One Of The Most Important Things To Unpack And Unlearn When You’re Part Of A White Supremacy Saturated

what the fuck was wrong with people that Labyrinth was originally a flop. How could they take any aspect of it so for granted. How could they fucking do that to Jim Henson. Newspapers were calling it boring and even ugly. I want to go back in time and beat their asses.

i keep seeing the increasing amount of antisemitism in leftist circles and as a jewish leftist i don't really like it. i don't like when people refuse to listen to jews when they speak about antisemitism.

nobody is immune to bigotry. just because you are a leftist (or claim to be one) it doesn't mean it's impossible for you to show microaggression.

Frankly I don’t see the point in fussing over the precise gender identities of historical figures and what they would hypothetically describe themselves as were they alive today. They’re not fictional characters—they’re dead people whose opinions on a continuously evolving topic are largely unknowable, but are part of a shared history nonetheless.

For example, whether a historical figure lived secretly as a man because she was a woman in a society where that was her only option to actually do the things she wanted to do, or because he was just more comfortable that way and wanted to be recognized as a man... how can we know? How can we determine that it was not both? How can we look back through history to a world so different from ours and come to conclusions about things that are often complicated and indistinct in our own time?

I just don’t see what is accomplished by trying to sort and separate trans history from GNC history based on factors we can’t truly be certain of. In an earlier generation, I think I may have lived and presented quite differently based on the choices available to me and the ease with which I may have pursued them. The world changes so much in so many ways and I can barely make sense of myself in my own time—it seems more practical to simply say, “Ah. Relatable. I can see much of myself in the record of your life.” and leave it at that. Our history is cultural, not ancestral, and in a hundred years we may be the source of just as much confusion and consternation even if we believe ourselves clear today.

I am exceptionally lucky in that my parents never hit me, grounded me, confiscated my things, banned me from my hobbies or threatened any of these actions to make me behave as a kid. as an adult it has made me realise how very very long a road most people have to traverse before they can take a statement like 'no rule that must be enforced by threat is legitimate' seriously.

spaci1701 replied to your post “Just in case you’re ever embarrassed about doing something silly or…”

So nice that he’s willing to offer his professional opinion of your husband’s teeth for free. Did he have some good news for you? Does it involve pliers?

So I had a CT scan, and lots of other stuff done, and they “couldn’t find anything immediately wrong” on film, which he very quickly assured me, didn’t mean there wasn’t a problem.

He thinks the pain coming from one particular tooth (the one making me want to rip my face off) is a filling I might be allergic to which is causing the tooth to self destruct, so before he takes the whole tooth out he wants to see if he can fix the filling and pack it with something I wont be allergic to and just try to save me from any more surgery. So that’s what I will be doing next week to try and get me out of pain. (We need to wait for some testing to come back before he feels happy putting things into my jaw)

He’s also willing to extract my root canal teeth because in his own words “there’s no way they should hurt like that”, but first he wants to send me to an orthodontist, to evaluate my bite because my jaw muscles are a mess, and it’s because my teeth have been ground so far down by the previous dentist none of them touch, so I’m performing gymnastics just to be able to chew and eat. And braces would help with that.

We also discovered that I also have a cluster of excess of nerve bundles, all on the lower left side of my jaw, which is why I can get drilled on the right side of my face and not flinch, but the left side never goes numb. Which is why no matter what they are doing, they are not able to get me numb for procedures.

Which is why the root canals on the left side of my face all feel like they are failing, despite appearing fine on film and upon re-opening. It’s my face recovering from the trauma of being fully “live” while having the roots stripped out. When I described my root canal experiences he sat with his eyes closed gripping his head in his hands. He also doesn’t think with my inflammation issues I am a candidate for root canal or implants, he thinks my body will reject them based purely on the fact that my root canal teeth just won’t heal, like my jaw is trying to push them out.

He also thinks one of those nerve bundles might have got hit by a needle when they were trying to get me numb—based on some residual bruising I have inside my mouth. So now my nerves are all freaking out and healing from being quite literally stabbed multiple times, which explains why NONE of my pain killers are working either.

He was very much “why are you not screaming from pain right now” and I was very “I am too tired to scream, just help me, please help me”. He promised me he’d find a way or find someone else who could.

I cried.

Several times.

