I Sit On Your Soap Box

Derp thoughts by Snack Dandy

[userfish]

this pride month we’re all going to be radically pro transgender. or else.

[userfish]

hey so this means radically pro ALL transgender. don’t put limitations on this. all trans people are radically accepted here.

[ranthaven]

So, remember how Mr. Rogers used to tell us to look for the helpers? Well, radically accept my children. Not only are they trans, they are also helpers. So that’s two good things!

And plus also too, all the other trans people are good people just trying to live their best lives. No matter what they do with their time.

All trans people accepted here.

[wishfulsketching]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH, EVERYONE!

Special mention to my fellow asexuals and aromatic people! Be unapologetically yourself!

[earhartsease]

[ranthaven]

My best friend is ace. And now that you mention it, I realize that she does smell good, too. Ace-aromatic.

[earhartsease]

having to wade through absolute miles of search results offering us "serums" to help our eyebrows grow, in order to find what we actually searched for, which is "why does one eyebrow grow faster than the other" and even then we couldn't find anything less vague than "maybe hormones?"

but yeah, it really wouldn't surprise us if this is just another dysautonomia thing, we're now having to trim our right eyebrow twice as often as the left one - we have to trim both regularly or they do this (and yes we know it's based, but it gets us exactly the wrong kind of attention)

and that's not even as long as they get

[ranthaven]

But just think of the TOS guest spot you could have had!! I would totally defend you from offensive jerks.

[manuciruja]

i think the reason why english is such an awful language to study grammatically is because english linguistics tend to be mainly descriptive (from what I've seen at least) while spanish linguistics are largely prescriptive. that's why you end up with 50 exceptions to every rule. now you all know i hate prescription in language but...maybe we can have a little this time...as a treat

[ranthaven]

I hereby proclaim the spelling of the language name to be: Englitch

[manuciruja]

you're gonna end up on my textbook

[ranthaven]

I will endeavor to pose endearingly

[kookenhakken]

[swordshapedleaves]

nighttime treat ten year anniversary

[ranthaven]

Is it Wolfnoot already?

[rarebritney]

lesbian couple on their wedding day after 72 years together, photographed by Thomas Greyer

[reasonsforhope]

When I was born, there was not a single country in the world where they could have gotten married.

In the year 2000, there was not a single country in the world where they could have gotten married.

The first country to legalize same sex marriage was the Netherlands in 2001.

Now, in 2026, there are thirty-eight countries with same-sex marriage, with another two on average being added every year (x). Including three of the most populous countries in the world (the US, Brazil, and Mexico, x).

Altogether, over a billion people now live somewhere that same-sex marriage is legal. Twenty-five years ago, that number was zero.

Things are hard right now, but in so many ways they are so much better than they have been for a very, very long time.

Never lose hope, never kill yourself, love wins.

[ranthaven]

This reminds of the first gay man I knew who died of AIDS. I didn’t know him well, but he was a really nice guy. Now, ignoring a whole shit ton of related stuff, we have an actual cure for AIDS. And even in some of the most intolerant spaces I’ve been in, I could be known to be friends with trans people and have some in my family without being notably judged myself. The improvement is slow, uneven, and often painful. But it is real. It is.

[manuciruja]

i think the reason why english is such an awful language to study grammatically is because english linguistics tend to be mainly descriptive (from what I've seen at least) while spanish linguistics are largely prescriptive. that's why you end up with 50 exceptions to every rule. now you all know i hate prescription in language but...maybe we can have a little this time...as a treat

[ranthaven]

I hereby proclaim the spelling of the language name to be: Englitch

[earhartsease]

not enough people outside of australia know about this absolute banger of a song, amazing chorus and bridge

[ranthaven]

I’m having flashbacks.

[earhartsease]

she'll be apples, or something

[ranthaven]

Snort

[earhartsease]

not enough people outside of australia know about this absolute banger of a song, amazing chorus and bridge

[ranthaven]

I’m having flashbacks.

[urgetocreate]

Allan O'Marra (Canadian b. 1947), The Bather (La Baigneuse), 2014,. Oil and Acrylic on canvas

[ranthaven]

Beautiful. The light and shadow are so good.

[ayeforscotland]

Every time the government talks about declining birth rates there never seems to be the realisation that if you make becoming a parent completely unaffordable then people will simply not have kids.

Shocking, I know. But do you know how fucking dire a situation has to be for people to simply not want to have children?

Not interested in ‘I don’t want to have kids anyway’ reblogs on this one, I’m obviously not talking about people who actively choose not to.

[teethed-tale]

That fact that women have reproductive and financial freedoms that were unheard of even two generations ago also contributes here.

[ayeforscotland]

That is very much women actively choosing not to have children which wasn’t the point.

[earhartsease]

both unaffordable and increasingly feeling like an ethical decision not to bring kids into *gestures to everything* even for people who would love to have kids

[ranthaven]

Just a question I have: if you find having children is unaffordable, how is not having children NOT an active choice? If you’re sexually active and do not use any kind of prevention, that is in itself an active choice.

If you are a rape victim and become pregnant, then affordability is irrelevant except in the aftermath. Obviously you have not made an active choice for or against pregnancy in this case.

[earhartsease]

there's a distinction to be made here between people who actively do not want children under any circumstances, and people who want children, but must actively choose not to have them because they couldn't afford to have them if they happened

[ranthaven]

I understand the distinction, I just think it is an active choice either way. The real issue is why we allow the continuation of a system that robs people of choices in favor of billionaires who understand nothing beyond their obsession with power.

