The focus should really be on people learning how to consume a wide range of media in a healthy way, and that includes being able to process feelings of disgust, rage, and discomfort in cases where the narrative absolutely is intending you to feel that way!

It feels like we're witnessing a lot of people now grow too comfortable with what they are familiar with that they project their inability to process negative feelings on others and blame the content itself.

For instance, I am aware that I cannot handle very explicit and violent scenes of SA, and had no warning when I first watched The Flowers of War movie. I remember being so affected, I was haunted by those scenes for days. But I don't condemn the movie for existing just because it contains a subject and content that makes me uncomfortable and upset. Especially for what was a war movie.

Ugly things deserve to exist. The critical focus should be on the execution and narrative intent, and even if those end up being bad, people are allowed to make bad things! People can suck at writing! They exist!

We cannot be wishy washy when it comes to creative freedom, especially when you try to commit what is "morally good" to paper under such a subjective perspective.

Multiple things can exists at once, and in this case it's also the fact people are getting too comfortable with the thought of normalizing certain topics and not in a media literacy type of way, but more of a

"Fiction doesn't equal reality!" Or more disturbingly "So long as they only do it behind close doors and doesn't effect me I don't see the problem"

No one has any issues with horror, or disturbing media, and before anyone says anything I say this as an English literature teacher who focuses on Post war literature so you can IMAGINE the things I have to teach and share understanding with

To word as simply and crudely as possible look below

And not to demonize, but if you are watching say Lolita, and rather than understanding that this is from the POV of a predator and has layer of layers to the story, and instead ingredients IDOLIZING and making this sad story out to be sexy, chic, or god forbid, romantic, then you need to stop and question why and see if you have any further issues adding to it

And as much as people hate to acknowledge this, authors DO infact need to be watched and criticized when needed. It's incredibly easy to make CP, romantic violence, bigotry, and hate filled works, and simply slap a genre label on it and then cry "THE ANTIS A RUNING EVERYTHING AND TRYING TO CANCEL ME 😭😭😭😭"

Splatterpunk ESPECIALLY has this issue and is happening with more frequency this last few years

To simply call someone an anti without even stopping to think why and to ignore the same critical thinking you demand others to use is sad at best and bitterly pathetic most of the time

Perhaps you're not getting the point of the original post, so I'm going to back up a bit. You may not have been in fandom spaces for long enough to know that "proshipping" is a term created by antis so they could carve out an "us vs. them" space in fandom.

Proshipping was the default. "Live and let live" was the motto most fans lived by, at least when I first got into fanfiction in the 90s. This is how I (and a lot of people) define it.

I know exactly why antis think they way they do. I was Mormon once. You don't get more pro-censorship, thought-policing than that. So, yes, I have years of personal history and critical thinking when it comes to considering the media I consume. Don't worry about me, I'm doing just fine.

What I worry about are young people growing up in this environment where fantasies aren't only considered sinful, they're considered harmful, and they're being told to purge them from their thoughts if they want to be a good person. I can't even begin to describe how harmful that is to children and adults alike.

Tl;dr: as someone who's been in a creative slump TWICE as a result of this, EXTREMELY harmful. Because it tells me that I'm a terrible person because because I like characters in danger, that essentially being mean to Sims negates my reaction to actual people suffering

I’ve said this multiple times on here, so some people who follow me will have heard this rant already, but:

My mom is a college professor whose special subject is media criticism and the effects of media on children. Therefore, my parents were extremely focused on moderating our media consumption. We had four TV channels and two of them were PBS. I have never in my life played a video game all the way through. I read the books my mom assigned to her students for fun (“Consuming Kids” was my favorite). My job as I got older was to screen stuff for content considered inappropriate for my younger siblings or other people’s kids. Even when we watched movies or TV or commercials, my parents would analyze them in front of us and encourage us to analyze them ourselves. What techniques are they using in this commercial to get you to buy it? What's the subtext in this scene? What message is this scene trying to convey?

So when I say that antis are Not Doing It Right, I’ve got textbooks and almost 30 years of lived experience backing me up.

There are three major problems with how antis approach media criticism.

#1: Ignoring the concept of individual analysis and multiple lenses.

A key concept in media criticism is that there is no one way to interpret a work. Certainly there's how the author might want you to interpret it, but part of communication (which is what media is) is the effect on the audience member. How I interpret a particular work is going to be influenced by my personal experiences; someone else may interpret the exact same thing differently.

And what you're specifically looking for in a work is also important. The point of analyzing something through different lenses – a queer lens, a feminist lens, a post-colonial lens, whatever – is to look at the same thing from different angles. And even then, two different people might have two different perspectives even within the same framework, looking for the same things. Consider the argument about whether specific Disney movies are feminist or not - they're looking at the same material, but coming to different conclusions based on their interpretation of it.

So you can't unequivocally say "this glorifies violence" or "this promotes misogyny" outside of very, very specific examples (I'm thinking about shit like The Turner Diaries, here). You can certainly make that as an argument, and back it up using evidence, but ultimately, that is your interpretation, not objective fact.

#2: Failing to understand what media criticism is trying to solve.

Whenever someone points out that fiction is not reality, someone always responds that it affects reality, and then will point to something like The Jaws Effect as an example of how media affects real-life things. I'm pretty sure that's what @sweetlavenderdarling is referencing.

Which: sure! I won't dispute that! The issue is failing to understand how and why media affects real-life things.

