You are not screaming into the void in vain. The void is just practicing active listening and wants you to let it all out without feeling like it is judging or trying to speak over you
Let’s play a game. Type the following words into your tags box, then post the first automatic tag that comes up. you, also, what, when, why, how, look, because, never
A cunning vampire door-to-door salesperson who stands in people’s doorways and talks until they can find a convenient moment to drop their pen and the person picks it up and the vampire says oh “Thank you” and the person says “you’re welcome” and the vampire smiles a big fangy grin and steps inside
And that’s this vampire’s modus operandi for decades And then the language starts to change and suddenly millenials have homes and the vampire thanks them and they say “oh, no problem” and the vampire is like ???????????????? this was not the plan
ok so there’s a game me and my friends play called “don’t get me started” and basically someone gives another person a random topic and they have to go on an angry rant about it and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us at parties and car rides so I highly recommend playing sometimes with your friends
Here’s a question that no one ever has a good answer for: why are cashiers forced to stand? Who decided people need to stand for 4 hours straight between breaks when they don’t MOVE?
If you find out, let me know so I can punch them.
Good question! It’s actually because cashiers sitting down appears lazy and unproductive to the kinds of customers who would complain about that sort of thing! Americans generally can’t accept when retail people don’t look like their job is excessively hard, so cashiers aren’t allowed to sit. It’s been shown that standing for so long, even on padded rubber mats many cashiers have, has a detrimental effect on the knees.
The American retail atmosphere is very different from most other developed nations. I’ve heard Americans describe grocery cashiers in Europe as “rude” and “lazy” because they get to sit down and they don’t have someone bagging your groceries for you. I’ve seen many Europeans genuinely shocked at how aggressive and in-your-face American retail employees are and even more surprised to learn we’re forced to be that way by our employers. Hired spies called “secret shoppers” are used to assess the quality of service, and at any time if you don’t greet and question every customer, if you don’t constantly have a smile on your face, if you’re sitting down for any reason, you could get fired. It’s a constant system of pomp and circumstance awash in paranoia meant to put us in early graves.
This system is seen as desirable by the people in charge because it ostensibly gets more labour out of people for the same salary and it drives many to quit. It’s much, much cheaper to hire and train new people and use them up than it is to pay the wage of someone who’s been with the company a year or two.
Imagine playing a survival horror game where instead of being a gritty reporter or a single parent or a tortured soul with amnesia, you’re a cat. You live in a haunted house, and it is your job to defend your human/s from harm.
Instead of weapons, you fight with your claws. You jump, you twist, and your meows and hisses have different abilities. But if you make TOO much noise, your human/s hush you, and you can’t continue with your assault until they’ve left you be.
There are various spirits and some are helpful. Ghost mice give you life, ghost crickets give you information, and a former Guardian cat is your guide. You have to succeed where your predecessor failed- finding the source of the haunting and getting rid of it.
And if you don’t succeed, your human dies, and you are left alone.
I love this in particular because the Spring-Loaded Cat is such a horror trope – someone’s in a dark place, something jumps out and scares the dickens out of them, turns out it’s the cat
if you watch enough of these movies you can time the real monster’s subsequent arrival to the split-second
and I always thought “those poor cats, trying so hard to get these stupid people to leave immediately and wait in the car instead of wandering slowly around a dark basement calling ‘hello? is anyone there?’ but they never listen”
so yes, I don’t even like 99% of video games but I would absolutely buy Spring-Loaded Cat: The Game
Okay, but hold on for a second, because this is a serious fucking question.
Bernie is, of course, right – no one SHOULD be subject to criticism like that. But not being subject to intense scrutiny over our appearance is simply not an option for women in professional environments. It just isn’t.
And the thing is, this isn’t a small issue for women. This is an economic issue, it’s an investment-of-time issue, it’s a quality of life issue.
I’ll give you an example, and for this example, I’ll use myself and a mythical dude named Steve. This mythical dude named Steve would be almost exactly like my husband, who also worked at a bank, except not in the big-and-tall section where suits cost so much money you think they were hand-sewn by magical elves.
Mythical dude named Steve and I are both bankers for a bank. Let’s it call it Wagontrain. Just for funsies. We both make a nice round sum of money, say, 50K a year. (We’ll come back to that in a moment, but for the moment let’s assume we both make the same amount of money.)
Let’s even say that Steve and I spend the same amount of money on suits that I did every year, which, again, in my experience, isn’t going to be the case. But let’s just say we’re spending the same exact amount of money on suits.
Now, let’s say that in order to be considered a promotable employee, we both have to maintain a certain level of grooming. For Steve, that’s going to be getting a decent haircut, shaving, wearing deodorant – pretty basic stuff. And if he is decently groomed, even somewhat slightly slovenly, he’s likely to be judged on the quality of work he does.
But me? I’m going to have to – in a professional environment like that, and again in my direct and personal experience – in order to be taken seriously, I’m going to have to maintain a manicure ($15/weekly), get my hair professionally cut, styled, and dyed (when I worked in banking, the prevailing style all of the women got cost about $60 more than a man’s haircut, every six weeks), wear makeup (let’s be generous and call that $25 a month, but that’s pretty generous). I’ll also need to wear jewelry, so let’s give me a jewelry budget of $25 a month also, just for round numbers.
