#listen to the experts PLEASE

[darlingofdots]

I saw a [short-form internet video] today asking who people would trust more to learn from about a topic, someone with a PhD in that subject or a neurodivergent person with a special interest in it, and holy shit you guys we need to address this level of anti-intellectualism. I am the first person to point out that you don't need a fancy degree to learn and know things and that we need to be more open to non-academic expertise in many areas* but when it comes to reliable and trustworthy information, a researcher formally trained in their field should absolutely be considered preferable to a layperson who has studied independently. Not because you can't become an expert on your own but because the processes of academic qualification ensure that a person has both basic and specific knowledge of and training in the methodology and advances in their field, they are practiced in assessing the quality of sources and generating their own data, and they are subject to assessment by other experts. In order to get those fancy letters to go with your name you have to prove that you have the knowledge and skills to meaningfully contribute to the scientific conversation; the title is a reward for your hard work but it's also a kind of quality control seal.

Getting a PhD in any subject is really fucking hard. It's gruelling. Most of us do it because we love our research and want to know everything about our chosen topic. As a lot of commenters on that video pointed out, the PhD and the neurodivergent person are often one and the same! But especially in an era when mis- and disinformation is so rampant, we need to remember that although it is flawed, we do have a system to help us assess whether a person sharing information about something we don't know is likely to be reliable or not, and in the vast majority of cases, people who have passed through years and years of rigorous training and assessment should absolutely be our first pick.**

*my field of choice, popular romance studies, owes a lot of knowledge to readers and fans without relevant degrees or institutional affiliation who share their thoughts and observations through book reviews etc., and we're so grateful to them!

**obviously "experts" can be wrong or malicious and laypeople can have extremely valuable insight or experience that we should not dismiss out of hand. That's not what this is about.

[skitskatdacat63]

"The Boy With The Thorn in His Side"(x) - The Smiths × 2023 Strollonso moments + pundits' reactions

[georgeharrisonsmiling]

When was the last time George saw John?

There is not an exact date. What I know is:

George mentioned in an interview that he went to the Dakota in autumn 1978.

One of George's brothers said that George was so protective of his newborn son that he didn't let him out of sight for three months and even his brother wasn't allowed to hold him during that time. Dhani Harrison was born in August 1st 1978.

With that information, I'm guessing that the last time John and George saw each other face to face was probably in November 1978. But nothing is certain.

[pickled-flowers]

Also just because you get annoyed by something someone is doing doesn't mean they are evil you can leave us alone

[skoulsons]

*video of a married couple happy about the way that they live and operate*

commenter: boy just wait til they get divorced bc of unfaithfulness and both of them are miserable and-

Shut !! Up !! Go touch grass and experience the sun for once in your life !!

[wanderlustwoman]

"What rage you must feel as you choke on your sorrow. - Interview With the Vampire (1x01)

[aggressiveoppressive]

mfw I make a 2024 playlist of all my favorite songs so far and it’s already at 150 songs oopsie

[hungee-boy]

my bf and i are ranting about this so sorry if this is out of nowhere but guys come on with the anti-criticism shit

if you like media thats often criticized you can do one of two things

either 1) just ignore it cus the great thing about criticism is that its an opinion and doesnt have to be listened to

or 2) be like "yeah its mid/bad but i still like it" and just move on and enjoy your shit

opinions dont mean anything for real bro just fucking enjoy your life and stop dying on hills trying to defend every bad thing your blorbos do literally who fucking cares

[nightmarecity]

.

[floralovebot]

I'd really like to talk about how non-black artists often draw Aisha with straight or vaguely wavy hair. I know a lot of these artists genuinely just.. don't know, so please understand, that 100% is whitewashing. Whitewashing isn't just about skin - there are a lot of different ways to whitewash real people and fictional characters.

I get that winx club came out in the early 2000s and was originally hand drawn so there were limitations with how well they were able to communicate her hair, however, it's not straight.

"There are four basic curl types of texture types ranging from 1 to 4," shares Yates. "Type 2 denotes wavy hair with no discernible curl, and types 3 and 4 plus additional classifications define both the curl type and shape. If your curls are defined ringlets, think like the shape of a slinky or corkscrew, then you have class 3 curls. If your curls follow more of a 'z' pattern, then you have class 4 types of curls." -source

For reference, here's another chart.

Now here are some pics of Aisha's hair in various hairstyles.

It'd be easy to assume that Aisha's hair is in that loose wavy pattern that takes up Type 2, but I really don't think that's the case. It's hard to place her in an exact category since we can't see the individual strands and therefore can't see if she has waves or defined curls/coils. However! Please take note of the overall shape of her hair, the volume of her hair, how well it holds shape and stays up, and how it moves.

