parenthetical reference

figuring this thing out

[taahko]

i dont know exactly how to articulate this in a way other people havent but everything is too fast now. 24/7 news cycle, online focuses that last for hours instead of months or years, songs written just so ten seconds can go viral. movies and books churned out to meet some nebulous income quota. idk. im motion sick

[dragonflavoredcake]

Bill Watterson, 1995

You're not alone or the first to feel like everything is going too fast

[parentheticalreference]

On the one hand I'm like "see there's nothing new under the sun".

On the other hand, I think a lot of social problems right now stem from the fact that we want things like trust and belonging at the speed of computers (fast) when they actually happen at the speed of human relationships (slow). The gap between how fast we feel like things *should* be and how long they actually take causes a lot of problems.

[one-time-i-dreamt]

All skirt/dress wearers when we discover they have functional pockets 😍

[hunter-rodrigez]

It’s also worth mentioning that this is the guy who posted this: 

His name is Jim Sterling and he is a rather… colorful games journalist who actually uses his platform to report on stuff like horrible working conditions, abuse and even stuff like sexual assault in the games industry.

He also raised concerns about the addictive nature of stuff like loot boxes and micro transactions long before anyone else did. 

They recently came out as non-binary “gender trash” (his words, not mine) and uses he/they/any pronouns according to his Twitter. Give their videos a look see if you are interested in hearing about workers rights in the creative industry.

[bane-of-technology]

we love and appreciate James Stephanie Sterling in this house

[rorbison]

i would like to share that they are using exclusively they/them pronouns at this time :-)

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Jim used to be a relatively big name reviewer back in the Angry Trillby Reviewer Days until they suddenly ‘quit’ their job with the very prominent games journalism company they worked for and were summarily blacklisted by the entire AAA industry.

Why? Because a massive scandal broke at the major game publisher Ubisoft revealing a culture of systematic sexual abuse, including high-ranking officials within the company that would regularly drug and rape female employees, which management and HR seemed fully aware of and would protect and move around the perpetrators Catholic-church-style. Reviewers were told not to talk about it and, when it became impossible to contain, to not talk about it where it’s “irrelevant” – that is, never mention or hint at any such stuff when actually reviewing and promoting Ubisoft games, because it’s a separate thing, see, no need to distract from the game (Ubisoft’s goal here was to be able to continue to advertise their games to players who hadn’t heard about it, and wait out the scandal until those who had just assumed everything was dealt with and forgot, which worked).

Jim refused. They knew this would tank their career, they knew they were throwing away an incredibly promising future. They did it anyway.

James Stephanie Sterling in one of a very small number of game reviewers out there with an actual fucking spine and a moral code made from titanium. They’re still effectively blacklisted from the industry, because since then they’ve refused to reform and play Good PR Robot like reviewers are supposed to do (because the AAA games industry thinks ‘reviewer’ and ‘critic’ are synonyms for ‘PR person in a gig economy’), shining light on repeated abuses and scandals in the industry, both internal scandals like this (discrimination, worker abuse, fraud, the normalisation of crunch culture and not paying workers) and ways at which the AAA industry scams players (abuses of early access, loot boxes and ‘pay to win’ mechanics that used to be the realm of free-to-play games now dominating paid titles while the prices of those titles also go up, abusive subscription models and ‘always online’ services, fun little tricks that companies love to pull with “remastered” games, and lately NFTs). Jim’s usually a good six months to a full year ahead of the curve on spying out this bullshit, able to see and warn about it before it becomes trendy enough for other reviewers to touch, and the result has been being continually silenced by game companies and passively buried by algorithms due to illegitimate DCMA takedowns, incorrect copyright strikes spurious lawsuits, being frozen out of gaming news, and whatever other nasty tricks people can pull. They came out as nonbinary very shortly before hitting a million subscribers (despite the forces agaisnt them) and then suddenly lost a lot of subscribers over a short period of time. Which was surely a complete coincidence. Yep. Just a coincidence. Have they backed down on literally anything? No. Because they decided to do this properly despite the cost and they are NOT fucking around.

