General Mayhem

actually I do wish more people would just tell me when I do something wrong! it’s usually an accident that happens because I’ve misread the situation

I’ve had far too many friendships disintegrate because the other person never tells me when I do the wrong thing, and then they grow to resent me… despite them never being clear about what went wrong in the first place

the kindest thing you can do for your autistic friends is probably to be clear with them when they cross a line. to tell them kindly and politely what went wrong. to do them the service of communicating with them

because otherwise, how can I possibly know there’s a problem that I need to fix?

You ever invite your coworker to watch you give birth just to spite a racist

Okay howmst the fuck has a ship doctor in the far future never handled a birth without the father present? Are sperm donors and gay couples and trans women no longer a thing in the bajillionth century CE?? :/

I while understand the frustration with erasure sometimes it helps to look at things through the cultural context of when something was made. Star Trek the Next Generation was made in 1987, this particular episode I believe aired in 1988 a time when a future where the husband was always present for the birth would have been amazing to many of the people watching the show as men had only been allowed to be present for the birth of their children for 10/15ish years at that point in the US.

Women (and many men) fought for decades with hospitals to even have men allowed in the delivery room during the early stages of labor, which can last for several hours, and hospitals only began to give in to their requests in the 1960s but even then they would be kicked out of the room by hospital staff before the actual birth took place. So many of the couples watching the show would have had to go through labor without having/being allowed to support their spouse regardless of their wishes. Having the child’s father present for the birth only began to happen in the 1970s and 1980s. Which means most people watching this show either went through birth without the support of their spouse, were not allowed to support their spouse during the birth of their child, or their own mother’s went through that during their birth.

A future where the husbands were always present for the birth was still a little crazy to consider in the late 1980s. A good kind of crazy for the people living in that time, it showed a future where the wishes of the couple were finally consistently listened to by medical professionals as a result of the actions of people during their or their parent’s lifetimes. And it does that by also subverting it in allowing Data to step into the role of the father when the father was unknown and/or unwilling/unable to fill that role (I’ll be honest my knowledge of Next Gen is a bit spotty and I have not seen this whole episode, just a piece of it at family Thanksgiving). The woman’s desires as to how she would give birth are listened to and respected, something that still doesn’t happen in many hospitals now and would have been seen as even more revolutionary then. So while it isn’t perfect I think this scene was actually fairly impressive for its time and cultural context and shows a future that many people of that time would have seen as ideal.

I think this kind of contextual understanding and analysis is really important because things that look antiquated now were revolutionary then. I remember reading that the mini skirts in Star Trek TOS were legot just in fashion (about 64’ ish), one of the actresses (the one that played Rand) requested they be in the show and both her and Nichelle Nichols said they didn’t see them as demeaning but liberating in that time and context. Where as NOW it looks like ‘sexy male gaze’ but then it wasn’t.

Miniskirts are comfortable and easy to move in - unlike longer bulkier skirts, which had previously been required for “modesty.” And unlike the approach of “we’ll just put them in pants,” miniskirts made a statement that women crew-members weren’t being treated like men. Miniskirts were a way to say “I can be an attractive woman, wear comfortable clothes, and still look professional and do a serious job.” 

The clothing for that message today would be different. 

This is also why the bridge crew of TOS may seem “tokenistic” today. When it came out, the Cold War was in full swing and “Soviets” were maligned and hated, Black people could not count on their right to vote being honored, and mixed-race people (like Spock) were called horrible things like “half-breed” and “zebra.” A white man was in charge of the ship, but Gene Roddenberry was fully aware that a chunk of the viewership read him as queer, and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DISCOURAGE THAT READING, at a time when “homosexual activity” was illegal in the United States!

By today’s standards, “one of everything? How tokenistic.” In 1966? “A Black woman, a Russian, a man from multiple cultures, and a man who loves differently, all top of their fields, all working together and finding common ground to learn, grow, and help where they can? What a wonderful future!”

Also I’m sorry but like. A show also featuring a Japanese man who isn’t a stereotype but part of the crew, having a Scottish character be a part of the central cast (idk if I need to get into why this is important, but considering how England has continuously tried to erase Scottish culture and identity, and the stereotype of Scots as bumbling bumpkins, etc, its kind of nice to see a Scotsman who’s the best of the best at his job).

Moreover, a lot of kids watched this show. MLK himself contacted Nichelle Nichols and asked her to stay on the show when she was considering leaving, because “you don’t have a Black role, you have an equal role,” and there wasnt many Black role models on tv. I can only imagine how Black kids, Asian kids, and mixed race or mixed culture kids felt seeing people like them on tv. Hell, seeing Uhura on screen is what inspired Whoopi Goldberg as a little girl.

