(not so) secretly a total geek @thesylversmyth - Tumblr Blog

loser duo

#I need them to be this feral though #phm #I truly don’t think that Grace would interpret it as anything but clingy and I also don’t see Rocky being embarrassed

kholran

It’s finally happened.

After almost a decade on this site, I found another Tumblr user in the wild. I stopped to tie my shoe with rainbow laces this morning outside the silversmith at Colonial Williamsburg, and I heard it.

“I like your shoelaces.”

Oh. Oh no.

I responded the only way I could. “Thanks.” And then I reluctantly added, “I stole them from the president…and if that makes sense to you, I’m very sorry.”

The poor man, in full Colonial dress, stared at me for a long moment. And then burst into laughter. And said, “I haven’t thought about that in YEARS and this has never happened to me before.”

Yeah. Me neither. Not until today.

Tumblr rite of passage. Achievement unlocked.

beggars-opera

@victoriansecret I found your friend!!!

beggars-opera

miniaturecatmentality

guys I just found the greatest video on the internet

slender-woman-returns

What did I watch

unfamiliarsculptures

It’s that time again! I have some new sculptures ready for a shop update! Here’s a preview of a velociraptor sculpture that’ll be available Friday, April 17th!

unfamiliarsculptures

A few ancient horses inspired by the Pech Merle cave paintings! These three will be available Friday, May 22nd at 8pm Eastern time.

innerchildabortionclinic

also I don't think parents "these days" are uniquely terrible, I just think neglect is showing up in new ways as technology progresses. today's ipad kid would've been wandering around in a ditch alone all day and night before. parents not wanting to have to deal with children is not a new phenomenon.

ahedderick

mmm. I remember when my son was three or four years old, and I suddenly realized, hey - he has had NO serious injuries! When I was that age I had had multiple major injuries, been to the er twice, tons of scars. My parents joked repeatedly that they'd have to send me to school, when I got old enough, as a "bag of pieces." And we all laughed - funny, right?

And it hit me like a BRICK that I was taking careful care of this little one every day so he didn't get hurt - but! my own memory was of being alone, unsupervised, a ridiculous amount of time. Outside on the farm and alone as a toddler, or literally being looked after by a farm dog.

Memory being fickle, I checked with one of my aunts who I was close to as a child. "Was I left alone, like, a LOT?" I asked her. Her friendly face got serious, and she just nodded. "You raised yourself," she told me, "Then you raised your brother."

That was the 70s. So, yeah. Hard agree, op.

kira-7

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

If you want to spread it elsewhere, here's the official link

arctic-hands

[Video Description: An ad with piano music over it all, showing an elderly woman in her home, knitting, when two younger men walk by her window, which catches her attention. She stares out her window at them as they kiss each other while walking, the old lady staring in disbelief. Cut to the old woman approaching a residence with a broom in hand, staring up at the second floor window where a small rainbow Pride flag is hanging. The old woman stares up at it and mutters "Ridiculo", before getting up on a ladder with her broom to remove the flag. Focus on the flag fluttering to the ground as church bells chime. The scene then cuts to the couple from before, approaching their home with grocery bags in hand before one stops and stares at the second floor, stopping his partner who then drops the groceries as he too stares up. It's then revealed that the small pride flag had been replaced with a gigantic, hand-knit pride flag. It then cuts back to the old woman's home, where a tin of rainbow-colored yarn sits on her table. The hands of the old woman are holding and fondly touching an old black and white photo of two young smiling women, leaning against each other. Cut to the old woman's face as she stares out with a look of happy pride on her face. At the end of the video, the name "Idealista" appears on screen, followed by "buon pride" along with a rainbow. End VD.]

spaceofentropy

One correction:

The old lady is not in her home. She is at work. She's meant to be what in Italian is called "la portinaia", aka a cross between a doorwoman and cleaner of a residential building. She's in her small "office" space, at the entrance of the building, from where she can survey the coming and goings of the inhabitants. It's a job that has mostly disappeared, but is culturally very clear to us as having the connotation of "potentially gossipy, one-million-percent judgmental woman who sees everything that goes on in the apartment complex, knows everyone and their secrets, and has Strong Opinions™️".

In this case, thankfully, the Strong Opinion™️ is that those two men are ridiculous with their teeny tiny flag for ants.

tuiskuh

As a woman who is both gender non-conforming and who is planning a pregnancy in the near future AND who works with children, I am very invested in the conversation about the confines of femininity, the complexities of motherhood and the fascistic expectation of women to have children. I also often find it deeply frustrating.

I do not think it should need to be said, but unfortunately it absolutely is, that nobody should ever be forced to become pregnant, be a parent or carry a pregnancy to term. Ever. This requires both complete and total abortion rights & access but also the dismantling of the gendered expectation of women to want and need children. Remaining child free should not only be possible for women, it should also be normal and completely accepted. Anything else is oppressive.

However, I am deeply bothered by how many people who share these views talk about children. I have come across many posts describing children in cruel and dehumanizing ways, emphasizing how gross and terrible children are and how much of a burden they are to their parents. This, I think is also wrong.

