#tumblr anecdote

[marlynnofmany]

In the interest of not derailing this already-long-and-awesome thread, here are some more details! (Paging @sparrows-corner and any other interested parties.)

So in my first semester of college, I took an Intro to Psychology class. I didn't expect anything special; it was just one of those general education courses that everybody was supposed to take at some point. But it turned out amazing.

What the general public didn't know at that point was someone in the college administration had screwed up and forgotten to assign a teacher to this class. Until a week before class. When several students emailed to ask why that detail was missing in the online listing.

The administration panicked, scrambled for someone-anyone-omg-who-can-drop-everything-and-teach-this-class. They called recently-graduated owners of Masters Degrees in teaching.

They found Sandy.

She was qualified and available, and much older than the average recent grad, with the confidence to go with it. This was still a daunting task, though, and she agreed on one condition: that she team-teach the class with a friend of hers who was still working on finishing his degree.

Having no other choice and seeing no real problem with this, the administration agreed. And thus was born the most glorious educational comedy act in my entire academic career. The two of them were a delight. They knew all the stuff they needed to teach, and they knew a great deal more, and they delivered lectures in a way that had everyone paying eager attention. It was great.

This friend, by the way, was awesome in his own right. While Sandy was a curly-haired white lady around middle age, Wayne was a black guy who (1) dressed in impeccable suits and (2) had cerebral palsy.

I think a lot of 18-year-old minds were quietly enlightened about a few things just from watching these two banter back and forth, one with joints more wobbly than the other. Wayne told a memorable anecdote at one point about stopping by a grocery store in sweat pants instead of his usual classy wear. The cashier asked some gentle question about what he spent his time on, assuming that he had some sort of carer following him around. The expression on her face when he told her that he taught college was one I'll never forget, and I didn't even see it.

Anyways, at the end of this semester, the two teachers asked a few of us smart kids if we wanted to be TAs (teaching assistants) for the next semester. Since most of us had already become friends during the make-a-group-and-discuss-things portions of the class, this sounded like a party that would look good on our records later. And it really was.

I TA'd for that class a few times in a row, with my buddies and the two very cool teachers. We met up outside of class for holiday parties and everything.

And, since this was during the time the Lord of the Rings trilogy was first coming out in theaters, we all dressed up in costume and went to an early screening together.

Wayne drove. His handicap placard meant we got to park at the front, which was pretty awesome.

Now, I'd met people before who knew more LotR lore than I did, but they all paled in comparison to Sandy. As I said in the notes on that other post, she shared some stories of her youth with us. When she was fourteen, she ran away to join a hippie commune. She already knew fluent elvish, and she used that to help the commune's drug-runners stay out of the clutches of the cops, by translating their drug notes into a language the cops couldn't read. With a start like that, it was unsurprising that she still knew elvish now, along with all sorts of fascinating deep lore.

She had a limited edition book that looked shockingly expensive. She made beeswax candles for all the TAs as holiday gifts, with our names written on them in elvish. I still have mine somewhere.

I haven't heard from any of these lovely people in a long time, since college moves on and so does life, but I will treasure those memories forever. I hope Sandy and Wayne and the others are doing well. They deserve the best.

[ullevikk]

'cause this silent disco is yours and yours alone

[peachdoxie]

Re: the post about Tumblr transitioning to a skeleton staff that's going around, it's funny/infuriating how outraged people are in the notes getting into an uproar about how Tumblr didn't "do everything they could" to "fix" the site, and then they list things that are like, [impossible to implement due to external restrictions] [illegal] [attempts to generate revenue that's not through ads] [not actually a widespread issue] [misinterpretations of the situation] [a problem so big that even websites like Facebook can't deal with them well]. Like tell me you don't know what you're talking about without telling me you don't know what you're talking about.

Also stop being dicks to random staff members using the website who have next to no power to make any of the changes you ignorantly think should happen.

[justheblueberry]

i'll only remember...your name.

that's good enough.

