Annoying my friends by hyper fixating on new fandoms every few weeks since the beginning of time!
My ao3 & Twitter
Rough Fandom list: Slow Horses, The Pitt, Hermitcraft, The Owl House, ATLA, Critical Role, The Last of Us, Ted Lasso, Good Omens, Starkid, Musicals, and many many more!
Ask box is always open! Holler at me for literally any- and everything! ^^ (answered asks are under "Calliopes asks")
okay so, guy at work, who i find out afterwards is famous at this place for being a sex pest, comes up and starts with what i also learn is his favorite opener to conversations where he’s going to be a sex pest, namely: “Do you know where the term ‘blow job’ comes from?”
and here he made his first fatal error. his moment of hubristic sex pesting. because of course i know where the term blow job comes from, i love learning about sex and the history of sexual terms! i know so much about oral sex that i could write a book on it!
his second error: approaching a little autistic freak with what he intended to be an uncomfortable sex question that would make me feel weird and gross. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I Have Never Misjudged A Man’s Intentions So Incredibly In My Life. because i did not realize he was trying to harass me. because i love talking about sex facts, albeit not usually at work. unless. someone prompts me. my coworkers are the kind of people who are generally online enough to know terms, but not exactly what they mean, and they realized they could ask me a while back and get good answers without the resulting awkwardness because i do not experience shame. i am primed to answer questions like the one he has proposed.
So I Answered It.
and well, really, what happened is that I began answering it, then realized the answer required a bit more context. I mean, you can’t just say “oh, well, the term first appears in writing in the 1940s” without first explaining that ‘blow’ by itself already had sexual connotations for centuries, and then, really, are we talking about the origin of the term or the origin of the act. and well we have a ton of literature and art depicting fellatio throughout human history, did you know a lot of it was men performing it on other men? oh, that reminds me, there are a multitude of latin words for oral sex performed on penises, and hold on let me quote you the entirety of catullus 16 from memory and explain it’s fascinating insights into the roman world of homosexuality-
i do not know how to turn any of this ^ off, by the way. i’m sure some people out there have a switch that disables their infodumping mid-speech. i do not. and i also didn’t realize he wasn’t looking for a real answer until my other coworker explained so hours later. he could not excuse himself from the conversation he started, and i made a conservative man at least 30 years older than me to listen to my catullus recitation. i will sodomize and facefuck you, indeed.
anyway, i think i got a bad grade in being sexually harassed. my pro tip is maybe don’t start with what a very autistic individual will misconstrue as you earnestly asking them to explain sex to you. the special interest shield will cause splashback damage.
i love you friendship and qprs and best friends and friends with benefits and mentorships and roommates and found family and surrogate parents and chosen siblings and rivalries every single specifically and actively nonromantic dynamic that exists
I don't even know whose job it was to teach people this, but did they just stop teaching people what a bicycle bell means?
One would think that hearing a very distinct, clearly audible, reasonably loud and rapidly approaching sound of any kind would make any reasonable mammal turn to look at the direction of the sound, just purely by instinct?? If a deer heard something nearby go DING DING DING DING DING DING at its general direction, it would at least look up to see whether the source of the sound is a threat or not? Just a quick "is that something I need to be concerned about?" type of glance.
The enshittification of pedestrians has reached the point where they have less traffic survival skills than deer.
How exactly does one slow down and weave around pedestrians who are blocking the entire way in a formation in which it would be impossible to pass them even on foot without elbowing one or two?
People are misunderstanding OP in the notes, but I have experienced exactly this. This is what the bike lanes near my house look like every day around the time the schools let out. Featuring:
Teenagers walking in a row
Parent with buggy blocking the bike lane (often on phone)
Out of control toddler doing unpredictable zigzags
Person walking their dog on the opposite side so that the leash blocks both paths
Please notice that THE PEDESTRIAN AND BIKE PATHS ARE SEPARATED but most people don't seem to notice or care!
It’s pretty likely that it’s a four digit number, and as there are four digits chosen there, that means that there cannot be any repetition. This mean that there are:
n!/(n-4)! possible orders. As ‘n’ is 4 (number of digits available). 4!/0! which becomes 4x3x2x1/1 which simplifies to 24. That means that there are 24 possible combinations of codes. This would take you about two or three minutes to input all possible codes.
well ‘technically’ the code is most likley 1970. statistically, a majority of people, when told to choose a 4 digit code will choose their birth year. and this key pad is obviously a few years old to put it nicely, thats most likley it.
