When people get a little too gung-ho about-

wait. cancel post. gung-ho cannot be English. where did that phrase come from? China?

ok, yes. gōnghé, which is…an abbreviation for “industrial cooperative”? Like it was just a term for a worker-run organization? A specific U.S. marine stationed in China interpreted it as a motivational slogan about teamwork, and as a commander he got his whole battalion using it, and other U.S. marines found those guys so exhausting that it migrated into English slang with the meaning “overly enthusiastic”.

That’s…wild. What was I talking about?

HEY.

are you scrolling [tumblr] instead of sleeping?

idiot. clown. I cast sleepy spell on you. fuck you. sweet dreams ily

HEY.

are you scrolling [tumblr] instead of sleeping?

idiot. clown. I cast sleepy spell on you. fuck you. sweet dreams ily

Its me, your feral godmother

I'm watching a video essay about a game ive been interested in playing. The creator of the video, who has crossdressed multiple times, makes a "women arent funny" joke, and i suddenly realize ive never witnessed him acknowledge a woman in an uplifting way before.

I'm on a dating app for lgbt+ people. I've stated multiple times on my profile that i would rather lose an arm than recieve nudes without consent. I will be sent five dick pics for every 2 people i talk to that night.

I'm talking with my dad, who informs me he's been trying his best to learn about trans issues. He says the same things steven crowder brings up when trying to ridicule trans people. I gently but firmly correct my father and get told that ive been fed propaganda.

I'm on instagram, under the comments of a post ridiculing someone for being a misogynyst. Someone's left a comment saying "it must be hard being a woman on the internet" and i respond "it is." I will have every aspect of my appearance scrutinized as a reminder that no matter how well i pass, it will never be enough for someone with bad intentions.

I'm back on that dating app for lgbt+ people. I'm messaged by an attractive looking person, but i can see their partner prominently displayed in all but their main photo, oftentimes striking what im sure they thought was a very intimidating pose. Their bio says "looking for a third for our anniversary." I know that even if I did feel up to it, the gruff partner wouldnt approve of me because i don't pass.

I'm at a job interview for a clothing store. I tell the gracefully-dressed woman interviewing me that ever since i began my transition, i've discovered an interest in fashion, and that this job would allow me to dip my toes into the industry in a safe way. I'm told that i've reduced womanhood to a stereotype, and i can tell by her tone that i lost any chance at the job the minute she realized i was trans.

I'm at the same hospital i got facial feminization surgery in, trying to figure out what's wrong with my bowels. When the person behind the desk gives me a wristband with my patient info on it, i notice a single, lonely, letter M. I ask a nurse in private why it would say that despite me having changed it nearly a year prior. They say they have no clue, and bring in paperwork for me to fill out and have it re-changed again.

I'm living with my mom at the time. I'm new to transitioning, and decide to try my hand at voice training. It feels a bit off, but otherwise im feeling neutral toward the whole thing. I try speaking in this new voice to my mom and she laughs. Now, when people ask if i intend to voice train, i find speaking at all difficult for minutes after.

I didnt have some sort of grand message to convey by this. I just had a thought and then that thought spiralled into whatever the hell this became. Some, okay most, might call it complaining; they are right to do so.

https://www.tumblr.com/bestworstcase/740971489166311424/httpswwwtumblrcombestworstcase74032567622112

it's the resistance to imagining any ending that does not simply replicate a system that is catastrophically failing right before our eyes and also would not have any reason to exist

I can't speak for everyone, but I think there's a strong aversion to discomfort present in this kind of mentality. There's a lot of lipservice to the notion of change and evolution and revolution, but a lot of fandom and people in general are VERY averse to anything, even storytelling, that doesn't ultimately result in something that they feel is comforting to their points of view or desires.

It's why people keep throwing fits about certain characters not doing things a certain way or according to certain archetypes. It's why certain plot points make people froth in the mouth or outright get it completely wrong.

They don't really seem to care all that much about story as a narrative or as a means to convey complex themes and messages that might be genuinely thought-provoking and uncomfortable, so much as they view stories as an extension of their own comfort zone, even at the expense of the story itself.

i mean. maybe. online culture is very inclined to treat discomfort as a Bad Thing that should be shunned (& in extremes, something people should be protected from feeling at any cost, which is part of what drives the pearl-clutching hays code 2! types).

but i think it's a lot more that:

fandom, being oriented around transformative engagement, is invested in the text primarily as a sandbox; the pervasive cultural attitude toward the text is that things you don't like can be discarded and the rest raided for spare parts. any space whose ethos is "fuck canon!" is going to disincentivize serious analysis of the text in favor of the creation of fanon—which is always homogenized and reduced to tropes because it's an accumulation of popular ideas, i.e. the organic crowdsourced cousin of corporate sanitization for mass appeal.

many fans do not differentiate clearly between canon and fanon to the point that there exists confusion between analysis (interpretation of the text) and headcanon (things held to be true irrespective of the text), which are in fact diametrically opposed and don't meaningfully overlap; consequently fanon is widely conflated with canon in addition to being prioritized.

