welcome to the rubbish pit

abi - she/they - artist, writer, and idiot

[rainyd4yze]

just saw a post about the research of margaret rossiter into women in science being erased and it has reminded me of an individual i encountered during my time in undergrad as a woman in stem.

story time:

there was a guy in my physical chemistry class/lab that i can only describe as looking like your typical redditor that lives in his mom's basement, neckbeard and all. i don't want to invoke stereotypes lightly, but this will also make more sense with the context of the rest of the story.

in lab, i was used to having a good partner for the whole semester that would split the work with me. coincidentally, all my previous lab partners were also women. so this guy was in my class for both semesters that year, but i only had him in my lab for one semester (thankfully, one semester was more than enough to keep getting partnered with this guy).

the first thing i notice is the way he talks about hockey with this other guy in our lab (this was around the time of the winter olympics), and who he talks about as notable players. i mention some things conversationally but i'm more into women's hockey than men's. there was another girl who was sort of into men's hockey, but he didn't really entertain anyone else's opinion besides his own.

now we get to where it at attacked to intersect. background for the lab, but we had to heat a wire and attach it to a gummy bear before combusting it, so we were thinking of silly names. since we had been talking hockey recently, i joke that we should name two gummy bears after the tkachuk brothers. the other guy into hockey laughs but neckbeard just stares and says "what's wrong with the tkachuk brothers?" let's just say there's some things that have come out about the tkachuk brothers (there's also the whole white house thing but i digress). i just shook my head and continued on. during this same lab with the wires and gummy bears, when i would put the wire on, it was nice and centered; this guy would talk about how it was hard to get the wire in the clamps and get the right length, etc, but when i would offer to do it he would practically take it out of my hands. there were multiple trials so we were both going to take turns, but he felt the need to micromanage me even when i was the one doing it better than him.

in another lab, we were doing some pressure stuff and we had to release a specific amount out of a value that was a bit old and finicky. whenever he would release it, his increments were too big. he left to use the bathroom and i took over in valve duty. while he was gone, i got the hang of when to stop the valve so that it would fluctuate too far past our desired stopping point. there was thankfully another girl in our group for this lab and she was taking the data points. when he got back, he "offered" (insistingly) to take over the valve. i mentioned something about figuring out the valve and he was about to say something when the other girl stepped in and mentioned that we were getting better data points since i took over, outnumbered, he reluctantly backed down. he wanted to say something so badly, but what would he have said that wouldn't just come out directly misogynistic?

more about this guy, he was also known for cheating off others during tests. when doing the report part of the lab, most of us would collaborate a bit, but he just straight up wanted people to tell him the answers. there's all sorts of reasons people might fail a class for and i'm empathetic of that, but this guy admitted to not studying and not knowing when some of our quizzes were and also would turn in his work late. during the spring, instead of admitted that he failed/dropped the first part of the class in the fall, he tried to lie and say he wasn't in the class at all.

bringing it back to the neckbearded reddit stereotype, he wasn't just sexist, he was racist too. i'm white, but there was a black girl in our lab and she also had another lab with him too. i was talking with her and another girl from our lab one day, and we were chatting about this guy, because like everyone disliked his personality, and i mention my experiences being partners with him and she brought up racist jokes he tried to make in lab when he thought no one could hear. and there was at least one time where he made the joke in front of her. just an absolute trash pit of a human. if my grade didn't depend on the lab results and cooperation, i would have been meaner to him. because he did not deserve to ride of the coattails of what the rest of us actually did in lab.

[justalurkr]

Truncated text of tweet from MrPitBull, Mar 11, 2026:

She kept finding women in laboratory photographs from the 1800s. Then she read the published papers—and every single woman had vanished. Someone had erased them from history.

Yale University, 1969.

Margaret Rossiter was a graduate student studying the history of science. She was one of very few women in her program.

Every Friday afternoon, students and faculty gathered for beers and informal conversation. One week, Margaret asked a simple question: "Were there ever any women scientists?"

The faculty answered firmly: No.

Someone mentioned Marie Curie. The group dismissed it—her husband Pierre really deserved the credit.