Also, yeah, its easy to look back and say ‘damn, fathers weren’t there in the delivery room? What assholes’ but no like they legitimately were not allowed in there.

Tiny correction: while George Takei is Japanese, and while Sulu thus looks like what we in the 20th-21st century consider to be an ethnically Japanese man, Hikaru Sulu was Pan-Asian by design. His last name is not Japanese. And Roddenberry designed him like that intentionally, because while there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment in the US at the time (I mean, hell… George Takei himself spent years in Japanese internment camps during WW2), there was also a lot of other anti-Asian sentiments, and Roddenberry intentionally put ALL of it on the character of Sulu.

Like, all the years of anti-Chinese racism in the US? Sulu. Anti-Japanese sentiments left over after WW2? Sulu. Korean War in 1950-52? Sulu. The Vietnam War, with Johnson in 1965 (a year before TOS started airing) choosing to start sending American troops into the conflict? Sulu.

Sulu was Roddenberry’s desperate attempt to show all Asian people as inherently worthy, inherently human, and yeah, he probably put kind of too much on Sulu’s shoulders, but it was the 1960s and Roddenberry fucking cared about representation, so he did what he could.

Just, you know… a little bit more historical Star Trek context

Also to hammer this home?

Scotty was third in line for the captain’s chair. The only non-Kirk who had the con more then him was Spock.

He was smart, he was a *ranked* crewmen, he was a gentleman, he wasn’t a skirt chaser, and he was capitol L loyal. The only time he got into a fight was when someone both went after his Captain, AND his Ship.

And he was Scottish. 

That’s so above and beyond the typical Scottish stereotype even TO THIS DAY.

Dr Polaski was coded as something of an arse just so they could make their valid points about equality and bigotry using her as a foil. Yes it was kind of clumsy from a modern perspective, but it was also kind of groundbreaking (not least because you didn’t usually get arses being played by women)

I am hard-coded to put this on any post that mentions MLK and Nichelle Nichols.

Also, it’s very worth noting that the “token minority character” label doesn’t apply in any way to these characters.

Tokens are there to present the appearance of diversity. Whereas Roddenberry created a diverse cast in an era where there wasn’t even a need for the appearance of diversity. Roddenberry didn’t put these characters in because he wanted to look diverse– he put them in to BE DIVERSE.

speaking of Miss Piggy and the queer community I want to share one of my favorite quotes of hers

I recently got made aware of a huge misunderstanding, so I wanna know what the majority thinks.

I rly wanna know how everyone uses it, bc I‘m kinda scared I‘ve been using it in the wrong context.

Sample size you know the drill :D

Taking beastrogen to become a wretched creature

Taking pestosterone to become a nasty nuisance

I think a big reason why "children are an oppressed group" gets (wrongly!) read as a "pedophile talking point" is that everyone treats children so terribly that actual child molesters can speedrun winning a kid's trust by like, actually respecting their needs and perspective, at least at first. Which means that the only way out of this mess is for all of us adults to treat children with respect, so that abusers can't use the rareness of that respect as a weapon.

Yeah I've been thinking a lot about how cults will prey on marginalized people and how it's so much easier to push an "us versus them" mentality on a person who already (legitimately, accurately) perceives the world as hostile to them

🙋🏻‍♀️ I was groomed by a predator this way and I also got dragged into cults this way. More than one.

Realizing that the validation was fake and that they didn't respect me any more than the other people in my life was more painful than the abuse I went through in some ways. So, like, maybe don't make people vulnerable to the whole situation. Treat kids like people.

When I was thirteen, my English teacher(???) had us do reports on various groups throughout American history. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea what made her think this was on-topic. ANYWAY, I was assigned the KKK. My mother had just finished college a couple years before and something she’d hammered into me while she was writing essays was that you should always present both sides of an argument.

If you think this is ending with “Nina did you actually try to interview the KKK,” you are…wrong.

It is ending with “Nina DID interview the KKK.” It’s ending with “some KKK secretary or whatever saw an earnest, gullible teenager say ‘my mom says I should present both sides so I thought I’d ask if I can talk to someone’ AND HAD THE GRAND FUCKING DRAGON ANSWER ME.”