Because someone believes me.

And they think they might know what to do. Also they made me a cup of tea when I started crying and held my hand.

They seem like good people who care. So I’m hopeful.

I’m still in a LOT of pain, but I’m really hopeful.

Hey kid, look at me.

I want you to T-pose. Turn your right thumb up and your left thumb doen and look at your right thumb. Move your arms up and down a bit until you feel a nerve running from your armpit to your palm. Now turn your right thumb down and your left thumb up, and look at your left thumb. Keep your chest facing forward and your shoulders back. Move your arms again until you feel that nerve again. Keep alternating between these two for a minute, or look at each thumb thirty times each.

Now sit down. Put your left hand firmly under your left buttock, palm down. Keep your shoulders back and put your right hand over the crown of your head, very gently pulling it to the right. Do this for thirty seconds, then do it again but with your right hand under your right buttock.

These are stretches for the nerves in your arms, and are very good for people who sit behind a computer a lot, or fibre artists, or you name it. Do them daily. They will hurt in the beginning, but keep doing them, even after the pain has gone, or it will return and you'll have to start all over.

i want more nuance to be entered into the discussion of the green girl sorority and how differently cynthia plays elphaba in comparison to those who came before her because while a lot of people are rightfully like "why was elphaba not black from the beginning" and celebrating that she is now being played by a black woman, i think we need to be careful in just writing off all the elphabas of the past as Random White Girls when the role was championed (and often followed/succeeded) by a jewish woman

the pop culture archetype of the Wicked Witch has deep roots in antisemitism stretching faaaar far back. there is a level of reclamation happening in casting idina menzel, a jewish woman, to play the Misunderstood and Maligned young girl who is branded as exactly that. and stage!Elphaba is also written and acted with jewish stereotypes in mind--she is loud, aggressive, no-nonsense, blunt. she is quick to advocate for herself and shut down the discrimination she faces. all of this is very intentional! her personality is abrasive from years of abuse, and that makes propagandizing her easy. this is literally the thesis statement of the musical--it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed.

cynthia's performance of elphaba is fucking INSPIRED despite going in a completely different direction. she's much more reserved, analytical, one of her key character traits is how well she can read people (see her calling out Galinda as insecure/putting on airs in their first scene together, clocking that Fiyero is using his party guy persona as a shield for his own depression) elphaba's attempts to blend in and make herself smaller all fail simply because of her existence, if not that then because she feels empathy so strongly she often struggles to hold back from acting, protecting.

personality wise, though, cynthia's elphaba is very quiet and closed-off, not at all the bullet-to-the-face that she is in the stage show, and... she still gets propagandized and maligned. though this seems to contradict the other interpretation, it tells of the other end of the spectrum of propaganda, one that black women watching (and many, MANY other marginalized folks) are sure to identify with--it does not matter how "nice," how reserved, how small a black woman makes herself. a racist society will still scrutinize her every action for a way to parse ill intent from it, brand her as an angry black woman who is dangerous and wicked, and write off any humanity she has in the process.

these two very different interpretations tell of the lie of assimilation. the fact of the matter is, when you are marginalized, there is no way to sand down your edges enough to make the people oppressing you "accept" you. that is why wicked is a tragedy at its core. whether loud and aggressive or quiet and unimposing, there is nothing elphaba could have done to make the people of Oz see her as anything other than a scapegoat to blame all their problems on.

so while i definitely appreciate that people are excited for black girl era elphaba, i would encourage us all to still show appreciation for what came before--that was not white girl era elphaba. that was jewish girl era elphaba. two houses, both alike in dignity, two stories both worth being told.

A Number System Invented by Inuit Schoolchildren Will Make Its Silicon Valley Debut

Math is called the “universal language,” but a unique dialect is being reborn

In the remote Arctic almost 30 years ago, a group of Inuit middle school students and their teacher invented the Western Hemisphere’s first new number system in more than a century. The “Kaktovik numerals,” named after the Alaskan village where they were created, looked utterly different from decimal system numerals and functioned differently, too. But they were uniquely suited for quick, visual arithmetic using the traditional Inuit oral counting system, and they swiftly spread throughout the region. Now, with support from Silicon Valley, they will soon be available on smartphones and computers—creating a bridge for the Kaktovik numerals to cross into the digital realm.

