Hasan Minhaj on people who support Donald Trump despite his bigotry.
In two GIFs, this is one of the realities of Trumpâs election.
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
wallacepolsom
occasionally subtle
Not today Justin

Janaina Medeiros
Misplaced Lens Cap

if i look back, i am lost
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
noise dept.

sheepfilms

JBB: An Artblog!
art blog(derogatory)

Kiana Khansmith
Cosimo Galluzzi
Three Goblin Art

izzy's playlists!
Jules of Nature

Aqua Utopiaď˝ćľˇăŽĺşă§č¨ćśăç´Ąă

seen from TĂźrkiye
seen from Canada
seen from United States

seen from Brazil

seen from TĂźrkiye
seen from Belgium
seen from TĂźrkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Norway

seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from T1

seen from Spain
seen from Canada

seen from Algeria
seen from Norway
@ravenspell
Hasan Minhaj on people who support Donald Trump despite his bigotry.
In two GIFs, this is one of the realities of Trumpâs election.

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Never normalize Trump.
The media will try. Donât allow it. He can never be treated like a normal president. We canât let this ever be seen as acceptable, not for a minute.
#they did it with bush#and they will do it with this douchebag#donât let it happen#challenge every media outlet you see trying to humanize his actionsÂ
I wish people wouldnât make posts about how to deal with tear gas/protests unless they actually know what theyâre talking about.Â
I am a trained street medic and Iâve personally been tear gassed more times than I can count.
- Do not use soda or water to wash tear gas out of your eyes. Use a combination of liquid maalox and water, 50:50. Thatâs what works.Â
- They can literally tear gas you anywhere you stand in relation to the police because riot cops have gas masks. Iâve been tear gassed within five feet of the front line of police. They do not care.Â
- Before my very first protest I asked my friend whoâd been doing this for over 5 years if I should soak my bandana in vinegar. She laughed and said, âI have no idea who started that rumor but itâs never done shit for me or anyone Iâve ever known.â
- If you are bulimic or have chronic vomiting, please keep in mind that the mucus membrane in your throat is a precious tender baby and you will be much more effected by tear gas than everyone around you and you will feel it in your throat for weeks afterwards and NO ONE EVER WARNS YOU ABOUT THIS.
- The police probably wonât zip tie you with your hands in front, they pretty much know how easy it is to break out of those.
- People with asthma should always carry their inhalers because that shit is real bad when you get sprayed with tear gas.Â
- Never go to a protest alone. Always have a buddy there and always let someone who isnât going know where you are, your legal name, and your birthday so if you get snatched they can check the jails and the online database for you. (note: this does not work when they grab hundreds of people at once or sometimes they just never put your name in the database yay!)
Seriously y'all, this is not the time for posturing. If you donât know something, ask a street medic or google it.Â
Iâm a trained street medic too, with multiple certifications and youâre wrong about tear gas.
Water (or saline) will be just as effective to flush your eyes with. Use L.A.W. (liquid antacid and water) as a secondary resort because your supplies could be used more effectively; and if youâre helping other victims you will run out. Itâs better to rely on water. Flushing your eyes is the most important step, not the actual substance. Antacids can soothe pain while your eyes are still being chemically burned, which will cause more long term damage.
Stay calm. Stress increases irritation. Get upwind or out of the area.
Tear gas can cause respiratory distress. Once youâre out of the gas, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. If you have trouble breathing, try breathing in for 3 seconds, out for 4. Slowly increase the seconds youâre breathing in and out (4:5, 5:6, etc). If your breathing doesnât get better seek medical attention.
If you are asthmatic and you get tear gassed you should get medical attention immediately.
Flush them for 20 minutes if you can with consistently running water/stream of saline. Wash your hands and hold the lid open, if you canât do that yourself have someone assist you. Remove contact lenses and dispose of them ASAP. They cannot be cleaned after exposure. Exposed skin should be washed.
If you see police and other officials starting to put on masks, RUN.
