The Raven's Muse

RANDOM COOL, INTERESTING THINGS. Used to be an author blog, but honestly is a repository for cool pictures and stuff now. Sorry not sorry.

[flagellant]

Treatise: On The Weekend Market

(An exploration of a nyctoscape and a hypothesis as to their nature.)

Depiction generated by wombo.art courtesy of @the-unseelie-court-official.

    I think that I should start, really, by stating that I believe that to a certain level, if you can make magic empirically understood by everyone, you’ve either done something other than magic, or everyone is lying to your face. To practice magic is to practice what you are, not who, and that means when you go deep enough, others will not be able to follow along. 

    I don’t like talking deeply about my personal practice of the occult here. I am very aware that many people following me are interested in the occult. That means anything I say will be listened to, and I have never been a very good teacher. 

    But a friend I deeply respect as both scholar and practitioner suggested I try talking about my practice, and I had an experience the night before they said this. My life is nothing if not a series of convenient timings, so I know what I’m being told to do when I’m being told to do it. I just want it to be clear before I get to the grit of this treatise: I’m not really intending to teach any of you anything. I’m posting publicly about my own experiences with dreams and things within them.

    Dreams are by their nature illogical. Stealing your mother who has a floursack for a head makes sense until your alarm goes off. They’re things your subconscious invents, piecing together random decorations and iconographies to tell strange bedtime stories.

    But there are more realistic dreams–worlds with plots out of Hollywood movies or romance novels. Gunfights as you barely escape from hordes of zombies. Political intrigue as you ascend to a throne. These are “lucid” dreams, and we’ll call them that for distinction if not accuracy.

    There exists within dreams places more solid even than “lucid” dreams–solid, but strange, and out of place. They often seem to try and intrude into a dream first, rather than simply beginning in one–the knowledge that it is not the same dream feels important. These are not dreams-within-dreams, but I believe something even more strange. I call them nyctoscapes.

    A nyctoscape is most easily recognized by its self-logic which consistently reasserts itself over dream-logic or lucid-logic. They are something you experience while you sleep and dream, so of course occasionally that strange dream-logic or lucidity will try and creep in and peek through the cracks or distract you, but the nyctoscape quickly reasserts its own logic, resolidifying and carrying you onward in your pilgrimage through its labyrinth. It is important to note that there is a different sensation entirely between the smothering of dream-logic with your own lucid-logic, and the coagulation of the nyctoscape that allows itself to perpetuate around you. It is unmistakable, and, while not perfect 100% of the time, invariably strong enough to last for the rest of the time you are in it.

Depiction generated by DALL E, courtesy of @auxphono

    I’ll not waste time describing the first part of the dream, which mostly consisted of justification and thin plot, the nyctoscape rapidly asserting itself as The Weekend Market, a strange bazaar which few could speak of and fewer had entered. I found my entrance in a cramped alleyway. The details before this don’t matter.    

The change in atmosphere when I first stepped into the alley was immediate. I didn’t look behind me because I didn’t need to–if my exit disappeared it didn’t matter. I was walking forward into a snaggle-toothed mess of concrete and mess, with walls on either side which turned at sharp and blind corners. It was slightly foggy, like a proper thin city alley should be.

    And then chalk markings. Scrapes in the cement. Black marker drawn on cardboard boxes. splashed paint along the walls. Graffiti with smiling faces. Arrows of all sizes and kinds, which were guiding me forwards through the alley as I looked. They were like puppies, somehow, innocent and eager and absolutely without any thought in their arrowheads except that they were so happy to see me. It was kind of charming, really.

    Even before I left the alley, the first signs of change (if you’ll pardon the pun) began to appear. Holograms began to flicker up and into existence, all arrows in humming blues, yellows, pinks, bright and eye-catching and tugging at holographic versions of my shoelaces to show how much I should hurry for them. Neon signs began to appear as I turned more corners, the hum of electricity filling the air. Words began to appear on the signs. Even the physical signs had the same strange trait to their language.

    WELCOME: DREAM_USER NAME UNFOUND! Was one I remember most clearly. 24% OFF SALE ON PEANUTBUTTER! YOU H A V E TO COME BACKSOON! was attached to a gigantic sign which filled my view and my way like a skyscraper. It was like the door which blocked the way into the rest of The Weekend Market. In my dream, I didn’t consider the meanings of the signs. I’m not a lucid dreamer, so I never can. I stepped in between the dot and dash of the exclamation point and entered the bazaar of The Weekend Market.

Depiction generated by DALL E, courtesy of @auxphono

It was as gaudy as it was barren. I never saw anyone else there–I would think I saw movement, but when I would go to check, it was always just a fluttering flag, or a moving trinket or glowing hologram. I never saw anyone else. Only signs and items for sale. I couldn’t read the writing in The Weekend Market, so I couldn’t see the prices of what I was looking at. I don’t actually remember if there was anything to purchase. I feel like I was being offered things like items and goods and services, and that they had prices, but I have no details. Nor of any of The Weekend Market, truly. If I try and think too hard about the shape of the writing, or any of the items, or what was inside of the stores? All I can remember is that all the signs were blank, the shops were empty, nothing there. Anyway, I walked the streets, which were lit up with all sorts of things being advertised to me, The Weekend Market’s customer.

    “FRESH [GARBLEDSTATIC]FRUIT FOR ONLY CENTS!” proclaimed a grocer’s booth with bundles of boxes or bags which were maybe empty or filled with things. I entered a building when I saw some lanterns which were jerking and waving in a violent storm, despite feeling no wind or rain whatsoever. I had a really nice time in it, though, so it was a good call. There was this vague sense of music playing somewhere else, but I couldn’t really hear it. The store might have been a cafe. I didn’t drink anything, but there were probably cups, and strange machines sitting on clean counters. The carpet was what I think a cafe carpet color should be? And the table I had sat at was appropriately small but tall, and so was my chair. And of course, most importantly, the music I couldn’t actually hear was the perfect genre for a cafe. So like. Cafe. Duh. I kept not being able to hear the music and pleasantly enjoying waiting out no storm at all for a little longer, then left when the lanterns stopped moving, feeling very happy with all of the choices I made.

Depiction generated by DALL E, courtesy of @auxphono

    It began to feel less like being alone in The Weekend Market, and more like being alone with it. Not at all in a bad way. I was its only customer–if something happened to me, to who else could it advertise CLOTHSTUFF HISTORY EASY TUTORIAL CHEAP BUT GOOD ONLY WHILE YOU’RE HERE WITH ME! SMILE! YOU’RE ON CAMERA ;)? But still, it was a little strange, trying to get used to the feeling of it watching me as I perused its storefronts and the aisles, as I followed its arrows and exclamation points, the friendly icon-person you-are-here you-want-to-be-here? maps.

