone buzz every time one of them rolls juuuust below the required Perception DC. 

I don’t know why I made this

i love how, if you’re running with XP leveling, killing a mosquito is enough to rocket your average 4hp commoner into level three of the class of their choice

The Six Sexes in Judaism

I've gotten quite a few comments and questions regarding the sex recognized sex categories in Jewish tradition, so here's a standalone education post on the matter.

In fields such as anthropology and archaeology, we approach interpreting historical concepts and events in a multifacted approach. It's not enough to have one line of evidence, there must be multiple. Stating that, we know that the six sexes refer to sexes, and not gender, through many ways:

-Historical tradition. The tradition of the six sexes is unbroken and is understand to refer to sexes, and not genders. Rabbinical discussions throughout history refer to these terms as sexes.

-Linguisitics. The etymology of these words are very explicitly referencing genitals and/or sex characteristics, not gender roles or identities. These are technical terms regarding tangible observed biology, not gender, which is a more intangible concept.

-Historical context. The society in which these terms were recorded had very specific gender roles. Laws regarding purity and reproduction were very specific and valued, and were connected to the biology a person had. Therefore, words to categorize groups of people with certain biology were needed so that in discussing legal and social debates, universal terms could be used.

The six sexes are:

Zachar (זכר)- perisex male. Person born with external male genitalia and developing typical male secondary sex characteristics at puberty. "Zachar" most likely comes from the etymology of "pierce", as in, "penetration."

Nekeva (נקבה)- perisex female. Person born with female genitalia and developing typical female secondary sex characteristics at puberty. The root of the word "Nekeva" comes from the Hebrew word for "cavity", so you can see how it's very focused on tangible sex characteristics, not gender.

Aylonit (אילונית)- Person born with female genitalia but who either doesn't develop secondary female characteristics or fertility, such as one someone who never begins to ovulate or who was born without or with reduced internal reproductive organs, or who develops typically "male" characteristics at puberty such as those characterized by intersex conditions that cause hyperandroginism. An Aylonit is still categorized as a woman according to Jewish law, "Aylonit" is in fact as a feminine word, literally meaning "female ram", in reference to the development of typically "male" characteristics upon puberty. According to Midrash Sarah the Matriarch was an Aylonit herself because she was born without a uterus, and the miracle was that G-d planted a uterus inside her later in life.

Saris (סריס)- Person born with external male genitalia but who either doesn't develop secondary male sex characteristics at puberty, such as one whose testes never descend or whose penis doesn't develop further or who is naturally sterile, or who develops typically "female" characteristics such as gynecomastia. A Saris Chamah (סריס חמה) is one who was born a Saris, and a Saris Adam (סריס אדם) is one who was castrated by another person or themself. A "Saris" is also a word meaning "eunuch", which was an enslaved person who was castrated as a punishment or part of some religious ritual. A Saris, whether born that way or made into a eunuch, is still categorized as a man according to Jewish law.

Androgenos (אנדרוגינוס)- A person born with a combination of male and female genitalia and who develops a combination of male and female secondary sex characteristics. An Androgenos is commonly translated as a h*rmaphrodite (this is a slur used against intersex people, so I'll only use it once for clarity). An Androgenos is described as being able to both ejaculate and experience menses, and is subject to both the Jewish laws pertaining to men and the Jewish laws pertaining to women. The word "Androgenos" is borrowed from Greek. An Androgenos is functionally treated in their own gender category according to Jewish law, because they are subject to unique laws regarding their sex, although they typically are treated as men in society.

TumTum "טמטום"- A person who was born with indeterminate genitals and sex characteristics. The word "TumTum comes from the Hebrew word for "concealed", in reference to the indeterminate nature of their genitals. A TumTum's gender status according to Jewish law varies depending on the law and on the person. They can be treated as either a man, a woman, or both.

***

These terms were extremely important and held a lot of weight for those in certain categories. Whether a person's body was determined to be that of a Saris or a TumTum, for example, would define what their gendered roles would be in society and whether they would be required to perform certain reproduction and purity based commandments. A Saris, for example, is determined to be still in the gender role of "Ish", a man, and would be classed as such. A TumTum, however, because of the observed characteristic of their body, would be in a much more difficult position of being exempt from certain gendered commandments, and obligated to do others. In a society valuing reproduction, a person's biological reality and how to classify them were extremely important.

What sex a person was classified as was extremely important in defining their ritual purity status. Whether someone's genital discharge was considered menstrual blood or ejaculate was dependent on their sex, and there are specific ritual purity laws for each. A person who discharges menstrual blood would have to wait seven days after the cessation of their menstruation and then bathe in a ritual bath before they'd be allowed to engage in sexual relations. A person who discharges ejaculate would only have to bathe in a ritual bath after the event to be allowed to engage in sexual relations.

In a culture very focused on reproduction and reproductive roles, defining someone's sex was extremely important.

These categories are extremely biology-based and medicalized. They are about someone's genitals and reproductive status, not their gender. Judaism at the time recognized the existence of cross-dressing and gender flexibility (even if it was frowned upon), and these categories have nothing to do with gender. The best way we know this is that it was forbidden to cross-dress, but the existence of intersex people was not considered forbidden (although they were subject to different laws depending on their category) because they cannot control how their body appears.

Nobody was having hormone therapy or sexual reassignment surgery in the ancient times. This is why there is no such thing as an "Aylonit Adam" (yes, you were lied too, if you thought this was a thing), because castration was something done in the ancient world, but hysterectomies certainly were not, at least not with any survival rate.

As a trans person myself, I do not even understand why perisex trans people would even want to identify with these terms. These are highly medicalized terms and refer to biology, not identity. They also do not change a person's gender assignment. An Aylonit is still in the gender of "Isha" (woman), so why a perisex trans man would want to identify with that category just because he's taken testosterone and/or gotten a hysterectomy is beyond me. A Saris is still in the gender of "Ish" (man), so I don't know why a perisex trans woman would want to identify with that category just because she's taken estrogen and/or gotten vaginoplasty. And TumTum and Androgenos are categories that are evident at birth. They refer to the state of a person's genitals at birth. Perisex nonbinary people are not intersex, they were assigned a specific sex of male or female depending on their genitals at birth. What their genitals look like in adulthood does not change their sex.

We all recognize that sex does not equal gender, so why is this misinformation still being spread that equates these sex-based terms to gender? That's going against everything trans and nonbinary liberation stands for!

Sources:

Mishnah Bikkurim 4:1-5

Mishnah Yevamot 8:4-6

Mishnah Niddah 3:5

Mishnah Zavim 2:1

Mishnah Torah: Marriage 2:5-25

Yevamot 64b:2

Yevamot 80b:4-10

Ketubot 11a:1

Mishnah Niddah 5:9

Zecher and Zachar

I'm just gonna keep reblogging this every time I see misinformation about this in Jumblr tags 🙄