Alex Openbook @thestudyofself - Tumblr Blog

And in these next 50 years you will eat so many delicious meals, laugh so many times with so many people you love, shout and scream and sing and cry and smile so hard your face hurts. And you will see such beautiful sunsets and feel fresh cold air on your face and feel warm and safe wrapped up in your favourite winter coat.

wizard-council-bureaucrat

I wrap this blessing around you like a shroud, so that no ill can find you, and every warmth is held close

lizzibennet

can we all agree that being overdressed is a myth made up by boring stuffy people who are too worried about other people’s lives and don’t want you to have fun

lizzibennet

conversely, can we all agree that being underdressed is a myth made up by stuffy classist people who are too worried about other people’s lives and don’t want you to be comfortable or happy

sweaterweathertechno

lizzibennet

holy shit

veridium

If you’re reading this: this is your sign that your WIP is worth writing, is worth the effort, and that you are doing great. Keep going, take breaks, reflect. But do not lose sight of how far you’ve come on this project! You can do it!

bruciemilf

Did I daydream this, or was there a website for writers with like. A ridiculous quantity of descriptive aid. Like I remember clicking on " inside a cinema " or something like that. Then, BAM. Here's a list of smell and sounds. I can't remember it for the life of me, but if someone else can, help a bitch out <3

bruciemilf

I FOUND IT BITCHES

dramono

This is going to save me so much trouble in the future.

hopeless-loverboy

if someone doesn’t hold me tenderly soon i’m going to burst into flames

sadhoc

there is a very real tendency of teenagers with anxiety disorders self diagnosing with considerably more stigmatized and impairing mental illnesses (e.g. schizophrenia, DID, personality disorders), but the best response to that isn't to get angry with them for "appropriating" lol. instead you show them coping resources for the problems they're actually having and deemphasize diagnostic categories in general. if an 18 year old is claiming to have alzheimer's, they're probably making an innocent mistake and are in genuine distress. be kind.

mariaalenkoshepard

Also I think this trend comes, at least in part, from how brushed aside anxiety disorders can be. If your parents and teachers dismiss you with 'oh everyone feels anxious', then inevitably you're going to start thinking that there must be something else going on with you

lightblueminecraftorchid

”You must feel very scared right now; let’s talk about how to help you personally, tailored to your symptoms” will always be more helpful than “stop faking (X) for attention”. If theyre that desperate for attention or an explanation, something is wrong.

caitas-cooing

And like, at least some of them are probably right. Yeah these disorders are less common than things like anxiety disorders, but they are more common than you think they are. Like, they probably shouldn't self diagnose without doing a reasonable amount of research and talking to a professional if possible, but not every single one of them is wrong, and being wrong about something is not the same thing as lying about having something you don't. Be nice to teenagers they're still learning

vampirejuno

One thing I didn't expect from my new worldbuilding book is the author, roughly my dad's age, including his opinions on furries

vampirejuno

I'm liking this guy more and more

vampirejuno

I have a new favorite author.

macksting

[ID: Pages from books highlighting passages. First image: “If your characters are furries, consider giving some love to animals besides foxes, cats, and wolves.” OP replies, “One thing I didn’t expect from my new worldbuilding book is the author, roughly my dad’s age, including his opinions on furries.” Second page, different book: “I invented an alien race once that used different pronouns on land and underwater (they were amphibians), and had the inclusive/exclusive and proximate/obviative distinctions. They also had a pronoun for group minds, and pronouns for each of their three sexes. The complete list was impressive.” OP replies, “I’m liking this guy more and more.” Another page: “In the future, possibly anything goes. In my SF world, the Incatena, sex changes are routine, which makes nonsense out of most present-day moralisms and even earnest debates about evolutionary psychology. But why stop there? It’s easy to imagine modified bodies allowing new sexes, new sex acts, and new perversions.” OP comments, “I have a new favorite author.” /end ID]