    I should say, I’ve journeyed to a fair number of nyctoscapes. I used to make a habit of it, though I take medications now that make it harder to dream. But The Weekend Market was a new sort of breed for me. I don’t ever really examine the nyctoscape while I’m in it–I’m not really capable of examining them, really, I’ve never been able to lucid dream–but in this one, I started to piece together some things I hadn’t really been questioning.

    And anyway where do we come into this whole “alternate planes of reality” thing, really? Because that’s a lot to swallow. So let me try to explain this real quick as best I can reason, since it’s sort of the whole point here.

    The human brain is a complex thing. It is a mystery we will probably never fully solve, just like the rest of magic.

    So is The Weekend Market. I turn down miles of streets, which are friendlier and more personally invested in me as I go. The distance between me and the booths and doors is getting closer, starting to be almost but never really claustrophobic. The Weekend Market is an entity which remembers what it’s showed me that it likes, and tries to find new things to show me, building an ever more complex understanding of me through my preferences and behaviors. What it is that I prefer and enjoy in The Weekend Market is immaterial to it and me while I’m here. Whether I can prefer or enjoy those things is also immaterial. It still remembers for me. And it is accommodating, because it wants me to be at The Weekend Market very badly. After all: 

    There is a 24% off sale on peanut butter.

    Is it possible that, somehow, my brain transported my soul or spirit to another dimension, self-contained in a dream which manifested in such a way? Yes. Of course I believe that. I commune with fucking pine barrens, who am I to talk shit? But I do have a more plausible theory given what I believe about the fundamental nature of the nyctoscapes, about the reason why we can walk in their worlds for a night.

Depiction generated by DALL E, courtesy of @auxphono

I believe that a nyctoscape is a stabilized manifestation of a formalized concept that exists deep within the human psyche, collective or otherwise. Consider: If human beings can somehow travel to and witness other planes of reality, our brains need to be able to perceive that other reality, or it is functionally nonexistent to us.

    And, if the nyctoscapes are planes of reality perceptible to the human brain which exist solely within dreams–proven by both their way of access and the occasional influence non-lucid logic can attempt to have upon one–then it is possible to influence those planes of reality, if they exist within our own psyche. 

    And if it is possible to influence something, then it definitionally must exist in a meaningful manner at all. Nyctoscapes are like little snowglobes within the space of our minds we can sometimes stumble into while we dream, microcosms of how we perceive certain concepts of the reality in our waking world, turned into other, stranger realities.Dream realities.

    Nyctoscapes.

Depiction generated by DALL E, courtesy of @auxphono

In a way, The Weekend Market is not unenjoyable. It is not malevolent. It is merely a sort of market algorithm in its purest form: watching my every choice and preference, in order to present me with more appealing options. Without entities or interests behind the interests of the entity, The Weekend Market is almost pleasant–I felt increasing interest at everything I saw at a steadily exponential rate, and then the familiarity became rapidly more than I would like.

    STAY NOW AND GET %OFF! SIGN UP OUR FAVORITE DREAMER YET AND RECEIVE A LIMITED TIME: OFFER OF LIFETIME!!!! REWARDS. PLEASE DON’T GO YET? IT’LL GET DARK SOON AND VERY COLD AND WET AGAIN.

    I might have been able to enjoy The Weekend Market a while longer, but it was not a person. It was something that was trained to be too familiar with me, in the end. This was not precisely the last memory I have of the nyctoscape, but I think it is the most telling of the nature of what The Weekend Market wants most from a customer.

    “DREAM USERNAME:FOUND”.

    My alarm woke me up fairly soon after that. I will not write out my legal name here, like they were in The Market as I left. But I will not be returning soon for my 24% off peanut butter. It isn’t at fault, it isn’t a thing to be at fault. It was nonetheless one of the most uncanny encounters I’ve had during my dreams in the occult: A market algorithm without a market to sell, which thinks it loves you the more it learns about your personality. I’m unsure yet what it says exactly. That alone I could write a few essays about, and I don’t have time for it here.

    I started this treatise by saying I don’t believe I’m a very good teacher. And so again–I wrote this solely as informational on my own practice and experiences, not to be taken from or to influence others necessarily.

    But still, this is something I’m calling a treatise. It uses formal terms I’ve invented for my own empirical usage, or at least as close as I can make empirical for usage within the occult. And it is making very authoritative-sounding claims, even if all of these are only my own personal beliefs and experiences. So even if it isn’t a real academic paper or statement, I want to give it a proper concluding thesis.

    I believe that there exist within the subconscious–call it the plane of dreams, if you like–self-contained realities which represent formalized concepts of the waking world which have lodged themselves deep within the psyche. I have no way of proving whether it is a personal or collective psyche and have no interest in attempting to one way or the other. These nyctoscapes are entered through dreams but are not necessarily dreams themselves, and seem in fact actively to prevent the intrusion of more nonlucid-logic than would be stable for its own conceptual reality to withstand. This, and the qualia of the sensation of being within a variety of different dreamscapes which each held this similar trait, have made me confident that they are something which exist in my understanding of the occult and can be defined as such–and that is, in my opinion, the most valuable and important thing in determining something for my own personal practice.

====================

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Thank you for reading!

[bigwarmth]

(x)

[somebluenovember]

Reblogging because you never know who might need to read this, right now. 

[the-haiku-bot]

Reblogging because

you never know who might need

to read this, right now.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[ghostlywriterr]

Abandoned lighthouse on Sakhalin Island, Russia. 

[1989taylorsversion]

I'm really tired of people on social media saying things like "being silent on an issue means you side with the oppressors" like yes this is true in an abstract sense and is true in a more definite sense if we were all celebrities with large platforms and someone was interviewing us and they asked us about some political issue directly and we said "no comment" but choosing to exist on social media without endlessly discussing every political issue happening throughout the entire world does not mean you stand with oppressors, it means you're just living your life and focusing your energy (mostly offline!!!!!!!) to the few causes and issues most important to you, and that's entirely okay... enough with the fake woke guilt-tripping

[melissablogs-deactivated2018010]

Friendly reminder that 1200 calories is the recommended amount for a 5 year old

[rambirb-deactivated20221115]

this hit me.

another fact is that 500 calories isn’t even enough for a new born.

why did I go so long convinced that going over 500 in a day was the end of the world?