No, no, no. Don’t base your deductions of psychology. Let’s talk chemistry. When you first press a button, there’s more of the natural oils on your skin, and therefore it wears down the numbers on the keys faster. Obviously 0 is the first one, then. Try 0791 first.
Close, but not quite, I think. People will almost always choose a number they can remember. What’s memorable about 0791? Try 0719 - a birthday, 19th of July. That is more likely.
Rewatching Book 3 of ATLA and cringing at how dumb the Iroh fanservice plot twists are:
"Iroh lied about killing the last dragon before Zuko was born because he wanted to protect them! They actually deemed him pure of heart and worthy to learn the truest form of firebending🥰" .......... even though he continued to be a violent general in an evil genocidal empire long after that...? I'm questioning the dragons' wisdom now.
"Actually Iroh and all the other old guys in the show are senior members of a super secret society working for the good of the world!!" ..... even though one of them flat out refused to teach the Avatar waterbending for misogynistic reasons, another refused to teach the Avatar firebending for personal reasons, and Iroh was an evil war general barely 6 years ago so I suppose he's only a recent member?
I love AtLA as much as anyone, but yeah it is, uh. Pretty abundantly clear that the White Lotus didn't exist in the writers' room until at least season two, and they didn't have a full idea of its role in the narrative probably until season three. The timeline on Iroh "Did A War Against All The Rest Of You" Azulonson joining and being trusted so high in the membership is also. Very questionable.
Which is all to say I think it would be perfect if we got to the season three end game and realized Iroh was actually still an errand boy initiate in the White Lotus. And Piandao pulls aside the main tent flap to reveal our Supreme Grand Lotus:
Gran-Gran
Canonically traveled the world without Committing A War, thus reasonably having met and networked with most of these other people in a positive way? Check
Saw the Avatar and told her only grandkids to go help that kid ASAP, don't worry Gran-Gran's just going to stay riiiiiight here while you're gone and definitely not relive the excitements of her youth? Check
Would recontextualize Pakku's constant sour grapes face (and his reaction to seeing Katara's necklace) to "my ex left me and now she's my superior, if I don't train her grandkid she will mobilize a global movement to Kick My Ass"? CHECK
People with low spoons, someone just recommended this cookbook to me, so I thought I'd pass it on.
I always look at cookbooks for people who have no energy/time to do elaborate meal preparations, and roll my eyes. Like, you want me to stay on my feet for long enough to prepare 15 different ingredients from scratch, and use 5 different pots and pans, when I have chronic fatigue and no dishwasher?
These people seem to get it, though. It's very simple in places. It's basically the cookbook for people who think, 'I'm really bored of those same five low-spoons meals I eat, but I can't think of anything else to cook that won't exhaust me'.
And it's free!
by Rachel A. Rosen and Zilla Novikov || Food you can make so you don't die.
when thinking about how oppression works, on a structural level, my guiding principle is that I must spend at least as much time looking down as I do looking up.
what do I mean by this? here's an example. when my surgery is delayed multiple times, I spend a little time looking up (there is only one surgeon in the entire area who will perform this surgery on trans people, so every trans person's surgical timeline is bottle-necked and delayed by months every time he goes to a conference or takes a vacation or experiences an injury. in other words, if I was cis, I would not encounter this difficulty in accessing surgery). and then I spend time looking down (due to nonstop harassment and legal threats, this practice now only treats adults and will no longer perform surgeries on minors. in other words, my access to surgery is predicated on adult privilege I have at the direct expense of trans youth's lack of access).
if you do not build a habit around thinking in this way, you will become the person Audre Lorde describes as "so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman's face." If we are seeking to dismantle structures of oppression, rather than to simply use and climb them, then we absolutely must make a practice of looking in both directions, especially when we feel like we're on the bottom.
I actually do think we should discourage women from becoming housewives. Do not become financially dependent on a man. That's how a lot of women ended up dead over the years. A man gets violent suddenly and you have to choose between homelessness or potentially dying at his hand because you have an enormous gap in your resume and no degrees or certifications or anything that will help you pursue a career that will allow you to be financially independent. He owns your bank account. His name is probably the one on the car. Try and leave and he can report it stolen. Where will you go then?
