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jin / 20s / he/(they?)

[artemisrhodon-deactivated202403]

staff member getting dunked on by one of their favorite bands you love to see it

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[hypokeimena]

#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)

[archosaur-automaton]

mouse girl commercial airline pilot who gets on the intercom and says "this is your captain squeaking... we've just ahhh, reached our maximum cruising altitude of 32,000 feet, which is very high and scary for me because I'm a mouse"

[heavenslittlemachine-deactivate]

this could have been a completely normal, nonsexual post about mousegirls with various careers, but u just had to go and ruin it by implicitly referencing an airplane

[twistcmyk]

no, i do not have cameras in your home (yet)

[insomniac-arrest]

Intellectualism is not just stoic enjoyment of abstract concepts. It's girlish delish of abstract concepts. Like,

"The curtains were blue, representing the closed-off nature of their outlook triggered by a childhood sadness rooted in the home"

me: *twirling my hair, giggling, kicking my feet, getting freaky with* oh? Tell me more.

[insomniac-arrest]

"What about men?"

That old-ass professor in a bow tie will also giggle and blush if you talk enough about Poe's use of linguistic burlesque in his environmental storytelling

[abortionado]

They’re calling me every slur under the sun over on twitter for this post

[cilceon]

Would you sell liquor to this baby

Yes

No

I don’t think life begins at contraception but I’d still sell liquor to baby

Voting ended onAug 6, 2025

Wait hold on rb canceled that’s the wrong word wait no stop

[tiktoks-i-enjoyed]

Clip of Lucy Dacus on the Las Culturistas podcast.

[banchie]

i've been phasing the phrase 'google it' out of my vocabulary and going back to 'look it up'. fuck you youve lost your generic trademark privileges

[sailermoon]

this is how new yorkers @ mamdani

[sailermoon]

[phantomrose96]

I think it's funny world-building how like, so at the center of Life we've got Water. Arguably The most important resource. Colorless transparent substance that molds to any container and we die without it and quickly. And all organic functions of society hinge on its availability. Could fight a ton of wars over this thing.

And well beyond organic life, modern society's great human invention is the Electronic Magic. Our greatest minds invented the Electronic Magic and it sends information around the world instantly. Our infrastructure our economy our modern life, minute by minute by minute, hinges on utilizing the great Lighting Technology.

BUT ☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️ DO NOT. DO NOT EVER. get the magical Elixir Substance of Life and Living and Healing, Water, IN the Electronic Device. The water keeps you alive critically but it KILLS the Electronic Device instantly and catastrophically. This Says something.

[phantomrose96]

and this Says something...

[its-emimi]

Happy Pride month! 🌈

[anistarrose]

if you are a parent, or may become one, or you are otherwise likely to arrive in the situation of caring for a child while they eat, promise me this: if a child doesn't like a certain food or food group, you will ask them WHY. and specifically, you will pay attention to either confirming or ruling out "it makes my mouth itch" or "it makes my stomach hurt," both of which are medically important info that children may not provide unprompted. which i know because this PSA has been brought to you by "i spent my entire childhood and much of my early teens eating peas and lentils while wondering why everyone else liked the Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation so much, like were they a bunch of legume masochists or something, before i finally realized that Violently Itchy Mouth Sensation was in fact a sinister demon appearing only to me, and her true demonic name was: Legume Allergy"

[brainrockets]

Do not let your child suffer from spicy bananas!

[elethart]

Finally some quality content in my portfolio

[animusbell]

celestia is such a funny character like she's constantly manipulating twilight and friends to do shit instead of just asking and you could arguably frame that as being bc she's a "god" and pushing fate to her design or whatever, except that she engages with the group like a normal and relatable person, which makes it more like villainous machinations, except 90% of this manipulation goes towards things like "I don't want my party to be boring shit again. put my little country girl blorbos in there with zero prep so they fuck it up bad"

[animusbell]

you think you've fucked anything up around princess celestia and she's like heh. no worries. all according to keikaku

[jukashi]

Celestia instantly makes more sense as a character when you ignore the princess stuff and remember that she's a 1000+ years old wizard. Of course she does manipulative trickster stuff to teach moral lessons and/or cause chaos to amuse herself, that's classic wizard behavior. Of course sometimes she's actually socially awkward and bad at personal relationships and has bad ideas that she thought were good that result in her eating shit embarrassing style, that's classic wizard behavior. Of course she lets the aristocrats and nobles run around being assholes she's still running on wizard advisor programming, she's basically trying to merlin the entire upper class of equestria instead of just a king and some knights. "Yeah uuhhh we'll release the incarnation of chaos himself from his ancient prison because we think this shy girl can be friends with him", terrible plan if you're thinking like a ruler, amazing plan if you're thinking like a wizard. Just look at Canterlot 'Castle' for five seconds and ask yourself if that's in any way a castle. No. Wizard tower, yes. Wizard.