They also call out particularly bad bullshit of indie developers (we’re talking the con artists and bigots in indie development in particular), not just AAA, which once hilariously resulted in a tiny no-name developer attempting to sue them for TEN MILLION DOLLARS. (Well, I found it hilarious after the fact. It was incredibly frustrating and somewhat stressful for Jim at the time, if one of the more ridiculous silencing tactics.) You can see them report on that here:

[bladeoffenris]

Well Love and respect Commander Sterling. They are amazing 

[kingofdoma]

also they have their own wrestling promotion now, after years of running around the indie scene commander sterling is AWESOME

[sleepydumpling]

I’m not a gaming person but what a legend who needs to be celebrated.

[mycotoxin]

I’ve gone to the women’s restroom a lot in my life, and not once have I ever seen genitalia besides my own while there. No penis, no vulva, nothing.

I’ve literally seen a bathroom full of baby lizards, one time a whole fucking fish on the floor, and someone come out of the stall with a plate, knife, and fork like they just ate a meal before I’ve seen genitals. Why would I ever be worried about seeing some woman with her cock out

[redshiftsinger]

I've used a gender-neutral restroom facility that had both urinals and stalls, while someone was using the urinal. Presumably an individual with a penis (they were presenting masc and using a urinal, after all) but I can't say that with certainty because I did not see any penis.

It was very easy to avoid seeing: I simply did not look in the direction of this person's genitals, and instead headed directly to the stall I wanted to do my own peeing in, minding my own business and not gawping at strangers the entire time.

[sevdrag]

tell me something cool

[not-available-for-comment]

Wastewater treatment is not achieved through a series of chemical treatments. Instead, it’s a managed natural process in which the effluent from the sewer system is filtered, aerated and then broken down by wild microbes.

Technically it doesn’t need to be aerated, but anaerobic bacteria, which don’t need oxygen, produce much stinkier byproducts during this breakdown process, so most decent-sized urban wastewater treatment plants do aerate in order to spare the neighbors. Very simple rural wastewater plants may just pump the wastewater into a lagoon—an outdoor pond, usually with a liner of some kind—and just let whatever grows in there do so.

As the wastewater is breaking down, it separates into a layer of muck (sludge) and a layer of cleaner water. Large wastewater treatment plants have a series of stages with clearer and cleaner water emerging from each one. Small plants may have a series of lagoons or just one. The more stuff you have in your wastewater that’s not poop (say maybe you accept discharge from a local factory, or there’s a restaurant district with a lot of food waste in their greywater), the longer and harder it is to treat.

Discharge from wastewater treatment plants to natural water bodies is heavily regulated and monitored for quality. In the US, it’s regulated by the EPA, and they take it seriously. The finishing step involves testing your discharge to make sure it’s within your approved discharge limits. This is the only step where a chemical treatment is commonly added: a little chlorine, to kill off the last of your microbes. But some plants use constructed wetlands or sand filters instead. If they do apply chlorine, they also have to take it back out before releasing the water, so that they don’t upset the ecosystem the water will be released to.

(If you have wastewater that’s mostly human waste and a correctly sized plant, you shouldn’t technically need this step. The microbes should be slowly precipitating out of the water along with the sludge. But things like high volume, cold temperatures, and complex effluent can make those benchmarks hard to hit without a finishing step.)

MORE COOL STUFF ABOUT WASTEWATER:

DID YOU KNOW? Potassium, an important component in fertilizer, is actually mined out of the earth? Did you know potassium deposits are running low? DID YOU KNOW POTASSIUM IS A WASTEWATER BYPRODUCT!?

DID YOU KNOW? Some large plants can trap and clean methane from their wastewater and use it for power?

DID YOU KNOW? The precipitated sludge can be further treated and used for fertilizer? I particularly liked the plant that was using it to fertilize fast-growing trees for the paper trade.

DID YOU KNOW? Many wastewater plant operators have a protective—if sometimes frustrated—relationship with their microbes, which they call “the bugs”, and include not just bacteria but also other microorganisms like algae and daphnia. The bugs are the workhorses of the wastewater plant: if their ecosystem becomes imbalanced, everyone’s job gets harder. I doubt they’d appreciate this, but in my mind, wastewater treatment operators are microbe herders. Though I suppose thinking of them as bog technicians is also accurate.

This has been the short version of my “wastewater treatment is fricking awesome” rant. I generalized a lot but the gist is still true. You asked for something cool, behold: Wastewater treatment, first wonder of man’s interface with nature.