The first thing is that, barring a few exceptions, the majority of media's influence is in the aggregate. Watching one period drama with a majority-white cast is not going to make you think that all of European history only involves white people. What can make you think that the past was whites-only is if every single period drama you ever watch has an all-white or majority-white cast. Watching one action movie is not going to make you violent. What can make you violent is if the main way you see problems being handled is through violence (regardless of whether the tone is "this is a horrible thing but we have no choice" or "it's totally cool to murder people").

The second thing is that, just as we cannot claim our single opinion is objective fact, we can't claim a 1:1 cause-and-effect thing between "X is in media" and "person believes X," because different people can interpret the same thing differently. There's a difference between me watching, say, an Alex Jones broadcast vs. a longtime fan of Alex Jones listening to the same thing: I'm not going to become a conservative conspiracy theorist solely from listening to it because my perspective on it and preexisting beliefs are very different from those of than a true believer.

And we can actually see this in an example antis love to trot out: Finding Nemo. Antis love to pull out Finding Nemo as an example of people's behaviors changing (i.e. a spike in owning clownfish and blue tangs as pets) based on it being in a popular work. Here's the problem with that argument: the entire point of Finding Nemo is that keeping tropical fish as pets is a bad thing. THAT'S WHY THEY NEED TO FIND NEMO.

The scene where Nemo gets caught is treated like a human child getting dragged into a white van in front of their parents. Home aquariums are portrayed as jails where longtime residents go insane. The little girl with the braces is a terrifying eldritch murderer from the fish's perspective because she shakes them to death. Finding Nemo can't be more obvious in how it treats owning tropical fish as pets: it's not romanticized, and in fact is universally portrayed throughout the film as a very bad thing that no one should do.

And a shitload of people either didn't pick up that message or did but ignored it. Because there's no 1:1 transfer of message to audience.

#3: Failing to provide an actual solution/ignoring the next steps.

Okay, so you've identified a problematic element of a work. And you're concerned that it's going to affect your thinking or other people's thinking! Cool! Awesome! Now what?

A short list of things that you can possibly do to mitigate its effects:

What doesn't help literally at all:

I realize that this is a very long response but I am Sick and Tired of antis pretending that their ship wars are somehow a force for moral good or completely ignoring their own biases to focus on stuff they personally don't like.

Reblogging for excellent points by @wolveria and @bemusedlybespectacled

Super fucked up! wtf is wrong with these people?  #IamWithMili!

What is every little girl supposed to have long hair in a ponytail? So happy to see all of the support going her way.

Everybody remembers that we absolutely knew this would happen, right?

Like, trans people predicted this from the start. Everyone was SO SURE they could identify us on sight, and we said “If you run with that assumption you’re going face-first into a goddamn wall” and here we go.

It’s like people forget women with short hair exist.

In the six years that this has happened, Milli has continued to play soccer, is on track for joining a national team, and still keeps her hair short.

Read this and take it in.

Even if you have your papers.

Even if you are fortunate to have your gender match your sex.

Even if you were assigned feminine at birth.

They can still tell you to your face you’re not a woman if you don’t conform to a patriarchal standard of skinny Anglo with long hair.

They can just deny you for no reason at all.

THIS MAKES ALL THOSE SPORTS BANS LAWS USELESS AT PROTECTING CIS GIRLS! The very thing tbey were supposed to do!

Let’s get one thing right.

Sports bans, bathroom bans, ANY type of ban on trans people in public places were NEVER meant to protect cis girls or women or women’s sports or any of that crap.

They’re about control and forcing ALL people to conform to stereotypical gender norms and eradicating trans people in the process.

It’s (christo)fascism and genocide.

“We have to protect the children!” Great. Don’t create a world in which a girl has to decide whether to show her business to the referee or risk getting blamed for the forfeit. It’s not an exaggeration. Caster Semenya took that garbage with more grace than anyone deserved.

See, I’m down for this too (but I don’t like Jane Eyre).  Elinor + Brandon = tolerably happy companionate situation.

The single biggest reason? Brandon actually talks to Elinor where he merely looks at Marianne. She’s a real person to him, while Marianne is at least partially a projection of his own ideas. Also, while Elinor is nineteen or twenty in the books, many of us picture 36-year-old Emma Thompson sitting opposite Alan Rickman, so there’s less of an old man sniffing around a teenager ick factor. (Rickman was 49 to Winslet’s 20 in the movie. In the book, Brandon is in his thirties.)

But other than that they’re both in love with other people, they’re actually a pretty good match. They’re both levelheaded and even-tempered and generally good people and the reader can infer that they do become and stay friends. She’s married to his estate’s parson and he’s married to her sister, and they like each other.

I should say, they’re a good match by the standards we see in the book. Miss Gray and Willoughby are likely to be unhappy because they got off to such a bad start, but who knows? But we do see three other situations that have had enough time to become stable: John and Fanny, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, and Lord and Lady Middleton.

But it still wouldn’t happen.

The main barrier is that while Elinor kind of has to get married, Colonel Brandon does not. In the book, he’s thirty-five and financially independent. If he wanted to get married, he would have gotten married by now. Even if Marianne died or married Willoughby and Edward married Lucy, leaving them both available, Brandon would still have no reason to marry Elinor or anyone. He’s more the type to spend another twenty years licking his wounds. If he felt like helping out the Dashwoods, it would probably by giving them some gifts of fish or game. I don’t see him tossing Elinor a pity ring.

