...and maybe sleeping beauty's dead.

24, she/her, gray-romantic asexual

[emily-strange]

♥️💜🖤💙💚💛🧡

[exigencelost]

The problem with having lesbian moms is you try to be super cool and cut all your hair off and buy a leather jacket and wear boots all the time and then you go to some event in your neighborhood and all these women three times your age start cooing “oh you look JUST like your mother when she was your age, my gosh what a blast from the past, oh I just love your hair”

[exigencelost]

And let me be very clear, okay: I’ve seen pictures of my mom when she was my age, and she looked cooler than I ever will. My mom had exactly my fashion sense except she was two point five degrees butcher and habitually took over government buildings. My other mom was about six degrees butcher than that, and SHE had a motorcycle. Both of them have been charged with felony arson. I’m the prep member of my family and there’s nothing I can do about it.

[redstitcher]

Please tell me at some point in your life some dick was like “we’re calling your parents over your behavior” only to have a bigger, more badass version of you come strolling in

[exigencelost]

Look obviously that happened many many times, usually with misogynist or ableist teachers. But I have a BETTER story than that, which is that when I was in 3rd grade, I went to this tiny alternative hippy school—it was a regular public school, it was just small and staffed/run by hippie communists—and my 3rd grade teacher was a woman who had been in an organization with my mother, and they had done direct action together more than a few times. We’ll call her D. One day I was sitting in D’s class, eight years old and bored out of my mind, and I scratched my name into the back of my plastic chair with a rock. Was this reasonable behavior? No. Why did I do it? Only the gods can say. I don’t actually remember doing the scratching, I just remember looking at the rock in my hand and my name on the chair and going, “HUH. That’s not good.”  So obviously I got caught, bc I couldn’t reasonably convince anyone that I wasn’t the one who had done it, since it was MY NAME, and as punishment for this act of arbitrary vandalism I was sentenced to recess detention for two weeks. It was October so this included Halloween. Halloween, to be clear, is a high holy day in San Francisco, and I was devastated to miss the informal festivities that would be occurring at recess that day, and I wept and wailed about this at home for some time until my mother decided that this was disproportionate punishment and took it into her own hands to do something about it.   So my mom walks into D’s office on a day when my mother does not have to be at work at a scheduled time, but D has to get her students from the yard in about ten minutes, and my mom sits down and says to her old friend and comrade, “Miranda is really upset about having detention on Halloween.” And D explains to my mother why the detention was issued, what the circumstances were, and my mother nods, and listens, and doesn’t argue, and doesn’t show any sign of getting up from her chair. And just says again “She’s really upset about having detention on Halloween.”  And D looks at my mother, and she looks at the clock in her office, which is telling her that she has to be on the yard in 2 minutes now, and then looks at my mother again, who shows no sign of having anywhere to be, my mother with whom D has organized and successfully executed multiple sit-ins and takeovers of government & corporate offices, and D says, “Okay, she doesn’t have to have detention on Halloween.”

[local-weirdo]

Tell your moms that we love them.

[exigencelost]

You can express your love by donating to their organization, Prison Radio, which works relentlessly on a shoestring budget to amplify the voices of incarcerated people in the United States!

https://donate.prisonradio.org

[local-weirdo]

An important update!

[iprefertheterminsane]

Fuck yea!

[prokopetz]

It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?

[veteratorianvillainy]

#friendly reminder that I once put my statistics degree to good use and did some calculations about ship ratios#and yes considering the gender ratios of characters#the prevalence of gay ships is completely predictable (via sarahtonin42)

[persephoneshadow-deactivated202]

I feel this is something that does often get overlooked in slash shipping, especially in articles that try to ‘explain’ the phenomena. No matter the show, movie or book, people are going to ship. When everyone is a dude and the well written relationships are all dudes, of course we’re gonna go for romance among the dudes because we have no other options.

[prokopetz]

Totally.

A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While it’s true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.

(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise - female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)

Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship - and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other “selfcest”-enabling scenarios - this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:

Possible F/F ships: 3 Possible F/M ships: 27 Possible M/M ships: 36

TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66

Thus, assuming - again, for the sake of simplicity - that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, we’d reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.

The point is this: before we can conclude that representation in shipping is being skewed by fan prejudice, we have to ask how skewed it would be even in the absence of any particular prejudice on the part of the fans. Or, to put it another way, we have to ask ourselves: are we criticising women in fandom - and let’s be honest here, this type of criticism is almost exclusively directed at women - for creating a representation problem, or are we merely criticising them for failing to correct an existing one?

[observethewalrus]

YES YES YES HOLY SHIT YES FUCKING THANK YOU!

[ainedubh]

Also food for thought: the obvious correction to a lack of non-male representation in a story is to add more non-males. Female Original Characters are often decried as self-insertion or Mary Sues, particular if romance or sex is a primary focus.

[slitthelizardking]

I really appreciate when tumblr commentary is of the quality I might see at an academic conference. No joke.