[sevdrag]

OKAY BUT IM A CHEMICAL ENGINEER BY TRAINING AND READING THIS WAS THE MOST SOOTHING AND SATISFYING THING I NEEDED RIGHT NOW.

[theperksofbeingahugefuckingcunt]

What if when we were born we were each assigned a Wikipedia page like a social security number would that be fucked up or what

[dragontatoes]

do you mean a wikipedia page about us? or do you mean some baby is arbitrarily given the rights and responsibilities to update the paramecium article?

[theperksofbeingahugefuckingcunt]

ok I did mean a Wikipedia page about us. But keep talking I like where you’re headed

[peregrineggsandham]

What's your government-assigned Wikipedia page? (No rerolls. I am in charge of "1929 in Wales" now. Not a great year, some bad floods in November.)

[argentconflagration]

when the subject of "why do people believe things that are seriously wrong and harmful" comes up it feels like you kinda hear one of two perspectives:

"oh, that's easy! it's because they're fundamentally Bad people who want to hurt others and choose their beliefs to justify that! :) hope this helps"

or

"they just don't have access to the same information we do. look at this person who was raised in a cult! don't you feel sorry for her?"

and like, yes, fine, some people were in fact raised in cults, but what i wish people would understand is that the bulk of it is just normal human flaws, like:

they want to believe stuff that makes them feel smart and cool and like they've figured everything out (you also do this)

they want to believe stuff that makes them feel like their emotions are justified and grounded in reality, and that the people they want to hurt deserve to be hurt (you also do this)

they form conclusions before they've processed all the relevant information, and cling to that first impression even when new info comes to light (you also do this)

they pick up beliefs from the people around them because they want to be liked and fit in, not because the beliefs are good or true (you also do this)

they come up with reasons that the stuff that benefits them (and the people they like and identify with) is actually overwhelmingly best for everyone and obviously the right thing to do (you also do this)

they pay more attention to stuff that supports what they already believe and avoid looking in places that might show them otherwise (you also do this)

they listen to people who talk like 'one of them' and ignore others (you also do this)

they come up with reasons to dismiss people with conflicting viewpoints as obviously in bad faith or ignorant or a shill or evil (you also do this)

they fail to take their own beliefs seriously sometimes, and take their beliefs way too seriously other times, in a selective way that lets them do the things they already wanted to do (you also do this)

the very ways they construct the ideas of 'knowledge' and 'wisdom' and 'belief' and 'understanding' are biased so that what they don't want to believe comes under lots of scrutiny and what they do want to believe receives less (you also do this)

you, dear reader, are presumably right about everything and were correct to die on every hill you've ever died on, but the difference between you and someone who's wrong about important stuff doesn't look like "well they're inherently evil and i'm not", it probably looks like a combination of:

natural environment (they would have been exposed to different information than you regardless of their choices)

being in the right place at the right time (your particular profile of flaws and virtues happened to be what was needed to lead you to the right conclusions, they had the opposite experience)

random luck (you doubled down on what felt right to believe but wasn't, but it turned out to be inconsequential, or even right for different reasons, while they doubled down on what turned out to be a horrible mistake distorting their entire worldview)

you do less of the things in the previous list, and over time the difference between you and them adds up

and, look, i also do these things. the nicest and most thoughtful people i've ever met do these things. if you meet someone who never does any of these things, i dunno, give them a fucking medal or something.

i know you're doing your best. we're all doing our best.

[krakenartificer]

We get it in the abstract. We all know everybody in this room makes mistakes. The human species, in general, is fallible -- okay fine. But when it comes down to me, right now, to all the beliefs I hold, here in the present tense, suddenly all of this abstract appreciation of fallibility goes out the window -- and I can't actually think of anything I'm wrong about. And the thing is, the present tense is where we live.

On being wrong

Most of us will do anything to avoid being wrong. But what if we're wrong about that? "Wrongologist" Kathryn Schulz makes a compelling case

We go to meetings in the present tense; we go on family vacations in the present tense; we go to the polls and vote in the present tense. So effectively, we all kind of wind up traveling through life, trapped in this little bubble of feeling very right about everything. I think this is a problem. I think it's a problem for each of us as individuals, in our personal and professional lives, and I think it's a problem for all of us collectively as a culture. So what I want to do today is, first of all, talk about why we get stuck inside this feeling of being right. And second, why it's such a problem. And finally, I want to convince you that it is possible to step outside of that feeling and that if you can do so, it is the single greatest moral, intellectual and creative leap you can make.