[naamahdarling]

Another friendly reminder that the United States used 1,000 calorie diets as torture for political prisoners and justified it using the diet industry.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/17/bush-torture-memos-commer_n_188190.html

In a footnote to a May 10, 2005, memorandum from the Office of Legal Council, the Bush attorney general’s office argued that restricting the caloric intake of terrorist suspects to 1000 calories a day was medically safe because people in the United States were dieting along those lines voluntarily.

“While detainees subject to dietary manipulation are obviously situated differently from individuals who voluntarily engage in commercial weight-loss programs, we note that widely available commercial weight-loss programs in the United States employ diets of 1000 kcal/day for sustain periods of weeks or longer without requiring medical supervision,” read the footnote. “While we do not equate commercial weight loss programs and this interrogation technique, the fact that these calorie levels are used in the weight-loss programs, in our view, is instructive in evaluating the medical safety of the interrogation technique.”

Another another friendly reminder that the Minnesota Starvation Experiment subjected adult men who were VOLUNTEERS to 1,560 calorie diets and the psychological effects were so profound that one volunteer cut three of his own fingers off and could not remember why.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment

These men were volunteers who knew exactly what they would be going through and when it would end, and who believed they were doing it for a good and moral reason (the research was used to help rehabilitate victims of starvation and famine at the end of WWII).

And these are the things we are expected to engage in FOREVER to stay at a “healthy” weight.

Reading about the Minnesota Starvation experiment was my wake-up call.  It was what kicked me out of my eating disorder.  The guy missing three fingers, whatever his name was, he was the last straw for me.

Scared me so fucking bad I stopped restricting my food that day, and never went back to it.

[naamahdarling]

Just bringin’ this back around like I sometimes do.

[to-dance-beneath-the-diamond-sky]

Wow. This really hit me hard.

[radicalduck]

EAT

[bigmouthlass]

Fun fact– calorie restriction exacerbates symptoms of pretty much *every* mental illness.

[crazy-pages]

Anorexia has ~16% mortality rate, slightly higher than acted upon suicidal ideation. It’s more lethal than actively trying to kill oneself and this is why.

[bogleech]

Remember that “calories” are a measure of the “energy” you get from food and not specifically a measure of fat or sugar or any one thing. A single calorie is the amount of heat it takes to warm water by one degree Celsius. Using it as a measure of a “healthy diet” is batshit gibberish.

[weeping-inks-stash-folder]

For anyone (myself included) who needs a reminder to eat and eat well! Please be kind to yourselves!

[radioactivepeasant]

On the topic of humans being everyone’s favorite Intergalactic versions  of Gonzo the Great: Come on you guys, I’ve seen all the hilarious additions to my “humans are the friendly ones” post. We’re basically Steve Irwin meets Gonzo from the Muppets at this point. I love it. 

But what if certain species of aliens have Rules for dealing with humans?

Don’t eat their food. If human food passes your lips/beak/membrane/other way of ingesting nutrients, you will never be satisfied with your ration bars again.

Don’t tell them your name. Humans can find you again once they know your name and this can be either life-saving or the absolute worst thing that could happen to you, depending on whether or not they favor you. Better to be on the safe side.

Winning a human’s favor will ensure that a great deal of luck is on your side, but if you anger them, they are wholly capable of wiping out everything you ever cared about. Do not anger them.

If you must anger them, carry a cage of X’arvizian bloodflies with you, for they resemble Earth mo-skee-toes and the human will avoid them.

This does not always work. Have a last will and testament ready.

Do not let them take you anywhere on your planet that you cannot fly a ship from. Beings who are spirited away to the human kingdom of Aria Fiv-Ti Won rarely return, and those that do are never quite the same.

Basically, humans are like the Fair Folk to some aliens and half of them are scared to death and the others are like alien teenagers who are like “I dare you to ask a human to take you to Earth”.

[dalekteaservice]

We knew about the planet called Earth for centuries before we made contact with its indigenous species, of course. We spent decades studying them from afar.

The first researchers had to fight for years to even get a grant, of course. They kept getting laughed out of the halls. A T-Class Death World that had not only produced sapient life, but a Stage Two civilization? It was a joke, obviously. It had to be a joke.

And then it wasn’t. And we all stopped laughing. Instead, we got very, very nervous. 

We watched as the human civilizations not only survived, but grew, and thrived, and invented things that we had never even conceived of. Terrible things, weapons of war, implements of destruction as brutal and powerful as one would imagine a death world’s children to be. In the space of less than two thousand years, they had already produced implements of mass death that would have horrified the most callous dictators in the long, dark history of the galaxy. 

Already, the children of Earth were the most terrifying creatures in the galaxy. They became the stuff of horror stories, nightly warnings told to children; huge, hulking, brutish things, that hacked and slashed and stabbed and shot and burned and survived, that built monstrous metal things that rumbled across the landscape and blasted buildings to ruin.

All that preserved us was their lack of space flight. In their obsession with murdering one another, the humans had locked themselves into a rigid framework of physics that thankfully omitted the equations necessary to achieve interstellar travel. 

They became our bogeymen. Locked away in their prison planet, surrounded by a cordon of non-interference, prevented from ravaging the galaxy only by their own insatiable need to kill one another. Gruesome and terrible, yes - but at least we were safe.

Or so we thought.

The cities were called Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the moment of their destruction, the humans unlocked a destructive force greater than any of us could ever have believed possible. It was at that moment that those of us who studied their technology knew their escape to be inevitable, and that no force in the universe could have hoped to stand against them.

The first human spacecraft were… exactly what we should have expected them to be. There were no elegant solar wings, no sleek, silvered hulls plying the ocean of stars. They did not soar on the stellar currents. They did not even register their existence. Humanity flew in the only way it could: on all-consuming pillars of fire, pounding space itself into submission with explosion after explosion. Their ships were crude, ugly, bulky things, huge slabs of metal welded together, built to withstand the inconceivable forces necessary to propel themselves into space through violence alone.

It was almost comical. The huge, dumb brutes simply strapped an explosive to their backs and let it throw them off of the planet. 

We would have laughed, if it hadn’t terrified us.

Humanity, at long last, was awake.

It was a slow process. It took them nearly a hundred years to reach their nearest planetary neighbor; a hundred more to conquer the rest of their solar system. The process of refining their explosive propulsion systems - now powered by the same force that had melted their cities into glass less than a thousand years before - was slow and haphazard. But it worked. Year by year, they inched outward, conquering and subduing world after world that we had deemed unfit for habitation. They burrowed into moons, built orbital colonies around gas giants, even crafted habitats that drifted in the hearts of blazing nebulas. They never stopped. Never slowed.

