Elevators Are Sweet!

Shannen, 30s. Makes web shows and podcasts. Ace. They/she. Rey Antilles is real.

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

yall gotta learn the difference between "this character is an asshole" and "this character was supposed to be super cool but the author is an asshole" and "this character is a teenage girl who was mean once"

[hypokeimena]

every single time people are like "you can read this ancient or classical piece of lit for free on project gutenberg!" and then link to the worlds most dogshit and sexist translation it makes me insane. don't do that.

[hypokeimena]

feel free to reblog this without the addition but i feel bad being catty without offering a solution so here is how to operationalize how to find a good translation of classic/al lit:

check gutenberg for list of "free" out of copyright translations so you know what to avoid (if it is from 1970 or earlier it's probably just a non-starter)

check wikipedia or an online bookstore shopfront or equivalent to find or make a list of (your language) translations

pick one that was done: (a) (mandatory) in the last 30 years (as recent as possible) (b) (optional, if you have multiple modern editions) by a woman

find it in the usual way you find cheap or free books (libraries, institutional access, thriftbooks, other options, etc)

from a classical studies perspective: unless you are specifically studying the translation and reception of these works across time there simply is no reason you should be reading translations from the 1890s (thru really the 1950s and even later in some cases), that call women whores and bitches simply for existing on the page🧍‍♀️. unrelatedly, emily wilson's excellent recent odyssey translation is currently on sale on audible for $8 even if you don't have audible i have heard tell.

obligatory statement here that some authors whose translation style is much more accessible to a broad audience are not especially beloved by academics who work in the same field for persnickety reasons (see: the way classicists get about anne carson being the trending translator on tumblr dot edu) so don't necessarily pay too much attention to THAT sort of persnicketing, but do be sure that whoever is translating the work actually knows the original language well enough to work with it (i.e. for academic translators maybe check their wikipedia page for a controversy section to make sure that, for example, the translator of rumi can actually read rumi). this is probably harder for modern publishing where translator info isn't as widely publicized and i don't have great advice for you other than finding and googling the translators' name in the hopes that they've done recent interviews or have a website etc etc etc.

however, all works of literature require the reader to come into being - they are a conversation between you and the historical/ancient author. the translator is just adding another voice to the conversation and there is nothing wrong or Dangerous or traitorous etc about reading thru a translator! ideally they're just helping the ancient author get close enough to you to be comprehensible, so a more recent translation is always going to do a better job of that bc it's closer to where YOU are in the first place.

[robinade]

In conversation with multiple posts going around discussing technical literacy and typing skills…

I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is less than 35 Words Per Minute

I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is less than 35 WPM

I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is 36-45 WPM

I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is 36-45 WPM

I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is 46-55 WPM

I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is 46-55 WPM

I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is 56-69 WPM

I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is 56-69 WPM

I HAD typing classes: my typing speed is faster than 70 WPM

I did NOT have typing classes: my typing speed is faster than 70 WPM

I'm on mobile/ vanilla extract option

Voting ended onJul 20

➡️ Take a typing test here (and you need an actual, physical keyboard for this):

1-Minute Typing Test — TypingTest.now

The industry-standard benchmark used by employers and typing certifications worldwide.

➡️ 'Typing classes' refers to computer skills classes you might have had in school; you can also count games or other related typing training your parents might have had you do.

➡️ Across 3 different typing test websites*, the (english language) world average typing speed is 40 WPM.

*typingtest.now, typingtestgo.com, typerworld.com

[duckbunny]

remember kids, the moral of "Irish and Italians weren't even considered White yet!" isn't "because in those times people were so ignorant they didn't think the Irish were white". the moral is "because white is an unreal category created to justify slavery and ongoing hoarding of power and wealth". It's not that you know better about Italians. It's that the boundaries of the higher caste have changed.

[primepalindrome]

Mushrooms

I keep drawing and drawing maybe it's a way of avoiding myself, maybe it's something like a celebration. Could be both. Lots to learn

[youre-only-gay-once]

"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"

[purgaytorysupremacy]

if you’re wondering why spellcheck and grammar check is worse now, it’s because they replaced it with AI! 🥰

now, instead of maintaining a comprehensive, nuanced, and human-maintained encyclopedia by which to check your document, they have switched to an AI that just compares what you’ve written to what other people write in, say, Google Docs, and use the most commonly used iteration.

ever have it change something like “all intents and purposes” to “all intensive purposes” or “should’ve” to “should of”? that’s why!

people make the same spelling and grammar mistakes so often, AI thinks that’s the way you say it because it is a PATTERN DETECTOR and cannot THINK let alone use language.

[youre-only-gay-once]

"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"

[cerillosvillage]

What to do if your account gets wrongfully terminated

So by now most of you have probably heard that my account was suddenly terminated (aka banned) on Saturday afternoon. I’m back now, and since I had to do some digging into this on my own, I figured I’d make a post for others to reference. 

How to tell if you’ve been wrongfully terminated

You will find yourself suddenly locked out of your account. For me, I had just made a post when I got kicked to the login screen. My password wouldn’t work, so I tried to reset it, at which point I got this screen:

Now, if Tumblr legitimately terminated your account - meaning, you broke a rule and they banned you for it - they should send you an email telling you why. So, immediately check your email. If you don’t get anything, it was probably a glitch. These happen shockingly often, so there’s a whole process to it. 