reblog if the vice-president elect of the united states of america fucking wants you dead
Remember that time when Pence made a last minute decision to not sign an application for a grant that would have made preschool in Indiana more accessible and help fix our crumbling infrastructure?
Remember that stern letter that a bunch of big businesses in Indiana wrote to Pence because he signed a law that was discouraging business from both within and without the state of Indiana?
Oh, and that time that Pence caused an HIV outbreak in rural Indiana because the only clinic that did HIV testing was a Planned Parenthood and his fixation on defunding reproductive rights caused it to close- even though that particular clinic didnât even offer abortion services?
And then thereâs the âPence Must Goâ signs all over central IndianaâŚ
And who could forget the time that he planned on using taxpayer dollars to fund a news outlet because he couldnât control the negative image surrounding him from the press.
What about the time that the FEC had to rewrite laws to prevent challenging candidates from using campaign funds for personal use because Mike Pence used 30% of his campaign funds on mortgage payments and golf tournaments?
And who else remembers when they were giving states a chance to individually tailor their Clean Energy laws to fit the needs of the state and Pence just said ânoâ and didnât offer any alternative?
Hey, what about that time that Pence stated that condoms were âtoo modernâ of a solution to HIV and STI prevention and that abstinence was the best choice?
Remember also that 49% of pregnancies in Indiana are unintended, and that out of 1000 teenagers, an average of 49 will become pregnant before they age of 19. And that STI cases have reached record rates for the state of Indiana.
Oh! Remember when Pence went against the advice of legal professionals and signed a good number of laws that mean that you are classified as a drug dealer (whether proven or not) if you are found with a certain quantity of drugs in your possession, and increased the minimum sentence to ten years- even when it was argued by many legal sources that the best way to combat drug use is rehabilitation and not incarceration?
How about the time that he campaigned heavily against raising the minimum wage to match neighboring states, even though an overwhelming majority of Hoosiers polled said that they support a $9/hr wage and approximately 93000 residents of the state bring home less than $300 a week?
Or that time he stripped the office of state superintended of all its meaningful power because he didnât like who won. (More.)
That person being Glenda Ritz, who by the way, received more votes than Pence.
Of course, I thought that it needed no mention, but who could ever forget the national embarrassment that was the RFRA laws, which allowed business-owners to refuse service to people if they felt âreligiously burdened,â which essentially boiled down to discriminating people who are part of the LGBTQ community.Â
And you know Iâd love to rant about Mike Pence all day long, but for those of you who want a more comprehensive list of how incompetent heâs been as our governor, this one sums it up pretty nicely and has sources!Â
Oh, but donât take my word for it: hereâs another masterpost of all this and more.Â
And just in case you thought he was done being awful- how about the time that Pence and Trump made a visit to Louisiana despite the fact that politicians were asked NOT to visit the flooded areas for essentially photo ops because its a further strain on resources? Meanwhile, South Bend IN is currently experiencing a flood where a visit would not be a negative impact the resources, but a photo op in Baton Rouge is more important somehow.Â
Also seemingly less important than an unwelcome photo op is the soil in East Chicago, IN- which has a lead content 30 times what is considered unsafe levels for children to be in contact with. This comes from a man whose initial decision not to run for President was based on his âneed to focus on his home state.âÂ
Of course, everyone remembers how the RFRA, a law that was written in the spirit of LGBTQ discrimination, was strongly protested but signed anyway. No one could have possibly guessed that people would try to use it to justify child abuse- except for literally every person who protested.Â
But to put a little more levity in this post, Purvi Patelâs sentence of feticide has been reduced to âchild neglectâ and sheâs out of jail. So thatâs good news!Â
Of course, injustices like these havenât stopped radical anti-choice laws from being signed in during the entire run of the controversy.Â
@gummibunnyyy the post I text you about!