[ID: Comment by OP vampirejuno replying to another comment. “They’re 3 books - The Planet Construction Kit, The Language Construction Kit, and The Conlanger’s Lexipedia, all by Mark Rosenfelder.” /end ID] I think I like this person too. Reminds me of a lot of what I love about some adventurous old science fiction, and how it could jostle us free from preconceived notions so we could grow.

one-and-five-nines

Yo I feel like the idea that the only historical women who counted are the ones who defied society and took on the traditionally male roles is… not actually that feminist. It IS important that women throughout history were warriors and strategists and politicians and businesswomen, but so many of us were “lowly” weavers and bakers and wives and mothers and I feel like dismissing THOSE roles dismisses so many of our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers and the shit they did to support our civilization with so little thanks or recognition.

ardatli

YES. This is such an important point. Those ‘girly’ girls doing their embroidery and quilting bees and grass braiding were vital parts of every domestic economy that has ever existed.

This is precisely what chaps my hide so badly about the misuse of the quote “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” because this is precisely what the author was actually trying to say.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is a domestic historian who developed new methodologies to study well-behaved women because they were

1) so vital, and

2) their lives were rarely recorded in the usual old sources.

“Hoping for an eternal crown, they never asked to be remembered on earth. And they haven’t been. Well-behaved women seldom make history; against Antinomians and witches, these pious matrons have had little chance at all. Most historians, considering the domestic by definition irrelevant, have simply assumed the pervasiveness of similar attitudes in the seventeenth century.”

Original article: “Vertuous Women Found: New England Ministerial Literature, 1668-1735” (pdf download from Harvard)

prismatic-bell

If you didn’t know: Abagail Adams (John Adams’ wife) led a very successful effort to fund the American Revolution. How did she and her tiny army of women do it?

They made lace, and sold it to the aristocrats. Real lace (the stuff you see on old outfits in museums, not the machine-made stuff you might be familiar with from today) is stupidly difficult to make, takes a lot of time and skill, and, well:

If you watch this through, you’ll hear her say this is DOMESTIC lace. This is not fancy, this is for household objects. You can imagine what it would take to make some of the elaborate pieces you see on old aristocratic clothing, and see why it was so expensive and valuable. (Incidentally, if you’ve ever heard the music from the musical 1776, in the song where Abagail and John are trading letters and he’s like “ma’am we need saltpeter” and she’s like “dude we need pins,” THIS IS WHAT THEY NEEDED THE PINS FOR. That song was based on real letters between the two.)

And this is all those revolutionary Revolutionary women did, every free moment of every day. They pulled out their pins and their bobbins and they made lace until they couldn’t see straight, and they sold it to revolutionaries and royalists alike, anyone who would pay. Yard upon yard upon yard of lace to earn cash to translate into rations and bullets.

The war was won by a women’s craft. Not even a “vital” women’s craft like cooking or cleaning. It was won by making a luxury item whose entire purpose was to say “look how wealthy I am, I can afford all this lace.”

Lace was not the only source of income for the Revolution. But it was a major one, and it is extremely fair to say it turned the tide.

And until this post, I bet you didn’t know.

i-love-discourse

were vital parts of every domestic economy that has ever existed.

and in 2023 they’re just hobbies that suck up hours/days/years of a woman’s time while also reinforcing the idea that women are more tolerant of monotony! Knitting/embroidering/quilting or whatever is extremely tedious.

prismatic-bell

Tedious TO YOU.

Don’t be a jackass.

alexseanchai

I’d rather weave than do data entry, that’s for fucking sure.

I would much rather do embroidery than work retail or food service! embroidery is the one that lets me stab shit!

