Peter: 51 Looks Like SI

the russos said that That scene between peter and tony was an improv by tom and then you remember that the hug scene in hoco was ALSO improvised by tom and then you realize that your emotional well-being and over-all mental health is compromised because tom holland couldn’t stop sneaking hugs with robert downey jr. 

You know, Hitler was obviously a big douche for what he did to the Jews. I think history would judge him differently, however, if he had just narrowed his focus to trannies. I could get behind that sort of thing.

Ok, wow. Yeah. I'm gonna go with wow.

So you know how I have this thing where I respond to anon hate with interesting historical facts? Yeah, that thing. See, that thing works because normally I get anon hate that's directed at me specifically. So I can brush it off and give y'all interesting history and everybody wins except the person insulting me.

But this isn't like that. I mean, sure, this is horrifically offensive to me, since I'm both Jewish and trans. But it's not just hatred towards me; it's hatred towards every other trans or Jewish person.

So, after some thought (by which I mean staring at the ceiling and saying "what the fuck" for several minutes and then cuddling my dogs for a while), I've decided to address the situation as follows:

Instead of me providing an interesting historical fact to make this anon feel exactly as pointless and irrelevant as they are, I'm throwing this thread open to every trans or Jewish follower who wants to add some historical facts. They can be facts about trans things, or Jewish things, or facts about bylaws or bog bodies or bridge construction. Whatever you want. If you're trans or Jewish or both, add some facts.

I'll start:

The Talmud (for those of you who don't know, the Talmud is a collection of Jewish legal commentary, opinions, and rulings and is essentially a guidebook to Jewish law and practice and also the Jewish tendency to argue over every goddam thing) recognizes 6 distinct gender categories.

The first two are the classic male and female (zachar and nekevah is Hebrew). But after that, it gets interesting.

The next gender category is "androginus," a word borrowed from Greek. It describes someone who has both male and female characteristics. After much argument, the Talmud more or less concludes that a person in this category is obligated to perform some male religious duties and some female religious duties, and that the details are determined by individual context. For instance, an androginus may or may not be alone with women (something a woman may do and a man may not), depending on the person and the precise situation. Essentially, in modern terms, an androginus is analogous to a bigender person.

Then, there's the tumtum. I know that sounds ridiculous in English, but I promise it's a totally normal sounding word in Hebrew. Tumtumim (yeah, that's the plural, and again, I promise it doesn't sound silly in Hebrew) are people whose gender characteristics are unclear in some way. A tumtum is different from an androginus because an androginus is acknowledged to inhabit multiple genders, while a tumtum has only one gender, but that gender is uncertain to observers. In modern terms, the tumtum might be analogous to someone whose gender presentation is ambiguous or who is questioning their gender.

The last two categories are the saris and the ay'lonit. A saris is a person who is identified as male at birth, but develops female characteristics later in life. An ay'lonit is the exact reverse (an afab person developing male characteristics later). These terms are generally understood to refer to intersex people, but there is an interesting exception. A saris can be someone who had a penis but who had it removed for some reason. This means that the status of saris (and that of ay'lonit by extension) can include those whose gender is altered by choice. So, saris and ay'lonit can apply, in modern terms, to both certain categories of intersex people and to binary trans people.

I personally know of multiple Jewish trans people who have started using some of these terms to describe themselves, and I love it. Would the rabbis of the 1st through 8th century recognize the way we use these terms now? Probably not. But hey, I don't need their permission, because:

For this commandment which I command you this day, is not concealed from you, nor is it far away.... it is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it. (Devarim 30: 11-14)

I already had to deal with some being down last night, and now again? I didn't even get the ao3 design, just a simple text :(

Hank, why do you have a stark computer? I thought you would've made your own.

Hank: I use a Stark sometimes because I know Tony spies on it, and it’s fun to type weird things into google and watch him freak out and try to decifer what it means. Recently, I’ve been researching “What to do when you have romantic feelings towards shrubs.” Tony didn’t look me in the eye on our last skype call. It’s pretty great.

Seriously AO3? I just wanted to get to the next part of the series (the last part ended with a cliffhanger that would get solved in the next part. That's the only thing I remember from when I read it 5 years ago)

Please AO3, get back online. I just wanted to finish my bedtime reading :(

Have you heard of the upcoming social media platform "Fanexus"? I was wondering what are your thoughts on it! Do you think it's gonna be good?

I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t done much of a deep dive on what it is or what it hopes to be. From my understanding, it’s going to be a combination social media platform and fan wiki? I’m curious how they’ll manage it. 

It could be a great thing. There’s definitely demand in fandom for more and better social media tools than we have now. I’ve seen posts that they’ll have a broadly accepting policy along the lines of AO3, so that makes me wonder where they’re going to base their servers and how they’re going to moderate content (if at all).

Another concern I have is around cyberbullying. Social media platforms all have downfalls in this area, and I don’t personally know enough about how to set one up to protect against that sort of thing. I think we’ve all seen or heard of cases where fans have bullied other fans, and I worry about how that sort of interaction will be handled and what their terms of service and privacy policies will be like. 

Also, how will they be paying for things? If I decide to put some of my fanart or writing on there, will I retain the copyright? Will there be advertisements next to it? Will I have any say in which advertisers are and are not allowed to have ads next to my works? Will I be able to disallow ads if I pay a subscription fee? What would that fee be?

The more I think about it, the more questions I have. There might be documentation about these things that I haven’t seen, but I haven’t really looked into it very much. Answering this ask is probably the most time I’ve spent on it to date.

At this point, I’m curious but I’m not going to be an early adopter. I’ll see how it works for other people before I dip my toe in. 

What about the rest of you? Have you heard of Fanexus? What are your thoughts?

Polished Malachite Stalactite - Copper Crescent, Congo

wtf?! cool.

NSFW will be tagged as #lemon sorta NSFW is #Lime Weird fet shit/ extreme NSFW is #orange reblog to spread awareness that we’re back on the citrus scale

In response to the reactions I’ve seen to #EndOTWRacism

Four things that can, actually, co-exist:

1.) being anti-censorship

2.) writing extremely kinky, fucked up idfic

3.) being a longtime lover and supporter of AO3

4.) supporting the End OTW Racism initiative

There are only four things the End OTW Racism initiative is asking for right now.

ASK ONE:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

If the inclusion of “off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users” upsets you, try one of the following:

1.) consider the idea that a person should be able to submit evidence of off-site harassment in conjunction with reports of on-site harassment, or

2.) go to the final thought at the bottom of this post.

ASK TWO:

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

Say it louder for the people in the back: “we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, NOT those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes.”

(If you believe removing works that harass actual human beings is the same thing as censorship, you’ll need to engage with someone who has far more spoons than I do.)

ASK THREE:

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

How is this controversial?  It’s been THREE YEARS.

ASK FOUR:

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

This is not a big ask.  This is an important enough topic that one should not be forced to either attend the Board meetings or read the published Board minutes in order to receive an update.

Final thought:

Your beliefs do not have to perfectly align with a movement (nor every person within that movement) in order to support that movement.

And if you think they do, please consider how that works in real life. (It doesn’t; that’s how movements get divided.)

And perhaps also take a moment to appreciate the purity culture/purity wank implications. (“I only support things that are absolutely perfect!”)

This post is from May 18, 2023.  The End OTW Racism initiative referred to here is the planned two weeks of action from May 17 through May 31, 2023.