(emphasis mine)

[knitmeapony]

letter from a mother of a gay man. sent to ONE magazine, 1958.

--

This post was flagged as adult content and the original poster was deactivated so I'm bringing it back.

[foreign-dorian-deactivated20250]

“Mrs R” was the pseudonym of Phyllis Shafer, a Kansas City local who helped found the Phoenix Society for Individual Freedom in 1966, a full three years before Stonewall. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, she and her son Drew operated the Phoenix House, a safe haven for queer people in the city, and a hub of national queer activism. Drew passed away due to AIDS related complications in the 1980s, and his lover, Mickey Ray, spent the rest of his life fighting to keep his memory alive, largely contributing to the creation of the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America.

Before Stonewall, this Kansas City activist helped unite the national gay rights movement

Years before the Stonewall uprising, Drew Shafer started Kansas City's first gay rights organization and published the first LGBTQ magazine

[consistentlycontradictory]

“We tend to view American history as this constant march toward progress, which is total crap,” he says. “You gotta fight for that stuff. And if you don't fight for that, you can fall backward. Like it's not just this linear history."

Good quote from the article which may be relevant right now.

[knitmeapony]

Bring this bad boy back with some delicious context for pride

[theoriginaleppieblack-blog]

This i

This is why they want to start taking kids who identify as lgbt+ away from their parents. They want to paint our families that support us as not real families and our churches as not real churches.

[daughter-of-sapph0]

cis man with gynecomastia scars: hi

the smartest transphobes in the world: kys tranny

and people wonder why I say that transphobia is a danger to everyone.

[daughter-of-sapph0]

I wish I was fucking joking

but sure "we can always tell" crowd telling a cis man to kill himself because they think he's trans. that totally normal behavior. terfs are totally just normal average members of society who want what's best for everyone. they totally aren't genocidal fascists who want to kill everyone who disagrees with them or anyone they simply don't like.

[dabwax-deactivated20250410]

@every-captain

That's the reality of intersexism! Any bodily traits that can be deemed intersex are deemed a medical condition that needs to be dealt with, rather than a natural human variation.

Sex as a binary system is entirely a social construct just as much as gender is. It's fairly normal for people born with penises to develop breast tissue, just as it's normal for people born with vulvas to grow facial hair. But if we called those things normal human variations, we'd have to change how sex and gender are seen entirely in our society. A lot of people would lose a lot of money and control.

[lakevida]

if we all spent just six hours a day working on some kind of complex tapestry in contemplative silence nobody would have the problems they currently have

[arborealgargoyle]

we would have entirely NEW problems. the tapestry discourse would be intense

[3liza]

Meiji period fashion was some of the best in the world, speaking purely from an aesthetic standpoint you can really see the collision of European and Japanese standards of beauty and how their broad agreement even in particulars (the similarity between Japanese and Gibson girl bouffants, the obi vs the corset, the obi knot vs the bustle, the mutual covetousness for exotic textiles, the feverish swapping of both art styles and subjects) combined and produced some of the most interesting cultural exchange we have this level of documentation for. Europeans were wearing kimono or adapting them into tea gowns, japanese were pairing lacy Edwardian blouses with skirt hakama and little button up boots. haori jackets with bowler hats and European style lapels. if steampunk was any good as an aesthetic it would steal wholesale from the copious records we have in both graphic arts and photography of how people were dressing in this milieu.

[3liza]

[3liza]

«The botany professor,» from Kkokei Shimbun, October 20, 1908. she's wearing a kimono blouse or haori, edwardian skirt or hakama, gibson girl bouffant, a lacy high-collar blouse with cravat and brooch, and a pocket watch with chain

1910-1930 (Taishō era, right after Meiji, which I should have included in my OP) men's haori with western lapels

[applesforhela]

I have a love for both kimonos and bustle dresses, so I love seeing how the two fashions influenced each other over this period.  And thanks to Pinterest, I have pictures!