At least not right away. Who knows? Perhaps a few more years of meeting at the Middletons and tolerating Mrs. Jennings’ teasing (which hides a maelstrom of badassery but that’s another post) would make them grow on each other.

@bisquid

Have I ever told u about the people my sister ran into when she was working at Rocky Mountain National Park in college?

They thought the rangers put the animals in barns at night and let them out in the daytime.

My sister was like. No. The elk just...live there.

This broke their brains. They couldn't wrap their head around the concept of wild animals that just live in the wild without humans taking care of them.

So I like asking people who work in an educational capacity what the weirdest question they have ever gotten is (I take stupid too, but asking anything is better than making assumptions)

Ranger from Grand Teton had a woman ask her how they trained the bears to get into the boxes at night.

For those of you who have never been camping in Bear Country, every campsite and picnic table in Grand Teton and every other park in the mountain time zone is outfitted with a big metal box with a slightly complicated handle specifically for keeping bears OUT of human food, because otherwise the bears learn humans are VERY easy to bully lots of calories out of and that's how you get bear attacks.

In this woman's defense, they are called and labelled "Bear Boxes"

She apparently didn't hear the second part and said "OH. That makes sense. With all the high-fructose corny syrup they put in everything these days, human food would give them so many cavities and that'd be a lot of expensive dental work for you to give them!"

"...Yeah!" said the ranger, who had neither the time nor emotional fortitude to disabuse this woman of the idea that she lives in a magical world where the park service is well-funded enough to know about and treat the dental issues of wild bears.

Can you IMAGINE having to give a grizzly a filling. Holy shit.

“Let’s take care of some of that tarter while we’re here.”

“GrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOORRRrrrrrr.”

“Or not, that’s fine. Don’t blame me for the gingivitis a few year from now, Greg.”

“grrrrr mhmph.”

I keep thinking of Superman’s friends unsealing the instructions for his funeral.

“Tell everyone I was Clark Kent, especially those jerks at XenoPharma. They asked Superman for a celebrity endorsement as part of their rebranding after the expose about their insulin pricing. Remind them who wrote it.”

Starving to death this morning because ive been to the new local cafe twice this week already and if i go a third time ill look desperate.

Me: I like the goods and/or services you offer in exchange for my money

The cafe, in my head: lmao cringe, kill yrself buddy

The endlessly wailing siren of my social anxiety issues is probably not going to be silenced by the people in the comments pointing out that being a regular at a restaurant is a normal thing for people to be, but I do zero-sarcasm appreciate the attempt, is very kind!

I used to walk into [redacted nonpizza store] in my area and the guy behind the counter would immediately ask me if I wanted a pizza. truly I experienced the mortifying ordeal of being known as the pizza guy

compared to that being a regular at a normal cafe ordering normal breakfast items would be a real relief

Literally dread this scenario, to have your identity *reduced down* to a single item order, to be known as such a plebian with such a restricted palette that your order can be charted in advance, oh widdle ash wants his chicken tendies uwu.

I agree having a set breakfast order is more socially acceptable than a set pizza order. But its not enough; its never enough.

Though life update: i did just go to the cafe in the end. I compromised with my anxiety by ordering a sandwich instead of my typical bagel. It was fine but not as good.

on the flipside, we went to the same place for brunch a couple years, one time my buddy orders something new, and while he’s eating five different members of the wait staff stopped by to be like “did they bring you the wrong thing?”

This thread needs a trigger warning keep the horror stories coming

There was a bakeshop near my house that made soft ginger cookies and and macarons but only 2-3 good flavors. I walked in once and the cashier (who I definitely didn’t recognize) said “let me guess - ginger cookies and cookies-n-cream macarons, right?”

Needless to say, I never returned.

I once went to a McDonald’s, the cashier said “big mac combo meal and a chicken burger, right?” and I said “yeah” and then didn’t come back for two years

This entire genre of concern so fascinatingly foreign to me! the cafeteria pizza guy knows I want 3 slices of whatever veggie pizza he has, and he will have them ready for me without me having to say anything besides a quick murmured thanks, and he smiles when he sees me and starts to grab them, and it feels so good! to be known, even a little bit, to be a small constant in someone else’s life… there’s just something so beautiful and precious and good in that, for me.

When I lived in [the city where I lived for undergrad] there was this place very close to my house with cheap and delicious lamb curry and the people at the counter knew my face and would start scooping the lamb curry into a bowl when they saw me come through the door. I thought this was lovely of them and always made sure to tip generously. Restaurant and regular is a mutually beneficial relationship.

Yeah there’s a bakery/cafe a few doors down from me and reaching the point where they a) remember my face/name and b) know my regular order meant that I can no longer get breakfast anywhere else ever.

Had the guy at the taco truck I routinely went to for lunch who asked me after a few years if I only ate burritos or something, no man I’m just don’t see the need to mix up my lunches.

As someone who’s been both front and back of house in various large and small food services: regulars account for roughly 40% of sales and thier consistency makes it easier to order supplies and keep stock levels stable.

As front of house my regulars were always a welcome sight, an easy serve and clear, a guaranteed a happy customer and pleasant interaction. Especially in diners or lunch spots where reliable turnover = tips and most people never come in more than once, having a familiar face who’s rhythms and tastes you recall makes the rest of your service work easier.

If you have any anxiety about being a regular somewhere just be sure to tip well, and you will magically transform from ‘pizza guy’ or ‘lamb curry dude’ to Beloved Favorite Regular and the servers will squabble to get you seated in thier section.

