theturtleatthebottomofthepile - Tumblr blog

[theturtleatthebottomofthepile]

hello fandom enjoyer can you explain to me why youve decided the caring and generally kind-hearted male character is a trans man. answer quickly and dont include "because of the vibes" or else the saw trap goes off

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Audre Lorde, from "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" (1981)

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Watching the “you will excel at what you measure” trap devour basic moral practice in real time is fascinating in a terrible kind of way

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Everyone's so upset about what's going on on my normal and functional space ship.

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social skills training, solmaz sharif

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PACING IS ABOUT LOAD BEARING WALLS.

*staples violently to my own forehead*

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Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

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social skills training, solmaz sharif

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N has name of the wind vibes and by that I mean I just think they would like it

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an incomplete list of unsettling short stories I read in textbooks

the scarlet ibis

marigolds

the diamond necklace

the monkey’s paw

the open boat

the lady and the tiger

the minister’s black veil

an occurrence at owl creek bridge

a rose for emily

(I found that one by googling “short story corpse in the house,” first result)

the cask of amontillado

the yellow wallpaper

the most dangerous game

a good man is hard to find

some are well-known, some obscure, some I enjoy as an adult, all made me uncomfortable between the ages of 11-15

add your own weird shit, I wanna be literary and disturbed

[theturtleatthebottomofthepile]

In my personal opinion, allowing people to choose to abort fetuses with a high likelihood of developing disabilities that alter quality of life is not eugenics.

Disability is not like race, ethnicity or gender in that you are born with or discover your identity and it usually stays the same for a long period of time. Anyone can become disabled at any time in their lives, and anyone can be born with a disability and not know it until later in life. Therefore, I doubt that the population of people with disabilities will be erased or even reduced unless the government outright bans carrying fetuses likely to develop disabilities (which would be a clear violation of autonomy anyways).

I think the conclusion that choosing to abort fetuses likely to be disabled is eugenics operates on one or both of two assumptions: firstly, that every person has an inherent right to biological children, and second, that aborting a fetus is equivalent to ending the life of a child or adult with their own unique beliefs, culture, etc.

No one is entitled children, they are a very real commitment. Anyone can decide at any point for any reason that they don't have the energy or time or health to carry a fetus to term. Selectively aborting fetuses likely to have disabilities is not taking away the right of people with disabilities to exist in the world and doesn't take away from disability culture. While western adoption (can't speak for other countries) is a messed up system, adopting children with disabilities is a way to celebrate and participate in disability culture and disability justice without giving birth to a biological child who may be likely to have pain/significant mobility issues/risky pregnancy /etc.

I do think that if you want to have children you should be prepared to have a disabled kid, but it's not my place or anyone else's to decide who can and cannot terminate a pregnancy.

Gentle reminder that you can be 100% pro choice and still understand that aborting a fetus because it will be disabled as a human is a eugenicist idea that comes from absolutely horrifying ideas that have been placed in western culture as a result of more overt eugenics movements in our past.

[theturtleatthebottomofthepile]

I think people get mixed up a lot about what is fun and what is rewarding. These are two very different kinds of pleasure. You need to be able to tell them apart because if you don't have a balanced diet of both then it will fuck you up, and I mean that in a "known cause of persistent clinical depression" kind of way.

[theturtleatthebottomofthepile]

"rn I feel like reading about someone's quiet daily life, maybe a diary or letters, set in a place or context I don't know much about, without turmoil or tragedy" oh! do you have any recommendations for books like this?

This is one of my favourite types of books! Here are 30(ish) recs...

May Sarton's The House by the Sea or Plant Dreaming Deep

Gyrðir Elíasson's Suðurglugginn / La fenêtre au sud (not translated into English unfortunately!), also Bergsveinn Birgisson's Landslag er aldrei asnalegt / Du temps qu'il fait (exists in German too)

Gretel Ehrlich's The Solace of Open Spaces, which iirc was originally written as journal entries and letters before being adapted into a book

Kenneth White's House of Tides: Letters from Brittany and Other Lands of the West

Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book

The Diary of a Provincial Lady, E. M. Delafield

Growing Up with the Impressionists: The Diary of Julie Manet

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim (do not read if you don't like flowers)

The Road Through Miyama by Leila Philip (I've mentioned it before, it feels like this gif)

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, I keep recommending this one but it's so nice and I love snails

Epicurean Simplicity, Stephanie Mills

The Light in the Dark: A winter journal by Horatio Clare

The Letters of Rachel Henning

The letters of Tove Jansson, also The Summer Book and Fair Play

The diary of Sylvia Townsend Warner—here's an entry where she describes some big cats at the zoo. "Frank and forthcoming, flirtatious carnivores, [...] guttersnipishly loveable"

The Letters of Rachel Carson & Dorothy Freeman were very sweet and a little bit gay. I mostly remember from this long book I read years ago that Rachel Carson once described herself as "retiring into her shell like a periwinkle at low tide" and once apologised to Dorothy because she had run out of apple-themed stationery.

Jane Austen's letters (quoting the synopsis, "Wiser than her critics, who were disappointed that her correspondence dwelt on gossip and the minutiae of everyday living, Austen understood the importance of "Little Matters," of the emotional and material details of individual lives shared with friends and family")

Madame de Sévigné's letters because obviously, and from the same time period, the letters of the Princess Palatine, Louis XIV's sister-in-law. I read them a long time ago and mostly I remember that I enjoyed her priorities. There's a letter where she complains that she hasn't received the sausages she was promised, and then in the next paragraph, mentions the plot to assassinate the King of England and also, the Tartars are walking on Vienna currently.

Wait I found it:

R.C. Sherriff's The Fortnight in September (quoting the author, "I wanted to write about simple, uncomplicated people doing normal things")

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett

Rules for Visiting, Jessica Francis Kane

The following aren't or aren't yet available in English, though some have already been translated in 5-6 languages:

ツバキ文具店 / La papeterie Tsubaki by ito Ogawa

半島へ / La péninsule aux 24 saisons by Mayumi Inaba

Giù la piazza non c'è nessuno, Dolores Prato (for a slightly more conceptual take on the "someone's everyday life" theme—I remember it as quite Proustian in its meticulousness, a bit like Nous les filles by Marie Rouanet which is much shorter and more lighthearted but shows the same extreme attention to childhood details)

Journal d'un homme heureux, Philippe Delerm, my favourite thing about this book is that the goodreads commenter who gave it the lowest rating complained that Delerm misidentified a wine as a grenache when actually it's a cabernet sauvignon. Important review!

Un automne à Kyôto, Corinne Atlan (I find her writing style so lovely)

oh and 西の魔女が死んだ / L’été de la sorcière by Kaho Nashiki —such a little Ghibli film of a book. There's a goodreads review that points out that Japanese slice-of-life films and books have "a certain way of describing small, everyday actions in a soothing, flawless manner that can either wear you out, or make you look at the world with a temporary glaze of calm contentment and introspective understanding [...]"

I'd be happy to get recommendations in this 'genre' as well :)

[theturtleatthebottomofthepile]

“Did you have parents or just some people who thought they should own somebody?”

— Catherine Lacey

Oof.

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ALT

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