Today’s numerical world is dominated by the Hindu-Arabic decimal system. This system, adopted by almost every society, is what many people think of as “numbers”—values expressed in a written form using the digits 0 through 9. But meaningful alternatives exist, and they are as varied as the cultures they belong to.

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"male loneliness epidemic" is misleading because it implies that men are suffering because they can't get girls when I feel like the actual problem is that pretty much any online content that's aimed specifically at men conceptualizes the masculine ideal as what I call the Buff Scammer. there are only two things in this world that matter, says the Buff Scammer: being jacked and making money. how you get to either of those things doesn't matter, you just need to be as rich and as buff as possible or you have failed as a man. Get into drop shipping. Eat nothing but raw meat. Rugpull a memecoin. Remove seasonings from your diet. Sell an online course. Go to the gym daily. Starve yourself so your body will achieve ketosis and start burning fat. Attend a seminar on real estate investing. Work 80 hours a week. Take steroids but don't let anyone know about that part. Flip a YouTube channel after 10xing the subs. Sell AI art on Etsy and AI audiobooks on Amazon. What's that? You're trying to do this to get girls? Why would you care about women? Women are all stupid whores who don't help you get richer or buffer. The only people you should be paying attention to are other rich, buff men. If you do hang out with women you should be pimping them out on Chaturbate so you can at least get an ROI off your time spent not thinking about men. Male friends? You don't have time for friends. You should be hustling and grinding 24/7 365. And if you absolutely do need to spend time around other men you should only be spending time with other buff scammers so you can collaborate on entrepreneurial ventures. Like Jesus Christ even writing this is exhausting I feel like trying to be this dude would be fucking miserable like not only did you turn yourself into a friendless, materialist, misogynistic asshole who can only conceptualize the world in terms of value extracted but you're NOT EVEN HAVING FUN DOING IT!!!!!!

The wardrobe source post

Have had several Asks about where I get my clothes, so here we go.

My general style:

My build: I am 5'10", around 155-160lbs. I am a trans man, so that means some fit challenges. 36R tops, 32x32 bottoms, 8ish shoe.

My preferences: I adore 1930s/40s outdoor "country gentleman" and work wear -- I am building a wardrobe here. I love texture and mixing patterns. I try to stick to natural fibers. I am spending more money on pieces that last longer and shrinking my closet to a modern capsule and a vintage capsule. (Though I will sometimes mix eras.) Brown is my favorite color.

Online thrifting:

Unclaimed baggage. Really great for giving higher end brands a shot at huge discounts.

Gem App. Fantastic for searching multiple sites like ebay, poshmark, etc.

Modern clothing:

Taylor Stitch. Standouts are sweaters and wool trousers. Sizing runs trim - I size up to a 38 here instead of my usual 36. This means it's a great source for smaller trans mascs.

Yiume. Shirts a bit thin, but fun prints and frequent sales.

Imperfects. Small range, but fun, higher waisted fishtail trousers.

Taft Boots. Comfy right out of the box. Great at making small feet look elegant. Men's sizes start at a 6.

Schott. Fantastic pea coats. Recommended by Derek Menswear.

Vermont Flannel. Super thick plaid, flannel shirts. Very warm.

Sterkowski hats. Range includes flat caps and captains/fisherman.

Spier & MacKay. Great winter coats, run a bit trim. Their trousers look hideous and despite a bit of a vintage look, everything else in the catalog is too low waisted and skinny.

LLBean. Great for sweaters. I love my grey commando style one.

Banana Republic. I like a lot of their older stuff, so a brand to watch on Poshmark.

New Vintage:

Cathcart London. Sweaters and jeans are great. Hit or miss fit on the rest. Frequent sales, small runs.

Darcy Clothing. Great all across the board. They are a film supplier, so restocks are regular. Their suspenders are hard to find, fyi, so search under "braces".

Revival Vintage. Dipping into poly blends, but a great selection of fairisle sweater vests.

JoBear boots. Great prices and styles, requires breaking in.

Focusers. Vintage glasses. They will replace lenses. Love the Peabody gold wire frames.

Old Glasses Shop. Frames you won't find at Focusers. You can try on frames before committing to an Rx, but have to pay for the return. Love their round tortoise shells.