[lierdumoa]

This doesn’t even account  for the disparity in the amount of screen time/dialogue male characters to get in comparison to female characters, and how much time other characters spend talking about male characters even when they aren’t onscreen. This all leads to male characters ending up more fully developed, and more nuanced than female characters. The more an audience feels like they know a character, the more likely an audience is to care about a character. More network television writers are men. Male writers tend to understand men better than women, statistically speaking. Female characters are more likely to be written by men who don’t understand women vary well. 

But it’s easier to blame the collateral damage than solve the root problem.

[destinationtoast]

Yay, mathy arguments. :)

This is certainly one large factor in the amount of M/M slash out there, and the first reason that occurred to me when I first got into fandom (I don’t think it’s the sole reason, but I think it’s a bigger one than some people in the Why So Much Slash debate give our credit for). And nice point about adding female OCs.

In some of my shipping-related stats, I found that shows with more major female characters lead to more femslash (also more het).  (e.g. femslash in female-heavy media; femslash deep dive) I’ve never actually tried to do an analysis to pin down how much of fandom’s M/M preference is explained by the predominance of male characters in the source media, but I’m periodically tempted to try to do so.

[olderthannetfic]

All great points. Another thing I notice is that many shows are built around the idea that the team or the partner is the most important thing in the universe. Watch any buddy cop show, and half of the episodes have a character on a date that is inevitably interrupted because The Job comes first… except “The Job” actually means “My Partner”.

When it’s a male-female buddy show, all of the failed relationships are usually, canonically, because the leads belong together. (Look at early Bones: she dates that guy who is his old friend and clearly a stand-in for him. They break up because *coughcoughhandwave*. That stuff happens constantly.) Male-male buddy shows write the central relationship the exact same way except that they expect us to read it as platonic.

Long before it becomes canon, the potential ship of Mulder/Scully or Booth/Bones or whatever lead male/female couple consumes the fandom. It’s not about the genders involved. Rizzoli/Isles was like this too.

If canon tells us that no other relationship has ever measured up to this one, why should we keep them apart? Don’t like slash of your shows, prissy writers? Then stop writing all of your leads locked in epic One True Love romance novel relationships with their same-sex coworkers. Give them warm, funny, interesting love interests, not cardboard cutouts…

And then we will ship an OT3.

[kyraneko]

I’m going to bring up (invent?) the concept of subjectification.

As in, people gravitate to the characters given the most depth, complexity, and satisfying interactions for their shipping needs, because those characters are most human, and we want the realest characters to play with.

In a lot of media, the most depth gets handed to male characters.

And, oftentimes, even when the screentime and depth and interactions are granted equally well to female characters, there can be a level of, for lack of a better word, dis-authenticity to those female characters: they are pared down, washed out, or otherwise made slightly less themselves than they could be, in the interest of making them decorative, or likeable, or “good,” or keeping them from upstaging or emasculating their male companions, or just that the writer whose job it is to write them doesn’t know how to write women the way they write men.

And you get the characterization equivalent of that comparison chart where so many animated female characters have the same facial features because the animators and designers are so worried about not letting them be ugly.

When you have a group that’s allowed to be themselves, warts and all, and another group that has to be decorative at all costs, the impression given on some level is that the decorative quality is making up for a shortcoming. That they wouldn’t be enough in their own right.

And sometimes that cost is authenticity. The interesting, striking, awe-inspiring, bold and glorious unapologetic selfhood that draws the viewer most particularly to those characters who are unapologetic in their particular existence, standing clear of the generic and bland and unchallenging “safe” appearances.

It is authenticity, not beauty, which powers subjectification. The love for a character, not because they are perfect, but because they are them.

They can be pretty, sure. They can be sweet. But being pretty and sweet is not a replacement, and too many female characters have been written by writers who think it is, while the interest—in appearance, in personality, in interactions, in plot development—goes to the men.

And when that happens, well. Surprise, surprise, that’s where the shipping goes.

[whetstonefires]

Yeah I don’t really ship but I do write a fair amount of fanfic, and in most franchises working with the female characters is a chore.

You have to do so much of the work yourself, because the canon left them unfinished, with huge gaps or unexplored contradictions that you have to somehow resolve. Every female character you decide to integrate into your fanwork in some major role constitutes an undertaking in her own right as you patch together an understanding of her sufficient to model a consistent set of reactions and priorities &c.

The dudes just get handed to you. Even the ones whose canon is a mess have properly developed character cores.

That you don’t have to unearth and piece together like some sort of volunteer archeologist coming up with theories way more complex than the available artifacts truly support.

[headspace-hotel]

Guys read this this is an amazing breakdown of it

[himbophobes-moved]

so bi women shouldnt b shamed for their attraction to men right.. right...... so like are u guys gonna have that same energy for bi men being attracted to women too. bi men arent mlm lite just like bi women arent wlw lite... im all for ppl supporting my bi sisters and uplifting them and their attraction to men but people very often seem to sweep bi men under the rug and hold us to different standards and its rlly disheartening. so do better maybe? bi men are bi too and deserve to be included in bi activism.

