[captain-price-returns]

[papayafromtv]

scenarios Alfred Pennyworth has to be a witness to as a resident of Wayne Manor that the batkids have absolutely no shame in front of whatsoever part 23 (masterpost here)

Steph, wandering into the kitchen: hey, Alfie, B says you're doing a grocery shop later today, can i add tampons to the list of stuff for the patrol supplies?

Alfred, glancing over from polishing silverware: of course, Miss Brown. perhaps you'd like to add it to the list on the fridge?

Steph: hm-? oh, yeah, thanks.

Tim, working on his laptop at the kitchen island: the fuck do you need tampons for patrol?

Steph: *squints at him* well i sure as fuck ain't doing it in a pad? do you know how unsafe i would feel?!

Tim, raising an eyebrow: why do you need anything? doesn't it all stop once you start swinging around?

*silence*

Alfred: *pauses, slowly turns his head to stare into the side of Tim's skull*

Steph, calmly: ...what?

Tim: it's like swimming right? you start jumping around and moving a lot and your body recognises that you don't want to bleed, so it stops the flow until you settle down.

Alfred:

Steph:

Steph, keeping her face impressively straight: ...yes. it is- *throat clear* that is why that happens, you're right, it does usually stop on patrol. but- *thinking intensely* i... got a scratch on my thigh... earlier... and it keeps bleeding, has all day. so i'm kinda worried that blood coming out of my thigh will confuse my body, because of- *bites lip* because of the close proximity. and i think it might decide that since my thigh is bleeding that it should just keep all the other flows going as well, so i'm just- i'm just making sure. to be careful.

Alfred: *slowly turns to stare at Steph instead*

Tim:

Tim: ok i guess that makes sense.

Steph, once Tim turns back to his laptop: *gleefully punches the air*

Tim, eyes narrowing: wait,

Steph, the face of innocence: hm?

Tim: how come your body can stop the period blood but not the thigh blood?

Steph: oh. well, that's just a 'me' issue, really. i've never been that good at the whole blood-bending thing.

Alfred: *closes eyes in resignation*

Tim: blood-bending- what?

Steph: blood-bending? the- you know all girls can control their blood flow, right? that's why Avatar only showed women water-benders learning how to blood-bend. because it was already a thing irl.

Tim:

Tim, dubious: ok now you're fucking with me.

Steph, narrowing eyes in confusion: no? dude, i'm being completely serious, did you- how did you not know about this? that's how we control our periods, man. all females have a slight innate ability to bend their own blood. it's just that the extent to which we can varies from person to person and day to day. i've always been kinda weak with it, so i guess that's my bad. Babs has always been pretty good at it, though.

Dick, walking in: 'sup, kiddies. Babs is good at what?

Steph: i was just telling Tim about how all women can blood-bend and that's how they control their periods. can you believe the health education program at his school failed so badly he didn't know?!?

Dick:

Dick:

Dick, turning to Tim: yeah Babs was always really good at it.

Tim: seriously?!!?

Dick, without a hint of humor: 100%. anyway i gotta go, see you guys later.

Steph, perking up: oh, can i get a ride actually? i need a new jacket.

Dick: sure.

Damian, wandering in as Dick and Steph leave: Pennyworth, Jason is requesting he be alerted when you go to the store so he can accompany you.

Alfred, blinking: ...oh- yes, that sounds lovely, i'll be sure to let him know.

Tim, curiously: hey Dami, did you know that women can blood-bend, and that's how they turn off their periods when they go swimming?

Damian:

Damian, plain: you're a fucking idiot.

[gremlininho]

looking. at you

[sarahmackattack]

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

[stealingpotatoes]

pinterest reposters i no longer have extensive beef with you for i have been informed of a much worse threat to the court of lady normalgirl: people who put my art through AI filters and THEN repost it to pinterest

[stealingpotatoes]

actually screw it idgaf, everyone go report this guy and or beat them with a stick (ABOMINATION! here is the original comic if u like looking at real art)

[what-even-is-thiss]

So I’ve discussed before on this blog how my grandmother just refuses to drink water and now it’s landed her in the emergency room.

