RedWitch

Just stuff I like..

[elismor]

I thought about just tagging this 'nuff said, but it's not.

I want to say something to all of the women under 50 on this site. Ready? You do not have to be over 50 to start taking up space.

Can I make that blink? Is that a thing Tumblr can do? Because, seriously. The sooner you believe you are allowed to take up space, the better life will be.

[leonardcohenofficial]

(1852) Frederick Douglass, "What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July" •

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass was invited to address the citizens of his hometown, Rochester, New York. Whatever the expectations of h

yearly required reading

[beardedmrbean]

[bogleech]

We should fix this and start saying "stupible"

[uncleromeo]

if you don't do anything else today,

Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.

have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.

and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.

black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.

if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.

This is Juneteenth.

white people CAN interact with this post. share it, spread it.

[gaymolegaming]

Reblog if you stand against order, civilization, and goodness itself

[athena-cat-wizard-official]

goes hard ngl

[the-knightswind-case]

Consider:

[jungwildeandfree]

and while we’re at it, fuck this idea that ONE ACCOUNT has to belong uniquely to ONE PERSON. This is the same thing these silicon valley fucks want; their vision of the future where everyone has a unique biometric ID code implanted in their body is the ultimate extension of Netflix’s “no password sharing” policy. You want to use your friend’s car? Sorry, you can’t, you need to be an authorized user. Your mother wants to let you look something up on her OED account? Too bad! That’s only for her! The concept of perfect market efficiency gives them greedy little money bag eyes.

If I pay money to have a newspaper sent to my house, they don’t charge me extra when I show it to my dad. This password sharing thing isn’t just a Netflix problem; don’t be surprised if it shows up elsewhere in other forms. Stamp this idea out now or we’ll be stuck with it.

[jungwildeandfree]

This is by far the most popular post I have and I have to say: good, I’m right. Password sharing and ID verification are going to kill the internet. not oooh in 50 years. in like 5 more.

[underthenerdhood]

a little girl who grows up thinking all doors are automatic but actually she’s haunted by a really polite ghost

[peterdrabbit]

So chivalry IS dead?!

[underthenerdhood]

you win best response to this post 

[thestuffedalligator]

I’m going to level with you. I have listened to The Devil Went Down to Georgia for most of my life. We were a country music household, this was a staple of my childhood along with Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, and that one Chipmunks country album.

I have no idea what “Fire on the mountain run boys run/The Devil's in the house of the rising sun/Chicken in the bread pan picking out dough/Granny does your dog bite no child no” means and at this point I’m too scared to ask.

[dementian]

For once I can be of assistance.

Each of the lyrics comes from an old-time hickory song for fiddles, and is a lyric from that corresponding song.

"Fire on the Mountain" --> "Fire on the Mountain, run boys run"

Fire On The Mountain - Fiddle Player POV

"The House of the Rising Sun" --> "The Devil's in the house of the rising sun"

House of the Rising Sun

"Ida Red" --> "Chicken in the bread pan peckin' out dough"

Ida Red - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

"Granny Will Your Dog Bite" --> "Granny does your dog bite? 'No child, no'."

FTC #149 Granny Will Your Dog Bite

And for your furthered education, The Mountain Whipporwill.

Mountain Whippoorwill (aka How Hillbilly Jim Won the Great Fiddler's Prize)

[impossiblepackage]

this is the key part of the song, that a lot of people miss. people have this misconception that the contest between Johnny and The Devil is about who is the better fiddle player. but it isn't. its about who is the better fiddler.

in a time before things like radios and record players, every time you heard music was because there was somebody in the room with you playing an instrument. and many, many, many social events involved dancing, which requires music. so, if you're planning any kind of gathering in the american south or appalachia, you need to find a fiddler. and the fiddler's job is to play music that everybody knows and likes and can dance to.

the mistake The Devil makes in his bet with Johnny is that he misinterprets the contest as being about technical ability, so he has this big flashy song. he plays fast and impressively with a band of demons playing unfamiliar instruments in unfamiliar rhythms. he's definitely more skilled at playing than Johnny, and thinks he has it in the bag.

but Johnny wins because the contest is about being the best fiddler. the song uses these lines mentioned above as a shorthand for saying that Johnny is playing these songs. Johnny launches into a set of the most popular songs, played well, and that's what gives him his big win. A good fiddler knows all the hits, and can read the room to know what to play next. The Devil loses because he completely fails to read the room, and doesn't know the right songs.