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
iâve seen some people complain about the narrative that communal organization is essential now, because thatâs too vague. but if i may, let me tell you about what life has been like here since our government was taken over, through a coup, by a right-wing coalition that has passed dictatorial education reforms, divested enormously from public healthcare and social safety, invested hundreds of millions in weapons, stimulated police violence, ramped up the criminalization of grassroots progressive movements, has laid the groundwork for massive privatization of state enterprises, is on the way to institutionalizing racially-motivated religious intolerance, has given support to far-right religious forces that seek to exterminate the LGBT population and is discussing abolishing the minimum wage and extending the work week
communal organization is all, quite literally ALL that has stood in their way. no upper-echelon political maneuver has yielded any sort of immediate result. they were important pre-coup, when it was time to use their political channels to expose illegal machinations, but thatâs over now. what has yielded results in turning public opinion against the fascists is students occupying their schools to avoid the proposed education bill passing. what has yielded results is people occupying the buildings of the Ministry of Culture to stop its complete extinction, which was one of the first moves taken by the state after the coup. what has yielded results is people organizing frequent meetings in their workplaces, in their neighborhoods, in their schools and universities to decide how they can effectively and immediately disrupt daily life in the country. itâs people going on strike and going out into the streets and blocking traffic until the city comes to a standstill. itâs people working with each other to expand their networks - âhere we are gathered now, but who else do you know whoâs not here and who could come? where else can we go to unite politically with more people?â. itâs people taking violent action and busting up buildings, getting into fights with the police and preparing themselves more and more for the escalation of direct conflict.
this is the sort of organizing that needs to happen in the us, and itâs not easy. it hasnât been easy here. 14 years of a center-left government made the left weak and complacent, minimized the importance of grassroots organization. taking that up again has not been as immediate as we wouldâve liked but it is happening! the brazilian case also proved to me, personally, beyond doubt that there is a difference between a center-left government aligned with conservative powers and a full-on fascist government. people die in both situations - which is why silencing critique against the center-left is never a good idea - but they do die quicker under a fascist. and that delay is what gives them a shot at organizing, that delay is what needs to be maintained if real resistance is to have time to come into being. here, the center-leftists who remained committed to the centrist cause and the leftists who argue that thereâs no difference between a liberal and a fascist bicker, but in their moments of organization they come together. the one thing they have in common, at least potentially if not always effectively, is that they want to do something about the fascists in power. i can only imagine this is the same in the us from what iâve been reading. and thatâs how you progress, you link up at a community level and every day you ask, âwhat can we do today?â
America is where people criminalize 13 yr old Tyre King instead of Officer Mason, who shot 3 people in the past 6 yrs.
Jade XuÂ
I like this article from The Economist about how het couples who have sons are more likely to stay together than those who have daughters, and the way fathers think of their sons vs. their daughters, because it basically provides confirmation and statistics for stuff we all notice anecdotally.
Gordon Dahl at the University of California, San Diego and Enrico Moretti at the University of California, Berkeley noticed more than a decade ago that men are more likely to marry, and stay married to, women who bore them sons rather than daughters. In an analysis of American census data, they found that men were more inclined to propose to their partners if they discovered that a baby in utero was a boy, and they were less prone to getting a divorce if the first child was a boy rather than a girl. In the event of divorce, men with sons were more likely to get custody [ie to ask for custody], and women with daughters were less likely to remarry. [âŚ] This effect can be seen in data on households across a number of rich countries, which show that adolescent boys are more likely than girls to live with both biological parents.
Highlights:
âResults from the most recent poll, in 2011, were startlingly similar to those from the first [from the 1940s]: Americans said they favour boys over girls by a margin of 12 percentage points. This preference is driven mainly by men; women are largely agnostic.â
âMothers usually lavish the same amount of time on their sons and daughters, at least when they are younger, whereas fathers devote more to sons from the get-go.â A study found that âfathers were twice as likely to take paternity leave for a son than a daughterâ, and âmarried fathers with a child between six and 12 years old spent nearly 40 more minutes per day with sons than with daughters. In married families with two children of the same sex, fathers with sons spent between 22 and 27 minutes more per day on child care, and said they had less leisure time than those with daughters.â
âThis extra help has a measurable impact on the quality of a marriage. When Giuliano delved into the reasons why more couples with a son stayed together after three years than those with a daughter, she found that fathers of boys were not only more likely to say they were excited to become a parent, but also more helpful around the home. Mothers of boys, in turn, were more likely to praise their husbands as fathers, and were happier in their relationships than those with only girls.â
âSons also seem to push fathers to be more productive. Studies of Americans and Germans born after 1950 found that having a child of either sex spurred fathers to bring home more bacon, but the difference between a son and a daughter was considerable: nearly 110 hours a year for Germans and around 70 hours for Americansâ, which suggests that fathers are âkeener to provide for families with sons. Parents of sons seem not just to earn more but also to spend more. An analysis of American consumer expenditure data from the 1990s found that married couples with one son aged 18 or younger spent 4-7% more on housing than those with a daughter, and consumed more of everything from plane tickets to meals in restaurants. Intriguingly, families with sons also spent more on âwomenâs goodsâ such as jewellery and personal services (eg, manicures and hair salons), indicating that mothers benefit when there is a boy around.â
âMen are much more gendered in their behaviour, and in their expectations of the behaviour of their kids, than women areâ
A dad saying âIâve taken my daughter to ballgames, but she doesnât really know the difference between basketball and baseball. If she was a boy, I have this feeling that it wouldâve been easier to interest her in those things.â
Another dad saying men want a son so they can have a friend because men are incapable of making friends? and women canât read the newspaper over breakfast? (âThe possibility of shaping [my sonâs] preferences to match mine is attractive. Itâs why we play sports together, why we read together. Iâm already envisioning trying to get him to read the newspaper over breakfast. I think that thereâs a very significant desire for friendship thatâs heightened for fathers with sons given how few other outlets we have to create friendships.â)
One man was relieved to have a daughter because having a son would have made him nervous about having to âconstantly prove his masculinity around himâ men are honestly such a joke
A mum saying âI have two daughters. When I asked my husband if he thinks this made a difference in how much he helped out, he said, âYeah, I probably would feel more of a sense of responsibility if we had a son.â It actually hadnât even occurred to me before.â