The no-contact cordon was generous, and was extended by the day. As human colonies pushed farther and farther outward, we retreated, gave them the space that they wanted in a desperate attempt at… stalling for time, perhaps. Or some sort of appeasement. Or sheer, abject terror. Debates were held daily, arguing about whether or not first contact should be initiated, and how, and by whom, and with what failsafes. No agreement was ever reached.

We were comically unprepared for the humans to initiate contact themselves.

It was almost an accident. The humans had achieved another breakthrough in propulsion physics, and took an unexpected leap of several hundred light years, coming into orbit around an inhabited world.

What ensued was the diplomatic equivalent of everyone staring awkwardly at one another for a few moments, and then turning around and walking slowly out of the room.

The human ship leapt away after some thirty minutes without initiating any sort of formal communications, but we knew that we had been discovered, and the message of our existence was being carried back to Terra. 

The situation in the senate could only be described as “absolute, incoherent panic”. They had discovered us before our preparations were complete. What would they want? What demands would they make? What hope did we have against them if they chose to wage war against us and claim the galaxy for themselves? The most meager of human ships was beyond our capacity to engage militarily; even unarmed transport vessels were so thickly armored as to be functionally indestructible to our weapons.

We waited, every day, certain that we were on the brink of war. We hunkered in our homes, and stared.

Across the darkness of space, humanity stared back.

There were other instances of contact. Human ships - armed, now - entering colonized space for a few scant moments, and then leaving upon finding our meager defensive batteries pointed in their direction. They never initiated communications. We were too frightened to.

A few weeks later, the humans discovered Alphari-296.

It was a border world. A new colony, on an ocean planet that was proving to be less hospitable than initially thought. Its military garrison was pitifully small to begin with. We had been trying desperately to shore it up, afraid that the humans might sense weakness and attack, but things were made complicated by the disease - the medical staff of the colonies were unable to devise a cure, or even a treatment, and what pitifully small population remained on the planet were slowly vomiting themselves to death.

When the human fleet arrived in orbit, the rest of the galaxy wrote Alphari-296 off as lost.

I was there, on the surface, when the great gray ships came screaming down from the sky. Crude, inelegant things, all jagged metal and sharp edges, barely holding together. I sat there, on the balcony of the clinic full of patients that I did not have the resources or the expertise to help, and looked up with the blank, empty, numb stare of one who is certain that they are about to die.

I remember the symbols emblazoned on the sides of each ship, glaring in the sun as the ships landed inelegantly on the spaceport landing pads that had never been designed for anything so large. It was the same symbol that was painted on the helmets of every human that strode out of the ships, carrying huge black cases, their faces obscured by dark visors. It was the first flag that humans ever carried into our worlds.

It was a crude image of a human figure, rendered in simple, straight lines, with a dot for the head. It was painted in white, over a red cross.

The first human to approach me was a female, though I did not learn this until much later - it was impossible to ascertain gender through the bulky suit and the mask. But she strode up the stairs onto the balcony, carrying that black case that was nearly the size of my entire body, and paused as I stared blankly up at her. I was vaguely aware that I was witnessing history, and quite certain that I would not live to tell of it.

Then, to my amazement, she said, in halting, uncertain words, “You are the head doctor?”

I nodded.

The visor cleared. The human bared its teeth at me. I learned later that this was a “grin”, an expression of friendship and happiness among their species. 

“We are The Doctors Without Borders,” she said, speaking slowly and carefully. “We are here to help.”

[adulthoodisokay]

You can’t get this extremely good kind of content scrolling anywhere else.

[maestrita]

This sparks joy.

[weeping-inks-stash-folder]

Unexpected love and joyous humanity

[leepacey]

I say, jolly good show, chaps. And did I panic? I think not.

[zombeesknees]

#the comic relief who is genuinely comic  #and who makes the ‘incompetent bufoon’ trope actually work as an endearing quality as originally intended  #well played movie - well played  #john hannah  #WHAT A FOX

[antivillain]

#but! BUT!!!#THE GREAT THING ABOUT JONATHAN#IS HE’S NOT INCOMPETENT#he can read ancient Egyptian albeit not as well as his baby sister#he clearly has an interest in archaeology if only for treasure-related reasons#he had to go through intensive schooling to get the sort of permit required#to even have digs of his own#WHICH HE CLEARLY DOES#on a dig down in Thebes#he says and Evie believes him#Jonathan reads from the Book of the Living and he’s an excellent shot with a rifle and is clearly a boxer#Jonathan is SO COMPETENT and SO IMPORTANT#while simultaneously being plucky comic relief without JUST being plucky comic relief#u get me?

[star-anise]

Jonathan, like Phryne Fisher, clearly hasn’t taken anything seriously since 1918.

[jkthinkythoughts]

And, I would suspect, for similar reasons.

[thebluemeany]

^^^This. Jonathan being in World War I makes total sense. It’s almost impossible for him not to have been. Given his age and background, he probably volunteered in 1914.  

Of course he’s going to not take anything seriously. Of course he can shoot. The drinking, the skittishness, the recklessness, the sense of ‘keeping your head down’, the scepticism about traditional heroism….

The one with more actual experience of death, carnage and fighting is Jonathan. Not Rick. Not Ardeth Bey. Jonathan.

When Rick says ‘I’ve had worse (situation/odds)’ and Jonathan replies “ Me too”. That’s probably true. 

Drop The Mummy into the real world context and that’s a character who’s going to have seen a lot of his school friends die, along with the myths and tales of heroism they were raised on. Sort of makes the line where Evie’s scolding him for drinking/messing about a lot darker…

Evie: Have you no respect for the dead? Jonathan: Of course I do, but sometimes I’d rather like to join them.

[gingersnapwolves]

I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS RIGHT NOW

[deadcatwithaflamethrower]

*record scratch*

Wait a minute. Why is it being assumed that Rick and Ardeth wouldn’t have fought in WWI, as well? Johnathan isn’t that much older than any of them–in fact, there is a good chance that he, Rick, and Ardeth are all of an age. Just because Johnathan’s hair is thinning doesn’t mean he’s a decade older.

It was a LOT easier to lie about your age back in the day. So much easier.

Johnathan is the soldier who fought in WWI and became disillusionsed with pretty much everything except wanting to live (most of the time) and live well–and where is the shame in that? He would have seen some of the darkest shit humanity has to offer, and he kept going. And the thing is, though, archaeological digs at that time were DANGEROUS. Not from curses (usually) but from assholes who would turn up with guns to try and steal anything you discovered. Johnathan never really STOPPED having to deal with dangerous pricks, it was just less dangerous than death raining down from the sky in bomb, bullet, and mustard gas form all the time.

