Not Important, Just True @notimportantjusttrue - Tumblr Blog

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mytearsrricochet

dramatic-dolphin

who let biologists play dnd

lillytheaspie

@tgirl-tamag0tchi

tgirl-tamag0tchi

Chordal aren’t protists, but kelp are. Protist is also a grab bag category. For things that aren’t animal, plant, or fungi, but are still eukaryotic.

And chorals are also colonial organisms formed of many polyps. You can’t become groups of creatures in wild shape… you could become a single choral polyp.

notimportantjusttrue

Some druids can wild shape into swarms

Can they become coral?

partywithponies

Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???

urlocalpyshcopan

as a black gay person real like where y'all be finding this stuff pass the name

brainsforbabyjesus

for real though, those DO NOT WATCH OR YOU'LL CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN lists put out by conservative christian family groups is where I find all the stellar tv shows. Like, shit I didn't know half of those existed, thanks for finding them for me, gonna go watch 30 hours of gay tv now!

infamousbrad

I think I know how this works.

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Same as the journalists describing Black Rock City as all naked. Same as the right-wing religious culture warriors describing television as entirely mixed-race and gender non-conforming. Not because it's even vaguely true, we know that, but because they haven't gotten over their discomfort over the last one by the time the next one comes along. The anger, not the stimulus, is the part that's continuous, so their mind lies to them that it's "all" the thing they can't get over.

kagedtiger

Similar effect for the presence/proportion of women in things, by the way: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/how-17-equals-496-the-amazing-multiplying-women.htm

notimportantjusttrue

It's everything. It's literally everything. Every kind of person they think is 20-30% of the population. 1 in 5 people are trans! 1 in 4 are Muslim! Look left, look right, one of those people is a Black Asian Jewish Catholic bisexual veteran who makes a million dollars a year and lives in California, New York, and Texas!

God I wish I lived in the world the Average American believes they do

storm-of-feathers

yeah yeah rainbow capitalism is bad and whatever but like. when I was a child, being pro gay was not the popular or lucrative choice. I'm happy that times have changed.

storm-of-feathers

I miss rainbow capitalism. I do. I miss when it felt like public opinion was still pro gay. I understand it was always an empty gesture, but it mattered in a sense of knowing how socially acceptable being queer is. If that makes sense.

vaspider

It very much does make sense.

notimportantjusttrue

Corporations have never, ever cared about us, and would sell us out for a penny

So what rainbow budweiser means is that somewhere deep in their focus groups and algorithms and actuary tables, they have made the sterile, soulless determination that appealing to the people who like us makes more money than appealing to the people who hate us

There was always a cold comfort in that. It felt like we would win. And it would be a corporate, capitalist, uncaring win, but it would be a win. The people who cared about us would push out the people who didn't, and homophobia would be suffocated by pure economics

So even though it's soulless, even if they don't and won't and didn't ever care, I do miss rainbow budweiser.

duckbunny

your twenties are not "late" to start hrt. that is a normal time to start hrt. your thirties are also a normal time to start hrt. your seventies are pretty late to start hrt, but not too late. like, statistically, that's at the end of the curve. but if you are not dead, it is not too late for hrt.

notimportantjusttrue

THERE IS STILL TIME

I have met women in their 60s and 70s who just started, and the glow in their eyes, like seeing the finish line after a lifetime of running, is so, so beautiful. It is never too late. It is never too late. It is never, ever, ever too late.

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE

toasthaste

according to An Immense World, apparently giant squid eyes are, like, UNREASONABLY large, even for something their size living at those depths. the next largest eyes on earth, blue whale eyes, are less than half the size, and swordfish, who live at similar depths as giant squid and have the largest eyes of any fish, have eyes that could fit inside a giant squid's pupil.

eyes hit serious diminishing returns wrt resource costs vs vision quality as they get bigger, so the question became: what the FUCK do giant (and colossal) squid need to see so badly that they couldn't see with swordfish-sized eyes that's justifying that massive energy cost? that nothing else in the deep ocean needs to see so fucking badly??

turns out the one strength eyes that big really have over much smaller eyes is: seeing large glowing objects in water deeper than 500 meters from an appreciable distance.

sperm whales are the primary predator of giant squid. sperm whales don't glow. BUT! water that deep is full of bioluminescent creatures-- these creatures light up when bumped into. something a sperm whale's size is continuously bumping into those critters, it's just surrounded by a glowing field all the time when it's swimming at those depths, visible from a distance-- if you have the right eyes-- as a massive glowing shape. so basically the only reason to have eyes the size of soccer balls is if you live in the deep ocean and your life depends on having a heads up when a hungry sperm whale lurking around

and also I gotta say, the imagery... the huge lurking threat betrayed only by the ambiguous glowing shape of its movements through the water, is really evocative, if spooky deep-sea games aren't already using that to make things extremely ominous then they should really start

notimportantjusttrue

You're telling me that in the deep deep ocean you can find sperm whales only by their surrounding luminescence

And if you get that same glow if you bump into those creatures yourself, but you're a lot smaller, so everything can see that you're snack-sized

But if you turn on your flashlight, deep in the inky blackness, a giant squid can see you, no matter how far away you are?