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
ohh 90s movies
Never ever try to watch ace Ventura
I hate now that Iâm more aware of shit that itâs made watching so many things a pretty big like, âhow much can you stomachâ situation werh
What is really frightening is when you remember the movie/show being so progressive for the time. =|
You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. Itâs their mistake, not my failing.
Richard P. Feynman, Surely Youâre Joking, Mr. Feynman! (via fyp-science)
Tell me a bedtime story.
His father told him: âDo not fly too high, because the sun will melt your wings, and you will fall. Do not fly too low because the salt water will soften the wax, and you will fall.â
He didnât listen, because he never listened. He didnât listen.
If he had - he would have realized. No matter what, he falls.
He falls.
~
Apollo was very pretty. He kissed Icarusâs skin and called him a darling boy, and soon every time sunlight hit his skin it felt like a loverâs touch. He said come to me, come to me, and I will worship you, my days are full and busy and I will not have much time for you - but my nights are yours.
Who could refuse a god? Who could have god offer to worship them when they are nothing more than an aging inventorâs child, and say no?
If heâd listened to his father, he would have known - the sun never truly sets, there is no night, only places where the sun is absent.
Maybe if heâd listened to his father he could have refused Apollo, could have told the golden god of sunlight that he was happy where he was.
(He wasnât, but if Apollo was going to lie to him it only seemed fair that Icarus did it in return.)
But he never listens.
~
So Icarus flies too high, leaving his father behind. He thinks if he can fly high enough fast enough then Apollo will be able to catch him, pluck him from the struggles of this mortal world.
But Apollo doesnât come for him, and his wings melt. He goes crashing into the sea, and he doesnât even have the time to tell his father heâs sorry.
He would have told his father that he was sorry.
~
He doesnât die.
Poseidon is powerful and curious and considers Icarus to be a beautiful, curious thing.
Icarus did not know he was beautiful. Poseidon runs powerful hands over his hips, and Icarus doesnât think Poseidon and Apollo know the same definition of beauty that he does.
When he thinks of beauty he thinks of his fatherâs machines, of stone walls that have been smoothed down so perfectly that they almost shine silver, of shadows dancing elegantly from a fireâs grasp.
He doesnât think heâs any of these things. He doesnât know what they mean when they call him beautiful, but he doesnât think he likes it.
~
He is tired. Poseidon is very demanding, and every time the god comes to his bed Icarus feels likes heâs dying. It would be easier if Poseidon were a worse man, but heâs kind and thorough and Icarus always ends up having been satisfied but never really feeling satisfied.
He expects Poseidonâs wife to be angry with him, to hate him. He bumps into Amphitrite in the hall once. He bows low at the waist immediately, âIâm deeply sorry, my lady.â He wonders if sheâll kill him. He wonders if heâll care.
She laughs, and it sounds like calm waves lapping at a shore. She presses two fingers underneath his chin and forces him to rise, then gently tilts his head to the side so she can see the trail of bite marks her husband has left down his neck. âBetter you than me, my dear.â She pats his cheek twice and walks away.
What does that mean?
~
He doesnât know how long heâs been here. Not more than a decade, he thinks, though he hasnât aged.
Nothing ever changes. The bite marks never truly fade before Poseidon adds more.
Icarus waits for Poseidon to be slumbering beside him one night before wrapping the sheet around his hips and tip toeing out of the room. He doesnât hesitate before stepping outside of the palace walls, and instantly heâs drowning. Heâs so deep in the sea that itâs a toss up about what kills him first, the pressure on his tender organs or the lack of air in his lungs.
Not that it truly matters. No matter what, Icarus dies.
~
He wakes up. Again.
âMy lady,â he greets, bowing before a goddess with skin the color of potting soil and hair the richest red, like rubies, or - âPomegranates,â he finishes, and Persephone, queen of the underworld, smiles.
She says, âIâve had my eye on you.â
She says, âAmphitrite speaks well of you.â
She says, âI am gone six months out the year. My husband gets lonely.â
Heâs dead. Thereâs nowhere else for him to go.
âOkay,â he says.
~
The snow begins to melt. Persephone leaves, and the underworld itself seems to mourn her absence. He waits tense in his room that first night, but no one comes.
Nor the second night.
Nor the third.
He can think of nothing more unpleasant than Persephoneâs wrath, so on the fourth night he goes to Hadesâs room. When the god answers he bows low and says, âYour wife the Lady Persephone sent me.â
Icarus doesnât dare look up when Hades says, âMy brother is quite cross with me. He came demanding you back. I was willing to hand you over, but my wife said she had use of you.â
He canât return to Poseidon. Itâs cold and dark and makes him feel worthless. Even if Hades is a harsh lover, heâs better than his brother. âShe wishes me to provide you company. She says you get lonely.â
âDoes she,â Hades drawls, and Icarus cringes. âBoy, look at me when Iâm speaking to you.â