fanon is shaped by cultural biases within the fandom which generally means "riddled with prejudice and stereotypes" and in rwby's case in particular means "sexist"—the story BEGINS with a fairly overt condemnation of the huntsmen system ("so you may prepare your guardians, build your monuments to a so-called 'free' world, but take heed: there will be no victory in strength"), and at the end of the first act a character gives a speech laying out it in even clearer terms. i do not think it's coincidental that the fandom that twists itself into pretzels to interpret salem and cinder in the harshest possible light is also the fandom that absolutely refuses to consider the possibility that these two characters Have A Point about the huntsmen system, actually.

most stories do not radically alter the narrative status quo. (this is true even of revolutionary narratives—the unjust system present at the beginning of the story will be overturned, yes, but more often than not the characters recognize the injustice from the beginning and at most learn that it's worse than they thought.) most stories do not slowly and inexorably build up to "the heroes are good, but the villain is right, and everyone needs to pull together to fix what is broken" as the climactic resolution. i cannot emphasize enough how unusual rwby is in what it's doing with salem, and the build up has been gradual enough—stretched over literally a decade!—that for longtime fans in particular, it's easy to overlook. fanon fills in the gaps with tropes, the complete monster who cannot comprehend good, the tarnished mentor nevertheless trying his best to do the right thing, the plucky heroes who fulfill his ideals in earnest, and later developments are interpreted through the lens of fanon.

to an extent it's a feature, not a bug: tropes over text is just what fandom is. it's just a lot more noticeable with rwby because a) rwby is an unusual story that does not lend itself easily to fanonification, and b) "the huntsmen system is broken and will fail" is an idea introduced into the narrative by two female villains who have been wronged by that system and the man who built it, so naturally the fandom dismisses it out of hand.

i love having my birthday mentioned by mike trapp as good, but not the best. january 31st babies rise up! we've got the happiest month but people have to remember how many days there are in the month

Smartypants appreciation post for the big continuity-breaking cut added in on Grant to make it look like he really said it

thinking about c!dream earlier on in the server just makes me sad man. like, c!dream has never been a perfect character. he's always been flawed, always been a bit of an asshole, always had control issues. but also he knew that. he tried to work on that. he and tommy were friends, despite being flawed people with their own issues that would bump into conflicts because of the ways that they differed. c!dream tried, god, he tried; he wasn't even on the server, when the drug van happened, and walked into a place with someone who was practically a stranger to him building a wall and calling for war and having turned half the people dream knew against him, apparently, for no reason that he could've known at the time, and he had looked straight at tommy and tubbo and asked if that was what they really wanted when wilbur told them that there was no such thing as dual citizenship. he tells tommy when he has to sell a disc for spirit's leather even though tommy had surrendered the discs to him at the end of the revolution because he knows it'll matter to him. he and tommy truce, multiple times, and c!dream gets tangled into conflicts that literally don't involve him repeatedly and gets targeted Because He's Dream repeatedly and he plays along with that trivia contest and he gives gifts to fundy and tommy after terrorizing them a little for fun and he plays along with the dreamon thing and he keeps getting pulled into fights that weren't his but tries to make them a little more fair when they get him involved. he fucks around with tommy and they have fun, they're friends, and when he and wilbur look like they're in danger dream is one of the first to find them and lend them real, practical, valuable aid. he calls himself "Big D" in that book and he tells the man that wrote him as a tyrant that he doesn't want to be a villain in the story anymore. he asks tommy if he's okay, and watches that kid's back when he walks alone and unarmed into manberg, and fights with him at the battle of the lake and all of that is thrown back in his face as being a lie. half the intial community structures that exist were built by him; the community house, the nether portal and hub, the prime path. during a time where every other piece of leverage got burned or killed (rip the casualties of the pet war), dream was kind of known for being one that could be fairly traded with, that would minimize permanent damage. the kills in the final control room were originally to strip lmanburg of their gear, which he had kept in a chest so it could be returned to them after the war.

like no c!dream isn't perfect at the beginning of the server. yes he's kind of a jerk sometimes, kind of an asshole sometimes, kind of neurotic most of the time. but god dammit like c!dream does try to mitigate the worst of his control issues, when they flare up early on; the initial disc war ends with tommy getting his discs back as well as a stack of diamonds, in exchange for a netherite chestplate. he's a flawed character and he's still someone pretty friendly on the whole to most of the server, he's also kind of just known for being a little weird. he gives gifts randomly. he fixed creeper holes, and houses, and went along with bits. like whatever im a c!drolo c!dream woobifier and i admit it lol but for as much evil as he ends up doing, pretty damn consistently early on, he's . friendly? kind? funny? helpful? their neighbor. their friend. c!dream isn't just some stranger that flew off the handle; he's someone they knew and lived with who had his actions taken in bad faith because the goddamn story said so and kept fucking trying anyway until he believed the lie too. like he was just a guy!! a guy they knew and lived with!!! like my god

Had a 'fun' new experience today in the form of my first ever mammogram because I found a lump on my chest a few weeks ago, and when you find a lump, you get that shit checked out.

