"We call it vff," said the alien. "It's - it's hard to describe to a species without vffsense. Imagine trying to describe light to a species that never evolved eyes. But there are forms of life that are only perceptible with vffsense, and they've visited Earth and fed on life as long as it's existed here."

There was a pause.

Then the human said, "That's the worst thing you've ever said."

"Don't worry about it."

"I think I have to, now."

"No, because - well - you have a species of spider which pretends to be an ant, correct? It's not capable of understanding the fact that it's mimicking an ant, but it instinctually mimics an ant in order to deter predators."

"Sure?"

"Humans produce a vff to mimic varths, predators only perceptible through vffsense. The organisms that would like to feed on you are terrified of varths, and so they leave you alone. You aren't aware you do it, you don't have the capacity to understand you're doing it, but you evolved to instinctually do it to deter predators you can't see."

There was a pause.

Then the human said in a very soft and thoughtful voice, "And are there varths on Earth?"

"Yes," said the alien. "Everywhere. But don't worry about it."

realizing that sticking to the "do it bad" "do it scared" mentality implies theres also a "do it bored"

I think it really depends on how you find the thing. Shrieking when you're startled is a really normal human reaction.

we still get immediately shoved out of our immersion in tv shows or films when The Girl find a dead body and immediately shrieks - we just don't find it realistic because we're pretty confident most people would gasp rather than shriek (i.e. sharp inhale rather than sharp exhale) and it also feels unnecessarily (and predictably) misogynistic too, as men encountering corpses almost never do the same on screen

also of course please do tell us if you've actually encountered a corpse unexpectedly, because tumblr is absolutely a place where some people have done this thing and we love a good anecdote

suddenly imagining "burst into song" as a potential response

THE GOOD PLACE 4.09 | The Funeral to End All Funerals

I might be wrong, but iirc you’ve been involved in fandoms for a while, and I was wondering if you had any thoughts about the degradation of fannish spaces as a result of shows no longer releasing on an episode-per-week basis, and if you think that the fandoms surrounding Game Changer and Fantasy High function differently from most *because* those shows release once a week (or in the case of Game Changer, once every other week with behind-the-scenes on the alternate weeks). I’m not super involved in any fandoms, but of the ones I have been in, Game Changer and Fantasy High have been the most consistently interactive (for lack of a better term), in the sense that there’s week-by-week fanart, meta, memes, etc that correlate to the specific episodes. However, my first interactions with *any* fandoms were in 2019ish, so I don’t have a good sense of what pre-streaming fandoms were like and my point of comparison is pretty limited. I’m not sure if you’ve seen Fantasy High, but I know you’ve posted some Game Changer stuff, and you seem pretty knowledgeable about the evolution of fandom culture in general so I figured I might as well ask what your thoughts on it are :) (if you have other examples of shows that still release weekly that you think are relevant I’m also interested in hearing those—I just picked Game Changer and Fantasy High cause those are the ones I’m familiar with)

I'm not really involved in fannish spaces. I just like things.

Transfem to Transmasc solitary must exist as much as any trans solidarity must exist.

Protect my boys.

Hot take but we should treat people who fill their blogs with pictures of Stalin and Mao with the same level of suspicion we treat people who fill their blogs with portraits of Hitler and Mussolini.

Not really interested in engaging directly with the couple posts about dog whistles currently circulating, as the people involved don't seem inclined to take disagreement gracefully, but my take on the subject is this: "dog whistle" is a useful concept in cases, and only in cases, where the statement in question covertly conveys actual semantic content.

To take a classic (now mostly defunct, due to being widely recognized) example of this, consider the term "thug." It's widely acknowledged that conservative politicians and commentators in recent years have used this term in a way that's meant to specifically connote black (and occasionally Latino) people, and connect them with violent crime, in a deniable way. After all, the strict denotation of the word just means any violent criminal, and well really if your first thought on hearing it is of blacks and Latinos that means you're the racist, not them, etc. It concretely allows people to communicate unpopular ideas to those who agree with said ideas without getting as much flak from those who disagree with them.

This is a standard of which all this "friendpilled visitmaxxer" 4chan-esque language falls notably short. Talking about being a locationpilled scampercel isn't telling anyone coded messages about how you want to crack down on racial minorities in urban areas or that you agree with that one weird McCain ad from 2008 that Barack Obama is the antichrist. At most, it could signal some sort of affiliation with the far-right, but as loving-not-heyting pointed out in that thread, a signal of that sort that creates a bunch of false positives from people who just like meme words is actually the opposite of useful for a movement.

So hard to choose but if the bed is perfect then i can do all the other work and know I can rest in perfect comfort

no multi option, agonize and choose, no results option, pick one to find out or scroll onward

I’m way behind on Tumblr. Barely keeping up on tiktok with Butch positivity.

I don't think now, at the time Iran is viciously defending against US imperialism, is the time to be making left-communist critiques of them.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is not some unimpeachable bastion of anti-imperialism in western asia and it is dangerous to withhold critique just because it is opposed to US hegemony. The IRI is a theocratic ethnostate pushing back against euro-american imperialism while enacting its own centuries-long imperialism on the ethnic and religious minorities that fall within and around its borders. On a weekly if not daily basis, the IRGC, the paramilitary basijis, as well as the regular police harass, arrest, and kill not only such minorities as Kurds, Balochs, and Ahwazi Arabs (don't have to look far for this), but also ethnic Persian political dissidents and gender and sexual minorities.

The history of the 1979 revolution speaks to the development and rise of Khomeinism in the 1970s as a bourgeoisie opportunism that claimed the martyrs of Iranian communists while at every turn promising the disenfranchised baazaaris the protection of their private property. The purge of the Mojahedin in the months after the revolution, the associated purge of all deemed communist, and the immediate suppression of Kurdish autonomy movements in the northwest, all form the legacy of Khomeinism. It is important to be honest about this, to be honest about the reformulation of institutional misogyny and the other ills of Pahlavi Iran under the IRI, while simultaneously recognizing that the revolution was successful in one thing: exorcising the puppeteering hands of the united states from the country. It is important not to fall into the trap of valorizing an imperial power, while understanding that the only liberatory future for the people on the plateau and surrounding regions is revolution from within and below, not external intervention. These are compatible and, indeed, complementary halves of a whole politic!

As a Tehrani, and particularly as an ethnic Persian/Iranian Azerbaijani (Iranian Azerbaijanis being subject to linguistic and cultural suppression, but nonetheless perhaps the most integrated minority), it strikes me as my responsibility to talk about this. And it is something I talk about regardless of what is going on. As an esoteric Shi'a, it especially seems like my responsibility to talk about what Khomeinism has wrought.

And all of that is to say nothing of the fact that in my post I was just critiquing left-Shi'a infatuation with Khomeinism qua ideology, with no mention of the IRI—whose relationship with Khomeinism is varied, nebulous, and I would say secondary to the three decades of theocratic nationalism that has developed since Khomeini's death.

I just cackled so loud that my wife messaged me from across the house to find out why.

Tucker Carlson's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Pathetic Year

This is a delightful video. Happy Tuckerfiredaversary to all who celebrate!