So Icarus does. Hades has nothing to the perfect symmetrical beauty of Apollo, nor the wild strength and power of Poseidon. Hades has skin like bleached wood and hair the color of machine oil, with dark, expressive eyes and a nose a little too strong for his face.
He looks like a person. Like Icarusâs father might have looked as a younger man. Like Icarus might have looked if he was allowed to grow old. He looks beautiful.
âCome with me,â he sighs, âif my wife wants you to keep me company, then you shall.â
~
He follows Hades around everyday. As he maintains the circles of the underworld, the lost souls, attends to the gods and other non-dead things that make their home in his domain.
Icarus starts helping. Hades is without his queen, and what he would normally do with her he now does alone. So Icarus looks over the passenger logs for ferry over the River Styx, addresses the complaints that are grave enough to filter their way through the palace, and when Hades looks particularly tense and lost Icarus brings him pomegranates.
Hades still doesnât sleep with him.
Icarus doesnât know if heâs disappointed by that or not, but he thinks heâs happy here.
~
âYou know,â Hades says one day while theyâre looking over reports, âthey call you Thanatos.â
Death god. âWhy?â he demands. Heâs not afraid of Hades anymore. When Hades is upset he screams and yells, then he goes and sits in the garden Persephone made for him. He doesnât lash out to hurt.
Hades smiles and doesnât answer.
~
Icarus is there to help Persephone off of the ferry. âHeâs missed you,â he says, holding out his arm for her to use as balance while she steps out of the boat.
She raises an eyebrow, âYou know, they used to call me Kore.â She stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, âThank you, Thanatos.â
~
Two hundred years later, in the midst of summer, Icarus gathers his courage and kisses Hades while both their hands are stained with ink and another war has made the lower levels of the underworld smell like corpse rot.
Hades kisses him back.
In two months, Persephone will kiss him for the first timeas he helps her out of the ferry. Sometimes when things get stressful or Hades is upset, Icarus will climb into his lap and kiss him slowly.
They never sleep together.
Icarus is happy here.
This was perfect. Iâm so happy for Thanatos. His time with Poseidon leaves an ache in my heart, but his happy ending is a soothing balm.
Hi! Just a genuine question, I was curious as to why you dislike the Rainbow Fish?
Because Rainbow Fish can be retold like this:Â
A fish has a part of their body - their physical, incarnate body, what they were born with - that makes them very happy and that they are very proud of. They also have an unfortunate habit of thinking that they are better than other fish. That part isnât good, and causes the other fish to be unhappy with them and avoid them.Â
The fish is now very sad. The only person who likes the fish anymore tells him to go to the octopus, the animal framed as the adult in the story.Â
The octopus tells the rainbow fish that they have been a snotty jerk and that the only way to make people like them again is to take off their scales and give them away. That in order to have any friends and make up for their behaviour, they have to rip off pieces of their own body and self and give them away to other people to make the other people happy and make up for their transgressions.Â
And the rainbow fish is upset. And then another fish comes and asks them for a scale. And the rainbow fish takes off a piece of themself, their body, the thing they were born into, and gives it away. And now that fish likes him, and is materially benefitted by this piece of another fishâs actual body that has been given to it.Â
And then the other fish come, and the rainbow fish rips off more parts of its body - all of the parts that used to make it happy and that it was proud of - and gives them to the other fish, because itâs not fair that the rainbow fishâs body was so much nicer. And when the rainbow fish has ripped all but one scale off, tearing out of themself all but one of the things that they possessed in their self that made them happy, then all the fish are friends with them! And everything is great! And everyone has a fair share.Â
Of the rainbow fishâs, and I do quite mean to keep hammering this point, own body.
What the book says is:Â
1. if you are born with something nice - like, for instance, an attractive body or a clever mind or a talent or whatever - and it makes you happy and proud, you are a horrible person and deserve to be shunned. Absolutely no line is ever drawn between Rainbow Fishâs self, their actual own body, and their behaviour. In reality, itâs their behaviour thatâs the problem: they are mean and aloof to the other fish. This could be the case whether or not their body was all covered with magnificent scales. However, the book absolutely conflates the two: their behaviour is framed as a natural and unavoidable outcome of being happy about and proud of their special, beautiful body. So donât you dare ever be happy or proud of anything you have or can do that everyone else doesnât have exactly the same amount as, because if you do, you are horrible and by definition snotty, stuck up and mean.Â
