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Roland | 28 | 🏳️‍⚧️ he/him 🏳️‍⚧️ | previously frenchthorn/buildabearitone | I've tried to delete several times, but I've been here since 2013 and can't seem to escape this blue hellscape. Expect a lot of random nonsense, some opera/theatre/crafting posts, and many pics of my dog Adora.

[collectivenothingness]

aquarium date? sorry, I mean museum date? sorry, I mean planetarium date? sorry, I mean botanical garden date? sorry, I mean grocery shopping together? sorry, I mean

[stephexmachina]

proposing a new genre of fiction called an anti-romance where u r presented w a couple at the start & the story is about their emotional journey towards a catastrophic break up

[stephexmachina]

will they won't they (end this farce). there's only one bed (but for some reason they don't really want to share it). out of context eavesdropping (that paints the relationship in a better light than it deserves). chasing after them to stop them getting on that plane (and stopping them from finally being free)

[stephexmachina]

nobody understands my vision i don't mean any old story where a relationship fails and it's tragic or w/e i mean a story where the intention is for the audience to root for it failing the same way u root for it succeeding in a romance. & when the relationship finally implodes at the climax of the story it's all very cathartic & everybody cheers.

[stephexmachina]

like have u never wanted a fictional couple to break up so badly it hurt?

[genderkoolaid]

reminder that i, as an anarchist and an agnostic, am firmly against anti-theism (the stance that religion is inherently bad and should be abolished). spirituality and religion are normal parts of humanity. they are things that we make and will continue to make. some people do really just have an innate sense/desire for Something Beyond Them and that's not just going to go away Because Marxism. if anything you are throwing away a powerful organizing force that can and has been used for leftist goals, yes, even christianity. there is no part of human society that cannot be used to harm people, there is no social system that cannot be used to exploit people, there is no social construct that cannot be used to justify that harm and exploitation.

the ways in which we think of religion as a concept have been fundamentally shaped by systems of exploitative power. that does not mean this is the only possible way to think of or engage in religion/spirituality. religion has been a major push factor for many to socialism and anarchism. im so sick and tired of y'all. it's not my revolution if i must sever a core part of how i understand myself and the world or else be named an enemy.

[faithfulunsure]

#and there is no way to abolish religion that doesnt involve genocide. people dont want to hear this but its true #<-#prev #there’s no way to abolish religion without cultural genocide too #there’s no way to do it without it getting insanely racist real fast #there’s a conception that My Experience of X Is Universal #and all Christianity in the whole world takes the form of white American evangelism #I’m not saying other forms of Christianity are all better or faultless #but I am saying they’re different and they’re practiced by different people #and you can’t be making blanket statements about Christianity when you’re talking about the specific Christian experience you had #‘but obviously I mean -‘ I don’t care SAY that then #everyone here is able to recognise that the words you use are an important part of shaping your thought process #until it’s about something you cant be arsed about via @teacupsandcyanide

[genderkoolaid]

#fascinating that OP equates atheism with being actively against religion#I’m atheist but that’s only for me. people can express their desire for/belief in Something Else#all they want as long as they don’t insist that I do the same#I also don’t think that religion should be abolished

anti-theism =/= atheism.

[playwrongs]

Architects don’t “masturbate”; they Wank Lloyd Wright

[playwrongs]

@howglorygoes I made a face as if I had bit into moldy bread.

[kristina100000]

if you got a problem with me its your probble

[no-sharks-on-the-sun]

if i could give one piece of advice to newly transitioning trans men, it's that it's 100% possible to find a community of people (including women!) who don't treat you as a threat, and the people trying to convince you otherwise are not your friends

[ftmtftm]

Also, perhaps, have we considered that it's actually really bad that we treat closeted trans women (and closeted nonbinary people, and frankly cis men too) this way? Like. It's a bad thing that trans women are treated like distrustful monsters for """"being men"""" before coming out by one demographic and then are also treated like distrustful monsters after coming out for being trans by another. That's not a sign of a culture with a healthy relationship with gender in the slightest!!!