Victorian tea gown that clearly started as a kimono.  It still has the long furisode sleeves, but now they’re gathered at the shoulder and turned around so that the long open side is facing the front instead of the back.  Similarly the back is taken in with curved seams to fit the torso and pleated below that for the skirt.

Woodblock of a woman in a a bustle dress made with colorful patterned fabrics and examples of how a woman could style her hair with it.

More prints to showcase hairstyles, two women wearing western wear and two women wearing kimonos.

This next one’s modern, but it involves hoopskirts so I’ll add it in because it makes me so happy.  There’s been different styles of wedding fashion that take kimonos and give them a more modern look.  Often this involves taking a kimono and then cutting and resewing it into a new dress.  Very pretty, but it can’t ever be worn like a traditional kimono again.  But now there’s another trend where the bride wears a hoopskirt with a white skirt, then you take the kimono and drape it on.  The back of the kimono covers the front of the dress, the long sleeves fall across the sides or the back, and you still wear an obi with it.  The result is pretty and the kimono itself doesn’t have to be altered at all.

And because you mentioned steampunk, I have to add in these two:

[nonasuch]

Personally I’m a big fan of Taisho Meisen kimono, which are what happen when the Japanese textile industry abruptly gets access to aniline dyes, new spinning and weaving technology, and the concept of Art Deco:

[cop-disliker69]

[sprachgefuehle]

“That sounds like a good idea…….”-“Is there something bothering you with the idea?”-“No, the idea is GOOD…..🙂”

[biteswhenprovoked]

Can someone explain this to me?

[cop-disliker69]

Old people use quotation marks to indicate emphasis, as a substitute for italics (which many of them could not produce on the old typewriters they learned to write on), whereas young people use them to indicate sarcasm or falseness. They’re used as “scare quotes”.

And old people use ellipses simply to indicate a pause, or for some other incomprehensible reason I’m not aware of. But young people use ellipses to indicate passive-aggression.

So an old person could type something like:

how are things going with your “boyfriend”….

and what they mean is

How are things going with your boyfriend? [Im so excited for you, sweetie, and I wanna hear about it]

But a young person would interpret that sentence as

How are things going with your so-called boyfriend…. [I say, while seething with contempt for him and possibly for you too]

[kaispeakshermind]

The linguistic difference across generations is beautifully explained here thank you

[clockworkcrow]

older generations use ellipses the way we use no period

this is too serious.

this is not too serious

this is not too serious either……

cracked this code recently and it suddenly all made sense. and also i was embarrassed because sometimes i’ll end sentences like this,,,, and it’s literally the same exact thing…..

[prismatic-bell]

Also this:

“I’m so excited for you.”

Versus

“OMG I’M SO EXCITED FOR YOU!!!”

Is because

1) caps = yelling for years. Then we got the ability to italicize, so we got used to being able to emphasize words that way, and then we got things like texting, where you can’t italicize. The meaning of “quotes” had already shifted, so something new was called for, AND THIS WAS IT! Older people do not want you to think you’re being screamed at.

2) [insert essay here about voice communication being the standard throughout the 20th century, while writing was considered more formal even when used for informal things like love letters] and you weren’t supposed to have things like “excessive punctuation.” This included only using an exclamation point if you really, really needed it and if you did, you could probably write that sentence more strongly some other way. There was definitely no need for the exclamation point. Stop that. You must be able to get your point across without it. It looks unprofessional and scatterbrained. Older people also don’t want you to think they’re blowing you off with badly-written prose.

[sylviii]

“she’s got legs for days” pfffft not impressive. i;ve had mine for years

[brawltogethernow]

*turns off the light*

my cat, who can still see perfectly, watching as I bump into a table: Ah, she has toggled the switch that controls whether she is stupid.

[spacelazarwolf]

i need all gentiles to watch this video immediately.

[magnetothemagnificent]

[Transcription from TikTok by @/simkern:

"

I’ve seen yet another video of a queer Southerner, who is white, and who is fleeing the South, and justifying this saying that, ‘you know it's just this is just like before the Holocaust and anyone who doesn't leave, it's like the people who stay behind during the Holocaust’. 