2. That in order to make up for the transgression of having something about your actual self that makes you happy and proud (which, remember, has automatically made you selfish and snobby, because thatâs what happens), you must rip pieces of what makes you happy out of yourself and give them to other people for the asking, and you must never ever EVER have more of that part of - again, I hate to belabour except I donât - your self than other people have, and that makes you a good person that people like and who deserves friends.Â
To summarize, then: to be a good person you must never have something about yourself that makes you happy and proud and if you happen to be born with that something you must absolutely find a way to give it away to other people and remove it from yourself, right up to tearing off pieces of your body, in order to be a good person who deserves friends.Â
This, I am absolutely sure, is not what the author intended: the author definitely meant it to be a story about sharing versus not sharing. But the author then used, as their allegory/metaphor, the fishâs own actual body. Their self. It was not about sharing shiny rocks that the rainbow fish had gathered up for himself. It wasnât even about the fish teaching other fish how to do something, or where to find something.Â
The metaphor/allegory used is the fishâs literal. body. And so the message is: other people have rights to you. Other people have the right to demand you, yourself, your body, pieces of you, in a way that makes absolutely sure that you have no more of anything about your body and self that is considered âgoodâ than they do.Â
And that might just suck a little bit except, hah, so: Gifted adult, here. Identified as a Gifted child.Â
This is what Gifted children are told, constantly. All the fucking time.Â
(Okay, I overstate. I am sure - at least I fucking HOPE - that particularly by this time there are Gifted children coming to adulthood who did not run into this pathology over and over and over and over again. I havenât met any of them, though, and I have met a lot of Gifted adults who were identified as Gifted as children.)Â
Instead of being told whatâs actually a problem with our behaviour (that weâre being mean, or controlling, or putting other people down), or - heavens forfend - the other children being told that us being better at something doesnât actually mean moral superiority and is totally okay and not something we should be attacked for, we are told: theyâre jealous of you. Thatâs the problem.Â
Instead of being taught any way to be happy about our accomplishments and talents that does not also stop the talents and accomplishments of other children - whatever those are! - from being celebrated, we are left with two choices: to be pleased with what we can do, or what we are, or to never, ever make anyone feel bad by being able to do things they canât. And the first option also comes with two options: either you really ARE superior to them because you have skills, abilities and talents they donât (or are prettier), or you are a HORRIBLE stuck up monster for feeling that way.Â
(It is not uncommon for Gifted kids to chose either side, which means itâs not uncommon for them to choose âokay fine I really AM better than youâ; this can often be summarized as âintent on sticking their noses in the air because everyone else is intent on rubbing them in the dirtâ; on the other hand I have met a lot of Gifted women, particularly*, who cannot actually contemplate the idea of being Gifted because to do so is to immediately imply that they are somehow of more moral or human worth than someone else and this means they are HORRIBLE HORRIBLE SELFISH PEOPLE, and so will find literally any reason at all that their accomplishments are not accomplishments or that they donât deserve anything for them.)Â
Instead of being given any kind of autonomy or ownership of ourselves, we are loaded down by other peopleâs expectations: we are told that because we can accomplish more we must, and that daring not to do what other people want to the extent that they want with what we are capable of we are selfish, slackers, lazy, whatever. We are taught that we owe other people - our parents, our friends, even The World - excellence, the very best we can possibly do, and trust me when I say people are ALWAYS insisting We Could Do Better. And we should, or else we will be disappointing them, or letting them down, because (because we are Gifted) the only reason we could possibly be failing is not trying hard enough.Â
We are, in fact, told over and over and over and over again, to rip off pieces of ourselves to give to other people to make them happy, because those pieces are valuable, but forbidden from enjoying the value of those pieces - pieces of our selves - for our own sake because that would be selfish and arrogant. And we owe this, because we were born a particular way.Â
Because, metaphorically, we were born with rainbow scales, so now we have to rip off those rainbow scales in the name of Sharing, and otherwise we are selfish and horrible and deserve to be alone.**Â
That is why I fucking hate The Rainbow Fish.Â
Because whatever the author INTENDED, the metaphor they chose, the allegory they picked, means that THAT is the story they actually told. (And is the story that child after child after child after child I have encountered actually takes from it.) I donât hate the author; Iâm not even mad at them. But I do hate the book with a fiery passion, and it is among the books I will literally rip apart rather than allow in my house when I have kids, because Iâm not going to give it to anyone ELSEâs kid either.Â
