virtual-marmalade

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woah i heard this site was dying

if you wanna try another cool blogging-type social media site i ended up on cohost and it's pretty chill over there

cohost.org/virtualmarmalade

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when christian artists change the line in hallelujah from “maybe there’s a God above” to “I know that there’s a God above” >:c

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The Sebastopol Times, California, November 15, 1918

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it’s honestly crazy how many ppl u meet in your early twenties who have never been in love or been in a relationship or had sex and then you’re like oh it’s actually normal and social milestones actually mean nothing bc everyone is different and has different experiences. cool!

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Keep in mind I’m a cis woman writing this.

So I was debating posting this but I think it needs to be said.

So I’m a student teacher and this week, we started at a new school district. Now I won’t presume to begin to pretend that I know what everyone’s political ideologies are in this school district but keep in mind that it’s in rural New York State and rural New York State tends to run red. Not as red as some other places but definitely not blue and not even really purple. 

Anyway yesterday was my first ever professional development day. So I’m all dressed up, introducing myself to other teachers, and I shake hands with the superintendent who seems like a really nice guy.

And about halfway through the day, he goes up to the front of the theater and he starts talking about the best ways to talk to and help transgender/nonbinary students. It’s the basic things we all learn in our education classes. And you can tell that he’s a bit uncomfortable and so are some of the teachers. And at last, he stops and says, “Folks, I have to be honest. My father is rolling in his grave right now.”

And I’m in the back like, “Oh no.”

And so he pauses again and then he starts implying that he was raised to have a very negative opinion on the transgender community. And he continues to say that he had to unlearn a lot in the past few decades and then he admitted that he still doesn’t get it. He outright admitted that he personally doesn’t understand how someone comes to the conclusion that they’re not their assigned gender. And he admits that of course he doesn’t because he’s never had to go through that.

Another pause.

And then he says, “But I don’t have to get it.”

The theater fills with whispers and then he says [and I’m paraphrasing here], “I don’t have to get it. I don’t even have to agree with it. Because it doesn’t matter what I think or what I feel or what my beliefs are. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that I respect that student and I respect their choice.”

And then he reminded the teachers of every single policy that the school district follows from letting any student use their bathroom of choice to changing the students’ names per the students’ requests to not telling the parents anything unless the student gives consent to do so.

And at the end, he brought it back by saying, “My father just rolled in his grave again. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you think, it doesn’t matter what you believe, because it’s not about you. It’s about your kids. And you need to love your kids! Love your kids! Love your kids!”

Long story short, this looks like it’s going to be a good placement.

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— If the meds were switched, then when I got them mixed up, I… I accidentally switched them back, so… I gave Harlan… — The correct doses, yes. But not accidentally.

KNIVES OUT (2019) dir. Rian Johnson

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this tweet of mine is gaining traction bc twitter knows what’s UP

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Birds!

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normalize not celebrating xmas. like every single piece of media involving xmas in any way shape or form has everyone celebrating it like no matter their religion they just like do it for the spirit or the holiday or whatever and if they originally don't it ends w them giving in out of consideration and being guilted. like if you love xmas, that's great. i love bubble tea and i love rosh hashanah, but i don't expect everyone to love them or even experience them. it's not sad for me if someone doesn't enjoy them bc i'm not a self obsessed prick who assumes everyone else enjoys and celebrates the same things i do. pls be respectful this year, pls acknowledge xmas IS NOT a secular holiday, please do not other and exclude those who do not celebrate it. and btw this goes beyond inclusive language.

(goyim and christians/atheists can rb and add if you want but do not clown i am begging you)

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It’s often asserted that Dungeons & Dragons started out as Tolkienesque fantasy and branched out from there. While the elements lifted from Tolkien are certainly very prominent, it’s less that they form the core of the game and more that Tolkien’s work is one of the relatively few sources D&D drew from at its inception that’s still independently popular – which makes those elements easy to spot. In truth, the game’s founding inspirations are basically a big vertical slice of 1970s pop culture, including a lot of sources you wouldn’t necessarily expect.

For example, aesthetically the wizard class owes a great deal to Gandalf, and if you’ve heard the slots-and-preparation spellcasting rules described as “Vancian”, you may have looked up the reference and found out that the class’s mechanics are borrowed from Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. However, unless you’re a big Vincent Price fan, you probably didn’t catch that a huge chunk of the basic wizard spell list is lifted directly from his 1963 horror-comedy The Raven.

Similarly, the rogue owes something to Bilbo Baggins, but much more to Fritz Leiber’s Gray Mouser, who in turn draws heavily from Lord Dunsany’s Nuth. (Whose story I strongly recommend you check out, if you have a moment – it’s a quick read at around 2000 words, and it will definitely change how you think about rogues!)

The paladin is taken verbatim from Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions (also the source of D&D’s spindly-limbed, regeneratiing trolls), the barbarian is Leiber again (the Gray Mouser’s partner Fafhrd), seasoned with R E Howard’s Conan and more than a dash of Cú Chulainn, and the cleric takes many of its cues from Stoker’s Abraham Van Helsing, of all characters – and that’s just the character classes, to start with!

Of course, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Tolkienesque fantasy. It lends itself well to the game’s format, and it’s a popular milieu for tabletop gaming for a reason. My point is that if we treat D&D as Tolkien with the serial numbers filed off, we’re missing out on much of what makes it tick – a big part of the reason many of the game’s tropes seem so weirdly self-referential is because we’re looking at them without any of the context they sprang from.

(I will grant that the game itself is partly to blame for being very, very bad at explaining its inspirations, particularly in the more recent editions. Seriously, would it kill them to at least include a proper bibliography?)

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you know even if a homeless person or a starving person is in that position because of their own "bad decisions" i don't care. it doesn't matter. no supposed financial misstep is enough to condemn someone to homelessness or poverty.

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If you’ve been stuck trying to please a mom who became abusive/toxic because of generational trauma, realize you won’t save her. You might be the subject of your mom’s rage, paranoia, obsession etc - but you are not the cause of it. And if you didn’t change her after all those years of begging her, bargaining with her, self-harming, isolating, defending yourself, etc, you are not going to change her now. When they say “you can only save someone who wants to be saved”, that applies here. When they say “the only person who you can control is yourself” that applies here. Please let go of this guilt that you carry for something that’s entirely out of your hands. These ideas are pertinent to creating your path to freedom.

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WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE I AM

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25 years of ads peeled away

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Blue Lives Don't Exist .

Stop drawing equivalence between racial identity and a job.

Your career is a choice.

Being Black isn't.

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tiny harmless insect: *flies around too fast* relatively gargantuan ape whose evolutionary niche is being smart: “oh i cant fucking stand this”

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