The new layout it a whole mess. Thankfully Xkit can already help with a bunch of this! I’m sure it’ll give more options soon.
Vanilla Tumblr: (I have marked in red what can be removed. The tabs can be set not to stick, so you will really only see them at the top of your dash. Empty box on the left for hidden notifications and shop sparkle, i just didn’t have any. I’m EU so no Live for me).
“I have a vagina. Just thought you should know. Just thought you should know. I look like a woman. I’m dressed like one, I guess. The thing is, I also have balls….I’m not male or female. I’m intersex.
“Most people assume that you’re biologically either a man or a woman, but it’s actually a lot more complex than that. There are so many ways somebody could be intersex.
In my case, it means I was born with XY chromosomes, which you probably know as male chromosomes. And I was born with a vagina and balls inside my body. I don’t respond to testosterone, so during puberty, I grew breasts… I don’t actually have a uterus – I was born without one, so I don’t menstruate, I can’t have biological children…
“We put people in boxes based on their genitalia. Before a baby’s even born, we ask whether it’s a boy or a girl, as if it actually matters; as if you’re going to be less excited about having a baby if it doesn’t have the genitals you wanted; as if what’s between somebody’s legs tells you anything about that person.
Are they kind, generous, funny? Smart? Who do they want to be when they grow up? Genitals don’t actually tell you anything. Yet, we define ourselves by them. In this society, we love putting people into boxes and labeling each other…
“But there’s one really big problem: biological sex is not black or white. It’s on a spectrum. Besides your genitalia, you also have your chromosomes, your gonads, like ovaries or testicles. You have your internal sex organs, your hormone production, your hormone response and your secondary sex characteristics, like breast development, body hair, etc.
Those seven areas of biological sex all have so much variation, yet we only get two options: male or female. Which is kind of absurd to me, because I can’t think of a single other human trait that there’s only two options for: skin color, hair, height, eyes…”
Listen to whole talk here. Believe me, it is worth your time!
Saying sex isn’t binary because some people are born intersex is like saying humans have tails or extra fingers because some people are born like that…
The definition of a binary is that only two options exist. Therefore, the existence of intersex people means sex cannot be a binary by definition. It can have a bimodal distribution- and indeed, it does- but it cannot be truly binary.
Humans can indeed have tails and extra fingers, in the same way that humans can be intersex. If you said ‘humans always only have five fingers on each hand’, you’d be wrong. If you said ‘humans can only be 100% ‘male’ or 100% ‘female’’- i.e. that sex is binary- you’d be equally wrong.
I’d like to also take this opportunity to remind people that there are more people with intersex conditions in the world than there are natural redheads or people with natural ambidexterity, and yet we always talk about how intersex people are statistically unimportant, a fluke, a mutation, because they’re such a small percentage while redheads are included in surveys and accepted as a possibility in almost all aspects, and ambidexterity is recognized as an existing middle state in what could very easily be reduced to a (mistaken) binary as well. Hmmmmm.
This has become one of my most popular blog posts ever, with more than 47,000 likes and reblogs. The main reason is likely because Emily Quinn gives this kind of diversity an unavoidable human face.
I would like to add one more thing: What those who are committed to the strict binary forget is that the variation found in intersex people continue into the world of non-intersex people.
Take genitals: Some intersex people have what people call “ambiguous” genitals. But the genitals of non-intersex people also vary a lot in shape and sizes.
Right now, you have to be a team player. You cannot complain about AI being used to fuck over your industry and then turn around and use it on somebody else’s industry.
No AI book covers. No making funny little videos using deepfakes to make an actor say stuff they never did. No AI translation of your book. No AI audiobooks. No AI generated moodboards or fancasts or any of that shit. No feeding someone else’s unfinished work into Chat GPT “because you just want to know how it ends*” (what the fuck is wrong with you?). No playing around with AI generated 3D assets you can’t ascertain the origin of. None of it. And stop using AI filters on your selfies or ESPECIALLY using AI on somebody else’s photo or artwork.
We are at a crossroad and at a time of historically shitty conditions for working artists across ALL creative fields, and we gotta stick together. And you know what? Not only is standing up for other artists against exploitation and theft the morally correct thing to do, it’s also the professionally smartest thing to do, too. Because the corporations will fuck you over too, and then they do it’s your peers that will hold you up. And we have a long memory.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking “your peers” are only the people in your own industry. Writers can’t succeed without artists, editors, translators, etc making their books a reality. Illustrators depend on writers and editors for work. Video creators co-exist with voice actors and animators and people who do 3D rendering etc. If you piss off everyone else but the ones who do the exact same job you do, congratulations! You’ve just sunk your career.
Always remember: the artists who succeed in this career path, the ones who get hired or are sought after for commissions or collaboration, they aren’t the super talented “fuck you I got mine” types. They’re the one who show up to do the work and are easy to get along with.
And they especially are not scabs.
*that’s not even how it ends that’s a statistically likely and creatively boring way for it to end. Why would you even want to read that.
Hot dog water - there’s a Tumblr post out there I’ve seen saying hot dog water is the opposite of holy water, due to the fact that a single drop of it will contaminate what it touches. I assume this was partly inspired by this allusion but who knows for sure.