It is ending with “when I was thirteen I came dangerously, BLISTERINGLY close to being recruited by the KKK.” Because let me tell you about this Grand Dragon. He was nice. He was kind, and patient. He answered all of my questions about his chapter’s history and what various KKK symbols meant. He sent me supplemental links on various bits of Klan history (Google didn’t exist yet, so this was both a treasure trove and, you can imagine, a way to tip the scales in the KKK’s favor). He encouraged me to let him know how my presentation went and praised me for doing in-depth research. Most of the adults in my life thought my research rabbitholes were weird or even dangerous, so “good job looking for your own answers instead of stopping at your first three sources” was a really big deal. “I’m so glad you reached out, what questions do you have?” was a really big deal.

What stopped me from falling all the way down that rabbit hole?

I was deeply Christian at the time and uncomfortable with the idea of burning (or, as they call it, “lighting”) crosses.

That’s it. That’s all that stood between me and “yes, I would like to talk to a local leader, I had no idea how much I knew about the Klan was wrong.”

That should scare the shit out of you. It scares the shit out of me, and I know the story turns out okay. How many of our young alt-righters do you think got caught EXACTLY THIS WAY?

People are community-focused beings FIRST and rational beings SECOND. If you won't respect them as members of your community, somebody else will.

And contrary to popular belief, children are people.

This is the thing.

Right now, the reactionaries are the ones positioning themselves as "you question this thing you were told? good for you!"

It's DANGEROUS to cede that ground.

"Don't learn what the TERFs have to say" leads to the TERFs telling you "they're just worried you might start considering how your sexed body impacts your life. They want to take away your capability to discuss that entirely."

This is not, actually, what "they" want, but if your next move isn't immediately to ask "them," it's not all that hard for the TERFs to make it look like it is. "They won't even say woman!"

Where if you say, "Sure! Go find out what TERFs are saying. But promise me that you will spend the same amount of time researching what trans people are saying, and consider who is responding to who with what," then the person feels that you've trusted them to be able to think for themselves.

Any time you make something forbidden fruit, you make it sexy.

I don't know how the left ever forgot this, but some of us did, and now we're reaping the whirlwind.

"dont die" is my favorite thing to tell people when they say theyre gonna go do something. going to the store? dont die. going to the bathroom? don't die. going to Mars? don't die. going to write an email? don't die. driving to the gas station? don't die. it fits every situation except for maybe a funeral visitation because then i think thatd be a little bit rude

my dad does this except after the fact. “i’m home!” “did you die?”

Lying to children is fun when they know you are being ridiculous. When you hold up a carrot like “guys look at this huge Cheeto” and they all scream “NOOOOOOOOO that’s a CARE-OTT!”

“What? No, it’s my giant Cheeto.”

“NOOOOOOO!”

When I was a camp counselor a fellow counselor claimed that any silly camp song we sang was “his next hit single” and we should all follow him on SoundCloud and he stuck by this daily and it never ceased to amuse both the adults and the children.

When children are small and learning to count and you say the numbers out of order? Peak comedy.

“How many toys are there? Let’s see… oneeee, twooo, six!”

“NO! One two three!”

“What? Are you sure? Let me try again. One, two… six?”

“Noooooo!”

Once reduced a toddler into a fit of giggles by singing “A B C D E F Q.”

Tags from @windyvalleyzone

on Halloween at the store i work at there was a little boy in a Batman costume, and as I was helping his mom I kept addressing him as Mr. Superman and Mr. Aquaman & he kept correcting me, “noooo, BATMAN” until they were leaving and he very seriously told me, “actully, I’m Ryan”

[ID: Tags that read: "#the classic joke is when its their birthday and you ask them if theyre like.. 20 years old #they're like NO I'M FOUR." End ID]

this ^^^^

Medical diversity is key.

This is so important in all fields but especially the medical profession. Being able to connect with patients and identify that they aren’t engaging with information is vital to patient care

When I said "Love is not what makes us human" I meant it. It doesn't mean we need to redefine something else that makes us human. It doesn't mean that I don't understand that love is more than romantic. It means that I know those things and believe that nothing should have to define our humanity, that love is not a universal experience no matter how many different ways you try to define it.

Love is not what makes us human. Point blank.

Violence set to happy music will never get old to me. Blood splattering to an 80s pop song is like a sister to me because I'm not allergic to fun.

Every now and then I'm reminded Real People with Actual Jobs use tumblr and I've always been legitimately curious what all you weird adults are up to when you're not on this site and with tumblr's New Poll Feature I can finally get an answer! (or the closest approximation of an answer possible with only 10 available options h a)

The Dublin spire isn't a bad looking landmark per se but why does it look like it was specifically designed to pop blimps

It looks like whoever designed this hates balloons.