And look, I'm a queer Southern Jew, and I think that it's appropriate that we use the term genocidal to describe these laws. I think there are comparisons to be made between fascism here in the US and the rise of the fascism in the Weimar Republic before Hitler came to power and I've made those comparisons on videos on my channel. But we are not- We are not as a country anywhere near the level of violence that was going on in the Weimar Republic against Jews before the Nazis came to power. 

And anytime I get this kind of despair and hysteria, I call my dad who's a Jewish European historian and he reminds me about what that situation in the Weimar Republic was really like and just how much more rule of law we have here in the US still. 

So, in the year that Hitler came to power, 1933, Germany, there were 2 million brown shirts roaming the streets of Germany, beating up any Jews or Communists that they found. Okay, this was a organized uniformed paramilitary thugs, they, you know, outnumbered the police and the Army 10 times over. 2 million out of a population of 65 million people total in Germany. That's 3% of the population today.

To put that in perspective, if 3% of the US population today were uniformed paramilitary thugs, that would be 10 million people, okay. 10 million people dressed in Klan uniforms or Proud Boy uniforms roaming the streets beating people up with absolute impunity, and, you know, no consequences from the government. There's only 800,000 cops in the US total, okay. This would be 10 million people. 

That's the proportion, that's how many organized hate groups were operating in Germany before Hitler ever came to power. We just do not have that in the US here we are not anywhere near that level of violence, okay. And I worry so much what that’s doing to people who cannot, cannot, cannot leave the South, when you tell them that this is just like the Weimar Republic, this is just like before the Holocaust broke out, and any minute we’re gonna have concentration camps spring up. I just don’t think that that’s the case. Disabled people, minors, anyone on like, parole, probation, awaiting trial, anyone on a custody order. There’s so many people who really cannot leave and there’s many more who like, okay, theoretically they could leave everything behind, but they’d be going to a place where they have no community and no resources and no guarantee that that state is necessarily gonna be safer for them, especially if we end up with a Republican president. And I do not think it’s helpful to tell those people that they’re ignorant for not getting out or that they’re about to be genocided just like in the Holocaust. I don’t think that’s true and I’m staying in a red state, cause I have to.]

Not to mention that this kind of attitude, saying, "oh this is just like the Holocaust and if you don't leave you're like the stupid people in Germany who didn't leave", just reeks of victim blaming and Holocaust misinformation. The Jews weren't stupid. Many did leave and tried to leave. Many were first or second generation refugees from Eastern Europe. And many Jews didn't leave because we've endured thousands of years of antisemitism and been pushed around the globe, and everyone was tired. But we did not go like lambs to the slaughter. We were not stupid.

[horse-on-a-porch]

also and I fucking mean this most of the country is against these laws. that was not the case in Germany (which is alluded to in the video). Georgia passed an anti-trans law that 66% OF GEORGIANS WERE AGAINST. 66%. do you know how hard it is to get us to agree about anything????

Fucking Disney is picking a fight with Ron DeSantos. Fucking Disney. That’s how many people are not amused with this nonsense that capitalism is against it.

What happened in Germany was fascism but it was supported by a large number of Germans. What is happening in the US is not supported by the people here.

That fundamentally changes things. I think that eventually these laws could lead to people changing their views but we’re a generation away from that at least and I find it very unlikely. Granted, that’s a different reason to be scared when the government is no longer held accountable to its people.

[spacelazarwolf]

^^^ all of that. the holocaust was the culmination of centuries of antisemitism and antizyganism in europe. there were pogroms committed against our communities again and again. thousands of us were slaughtered at the hands of our neighbors. that’s not what’s happening here in the us. what’s happening here is that the gop needs a boogeyman and trans people are the new target. our existence thwarts the patriarchy and white supremacy, so obviously people who benefit from those systems don’t want us visible. but it’s simply not comparable to what was happening to jews and roma in europe before and during the holocaust.

[vimes-boots]

Another important note is that the brown shirts were usually veterans of WWI, and were very physically capable and desensitized to a certain kind of violence. It is difficult to overstate how brutal WWI was. European countries had thought of war as just brutalizing brown people who sometimes didn't even have guns, and then stumbled into the invention of biochemical warfare. The people who survived that were changed.