How to get your account back

First, submit a support ticket. Tumblr’s support email does NOT work, you MUST go through their site. Select ‘Terminated account’. Write a POLITE message explaining the situation. Describe what you were doing when you suddenly got kicked off, and state that to the best of your knowledge, you haven’t broken any rules, or that if you did, you would be willing to delete the offending posts. Include your url and email.

Check your email. You should immediately get an automatic message saying they’re looking into the problem. If you don’t that means that Tumblr marked your email as spam (because they banned you). If you need to, resend the ticket using a different email address at the bottom. Explain that your account email doesn’t seem to be going through and that’s why you’re using a different one. 

Wait. Tumblr Support’s hours of operation are 9-5 EST, Monday through Friday. If, like me, you submitted your ticket on a weekend, you may be in for a wait. If you don’t get a response within 24 hours, DO NOT SEND ANOTHER TICKET, but instead reply to the email they sent you. I’ve seen it advised that you should send another ticket only if the problem isn’t fixed within the week. 

Check you url often. Tumblr will likely never respond to your email letting you know what happened or that you’ve been reinstated. Check your url every so often, and if it finally loads as your blog (instead of the ‘There’s nothing here’ screen) you are free to log back in. 

And that’s it! If it was a glitch, they SHOULD reinstate your account, but you MUST submit a support ticket letting them know what’s going on. 

[spotlvr420]

5 YEAR OLD POST SORTA KINDA SAVES ME FROM ETERNAL CONFUSION YAAAAAHHHH

[cerillosvillage]

Okay, so, in the years since writing this guide, I’ve both seen some discussion as well as made my own observations that lead me to believe this is not just a glitch with Tumblr’s code.

More likely, if you’re reading this because you got termed, your blog was caught up in a bot dragnet.

Tumblr, like all social media, has bots. And Tumblr also does regular bot purges. It’s strikingly clear to me when these purges happen, because this post will gain a ton of notes in the span of a day. Occasionally, but not always, this will happen shortly after I notice an influx of bot followers.

That means that, for most people experiencing this problem, you are doing something that triggers Tumblr’s automated bot removal process. I cannot say what it is. Social media tends to keep their bot removal criteria vague, so that people scripting bots can’t evade capture.

Which sucks for the innocent human bloggers caught up in the purges, but it also means that if you can get someone to double check your blog, you should be reinstated pretty swiftly.

My blog has not been termed again, but if you check the notes of this post, you will see plenty of people who got their blog back using this process, many of them in the last few months. So these steps should still work.

[itisi-asimplegay]

falling in love with her art all over again...

Starfall by Anastasia Trusova, Acrylic on canvas

[cloysterbell]

You ID’d the weapon from the gunshot sound?

[theonion]

Concluding that Americans were being forced to endure huge stretches of the year without any obvious social pretext for serving warm bread, a new study published Monday by researchers at Cornell University found there simply aren’t enough occasions where you get to eat rolls. “Our data shows that the vast majority of people would welcome more frequent instances in which a little roll is placed next to their plate, especially when the roll is warm and comes with a small pat of butter that melts right into it,” said lead researcher Arthur Guevara, adding that while rolls remain popular at Thanksgiving, Easter, weddings, and certain steakhouse chains, those opportunities are nowhere near sufficient to meet the nation’s demand.

Full Story

[only-tiktoks]

[devantnuit-ladeluge]

[cryoverkiltmilk]

The absolute contempt for these locks is palpable.

[addictedtostorytelling]

s k y e , l o o k a t m e

[soymoss]

hummingbirds of north america

[gendercensus]

The 2026 Gender Census is now open!

[ survey.gendercensus.com ]

The 13th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th August 2026.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

PS: You can see some regularly-updated statistics about incoming data here, with lots of demography and graphs to peruse!

PPS: Image credits, bark and grass.

[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.

[cavegirlpoems]

[tye-wig-music]

Chemical castration for sex offenders to be trialled in 20 prisons - BBC News

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is also exploring whether chemical castration could be made mandatory.

[lowercasenospaces]

This is about the UK specifically.

[cavegirlpoems]

See this? This is the trap. This is how they get you. You appeal to outrage and emotion, you make a bold statement like "sex offenders don't have rights" and whip up that righteous anger, get people all thirsty for blood and punishment, right? And that's their foot in the door. Once you've decided that there's a class of people it's okay to do this to, there's no clean line in the sand anymore, is there? Now chemical castration (or whatever fucked up shit you wanna bring into it) is an option on the table. This is how fascists talk, this is how fascists think, and this is how fascists appeal to you to get what they want. Because once you've given them that inch, they can use it to take a mile.

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

Alan Turing (as in the Turing test) was chemically castrated following a conviction for “homosexual acts” in 1952. He committed suicide as a result.

[dumbbitchawards]

[uselesslyroxy]

[prokopetz]

"I hate how American media will just make up a European nation rather than do any research, so I'm going to get back at them by writing a story set in a fake American state" like, do you have the slightest idea how much American media is set in a geographically impossible fictional small town located in no particular state and characterised entirely by some guy from Los Angeles' collection of half-remembered stereotypes about the American Midwest? They've already got the "lazily inventing fictional parts of America" bit locked down.

No, if you want to play the Uno reverse card on American media, what you need to do isn't to make up a fake state: you specifically need to wilfully misrepresent southern California.

[davai-tovarisch]

[charlizetheronsbush-official]