It's a 120 meter tall stainless steel spike. Can't go in it.

this looks like it was designed specifically so you could trip a kaiju and impale them with it

I used to hate it, but it actually makes more sense when you're actually in/moving around Dublin lol.

Most buildings in Dublin are less than 5 storeys high, so you can see the Spire from most of the city centre, and get to the rest of the city from it fairly easily.

The Spire is designed so it works as a landmark you can see from almost anywhere.

Before Google Maps was really a thing, and even now it is, you could use it as a physical reference point to move around the city, and you're kind of drawn to it one way or the other naturally. It's kind of a giant IRL map pin.

That means there's always a group of people at the base; teenagers meeting up with their buddies before setting off for the day, tour groups, folks from out of town just off the bus waiting their friends, and - my perpetual favourite - well dressed people with visible nerves trying to act cool as they wait for their dates.

So rather than a blimp defense system, think of it more like a spawn point.

Also when there's a Star Wars movie they turn it into a lightsaber.

for those interested, this is a good example of how "Major structure you can see from everywhere" is a good thing for cities. The needle, though maybe not loved by everyone, is exactly as EJF says - a navigational reference point.

If you were ever lost, you could look for the needle and identify a major spot in the city. This can help avoid getting turned around (since you can track your direction in reference to a single point) , or provide a known spot to return to if you get disoriented.

This would also mean that if someone was new, they could learn the directions from the needle to where they were staying, and then travel the rest of the city with confidence that they can find their way back when they are done.

Water towers can serve a similar purpose in smaller towns, which is one of the reasons why they're often kept, even when no longer used for storing water.

In conclusion, make fun of how it looks all you want, but this giant needle is now part of vital city infrastructure.

Ppl dont seem to realise that "only perceivably queer people should have access to queer spaces and support" and "nobody is obligated to out themselves to you and nobody needs to provide proof of their sexuality/identity" CANNOT coexist.

People are very quick to say "nobody should ever be forced out of the closet, there is no one way to be queer" but then throw a fit when someone who isnt visibly gay plays a gay character or when someone who isnt officially out acts in a ~queer way~.

Also, sometimes the person you think is the poster child for cisheterosexuality is in fact incredibly queer because that's the way they feel happiest presenting. And sometimes the person you're dead certain is queer is cishet and just really cool about it. And you will never be able to tell the difference on sight and that is a good thing.

Just thought people may enjoy this :)

The world is so fatphobic and glorifies thinness so much that I am turning 25 years old in five days and this is the first time I have ever in my entire life seen representation of fat people in figure skating. And what is just as surprising is that when I looked at this person's account, they had no content about weight loss or wanting to become thin. They actually had content specifically talking about accepting their body and being glad to show other people who look like them that it's okay to follow your dreams no matter what your body looks like.

It's incredibly sad that this is the first time I have ever been able to see my body represented in figure skating (and don't get me started on the lack of fat representation in other sports as well), but I hope this person's videos will inspire more fat people to try this sport and not hide our bodies. Maybe someday in the future I'll be shocked that there had ever been so little representation of fat figure skaters in the past.

Some of y’all act like basic manners, general human decency, and kindness to others is SO MUCH emotional labor. I don’t like that shit.

this age of thinking you don’t owe anyone anything in the name of “protecting your energy” there are many other ways of protecting ur energy without being a total ass to others. yall. do better.

For the record, this is not just shitty for anyone who needs wheels to get around.

This would be HELL for my cane.

I don't use forearm crutches, but I suspect it would also be hell for that type of mobility device.

Same for walkers.

Same for anyone with limited vision.

Almost every single instance of hostile architecture meant to gentrify a place or keep out "undesirables" ends up hurting disabled folks too.

And that's intentional. Because disabled folks absolutely fall under the "needs extra time/care", unless the companies can get away with it

Wtf is the problem with skateboards to begin with

Skateboards let people have fun outside without spending money (except occasionally on upgrading the board). Oh, and some people just hate teens congregating for any reason.

Adults complain that "kids never go outside nowadays", meanwhile the reason is because adults would harass them whenever they do.

public service announcement

I keep getting people asking about bowling on this post so I’m just gonna repost this drawing I made on Twitter

How did her grandmother fill 4 vases?

She was a very large woman. Easily 12 feet tall.

then why the heck is her family not tall too?!?!

Pop-pop was very small so it canceled out.