Tetrahedron

Not disagreeing with the rest of this, but the Muslim Council of Britain is super homophobic. Them condemning a candidate is, if anything, a mark in said candidate’s favour.

https://mcb.org.uk/press-releases/mcb-expresses-outrage-at-the-british-government-over-the-sexual-offences-amendment-bill/

https://mcb.org.uk/press-releases/no-to-lowering-age-of-consent-yes-to-clause-28/

https://mcb.org.uk/press-releases/keep-clause-28-weak-guidelines-are-not-enough-for-muslim-parents/

how fucking arrogant can you be to think any eugenics program could ever weed out “fascist genetics”. even if the “dark triad” was a reliable precursor to fascist ideology and even if “dark triad traits” could be reliably linked to genotype (they aren’t and they can’t be), how fucking far to jupiter are you if you think you can remove it from a population of seven billion, let alone in some “anarchist” manner? how do you programmatically sterilize anyone in an “anarchist” manner?

Do you ever see some discourse float by and think “Maybe I’m not hanging out on the worst parts of Tumblr, actually”

jesus fucking christ

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.

After seeing multiple creators having to publically out themselves or reveal past traumas in order to get fans to stop yelling at them for representing a certain minority/concept in fiction, can yall learn to take a second to consider how your words and actions affect others? Especially in fandom spaces? By demanding that people can only talk about certain issues if they’ve personally been affected by them, you are directly forcing people to reveal their trauma/minority status.

This was prompted by fans’ response to the latest episode of a TMA featuring substance abuse, but also remember a few months ago when Jameela Jamil was cast to play a queer woman in an upcoming movie and there was so much backlash that she had to come out as queer? That fucking sucked.

^^ and the same thing happened with Keiynan Lonsdale from Love, Simon?

#hot take–‘you’re not x so you can’t write x’ is bad praxis#if you can’t find something actually wrong with the actual portrayal#maybe take a step back and ask yourself if perhaps your trauma is getting in the way of you’re enjoyment of the media#which is a totally valid but SEPARATE issue from creators being bigoted  (via @dinosaurrainbowstarfish)

I hate “If you’re not X/haven’t experienced X, you don’t get to write about X.” Partly because of this- it forces people to make their traumas and identities public knowledge- and partly because it honestly seems inclined to shut down empathy. “You haven’t experienced X yourself, so you are dramatically and irrevocably different from people who have, to the point where you’ll never be able to conceptualise X well enough to write about it non-offensively.” 

Sorry, but that’s bullshit. To give an example I’m qualified to give- If a neurotypical person wanted to write about, say, an autistic person facing ableism, and put actual care and thought into it, that’s brilliant. Like, yes, please do this! Please try to understand and relate to us and think about how the world looks to us! Thank you for thinking our stories are worth portraying! 

“You’re neurotypical, therefore you’re Not Allowed to write about an autistic character facing ableism”? Fuck off. That sounds like a good way to discourage people from writing autistic characters, for a start, while also entrenching the (already very prevalent) idea that we’re too other for non-autistic people to comprehend. 

I wrote a book about an autistic character and was pressured to out myself.  I’ve heard stories of authors being asked invasive personal questions about their sexuality or gender identity by agents who are deciding whether to take on their work.

The whole #ownvoices thing started as just a way to draw attention to existing marginalized authors, but once it became a trend and a “selling point” it really started to become harmful to those same authors.

To some degree, the identity of the author has always been treated as a commodity or a marketing tool in the publishing industry.  But it’s gotten worse in recent years.  And it’s hard to know how to fight it.  I want a world where stories are judged on their own merits and not by which identity boxes the author can check, but it’s harder to create a viral hashtag campaign around that idea.

If you have put yourself in a position where you would be less upset if you learned someone went through something traumatic, you have not put yourself in a moral position.

In my linguistics class we had a Chinese girl who had adopted a European name. We all didn't speak Cantonese and understood her wish to not have her name butchered all the time, except for one of us, a guy who thought he knew to differentiate between tones perfectly because he was learning Vietnamese. He saw himself as super woke and he thought it was wrong for her to adopt a European name when we should just try harder to pronounce her Chinese name (which honestly is just really difficult if you don't speak the language at all, even for linguists). So he would constantly call her by her Chinese name which she initially didn't even want to share, but he kept asking her for it, and from the look on her face I could tell that he did not get it right, and that she didn't like it at all. The first time he did it she even told him it wasn't correct, but he kept going, so sure he knew how to pronounce it. So like I 100% agree that we should put in effort to pronounce names from foreign languages and not give up on the first try if we get it wrong, but we should also respect people's wishes when they know we can't do it/they know it takes too much effort for them to teach us how to pronounce it. In that case, we should just use the name we're being told to use. It's that simple.

Fellow linguists, don't be that guy™

I’ve had some pretty wild depression the past couple years. I’m finally starting to work through it - with art. This is the first piece I’ve made for myself in around ten years, and… yeah.

I am doing better, not in any harm’s way (please don’t worry, mom). I just needed to get it out. Thanks for reading, I know it’s long.

University Study on Sexism in Doctor Who

“Fun fact, Rose’s Bechdal test score would have been in the 80′s were it not for the episodes Moffat wrote during her run.”

Guys, really, you should click the link. 