Rick grew up in Egypt as an orphan. What paperwork? He joined the French Foreign Legion, which fought in World War I in some seriously critical battles on the Western Front in Europe. Rick is the soldier who quickly grew disillusioned with everything, but he didn’t know how to stop being a soldier. Johnathan had a career and schooling to fall back on. Rick had guns, the talent of not dying easily, and not much else. When the army finally left him behind because he was literally the only survivor of his last FFL battle, he literally didn’t know what to do. At all. “Looking for a good time” was code for “Please someone give me a fucking purpose.”

Ardeth grew up in the desert. He probably never enlisted…but if you think his people didn’t fight against invading forces during WWI, think again: that region of North Africa was swarming with soldiers on both sides, and they alll tried to claim everything they stumbled over even while in the midst of fighting each other. Ardeth spent his entire life fighting to protect what belonged to him, what belonged to his people, and trying to keep assholes from stealing things that didn’t belong to anyone (for good reason). By the time the war was over, Ardeth was disillisioned in everyone except his own people, and seriously fucking done with stupid idiots who stole in the name of archaeology. He is completely (justifiably) resigned to the worst when Rick the Magic Survivalist returns to Hamunaptra.

[serpentine-sorceror-deactivated]

This has been another episode of “Actual History adding context and depth to character behavior”

[filthybonnet]

I love when “The Mummy” fandom comes out to play. But it’s even better when the history side of tumblr is also in “The Mummy” fandom.

[knottingthewind]

Every time this post comes around I am compelled to watch The Mummy again.

[rachelladytietjens]

There is an explicitly nihilistic ‘old soldier’ in the movie too, just to drive home the point.

Winston: “Is it dangerous?”

Rick: “Well, you probably won’t live through it.”

Winston: “By Jove, do you think so?”

[i-am-the-brunette]

@steficek-knedlicek here’s some unnecessary facts and now I’m tempted to watch The Mummy again

[obaewankenope]

The comedic nature of The Mummy misleads people into thinking it’s just a jokey movie but it’s got a lot of stuff in it that hits Hard when you pay attention. This is set post First World War. It’s set in a country that has finally began to kick British rule (although, as usual, the British still occupied Egypt) in 1922. It’s set in 1926, so that freedom is brand new and makes everything very charged politically. 

Jonathan is a rich kid who was raised on stories of heroes and the honour of war, shoved knee-deep into the trenches and learned first-hand that his teachers were liars, the stories untrue, and that the honour of war was for the generals not the soldiers in the trenches being taken out by mortar and mustard gas. 

Rick wasn’t raised like Jonathan and knew there were no heroes to start with. No grand stories to share and believe in the wonder of war. Life is a constant battle and if you don’t keep fighting, then you die. So he joined the French Foreign Legion and he kept damned fighting. 

Ardeth is the outlier in that his entire culture differs to Rick and Jonathan’s. He’s an outsider to the world that places Rick and Jonathan as above him because of their skin colour, their nationality, whatever. Ardeth knows that heroes aren’t always easy to find but they’re out there. They just happen to be people who don’t give up, who fight and fight, and do what’s Right even if it means their death. Ardeth and his people saw war and it’s impossible to not be drawn into it somehow, either as victims or allies to one side or the other. He learnt that war has a cost and that the growing industrialisation of the West made that cost So Much Higher. Swords aren’t the primary weapon now, you don’t fight your opponent up close. Now war is distant and bloody and the crack crack crack of broken silence.

None of them have lived easy lives, either from the beginning or through events greater than any of them. But The Mummy shows very damned well that you can cope with what you see, what your experience.

You either try and pretend it didn’t happen, joke and laugh and hide how you really fear (Jonathan). Or you keep going, surviving from day-to-day and fighting because that’s what you know keeps you alive (Rick). Or you put your damage aside and focus on what needs to be done for the Greater Good because you can’t give yourself the time to break because people need you now (Ardeth).

This movie shows the trauma of war and how little support was given post WWI to survivors because the idea of soldiers having trauma was a shameful, alien concept. Not when single rifles and swords, bows, and arrows, were the way of war, coping was known how to be done. But with machine guns, mortars, and gas designed to kill or drive you mad… how do you cope with that when you’ve never really been taught how to cope with weakness? How do you be vulnerable, admit it, and let yourself heal when you’ve never been taught how?

The Mummy makes it laughy and jokey and keeps it light, but there’s a very real thread of the Cost Of War woven throughout it. Intentionally or otherwise, it’s a damned good representation of the fact that the First World War was a war like no other that came before.

[justanothercinemaniac]

I think I’ve reblogged a version of this before but there’s been A LOT added since.

[weeping-inks-stash-folder]

Reblog for the history lesson, reblog for one of my favorite movies taking a fucking spot-on stance that finally other people see.

[jaubaius]

They are great!!🎵 🎻🔊

[weeping-inks-stash-folder]

Just for music. Just for the sake of feelings.

[fashionsfromhistory]

Snuffbox

c.1740

France

MFA Boston

[jkthinkythoughts]

I have never in my life seen an objet d'art that qualified for the Tiffany Paradox, but here we are. It looks like it fell off a middle school girls bedroom desk circa 1987.

[nonasuch]

I love this.

also I went and looked it up on the MFA website and as I suspected, it’s made of mother-of-pearl! the rainbow parts are probably from iridescent blacklip shells, and the rest is carved white oyster shell.

[hasufin]

There are some Chinese porcelains which are definitely worthy of the Tiffany paradox - I mean, sure, it was made in the 1300s but it’s a lemon yellow tea bowl - but honestly this one really epitomizes the matter.

[english-history-trip]

Hey, check out these funky Chico’s necklaces from my Jewish grandmother’s collection:

SIKE they are 1400 YEARS OLD

[vinceaddams]

ooh, I’ve got some more! Look at this painting.

A Caricature Group by John Hamilton Mortimer, c. 1766.

This does not look like an 18th century oil painting, it looks more like something out of Mad magazine, but nope. 1760’s.

I made a pinterest board for 18th century pottery just to save all the Weird Stuff to it, like this horrible bear jug, which is just one of many similarly horrible 18th century bear jugs! It’s hideous and I love it.

Mugs shaped like people’s heads was also A Thing, here’s one from c. 1782.

And I LOVE this teapot with fossil decoration c. 1760-65. It’s amazing. Perfect. I would so dearly love to have a replica and feature it prominently in a photoshoot with some of my 18th century costumes.

This one is also c. 1760’s.

And one more, also c. 1760!

I love pretty historical dishes with delicate floral patterns as much as the next guy, but seeing weird and bright and tacky stuff from over 2 centuries ago makes me happy.

Honourable mention to these c. 1788-93 stockings with little knitted portraits in between the brightly coloured stripes.