(She’s gonna be fine she’s just a little bit stupid)

[what-even-is-thiss]

I tried to get her daughter on the phone in order to yell at her for me but her daughter is on an international flight right now so I’ve gotta do it myself.

[what-even-is-thiss]

She almost fell over and I was like did you drink water today and she was like “well I had a tiny glass of juice with my pills”

Lady that is not water please for the love of holy Christ Jesus I’m trying to keep you alive here

[what-even-is-thiss]

Anyways all of you also drink water please especially if you have a health condition. It’s hot outside this time of year in the northern hemisphere.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I appreciate all of your thoughtful suggestions on how to make water more tasty for her but finding fluids that she likes drinking isn’t a problem. She just refuses to drink enough of them.

[pangur-and-grim]

I told my little nephew that I'd wave at his airplane when it flew over my house today, and he very calmly and politely explained that it wouldn't be possible to see me due to the limitations of human vision. I said he just had to squint real hard, and he took a deep breath and went into the toddler version of "see, what you're not understanding–"

[qcharlie]

i wish we were able to talk about women's rights without someone mentioning how much they do or don't want to have sex with them. i don't care if you're a lesbian Stop finding worth in women purely from their perceived attractiveness

[qcharlie]

"I think women should not be expected to shave for societal respect / to avoid discrimination" "yeah🤤 i love bush" ok well that's not what we're talking about is it.

[qcharlie]

i hate how many posts about trans women deserving respect always devolve into "I love girldick" or "trans rights but I don't want to date a trans person" because that's entirely unrelated to the topic at hand. you should not respond to feminism with "YESSS I loveeee you because I see you as nothing but a sex object" you people sound like other men I get stuck talking with that end up saying "free the nipple so I can see boobies in public" and thinking they're feminists. why can't we just respect women regardless of your attraction to them or not. why does it need to be brought up in every conversation regarding their rights

[strayingtogether]

[squiddleward-deactivated2019060]

what the fuck

[beatcroc]

#it’s NOT inexplicable#it’s bc someone based it on the unicode 6 yellow heart#which is colorless but shaded with halftone dots#and someone interpreted that like stubble#and drew this#which is SO FUCKING FUNNY via @animusbell

[eldermindless]

[lightning-and-lavender-fire]

OH MY GOD

THE REASON THE YELLOW HEART IS SHADED THAT WAY IS BECAUSE OF FUCKING HERALDRY HATCHING ISN’T IT

FUCK YEAH AUTISM LET’S GOOOO

[apatheticlexicographer]

big if true

[ahyukaday]

(c) 260711

[fluffysheeps]

Bumble sharks 🐝🦈

[wosp-reactivated]

Christian babies have so far not found a purpose or use outside of baseball

[sea-slug-daily]

Today’s sea slug is Carminodoris bramale, commonly known as the Truffle Dorid.

Image source: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/333920424

[inbabylontheywept]

i have recently decided to shave my head. surprisingly good experience. have been given far more professional defference than i actually deserve as a result. but. slight hazard. my coworkers are very kind and they have insisted on complimenting my skull shape. they are very insistent that i have a very nicely shaped skull. this is a perplexing and mildly unsettling compliment. i feel like a hot twink at the gay phrenologist bar. a lot of people have walked up behind me and simply gripped my head like a bowling ball too, which i personally have enjoyed, but suspect the average person would not. also, unless i shave my head every day, it becomes surprisingly hard to take my hoodie/beanie/hat off. its like having my head wrapped in grip tape. overall 9/10 experience.

[inbabylontheywept]

i also shaved an avatar arrow into it for the first day which the techs were overjoyed with. if you shave your head, you do get one day with your entire head as a blank canvas for any kind of tomfoolery. avatar was a frankly milquetoast option. if id walked in with, hypothetically, the toyota logo i think i would have been run out of my own lab on a rail.

[inbabylontheywept]

this is the best website on the internet

[deadpowol]

[tahthetrickster]

[felinenotfine]

Great job y’all give us nothing!

