Storm

They/Them · Aroace · 24 · Long-Term Interests: Art, Reading, Learning, Sociology and Politics, Critical Role · Short(er)-Term Interests: Baldur's Gate 3, Dragon Age, The Elder Scrolls

[were--ralph]

[X]

we live in the worst times

[greater-than-the-sword]

My exact thoughts. Couldn't leave this in the tags.

[cesarescabinet]

To send a message, write a complaint and boycott the company behind Burger King and the other franchises it owns.

This includes Popeyes and Tim Hortons.

[livinces]

[tpwrtrmnky]

Some of the most effective tools for online safety for ANYONE are blocking, privacy measures and moderation that effectively stops people who direct mass harassment, but the same political forces pushing for "age verification" have consistently decried all of those as "censorship"

[tpwrtrmnky]

A kid who knows when and how to block and report, in a system where reports are actually followed up on, has more power to deal with predatory adults online than they do offline.

[catgirlforeskin]

trying to make a creative project without men and uproot any masculine words will drive one insane. There's the obvious stuff, right, swordsman becomes swordsmaid, count becomes countess, gladiator to gladiatrix and so on.

But did you know that "-er" is a masculine suffix, for which "-ster" as in "sister" is the feminine equivalent? Baker means a man that bakes, the historical feminine equivalent is a bakster, a webster is a female weaver. Some words already have the feminine as default, youngster, teamster, mobster, but most? Trying to be a principled feminist has you saying shit like goonster

[gwenadier]

Wait for real? Fascinating.

[catgirlforeskin]

for real! Lots of other examples too, anything "patr" comes from father, "patriarch" is the obvious one, but patriot, patron, patronym all would need "matr" for mother is instead. Pope and Papacy derive from "Papa" and would be Mome/Mamacy if you want yuri catholicism (hellworld!!) it's EVERYWHERE

[catgirlforeskin]

My favorite example, beyond the obvious ones like lord/lady, waiter/waitress, steward/stewardess, is housekeeper, which is now the more acceptable term for a maid, when maid, of course, just means "woman" and keeper is masculine, would be keepster or keepess but (to my knowledge) neither were used historically because, well, keeping wasn't something women got to do!

Likewise, waitress has fallen out of favor for host or server, which are also both gendered terms. (hostess or serving girl, respectively. Servant is also gendered, maidservant and servantess were used)

There's been a concerted push with a lot of these to phase out the feminine variants of these words and just treat the masculine variants as neutral, or find neutral alternatives like fireman -> firefighter (even though fighter is also gendered) because the feminine variants are seen as inherently lesser, which, yeah that's how women are seen.

There is a line you have to draw somewhere of "okay let's just treat this and below as gender neutral because, frankly, most words that just mean "person" mean "man" historically because women weren't (and still largely aren't) considered people, and otherwise we're going to shred the whole English language" and I get that.

BUT. I think a lot of folks draw that line at the start and insist that man/guy/dude/bro can be gender-neutral which is obvious stupid. And I think it's always worth having this investigation and questioning how we speak, it shapes how we think about worlds and people real and fictional.

Okay one last silly aside about barista, which is supposed to be gender-neutral from Italian but men got weird about it and then invented baristo so now -ista is kinda feminine? Typically it's just borrowed into English to sound Foreign (Sandinistas leading to the exonym Corbynistas)

[hachama]

[thel1ghtningthief]

bringing this one out of the comments cause. yeah.

[lesboevils]

idk im really tired of 15-17 year olds who have never interacted with the gay community irl and spend too much time on tiktok trying to act like the authority on all that is lgbt+ 

[lesboevils]

  mean this in the kindest possible way. if you are too young and unsafe to go to your gay community center or pride here’s some ways you can connect to gay history.

the oral history project from act up

the lesbian herstory archives

the transgender archives of the university of victoria

the digital transgender archives

glbt historical society (digital)

lgbtq digital collaboratory

[lesboevils]

since it was suggested in the tags

anything that moves

the bisexual manifesto

[lesboevils]

the Samuel Proctor oral history project

a masterpost of lesile feinberg’s works by @genderoutlaws

more to come

[lesboevils]

the queer zine archive

the dyke march compilation 

paris is burning 

how to survive a plague

united in anger: a history of ACT UP

one archives

new york public library lgbtq archives

[oldbutchdanielmolloy]

i do appreciate the way that we tumblr users have evolved our language to discuss our feelings related to The Character/The Guy. you used to have to just say he was hot or he was making your ovaries explode or he was a precious cinnamon roll even if he looked bad or was just kind of standing there or whatever. now you can say things like “the creature” or “he looks so sopping wet here” or “i want to chain him to my radiator” like it’s just more inclusive and adaptable to the situation

