redshiftsinger - Tumblr blog

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rights received

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can we like…get rid of the so-called leather and rubber “pride flags” ? it’s honestly ridiculous and offensive to the lgbtq community. those aren’t pride flags. 

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the thing about gay bdsm dynamics is they will make explicit what is implicit in normative cisheterosexual dynamics and then those complicit in cisheterosexuality will act all scandalized about seeing themselves in the funhouse mirror

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I think about this tiktok daily

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elon musk had a third child with grimes that he kept secret until the release of his biography. he named it techno mechanicus

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Like the thing that i cannot understand about this arguement is that bad moderation means no moderation should be allowed?

That isn't the argument. You're going to bat against a strawman you imagined in your head, OP.

The argument is: AO3 made a promise to users to host all works they're legally allowed to host.

Beginning to limit what's permissible would be breaking that promise, and would anger users who signed on with the expectation that it would be upheld.

Starting to censor AO3 would be like if the library started saying "because we've had complaints from booksellers that we let people access books without buying them as individuals, we're not going to let you check out books anymore. Instead we're going to start functioning like a bookstore. You have to buy the books if you want to read them". It would very rightfully piss off everyone who has supported the library based on the promise it made: that they will provide access to books to people who can't or don't want to buy those books for themselves as individuals.

The argument is that going back on your word just to appease people who want the world to be worse in the specific ways that the service you're providing was intended to mitigate is a bad idea.

you know i have never heard a convincing arguement as to why AO3 should not moderate the content that is posted to their website and i think a lot of the arguement against moderation on AO3 boils down to, terminally online people thinks community moderation is the same as government censorship and personally sending the cops to someone’s house to arrest them irl/

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before the poll, a quick definition of terms:

"mutual" - you found this post from a mutual (on their blog or your dash) "following" - you found this post from someone you're following, but who isn't following you "random" - you found this by scrolling through someone's blog, who you don't follow. this includes people following you "For You" - you found this on the For You page "recommended" - you found this in a "Check out these blogs" popup, or a "recommended" post when looking at a different post "other" - you found this post some other way. comment how? "reblog ✅" - you're going to reblog, queue, or schedule this post "reblog ❌" - you're NOT going to reblog, queue, or schedule this post

with that out of the way:

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So, yeah, a good bit of Izzy’s resentment of Ed is that Izzy “saved” Ed from the English (by purchasing him) and Ed decided that he’d rather save Stede’s life. Izzy crafted this narrative in which he sold them out, then moved in to rescue Ed and make him beholden to “Captain Hands” and Ed rejected it entirely.

And Izzy brings it up in the cabin scene: “I should have let the English kill you.” Never mind that Izzy himself was the one who brought the English in; he still would style himself as Ed’s white savior, the sole thing standing between Ed and death. His LIFE belonged Izzy, and he was insufficiently grateful for what Izzy so graciously bestowed on him. He would rather give himself to save Stede.

Ohhhhh, the layers.

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Anyone sincerely concerned about women's safety wouldn't focus on protecting them from assault by strangers, which is rare; women facing violence at the hands of the men in their own families is much, much more common. But if what you're concerned about protecting is really the right of patriarchs to control access to the women who belong to them then of course violence within the family isn't a problem you care about, and strange men are.

I sure you’ve heard all kinds of shit about your bathroom post by now, but do you think that if there was no inherent patriarchy(or like no people who teach their sons that men are superior to women/women should obey them) and no gender specific bathrooms, that men would still assault women?

ok, first, this is gonna sound pedantic and i apologize for that but to talk about this we need to clarify what we mean by "men would still assault women." like, i definitely don't think it would result in a world where no man ever assaults any woman ever again, but i assume that's probably not what we mean here. maybe we're looking at something like "would men still be more likely to assault women than women are to assault men?"

and, i mean, i dunno. i'd assume it's likely there would be some tendency for bigger people to be more willing to start fights with smaller people than vice versa. (but if that's what we're worried about, we'd segregate bathrooms and locker rooms by size or by how much you can bench press or something instead of using gender as a proxy; maybe the question we want to ask is "all other things being equal, assuming the man and woman in question are the same size and equally strong...") the other variable that would remain is hormones and so on, but the best current science on the relationship between testosterone and aggressive behavior is surprisingly complicated and ambiguous when you look closely at it, so i don't think we know yet. tl;dr my answer here is we'll never know until we find the courage to try.

however all of this is irrelevant to the whole bathroom thing, because preventing assault is not actually why we segregate bathrooms and locker rooms. spaces like that were segregated long before modern feminism. it's about protecting women's virtue, not their safety.

there are a couple things that make this obvious: for one thing, the societies that have practiced the most stringent gender segregation throughout human history have consistently been the ones that are most patriarchal and valued female chastity most highly. for another, anyone sincerely concerned about women's safety wouldn't focus on protecting them from assault by strangers, which is rare; women facing violence at the hands of the men in their own families is much, much more common. But if what you're concerned about protecting is really the right of patriarchs to control access to the women who belong to them then of course violence within the family isn't a problem you care about, and strange men are.

people say changing this will put women's safety at risk. but that's what patriarchy has consistently said every single time feminists push to grant women greater access to public life. opponents of women's suffrage said restricting the vote was a way to protect women, who were too innocent and fragile for participation in politics. opponents of women's sports said restricting women from athletic competition was a way to protect women, whose bodies were too weak and fragile for strenuous activity. and of course historically lots of women bought into this, even when it came to issues like voting and sports, because it always serves the interests of patriarchy to teach girls that the rules exist for your protection and you'll be safe as long as you stay confined to your sphere. they say this every time. we gotta stop believing them.