Margaret didn't argue. But she also didn't believe them.

So she started looking.

She found a reference book called "American Men of Science"—essentially a Who's Who of scientific achievement. Despite the title, she was shocked to discover it contained entries about women. Botanists trained at Wellesley. Geologists from Vermont.

There were names. There were credentials. There were careers.

The professors had been wrong.

But Margaret's discovery was just the beginning. Because as she dug deeper into archives across the country, she found something far more disturbing.

Photograph after photograph showed women standing at laboratory benches, working with equipment, listed on research teams.

But when she read the published papers, the award citations, the official histories—those same women had disappeared. Their names were missing. Their contributions erased.

It wasn't random. It was systematic.

Women who designed experiments watched male colleagues publish results without giving them credit. Women whose discoveries were assigned to supervisors. Women listed in acknowledgments instead of as authors. Women passed over for awards that went to male collaborators who contributed far less.

Margaret realized she was witnessing a pattern that stretched across centuries.

Women had always been present in science. The record had simply pushed them aside.

She needed a name for what she was documenting.

In the early 1990s, she found it in the work of Matilda Joslyn Gage—a 19th-century suffragist who had written about this exact phenomenon in 1870.

In 1993, Margaret published a paper formally naming it: The Matilda Effect.

The term captured something that had been hidden in plain sight for generations. Once you knew the term, you saw it everywhere.

Her dissertation became a lifelong mission.

For more than 30 years, Margaret researched and wrote her landmark three-volume series: Women Scientists in America. She examined letters, institutional policies, individual careers. She gathered undeniable evidence that women in science had been consistently under-credited and structurally excluded.

Her work faced resistance. Many dismissed women's history as political rather than academic. Others insisted she was exaggerating.

Margaret didn't argue emotionally. She presented data. Documented cases. Patterns repeated across decades and institutions.

Eventually, the evidence became undeniable.

Her research helped restore recognition to scientists who had been erased:

Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray work revealed DNA's structure—credit went to Watson and Crick.

Lise Meitner, who explained nuclear fission—omitted from the Nobel Prize.

Nettie Stevens, who discovered sex chromosomes—received little credit.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who discovered stars are made of hydrogen—initially dismissed.

And countless others whose names had nearly vanished.

Margaret changed the narrative. Science was no longer just the story of solitary male geniuses. It became a story of collaboration that included women who had been written out.

The Matilda Effect became standard terminology. Scholars used it to examine how credit is assigned, how authors are listed, who receives awards, who gets left out.

[rainyd4yze]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

i did a klance prompt onsehot writing challenge on twitter, feel free to check it out on ao3. this is the first work in the series and it's from lance's pov. idk what else to say here besides i love klance and i am eternally grateful to anyone who checks out my work; there's a bit on angst (with a happy ending) and a little bit of a mindfuck/dream world thing going on

[rainyd4yze]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

i return with the second work in my series for the klance prompt challenge i did. this one follows keith's pov and gets a little more into the details of the dream-eating creature. anyways, much love and enjoy!

[schmergo]

The summer between the end of high school and the start of college, I wrote a ridiculous play about pirates and put on a staged reading with some friends at an amphitheatre at a local park before a small audience of friends and family. It was never published or staged again. But I just got a message from an old high school friend I haven’t seen in years. He accidentally quoted the play in a conversation with friends, was asked what he was quoting, he couldn’t remember either, and wracked his brain until he finally remembered it was that silly play reading that we did one day in the park over 10 years ago. It made me happy. (The line was, “Huzzah for mercantilism!” by the way.)

A very tiny percentage of creators go on to be famous, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t remember little things you did for years and years. Who came up with most of the world’s most famous jump rope rhymes? Who coined some of the famous idioms we use in daily speech? Who made up ‘Jingle Bells, Batman Smells?” Somehow, all of these things stuck and spread around.