Great, terrifying, hate it, love it

#feels like the bit in outer wilds #where you're surrounded by these massive anglerfish #that find you delicious #and they're blind #but have excellent hearing #so if you fire your engine at all #they Find You #so you just have to float #so so slowly #past these horrible creatures and their horrible jaws #terrifying! terrifying.

ivipl1

nastiest trick in the book is getting you genuinely deeply attached to a character whose name sounds fucking stupid in any other context. this WILL happen to you at some point in your life.

notimportantjusttrue

This is also one of the essential experiences in Blaseball

I'm so sad, I miss them so much, I wish I had GOOBIE BALLSON back

#blaseball

tanknaka

hey

hey friend

dont kill yourself tonight ok

you have a really pretty smile and i know its not always easy to manage one but itd be a bummer if we never had the chance to see it ever again

youre really important and you matter a lot so stay safe and try and have a nice sleep

landmineblogging

if you only knew the lives that this has saved

tieflingkisser

doyoulovethewayzeylily

you'll feel like a total dipshit train wreck and no matter what some girl is gonna see you and think "role model". you can't kill yourself you have to go be clocky in the gas station so a 14 year old can have the trajectory of her life altered forever

duchessvongooseberg

as annoying as it is to work fast food, at my previous job one time a kid recognized the theta delta pin on my hat and was so fucking excited because i was the first other therian they had ever encountered offline.

"hey....are you a therian?" "yeah!" "what kind of animal?" "eh, some kinda dog" "😲😀 im like a wolf coyote hybrid" "that's fuckin awesome"

to be weird is to cast lifelines all around you

doyoulovethewayzeylily

tags from @k1ntsug1-r0b0t-g1rl

what really drives me nuts is that like. this happens an average of x times per year as a visibly weird person, but we only get made aware of it a small fraction of the time. you can't kill yourself you have to be clocky in the gas station.

analog-delight

Being clocky when i was working as a barista was one of my big joys. Being clocky when i was teaching high schoolers how to play the marimba was my reason for being for half a decade. It sucks how scared I am to leave the house I live in now. But I still need to try and be clocky at the grocery store. I wish i had a job to be clocky at. Being visibly me is one of the most radical acts I'm capable of, and I hope that one day we live in a world where it isn't radical at all.

doyoulovethewayzeylily

that's exactly what I was feeling when I wrote this. we all find ways to defy our fear, love is an excellent motivator.

fajitajane

I love going out being clocky. I love seeing a young queer as a cashier. Usually I'm wearing a mask so I imagine folks can't quitr tell until I speak. I almost always complimented on my hair by these folks too. I love being able to thank them and give them a compliment in return.

thethirdstrongestsylvi

around a month ago i saw an older trans woman who was probably like 60+ with a cis woman who seemed to be her supportive wife who took her clothes shopping as customers in my store and she seemed so happy to see me there and it melted my heart so much. if you are trans your existence is so important for someone even if it doesnt feel like it. i hope shes doing alright

was also having a terrible day a bit over a week ago but a super pretty trans woman came into the store and we talked a bit after a mutual i know what you are look and she brightened my day a lot and probably doesnt even realize it. i really hope i see her again

notimportantjusttrue

I figured out I was trans basically as soon as I knew what a trans woman was, at age 24. Of course I'd seen trans people before, 1% isn't that rare, but I'd never known.

If I'd met an open trans woman ten years earlier, who knows where my life would have gone, so I try to be that for the people around me who would never have known

natalieironside

Shout out to trans women who aren't computer scientists or musicians or avant-garde artists or whatever.

Shout-out to tgirls who work at Taco Bell. Thank u queen, society would collapse without you

snkrfnd

Over twenty years ago my big brother got me a job at a Taco Bell in the St. Louis suburbs-West County. He warned me that it was the "gay Taco Bell", but since I was coming from the "gay Howard Johnson's" I wasn't shocked. It turns out it was the black trans women Taco Bell complete with black trans women in management. And they'd worked out an arrangement with the local teen Narcotics Anonymous group so that twice a week we would shut down the drive thru and the dining room and exclusively serve 60+ teens in various stages of recovery. And many of the women I worked with were in various stages of being out or transitioning and they were from all generations from teens to over 50. One woman I worked with had a regular corporate job presenting as a man 9-5 Mon-Fri and then came to Taco Bell and worked 6pm -2am Friday and Saturday night so she could be herself surrounded by other black transwomen in those stolen weekends. And we had customers come from all over the metro area because they knew they could be themselves in the dining room. I only worked there from 1999-2001 but for young me, this was a vital, formative experience. Some of the girls came from north city all the way out to the "gay Taco Bell" on Manchester in west county because they heard it was safe to work there. Like- I know times have changed but they haven't changed much in 20 years. I'm still convinced that for lgbt youth, finding a job at your city's version of the "gay Taco Bell" is key to survival.

notimportantjusttrue

It's not nearly as cool, but I work in a corporate franchise tutoring center owned by two proudly neurodivergent nonbinary people of color. I know 100% that my coworkers and I, including other girls, will never have to mask or hide who we are no matter what happens in the world.

Parents come in and awkwardly whisper "my daughter is... On the spectrum," and my boss goes "yeah me too! And most of the people who work here!" Kids who've never opened up to teachers absolutely bloom when we work with them. Kids who've always "misbehaved" can focus and sit still. Very, very rarely, a student tells us quietly that they want a different name or different pronouns, and we use them excitedly and without question.

We can be a safe place for kids, for 8-year-olds, 12-year-olds who've never fit in, and we can do it today in 2026. There's gay taco bells, autistic nonbinary mathnasiums, little places everywhere that keep the lights on in the storm, and I think that's beautiful.

Edit to add: we made an arrangement with the local school district where students can attend for free, 100% paid by the state. We're in a low-income area where most families simply could not pay a couple hundred a month for tutoring, much less for multiple kids, which is the kind of thing that means poor kids get behind and stay behind. Free tutoring means these kids get to have some of the help they need to succeed and thrive in a system that's rigged against them.