When I worked for Domino’s Pizza, there was a guy who ordered a pizza, without fail, on Thursday at 6pm. Until the day he didn’t.

One of our drivers was delivering nearby and decided to check on the guy. Turns out the guy got home, got most of the way through the door, and lost consciousness. (If memory serves, it was a diabetic episode.) Driver couldn’t revive him and called 911. Saved the guy’s life.

when i worked in a remote office when i started my job, i went to denny’s for lunch enough that i’d just walk in and a server would go “take a seat over there, I’ll be over with your iced tea to take your order in a moment”

Food service workers love their regulars, especially if you’re a good tipper and are polite, we literally look forward to seeing you every day. Also service workers don’t care if you order the same thing, and us remembering your order means we like you.

^^^^

Also no we aren’t “boiling your personality down to an item/order”, you are. We are offering you preference recall and welcoming you and your *presence* does in fact correspond to our need to give you a certain order. It’s okay for that to happen.

For all my fellow social anxiety sufferers out there. Because my local coffee shop knows I always get iced coffee or a mocha and a biscotti and it stresses me the fuck out because I’m like “What if they think my order is dumb?? What if they’re like there she goes again stuffing her face with biscottis all the time” but nothing matters and a biscotti with your coffee in the morning really makes all the difference in what kinda day you’re gonna have.

I have pretty severe social anxiety, but there was a Chinese restaurant in [town I lived in for a few years] that made some of the very best egg drop soup, vegetable lo mein, and spring rolls. I ordered that every time I went there. They would seat me by a window in a quiet spot because they saw me put earplugs on when things got noisy.

Then I moved to a different but nearby town. I’m unable to drive (due to medical reasons) and public transportation didn’t go near the town. It was a year later, when I had a study group, that I was able to go there again. We had been taking turns for what restaurant we would eat and study at. We’d be there for hours, ordering several meals, and tip heavy, around 50%. Anyone one of us who couldn’t afford to eat or tip would be covered by the rest because several of my classmates were from wealthy families. They covered me more than once in exchange for drawings.

When it was my turn, we went to the Chinese restaurant. I walked in and they immediately knew who I was and what I favored. It was pretty dead in there, so we mostly had the place to ourselves. It ended up being a six course meal and five hours of studying and discussing the project. They brought me my favs as soon as they saw my plate or bowl was empty. The bill ended up at a little over $1k.

A couple months later, a friend took me there where we had a nice lunch after I finished my last exam. The owner approached our table and told me each of the students I had brought last time were now regulars. Some brought more people, and business was booming. They gave me a little card that said I would receive free meals for the next two years, as thanks for being a regular bringing in so many new people.

Before I moved across the country, I wanted to visit the place for a final meal before leaving. The place was closed with a sign that said “moved to new location.” The new location was near the university. So we went there, and the owner informed me that because so many of their new regulars were uni students, they moved. The place was easily 3x the size of their original. They told me it was always packed during meal times, and they now opened for breakfast with tradition Chinese breakfast foods. Business was booming, and all because of their regulars.

Being a regular is one of the very best compliments you can offer a restaurant, diner, meal trucks, etc. They love seeing you, especially if you tip well. I will likely never eat there again due to living more than 2500 miles away, but it feels good that my love for egg drop soup, vegetable lo mein, and spring rolls helped out a wonderful restaurant.

Be a regular. They love you.

A world where gender roles are reversed.

How about a fantasy culture where gender roles are taboo

Isn't that a Star Trek:TNG episode

I think there was a tng episode with three genders in a culture and some role reversal stuff but it has been a while and I don't remember details. At a guess, star trek has done several variations on this theme.

I believe Enterprise had an episode with three genders, but I never saw it. There was a TNG ep, “The Outcast,” with a whole culture that had just one sex/gender except for a few people who figure out they have what we’d call male or female gender identity, but it was a metaphor for hating gays and for conversion therapy. They didn’t do much to explore the J’naii’s single-gender-role culture or the parallels with growing up trans. Soren admits to Riker that she’s secretly female and gets caught. Social commentary attempts to ensue but is whacked down by the ol’ reset button.

I contrast “Outcast” with the dwarves' single-gender-role society in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. All of them use male pronouns. There’s no such thing as “women’s work.” The ruler is called “king,” irrespective of his physical anatomy. Halfway through courtship, a pair of dwarves “have a private conversation” (in which they tell each other which set of genitals they’ve got) and then decide whether to continue the relationship.

But when dwarves move to the human-built big city, some of them decide to present as female, and one character, Cheery, is shown to have moved there for that reason. She changes her name. She wears a chainmail skirt instead of chainmail trousers. On some formal occasions, she wears the slinkiest, sequinniest dresses she can find. On others, she wears the same clothes as all the other dwarves. She makes friends with non-dwarven women who help her experiment with makeup, nail polish, and girls’ nights out. She wouldn’t dream of shaving her beard. The fact that the dwarves down in the city sometimes acknowledge having daughters gets the old-fashioned deep-downers beards in a bunch and has some serious political fallout.

Pratchett’s treatment of this felt a bit incomplete to me because it never got into the bad parts of a two-gender-role society, like sexism and homophobia. The dwarves don’t seem to have contempt for femaleness itself. Pratchett doesn’t say this outright, but if any marriages are same-sex, no one would ever know. The only dwarven marriage that gets a negative response is one in which a dwarf marries a human.