[twobeesornottwobees]

as someone on the asexual spectrum, this shift in language genuinely made me feel more comfortable and happy in fandom spaces. i've never once wanted to lick a man's abs. i HAVE wanted to chain a man to my radiator. and that's beautiful.

[escuerzoresucitado]

We out here, stridulating off key

[bunjywunjy]

the humble sloth: serenely tumbles off a mountain in the background

[lazulibundtcake]

The cut to the live sloth reaction when the bird fucks up

[aleatoryw]

i’ve started looking at weight and health the way i look at class and income and it really puts a lot of things into a new perspective.

let me explain: in america at least, the lower class have significantly worse health outcomes, even when accounting for other factors. just being poor is enough to make your overall health worse. we don’t know that being fat makes your health directly worse, like the data just isn’t there, but for a moment, pretend it does.

imagine going to the doctor with a health problem and the doctor looking at your chart and saying well, this problem will be less severe if you go up an income bracket. have you thought about becoming rich? it would really help. start by saving a little money every month.

ridiculous, right?? very few people successfully go from working class to rich, it just doesn’t happen on a large scale in society. maybe for a time you pick up some overtime hours, spend a little beyond your means, and appear rich. but eventually you burn out, your car needs to be repaired, and you return to being working class.

we do have this data: only some people can successfully lose large amounts of weight, and only a tiny fraction of people who lose that weight actually keep it off for more than a year. telling people to lose weight for their health is just absurd because they almost certainly can’t do it any more than they can double their income for their health.

and yet i see it everywhere. a little poster in my work breakroom tells me to improve my blood pressure by losing weight! a psa on the radio says you need to take care of your heart by losing weight! we can’t even conclusively prove that weight is the cause rather than just correlated with a lot of these problems but here it is offered anyway: have you tried being rich?

[bumbledeefumble]

You hit the nail on the head. A lot of people tend to try and invalidate fatphobia as a form of oppression by saying its not an immutible quality like race or sexuality or gender. The old “you can lose weight, i can’t become white/straight/cis” argument.

That’s because fatphobia is a lot more like classism; i.e. it’s a form of bigotry that is only TECHNICALLY changeable. They’re both seen as a lot more changeable than they actually are, for all the reasons you’ve listed.

[c-kiddo]

cad portrait style experiment from a month or two ago that i will post before i forget abt it forever (smart) 🪲 :P

[guerrillatech]

[emma-ofnormandy]

In a normal circumstance, I hate Netflix. However, they struck a deal to produce new episodes of Sesame Street and will ensure that the episodes remain free and accessible on PBS for all kids and for that, they deserve gratitude.

Additionally, unlike the deal previous struck with HBO, this one with Netflix also makes its so new episodes are simultaneously available via Netflix, PBS, and the PBS Kids app.

Please continue to support Sesame Street and all the other PBS programming via donations to ensure everyone, kids and adults alike, continue to have access to educational viewing.

[naamahdarling]

Very important information here.

Very important to try to support PBS kids' programming because Christ knows what they're going to be taught in schools.

[thememedaddy]

[whoznoah]

The agony of thinking you’re finished doing the dishes only to turn around and to your horror: the pot.

[rewind-on-purpose]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-22/food-plant-solutions-malnutrition-farming-edible-plants/12580732

https://fms.cmsvr.com/fmi/webd/Food_Plants_World

This guy is my new hero. I LOVE learning about native food plants that just grow everywhere without human help.

The database is a little clunky to use (especially on a phone), but still loads of excellent information.

[plantyhamchuk]

Here’s their website - Food Plant Solutions - and they can use volunteers! And $ of course. What they really need help with is connecting with NGOs/groups on the ground already working in countries, to get them access to the database. They also need help from formally trained agronomists, people good with website stuff, and people good at marketing / getting the word out about their project.

[depsidase]

[distorted-prince]

kitty