Children are a particularly vulnerable population. They often have very little rights and autonomy and are at the whims of adults around them, which makes then particularly vulnerable to abuse. Children are real, fully realized people who have very specific needs and considerations. Constantly discussing how disgusting and terrible children are, means attacking people who have no power and cannot defend themselves, legally or otherwise. These views cannot be separated from calls to remove children from public life, like parks and transportation, the practice of which is both dehumanizing and oppressive. This goes hand in hand with the gendered oppression of women who are unfortunately still often the primary caregivers of children. Forcing children out of the public sphere means forcing mothers out of it too. And the right to not have children needs to go hand in hand with the right to have children. Women need abortion rights and access but they also need the right and access to give birth for free. They need robust childcare and child & family friendly infrastructure. Otherwise the only people who can afford to have children are wealthy elites.

The rights of women to not have children and the rights of children and mothers go hand in hand. They are not contradictory. Being a parent is a complex relationship, one wrought with a long history of violence and oppression of children and women. It is not easy to navigate, and nobody should be expected to do it. Simultaneously, the people who do decide to do it deserve help and support, not scorn or mockery. And most of all, children, all children, even the annoying, dirty and screaming ones deserve a safe loving world that sees their full humanity, respects their perspectives and their bodily autonomy. We are all a part of creating that world for them. Society should be about being good to each other, and that includes children too.

imperator-knoedel

"Children are real, fully realized people"

But what about babies? Surely a newborn doesn't count as a person? Where do we draw the line? Age Three?

tuiskuh

i dunno man, there is no age cap or line. babies are real people too. they experience pain and fear and love and have preferences and in general are alive and have complete real subjectivity. the fact that babies need help in both communicating and functioning does not make them any less real people than older children or adults. a baby crying on an airplane might be annoying and overstimulating to us adults but that baby is in genuine fear, distress or pain and has not yet developed the tools to cope with that, and for all we know it might be the first or worst time they've ever experienced this pain or distress before. it matters. the subjective experience of babies matters. yes, it matters because we know through studies that the first two years of life are incredibly important for a person's adult mental health, but also because even as a baby, even if that baby never ended up living to their adulthood, it would still matter because that is a real person who matters. I am not saying babies or small children are somehow unchangeable and on the same intellectual level as adults. of course not. that is obviously untrue. but treating children as just 'in progress adults' or somehow 'unfinished' is ignoring their real subjectivity as children who have children's perception and unique way of seeing things and experiencing things. every child is just as much of real person with genuine interiority as any adult is. they simply experience the world and communicate differently and have a lot more intense support needs than most (but not all!) human adults, which makes them very vulnerable to abuse.

animentality

ms-demeanor

I don't know who needs to hear this but your brain is lying to you and you don't need to wait until there's a round number on the clock to go the fuck to bed or start that project or eat a meal.

Get up and do it now.

oodlenoodleroodle

There is a German art group called Pataphysical Institute Basel that I collaborated with on an art festival a few years ago, and one of their things was that they wanted everything done in "Pataphysical time" which in practice meant that nothing should be scheduled to start at exactly on the hour or half past the hour, and instead the start time should be something weird like three minutes past etc.

That was surprisingly helpful and I have since then been on "Pataphysical time" like I don't place special importance on any specific position of the hands of the clock.

ms-demeanor

"Pataphysical Time" is going to be a fun thing to say to myself when I need to do something instead of getting stuck until a "correct" number.

mxjackparker

Looking over the bullshit Children's Social Services referral made for my daughter while I was in the hospital after giving birth, because I've finally gotten around to making a formal complaint about the transphobic abuse and mistreatment I experienced from midwives and other staff while recovering, and I'm so angry all over again at what a joke this is:

The primary reasons they gave for referring me to CSS were... that I'm trans and live with other people. For that, they suggested there's a danger to my baby that required intervention.

It's such a short piece of text and there's so much wrong. The entire premise is obviously fucked up, but then there's the way they write it. I get called a "transman" as one word, my top surgery is mentioned out of nowhere, my cis friends that I live with are called "males" and my other friend is mentioned as being trans despite no relevance, they call me "she" after only one sentence of gendering me correctly before it, imply I'm lying about not being romantically involved with my friend, and incorrectly state that I'm financially supported by my friend (never said this, not sure where they got it from).

Luckily when CSS called, the woman I spoke to closed the case immediately after talking to me. She thought the referral was as ludicrous as I did and apologized to me for this happening. It doesn't escape my notice that if it had been a different social worker who was more transphobic, I would've had to deal with invasive house visits and assessments immediately after getting home from a 5 day hospital stay during which I only slept for 4 or 5 hours total.

People in that hospital thought I was inherently an unfit parent for being trans. I honestly think I'd risk a home birth if I ever get pregnant again.

mxjackparker

Today the hospital sent me an apology letter for this! It was written in "don't sue me" speak at points, but I'm so shocked to get an acknowledgement at all.