[animusbell]

You are so right actually

[bundibird]

Its come to my attention that a lot of people do not know how to deal with a hot car in summer. A lot of people will get back to their car, after hours of it being parked in the full sun, and will open the door to be blasted in the face with furnace-level temperatures, and you'll just clamber in and shut the doors and leave the windows closed and you'll start driving that thing, and you'll wait for the air-conditioning to battle and overcome the heat.

Thats. Insane to me.

The inside of a car can get up to 40°C/104°F hotter than the outside temperature. Why would anyone get inside that????? It's gonna take your air-conditioning at least half an hour to combat that and bring the temperature down to something even remotely reasonable, and in the meantime you're sitting there risking heatstroke.

Now, I understand that it's currently winter in the northern hemisphere, which is where most of this site lives, but a) I'm in the southern hemisphere and today was Lots Of Degrees, and b) y'all should read this now and commit it to memory or queue it to reblog in summer or whatever, because it boggles my mind that some of you get into a car whose interior is literally oven-hot.

So!!!! Some tips!!!!!

Get a sun visor. One of the big ones that goes inside your windshield. You will not believe how much cooler those things keep your car. Get one, use it. Leave it to bounce around in your back-seat on cooler days, but have it on hand for the stinkers. They range in price but two-dollar stores usually have them for pretty cheap.

Leave the windows of your car cracked open. It doesn't have to be much. Literally just the tiniest amount will mean that the heat building inside your car has a way to escape, meaning the interior temp will naturally be kept lower. The larger the opening, the better, but depending on the neighbourhood you're parking in, maybe it would be better to have them open just a sliver. Even the tiniest crack will help. Ever tried warming up an oven with the door open? It doesn't work well. This is the same concept. If there is a way for the hot air to escape, the inside of your car will stay a lot cooler than it otherwise would have.

If you're fancy enough to have an openable sunroof (that's the dream) then leave that open a bit as well.

Youve just gotten back to your car and opened the door, and its hot as fuck in there. Open another door, ideally on the other side of the car, and let the hot air escape. If you can open all four doors and the boot, then thats even better. A bunch of the hot air will flush out. Not all!!! But a lot. Give it anywhere from a few moments to a few minutes, depending on how much of a hurry you're in.

Get in, start the car, open all the windows. Yes, even if you hate having the windows open.

Put the air-conditioning on full blast, and make sure the recycle is turned OFF. This means it pulls fresh air from outside the car (hot, but less hot than inside) and pumps that into the car, further displacing the heat inside the vehicle.

Start driving, still with the windows down. Once you get up enough speed, the force of the air from outside coming in will blast the rest of the excess heat out of the car.

The temp inside the car will now be roughly equivalent to the temp outside the car. Still hot!!!! But MAJORLY less so, and majority more handle-able by your air-conditioner.

Put all your windows up, and switch the air-con over to recycle. This means it takes the air in the car and cools it, then spits it back into the car, meaning that with each cycle, the air gets progressively cooler a lot faster.

If you do this, your car will be a hell of a lot more comfortable a hell of a lot sooner than it would be if you got into a 60°C/140°F cabin and just.... endured that, until your aircon could overcome it.

This post has been brought to you by an Australian who knows not one but TWO people who get into 60°C cars and wait 15 to 30 minutes for their car to drop back down to a temperature that's even REMOTELY tolerable.

[icaruspendragon]

there’s this exchange student from the middle east in my art appreciation class and a few weeks ago we were talking after class and he made a comment that made me think, “oh! i have dead brother belongings that fit that category that are just sitting in a drawer. i bet sami would get some use out of them!”

and so i got the dead brother belongings and put them in a card and wrote a note saying, “based on our conversation last week i thought you might like these. i like knowing little bits of my brother are floating out and around in the world.”

and you wanna know what that motherfucker did? he had his mom send him some very nice soaps made from olive oil and several other nice and meaningful things and gave them to me.

and it’s not like being nice is a competition, but after receiving aforementioned gifts i thought, “he fuckin one-upped my nice gesture.”

obviously i’m not gonna let him get away with that.

so since he gave me something from his home, i too decided to give him something from his home. after a brief google search about popular middle eastern desserts, a short trip to the grocery store, and a trial run later, i presented sami with the fruits of my labor. a honey cake. he was delighted and said he would let me know how it is.

i think this may turn into some sort of “nice off,” but i’ll have to see how he retaliates during class on thursday.

stay tuned for updates.