Overall it was pretty cool worldbuilding. Cheery shows up in Feet of Clay, and the biggest exploration of dwarven gender culture is probably in The Fifth Elephant (skip Guards! Guards! because Pratchett hadn’t figured out where he was going with it by then). Goodmountain and his beloved Boddeny both present as regular dwarves, but there’s a cool discussion of their marriage customs in The Truth.

But Cheery knew what female gender roles were. She could see femininity performed in other cultures, not to mention her own biological realities. She picks and chooses the parts she likes, but they’re there to pick and choose from. TNG didn’t get into what Soren was working with when she figured out she was female.

Very Brief Guide to [tumblr], for Reddit refugees

Shit You Must Do Right Fucking Now:

Basic Features of the Site:

Stuff Tumblr Does That Other Sites Don't:

General Etiquette:

Tips:

Have fun on [tumblr], everyone!

This is a lot to take in tbh but this is really helpful to refer to. I really appreciate all the help I've been getting from the Tumblr community. I love the sense of community this place has :))

You can follow specific tags is effectively the same as joining and following a submits how you find people interested in that topic. Speaking if, follow #cats amd #mycat(or #dogs and #my dog, you can thank me later.

i lowkey ship tumblr ♠ twitter now

the twitter users are coming QUICK post twitblr yaoi

I have never made art faster in my life

it’s because they’re divorced

Man this goes hard feel free to screenshot 💔😰💔💔😰

The mods are asleep, post Tumblr x Twitter art

Okay okay but this is fascinating because it's such a visceral example of how mythology works.

Most characters in mythologies are personifications of concepts, or embody some natural phenomenon - like the story of Hades and Persephone is there to explain why the seasons change, Persephone being spring, Demeter - summer, and the absence of them both resulting in death (Hade's domain) and winter, and so we can't have Persephone stay in underworld all year round or have Demeter steal her back to earth permanently, otherwise they myth would lose its core function.

Interpreting the myth without the lense of the natural phenomena that it explains would make it lose an integral part of itself, and therefore make the plot and characters seem strange or unnatural. Why does Demeter hate Hades so much, seeing how so many mothers are okay with Zeus doing atrocious things to their offspring just because he's Zeus? Does Persephone actually want to stay or not? What's with the bizarre arrangement?

Most modern interpretations strip myths of their natural contexts, making them character-driven instead of phenomena-driven, which just makes them land differently - they can still be fine stories, just not myths, not is the traditional sense.

And now we get to this beauty. This is absolutely a myth, the most classical kind. The relationship between characters, who are personifications of objects, phenomena or concepts (in this case, online platforms) used as an intuitively understood metaphor for an event (the demise of Twitter and the Tumblr userbase being unwilling to accept Twitter's userbase).

It's a story that can work as a so-called "explanation myths". We have seasons because Persephone spends half a yesterday underworld and half a year with her mother. We don't like Twitter because the Twitter God and Tumblr God broke up. Ladies and gents and other assorted respectables, we here are witnessing the creation of a perfect modern myth.

Okay but which of them took the shoelaces in the divorce?

I thought about it way more than a non-feverish me would, and I've come to the conclusion:

The modern myth that is The Divorce of Tumblr and Twitter carries the themes of regression, corruption and downfall. Some of Twitter userbase used to be part of Tumblr userbase, but they left and changed (corruption). Now that Twitter is becoming uninhabitable (downfall), people are trying to return to Tumblr (regression, possible downfall of Tumblr), and to keep them off Tumblr is returning to its old cringe self (regression).

So, if we are to follow the themes, the logical conclusion would be to send the shoelaces back to the president.

This is the fastest I've ever written I think

There once lived a young man, handsome as daylight, bright and strong. He was known as Twitter, beloved by the people, a favorite of the gods. His chosen companion, Tumblr, was not dear to the people or the gods. He, a traveling storyteller, preferred solitude. His tales were strange and often unpleasant to the ears, but enchanting in their vulgarity. 

One day, Tumblr's patron goddess, Yahoo, enraged by his vulgar words, put a curse on him. He was not to utter vulgarities, speak of the pleasures of the flesh. His stories of lycanthrope companions were lost to the sands of time, and with them, his last listeners turned away from him. 

Twitter watched others laugh at his beloved, turn him away from their doors, and a dark thought settled over him. He was perfect in every way, his only fault was the affiliation with the cursed taleweaver. And so, little by little, they drifted apart. 

In his travels, Tumblr stumbled into the temple of Apollo, who bestowed upon him the gift of prophecy. He made acquaintance with the trifecta of wise temple maidens who induced visions through hallucinogenic incense. His stories changed, still bizarre and often vulgar, but at times full of wonder and truth. 

At that time, Twitter enjoyed all the luxuries of the mortal world. He was the companion of kings, wealthy merchants, legendary heroes, wise philosophers. 

One day, a man richer than rich, richer than the God of wealth, went to the senate of directors and asked to buy the most precious thing in the entire polis. 

The senate thought long and hard, and said: "do you wish for our finest singer, the most sweet-voiced of the land, Spotifia? I am afraid I cannot part with her. "

"No, " said the rich man, his voice cold and harsh, "I said I have come to buy your most precious thing."

"Have you come for our gambler, the chosen of the god of luck, MAXimil? They earn us more riches than you can offer. I shall not part with them. "

"No," the rich man repeated, "I have come to buy your most precious thing. I have come for Twitter."

The senators laughed, then, for they knew this must be a joke. Twitter was too beloved by the gods to be owned as a servant. But the rich man did not smile. He offered money, then more and more still. As the goddess of hubris clouded his mind, he offered more money than he could afford to spend, more than the senate could afford to refuse, for it was enough gold to form armies five times the size of their polis. 