(also, yarn soft, and I can’t pay attention to podcasts or podfic unless being debuffed by a hand activity such as crochet)

dumbbunnii-deactivated20221001

It’s ok to message me a paragraph of how much u adore me

ispyspookymansion

if you want me to consume a new media you MUST catch me at the exact moment when the stars are aligned and the air pressure is equal to the current degree of the sun’s peak against the horizon and all the cosmic energies are perfectly unified (aka my old interest is fading out) or i will nod and say “im adding that to my list!” Knowing theres no chance i will check it out

ispyspookymansion

“unless its a book!” “unless you tell me it has gay people in it!” “this but only for live action shows” “theres a good chance i’ll get to it eventually” no wrong this post is not for you this post is ONLY for bitches who could have a treasured friend recommend them something that sounds grown in a lab to be your personal catnip and, with no choice in the matter, immediately know it will never be the right time to watch/read/listen to it

ilajue

some of you need to go outside and I dont mean that in a mean or condescending way I mean it in a "you would benefit from talking to real people face to face, and developing social skills" type way

mellointheory

genuinely tho. more and more frequently i interact with people online who shock me with how young they act for how old they are, because i associate that level of social and interpersonal inability with fucking. fourteen year olds. there is a noticeable deterioration of social skills and it's annoying as someone who actually knows how to talk to people, because i find myself having to almost parent people basically my age into learning how to properly communicate. no, just saying insults and then adding /lh does not mean you're friends with someone. you can't just call someone a bitch or a whore or any type of slur and get surprised when they aren't okay with that, because if you actually took a step outside you'd realize those are words that have a whole lot of weight behind them and online get thrown around by social infants with no clue how to properly talk to people.

people are always coming to tell me that i'm very nice or very welcoming, and i don't know how to explain this to you, but it's because i have actual social skills. i know how to be polite. i know how to listen to people. i know how to actually form healthy relationships with people who aren't just words on a screen. and it's come to my realization that not everyone does, which makes it extra exhausting to keep up conversations with literal adults who don't even understand the basics of interpersonal communication.

ilajue

this puts it into words well ty

mellointheory

tags from @/lemonberry-conda and they're entirely correct

ahumanbeena

Did you know that after they switched to blind auditions, major symphony orchestras hired women between 30% to 55% more? Before bringing in “blind auditions” with a screen to conceal the the candidate, women in the top 5 major orchestras made up less than 5% of the musicians performing.

shwetanarayan-deactivated202504

so I believe it was actually more complicated than that, in interesting ways. Because at first, when they did blind auditions, they were STILL hiring more men.

…Then they put down a carpet, so that high heels didn’t clack on the floor, and BOOM women were suddenly getting hired.

The testers didn’t even know that’s what they were picking up on, which just goes to show how tiny of a cue it takes for misogyny to kick in.

isaacsapphire

The case of blind auditions for orchestras and how it dramatically changed the gender makeup of orchestras is a very illuminating example of gender bias, and an interesting possible way of countering it.

small-witch-big-hat

You can be sexist without knowing it. You can be racist without knowing it. This is not a moral failing; it is a moral imperative to remember that you are fallible, and take steps to limit the damage your squishy ape brain’s foibles can cause.

drchucktingle

existing is enough bud. you have already proven love is real by being here. GREAT JOB. everything else is extra credit

chocolate-and-discourse

Sorry, I could never be a capitalist, I suffer from “wanting humans to have their basic needs met” disorder, where I care about people who aren’t me.

chocolate-and-discourse

Someone once asked me if, assuming we got universal healthcare, I would be okay with the rise in “healthcare tourism” where people who are sick come to our country to get their medical bills taken care of and life-saving medical treatment cheaper than in their home countries. I was just like, yeah thats fine, I’d actually prefer it if 0 people died from preventable causes kept behind a paywall for no reason.

spoopy-valkyrie

“even the addicts?” yeah dude did i fucking stutter

rui-cifer

This already happens in other places and it doesn’t strain the countries’ healthcare systems nearly as much as ppl might assume. All of this is just a smokescreen for the maintenance of the for-profit healthcare industry.