“Ironically, the woman who is often propped up as proof that Steven Moffat is, in fact, not a sexist was one of the worst in terms of the Bechdel test and overall independence of thought and character. While maintaining an average speaking time, the episodes she is in only pass the Bechdel Test 57% of the time, and she herself only passes 42% of the time. She also never passes it on her own after Series 5. It is also important to note that River’s “passes” barely scraped by this test. Her passing conversations were always around three or four lines of exchange total, limited to one per episode, and were always in the presence of/with the Doctor.”

“While both Rose and River had their share of arguments with The Doctor, how they handled them was drastically different. Rose argued when she had moral issue with his choices, stood her ground, defended others, and overall became the moral compass of their relationship. River rarely if ever, disagreed on issues or principles. If asked to do something she disagreed with she would just yell, ‘I hate you,’ and then do it. Her mentality toward The Doctor can be summed up with a conversation she has with Amy in series 6. The Doctor has left them with instructions Amy does not want to do, but River tells her, ‘We’re going to as The Doctor’s friends always do. As they’re told.’ I think I just heard Rose, Martha, Donna, Romana, and Sarah Jane slap you. When it comes to River Song, it seems that audiences were fooled into thinking she was a strong female character because of her propensity toward violence, and some admittedly excellent monologues.”

Also, can we just celebrate the fact that Donna passed with a 100% score?

Honestly, I am not surprised.

The Bechdel test isn’t legitimate science but hey I’m always happy to see praise for Who companions.

It’s not science but it exists solidly in the “oh come on” space.

It’s just the very low bar that a great many films and TV series still fail to meet.

So..Blood has been used as an architectural material since ancient times. I’m saddened that this is never covered in movies or historical fantasy tv shows. What a missed opportunity. Other places to see my posts: INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK / ETSY / KICKSTARTER

Evry damn time, but then I also remember the cure:  “Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues. He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way. And he distrusted the kind of person who’d take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, “Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,” and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man’s boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he’d been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen* and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!”

― Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

Every once in a while a post comes back to smack me in the face all over again with how goddamn wonderful Sir Pratchett really was

whenever i see a girl complaining abt her shitty boyfriend and she says that “guys are just like that!” i’m always so sad, because i know girls that are in happy and healthy romantic relationships with men! having a crappy, horrible boyfriend is not something that’s inevitable if you like men. if a man isn’t fulfilling your needs or if he’s simply just a piece of crap, you don’t have to stay in a relationship with him. not to be cliché, but not all men are like that!!! if your man ain’t shit, find a better one!!! it’ll all be alright, please realise and admit to yourself that you deserve better, and that better is out there!!! you need to put yourself first.

or you can just find a girl instead hadhdjh,,

I’m bisexual. This post is about men.

The idea that women who don’t date women should, what, remain single or just accept the idea that men will treat them poorly isn’t a cute gay mood tbh, it’s abuse apologism and deeply misogynistic.

Not to mention that lots of toxicity and abuse is swept under the rug between wlw because of this “men are bad and girls can do no wrong” mentality.

Not just misogyny, I’d argue this is one of the few instances where ‘misandry’ is actually happening.

Because saying men are incapable of controlling themselves or their tempers, are inherently worse at looking after a child or doing household chores than a woman, that all men are so terrible that you’ve just got to settle for the best of the worst is seriously insulting and demeaning towards men.

Villain: Dude, what about Frank?!

Hero: … who?

Villain: Frank! Franklin Jones! Wears my henchmen’s uniform, had the key to my door, GOT MURDERED BY SOME ASSHOLE TWO WEEKS BEFORE HIS KID’S BALLET RECITAL?!

Hero: … you know your henchmen’s names?

Villlain: OF COURSE I DO! I SEE THESE PEOPLE EVERY DAY! THEY’RE MY FRIENDS! What, you thought I just went to the fucking minion store and bought three hundred assistants?! People don’t work for evil overlords unless they really like the evil overlord!

Hero: Well, I mean, I though henchmen were just kinda… there?

Villain: … you thought Frank. Whom I entrusted with the key to my personal chamber. Who I named the godfather of my children. Was just. There.

Hero: YOU HAVE KIDS?!

Villain: HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THAT?! WE’VE BEEEN NEMESI FOR DECADES!

Hero: WHY WOULD I KNOW THAT? YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE I WANT DEAD!

Villain: HOW AM I THE VILLAIN HERE?!

Her name is Rima Karaki.

EDDIE. EDDIE IT’S PEOPLE. EDDIE WE’RE EATING PEOPLE.

I AM LIVING FOR THIS

Venom: “Eddie. Eddie that is a human.”

Eddie: “Yes Venom, Hannibal Lecter is a hu-”

Venom: “No, that is a human, ON YOUR PLATE.”

Eddie:

Venom:

Eddie: “…nope. Nope. Nu-uh. V, eat him and I’ll buy you McDonald’s.”

“CHICKEN NUGGETS”

My sister knew a women who would adopt any solid black cat with yellow eyes that came into the shelter. No cats with green eyes, no spots of white. Solid black. My sister later discovered why. Her husband doesn't want any more cats, but isn't actually sure of how many they have. So as long as her cats look exactly the same as the others, he can't pick them out and be unhappy when the brings home another one.

Big brain woman right there

Source: https://thenib.com/give-a-man-a-fish?t=recent