[swordofomens]

They are providing the essential service of comedy. These running gags are hilarious!

[copperbadge]

We don't know that the cat is hunting truffles. He's on his own mission, it just happens to be near the truffles.

The herding cat on the other hand definitely thinks he's helping. Have you lost a sheep yet? No? Then he's helping.

[bundibird]

Fam I'm sorry to tell you but the first post is AI, which strongly suggests the second is also AI. If it were just a farmer making up funny tales on his own, then this would still be a fun and amusing time. Alas, a computer spewed out a bunch of words and a generated image. I too wish that truffle cat was real. But he is not.

[dwellordream]

“...A lone woman could, if she spun in almost every spare minute of her day, on her own keep a small family clothed in minimum comfort (and we know they did that). Adding a second spinner – even if they were less efficient (like a young girl just learning the craft or an older woman who has lost some dexterity in her hands) could push the household further into the ‘comfort’ margin, and we have to imagine that most of that added textile production would be consumed by the family (because people like having nice clothes!).

At the same time, that rate of production is high enough that a household which found itself bereft of (male) farmers (for instance due to a draft or military mortality) might well be able to patch the temporary hole in the family finances by dropping its textile consumption down to that minimum and selling or trading away the excess, for which there seems to have always been demand. ...Consequently, the line between women spinning for their own household and women spinning for the market often must have been merely a function of the financial situation of the family and the balance of clothing requirements to spinners in the household unit (much the same way agricultural surplus functioned).

Moreover, spinning absolutely dominates production time (again, around 85% of all of the labor-time, a ratio that the spinning wheel and the horizontal loom together don’t really change). This is actually quite handy, in a way, as we’ll see, because spinning (at least with a distaff) could be a mobile activity; a spinner could carry their spindle and distaff with them and set up almost anywhere, making use of small scraps of time here or there.

On the flip side, the labor demands here are high enough prior to the advent of better spinning and weaving technology in the Late Middle Ages (read: the spinning wheel, which is the truly revolutionary labor-saving device here) that most women would be spinning functionally all of the time, a constant background activity begun and carried out whenever they weren’t required to be actively moving around in order to fulfill a very real subsistence need for clothing in climates that humans are not particularly well adapted to naturally. The work of the spinner was every bit as important for maintaining the household as the work of the farmer and frankly students of history ought to see the two jobs as necessary and equal mirrors of each other.

At the same time, just as all farmers were not free, so all spinners were not free. It is abundantly clear that among the many tasks assigned to enslaved women within ancient households. Xenophon lists training the enslaved women of the household in wool-working as one of the duties of a good wife (Xen. Oik. 7.41). ...Columella also emphasizes that the vilica ought to be continually rotating between the spinners, weavers, cooks, cowsheds, pens and sickrooms, making use of the mobility that the distaff offered while her enslaved husband was out in the fields supervising the agricultural labor (of course, as with the bit of Xenophon above, the same sort of behavior would have been expected of the free wife as mistress of her own household).

...Consequently spinning and weaving were tasks that might be shared between both relatively elite women and far poorer and even enslaved women, though we should be sure not to take this too far. Doubtless it was a rather more pleasant experience to be the wealthy woman supervising enslaved or hired hands working wool in a large household than it was to be one of those enslaved women, or the wife of a very poor farmer desperately spinning to keep the farm afloat and the family fed. The poor woman spinner – who spins because she lacks a male wage-earner to support her – is a fixture of late medieval and early modern European society and (as J.S. Lee’s wage data makes clear; spinners were not paid well) must have also had quite a rough time of things.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of household textile production in the shaping of pre-modern gender roles. It infiltrates our language even today; a matrilineal line in a family is sometimes called a ‘distaff line,’ the female half of a male-female gendered pair is sometimes the ‘distaff counterpart’ for the same reason. Women who do not marry are sometimes still called ‘spinsters’ on the assumption that an unmarried woman would have to support herself by spinning and selling yarn (I’m not endorsing these usages, merely noting they exist).