Aisha's hair is most likely in the Type 3 range (and possibly Type 4A)! Again, please look at her updos! Her hair holds shape in ways that Type 2 hair doesn't (not without a lot of product and styling).

Honestly, I think some of this confusion also comes from people having the belief that black women can't have naturally long hair. That's not the case... but it is still a pervasive stereotype.

Anyway, this isn't the most thought out post but it is me asking non-black artists to be aware of how they're depicting black characters. Natural hair is important! And while we may not know Aisha's exact type of hair, we do know that it's not in Type 1 or Type 2. Drawing her with straight hair or somewhat wavy hair is whitewashing and needs to be avoided. Aisha's hair is very stylized and it's not really meant to look Realistic, but portraying her with the hair type she most likely has is important.

Please remember that whitewashing doesn't just mean making someone's skin lighter. Depicting a black character who canonically has curly hair with straight hair instead is 100% whitewashing. Just... please be more conscious of how you depict black characters and how Sometimes you might do something racist without consciously realizing it because you're not black, you've grown up in a racist world, and you do have unconscious biases and stereotypes running around in your brain (everyone does ! you are not exempt !!).

[moranaaaaaaaa]

I just had a thought

Imagine if Crowley and Aziraphale become humans so they can peacefully live together in South Downs cottage?

Just imagine what they will have to learn and how much

They will have to deal with illnesses, learn about pills, acquire cooking skills, get a job because they wont be able to miracle anything anymore. And to get a job they need sort of education for that (at least the document of ending high school, because I doubt Crowley has any docs)

They will have to learn about paying bills for electricity, running water...

And just in general how to live in society by being people

[vaspider]

Tonight, the night before Election Day 2024 in the US, I am thinking about my stepkid.

I am thinking about the phone call they made to us earlier this year, the one where they told us they'd gone to the hospital thinking they had appendicitis and found out, instead, that a zygote - a tiny splodge of cells - had taken up residence not in their uterus but in a fallopian tube. The one where our kid said they were waiting for their partner to arrive, hoped that said partner would get there before the docs took our kid back to terminate that pregnancy, & assured us that they'd be okay.

After all, our kid lives in a state with choice measures embedded in state law. That pea-sized blot of tissue doesn't have more right to their health than they do. Nobody is standing between them and their doctors. They made a decision, and that was that.

In this tiny tragedy, the kind that plays out dozens of times a day at minimum across the country, we only had to worry about the small risk of surgery complications. We didn't have to worry about Ken Paxton threatening to charge their doctors with felonies. We didn't have to think, "What if the hospital's legal team doesn't think an ectopic pregnancy - which is never ever viable and must be terminated before it kills our kid - is really that big of a deal?" We didn't have to worry that they live in a state where ob-gyns are fleeing, leaving few experts behind, as has happened in Idaho.

We didn't have to watch our kid vomit up black blood before dying the day after their baby shower the way Neveah's mom did. We didn't have to pray in a waiting room (while doctors took our kid apart until their heart stopped because the doctors waited too long out of fear of anti-choice laws) until a doctor came to tell us we'd have to bury them the way that Amber's mom did. We aren't having to pick up our lives after fully treatable miscarriage-related sepsis took them from us the way that Josseli's husband and daughter must.

I could go on for far, far too long.

Listen. If you are a single-issue non-voter and have already decided that "both parties are the same" or whatever other thing you've told yourself so you can sleep at night, smug and secure, then I can't reach you and I can't help you. But if you genuinely think that your votes don't matter, if you're just suffering from a bout of overwhelm or apathy, if you're too young to remember the 2000 election and can't see that Dobbs is a direct result of that election and every one that's followed, please, I am fucking begging you.

I didn't really talk about this when it happened. I mentioned something briefly, maybe. The posts I've started writing about it are still in my drafts. It was too fresh, too frightening. It's not any less frightening now, honestly - because if this week doesn't end with President Kamala Harris, we're headed for a national abortion ban, at the minimum - but it's not about how fucking frightened I was or how sad and bewildered I was to realize that my kid was going through this crisis in a nation more hostile to them than when I needed a D&C for an abortion at 21, in 1998.

It's about stopping this chapter of this fucking bullshit and at least finding some new fucking bullshit.

Vote, dammit.

Do the other work on Wednesday. Tomorrow, the work is to vote.

[xxvi0lent-vahlkampfiidaexx]

just as you must keep an eye out for antisemitism dogwhistles you must also keep an eye out for the people who will jump at the chance to dismiss anything as antisemitism, when all the pale noses were the same and it's a very common cartoon style.

even taking into account that crooked noses have been acartoon style it's still something with historical connections to antisemitism (including the history of it being a cartoon style itself) and in the context of the cartoon where the characters with them were Jewish, it was something that needed to be pointed out.

[james-stark-the-writer]

someone asked Neil Gaiman to post Somerton's new video about good omens and this was an addition in a reblog to his post and it should give you a good example of just how much damage Somerton has done. he was very much a grifter who preyed on people who didn't know any better, if you find one source out there that you think is important, go looking for more! it is incredibly rare that someone is alone in their field, hell actually check out their citations (when they do have them, of course, as we've learned from the video) if you can't find people to talk to or look up.

another thing is that people also have this idea that today is so entirely different from any time before that we've just become entirely different people about sex stuff and queer stuff when there are like. literally multiple poems and stories from the 1600s and 1700s about having sex and orgasms and a bunch of shit (a few good ones to look at are "The Imperfect Enjoyment" by John Wilmot and "The Disappointment" by Aphra Behn and for queer ones with sexual ideas a decent one is "Christabel" by Samuel Coleridge and well there's a whole bunch of plays like William Congreve's "The Way of The World" that are about cuckoldery and marriage contracts and prenups) and a lot of gay shit that y'all who think it was all sexually repressed puritans without queer people around need to get through their heads.

ok i finally understand where gen z gays on tumblr are getting insane ideas like "marriage equality was a waste of time and only of interest to rich white cis gays who wanted respectability" and "bob iger is pro-gay". it was fucking james somerton this whole time. "american GIs joined the european front purely out of envy for nazi bodybuilding" <<<< actual thing he said seriously in a video. and people were just like "yup sounds good" ?????

[chrome-barkz-aac]

i made this instagram post !!! there isn't as big of a community of AAC users on instagram so I thought I would share this on my instagram (@cytochromesea).

EDIT: i got an ask that states that not everyone knows what AAC is which is an oversight on my part, it stands for alternative and augmentative communication!

Image ID:

A light blue background with a rainbow and a cloud and some stars. There is a blue border collie with wings holding an aac tablet that says I love you! Text reads: AAC etiquette. Do’s, Don’ts, and other stuff. By cytochrome sea.

The same background appears in every following slide. Text reads:

AAC is my voice! It is not a toy or accessory

Don’t touch my AAC without my permission

Don’t take my AAC away from me, for any reason (joke, punishment, etc)

Don’t press buttons randomly or flip through my communication cards without permission

How would you like it if I randomly poked you on the mouth and throat (or on your hands if you sign)? It would be unpleasant, so don’t do that to me

Some AAC users can speak sometimes. It is not your business why someone can or cannot talk

Don’t ask questions about why an AAC user cannot speak. 

Do let us communicate however is best for us in that moment

Don’t ask us if or when we will be able to speak verbally. It’s not your business 

Do not value verbal speech more highly than AAC. Any communication is good communication

Some of us never talk, either, and that’s ok! Those of us who can talk sometimes are not better than those of us who can’t. None of us owe you an explanation for our use of AAC.

Don’t look at my screen until I show you. It feels really invasive!

It feels like when someone is looking at your phone screen over your shoulder, so please don’t do this

This applies to low tech AAC as well, don’t look at someone’s cards or letter board until they show you

You have the dignity of forming your thoughts in your head before you say them, whereas my thoughts are all on display. Please afford me the same dignity that you get automatically.

Don’t shame someone for not being able to speak verbally. It makes us feel horrible

We are real people with thoughts and feelings. Please treat us with kindness. 

We are trying our best

Don’t shame someone if their device mispronounces a word. It’s quite literally out of our control.

Other Don’ts. Don’t

Don't Treat an AAC user as childish or stupid for not being able to speak. Our ability to speak does not define our worth

Don't Show frustration at the way someone communicates

Don't Make comments about how fast or slow we communicate

Also don’t…

don't Act surprised when we swear or talk about adult topics like sex, drugs, or violence. We are not pure uwu precious smol beans, we are normal fucking people

don't Assume what is “wrong” with us. There are about a hundred reasons for someone to use AAC and you probably aren’t the expert in any of them.

“OK, so what CAN i do?” im glad you asked! When interacting with an AAC user, DO…

Ask us how we prefer to communicate and support us as you are able

Assume that we are competent

Talk to us with the same respect, tone and vocabulary that you would for any one else

Give us money (this one is a joke)

Understand that AAC grammar isn’t perfect and we are doing our best

Is it rude if…

I can’t understand your device? Not rude! Misunderstandings happen all the time in any conversation, just be patient as you would normally. 

I want to complement your AAC? Not rude!

I ask to see your AAC and understand how it works? This isn’t rude if you are already talking about AAC, but don’t ask random strangers this. They don’t owe you an AAC tour. 

Thank you for listening! This post is for the community! If you are an AAC user, let me know if I missed something in the comments and I will pin it! I hope you are filled with peace and love and I hope something good happens to you today! End ID. 

[sshaw0l]

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