[gay-otlc]

If you don't menstruate anymore but you used to, vote for whichever product you used to prefer.

[sualne]

have some trans swan lake barbies

[ani-is-my-username]

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, in Duckburg! 🎄

Text above Dewey reads “Got to put on the star this year”

This was actually very fun to do! It’s heavily based off of my childhood Christmases: back then, me and my sister took turns on placing the star at the top of the tree once we finished decorating it each year. Said star was very top heavy so it always ended up wobbling on the side, which was very infuriating for me as a child. But now, I kind of see it as a part of our tradition: imperfect.

[evadneares]

Tory Adkisson, "Anecdote of the Pig"

[sobaology]

—a dead man's repentance.

the alternate name for this piece was "the judgement of roland." i took inspiration from a piotr stachiewicz painting of unknown title

plus some details that i was proud of but had to be compressed! including a lil ultrakill reference because i like to think that the gabriel knight/roland met really was just our gabe <3

[lanietadelatierra]

It was an autumn evenin’ down in Jackson, and I was sittin’ on the porch holdin’ my first newborn baby girl. Behind me, the windows were draped with white curtains, glowin’ soft from the light inside the house. 

‘And I believe ’cause I can see our future days, days of you and me,’ I sang to my baby, watchin’ her little face light up with a smile. 

Old Joel Miller hadn’t made it back from work yet, so it was just me and my baby girl alone together. 

I glanced up and there Ellie was, standin’ a few steps away from me, in almost total darkness, pointin’ her lit lantern right at me. I couldn’t believe it, it’d been near a year since we’d laid eyes on her. 

Ellie stood there, her face all mixed up with surprise and curiosity as she took in the scene in front of her. She was clearly caught off guard seein' me holdin’ a baby, her eyes wide as she looked at me. 

‘Ellie?’ 

‘hey!’ 

Ellie took a few cautious steps toward me, her expression still uncertain. As she got closer, I noticed the tattoo on her arm, a stark reminder of the changes she’d gone through since the last time I’d seen her. She seemed more confident and self-assured, her demeanor a bit hardened from the time she’d spent away. A little shiver ran through me as she got closer, and the discomfort grew inside me. 

[lune-moon-nuit]

A small addition / PS to my post on heteronormativity. Link on the post :)

A few weeks ago, I shared with you a childhood anecdote to illustrate how heteronormativity and conformity subtly influence us from a very young age and how this dynamic shapes our beloved characters in Stranger Things, set in a rural American town in the 1980s. I demonstrated that despite the progress and shifts in mentality between the 1980s and 2007 (the year of my anecdote), stereotypes and preconceived notions still persist, whether we like it or not.

Well, let me share with you another recent anecdote that further confirms this observation.

For context, I work as an ATSEM (Agent Territorial Spécialisé des Écoles Maternelles, as it's called in France) in a preschool (it's the equivalent of "Nursery assistant" or/and "preschool teaching assistant"). Since I’m currently part of the city's substitute pool, I also work in daycare centers (with babies as young as six months up to toddlers of three years old), but mainly in preschools (with children aged three to six). And let me tell you, despite all our efforts to avoid gender stereotypes, many of my youngest students already mimic what they see at home or on TV when interacting with their peers.

I've seen children trying to kiss their friends—or even adults—on the lips, simply imitating “Mommy and Daddy.” Keep in mind, these kids are only three or four years old. This means that the seeds of heteronormativity have already been planted in 2025, despite all our efforts to shield them from stereotypes.

I can’t count how many times I’ve had to remind them that pink isn’t just for girls, or that kissing someone on the lips isn’t appropriate—that only adults can do that with each other, and that no adult should ever kiss them on the mouth. And the worst part? It’s not their fault. The adults around them—especially their parents and family members—are their role models, their pillars, the ones they trust most. To them, adults are inherently right because adults know everything. And in a way, that makes sense—children know nothing about the world yet; they are in the process of learning absolutely everything.