Have we considered that treating people as inherently dangerous or distrustful by virtue of their gender alone is in fact, the very gender essentialism that perpetuates radical feminism in our spaces and that is something that we should be working on stamping out?

I am genuinely sorry that people across multiple different identity lines experience this shit because no trans person should be treated like a distrustful monster just by virtue of their gender identity before or after coming out.

*extends my hand* Let's examine the ways we allow gender essentialism to invade our spaces and harm other trans people and put an end to this cycle of gender essentialist abuse together!

[innerchildabortionclinic]

awareness of "the abused can become the abuser" is useless without the knowledge that abuse is a choice anyone makes that is made for self-benefit. recently I watched an interview on the psychology of domestic abuse and the woman who interviewed those who inflicted the abuse always made sure to ask "why didn't you take it further?" because the answer would always show the abuser hadn't simply lost control. for example one man said he pushed over his girlfriend but didn't kick her once she was down because he didn't want any noticeable bruising that caused suspicion. human psychology is much less poetic than you think. too many psychology enjoyers only enjoy the poetic

[innerchildabortionclinic]

average "dark psychology" enjoyer discovering the perpetrator literally just hated women and minorities

[dataandphilosophy]

“For example, if you’re trying to convince people to boycott a segregated store, your object is to convince them that boycotting the store will have a strategic effect, not that desegregation is morally important. For whatever reason, on a cognitive level human beings have a really hard time with this. Smucker cites an example of a Lefty roleplaying session where people were tasked with selling an action to people who agreed with them on principle but didn’t see the strategic merit of the action. Surprisingly, the sellers couldn’t make the conceptual switch to sell strategic merit: instead, they doubled down on THIS ISSUE IS IMPORTANT — even though it had been stressed to them that the people they were selling to bought into the importance of the issue. People react poorly to “this is important, so do WHATEVER I SAY”; they want to be convinced that what you’re proposing will work.”

Source.

[frodoomsday]

ive unintentionally made "yucklet eyes" a term i use commonly so i will define it here. i dont know what anyone else calls this but yucklet eyes are when any animal does this especially if it's eyes dont normally look like that

[targetedknowledge]

[raven-matrices]

Absolute gold in the replies

[sunshine-sabre]

there's no satisfaction in being right about the boat sinking when you are also on the boat, never mind below decks, with no hope of a rescue. I don't like smugly saying I Told You So because despite being ardent and vocal and pushing for strategies to mitigate climate change, my people are still dying. Black and Indigenous people in the United States and Canada are nearly always right when it comes to how we navigate disasters collectively, and they're never listened to except for after the fact (usually when its too late!! Huh! Wonder why that is!)

Folks want a quote from a Black or Indigenous person for their blog, but they don't wanna change their environments or GOD FORBID their consumer habits, even as the oceans rise to your door and the wildfires and logging bring down every old-growth forest.

(the history you cut out and paste into your cutesy little Revolutionary Scrapbook is still happening and still being made, btw. Your actions are part of it.)

anyway. I'm sitting here under a pungent yellow sky and aching for my people and the forests of Ontario. The Namaygoosisagagun First Nation (Collins First Nation, for the colonizers) fled on boats while the trees next to their houses burned. Thunder Bay is full of displaced Indigenous peoples trying to breathe with air full of ash. Gayaashki-zaagiing Anishinaabeg (Gull Bay First Nation, again, for You Folks) peoples were ordered to evacuate in the middle of the night and were just told there are no accommodations for them, now that they've escaped. Thousands of people scrambling for protection and safety, while a bunch of white colonizers complain about the smell of smoke.

None of this is new. It's all a very old song.

But, as my mother would say, the drums will get louder and louder until you listen.

[grenadineghost]

you want to be mommy’s adjective noun, don’t you, pet name? you want to verb and verb for mommy like a good gender

[alhyastarain]

you want to be mommy's weird potato, don't you, Brian? you want to skip and somersault like a good jester

[wifihunters]

its pride month and im very burnt out from working in healthcare however i do love it for the ambiguity the uniform/masks offer. had a conversation with a patient after seeing him for a day or two where he was like

"Sorry, I don't mean to offend--"

Which of course, I brace for hell, since he is around 60, and i am a gangly cryptid that people usually struggle only to find the right slur to apply to. But i dutifully keep my work voice and go "nah nah, don't worry, what can I do?"