Ironically, the lump I went to get investigated turned out to be nothing, likely just a cyst that made its way to the surface, but they did find something else on the scan that requires me to do a follow-up ultrasound in six months. The doctor stressed that it is most likely a fibroid, but given my family history of breast cancer and general weird health fuckery, they're being vigilant and keeping an eye on it.

The mammogram itself was fine. The technician doing it kept complimenting me on the "pliable" nature of my breast tissue and how easy it was to smoosh me into the machine. I was like thanks, I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome; my body is basically made of only slightly more reinforced laffy taffy.

She said, "That explains that," and then proceeded to smush my tits into a pancake. Apparently, they were the most compliant tits she's worked with. I said thank you because what else can you do in that situation. And then she asked me if I wanted to know how much they weighed, and I said boy, do I?!

So she started reading off the results and was like, "17.7 lbs," and I was like, gosh, no wonder they feel so heavy, and then she kept talking and said, "And the other one weighs..."

And that's when I realized she didn't mean total.

She meant one boob was 17.7lbs.

So in case you've ever wanted to know, my right boob weighs 17.7 lbs, and my left one weighs 17.3 lbs, bringing the grand weight hanging off my chest to an even 35 lbs.

The tech was like "gosh! That's a lot for someone of your size!" and I was like "ya fucking think?!"

For a frame of reference, I weigh 136 lbs total. One-quarter of my weight is tits.

I am one-quarter titty.

And I'm telling that to the next doctor who suggests I lose weight.

Anyway. Remember to do regular breast exams, and don't be afraid of mammograms. Yes, they're checking for cancer, but they also tell you fun things like how much your chest weighs and whether or not your boobs are compliant.

i am a big believer in letting music (and other media) come to you when you're ready for it. you may only know vaguely of an acclaimed beloved artist and suspect that you'd be into them but just... not ever get around to it. and then in 15 years one of their songs just hits you the right way and what a gift to suddenly have all of their works to explore! there is no hurry; what is good is always good.

have you talked before about how bumbleby fits into the ozlem pattern? I’d love to hear your thoughts on that

(walks up to any couple on remnant) so which of you is the ozma– blake. it’s blake.

and here is a post meditating on yang and salem and the traits they both value

i could swear i have another post about this somewhere but i can’t find it. You Might think the bees tower is abandonment but it isn’t—the bees tower is rootlessness, it’s yang’s sense that her life is lacking in purpose and she doesn’t know who she is outside of her role as ruby’s big sister / surrogate mother-figure by virtue of having been parentified. blake gives her a purpose not just in the sense of being an activist whose cause yang comes to care passionately for herself (“it must be hard being a faunus 😔” -> chewing out racist grandma without a shred of hesitation) but also in the more general sense being both catalyst and supporter for yang’s ongoing arc of figuring out who she is.

At one of my birthday parties we got talking about boob weight and ended up using our hands to compare boob weight (fully clothed it wasn't that kind of party) and we found that there were WILDLY different densities among us. The people with the largest (like G-H cup), boobs had both the heaviest and the lightest boobs compared with everyone else. So I wouldn't be shocked if yours were heavier compared to someone else's, even if they have more boob.

Yeah, density really does count for a lot.

But as I've just discovered on my mychart, the tech read the results wrong. My boobs are 1.7 KILOS each. Not 17 lbs 😂

I can only assume she was in a hurry and was like "yeah, her boobs seem pretty big on her frame, that seems right."

Abolish the comic book industrial complex 🙂

Having an oobleck Mountain Glenn moment.

Salem, often called a witch, obviously named for the Salem witch trials.

Trials famous for their religiously motivated false allegations.

...

SALEM WITCH TRIALS, FAMOUS FOR THEIR RELIGIOUSLY MOTIVATED FALSE ALLEGATIONS!!

teehee :)

also her name means peaceful. or safe. if you want to give yourself REAL salem brain fungus start squinting at the songs real hard whilst muttering “salem. peace. salem. peace” to yourself. “yet still i believe that the peace/we’ll achieve’s growing closer/but first blood must spill like the wine at a feast/the calm only comes once the carnage has ceased/fight or die/there’ll be no release”—um. “were we born to fight and die/sacrificed for one huge lie?/are we heroes keeping peace/or are we weapons pointed at the enemy so someone else can claim a victory?”—UM. “the hatred swallows all the love/and all the truth will disappear/lost and blind/seems our dreams of peace have all been left behind”—“some wars will not end in peace/some heroes choose the wrong side”—salem. peace. salem. peace. your so-called free world vs we’re in a time of unprecedented peace. the absence of war is not the same thing as peace. their enemy, the great evil they are fighting to stop, is a woman named peace. AH!

So we all know that Tumblr is US-centric. But to what degree? (and can we skew the results of this poll by posting it at a time where they should be asleep?)

Reblog to increase sample size!