Also the the idea of holy water as inhuman and cleaning vs hot dog water as the remains of feeding someone - often a child - and entirely human. It may be dirty and I do not want it on me but God hot dog water has some memories. You will not wash away my sins. They’re mine. Also, anyone can make hot dog water but holy water is refined, restricted (yes anyone can make it in an emergency but lay people are restricted from it)
“you and I both know”
Unlike baptism for babies, this one is done between two people who are both aware of what is happening. The one receiving the baptism gives the orders about what they want to happen. The giver and receiver are portrayed as equals. They are equally aware of their humanity.
“the holy stuff won’t take”
Ooof heartbreaking, amazing line. Raises so many questions. What does it mean when the water “takes”? What has the receiver done that makes them unfit for holy water? Or, what has the holy water done that makes it to weak to help, to be a part of your life?
The poem as a whole - I love the lack of capitalization. It adds a sort of intimacy to the poem, and the statement from the speaker. The high words “baptise” and “holy” being offset by “take” and “hot dog”. Also “hot dog water” vs “holy stuff.” The cadence! I would lick it.
this poem is moving me to tears. the only reason twitter user yiffpolice thinks it’s self-evidently garbage is theyre trying to read it as prose
i read “the holy stuff won’t take” slightly differently though. when you look at other things that are said to “not take” it’s an expression that refers to impermanence, generally of training or a mark. in that context, for holy water not to take comes to mean that the speaker will not remain holy after a baptism, with the suggestion from “you and i both know” that this has already been proven
the use of the word “take” further reinforces the idea of training or marking and ties in with the idea of the speaker’s incompatibility with holiness by suggesting that god has rejected them, that they have rejected god, or both
this also ties back in to the request for baptism in the opposite of cleansing water and creates a narrative in which the speaker has tried repeatedly to be Good but to no avail and is now choosing to try being Bad on purpose in search of a choice at which they can succeed, but needs help to do this; needs someone to baptise them. the implication being that they’ve spent so much time trying uselessly to be Good that they don’t know how to stop
with hot dog water as a metaphor for human connection, especially framed as a foil to divinity, this turns the poem into a call for help from a speaker whose righteous isolation is killing them but who only has one person, if any, who can connect them to their first real community, which they hope will destroy the urge to be Good with a permanency that destroying the urge to be Bad has never had
EDIT BC I’M NOT DONE: also the way the only two-syllable words are “baptise” and “water” and “holy” suggests a rejection of the lofty in favor of the base
“baptise” is semisarcastic, used only as an explicit and intentional misappropriation for want of a secular equivalent
“water” is even more explicitly appropriated from its orifinal context, with holy water being reduced to holy “stuff” and the water itself being explicitly and intentionally corrupted and placed at the opposite end of the line from “baptise”
and “holy” is of course separated by an entire line—one which speaks of agency—from both of these sister words, only to be directly rejected wholesale
EDIT 2: someone in the notes said its trochaic and i realized:
the first line is in trochaic tetrameter, which sets you up to read the second line as trochaic, but its five syllables have a symmetrical stress pattern, which leads you smoothly into the iambic trimeter of the third line, which is not only an inversion of the trochaic first, but feels clipped by comparison
this poem, hated by the poet (which thematically adds to it, imho), is not just moving in content but also technically very well constructed
yk what i hate though. is when i find a meme and im like THIS IS SO [cool intimidating mutual i never talk to] I SHOULD SEND IT TO THEM but then i remember ive never talked to them ever and so i cant just like give them a meme out of the blue and so the meme just withers and rots in my camera roll 😔
Reblog if a mutual who’s never spoken to you can randomly send you memes that made them think of you.
just a reminder - do NOT boycott streaming services or not watch new things. the unions have not called for one for a reason. for one, it affects residual payments, which as minimal as those currently are, actors are still getting them during this time, and for two, studios will use lack of viewership as an excuse to cancel shows because you are showing them there is no demand. it deeply affects the industry the writers and actors stand to come back to once the strike is over
Also: going to these places puts pressure and demand on the company. Demand they can’t meet without actors and writers. That puts stress on them, and stress is good.
^^^^ive been looking for a rb with this addition because YES. if a customer wants a burger and there is no cook to make it, that puts pressure on the owner to pay the cook what they want so the customer will still give them money. if there is no customer, the owner has no reason for the cook to make burgers
Stop watching IF AND ONLY IF the unions call for a boycott. For the time being since they haven’t, streaming the shows actually helps. You’re not crossing a picket line to watch because that picket line does not exist unless a boycott is called for.
I love this moment in gwenpool because it pretty much confirms that people just willingly look the other way with spider-man’s identity. Like they catch a glimpse of Peter and they’re like nope. Nuh uh, didn’t see anything. He’s their superhero and must be protected!
I don’t know how many other americans are aware of this btw but I think you should know that europeans don’t have to snooze tumblr live, they can just turn it off permanently. it’s only legal for them to pull this bullshit here.
As an Australian I’ve never seen Tumblr live except in American screenshots