*but, I would like to note, not UNIQUELY: this is something I encounter in Gifted men as well.Â
**I canât remember who it was, in relation to this, put forward the thought: if people actually talked about the access and use of childrenâs bodies the way we talk about access to and use of Gifted childrenâs minds and talentsâ , the abusiveness would be absolutely clear? But theyâre right.Â
â because sometimes it is Gifted childrenâs bodies in an abstract way, in that its their talent for gymnastics or their talent for ballet or sport or whatever, so I mean in a very raw way, the actual physical embodied flesh we are.Â
In addition to all this (which I agree with very much) the âhappy endingâ in that story is that everyone is the same. Not just equal, but THE SAME.
Itâs a story about the virtues of conformity, as well as being a story asserting gifted people have no sovereignty over their own bodies and minds.
The rainbow fish had to mutilate himself until he and the other fish were identical in order to be allowed to be happy and accepted. And this was presented as a good thing, a right thing.
While Iâm at it, hereâs another thing I hate about this book: okay, like, the rainbow fish thought he was inherently superior to the other fish because of a special attribute he had, and that special attribute was the only valuable thing about him. Then he got his come-uppance and learned he could only have value by being unselfish and giving away the only thing of value he had.
The book does NOT challenge the idea that his special thing â and his sacrifice of it â was all he had of value. In fact, it props that idea up by suggesting he needed to give the other fish his scales, that they needed his scales, that they would still be lesser unless his shared his specialness with them.
And that is horribly untrue. He has value because heâs a person. Each of the other fish also had value because they are persons. Take all his scales away and he would be hurt and grieving but would still have inherent worth and dignity. That is WHY it was wrong for him to be a jerk to the other fish: he was disrespecting their inherent value as people.
And that, too, is a thing gifted people are taught: that their giftedness is the only thing that matters about them and they are worthless without it.
*points up* Vassâs addition is excellent extra unpacking for which I was too braindead to elaborate on at the time. A+, would appreciate again.
Can i add, as a librarian, I saw a lot of childrenâs books with a really fucked up adult agenda in them. Stuff that doesnât belong in a kidâs book but the book gets lauded because it makes adults happy. Thereâs a book where an older brother forces his little sister to act like a dog degrades her by doing dog things and it basically follows the scenario of bestiality porn. Thereâs one thatâs all about how much kids annoy their mother and the kids need to learn to be quiet and polite. Parents think itâs hilarious, the message to kids is âyouâre annoying, stop acting like a kid.â Remember that childrenâs books are marketed to adults. Parents, librarians, and teachers primarily buy childrenâs books. Childrenâs likes and preferences are really far down the list in terms of what publishers will contract.
Fucking seriously. As both nanny and librarian-in-training, some of them are deeply, deeply hideous, and the thing about KIDS books especially is that theyâre almost all explicitly didactic. (Almost. Not entirely! But almost.) These are NOT things that get in By Accident; theyâre things that get in and are MEANT to teach a point. And some of them are really, really awful.
OH MY GOSH THIS (actually thinking about it thereâs a whole bunch that are really disturbing. And it was never the ones (or mostly not) people shrieked about me reading (like I got shrieked at for reading Matilda because âNOT RESPECTING AUTHORITYâ)
âChildrenâs books are marketed to adultsâ is one of the gloomy truths that Iâve had to learn as an author. I can no longer count the number of things that Iâve had to pull from a book where I said âbut kids would LOVE this!â and my editor (who is a kind and decent soul and not responsible for the system) says âyes, but grown-ups will think itâs way too darkââor graphic, or in one memorable case, hallucinatory.
True Storyâmy first real success, the book that went on to move something like three hundred thousand copies, was rejected by the first editor because she said she couldnât find a moral to it.
Large (Clark Art Museum)
Harry Wilson Watrous painted this, The Chatterers, in 1913.
The Metropolitan Museum writes of Watrous, âAbout 1905 the artistâs eyesight began to fail, and he shifted from exquisitely rendered, tiny genre scenes recalling seventeenth-century Dutch paintings to larger canvases containing idealized female figures.â
There certainly is something ideal in the work, with the well-dressed woman gazing at a crow, apparently sitting up from where she has been reclining on a bench.
There is also something slightly surreal, however, to the odd unity of the scene: birds of all sorts fly hither and thither across the wallpaper while a woman in black, iridescent black feathers in her hair and on her shoulder, gazes calmly at a crow that (one would expect) better belongs outdoors.