He hits me with "Are you--uh, I've been saying 'thank you ma'am' but are you... okay with that? What should I call you?"

And i live in a small conservative pocket within one of the most liberal states in the US, so my experience in public is varied. People have guessed, they've gone with she, he. they, they've awkwardly avoided it, but no stranger had ever asked me.

So i panicked and chuckled. This felt kind of like walking into a fake tumblr post. I said "Oh, you can call me whatever you want, its fine."

Any cis person would probably sound a little insulted. i knew i was confirming some kind of gender fuckery, but giving him the out that he didn't have to change anything. Fucker kindly smiles though, and like. Pounces. Asks, much more confidently, "But would you prefer sir? What are your pronouns?"

He's on script now, I'm astral projecting to a different plane where i'm a bug on a well lit microscope and my throat's a little tight all the sudden. I say, "Oh. I uh--I use they/them."

I use they or he, but 'they' is the language curveball. I know this, which is why i usually just let people use whatever. He nods, and I choke out (because its been a bad bad day, autoimmune flare pain on top of record high patient numbers) "Thanks. No one... has ever asked me. Have a good day."

He told me the same, I booked it, because the dim room was hiding watery eyes but not for much longer. Got it together in a nearby closet (ha) and moved on.

Came back later on in the evening because I had promised to visit when his wife was there earlier in the day. She's sweet, he's sweet, I do my usual spiel, he avoids any 'ma'am' studiously, but on me going to head out again, hits the dilemma of having no polite substitute for 'ma'am' or 'sir' that isnt gendered in some subtle way, and he's fucking trying, but this is not second nature obviously.

So what comes out is "Have a wonderful night, Them!"

Beaming, proud, right next to his extremely confused wife, who he seems to have not outted me to (nice) who now thinks he's probably having a stroke (funny, but not nice lmao)

Anyway, tldr, not adding to the well-meant bigot strawman theory, man wasn't a bigot, it was just. Nice, that in a sea of alt, visibly queer or vocally liberal people my age or younger who never thought to ask or just didn't want to deal with the awkwardness of stumbling through it... some lone dad guy decided 'good enough' wasn't enough and volunteered to correct himself.

[clubpenguinkiller]

cats always step precisely on your most sensitive areas when theyre crawling on you lovingly for cuddles. bladder dick ovaries boobs stomach bruise it doesnt matter. they have homing devices on their paws for the exact area you’re most tender at the moment and they put their full weight into that step. and sometimes they might keep their stance midstride so theyre just standing there forever forcing you to endure the pain. because they are simply too cute to get mad at

[sunderwight]

The problem with studying the deep ocean is that humans need light to look at things, the depths of the ocean are extremely dark, and what lives there is accustomed to spending most of its time in that darkness. So when we go down there with submersibles and turn on Big Lights to see, we invariably and dramatically alter what's going on, in the same way that it's generally difficult to observe the natural behaviors of terrestrial animals if you whip out a megaphone and shout HEY GUYS WHAT ARE YOU DOING at them first.

[adizzyninja]

A humble snubnose eelpout on its way to the whale fall buffet when some nearby humans give it a quick, unintrusive study:

[julianova44]

I put this in the comments but feel it needs a reblog- Check out some of Dr Edith Widder’s work on light in the deep sea! Among other things, she used the bioluminescence of stoplight fish to deduce wavelengths which most deep sea animals can’t perceive and used that to create light filters to be able to film with minimal disturbance! And that’s how we got 25 minutes of giant squid footage!!!!

[alphacrone]

as a child i assumed that martha’s vineyard was a fancy private vineyard owned by martha stewart and the reason rich people vacationed there was because they were friends with martha

[lazer-exe]

I'm gonna say it, I do think that even the laziest person imaginable should have a roof over their head, food in their stomach, and access to healthcare