Epi ✨

35 • NYC • Shipper of Stuff

[kosmogrl]

get in loser we’re gonna try again despite it all

[3rabbit]

daughter (non-practicing)

[kyssimmee]

starlight and trixie comic

[kyssimmee]

i'm breaking the author's silence to address these tags directly, because i've seen similar responses a few times. your context is part of you. you like your favorite band because you found them somehow. you speak the languages you speak because somebody else taught you. you feel the way you feel because you have memories and experiences. shaving off pieces of yourself will not reveal a truth at the center, and will only make you feel less like a person worth being. you will never shed your context or influences, anymore than you will ever become younger or undrink a glass of water. but you are free to create as much additional context as you like. build yourself outward instead of digging for yourself at the center. trying 100 new things will give you 100 more data points on what you like, don't like, think, believe, feel. it might begin to reveal an image of yourself that you can recognize, respect, and love. your life is not an object to be kept clean, it is an ongoing action that you get to control. also that's starlight glimmer not rarity.

[catchymemes]

[gorbling]

Im enjoying the longevity of tumblrs recontextualization style of humor. a seemingly innocuous post followed by like "posts that a gnome would make" or like "are you a phone"

[gorbling]

[hapalopus]

[hapalopus]

More from the notes:

[vexwerewolf]

I love this post

[karifaevt]

The horse thinks as it scratches an itch

[throwbackblr]

[cheaphalloweencostume]

“be gay do crime! but sex is yucky and crime is wrong!” ass website

[cheaphalloweencostume]

literally 😭😭😭

[rhinco]

i love you semicolon. no one look at my 80 word sentence

[tall]

[dikdikpronouncedxylophone]

[insecuregodcomplex]

[eroscestlavie]

I need to stop replying to “how do you make friends in your 30s?” threads because all my answers boil down to “you have to want to know people instead of have friends” and I don’t think people wanna hear that

[spacemancharisma]

drugs are not evil & eliminating addiction isn't the endpoint of the universe

[agfgoth3]

[json-derulo]

I'm not gonna articulate this well, but there's this phenomenon I keep seeing on the left that I'll call "bean soup rhetoric," wherein someone fails to understand that they are not the target audience for a particular message, or just can't conceptualize why a speaker would craft their message differently to resonate with a target audience that doesn't already completely agree with them.

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

Tailoring the argument to the things she already cares about does not mean we're forgetting that she has more privilege than most—entirely the opposite, in fact. A privileged ally can be extremely valuable. Jennifer votes in every election. And so do all the other ladies at her book club, and church, and in the PTA, and those folks listen to Jennifer. There's a reason both parties were courting suburban women so hard in the last election cycle! If we can find common ground with her on this, if we can get her calling her representatives and talking to her friends and phone-banking and door-knocking and making a stink, that's how the needle starts to move. If I can convince her to take her support away from the candidates who are actively restricting my rights and throw it toward those who want to restore and expand those rights...then I'm sorry, but Jennifer is a more valuable ally to me than the people who agree that the legal boundaries of gender ought to be abolished altogether but refuse to actually do anything except complain online about how both sides are equally bad because the right is trying to force everyone to drink the cyanide kool-aid while the left keeps serving bean soup and they don't like bean soup

[vaspider]

"Meet people where they are" is Activism 101, and people seem to be allergic to seeing that this is exactly that.

"Bean Soup Rhetoric" is a very good concept.

[captaincrusher]

Me filtering out kinks I don’t like on AO3. 

[unspeakablearchives]

My whole blog

[butt-rice]

i wish there was a way to say "you're right, but this is really ineffective and even counterproductive messaging to anyone who doesn't already agree with you" without sounding like an asshole