typicalfeministkilljoy:

do girls really mature faster? or do we just excuse boys’ immaturity longer?

kakaphoe:

ifeelbetterer:

wintersoldierfell:

wintersoldierfell:

wintersoldierfell:

wintersoldierfell:

So I’ve been listening to an audiobook of Moby Dick in my downtime, and omg this book is weird. Like prepare yourself for it being super racist, but it’s also intensely gay??? The main character gets gay married to his Pacific Islander roomie like the night after he meets him???? Also I just got to the part with Captain Ahab and omg he is so Extra™ like he actually throws his pipe overboard because it doesn’t fit with his ~*~aesthetic~*~ Let me tell you Great American Literature is wild

UPDATE in this chapter the narrator can’t shut up about how hot his particular friend  boyfriend Queequeg is and describes in loving detail how they’re tied together by this rope while he holds Queequeg over the side of the boat (actually he says “wedded,” WEDDED, i ask you) and he’s never felt more intimate with another human being in his life

JUST WHALERS BEING BROS

FURTHER FUCKING UPDATE OH MY GOD

okay so item 1: this book recently went from “somewhat racist at brief intervals” to “let’s have a whole chapter of unremitting racism” so like. be aware of that if you ever plan on reading this? it was not fun times

ITEM TWO 

Y’ALL.

There is a whole chapter about Our Hero holding hands with his fellow whalers.

WHILE THEY MASSAGE WHALE SPERM.

I could not make this shit up. Here it is, in all its slimy glory, Chapter 94: A Squeeze of the Hand – 

“Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”

THIS IS THE GAYEST THING I’VE EVER READ. MELVILLE IS LEGITIMATELY JUST TAUNTING ME NOW. HE’S CREEPILY ROLLING HIS LITTLE WHALER HANDS IN WHALE SPERM AND DARING ME TO SAY SOMETHING WHILE I JUST STAND THERE WITH MY FUCKING JAW ON THE FLOOR. THIS BISEXUAL ADMITS DEFEAT. I HAVE BEEN OUTFLANKED BY HERMAN FUCKING MELVILLE AND HIS GAY-ASS WHALE SPERM

FINAL. FUCKING. UPDATE.

this is what i said to @manicpanic88 earlier today, so naïvely: i said, “Meville is straight up thirsty for whales.” I added, “This man truly wants to fuck a whale.” 

Let me be clear (and by the way SPOILERS up to antepenultimate chapter of the book follow this parenthetical): I am now on chapter one hundred thirty-something and we have only just now found the whale. Like. This book has been one hundred and thirty chapters of Real Nantucket Whale Thirst™ and almost no actual (Moby) Dick, do you get me? You out there who like pining fic, THIS BOOK IS THE ULTIMATE. Melville did it first, but GAYER, and WITH WHALES.

Anyway so this whole book everyone who has seen or even heard about Moby Dick is like “whoa my sweet fancy aunts, don’t go lookin’ for that there whippersnapper” (this is my attempt at imitating Melville’s weird imitation of a Nantucket accent, it’s not going well for me but it didn’t go well for him either), “whoa, THAT’S A BAD FISH, I heard he took someone’s head clean off / killed his twelve best mates / blew up a ship with the power of his LASER FLUKES!!” i mean no one actually says “laser flukes” but THIS IS THE LEVEL OF BADNESS WE ARE DEALING WITH. THIS IS NOT A NICE WHALE. YOU SHOULD NOT TAKE THIS WHALE HOME TO MEET YOUR PARENTS AT SPRING BREAK, HE WILL DRINK ALL YOUR BEER AND LEAVE THE HOUSE SOMEHOW FULL OF DOG POOP, WHILE IT IS ALSO ON FIRE.

and yet.

here is what Melville has to say about this bad motherfucker when we finally, finally see him for the very first time:

“A gentle joyousness - a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so divinely swam.”