E.W. Barber (Women’s Work, 29-41) suggests that this division of labor, which holds across a wide variety of societies was a product of the demands of the one necessarily gendered task in pre-modern societies: child-rearing. Barber notes that tasks compatible with the demands of keeping track of small children are those which do not require total attention (at least when full proficiency is reached; spinning is not exactly an easy task, but a skilled spinner can very easily spin while watching someone else and talking to a third person), can easily be interrupted, is not dangerous, can be easily moved, but do not require travel far from home; as Barber is quick to note, producing textiles (and spinning in particular) fill all of these requirements perfectly and that “the only other occupation that fits the criteria even half so well is that of preparing the daily food” which of course was also a female-gendered activity in most ancient societies. Barber thus essentially argues that it was the close coincidence of the demands of textile-production and child-rearing which led to the dominant paradigm where this work was ‘women’s work’ as per her title.

(There is some irony that while the men of patriarchal societies of antiquity – which is to say effectively all of the societies of antiquity – tended to see the gendered division of labor as a consequence of male superiority, it is in fact male incapability, particularly the male inability to nurse an infant, which structured the gendered division of labor in pre-modern societies, until the steady march of technology rendered the division itself obsolete. Also, and Barber points this out, citing Judith Brown, we should see this is a question about ability rather than reliance, just as some men did spin, weave and sew (again, often in a commercial capacity), so too did some women farm, gather or hunt. It is only the very rare and quite stupid person who will starve or freeze merely to adhere to gender roles and even then gender roles were often much more plastic in practice than stereotypes make them seem.)

Spinning became a central motif in many societies for ideal womanhood. Of course one foot of the fundament of Greek literature stands on the Odyssey, where Penelope’s defining act of arete is the clever weaving and unweaving of a burial shroud to deceive the suitors, but examples do not stop there. Lucretia, one of the key figures in the Roman legends concerning the foundation of the Republic, is marked out as outstanding among women because, when a group of aristocrats sneak home to try to settle a bet over who has the best wife, she is patiently spinning late into the night (with the enslaved women of her house working around her; often they get translated as ‘maids’ in a bit of bowdlerization. Any time you see ‘maids’ in the translation of a Greek or Roman text referring to household workers, it is usually quite safe to assume they are enslaved women) while the other women are out drinking (Liv. 1.57). This display of virtue causes the prince Sextus Tarquinius to form designs on Lucretia (which, being virtuous, she refuses), setting in motion the chain of crime and vengeance which will overthrow Rome’s monarchy. The purpose of Lucretia’s wool-working in the story is to establish her supreme virtue as the perfect aristocratic wife.

...For myself, I find that students can fairly readily understand the centrality of farming in everyday life in the pre-modern world, but are slower to grasp spinning and weaving (often tacitly assuming that women were effectively idle, or generically ‘homemaking’ in ways that precluded production). And students cannot be faulted for this – they generally aren’t confronted with this reality in classes or in popular culture. ...Even more than farming or blacksmithing, this is an economic and household activity that is rendered invisible in the popular imagination of the past, even as (as you can see from the artwork in this post) it was a dominant visual motif for representing the work of women for centuries.”

- Bret Devereaux, “Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part III: Spin Me Right Round…”

[swords-n-spindles]

If I may tag onto this: it's really astonishing how much spinning you can get done when you do it in tiny increments. When I'm at a medieval market or music festival (back when that was... a thing), I carry my spindle everywhere and just spin a tiny little bit, constantly. Waiting in line for food. Sitting somewhere waiting for the next band to play, in the early morning when nobody's up yet. I can get through 100 gr of fibre in a day like this without consciously dedicating any extended time periods to it (and I'm not the best with a drop spindle). I would imagine that is roughly the way it worked in pre-modern cultures, too, which means that yes, it was possible to supply the fabric for an entire household this way, if the fabric was also taken care of properly (mended, re-used, recycled ...) and the spinner didn't suffer from illness or had any disabilities (!). It wouldn't be easy, but it also wouldn't be terrifying back-breaking labour.