This also reminds me of another childhood memory from a summer camping trip. I must have been six or seven years old, playing in the park with a little girl I had just met. I remember initiating a game where we pretended to be in love, and I kissed her on the lips. I was merely copying what I saw around me—adults in love, scenes on TV, music videos, etc. (Looking back, I also think I was unconsciously influenced by the abuse I endured at that age without fully realizing it. I distinctly remember feeling a strange pressure, a need to keep it secret, as if I had done something wrong. That feeling intensified in my mind, making me believe I had misbehaved. In hindsight, I suspect that, on some level, I was reenacting what a certain bastard had done to me, though everything blurred together in my head anyway.)

These memories resurfaced, making me realize just how deeply ingrained these patterns are—whether in 1983, 2007, or 2025. No matter how much progress we make, no matter how open-minded society becomes, heteronormativity is still here. And it still reigns.

[freakurodani]

The parallel between Sokka and Tenzin as their fathers' sons.

Sokka, left at 13 as his father and all the other men head off to war. Hakoda tells him "being a man is knowing where he's needed the most" and he needs to protect his sister, his home.

Tenzin is the second airbender. He is also half water tribe, he's a man. When Aang dies, he will be the last airbender. He understands what he needs to do.

Untold amount of pressure and responsibility have been thrust upon them by their fathers. Though, I believe it is not all intentional, but the unfortunate circumstance of being the fathers of sons who take responsibility incredibly seriously.

In Sokka's case, "protect your sister" is a vague instruction. It was meant to give him purpose, to help him feel okay about being left behind, He is too young for war, his father does not want to bring his child to slaughter. But Sokka will die with purpose. He will train the children of his tribe so they will be protected, he will face a fire nation ship until his last breath. He cannot go to war, but Hakoda did not see that war was all around them. In trying to give Sokka purpose, Hakoda put their world on his shoulders.

We do not get to see Aang be a father (in the TV shows), but we know he had hopes for the future. All his children were air nomads, and the air acolytes brought his culture back, but Tenzin could bend. This part of their culture is one ONLY they share. I do not think Aang would hide this, he is joyous that he gets to share his culture. When he feels respected, he always is, he taught the air acolytes after all. Off handedly, he could say, "I'm hopeful for a future where there are lots more air benders," and that, which feels mostly innocuous to him, is the nail in the coffin of Tenzin's fate. He is Avatar Aang's son, and the future of the air benders. It would not matter that Aang meant a future in generations. Tenzin sees the responsibility and it's his. He is his father's only air bending child, he knows what he needs to do.

Being a parent is not understanding the way the things you say harm your children. Even those things that feel innocuous in the moment can be life altering. Especially the more the child respects the parent. Purpose and Hope for those with a broader perspective, can be death sentences to a life that could have been when expressed to those who idolize the former.

[chthonic-cassandra]

The moment when you're watching a Renoir film and realize that the actress on screen was married first to Georges Bataille and then to Jacques Lacan.

[peachdoxie]

Reading all this Batfam fic has me trying to guess what stuff happened in canon based on how often it's referenced in multiple works like I'm some scholar trying to reconstruct some ancient lost ur-text based on other people's retellings of it. Like, I'm pretty sure the Batman canon included a scene where Red Hood breaks into the Titans Tower, attacks Tim Drake, and leaves a message saying "Jason Todd was here." Variants of it have shown up in quite a few fics I've read. Do I know the details? Not really. I think that Tim's shoulder was dislocated and the other Titans were drugged, too, but I'm less sure about those than I am of the event broadly happening. Granted, the first fandom in which I read copious amounts of fic is Danny Phantom, notorious for its extensive fanon, so I'm aware that I can't say conclusively whether or not Red Hood attacked Tim Drake in Titans Tower. But I'm pretty sure it happened.

[0nelinerwordplay]

There is no 'i' in team but there are 3 in narcissistic.

[flowersfromunderground]

The past is a place but present is where life happens.