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
White girls realizing white isnât supreme after all. #Love it!
This is disturbing, I canât believe she actually said this is an interview
She needs an African slap
1. The Court for Arbitration in Sport suspended the regulation on hyperandrogenism (high level of testosterone happening naturally in women) because there is no clear evidence that it advantages the individuals who present it.
2. While Caster Semenya has been publicly diagnosed with hyperandrogenism (in 2009, as she was suspected not to âqualify as a womanâ for the race sheâd just won), neither Francine Niyonsaba nor Margaret Wambui are known to have that condition. People think they do because they have muscular bodies that are deemed unfeminine, so clearly testosterone must be in play.
Youâre just sore you lost to women you refuse to see as women because they donât fit your white stereotype for femininity. You came 5th. Sit the fuck down.
this is so transmisogynist/intersexist sheâs ugly
This is gross as hell, grow up. You lost to them. Calm down.
And the thing is, I bet you this white girl probably got twice or more the amount of actual support/funding/opportunity to get them where they are today. They just salty that the women of colour had to work ten times harder, get through ten times more struggle and setbacks, got much less supportâŚ..yet dey still better than white girl.
black and asian vikings 100% definitely existed (also, saami vikings)
you know how far you can get into eurasia and africa by sailing up rivers from the baltic and mediterranean seas? pretty fucking far, and thatâs what vikings liked to do to trade
then, you know, people are people, so love happens, business happens, and so ppl get married and take spouses back home to the frozen hellscape that is scandinavia (upon which iâm guessing the horrorstruck new spouses went âWHAT THE FUCK??? FUCKING GIVE ME YOUR JACKET???????â)
and sometimes vikings bought thralls and brought them home as well, and i mean, when your indentured service is up after however many years and youâre a free person again, maaaaaaaaaaaaybe itâs a bit hard to get all the way home across the continent, so you make the best out of the situation and you probably get married and raise a gaggle kids
so yeah
viking kingdoms/communities were not uniformly pure white aryan fantasy paradises, so pls stop using my cultural history and ethnic background to excuse your racist discomfort with black ppl playing heimdall and valkyrie
Also we KNOW they got to Asia and Africa.Â
Why?
Because Asians, Africans, and Vikings TOLD US SO.Â
Also, we know there was significant mercantile trade between Scandinavia and parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern India, Kashmir, North and Eastern Africa because there is evidence in burial sites.
Check that out: the goods Vikings and Scandinavians were getting from their trade with the rest of the world was so important they buried themselves with it, as part of their treasure hordes.
We KNOW this.
Thereâs a reason you can still see many of the trade routes from the ancient world etched into the very earth.
Plus, we know that some Scandinavian cultures that participated in Viking raids had established minority communities of ethnically Mongolian folks living among them during the periods when such raids were common, and itâs difficult to credit that none of them would have signed on.
Islamic Ring in Viking Grave
Vikings in Persia
Black Vikings
Vikings in North Africa
Buddha statue in Viking hoard
Vikings brought Native American woman to Europe
Unflattering texts in Arabic about Vikings
Original text by Ahmad ibn-Fadlan
More about the Islamic World and Vikings (some Vikings converted to Islam! sort of sketchy site tho)
Viking technology came from Afghanistan
More on trade route determination via metallurgy
⌠is that enough? :)