When I was a small child, I saw a high school put on a production of the musical HONK. In one song, the mother duck describes various dangers that her baby should avoid in the water, including fishing line, which could strangle him. A member of the ensemble played the role of fishing line, doing a maniacal laugh and over-the-top strangling motions, and I found it hilarious– and to this day, that’s an example I often think of when talking about how ensemble members can still stand out in theatre. The guy who played the role might not even remember that he did that, but I do.

I took Suzuki violin lessons as a kid. The teacher made up lyrics to some of the songs, and she let her students make some up, too. Now whenever I hear the instrumental of one of those pieces, I always remember these ridiculous lyrics about a skunk that we sang in violin class. I don’t even know which student invented them!

In middle school, I found a video about atoms parodying Bill Nye made by some kids for a school product. It probably had less than 1,000 views, but I think of quotes from that video all the time. They had a parody of “We Will Rock You” with the chorus, “Protons, neutrons, electrons” that I think about a lot.

I just love that this is part of human life. Our memories don’t just pick up quotes from great art, literature, and music, but little things, too.

[diphowell]

Dan, PJ, and Phil: 2014 + 2023

[rainyd4yze]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

i did a klance prompt onsehot writing challenge on twitter, feel free to check it out on ao3. this is the first work in the series and it's from lance's pov. idk what else to say here besides i love klance and i am eternally grateful to anyone who checks out my work; there's a bit on angst (with a happy ending) and a little bit of a mindfuck/dream world thing going on

[rainyd4yze]

i have finally returned to ao3 as an author (albeit i only posted two chapters like 5 years ago), it still feels kinda surreal that i have works that are now out there publicly, like those are my babies. anyways, i'm about to go make a dedicated post for my oneshots i just posted

[rainyd4yze]

would anyone be interested to know that when i added sarah nurse and renata fast to my tomodachi island, they immediately got a crush? like i added nurse and she met some people and then i added fast and as soon as they met each other they fell in love.

i also spent time making the team logos and their jerseys so i might share later because i'm pretty proud of the time i spent making them

[rainyd4yze]

so apparently i forgot that there's actually a love triangle involved where sarah nurse has a crush on renata fast but renata fast has a crush on mitski (the singer). i don't know what to do, sarah got her crush first, but what if mitski starts liking renata back? do i intervene or let fate decide?

anyways, here's my pwhl miis in their jerseys!

[rainyd4yze]

link and soma just got married today and mitski was their wedding singer, greatest day ever, the first marriage on my tomodachi island ^_^

[casanovakevin]

uahhhjjj auhhhj

[11thfempachi]

Girls just wanna have fun

[kiisaes]

everyone eat more vegetables NOW!!! and mention the last vegetable you ate in the tags so we're all on the buddy system. I'll start: bok choy

[rainyd4yze]

would anyone be interested to know that when i added sarah nurse and renata fast to my tomodachi island, they immediately got a crush? like i added nurse and she met some people and then i added fast and as soon as they met each other they fell in love.

i also spent time making the team logos and their jerseys so i might share later because i'm pretty proud of the time i spent making them

[cannibalchicken]

[s6sh6]

[ejacutastic]

[vyrkann]

[hylianane]

functionally suicidal character saying “I would die for you” to their significant other and its like. I get the sentiment, honey, but if a hot dog vendor told me he’d sell hot dogs for me, I wouldn’t feel very moved now would I

[maseratus]

Now a functionally suicidal character saying “I will live for you”. Now that’s a dynamic I can sink my teeth into.

[mousidy]

now how about a functionally suicidal character saying "I will sell hot dogs for you"

[mousidy]

[bisthefairy]

Hotdog vender lays down their life to protect their suicidal partner, who then takes over the hotdog stand to carry on their memory...

[maightymai]

[pmamtraveller]

"Danse macabre" (2023), acrylic painting created by the Iranian artist Bahman Pezeshkzad.

[rainyd4yze]

the first crush on my island and it's alucard falling for link, lowkey giggling and kicking my feet

[rainyd4yze]

link now apparently has a crush on soma cruz so we'll have to see whose love wins out. i'm also trying to start a lesbian relationship between the 3ds and the gba, but they're really taking things slow. i will not stop until i have nintendo handheld console yuri!!!