The proud boys and other neo nazi groups here are not like that. They're usually younger men and not veterans or used to anything outside of MAYBE some street violence. Obviously we have seen they are more than ready and willing to kill, but on the whole they are not as dangerous as these huge populations of extremely brutalized and organized soldiers that made up Hitler's thugs. They're internet "intellectuals." They do physically train and organize, and they aren't to be underestimated, but it's just not the same level as combat hardened military vets.

[spacelazarwolf]

that is a very good point i hadn’t considered!

[mermaidbush-deactivated20191129]

since apparently this is controversial, reblog with your country in the tags and whether or not you think noodles and pasta are the same thing

[mermaidbush-deactivated20191129]

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

Okay, I’m gonna explain why Americans/Canadians are Brits/the Irish have different takes on this:

So if you ask the average British person, they’re going to think of noodles as Udon, Ramen, Chow Fun, etc. i.e. mostly food found in East Asian cuisines. And they’re going to think of Pasta in relation to what’s found in/similar to Italian cuisine, because that’s how it was introduced to the region. But people here with some cultural connection to various forms of German or Eastern European food, to name one demographic, might have an expanded definition of what constitutes a noodle. For example, Ashkenazi Jews consider these to be noodles:

In Yiddish, they’re called Lokshen (Jewish Egg Noodles) and we use them to make what’s known as Lokshen Kugel, also called noodle kugel. There are similar noodle types in various Slavic cuisines, German cuisine, etc. Now, in the UK, unless your regular supermarket happens to have a kosher section (and that’s only the case in a few cities with big-enough Jewish populations) you usually have to go to a specialty Eastern European market to find these.

It’s a different story in the USA, though. You can get these at just about any supermarket, because the USA had more Ashkenazi, German, and Slavic immigrants influencing food culture, and they mixed more with Italian immigrants who were introducing everyone else to Italian pasta at the same time. So sometimes, the terminology got muddled. What was translated into American English as “noodle” sometimes got applied to Italian-style “pasta” and vice versa. Overall, I’d say there’s still broadly an Italian pasta/Other European noodle divide in terms how Americans use the words, but in certain regions, occasional muddling may still occur.

Meanwhile, in Britain, the concept of the Ashkenazi/Slavic/German/etc noodle is far less of a thing, which is why there’s much more of an Italian Pasta/Asian noodle divide. They lack the in-between, more pasta-ish noodle as an option, so it’s a starker difference in cuisine.

[thoodleoo]

god i love reading about stupid drama in ancient greece. like there was an athlete named theagenes who was so good at every kind of athletic contest that when he died, one of his opponents would go to beat the shit out of a statue of him out of spite, but then one day the statue fell on the guy and killed him so the greeks took the statue to court for murder, convicted it, and threw it into the sea

[thoodleoo]

actually i left out the best part of this story which is that a plague then struck and when people consulted the oracle at delphi she was like "well you've pissed of theagenes" so they had to go dig the statue back up out of the fucking water

[mercuryfountain-deactivated2024]

I don't mean any of this in a weird way but if we're interested in breaking down binaries, we can't cling onto the binary of cis versus trans. If gender expectations are as constrictive as we say they are, then this imagined class of people who are okay with gender expectations 100% of the time with no complications is just that. Imagined. It's similar to "neurotypical" as an imagined class of people who are completely comfortable with the social and mental expectations of their jobs and would never understand what it's like to get overwhelmed or feel out of place. The unintended implication is an obsession with labelling and pathologizing that says that it's not gender or workplace norms that need to be interrogated, it's you.

The truth is that you can be outside the binary without formally committing to calling yourself nonbinary. I am a cis gay man who feels most comfortable and affirmed when I'm free to wear earrings and garments I bought in the "women's" section. I tell people my pronouns are he/him because it's the simplest explanation, but they/them and even she/her are comfortable, even validating, in the right circumstances. There are a lot of cis gay men just like me. Am I actually nonbinary and just in denial? No. Being a gay man is deeply meaningful to me. Am I encouraging nonbinary to start calling themselves cis and questioning whether they're actually nonbinary? No, and I feel more comfortable in my own manhood knowing I have the option to leave. I just want us all to define ourselves on our own terms. I want celebrate common ground and shared queerness with trans people and not have to overstate our differences. We treat it as a political and moral obligation to fine tune our labels for the sake of establishing who's allowed to say what, who's allowed to relate to who, and I have to ask: Are we committed to breaking down boundaries or not?