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Technophobes need to apologise for "just put it in plain English you stupid machine!" because, well for one the decline in accurate error messages in favour of simplicity has contributed to the rise of tech illiteracy, but also because now whenever an "app" has a net connection error it will pop up a box saying something like "oo ooopsie! Your super duper feed went poo poo. We'll try again soon!" which having said to me by a corporation is about 8 million times worse than having to hear the word "network".

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in guarani there's a standard greeting that literally translates to "are you happy" (ndevy'apa) and the natural reply is "i'm happy" (avy'a) and as americans learning the language we were so distressed like "but what if we're not happy....." and our teachers were like "that's so not the fucking point"

we kept trying to think of any other way to reply but our teachers kept trying to get it into our brains that it's an idiomatic greeting, it literally is not the time or place to traumadump, and as usamerican english speakers we are not some special exception for saying "what's up" with the reply being "not much" instead of "the ceiling"

but anyway while i was working in paraguay -- the country with the largest population of guarani speakers -- i got sent an article by some friends back home like "look! they're saying that paraguay is the happiest country in the world!"

and the methodology was "we went around and asked paraguayans if they're happy and recorded their responses" and i was like. oh. of course you did. and of course you got a 100% positive response rate.

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When I was younger and researching the autism diagnosis criteria and symptoms, I thought “oh I couldn’t POSSIBLY be autistic.” Because when I read “takes everything literally” I thought it literally meant EVERYTHING and I was like “I don’t take EVERYTHING literally, just most things!” And I just realized the other day that it didn’t actually mean EVERYTHING and that was an overstatement.

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i know it’s been said before, but it bears repeating: a big, big part of maintaining your confidence & self esteem as a creator is fully embracing the concept of “you don’t have to be good like them.  you can be good like you.”

for example, i’m not someone who’s particularly good at coming up with complex, elaborate plots or incredibly unique ideas.  it’s just not how i choose to write.  and it would be easy for me to look at someone with an elaborate, super unique plot & decide that because i don’t write like that, i’m not a good writer.  after all, unique plots are good, and my writing lacks those, so my writing must not be good, right?  well, no, actually.  i just have different strengths, like taking a simple premise & digging super deep into its emotional depths.  that’s what i do well & it isn’t any better or worse than people who do elaborate world building or come up with really creative and unexpected plots.

your writing is never going to be all things to all people.  it just isn’t.  inevitably, you’ll have to make creative choices that favor certain aspects of writing over others.  there is truly no getting around that & it’s honestly a good thing, because it means you’ve developed your own style.  but you’ll always encounter other creators who posses strengths that you don’t.  it doesn’t mean one is better than the other or that your writing isn’t good enough. 

comparing yourself like that would be like taking a piece of pizza & a cupcake & going “oh no, that cupcake is so sweet & my pizza isn’t sweet at all.” or “gosh, the garlic crust on that pizza is delicious and my cupcake doesn’t have ANY garlic.”  obviously your pizza isn’t sweet.  obviously your cupcake doesn’t have garlic.  a food can’t have every single delicious flavor at once.  the cupcake is good like a cupcake.  the pizza is good like a pizza.  so you don’t have to be good like them.  you can be good like you.

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Izzy getting into baking and being instantly good at it - the first time he's actually been effortlessly great at something - and he literally can't understand why people find this so hard, I mean it's just following precise instructions?

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Yeah definitely. The whole "don't actually LIVE in your house, even when you own it, continue to see it as an Investment that you must continue to treat as if it belongs to someone else" attitude is a bonus problem.

On progress

Here’s something that has done good things for my mental health.

When I go into the bathroom and shut the door. See, when we moved in that door wouldn’t latch. A couple of months ago I grabbed a drill, a dremel tool, and a screwdriver - and I fixed it. It latches now, and every time I shut the door I’m reminded that I made that happen. When I go into the basement and see the exposed rafters - that’s because I took out the awful drop ceiling which used to be there. When I go into the office and walk under the projector screen hanging fromt he ceiling - that’s because I mounted it up there. When I use the laundry sink in the basement - that’s because I installed that thing. When I turn on the under-cabinet lighting - that’s because I installed that lighting. Owning a house means I’m surrounded with daily reminders that I can Do Things. I can affect the environment around me and make it better. And if I could take out that drop ceiling, or build the desk I’m using right now, or fix a door frame… well, I can clean up the back yard, too. I can replace that dodgy ceiling fan and repaint the closet.

All the time I am reminded I can achieve things. Because the work I do on the house matters.

Most people don’t own a house, so that part doesn’t quite scale. But we can make furniture, fix clothing, or just sort a collection of stuff. Point is, I think it helps to have a tangible reminder of real achievement and improvement. That today really is better than yesterday because of something you did.

It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be instagrammable. It just has to matter to you.