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she/her, bisexual 🏳️‍🌈, sometimes yap abt politics and the world and all, I am ze libs Love books, literary fiction and all, american greek living in US, history student!!!

[queenofnots]

Supposedly progressive and left leaning people thinking art preservation and space exploration and just research and history in general are useless endeavors sound so republican to me.

[audliminal]

Thinking about the whole "there is no platonic explanation for this" thing and how it doesn't account for intense platonic situationships and anyways I think we should start saying "there is no casual explanation for this" bc really what we're talking about is the way the characters in question are Obsessed with each other

[writers-solace]

I don't think Tolkien is a good fantasy writer because he scored the highest at some objective Best Fantasy Book Test that every fantasy writer has to take, I think he's a good fantasy writer because he created a world based on things that he was interested in. I feel like a lot of fantasy writers think that they need to create a whole language for their world because Tolkien did and obviously his books are the best so they have to emulate him, but Tolkien did that because he was a linguistics nerd. I think the lesson to be learned from him is not that you have to include elves and deep history and new languages, but that you have to write endlessly about the things you are a huge nerd about and use those things to create your fantasy world

[northstareclipse]

Hyper-individualist cultures go, “Your emotions are your personal responsibility. Don’t burden others. Regulate privately. Maintain functionality. If you’re upset, process it offstage so the machine keeps moving.” Meanwhile certain collectivist or harmony-focused frameworks go, “Your emotions disrupt group cohesion. Don’t create discomfort. Don’t impose disharmony. Transcend or contain your reactions for the sake of the whole.”

Different mythology, same trembling fear that one person saying “actually, I feel terrible” will cause civilization to peel apart like wet drywall.

[socialmaya]

Occasionally forget people genuinely think capitalism is thousands of years old

[sylestial]

One time I was talking about Robin Hood with some coworkers and one guy was like “he was bad because the people he helped learned to expect handouts” and I wanted to be like… okay can you explain how that flawed capitalist propaganda applies to feudalism

[scallioncreamcheesebagel]

reminder that capitalism was literally invented in the 16th century

[tayefeth]

That’s an exaggeration. What was invented in the 16th century was mercantilism. Capitalism really dates for the beginning of the nineteenth century, with the rise of industry and cash crops over artisans and merchants. Vulture capitalism, with the notion that companies have no duties other than generating profit, is even younger.

[antique-scarecrow]

Capitalism is only 200 years old and I have to say, they have not been an impressive 200 years

[downtroddendeity]

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that most people don’t know the formal definition of capitalism. We all know the word, we’ve all seen the jokes, but very few people bother to actually define it unless they’re talking about political theory and philosophy, so it’s easy to end up with the impression that Capitalism = Money Can Be Exchanged For Goods And Services.

Capitalism is the economic system where most of the means of production (i.e. everything people need to have to make the stuff that everyone wants) are owned by private individuals or corporations, who then hire people to provide the labor necessary to produce things, with the intent of selling the output at a profit. It’s the difference between “you’re a carpenter and you make a chair and you sell it” and “you’re Richard Q. Richington who owns a chair factory, and you pay people to sell the chairs you paid other people to make and then all the excess money goes back to you.” There have been Richard Q. Richingtons on and off throughout history, but that being the norm for every single industry is a pretty recent development.

[antiterfbutch]

An alarming amount of people seem to think capitalism = all trade, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

[forevermorallylucky]

What is frustrating is that both critics and fans of capitalism get that wrong. You will hear people that like capitalism assume that anti capitalists want money to disappear or idk what ignoring the fact there are alternative economic systems and you will also hear anti-capitalist people being like ''capitalism is what birthed evils like racism or the patriarchy'' smth that would be literally chronologically impossible.

So yeah pls look up capitalism before you speak abt it

[plaguedocboi]

I remember when I was younger, anytime I watched a movie where the characters have to kill a scary monster/alien, I always thought the act of killing it was intended to be part of the horror. Like there’s this amazing creature that we’ve never seen before, and maybe under different circumstances we could’ve coexisted with it, but it’s trying to attack you and you have to defend yourself, but by destroying it you also destroy the ability to ever understand it and that’s sad and is supposed to make you feel conflicted.

It was not until well into my adulthood that I realized most people do not have complicated feelings about movies where people have to kill a scary alien monster, nor is that necessarily meant to be part of the narrative (unless it very obviously is). They just want the scary thing to die because it’s scary. I don’t have a real conclusion to this I just started thinking about it for some reason.