And if you do become a housewife, take steps to protect yourself. Make sure you’re legally married, for starters; stay-at-home girlfriends have very little legal recourse to claim their partner’s assets in a breakup. Make sure your name is on the house deed/rental agreement, and have your car in your name, even if your spouse is paying for it. Have your spouse transfer money every month into an account solely in your name, so you can buy yourself things without needing permission, but also so you can save up to leave if needed.
If your spouse fights you on any of this, then don’t quit your job. The tradwife to poverty pipeline is real, and so is financial abuse.
also, many women/people experience controlling behaviour and domestic violence from their partner for the first time during pregnancy. don’t risk thinking “he’s just stressed, it’ll get better when the baby comes” because it won’t. neither you and your child will ever be safe with that man. get out as early and safely as you can
in my opinion, the question isn't "Is RPF ethical?" but rather "Are you engaging with RPF ethically?" and even more importantly, "Are you being stupid about it?"
I personally hate any kind morality thought policing. I'm not Catholic or religious and I do not feel guilty over my thoughts. You are not an inherently evil person because you saw two athletes in an interview and went "Hmmm...... what if...." The Feds are not going to come banging down your door because you wrote about one band member dicking down the other and sent it to your friend.
Wondering about other people's lives is very human. Being nosy about their personal lives is very normal. People have been writing fiction about other people's lives since the dawn of time. Some people even manage to write New York Times Bestselling Books that are "historical fiction" or "alternate reality." It does not make you inherently bad to be curious about the details of someone's personal life. That's being human. Being nosy is kind of fun.
The problem, however, comes with the ways in which people engage with it, and involve the real people in this. Harassing an musician's real girlfriend because it doesn't fit into the RPF ship. Showing up at real sporting events holding signs about how certain teammates should kiss. Trying to get actors to sign art of them fucking their coworker. Flooding social media with comments using the celebrity's full name and speculation. There's a line, there's a fourth wall, and there's fandom etiquette.
I hate the question of "Is RPF ethical" because it feels like morality thought policing. Post your fics on locked accounts, censor someone's name when you tweet about it, blow up your groupchat with hundreds of "DID YOU SEE THE WAY THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER??" texts. It's not inherently evil to wonder what other people are doing when they're out of the spotlight. Kill the cop in your mind.
But just have some basic decency and do not involve the real people. Don't cross the line without caring how it affects them. This is basic fandom 101 and lately we have been flying too close to the damn sun! Everyone get more normal about RPF so major news outlets and magazines stop posting articles about "Is RPF ethical?" and blowing up our spot!
Even not counting her poetry her private journals are full of disgusting, overblown antisemitism. She didn’t just use Jewish people for her metaphors, she outright hated them irl and yet decided to use their suffering for her own gain
okay, I’m Jewish and I appreciate this sentiment. and if someone wants to cut out Sylvia Plath, go for it, I get it.
But. by this logic we’d also need to stop reblogging TS Eliot, Oscar Wilde, and Shakespeare quotes. Virginia Woolf wrote anti-semetic things in her private journals, too. If you only want to read classic poets who liked Jews and black people, that’s fine, but like. good luck? Sylvia Plath isn’t an exception.
idk. Tumblr’s attitude of “consume nothing problematic” just doesn’t work if you’re part of a group that most culture-creators over the last few centuries have hated by default. For people actually in those groups, it’s not like the only two choices are 1) worship authors who hate you or 2) completely cut the majority of literature out of your life. You learn to read critically and acknowledge flaws where you find them.
anyway, as a Jewish woman, I would much rather see a version of this post that said “please read Sylvia Plath poetry critically because she’s anti black and antisemetic” than just “stop reblogging Sylvia Plath poetry.”
IMO, reblog Sylvia Plath all you want, just not unthinkingly.
I’m reblogging this now because I’m seeing anti-Virginia Woolf discourse lately due to the antisemitism in her journals and like… as a Jewish person who loves Virginia Woolf’s writing and an English teacher who knows that pretty much every writer of the classics is Problematic just…chill pls
The point isn’t to never consume media that isn’t ideologically pure. That’s never the point. Were that the goal, we would NEVER be able to consume any media. Nothing is ever ideologically pure, especially as time goes on and our social consciousness expands.
We should be telling people instead, “Be critical as you read this person’s work. They held bigoted views. Understand how that is reflected in their work, and be mindful of it. Be critical, be thoughtful”
Compelling others to not engage with something at ALL on ideological grounds is in the same vein as burning books. We should be compelling others to be critical and mindful, not narrow and willfully ignorant.
Calliopes_Lyre @calliopeslyre - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag