#many of those being political

[bloodanddiscoballs]

Kim is a,fascist

are you stupid

[uncanny-tranny]

"Treatment" for addiction that requires you to lock up, confine, coerce, or otherwise strip addicts of their autonomy, it isn't treatment. It is a revenge fantasy that prioritizes your desire for subjugation over the actual betterment of addicts.

[thedisablednaturalist]

physically disabled person: hi

every abled neurodivergent person in the whole world: Hi I know this isn't about autism but I have executive dysfunction and I really think we should talk about that more not to derail or anything I just wanted to share my experience :) don't forget that not all disabilities are visible! I have anxiety and depression and this explains sooo much!

[pinkd3mon]

Bonus piece from this art

[rustchild]

one of the wild things about people’s stubborn insistence on misunderstanding The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is that the narrator anticipates an audience that won’t engage with the text, just in the opposite direction. Throughout the story are little asides asking what the reader is willing to believe in. Can you believe in a utopia? What if I told you this? What about this? Can you believe in the festivals? The towers by the sea? Can we believe that they have no king? Can we believe that they are joyful? Does your utopia have technology, luxury, sex, temples, drugs? The story is consulting you as it’s being told, framed as a dialogue. It literally asks you directly: do you only believe joy is possible with suffering? And, implicitly, why?

the question isn’t just “what would you personally do about the kid.” It isn’t just an intricate trolley problem. It’s an interrogation of the limits of imagination. How do we make suffering compulsory? Why? What futures (or pasts) are we capable of imagining? How do we rationalize suffering as necessary? And so on. In all of the conversations I’ve seen or had about this story, no one has mentioned the fact that it’s actively breaking the fourth wall. The narrator is building a world in front of your eyes and challenging you to participate. “I would free the kid” and then what? What does the Omelas you’ve constructed look like, and why? And what does that say about the worlds you’re building in real life?

[nathaniacolver]

i feel like tumblr NEEDS to know about Dr. Ally Louks, and the term "Olfactory Ethics"

(long post incoming)

storytime/timeline:

on november 27, 2024, an excited English Literature PhD recipient posted a picture of herself with her thesis, titled:

"Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose"

as you can see (on the bottom row, above), the tweet has been viewed over 119 MILLION times, and has received over 250k likes. unfortunately, within days (most of the replies dating december 1st), she had garnered what seems like every possible insecure man with a twitter account to post their vitriol and rage concerning the fact that a woman is clearly more well-researched than them. regardless, she tanked it ALL with kindness and with a smile:

AND I MEAN VITRIOL (queen of making boundaries clear):

(inserting reading break for the timeline's space's sake):

here's her abstract:

and in case the abstract wasn't clear, she has since (date: december 16th) taken the time to re-summarize her thesis for the layman (yes that is a link! click it! 3min read!)

she has repeatedly shown just the perfect amount of kindness and understanding for those who are simply Not Comprehending (mostly december 1st):

(the chatGPT hate in the next one is my favorite:)

has upheld an incredibly high moral standard of how she interacts with the situation (december 2nd):

ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS: regardless of this crap, she made it clear that as a professor, her FIRST priority at the end of the semester would be taking care of them (december 3rd)

(CAN SHE GET MORE BASEDDDDDDDDDD)

she stays both 1) educating the masses, and 2) engaging with pop culture as much as a normal person would (december 9th-17th):

she also supports a free palestine (WHO IS SURPRISED. NOT ME.) ((december 15th))

here's the BEST FREAKING THING ABOUT THIS. since this all has happened, RANDOM TWITTER USERS, UNKNOWINGLY, have REPEATEDLY proven her thesis to be true,

again,

and again,

AND AGAIN.

EVEN CARDI B DO YOU HEAR MEEEEEEEE

COMBATING MISOGYNOIR WITH HER OWN BARE HANDSSSSS

oh she knows she's mother

here's some more she never saw/commented on (INCLUDING SOME FROM TODAY. IT IS STILL GOING ON. EVERY SINGLE DAY LIKE CLOCKWORK SOMEONE POSTS SOMETHING THAT PROVES HER POINTS ABOUT OLFACTORY ETHICS):

THE WICKED MOVIE REFERENCE HELLO

apparently, OTHER academics are mad at her for being so famous and influential, but she stays unbothered (december 16th, and TODAY, december 19th):

and she's partially getting her post-doc on how people's sense of smell has been altered (december 1st):

and the best part is!

all of these screenshots i've collected are only a SAMPLE, illustrating dr. louks' indomitably kind and ethical character.

anyway. i want ALL of y'all to start saying, out loud, "olfactory ethics", or even better, "dr. louks was RIGHT" (something something women's names are erased something) every time you see something that plays into her thesis. never let her influence die. THINK THROUGH what you're REALLY saying when you comment on the smell of something, or how your perception has been shaped by society. USE THIS PHOTO IF YOU HAVE TO:

follow her on twitter (@DrAllyLouks) or bluesky (idk her handle, if someone tells me i'll edit it in)

AND SAY HER NAME!! DR. ALLY LOUKS

[ratatatastic]

he is quite literally every techie's worst nightmare girl please stop touching the mic STOP TOUCHING IT. YOU DONT NEED TO CONTINUOUSLY BRING IT CLOSER TO YOU AND MOVING IT BACK THATS THE PERSON ON SOUND'S JOB. STOP IT.

post practise interview | 6.23.24 (x)

[thepoisonroom]

'I flirted with the idea that instead of being trans that I was just a cross-dresser (a quirk, I thought, that could be quietly folded into an otherwise average life) and that my dysphoria was sexual in nature, and sexual only. And if my feelings were only sexual, then, I wondered, perhaps I wasn’t actually trans.

I had read about a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen, by a Northwestern University professor who believed that transwomen who were attracted to women were really confused fetishists, they wanted to be women to satisfy an autogynephilia. And though I first read about this book in the context of its debunkment and disparagement, I thought about the electricity of slipping on those tights, zipping up those boots, and a stream of guilt followed. Maybe this professor was right, and maybe I was only a fetishist. Not trans, just a misguided boy.

About a year later, on the Internet, I come across a transwoman who added a unique message to the crowd refuting this professor. Oh, I wish I remember who this woman was, and I wish even more that I could do better than paraphrase her, but I remember her saying something like this: “Well, of course I feel sexy putting on women’s clothing and having a woman’s body. If you feel comfortable in your body for the first time, won’t that probably mean it’ll be the first time you feel comfortable, too, with delighting in your body as a sexual thing?”'

-Casey Plett, Consciousness

[beigetiger]

It’s fucking over you guys. What the fuck.

[largemandrill]

I’m obsessed with an item description, please don’t help me

Also I made these to help with the illness he gave me

Close-ups of the main illustrations (I’m never fully rendering them but I still like them)

As always, I’m willing to clarify my notes if asked! I know my handwriting can be hard to read sometimes lol.

[adolin]

Do you have any Coronabeth Worsetwin thoughts about Abigail's reaction to finding out Ianthe become a Lyctor in HtN ("Blast. It should have been Coronabeth. Ianthe never was quite the thing")? I love Abigail but ngl I am also a Corona Worsetwin truther in part because I would find it much more satisfying for one of the series' designated Rational Moral Adults to be categorically wrong about Corona.

OH I love this! I hadn't really thought out it until now, but my first reaction is that it might have been just the general "Ugh, yuck, Ianthe?" vibe that she seems to evoke, since she's very much unpleasant on main. But when thinking about it more in-depth, I think Abigail's perception of WHY Corona would be more suited to Lyctorhood depends on which qualities Abigail thinks a Lyctor should possess that Ianthe lacks.

One thing about Abigail in HtN is that she is as much of an atheist as you can get in TLT, but also she seems to have a sort of romanticised view of John (calling him "the Kindly Emperor", "I've longed my whole life to give him my findings") and I wonder if this extends to her conception of Lyctorhood as a sort of state of idyllic quest for knowledge — "the beauty of necromantic mysteries" as Harrow puts it. She's also the leader of a House known for its diplomacy, influence, and not-so-subtle expansionistic ambitions.

So, is she thinking about Corona's diplomatic skills? Her political knowledge? Or — because at this point she still believes Coronabeth is also a necromancer — is she thinking that Corona was the better necromancer than Ianthe, as it was widely speculated?

Going wildly off into headcanon land, we know Abigail has anti-Cohort sympathies (as per Judith's files) and I wonder if that plays a part. We know that Corona regards the Houses's expansionistic strategy as inefficient, but I don't think it's something Abigail would know. Maybe she just thinks Corona would be able to assert authority over the Cohort better? (One of my pet speculations is that there's some antagonism between the Cohort and the Lyctors, and if that's actually a thing Abigail could be aware of it.)

I think it's a combination of Corona's people skill, her personal experience with both twins, and the fact that Ianthe actively puts off everyone she meets.

(If anyone has any opinions about Abigail here PLS feel free to add, I too love her but she's one of the hardest characters to figure out for me)

Personally, a solid 40% of why I am a Corona Worsetwin truther is because I think it's hot. The rest is her everything in NtN / AYU from the threatening suicide to statecraft scheming, with a smattering of that one Taz interview <3 I'm excited to see her wreck havoc in AtN.

[uncanny-tranny]

I promise you can speak about and denounce undesirable behaviour without attributing it to some in-born, immutable, unchanging trait that you must "civilize" away.

In this specific instance that inspired this, you really don't need to attribute bad behaviour that's done by a man with unchanging character traits. This isn't even solely about men, because doing this affects everyone, men included.

"Men needed to be civilized out of behaving this way!" Who are you expecting to be doing the civilizing and why? This is just defending the idea that women are responsible for training up men - the millenia-old idea that a man's failings are actually a woman's fault, not his.

As a man, I am responsible for my actions. You don't need to dehumanize me in order to preserve your misogyny and your need to hate a group of men. Don't get me wrong, this rhetoric absolutely is not good for men to face. It especially targets men who have experiences with marginalized identities. If you're on my page, you know that this is something I deal with personally, have personal stakes in that affect my life daily. I just also think we really need to remember that this issue exists in a context where women and other folks will inevitably be punished as a direct result of these ideas as well.

I need to make that last part emphatically clear: even if this rhetoric (somehow) only hurt men, it would still be wrong. It would still be wrong! I want to - as a man - remind people (especially those who already have decided to dehumanize entire groups of people) that nobody is safe from being exempt from punishment due to this rhetoric.

[periwinkle-warden]

I was one of those people who only really watched the game awards for the new game reveals unless a title or two I was particularly invested in was getting a portion of the spotlight. But this year I'm actively refusing to watch on principal.

It says a lot about their priorities that veilguard got a single pittance of a nomination for accessibility, yet black myth wukong, whose developers are more than a little grossly misogynistic, got several.

[exasperatedoctopus]

Mirrorverse! Mirrorverse! MIRRORVERSE! MIRRORVERSE! MIRRORVERSE!!!!!!

[drev-the-procrastinator]

ugghhh EBU refusing to let Zelenskyi speak at the Ukrainian Eurovision finale because "it would be against the rules because Eurovision is apolitical uwu" like. EBU. Girl. You do understand that refusing to let him speak there is a political act in and of itfself right???? Do you think you kicked Russia out for the lols??? The 1st semifinal's show with all the text messages on the screen was just a fancy visual??? The pride flags in the audience not a political statement in support of LGBTQ+ rights??? lmao please. apolitical my ass

[asha-mage]

I think, on reflection, I agree with the choice to split Hurin's role between Errol and Elyas- he's one of my favorite minor characters in the series but I can be objective and admit he's an easy cut. But it dose leave me wondering how their going to be bring in an important element of Rand's character: the noblesse oblige that Hurin instilled in him.

One of the important themes of WoT overall is people's relationship to power and government. Jordan is fascinated with the idea of how dynasty, noble houses, monarchies, etc get started, how they function, and how they fall apart. Jordan spends a lot of time and energy exploring both their virtues and their common failings, and one of the things that makes his writing unique is that he's not trying to sell a certain PoV to the audience: he is neither in the Monarchy Good or Monarchy Bad camp, but instead is interested in showing different sides and elements to these systems through his characters and conflicts.

This relates to Hurin because as much as he gets mocked sometimes for being 'obsessed with following a Lord' what Hurin is actually expressing is 1) the prevalent attitude of common people in his society and 2) a very human impulse on which these sorts of systems are based. Hurin wants to believe their is someone in charge whose sole job it is to take care of everything and make it right- when everything falls out from under him and he finds himself literally in situation completely beyond his depth, he looks to Rand to be that person, and the narrative does not judge him for it. Hurin is used to living in a system where their is a class of people whose whole existence is (supposed to be) dedicated to protecting, leading, and aiding the common folk. This is alien to Rand (who was after all raised by anarchist tax evaders), but he comes to view it as a duty and a responsibility, and one that he can't take lightly. A Whole Person is putting their faith in him, and that is both an honor and a burden, but one that is critical to the noble-commoner relationship.

This sense of Noble Obligation informs sharply Rand's relationship to different aristocrats throughout the rest of the series, especially the justice he dishes out to the High Lords of Tear (who have forsaken that obligation to instead regard their status as a right). It also become a huge part how he handles being The Dragon. After all, what is being the savior of the world, but someone with the ultimate duty, the ultimate obligation to set everything aside, from their heart to their humanity, in order to protect the innocent?

I don't doubt they'll bring this in some other way of course, but I am a touch sad to see Hurin's part in it end up on the cutting room floor.