And so Twitter, the proud Twitter, the untouchable Twitter who laughed at kings and scholars alike, became a servant. 

As he was put onto a gilded ship to be sailed off to the rich man's land, he prayed to the gods that granted him beauty and strength and a sharp tongue, but none answered. His cruelty and vanity made them turn away, and he was too full of his power to notice. 

Finally, the young man remembered one more name. He called for Tumblr, his forgotten companion. 

First time he called, the birds took off and flew in all directions. Second time he called, the animals fled in fear. Gathering all the strength he had, he called a third time.

His call shook the earth and the skies, and in an instant, Apollo's taleweaver stood on the shore. 

Twitter cried in relief. "My love!" he called, "save me! Save me, and I shall be yours for the eternity to come. I shall bask you in glory and riches. I shall make the people love you."

Tumblr looked at the rich old man, at the gilded ship, gilded chains, at the other slaves that were meant to please the rich man during his trip, dressed in the finest clothes fit for kings and immortals. 

"You'll like your new life, dear. " said Tumblr. "You are idle: he shan't make you do much. You are prideful: he shall treat you like a god. You are vain, and so you might fear you might be forgotten, one servant among many. Fear not," he smiled. "I shall sing a song of us."

I AM SORRY I DIDNT KNOW WHAT BEAST I WOULD CREATE WITH THE DIVORCE THING OH MY GOSH

The "car community" claim that the sexual component is small. A Google search for "car porn" suggests otherwise. Of course adults can do

another pregnant woman died in poland because the doctors waited for the fetus to die on its own while ignoring her sepsis symptoms (there was NO CHANCE of the fetus surviving, but they didn’t want to get charged with performing an illegal abortion). but yeah women around here don’t have many kids cause they just… uuuh *checks notes* party all the time 

it is so infuriating, because she had a husband and she wanted this baby, so it would be all fine even according to the most ardent conservatives. and yet oh shit guys the law you made just killed her 

her name was Dorota, she was 33 and lived in Nowy Targ. we will not forget 

support Aborcyjny Dream Team providing abortion access to those in need!

you can use Str*pe, App*ePay or Go*glePay!

it’s legit, they’ve been doing it for years, even though they regularly get dragged through courts, threatened with death, etc. if you’re worried whether it’s legal - yes, terminating your own pregnancy isn’t against the law in Poland. Aborcyjny Dream Team give out pills or help organize travel to different countries, they don’t perform abortions themselves

That’s what happened to Savita Halappanavar in Ireland. They said her name. Ireland changed its laws. It took time. They said her name. It took work. They said her name.

Dorota. Dorota. Dorota.

Allow me to assure you, as a librarian, that if you as a concerned citizen present us with a list of Books that are Bad and should Not Be In Our Collection and which you Require us to Remove At Once, we will scan it for titles that we don’t have yet to add to our purchase list.

Ah, the “limiting access to information is okay if they’re takes I object to” squad has begun to appear.

This is your helpful reminder that:

a) There are legitimate information access needs even to bad information (one cannot, for example, study and deconstruct erroneous information about climate change if you don’t know what people are saying) and it is actually part of my vocation to provide ACCESS to even books I vehemently disagree with. Sometimes I even get to bond with the person checking it out over how appalling it is! Sometimes the reason they’re checking it out is because they need to read it but don’t want to buy it.

b) The presence of a text in a library collection does not imply agreement with or endorsement by the library as an entity; it just means for one reason or another it fits in our collection management policy. Often it’s based on patron requests from community members.

c) The absolute last thing you EVER want is your librarian to be empowered to decide whether your information need is Good Enough to be “allowed” access to the text. You, personally, even you reading this who knows you share the same values as me, do not want your access to be subject to my judgement as to whether or not your information need is “valid”; to be subject to my assessment whether you can be trusted to have access to a text.

I’m not your mom. I’m not even your teacher. I’m your librarian; it’s my job to help you access information YOU need, and YOU decide what that need is. If you ask for my help then sure it’s also my job to help you assess it based on my training and experience, but it is not my job to ARBITRATE your access to information based on my decisions about the legitimacy of your reason to seek it out.

So yes even when that list of books has books on it I think are full of lies I’m probably checking to see if it’s something someone in my community might need access to without having to buy it or expose themselves to the malware risks of pirating.

Because while I kinda hate him Jordan Peterson’s bullshit is RELEVANT to understanding a lot of shit going on today. And you do NOT want to live in a world where it’s my job to test and see if you have a good and pure enough reason for wanting to check his book out.

I’m ages late but:

Excuse me a coworker caught me making a warding sign at fuckin’ Ted Cruz’s piece of shit book the other day, I feel very called out right now.

So, there's apparently research coming out now about microplastics being found in people's bloodstreams and the possible negative effects of that and I feel the need to get out ahead of the wave of corporate sponsored "be sure to recycle your bottles!" or "ban glitter!" campaigns and remind everyone: It's fishing nets. It's fishing nets. It is overwhelming fishing nets It always has been fishing nets. Unless regulations are changed, it will continue to be fishing nets. The plastic in the ocean in largely discarded nets from industrial fishing. The microplastics are the result of these nets breaking down. The "trash islands" are also, you guessed it. Mostly fishing nets and other discarded fishing industry equipment. Do not allow them to continue to twist the story. Do not come after disabled people who require single use plastics. Do not come after people using glitter in art projects and makeup. These things make up a negligible amount of the issue compared to corporate waste, specifically in the fishing industry. Do not let them shift the blame to the individual so they can continue to destroy the planet and our bodies without regulation.

