bebe sloff

it’s called a Hawser and is the thick cable or rope used for towing/mooring a ship

This is a line designed to hold in place a moving object that can be easily in excess of 10000 tons. AND THEY CAN BREAK FROM THAT TENSION ALONE.

You’ve heard of the term, “Going haywire,” right? Ever spared a thought to why that term exists?

See, time was there was a prototype automatic hay-baler. But this was in that magic period juuust before we really got into standardized sizes. So calibration of the machine was handled manually - a mix of guessing and learning from the results of guessing. If you’ve read Raising Steam by Sir Terry Pratchett you know that many people don’t get to learn from the results of their own guesses, due to being dead.

A poorly calibrated hay-baler had the mechanical strength to smush the hay into a tight bundle, wrap the wire around it, and tie that wire off to maintain the bale’s form. But the pressure of the over-packed hay was a constant outward force. Each bale made by an over-tight baler was potential energy in physical form. We have a word for “potential energy in physical form” and that word is “bomb.”

So sometimes, a man would toss a hay bale and it would land with a twang and the man who’d been reaching down to pick it up where it landed was dead.

malgendering is a form of transphobia wherein a transphobic person uses their victim's correct gender to harass or demean them. it is meant to be the inverse of misgendering, where a transphobe uses the victim's incorrect gender to harass or demean them.

misgendering towards trans women can be as simple as "youre a man." but malgendering is more insidious, like someone saying "you really are a girl" when she makes a mistake in order to insult her intelligence. the phrase "you really are a girl" is positive when removed from the context of the trans woman making a mistake and the transphobe's sarcastic tone that implies shes stupid in an misogynistic way.

if a trans man does something like standing up for himself against an unfair situation or asks for better accommodations/treatment, and a transphobe wants to use that to imply he is selfish and entitled, they might say "trans men really are men" which again, is a true statement on its own. but in the context of the situation, its clear the transphobe is using the stereotypical worst qualities of men to insult and undermine someone's very identity.

malgendering can be any severity of harm, just like misgendering. my mom slipping up in the first months of my transition and accidentally calling me "she", and a bigot shouting "YOURE A WOMAN YOULL NEVER BE A MAN" at me are both examples of misgendering, but one is much worse than the other and its the same with malgendering. being told "trans men are the men of the trans community" as an insult is annoying and rude but not a big deal. however, right now ICE is torturing trans men in concentration camps by forcing them to do pointless and grueling labor. and when they become exhausted, theyre told "I thought you were a man. if youre really a man this should be easy for you" these are both examples of malgendering. one is a microaggression, the other is literal torture.

Malgendering is the action of maliciously burdening a trans person with the stereotypes about their true gender, with the intent of making living as said gender seem less favorable.

saying these things to a trans person with the knowledge that theyre trans has an underlying implication: "you wouldn't be bad if you weren't trans". when you tell a trans men that all men should die and you hate all men, youre telling him "you wouldnt be evil if you detransitioned. everyone would be kind to you if you were still a girl" and same with trans women: "you would be smarter and respected if you weren't a woman. I wouldnt harass you if you were still a man."

* you have power

* you're safe

You get to play at having power over someone else. This is your dominance sorts of things, your sadisms, etc.

You get to play safely. You can play with scary things while knowing there's safewords and a dom/top who loves you.

It started with someone listing "places with uncanny energy," like gas stations on a road trip, empty movie theaters, etc.

Then someone reblogged it and said those are called "liminal spaces," defining liminal as in-between, neither one thing nor another.

Tomorrow (July 4th, 2026) is the 10 year anniversary of the-crepes-of-wrath's comment, which:

Predates the 2020 spike in interest by four years

Predates the original backrooms post, and the the creation of r/liminalspaces by three years

Predates the earliest mention that KnowYourMeme attributes to Twitter by two years

I'm pretty sure this is the moment the term "liminal spaces" was attached to this sort of imagery, and it's TEN YEARS OLD TOMORROW!

At this point, we all have to acknowledge that insurance companies are acting as entities that harm patients in the name of profit by denying care and as physicians we all took an oath to first, do no harm.

I don't wanna get all kumbaya and woo-woo about this but when I took my oath (over zoom because of my covid graduation) upon graduating from medical school I, like, meant it? Like, taking that oath was meaningful and symbolic and when I made that oath I genuinely was committing myself to uphold the things I said for the rest of my life, it wasn't just another thing to check off the list in my medical training journey. The moment I became a doctor was when I took that oath.

And I think as a profession, we need to start ousting these doctors who are working in tandem with these insurance companies to act as barriers to care in the name of profits. Who are lending their medical licenses to be used in this way, who are harming the dwindling public trust people may have left in our profession by using their position in society to literally hurt people.