[marzipanandminutiae]

I discovered, when investigating what 1840s pearl earrings looked like for a ball outfit, that they look

EXTREMELY 1980s

seriously I was able to buy something from the Fancy Section of Claire’s that looked almost exactly like the top example

[vinceaddams]

I can’t believe I forgot to add the 1840’s 8-bit foxes!!

This embroidered waistcoat is one of 3 I’ve seen with the same design, so it must have been published in a magazine or something. It’s so weird knowing that it’s 1840’s because it looks so pixel-y, especially with that bright blue background. (And yes, I’ve seen plenty of other pixel-y looking old needlepoint and and such, but they’re usually floral.)

Also, wow, those do look very 1980’s! Very convenient for costumers when things repeat like that!

There’s also a surprising amount of historical jewelry that looks exactly like something my middle school classmates would wear.

Necklace, 1861-67, V&A.

Ring, 1730-60, V&A.

Ring, c. 1780, V&A.

Turns out people have liked heart shaped jewelry for a very long time! …I’ll try not to reblog this a 3rd time when I inevitably think of even more stuff, because a post like this could go on forever.

[tirelipimpesque]

@jamiebythesea

[jamiebythesea]

It’s funny that people picture Victorian fashion as dull an steampunkish in colour, when in reality, bright garish colours were super fashionable thanks to the invention on new dyes.

[weeping-inks-stash-folder]

This makes me so happy to find! It’s good to know that humans have always been bold and weird!

[weeping-inks-stash-folder]

I’m alive (barely)

Still around. I lost access to my accounts because my computer took a shit and I had to go through a bunch of hoops to get it back up and running, but after a year, I’m finally back. To those that are still ghosting around in hopes that I’m still alive, rejoice! I’m alive. I won’t go into detail about what happened to me, but it was nasty. Rest assured I will try to do justice to this blog once more. If you would like, you can also follow my alt account over at @valentino-shepherd.

[gahdamnpunk]

YOO SPREAD THE WORD PEOPLE

[star-anise]

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/05/26/4chan-alt-right-operation-pridefall-pride-month-cyber-attack-starbucks-amazon-homophobia/

Alt-right homophobes are using 4chan to plan a terrifying cyber attack on the LGBT+ community during Pride month

Alt-right 4chan users are plotting to hijack LGBT+ Pride month by clogging social media with poisonous homophobia and boycotting supportive

Brace yourselves, everybody: The fascists of 4chan are planning an anti-LGBT social media blitz starting June 1 for Pride Month

Expect to see a lot of alt-right bots and sockpuppets doing everything possible to increase tension, division, and bad feelings in the LGBTQ+ community.

Basic guidelines:

Focus on your own goals and experiences for Pride Month—instead of just responding to the latest outrage, focus on connecting to people you care about, doing things you enjoy, promoting good causes, sharing media you like, or fundraising for organizations doing good work.

If you see someone promoting hateful or divisive opinions, don’t engage with them and boost their metrics—block and report them

Remember that a lot of troll operations aim to make us feel hopeless and divided. Trolls take our community’s existing vulnerabilities and divisions, and weaponize them. These trolls will be leaning hard on filling social media with new stories about homophobic and transphobic violence and suicide statistics, so we’re upset, in a defensive mentality, and feeling isolated and alone. We have to work together to promote solidarity and positivity.

Double-check news stories before spreading them. Be extra suspicious before you signalboost something. Screencaps can be fabricated; so can videos and images. Google for other sources, check reputable news sites, or look it up on Snopes

Don’t assume people are who they say they are. Trolls will especially assume identities they can use to promote division. They’ll pose as LGBT people so they can inflame infighting or attack LGBT people with fewer consequences, or to frame different groups for misdeeds.

Take care of yourself and don’t let them get you down. Pride 2020 has a huge damper because we can’t do a lot of the things that help us renew and recharge. Being in quarantine means we miss out on festivals, dancing, parades, performances, workshops, and important community-building events. We were already going to have to work to make it a decent Pride at a distance. 4chan wants to make things even worse, so that so we end up feeling paranoid, hypervigilant, abandoned, and at each other’s throats. Do your best to promote your own mental health and everybody else’s, and unplug from social media when you need to.

[gluecookie]

The age old tip of dealing with trolls: 1. DON’T INTERACT WITH THEM 2. IGNORE THEM 3. BLOCK THEM Continue your day online and avoid them as much as possible. Nothing frustrates a troll more than not responding. :) And if you get dogpiled, log off. Turn off notifications. Call some friends. :) Avoid the internet until it has blown over.

[weeping-inks-stash-folder]

For my fellow LGBTQ+ peeps-- stay safe this year, please.

[fuwaprince]

US Helplines:

Depression Hotline: [phone]

Suicide Hotline: [phone]

LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255

Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386

Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743

Eating Disorders Hotline: [phone]

Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673

Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272

Runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000

Exhale: After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253

Child Abuse: 1-800-422-4453

UK Helplines:

Samaritans (for any problem): 08457909090 e-mail [email protected]

Childline (for anyone under 18 with any problem): 08001111

Mind infoline (mental health information): 0300 123 3393 e-mail: [email protected]

Mind legal advice (for people who need mental-health related legal advice): 0300 466 6463 [email protected]

b-eat eating disorder support: 0845 634 14 14 (only open Mon-Fri 10.30am-8.30pm and Saturday 1pm-4.30pm) e-mail: [email protected]

b-eat youthline (for under 25’s with eating disorders): 08456347650 (open Mon-Fri 4.30pm - 8.30pm, Saturday 1pm-4.30pm)

Cruse Bereavement Care: 08444779400 e-mail: [email protected]

Frank (information and advice on drugs): 0800776600

Drinkline: 0800 9178282

Rape Crisis England & Wales: 0808 802 9999 1(open 2 - 2.30pm 7 - 9.30pm) e-mail [email protected]

Rape Crisis Scotland: 08088 01 03 02 every day, 6pm to midnight

India Self Harm Hotline: [phone]

India Suicide Helpline: 022-27546669

Kids Help Phone (Canada): 1-800-668-6868

FREE 24/7 suicide hotlines:

Argentina: 54-0223-493-0430

Australia: 13-11-14

Austria: 01-713-3374

Barbados: 429-9999

Belgium: 106

Botswana: 391-1270

Brazil: 21-233-9191

China: 852-2382-0000

(Hong Kong: 2389-2222)

