Dumbass Chemist

Just your average student trying to survive at an insane college.

1,486 notes

his-own-kingdom:

“Wuthering Heights is racist. Heathcliff is a stereotype and a villain. Why would you feel sad that he is being whitewashed?”

This is a common sentiment on the “wuthering heights” tag nowadays so I am posting my opposition to it as a separate post too.

1- The families Heathcliff ruins were already pretty bad before he ruined them. This is an “abused becomes abuser” story rather than an “a demon ruins white families” story. The white people in the story are not really better than Heathcliff.

2- Wuthering Heights is primarily remembered as a love story by the general public and it is certainly the angle this new adaptation is going for. Interestingly, the 19th century critics who tended to focus on the revenge plot more were more ready to accept Heathcliff’s racial otherness. Heathcliff started to be whitewashed when Wuthering Heights started to be read as a love story and he became a literary sex icon.

Whitewashing Heathcliff (both in adaptations and in literary criticism) has never been and will never be about people being concerned with him being “too evil”, it had always been about people feeling squeamish about a dark-skinned Other being thoroughly romantically/sexually preferred by the white women in the story. And it is the case with this new adaptation too. Hence his originally blond romantic rival being played by a Pakistani actor in this new adaptation.

3- Heathcliff is a cool, calculating, smart villain. He is violent too but not any more than his white foster brother Hindley. Fictional villains, especially those in heightened and slightly unrealistic stories like Wuthering Heights, can be charismatic and cool and memorable. And there is nothing inherently racist about a villain not being white.

4- Catherine is also a terrible person. This story is not one about a demon lover corrupting an innocent girl. The whole point of the story is that Heathcliff and Catherine are similar people.

(via corvidayyy)

Filed under this analysis has done more than any thing to make me want to read this book

84,972 notes

memories-of-ancients:

un-monstre:

un-monstre:

Hate it when TikTok farm cosplayers and cottagecore types say stuff like “I’m not going to use modern equipment because my grandmothers could make do without it.” Ma'am, your great grandma had eleven children. She would have killed for a slow cooker and a stick blender.

I’ve noticed a sort of implicit belief that people used to do things the hard way in the past because they were tougher or something. In reality, labor-saving devices have historically been adopted by the populace as soon as they were economically feasible. No one stood in front of a smoky fire or a boiling pot of lye soap for hours because they were virtuous, they did it because it was the only way to survive.

I’m only doing it the way the ancient Sumerians would have done it if they had power drills.

(via lilbittymonster)

Filed under engineering at its finest

31,138 notes

shithowdy:

this is your periodic reminder that for all the artifacts and errors and “tells” one could possibly list, the only reliable way to actually determine if an image is ai generated is to investigate the source. it is becoming increasingly common for “fake classical paintings” to circulate around curative aesthetic blogs, and everyone should be using this as an opportunity to not only exercise their investigative skills but also appreciate art more in general. you’re all checking out the artists you reblog, right? 🫣

so what are some signs to look for? let’s use this very good example.

image

Keep reading

(via megdanger)

Filed under very useful generative ai can go to hell

23,859 notes

shutyourmoustache:

strawberry-souffle:

PSA: stuttering in fics

as someone with a speech impediment, all of the people saying that only one type of stuttering is valid are wrong.

stuttering CAN look like this: “t-this is a-an example s-s-sentence”

OR this: “this-this is an example sen-sentence.”

OR this: “t-t-t-th-..t-ttttthis is an example sentence.”

OR this: “this is, uhm, an example, uh, sentence.”

OR this: “this is an example sssssss-sentence.”

OR this: “this is an examp-…this an example sentence.”

sometimes the sentence won’t even come out of your mouth at all.

there are probably many examples i’m forgetting, but that’s the point! it usually is a mix of a few of these, but some people do one of them more often than others! some people with speech impediments have certain sounds that they almost consistently have trouble with (for me it’s “st”).

people with speech impediments also rarely-if ever-stutter whilst they’re singing or whispering.

most importantly!!!! people with speech impediments are capable of saying a sentence without stuttering!! it can just be a gamble sometimes.

and if more people could portray the frustration that comes with stuttering and not being able to get words out, i’d be a very happy girl.

(fun fact: sometimes when my mouth won’t let me say what i want to say, i get so annoyed that i just yell or grumble out “WORDS.”)

this was your speech impediment PSA!!!!

As a speech therapist, I co-sign all this. There are three major types of stuttering and the awesome OP has given great examples of all of them — repetition (repeating a sound/syllable/word/phrase, like “this-this is an example sen-sentence”), prolongation (a sound coming out longer than usual, like “this is an example sssssssentence”), and blocking (no sound comes out at all for long time). A person might primarily exhibit only one of the types or they might have a combo of them.

Some days, my students’ stutters are way more pronounced than on other days. Sometimes they stutter less when they’re reading something vs when they’re just speaking spontaneously. When they sing, I don’t hear a stutter at all. (If I remember right from grad school, singing and acting activate a different part of the brain from speaking or something, which is why actors who stutter, like James Earl Jones [YES, DARTH VADER!!!], usually won’t stutter when saying their lines.) And it’s not just about being nervous or excited or anything. One of my kids is the most confident presenter in any classroom and stutters anyway.

I always tell my kids that I don’t care what anyone else thinks of their stutter. If they like how they speak, that’s awesome cuz being a happy communicator is what matters. But if they wanna work on some strategies for achieving more fluency (NOT easy to do btw cuz you have to be actively changing how you speak) or talk about their feelings/attitude about their stutter (they may perceive it as way more noticeable than it is to listeners) or desensitize themselves to their fear of how they’re being perceived, we can work on that. Stuttering can cuz so much shame for a person, which saddens me, but it can also be a point of pride. I had a kid who grew to see it as a special part of himself and joke with others that they must be jealous they don’t have a stutter. 😂

Anyway, thank you so much, OP, for sharing your experience and knowledge. Here’s to seeing more portrayals of characters who stutter in fics! 💓