RAVISHED EUROPA. STRAIGHT FOR THE NUPTIAL BOWER. WE GET IT, HERMAN. WE GET IT. YOU WANNA FUCK A WHALE. YOU WROTE A WHOLE ENTIRE BOOK ABOUT WANTING TO FUCK THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WHITE WHALE IN THE WORLD, WHO PROBABLY ALSO HAS PURPLE EYES AND PUTS ITS FLUKES UP WHEN SOME PREPS STARE AT HIM. WE GET IT.

reader, i hope he married it.

i read that book three times in one semester (for three different courses) and, yes, this is such a good summary of that book. You have captured its essence, 100/10 absolutely the best.

This is the only thing that’s made me ever want to read Moby Dick.

adonneniel:

loon-whisperer:

adonneniel:

If people could stop saying that Ashkenazi Jews = ethnically European that’d be great. :)

If you can accept that “American” is a nationality, rather than an ethnicity, you can understand that “X European Country” serves the same function for Jews with history in Europe.

I really don’t like being called identical to the same people that killed/kicked out my family for NOT being like them, destroying much of our distinct culture in the process.

And please don’t use the fact that Europeans forced goyische last names on us as part of your argument. :)))

If you’re interested in genetics, you can even look at this cool study on Levantine populations. Jews, including Ashkenazim, have significant overlap with the populations studied. If one study isn’t enough for you, have a link to a bunch more that say basically the same thing! 

Almost all Jewish groups are more closely related to each other than our neighbors, indicating common ancestry regardless of how far apart we’ve lived in the past, and we’ve never forgotten where we come from. We’re still a diasporic people with origins in the Middle East. Not Europe. History and science agree. Please stop trying to argue otherwise.

I’m happy you made this post because I saw the post that presumably inspired it and I wanted to say something about it but didn’t have the koyach. 

That said, genetic studies have shown that ethnic Ashkenazim (of which I am one) are half Southern European.  However, we have very little Eastern European admixture.  Also, if I recall correctly, Jews and Palestinians are more closely genetically related to each other than either are to any other population.

@loon-whisperer

, you’re absolutely right! I had longer drafts that explained the details more, before deciding to be as concise as I could. And also the interesting thing about that is that the S European admixture has to be from when we first came into Europe (and possibly before), but once Ashkenazi society formed in Central Europe, the mixing was minuscule.

amatalefay:

pepemclean:

lesbill:

gaybillpotts:

AN EPISODE WHERE BILL AND THE DOCTOR GO BACK IN TIME TO MEET SAPPHO

SAPPHO WROTE POEMS ABOUT BILL 100%

OK YOU KNOW HOW A LOT OF SAPPHO’S POEMS ARE ABOUT APHRODITE
WHAT IF SAPPHO LITERALLY THOUGHT BILL WAS SO BEAUTIFUL THAT SHE WAS THE GODDESS APHRODITE

“Oh. My God. Oh my God. That’s her! That’s - that’s the original. The original Lesbian, I mean proper Lesbian. The Mother Gay. Oh, God. Oh, God, what am I even gonna say?”

“Your brother Charaxis may be under the hypnotic influence of his alien mistress might be a good start.”

“Can you even imagine what was like to read her when I was a fifth-former?” Bill continued. “Like, finally it wasn’t some bloke whining about why some beautiful girl won’t give him sex, it was ‘sweet mother, I’m too gay to do my chores, blame Aphrodite’ like, honestly? Most relatable thing I’ve read in years.”

“Bill-”

“God, what I wouldn’t give to hear an actual completed poem.”

“Bill-”

“Seriously, what was up with the fragment that was just ‘soda’? Like, did it mean the same thing, or - ?”

“Bill, she’s staring at you.”

And she was. Like a figure out of a painting, white chiton against dark arms, hands hovering above the strings of her lyre, fingertips gently rested on the frame. She was biting her lower lip, and the look in her eyes was one Bill knew immediately - the panicked, exhilarated look of an actual goddess is walking the earth, right now, and holy mother of Zeus am I gay or am I gay?

“Oh my God,” Bill said again, eyes wide. “I’m the original lesbian.”