[longseasons]

[gwydionmisha]

Bonus: If I buy a book I get to keep it! The publisher can't turn up at my house at random and confiscate all the books I bought.

[ranthaven]

I haven’t been a practicing librarian in several years, but we were having these preservation conversations when CDs first came out. The early CDs only were reliable for about 10 years and cheaply made ones were worse. I built a whole library collection in the mid nineties using servers that held stacks of data CDs, but only for journals, magazines, and newspapers. These discs would get updated replacements monthly. At the same time, I managed our vertical files with newspaper clippings going back to the fifties.

Physical media, people. Demand it. Chain it to your shelves, medieval style.

[ayeforscotland]

Every time the government talks about declining birth rates there never seems to be the realisation that if you make becoming a parent completely unaffordable then people will simply not have kids.

Shocking, I know. But do you know how fucking dire a situation has to be for people to simply not want to have children?

Not interested in ‘I don’t want to have kids anyway’ reblogs on this one, I’m obviously not talking about people who actively choose not to.

[teethed-tale]

That fact that women have reproductive and financial freedoms that were unheard of even two generations ago also contributes here.

[ayeforscotland]

That is very much women actively choosing not to have children which wasn’t the point.

[earhartsease]

both unaffordable and increasingly feeling like an ethical decision not to bring kids into *gestures to everything* even for people who would love to have kids

[ranthaven]

Just a question I have: if you find having children is unaffordable, how is not having children NOT an active choice? If you’re sexually active and do not use any kind of prevention, that is in itself an active choice.

If you are a rape victim and become pregnant, then affordability is irrelevant except in the aftermath. Obviously you have not made an active choice for or against pregnancy in this case.

[catchymemes]

[ranthaven]

Them: “What’s your favorite kind of music?”

Me: “Well, at the moment, I’m listening to a lot of…”

Them: “No, I mean, like, your all-time favorite.”

Me: “So, lately I’ve been listening to…”

Them: “Like, I mean, your real favorite. Like you always go back to whatever.”

Me: …

Them: …

Me: “Conlon Nancarrow.”

Them: “What-everrrrrrr.”

[worcestershirecheshirecat]

Behold: my beautiful radish.

[ranthaven]

Truly a ravishing radish.

[sycamorality]

oh my void ive been struggling drawing wings this entire time and then i just went "like a pringle" and i think i get it now. i think i understand. theyre like pringles.

[sycamorality]

you see? theyre like pringles.

[ranthaven]

Hmmmm. Philosophically uncontroversial. I’ll allow it.

[sycamorality]

...??????

[ranthaven]

Pringles. Philosophically uncontroversial. As far as I know. I’m not current on the potatoes rights movement.

[creatingblackcharacters]

I can't remember where I read it last week, but the person discussed how when we think of chattel slavery in the US, we tend to think of massive plantations of cotton or tobacco, with one very rich white master or mistress with lots of land and lots of enslaved people. But we very rarely think of the many families that had just one or two slaves, in smaller homes.

Because it's not like you had to pay them, so once your family owned someone, they owned them and their descendants indefinitely. Could you pay and eventually free em- sure! You could also send them anywhere you want for any labor you want, could have an enslaved woman bred for more children, or maybe save up and buy new slaves and sell the old. Like cattle (thus, chattel slavery).

So it's interesting that many people go "oh well it's not like my family owned slaves!" Because like, one, how do you know that? Have you ever actually asked your grandmas about their grandmas? How many of your family members grew up with mammies? Have you ever asked? I wonder how many people have actually done the digging for the truth (or was it easier to just benefit). Because I've talked to my grandma, who picked cotton in the sea islands. She had to have been doing that for someone in the 1930s and 40s!

And two, it's easy to think that because your family (or someone else's) didn't own sprawling stolen land and generational blood money like a plantation owner, that it wasn't as important. But... It was. That was still someone's entire life. That was a person, whose labor benefitted and saved a family money that could be used in other ventures. How often do we think of them?

[dykepuffs]

The UK version of this is "We didn't own slaves! There were no slaves in Great Britain and anyone setting foot on our sainted shores was immediately freed! We never had a slave society!!!!" BUT they forget that it was ludicrously common for middle class families to own shares in slaves. You'd notionally "own" a couple of slaves (or, you'd own some fraction of a slave) that were working on a plantation somewhere else in the world, and in return for that you'd get a dividend from the company that owned the whole plantation.

It was a normal kind of investment, the same kind of thing as putting your money in the Premium Bonds or in a savings account. But it was harder to "see" so people tend to forget it.

[ranthaven]

My father’s family line goes back through time in the US south. Specifically the towns of Oxford, MS and Pineapple, AL that I know for sure, then the Carolinas and Virginia was the original entry point. Our ancestors were Irish Quakers (yes, they existed; no, there weren’t many) who were brought over as indentured servants. This was around 1680. Skip ahead to the 1760s and there were four brothers in the branch from which I’m descended. One of them changed the spelling of our last name away from the British version. Sometime between then and the Civil War, there was an ancestor who owned five slaves. I don’t know the circumstances, but he left them to his wife Nancy when he passed away. She freed them.

I have a list of the freed slaves’ names in genealogy files my father pulled together. From those people are descended many black people with our same last name with the same spelling. And of course the usual branching of people who have it as a middle name, etc. I’m friends with a number of them on Facebook, but have only ever met a few. They are lovely people and I am glad to know about them.

But it is very sobering to know that even my own direct ancestors were involved with chattel slavery. I can’t get over it and I don’t try. It makes me a hard lefty, I guess, but people are people. All must be free or none of us are.