[homunculus-argument]

If any part of your plan involves the words "nobody could be that stupid", please be prepared to be proven wrong at any minute at a moment's notice. Pay in mind that the person determined to prove you wrong may already be aware of this assumption, and is already approaching your current location at an alarming speed.

[the-real-seebs]

"it will be fine if people just"

people will not just

[alarajrogers]

In 2011 I attended an event called Bmore Fail, in which entrepreneurs in Baltimore talked about their failures and what they learned from them.

What I learned is that there is an inflexible rule about how people interact with systems. If your system would work perfectly if people Just Would, and yet they Don't, then your system is bad and you should feel bad. Systems must be built with an eye toward "will people actually do this"?

Recycling was a thing when I was a child. (The 70's.) In my home in New York State, you could carry recyclables to a recycling center. Nobody did. Now in 2024 Baltimore there is a trash truck that comes every week to pick up my recyclables, and I and my neighbors fill our cans with objects that can be recycled, because a system was developed that was easy for busy people to do, and there's a lot of social pressure to do it -- but the social pressure wouldn't exist if it wasn't easy to do. Only the most crunchy granola people bitched at you if you didn't recycle in 1979, when it required a lot of effort. Now it is considered kind of on par with spitting in the street or leaving a dirty diaper on the diaper changing table in the bathroom instead of throwing it out, if you don't recycle.

Your job as the system creator is to make it as easy as possible for people to do the right thing, and as hard as possible to do the wrong thing. This is why web forms have data validation (but too much data validation actually makes the forms harder, so hit the spot in the middle.) And if you want people to adopt social change, whether it's environmentalism, accepting gay people, or whatever, make it as easy as possible. And don't guilt people about not doing it until it's as easy as possible; instead phrase things more like "wouldn't it be cool if". It's not the fault of the individual that they can't get things done in a bad system. Fix the system.

[the-real-seebs]

if users regularly fuck up using a tool you made, and your answer is "you're holding it wrong", the next question you should ask is "why did i make this tool so it's easy to hold it wrong?"

[reasonablywittyatbest]

And then you're tech support begging the development team to change something very small that would make the user experience so much better cause they made the tool too easy to hold wrong and development will whine at you because they're very busy with the back end stuff and hey you're the customer facing side why can't you just make them, and no you can't just make them, please development please I'm begging you make the tool less easy to hold wrong.

[gamergunk64]

sorry what was that about how "accepting gay people" is on the list of things we should "make easier"?

@alarajrogers what did you mean by this?

that the onus is on gay people to be more palatable?

[alarajrogers]

No, the onus is on whoever is building the system. Most of the time that's not the gay people themselves, because people who are marginalized are rarely in a position to build systems that affect their own marginalization; that's what allies with privilege are for.

A small thing. If you want to support trans and nonbinary people, then on government forms, if they require gender and you can't get around it, allow "other"; better still, don't require gender. If you're building a medical system, and the patient's gender is M, do not gray out all the "female" problems he might be presenting with on the grounds that a man can't possibly have menstrual problems, be pregnant, or have issues with his uterus; likewise if the patient presents as F, don't make it impossible to enter a diagnosis of prostate cancer for her.

Don't set up validation rules that prevent someone with gender M from having a husband. Better yet, let "husband" and "wife" both be covered by the term "spouse", because that is inclusive of non-binary spouses as well.

Because I'm in IT, I think in terms of IT systems. But there are government systems and insurance systems and financial systems and all sorts of systems out there, that should be set up so that a gay person will be able to navigate it as easily as a straight person, and a straight person will see that the available options don't privilege them at the expense of everyone else... a subtle reminder that no, you're not the center of the universe and gay people exist. Why do you think the right wing fights so hard against there being Spanish on forms that are also in English? You'd think, it doesn't harm anyone using the form for there to be both Spanish and English. But they know, the presence of Spanish reminds English speakers that the world doesn't center around what works for them; other options exist. That's what they want to get rid of, the subtle reminder that someone besides them is important too.

This is a discussion about how to make systems work in some way other than If People Would Just, making them easier to promote the result you want, so I'm not sure how you even got "the onus is on gay people to be more palatable", and I get the feeling you don't understand the context of the discussion. I am not even sure how you could devise a system that incorporates "gay people should make themselves more palatable" because that sounds exactly like a thing that People Should Just... meaning, you're relying on humans to behave in the exact specific way you need them to for your system to work, and the whole point of this conversation is that doing that dooms your system to fail. Gay people will never Just Make Themselves More Palatable To Straights, as a cohort, so if your system for getting gay people to be better accepted relies on If Gay People Would Just, your system will fail.

Unfortunately, reading comprehension is also one of those things that If People Would Just, so posting about things on Tumblr is also a system that's doomed to fail. :-)