[forevermorallylucky]

This is so real. I have been trying for sometime to work on an idea of a horror movie that uses the horror as a parallel to war because I think the idea of people being literally phsycially forced by circumstances and very real necessity and/or brainwashed into killing other human beings and occasionally being slowly made to enjoy it can produce a lot of existential dread and discomfort if done right. So yeah what you describe hits.

[donuts-multifandom-hellhole]

Something that I get chills about is the fact that the oldest story told made by the oldest civilization opens with "In those days, in those distant days, in those ancient nights."

This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find

Some people get existential dread from this

Me? I think it's fucking awesome it shows just how much of this world we have yet to discover and that is just fascinating

[sleepymccoy]

@makaeru peer review cos this made me check when the Sumerians happened and I forget how recent history is for every other continent. 7000 - 8000 years ago just isn't that long when you're in Australia, and the amount of detailed history we have access to here is wonderful and should be recognised more internationally

Source (non Aboriginal)

And a quote I picked out from a longer interview with an Aboriginal local elder about the area where he touched on the history

Source (the rest of the interview is really interesting and all transcribed, have a look if you're curious)

[chaotic-archaeologist]

This is part of my Ancient Civilizations class that I teach, which does a whole week about Australia and the Torres Strait Islands because I was sick of never seeing them represented in USAmerican history contexts. With the help of @micewithknives and @acearchaeologist I've learned so many incredible things about Australia's past and it's been incredibly rewarding to share them with students.

[aggressivelybicaptainamerica]

My favorite fact about Aboriginal oral history is the fact that we pretty recently discovered that the Aboriginal myth of the 7 Sisters, an origin story for the Pleiades star cluster, accurately reflects a point TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO when two stars in the constellation got close enough together to no longer be distinguishable by the naked eye.

The story? 6 sisters running from something that took their 7th sister.

[jinkohhh]

as a gilgar gunditj woman, i was not expecting to see my culture on my dash.

thank you for spreading our words and treating our culture with respect.

[the-quasar-hero]

Very generally speaking, when you see a black man in a piece of media, be it tv show, movie, video game, etc. there’s something you often see a lot of writers do. To go against the stereotype of black men (and black people in general) being dumb and lazy, you’ll see this black male character being smart and an achiever. 

The Black Nerd. A common character type, the nerd will always be very interested in all things nerdy: science, video games, mathematics, etc. In an continued effort to combat stereotypes, the Black Nerd will be lack athleticism, probably being asthmatic (the nerdiest of conditions). The Black Nerd will dress smartly, suspenders and bow ties. They’ll always talk smart too, using proper English with complex words.

Now, I don’t have a problem with a black character being a nerd, indeed black people are a people; we aren’t all the same and we all have varying personalities. The problem I have is that too often we see a distinct disconnect between Blackness and the Black Nerd. The Black Nerd doesn’t listen to hip hop or rap, only classical music. The Black Nerd only has white friends, the only other black characters are into not nerdy stuff. The Black Nerd never ever uses AAVE at any time in any context.

And again I must say that Black people, not being a monolith, there are no hard fast rules to being Black. I’m more than sure there are Black people like what I’ve described above, I’m not saying it’s impossible; what I’m getting at is that the only Black Nerd we see. There are Black Nerds that play basketball, that bump Kendrick Lamar, and use AAVE since it’s an ever changing dialect. I’m just saying there’s no one way of being a nerd and no one way of being Black.

[the-quasar-hero]

Well @dumbey, seems we’re in similar boats

[the-quasar-hero]

This ain’t about him, this is about Black/Asian solidarity. Focus.

[orteil42]

given the current climate this pride especially i feel i must mention that i love my trans friends, i stand with trans people in the fight against transphobic legislation and those who would enforce it, and this blog is not a good place for you to be if you do not vibe with that

[notanupstandingcitizen]

people who learned about greek mythology due reasons that DONT involve having read percy jackson at 12 freak me out, like what the FUCK was going on in your life that you found out that zeus turned into a pigeon to woo his wife like HOW

[forevermorallylucky]

It is called... being Greek lol. Like we just learn that stuff.

[notanupstandingcitizen]

people who learned about greek mythology due reasons that DONT involve having read percy jackson at 12 freak me out, like what the FUCK was going on in your life that you found out that zeus turned into a pigeon to woo his wife like HOW

[cavegirlpoems]

tumblr users baffled by the concept of engaing with things that aren't YA fiction and fandom.

[tinlizziedlinwa]

The Iliad and the Odyssey kept me sane(ish) as a child while my parents screamed and yelled at each other upstairs.

Modern works of fiction way too often seek to divorce human characters from their words or actions by blaming "evil" or "bad" things on possession by an evil spirit, an evil item's corrupting influence, or some such mechanism. To me, these are inherently unbelievable and don't capture my attention for very long. Also, it's not easy for me to absolve someone of wrongdoing when I would have made a different choice in the first place.