Costa Rica: 606-253-5439

Croatia: 01-4833-888

Cyprus: 357-77-77-72-67

Czech Republic: 222-580-697, 476-701-908

Denmark: 70-201-201

Egypt: 762-1602

Estonia: 6-558-088

Finland: 040-5032199

France: 01-45-39-4000

Germany: 0800-181-0721

Greece: 1018

Guatemala: 502-234-1239

Holland: 0900-0767

Honduras: 504-237-3623

Hungary: 06-80-820-111

Iceland: 44-0-8457-90-90-90

Israel: 09-8892333

Italy: 06-705-4444

Japan: 3-5286-9090

Latvia: 6722-2922, 2772-2292

Malaysia: 03-756-8144

(Singapore: 1-800-221-4444)

Mexico: 525-510-2550

Netherlands: 0900-0767

New Zealand: 4-473-9739

New Guinea: 675-326-0011

Nicaragua: 505-268-6171

Norway: 47-815-33-300

Philippines: 02-896-9191

Poland: 52-70-000

Portugal: 239-72-10-10

Russia: 8-20-222-82-10

Spain: 91-459-00-50

South Africa: 0861-322-322

South Korea: 2-715-8600

Sweden: 031-711-2400

Switzerland: 143

Taiwan: 0800-788-995

Thailand: 02-249-9977

Trinidad and Tobago: 868-645-2800

Ukraine: 0487-327715

(Source)

[uie-deactivated20230402]

ALWAYS REBLOG WHEN YOU SEE SOMETHING LIKE THIS PLEASE; ITS SO MUCH MORE THAN IMPORTANT TO PEOPLE. IT MEANS EVERYTHING TO SOMEBODY AND EVEN THOUGH YOU MIGHT NOT SEE THIS IN THE SAME LIGHT, SOMEONE MIGHT. INFACT YOU REBLOGGING THIS COULD STOP SOMEONE TAKING THEIR LIFE TONIGHT.

[kitten--aesthetics-blog]

I noticed there isn’t one here for Ireland, so

Irish free suicide helpline: 01-116 123

[ladycedar]

There are a number of students in my GCSE class that have behavioural issues and if they feel uncomfortable they can do anything from storm out of the classroom to throwing chairs and punching their tables. They’re great kids, they just dont always see the light at the end of the tunnel and when they are in stressful situations they dont know what to do other than lash out sometimes. They are 10 months away from their final exams and the pressure is being mounted on them in every aspect of their school lives.

Last week one of the students saw me making little origami stars. Its something I do when I’m feeling anxious to help me focus on something else. He asked if I could show him how to make them. He had been clenching his fists all lesson, which I’ve noticed is a tell that he is struggling to retain composure. I gave him a strip of paper and talked it through with him. Soon half of the class were asking me to show them. They all picked it up really quickly.

After about five minutes and about 8 stars later, the student sat back down and was in a much calmer and motivated mood for the rest of the lesson. Our next lesson I placed a box of paper strips on my desk and when I saw anyone getting worked up about their work I silently placed a strip in front of them and let them get on with it. The lesson after I was amazed to see that students would go up to the box of their own accord, pick up a few strips and head back to their desks to continue working after calming down.

Yesterday I brought a large jar into the classroom and placed my anxiety stars in there. The boys put their strsss stars in there too. When they fill the jar I’m going to bring sweets into the lesson to celebrate them working hard and working through their problems in a positive manner. I know I’m not the teacher they deserve just yet but I feel like I’ve made a big breakthrough with them.

[dynastylnoire]

art therapy is important.

[nothingbutamother]

You are exactly the teacher they need. It’s a brilliant idea and im so glad it works for them.

[shyocean]

Op, post a tutorial?

[whifferdills]

[obaewankenope]

OP, from the bottom of my heart, believe me. You are the teacher they need and deserve. I have tears in my eyes just imagining this. 

Thank you. Thank you for being one of the good ones. 

[jupitersmusings]

good things will happen 🧿

things that are meant to be will fall into place 🧿

[overlord-fire-bubble]

THIS ONE FUCKING WORKS. REBLOG IT.

[essenceofrose]

Okay I reblogged and got into the entrepreneurship program I wanted. This WORKS

[wootwona]

reblog if your account is a trans safe space or owned by a trans person!

[weeping-inks-stash-folder]

I'm trans! And I'm absolutely here for my trans siblings.

[posttraumaticspacelesbian-blog]

sex is biological??????????????? go open a biology textbook?????????????????? its not a social construct ur thinking of gender????????????

i hope the superabundance of question marks is an indication that you’re aware on some level of how utterly wrong you are.

[trigger warning: discussion of genitalia and internal organs]

first of all, when you say “sex” i assume you’re talking about what is called “biological sex”, “sexual dimorphism”, or “sexual difference.”  specifically what you are trying to state or imply here is the material existence of two categories of bodies: male and female.  i’m gonna guess you’re starting with chromosomes since that’s been considered the ‘most fundamental’ basis of sex by transmisogynists since at least 1979.

a sex chromosome is a particular-appearing blob that shows up on a karyotype, or a test involving dyeing and microscopically viewing chromosomes.  chromosomes are little blobs of folded up goop that if you spooled it out long enough you would find to be a chain of DNA–which is to say a chain of base pairs (guanine and cytosine, adenine and thymine).  what you’re also gonna find in there are histones that the chromatin (the material of somewhat spooled DNA) is wrapped around.  In addition, you’re gonna find methylation, and all other sorts of little chemicals and particles in there because guess what?  DNA is not a linear coding system.  DNA codes in chunks–usually triplets that are usually read as certain amino acids, which then come together to form the building blocks of proteins.  but the thing about triplet coding is that it can be very complex.  so

AGGCTTATTAGGCTCTA

can for example simultaneously code as

AGG CTT ATT AGG CTC ta

and

a GGC TTA TTA GGC TCT a

and

ag GCT TAT TAG GCT CTA

like just to give you an example.  now there are signals indicating how that coding should start, but those signals can move around, or be turned on or off.  that’s one of the things methylation is for–it can turn on or off the signals of where to start the coding chain.  methylation for any given part of a DNA strand can be triggered by all sorts of things.  one study found a linkage between rates of diabetes and levels of stress in the grandmothers of those with diabetes–i.e. the stress was linked to diabetes in the grandchildren.  that’s just to give you some idea of the level of complexity of coding.