Industries are incredibly resistant to taking responsibility for their own waste, to the point where “consumers are responsible for industrial waste” is somehow considered a sensible, ethical, worthy sentence.

It is actually perfectly reasonable to say that “industries are responsible for industrial waste” and “the effects of industry can, should and must be fixed by industry” and “Industry can, should and must be held responsible for its impacts on the commons, such as air, water, oceans and land.”

Do you know how much ocean plastic waste is straws?

Something like 0.0007%.

IT’S NOT EVEN ONE ONE-HUNDREDTH OF A PERCENT.

But they want you to hate the disabled people who need safe and bendable and sanitary plastic straws in order to be able to drink. So you won’t notice the 70+% that’s fishing nets.

Yes recycle household plastic because that’s nice to do and litter is ugly but NO, your own actions will not solve the problem this time. It’s called individualization of responsibility and industry has been trying to trick the public about it since at least the 1940s.

i swear to god i regret reblogging that estrolabs post because absolutely no one is focusing on the actual issue, which is that it's a phishing site very clearly run by malicious people and giving them any information on yourself could fuck you over big time

their ashwaganda "estrogen replacement" would be useless at best and extremely dangerous at worst, if it actually existed. however the products on that site almost certainly do not fucking exist and never have, and they have zero intention of actually producing them. the listings for the "supplements" aren't on the site anymore.

when scams like this pop up suddenly, they're not legitimate to even the slightest degree. there was never a real product, they were trying to get your money or your card and contact information either to doxx you, harass you, or literally steal from you. it's a PHISHING scheme, not a "making a shitty product to Literally Kill People" scheme. one of these things is far cheaper and far easier for a layperson to do.

while the information on the function of ashwaganda was definitely useful generally, it was/is not the most present danger of this estrolabs/queerquirk situation and people need to be aware of the actual threat these kinds of sites and situations pose.

as i was writing this estrolabs has been taken down, but queerquirk is still up and still advertising it's fake products and has a contact us page. do not give them your contact information, even to send hate. it is not worth getting phished to epicly own the dumbass behind this scheme. report the site and move on.

Confirming that the Queerquirk site is still up and running, but currently the Shopify store there has no content and is only displaying a “give us your email and we’ll let you know when we’re open” field. (Which you obviously SHOULD NOT USE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.)

…Reporting the store to Shopify would make sense, for anyone who’s got screenshots of the earlier contents.

I know, I know, gatekeeping the outdoors, that's supposedly bad, right, but I think if you show up to do a hike and you brought a portable speaker with you to play music while you hike, I think, like hear me out, there should be a gate, and someone at the gate should keep you from doing the hike.

playing music in public should get strong social disapproval

Recorded music, anyway. Live music is different rules. If you want to lug an entire cello up a mountain you can do whatever the hell you want.

Carrying a speaker on a hike to make everyone listen to your bullshit, and simply sitting under a tree and playing a fiddle in the woods, are two activities so different they may as well not exist in the same world.

I think the critical difference is that the bringing of recorded music with you ties the space to Elsewhere, whereas the creation of live music with an instrument you brought both binds you to the space, and drags everyone who hears you play into it as well.

I think you're right.

Yeah I'll accept this into my belief system.

Vegans of tumblr, listen up. Harvesting agave in the quantities required so you dont have to eat honey is killing mexican long-nosed bats. They feed off the nectar and pollinate the plants. They need the agave. You want to help the environment? Go back to honey. Your liver and thyroid will thank you, as well. Agave is 90% fructose, which can cause a host of issues. Bye.

So let me get this straight ,vegans should stop eating the food of the Mexcian long-nosed bats, because the bats need it, and instead vegans should instead eat honey, the food of bees, that their larvae need, even though the bee populations are facing ecological issues as it stands.  10/10 post, dude.

Did you forget the whole part where only excess is taken and all their needs are met and then some orrrr?

Like, did you read it orrrrr?

Anyway, BUY HONEY SAVE BEES

It is a 10/10 post. Because OP is right.

Bees do not suffer when beekeepers take their honey, because experienced beekeepers do not take all of their honey, in fact, they leave plenty of honey left for the bees to consume over the winter. If we do not collect their honey, 1 of two things will happen.

1. they will leave for a bigger home. Which at first seems fine until you remember that bees are dying very quickly out in the wild.

or

2. They will start using the areas that they reserve for their young as a place to make more honey. This is bad because if no more young are being produced, then the hive will start to die out because no new workers are coming into the world, and the average live only 150 days, so it would also mean the loss of more bees.

So yeah, eating honey isn’t inhumane at all. In fact, you’re helping the bees by eating what they produce and giving money to the bee keepers who are the ones making sure that the hive will keep being healthy.

LOUDER FOR THE VEGANS IN THE BACK: use honey, not agave! Bees need your support and other animals need agave! Using honey means more bees!!

Other animal products that are absolutely fine to use because they produce it in excess:

- Wool. Sheep need to be sheared or their wool will get excessively large, matted and gross. Its legit just a haircut. Calm down and use wool instead of whatever fake acrylic microplastic shit they have in stores now. Wool is super warm, insulating, and guess what! It grows back! Its a renewable resource and all the sheep want in return is some good pasture and protection from predators.