Much older works more often acknowledge that people can be and usually are influenced by their own perceptions of their past. People can be and sometimes are cruel. Short-sighted. Mean. Bigoted. But those very same people can also embody the good things, like occasionally altruistic, beneficient, kind, warm, empathetic.

Nobody is good or evil *all the time*. They're a blend of both and which comes to the fore is situationally dependent.

[max1461]

Disgust has absolutely no ethical weight. If you are basing your ethical positions on the emotion of disgust you should stop, it is entirely unjustified and leads to a huge amount of harm.

[word-for-today]

Word for today: wisdom of repugnance

The logical fallacy that because something disgusts you it must be bad

[obscenicon-deactivated20231123]

this is probably the funniest example of a tumblr user simply not reading the post theyre reblogging at all

[steelblue8]

Reblog if you are a freak who is justifying their gross actions

[faux-friend]

When a black person states that something you did was racist, chill the fuck out. Its annoying dealing with you panicking trying to dissociate yourself from racism. If you're not black, black people already assume youve said nigga or its variant at least once in your life. If they're interacting with you and bringing something up, its because they want you to stop doing that so they can still interact with you(if ur already friends)

You WILL be racist. You WILL do racist things. You have ALREADY done both. Learn and move on. There's no ideological purity you can hold on to, i promise. Proving you can take the criticism without making it a big deal and practice what you preach is better than any clean slate.

Be the kind of person black people don't have to gamble on. Shut up and lock in

[inlowearthorbit]

Like quite frankly the repeated insistence that it is normal and forgivable dohoho you youthful scamps behavior for young men in the military to get nazi tattoos is actually a deeply, profoundly offensive insult to the countless numbers of veterans and active duty military personnel who, like, AREN'T hateful nazi scum and/or brainless shameless idiots and it it's infuriating to see this lie repeated again and again and again

[penrosesun]

Pete Buttigieg served for almost twice as long as Platner did, and he has zero Nazi tattoos. Tammy Duckworth has a Purple Heart, and no Nazi tattoos, either. Mark Kelly, Gary Peters, Mike Thompson – any of them have a Nazi tattoo? Do you think Kaiali'i Kahele’s hiding one? Oh, you meant just veterans from the Marines? Jake Auchincloss, Conor Lamb, Seth Moulton – Nazi tattoos on all of them, right? No? Oh, you meant just Marine Sargents specifically? Huh, interesting, does Richard Blumenthal have a Nazi tattoo? Jared Golden only made Corporal, and as far as I know he doesn’t have one, either.

FFS, from the way people talk about Platner, you’d think no other Democratic candidate had ever served.

[thesituation]

my 100% failproof way to handle reactionaries asking why i don’t shave at all is going “because i don’t want to” it works because what they really want is an argument about the merits of feminism, and they’ll draw it out and try to convince you it’s a cult or whatever, but you can avoid it all by sticking to “i just don’t wanna. don’t feel like it” and if they argue with you about it you can use your ultimate ability, which is “i’m sorry i thought it was a free country?” which, believe me, they cannot come back from. they’ll either drop it or start harping on something you didn’t say, and it’s important you don’t take the bait at that point. when they can’t argue with what you say, they assume your beliefs and attack those. and you crucially must be visibly baffled at their change of direction because it will make them seem and possibly feel crazy (which they are). “i don’t want to shave” is a perfect response because truly it all comes down to autonomy and the ability to do what you want. they’ll try to say “feminism makes you think you have to do that” and it’s important to not take that bait. to reiterate that you don’t know what they mean and you just don’t like shaving and that it’s really weird to look into it that deep. this works i promise

[penny-anna]

The Martian of course was part of the small but notable genre of movies 'people expend huge amounts of effort to rescue Matt Damon'. In Project Hail Mary we see a foundational entry in the inverse genre 'people expend huge amounts of effort to send Ryan Gosling away forever'. Excited to see where we send Ryan Gosling next.

[gremlinz-yapz]

"sex should be less stigmatized and talked about more" and "you should always make sure people who dont want to consume sexual media that you present dont have to see it" are two statements that can and should coexist. by the way.

[originalleftist]

Yup.

One of our biggest problems as a society, frankly, is that discourse around sex is still mostly framed in terms of "are you pro-sex or anti-sex," do we need more sex or less sex, rather than "Is this sex consensual?"

Having more sex or sexual content is not inherently good or bad. Having less is not inherently good or bad.

What's good is when people get to make the choice that feels right for them. And what's bad is when that choice is denied them, either to push more sexual content or to censor it.