and the complexities continue at every level.  the proteins that are formed by those DNA sequences may come together in different ways depending on the chemical composition of their environment.  the DNA itself–a three-dimensional object in the same environment–may physically interact with the proteins or with itself.  but also remember that we are talking about chemical goop subject to environmental conditions, which include all sorts of mutagens.  sometimes shit just goes weird (not gonna say ‘wrong’ because that presumes that mutations are ‘bad’ which is bullshit given the necessity of mutation for genetic adaptability–also it means applying anthropocentric notions of functionality, of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behavior, to goop) and AGG CTT ATT loses a letter and becomes AGC TTA tt (this is what’s called a frameshift mutation–you can also have other stuff like point mutations).  also, things can just go weird when the DNA is being replicated–it’s not a perfect reading process, it’s a bunch of chemical reactions floating in goop.  and it’s happening millions of times, so the likelihood that things will go wrong in various ways is high.

but even above the level of the DNA coding, on the level of the chromosomes, things are confusing.  because the chromosomes come together out of more loosely distributed goop when the cell is splitting, and things can go wrong in that process–get misplaced, get shuffled over to the other side, etc.  likewise, there’s a process called crossing-over that occurs at cell replication during metaphase (while the chromosomes are paired at the center of the cell prior to the nucleus dividing) where chromosomes just swap shit around for the heck of it.  and it’s pretty random where this happens too, which can mean that important codes just get cut in half, or new codes get created.

all of which is leading to say that it’s incredibly unlikely to expect any sort of meaningful fifty-fifty split between “XX chromosomes” and “XY chromosomes”.  which works with reality, because in reality we observe all kinds of variations, exactly as we would expect.  now, what happens when there’s variation?  for the most part, things just happen.  it’s all just cells.  they do their thing, make little organs, replicate so the organs get bigger and more specific, etc.  so maybe now you can begin to see why expecting them to neatly behave in two sets of patterns is completely inaccurate?  or why it is that in the real world we observe a wide range of human bodies rather than just XX Barbies and XY Kens?  but even looking beyond that, what’s actually going on with the so-called reproductive system?  well, some of these cells have the ability to generate gametes–sorta like half-cells–which can get together with other gametes to grow into another big blob of organs.  that’s what fertilization and pregnancy is.  that’s all that’s involved.  generally speaking, one type of gametes will appear in the bodies of people whose cells tend to have goop that shows up a certain way on a karyotype, while another type of gametes will appear in the bodies of people whose cells tend to have goop that shows up a different way in a karyotype, with a whole lot of variation and possibilities for things to be disrupted.  so why does that even matter to us?  why am I sitting here at 4am on christmas night with a box of cheezits and a glass of wine answering shitty anons about this? [note: i wrote this a couple days ago and am only now posting it]  because out of those general tendencies of bodies, people have constructed the notion of sex.

patriarchy, at its basis, is a system of economic exploitation that consists of one group of people being assigned to do work which is valued, and another group of people being assigned to do work which is not valued.  this was mapped onto two general groupings of people, those who tended to have one type of gamete and those who tended to have another, and the ones who pushed the idea that their own work was valuable were ‘males’, ‘men’, etc, while those who were forced to be the object of exploitation and violence were ‘females’, 'women’, etc.  as part of the process of valuing male work, men constructed an explanation for the inequality that they claimed derived from the nature of physical reality.  specifically, the notion of 'sexual difference’, or the tendencies of people to produce different sorts of gametes.  in order to better justify and value their exploitation of women, men constructed a whole notion of selfhood around this, an ideal which for them happened to be contained in the organ that most of them used to distribute the gametes.  and in order to justify the violence that they were doing, they argued that there were naturally only two categories of people, grouped based on labor done/positions during sex/gamete production/etc (all these things were conflated and differently emphasized over time, helping to mystify the falsity of the distinction).

the notion that certain types of organs map to certain types of behavior, certain economic patterns, etc, is a product of a social system of oppression.  it is NOT founded in any sort of 'biological fact’ because first and foremost 'biological fact’ does not exist.  an organ is not a signifier except in the context of a socially constructed 'biology’ which is specifically constructed as a justification of patriarchy.  quite literally.  i’ve worked with biologists (yeah, anon, turns out i may have in fact opened a biology textbook a few times in my life) and one thing i can say definitively is that like most scientists they don’t tend to think deeply about how the sorts of questions they ask and the ways they interpret data are structured by the world.  at best they’ve taken a required bioethics class or two while an undergrad.  so when they’re going to interpret mathematical data, they’re doing it in a way that already presumes the real question as answered.  they find sexual dimorphism not because it’s in the results of their data but because it was assumed by the way they asked their questions–if you ask 'which sex is better at math?’ you’re never going to find evidence that 'sex’ is a meaningless construct.  this is what a lot of 'scientific truth’ is, in fact–the things that were already accepted when people went to ask more complicated questions, and which were only torn down, if ever, when all the answers to all the complicated questions continually revealed something which undermined the previous model (which, by the way, is happening right now with the notion of sex–that’s right, even patriarchal scientists are coming to an awareness of how utterly bullshit it is, albeit by the most roundabout way possible and still doing as much harm as they can on the way).

But what we can see from all this is that gender precedes sex.  gender is a way of organizing the social sphere, and biological data is organized off of that.  gender, in other words, is the fundamental category of sex under patriarchy.  now, one might say that we live in a social world, that our subjectivities are socially constructed, and thus for us an organ is a signifier.  this is of course true, but one has to recognize the socially constructed nature in order to realize first and foremost that we are not looking at a rigid system here.  it is not simply a matter of saying that under biological reality a certain chromosome or a certain organ leads to a certain place within patriarchy, and likewise it is not simply a matter of saying that under social construction a certain chromosome or a certain organ leads to a certain place within patriarchy.  if one is aware of the complexity involved in socially constituting what is basically a blob of goo (cells) that does or does not more goo (babies, people, etc) as belonging to a somehow binary and rigid category, one can more easily see how that social construction may at times slip, and result in a person who, for example, has one sort of organ, and yet has had their identity socially constructed within the category for a person with a “different” (within patriarchal notions of 'sexual difference’) type of organ.  in fact, one can only fail to recognize this if one begins from the disingenuous place of assuming a priori that the person in question is being deceptive or being deceived, rather than reporting reality as closely as it can be reported in this language.  and the use of inversions of this language to report closer realities is an effort to redirect and gain control of biopower as it has enacted itself on us.  it is no more or less legitimate than the language of patriarchy, except if one finds legitimacy either in supporting patriarchy (arguing for sex as 'real’) or disrupting patriarchy.

what, then, is sex?  it’s the way people talk about blobs of goop, and specifically the way that blobs of goop have been categorized into two types, in broad defiance of reality, for the express purpose of perpetuating the patriarchy.

so yes, sex is biological, in the sense that the terms of sex are coded into the discourse of 'biology’, which is itself socially constructed by patriarchy.

sex is a social construct.  this is my final fucking word on this shit.

do NOT bring this ignorant shit into my inbox again.