- Eggs. I’m not talking about storebought eggs. Go to your local farmer’s market. Find someone around with chickens/ducks. These birds produce eggs literally every day and will not stop unless they are molting, brooding, or kept in the dark for most of the day. Like I am not joking when I say you can very easily find someone with poultry and they will beg you to take some eggs. Theres so many. Please. Take some duck eggs. I dont want them. I had 8 laying ducks last year. Thats 8 eggs every day. Thats 2 dozen eggs every THREE DAYS. Thats SO MANY EGGS PLEASE TAKE SOME EGGS

Reducing animal cruelty does not mean abolish the use of animal products. Go eat honey. Go use wool. Go find a friend with birds and eat eggs, or get your own. Just because it comes from an animal does not make it cruel.

Someone who’s vegan for nutritional/health reasons migth not want to eat the animal protein in eggs, but yes yes yes to the rest of this. Wear wool unless you’re allergic. Eat honey unless you’re diabetic. Sheep have been bred for thousands of years to make extra wool. The bees are in a mutually beneficial relationship (or else they would fly away). You’re good.

No they're right actually and they should say it.

The lefts descent into obsession with identity politics means all these boys get from these spaces is essentially being told they're inherently monstrous or will grow up to be so.

12 year old boys are not evil. They're children. And they're susceptible to manipulation from these fucks on the right who have sadly correctly identified that large swathes of the left will ignore and shun them. People turn to extremist factions when they feel ignored and dehumanised.

A 12 year old boy online isn't going to be able to read the nuances in your uber ironic but not really actually ironic "all white men are inherently trash" hot takes. They're going to take that at face value because they're 12 and that's what 12 year olds do. And they're going to feel angry, rejected and judged by your words. And then fucks like Andrew Tate get to swoop in and tell them that you're wrong and start the ball rolling on that indoctrination.

If you're an adult leftist and you honestly think teenage boys possess the wherewithal to purposefully follow dangerous Misogynists like Andrew Tate in order to "preserve their own privilege long term" then I'm sorry to say you're too far gone and I'd suggest logging off and actually trying to have a conversation with a kid who is vulnerable to the grooming of these uber misogynists and treat them as a human being instead of a reflection of an identity you've boxed them into.

You may tick more diversity boxes but you are still the adult. Start acting like it.

If I’m allowed to add onto this, I can say with 100% certainty that being open and honest with a 12 year old boy and allowing him to ask questions that may seem concerning to you absolutely works.

My youngest sibling is 8 years younger than I am, so he was a preteen when I was in undergrad. He’s firmly planted in Gen z territory while I’m at the tail end of millennial, which isn’t important except to say that his unlimited access to YouTube and Reddit was not something I really had when I grew up.

My brother started to fall down the alt-right pipeline. He confessed that his YouTube recommendations were mostly guys talking about gamergate and how the feminists are feminazis and are actually evil (side note: ever notice how the term “feminazi” has stopped being used since the rise in acceptability of nazism again? Horrible to think about). It could have been really scary, but he pulled himself out.

The key here is that my brother trusted me enough to come to me and ask me questions.

Ive been a very vocal feminist pretty much all my life, and it’s a long and glorious tradition in my family, and my mom is the one who taught me baby’s first feminism. Because my brother trusted me and knew I’d never discount his opinion for no reason, he asked me what my responses were to some of the videos he was seeing. He said “I think there are some good points” and I watched the videos and talked to him about some of the rhetorical techniques or logical fallacies they used. Then I talked to him about why I’m a feminist and what that means.

That dialogue changed everything.

My brother is now starting his first year in college and is taking feminist and gender studies classes, just for fun. He is himself a vocal feminist, and he’s so damn proud of himself.

I’m proud of him too, and I’m honored that he trusted me enough to ask me what I thought.

So please don’t write off young men the way the op of the original tweet does, ESPECIALLY not the young men in your life. Be someone they trust to ask questions. It’s the frontline of this battle.

anyone who knows me irl knows i'm the last person to be sympathetic towards nazis, and the first to advocate for punching them. HOWEVER, you can acknowledge the fact that so many of these not-inherently-evil (i don't think that's really a thing) people fall down the rabbit hole for the reasons described, and de-radicalization IS important (though i think that at an older age, that often starts with the blunt truth, rather than softness and sympathy) WITHOUT SYMPATHIZING WITH NAZIISM.

But.

By the time I was 12, a lot of my male classmates were already monsters. They were entitled.  They were aggressive. They thought their female classmates were there to serve their needs or at least make them feel better.  By the time they were 12, they’d heard over and over “she’s too sensitive,” “she has to just ignore it when you do that,” “boys are just like that,” “boys will be boys,” “oh he has to act like that,” “what do you want him to do, turn into a girl?” And they heard it from teachers and other adults who knew exactly how old they were. I don’t remember a single boy getting punished for sexual harassment, and all of this was before high school.

No it wasn’t all of them, but all of them had been exposed to it. They did not grow up being told “you’re a boy so you’re bad.” They were told “you’re a boy, so go ahead.” (Unless what they wanted to do didn’t fit the ideal of a masculine little manny man.)

The generation of adult women writing “all men are bad”? They grew up with this. They grew up being explicitly told, “His maleness is what makes him do bad things.”

So yes, reach out to young boys. Tell them they are capable of self control. Tell them their maleness can make them good people. Tell them their minds can give them power. Tell them that they have nothing to fear from a level playing field. But let's remember that it's coming from somewhere.