[everythingeverything2-deactivat]

you come out as bi and straight people be like "ok but only if you exhibit attraction to the 'opposite' gender" and gay people be like "ok but only if you exhibit attraction to the same gender" and you're just supposed to accept it or else you're seen as annoying and too defensive of your identity

[everythingeverything2-deactivat]

not bi people can rb this btw. i encourage it actually

[thechronicfuckingmasochist]

my ex gf showed me for the first time that a woman can choose not to shave and it can be totally fine and normal. she encouraged me to stop shaving. and then when MY hair grew in dark and coarse unlike her baby fine blonde hair she started in with "well, it's different when it's THAT visible". so here's a reminder, that it doesn't matter if your body hair is blonde and fine or coarse and dark or anything in between, whatever you feel most comfortable doing with YOUR body hair is extremely valid and extremely sexy!

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

David about his experience at cons last year :).

David Tennant: It used to be that people came dressed up as another character that I’d once done, and over the course of this year I’ve seen that shift, and the amount of pinstripe suits that I used to see have been replaced by gothic, winged, sunglassed…

[richardjager-deactivated2023010]

[jacobtheloofah]

[clairityintimesofcrisis]

NO WAYYYY YOOOO I LOVE AND NEED THIS SHIT

[plaguedoctormemes]

Also i dont know if you guys have ever seen medieval beekeeper garb, but:

Its the best!!!

[plaguedoctormemes]

Nope!

Woodcut from 1545! 😊 respect our basket faced cousins 😡

[glitchhologram-deactivated20230]

The Beekeepers, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1568

[bogleech]

Now that plague doctors are cultural icons I want these to be next and I hope we arbitrarily decide that the two are somehow rivals.

[scarlettaagni]

why would they be rivals, they're dating and bop their masks together to kiss

[ghost-cassette]

The birds and the bees

[porterr-robinson]

[transingthebourgeoisie]

I know this is very funny and all but I need you all to know that this is genuinely how this is done in the fucking speedrun

[crypticdatesuggestions]

Dip your finger tips into a flowing stream between 11pm and 3am . Enchanting

[divawithanunspoiledagenda]

i love this but it reads exactly like “saw a snail today. effervescent”

[somecutething]

[paintcoveredpup-deactivated2020]

[red-king4]

[sunnysimone]

[goatrodeo72-deactivated20221113]

#goals. I too want to be strong like bitch who fights bears in the forest!

[headspace-hotel]

she has her priorities straight

[meangirlnurse]

gentiles have no idea which Jewish holidays are particularly significant relative to other Jewish holidays 

[meangirlnurse]

gentiles will be like “are you going to fly across the country to be with your family for Hanukkah? also do you really need time off for Yom Kippur” 

[lesbian-bookworm]

Not to make you my teacher but if you dont mind what are the most significant Jewish holidays/what they mean

Ive tried to google it but i usually only find christian bullshit

If you dont wanna thats all good to

[meangirlnurse]

hey! it’s admirable to want to know more. i’d recommend checking out JewFAQ’s Gentile’s Guide to the Holidays as sort of a short entry point. if you want more information on any of the specific holidays mentioned, you can check out the individual articles for those holidays under the “times” tab 😊

[stargazing-enby]

Hey this link was incredibly helpful! Thank you! 😊 *signal boosts*

[dovewithscales]

This is awesome. Thank you for the education.

[isaacsapphire]

If you have Jewish students or employees, this is stuff you need to know to do right by them and help your company/school not violate laws. Take the time to read the guide; its to the point and gets to the practical info fast.

[whitepeopletwitter]

[veryfunnymemes]

[cawareyoudoin]

I’m sorry for all the stupid shit I said and didn’t realize.

[whitepeopletwitter]

[hungarianmudkip69]

I was reading in my psychology textbook about the devil’s advocate and it was very interesting.

See, research shows that groups of people actually make WORSE decisions than individuals, because psychologically we value group unanimity over critical thinking - we’ll agree to a nonideal plan even if we don’t agree with it for the sake of not being “that one person” who speaks out. So it’s recommended when making decisions in a group to assign a “devil’s advocate”, someone whose job it is to point out flaws in and disagree with any plan - because if even ONE person dissents, that tendency towards conformity goes WAY down, and other people are more likely to point out flaws as well and suggest alternate ideas. (Look up the Asch experiments! Very interesting study on our tendency towards conformity.)

So, the devil’s advocate is intended to discourage groupthink when making decisions.

IT’S NOT LITERALLY SUPPOSED TO BE ADVOCATING FOR THE DEVIL.

“Playing devil’s advocate” about the Holocaust isn’t playing devil’s advocate. It’s disrespecting the victims of a horrible tragedy by arguing over whether it was justified or really that tragic or even if it happened. That’s just not what the devil’s advocate is.

[left-reminders]

Important point about genuine devil’s advocacy in group decision-making – something that will be absolutely essential in a socialist world built on people power and economic democracy. A communal society must not lose sight of the individual or ideological dissent.

That being said, fascists and those who devil’s advocate for the Holocaust can go to the deepest corner of hell.

[poodleman]

Fascism is a special kinda groupthink.