[depsidase]

[kingcatnine]

don't shave your legs this summer HOLD THE FUCKING LINE

[aropride]

please god let chatgpt die out like nfts did. With a fast and graceless fall into irrelevancy

[bladespark]

Like to charge, reblog to cast.

[atwotonedbird]

This spell has a very low hit ratio, so we need a lot of us to do it.

[boomer-mythology-destroyer]

[depsidase]

[inthesensethat]

[hexthelex-deactivated20250420]

This is true btw

[letmeliedown]

the podcast If Books Could Kill has a really great episode on the original book and its legacy! just a bunch of misogynist evangelical bullshit really

[xiaq]

Just went down a whole rabbit hole on this and damn.

[thespoonisvictory]

people misunderstand what ‘gifted kid’ actually means but it’s ok it’s fine it’s cool it’s good

[thespoonisvictory]

it’s not about actually being gifted, it’s about an initial higher scoring on standardized testing that means little to nothing or being good at learning in the way elementary and middle school wants you to, so you get marked as ‘advanced’. in reality, maybe you had faster development in certain areas, but the issue with being a gifted kid isn’t that “everyone told me I was so cool and special for reading and then I actually wasn’t :(” it’s “I wasn’t properly taught to handle things not coming easily to me, but the adults around me were counting on me not being a ‘difficult’ child in school.”

people who use it as some weird bragging method or interpret it that way are ignoring the way a lot of school systems force certain roles on students to simplify the learning process. If your kid doesn’t need to take notes to understand a science concept bc they get it naturally, well that’s good, but now you’re not teaching them how to take notes and they’re not learning that important soft skill. but because ‘gifted’ kids are easy and don’t show that they’re falling behind in learning in other categories that are harder to quantify, they eventually fall behind after that catches up to them. It’s about the failures of a one size fits all school system trying to compensate in the worst way possible.

[jabberwockypie]

And also the thing where ‘gifted’ kids are super likely to also be neuroatypical, which they don’t get screened for because they appear to be doing well in school. Or “You can’t be ADHD/autistic/etc, because you’re doing so well in school!”. Or being shamed for developing mental health issues/generally not being able to keep up with school work later, because you USED TO BE able to do it just fine.

Or the assumption that just because you can read well or you like math class, you’re somehow more EMOTIONALLY mature than your little kid brain is actually capable of being.

Or gifted kids whose parents and teachers put immense pressure on them to Do Great Things and Save The World and you’re like. “I’m 10 and I have no idea how to do that, but everyone is saying that’s my job?”.

[swordplease]

This is the best “gifted kid” post out there. I never took notes until college because I didn’t have to, snd when it got challenging I had to literally teach myself note taking at age 18. It also fucks with your perception of asking for help - you’re advanced, you’re competent, you should be able to understand every topic easily. Asking for help/going to office hours/asking for a tutor feels like failing when you were praised in your early years for not needing to do that.

[antivillain]

“Wow you pass all your tests without even needing to study!! You’re so smart!!”

Which is great until the tests get harder and oh no if you can’t pass without studying are you no longer smart??? But you never really learned how studying works so what if–even worse–you put in the effort to study and STILL don’t do well???

This is why I had a lot of mediocre grades in school. I could tell myself, “well if I’d put effort in it would have been an A” and then continue to not put effort in.

I think the best answer in how to handle children, “gifted” or no, is to reward effort and destigmatize failure. Failure means you’re pushing your boundaries. All an easy success means is that you’re stagnating. (But maybe don’t use those exact words with the kids.)

[bed-bath-and-bazinga]

A story in three parts