oops i've created content

here are a few other "secret" dashboards:

Posts from your "crushes"

"What you missed" (will be empty if you already visit Tumblr every day)

"Trending"

nope! i hovered over the link and this popped up on the bottom of the browser. here's all the links in order:

https://www.tumblr.com/timeline/blog_subscriptions

https://www.tumblr.com/timeline/crushes

https://www.tumblr.com/timeline/what_you_missed

https://www.tumblr.com/timeline/trending

a post can have 500 reblogs, half of them with tags, but unless every single post is being shared directly from the original, the OP is probably going to think that nobody's saying anything

Happy Ides of March, folks!

easy to pronounce, even for children (though kids 4 & younger may pronounce it more like "mayd" or "maygh")

ONE SYLLABLE!!! ("individual" is too goddamn LONG.) you have to be able to say it quickly and casually

ends in a soft vowel sound, so it'll flow right into the next word ("ind" halts the whole sentence)

fits neatly into the existing structure as a relative of master/mistress that can be abbreviated down to an m and one other letter

distinct enough that it can't be mistaken for either gendered term (if you call me mix I'll kill you. it sounds like miss with extra steps)

wizard.

drawbacks:

there aren't any

They went NUTS for it! Not only did they love it, but there was an immediate click in understanding about they/them pronouns *from the entire cohort* that I haven’t experienced in 3 years of programming.

And linking it back to the root words Mister and Missus as OP so wonderfully provided helped establish that using they/them or neopronouns isn’t just playing around or “Miss but different” the way it can be with Mx. I used to try to go by Teacher Day because I was still getting she/her’d all the time but that also came with the problems of the students only being able to see me in the role of Teacher and being intimidated by the educational institution and their grades (I don’t even work for the school I’m external staff I don’t even have WiFi access). And I’d still get she/her’d all the time.

As soon as I introduced Magister they saw that a nonbinary person could be an Adult with a *societal* role outside the binary. It was immediately visible in their ecstatic faces. And I didn’t get misgendered today.

And they were like "What?"

And I was like, "Agility isn't the ultimate form of preparedness. Contingency is. Agility still requires you to flounder and figure out a solution in the moment, but if you have a contingency plan, all you have to do is implement it."

And they were like "But you can't make contingency plans for every situation!"

And I was like, "Yeah, you basically can if you just identify all of your basic dependencies and contingency plan around the loss of any dependency," and then I gave a few examples.

And they all stared at me like I'm an alien.

As he described to the interviewer a moment of panic and how he he overcame, the interviewer said, in one of those, summarise-last-answer-given-with-appropriate-levels-of-respect-in-order-to-proceed-to-next-question phrasing’s, “Wow, so you rose to the occasion -“

FIRST LAW: This character must be a woman.

SECOND LAW: This character must be a loser, but not in a way that can be pinned on her gender. Misogynistic response from the audience does not disqualify the character.

THIRD LAW: If the audience does not enjoy this character, then it becomes impossible to enjoy the show/film/book/game altogether. It is not possible to ignore this character, for better or for worse.

The three images above are screenshots of printed text, laconically recounting a particular experience attributed to Paula Simmons (a bookstore clerk in Rhode Island).

The text in its entirety reads:

I work at a bookstore. Teenager came in daily. Read for hours. Never bought anything. Finally asked. "Looking for anything specific?" "Just reading. Can't afford books. Library's far. This is closer." Let him stay. Read whatever. Whenever. Brought him snacks. Hot chocolate. Safe space. Learned his story. Foster kid. Seventh home. Books were his escape. His education. His hope. Started giving him books. "Damaged copies. Can't sell them. You want?" He knew better. Took them anyway. Read everything. Three years of this. He aged out of foster care. Eighteen. Scared. Nowhere to go. Helped him apply to college. Scholarships. Got in. Full ride. English major. Graduated. He's a teacher now. High school English. Brings his whole class to the bookstore. Shows them where he spent his teenage years. "Bookstore worker gave me sanctuary. Knowledge. Hope. Taught me one person caring changes trajectories." He buys books for students. Who can't afford them. Pays it forward. Every kid in his class reads. Because someone let a foster kid read for free.

The typeface looks traditional (probably Times New Roman) with somewhat unrefined spacing and resolution (as was typical with old-fashioned manual or mechanical, rather than digital, typesetting).

Some lines of text have also been colored over in highlighter orange.

The font, typesetting and highlighting imbue the words with the look and feel of having been lifted from the pages of an older, valued textbook, an important (but not untouchably sacrosanct) tome, or a well-used, practical life guide of some sort.

The following lines of text (some truncated) are the ones highlighted in orange:

I work at a bookstore. Teenager came in daily. Read for hours. Never bought anything. Finally asked. Started giving him books. "Damaged copies. Can't sell them. You want?" He knew better. Took them anyway. the bookstore. Shows them where he spent his teenage years. "Bookstore worker gave me sanctuary.