Oh. And let’s not forget shoes. Where Steve the banker will get two pairs of shoes, maybe three if he really likes them, I’ll need to continually buy new pairs of shoes. I don’t really want to, but I am going to be judged if I keep trying to wear the same pair of shoes all the time. Let’s say I only buy 5 pairs in a year, and he buys 3 every two years. Again for the sake of argument, let’s call every pair of shoes $50. So in one year he’s bought 1.5 pairs of shoes, so that’s $75, and I’ve bought $250 pairs of shoes, so I’ve spent $175 more than he has.
None of this is mythical, by the way. This is all based, again, on my personal experience. I’d get coached at Wagontrain for my appearance not being ‘promotable.’ I got sat down by an upper-level female manager and given a walkthrough on professional dress and appearance at the management levels, what they expected to be able to promote me to management
So at the end of that year, I’ll have gotten my hair done 8 times at $60 more than Steve’s haircuts, I’ll have gotten, let’s say 50 manicures (maybe I made a couple of those manicures last more than one week), I’ll have spent my jewelry and makeup budgets as we noted above, and I’ll have bought those shoes.
Wow! I’ve just spent FOUR PERCENT of my GROSS (not net) income on grooming, and more than that, four percent MORE than Steve, just to meet the basic grooming standards that we’re both expected to meet. The standards just happen to be way different and far more strenuous for me.
Now let’s walk that back a little bit more. Let’s assume that instead of us making the same amount, that I make 40K while Steve makes 50K. That’s about 80 percent of 50K - so pretty close to the national wage gap (for white women - remember that Black and Latina women will make significantly less, on average). My grooming standards haven’t changed for this job – we’re just adjusting for my gender. Suddenly that $2000 is 4.4 percent of my income, and again, 4.4 percent MORE than Steve has to spend.
But wait – there’s more. Women in professional environments spend an average of 55 minutes per day on their appearance. Assuming Steve spends 20 minutes getting showered, shaved, and putting on his suit, that’s 35 minutes more per work day.
At 22 working days per month, 12 months a year, 35 more minutes is… ((22 * 12) * 35)/60 = 154 hours of our lives, or, put another way, 6.41 days.
That doesn’t count the hours spent in the salon, the hours spent getting our nails done – and my time in a salon was nothing compared to the investment of time, pain, chemicals and care some of my Black coworkers have to put in, in order to maintain “professional” appearances. That’s something I don’t feel really qualified to speak further on, but I am completely aware that grooming regimens are far more strenuous and costly for women of color than they are for white women.
So, when that reporter is asking Bernie if he thinks it’s “fair” that news focuses more on Hillary’s hair than his, they’re not asking about an unimportant issue where women are concerned. They’re literally asking about an issue that eats 4 percent - at minimum - of our income, and literally almost two percent of the time out of every year we live. Women are judged on their appearance far more than men as compared to the job performance they actually put forth.
That’s an economic and quality-of-life issue, and it affects women at every socioeconomic level differently, but it definitely affects us all.
oh my god okay @all tourists coming to new york for the first time:
street hot dogs should be one dollar, maybe a dollar fifty. anything more than that and theyre swindling you. walk another block and get urself a decently priced hot dog
you dont have to yell “TAXI” when ur tryin to hail a cab, we all know u want a cab, thats why ur sticking ur arm up like a square
seriously. walk faster and in a tighter clump. people have things to do and the sidewalk is not yours to command
thats all please come visit nyc but do it smartly
addendum: nobody here calls it the big apple casually its like the number one way to spot a tourist and could lead to aforementioned overpriced hot dogs
Don’t feel bad if you’re sensitive to negative feedback because apparently after one particular bad review Hans Christian Andersen was found just sobbing while lying face down in the dirt
I’m in fucking danger guys. He wants to take out the amendment that makes immigrants’ children a U.S. citizen and deport those families where the parents are illegal. Please stop supporting him as a joke. Please stop thinking that his racism and sexism is funny. Take this upcoming presidential election serious because now many families are in danger. Please I’m not kidding, I’m scared now of this excuse of a human.
there are 2 sexes but a lot of genders. when a child is born, you have to take care of them as the sex they are because they are uncapable of understanding the difference between all the gender identities. it’s not transphobic or cissexist it’s literally giving the child proper care
me:
(out shopping, looking all fly with my Marvel comics tote bag featuring several characters)
dude:
nice bag.
me:
thanks. (keeps on shopping)
dude:
do you even know who all those characters are?
me:
uh... yeah?
dude:
ok then, who's that guy? (points at a character on the bag)
me:
me:
wait, are you asking me to prove that I'm enough of a fan enough to carry this bag?
dude:
(smirks) that's what I thought. He's called the Silver Surfer. I bet you don't even know his real name.
me:
does it matter? (starts to edge away before I start punching throats)
dude:
psh, you're not a real fan.
me:
me:
(slowly unsheathing my Wolverine claws)
me:
how many pairs of chromosomes do humans contain in their cells?
dude:
uh... what?
me:
explain the function of cellular mitosis?
dude:
me:
what is the purpose of myelin sheath with regards to the formation of new neural pathways?
dude:
what are you even talking about?
me:
oh, well it seemed that you were implying that if I don't know as much about the Marvel universe as you do, then I can't possibly be considered a real fan. This is me implying that because you don't know as much about the human body as I do, you can't possibly be considered a real human being.
dude:
dude:
dude:
dude:
Um, I... wow. You're right. Have a nice day. (starts to shuffle away)
Imagine a dragon at Antiques Roadshow, appraising its hoard
Imagine the dragon hoards monetarily worthless things like newspapers or old bones and the person appraising it getting more and more nervous about telling the dragon their stuff isnt worth anything
Imagine that the dragon knows this and just likes watching the person squirm.
The dragon actually hoards uncomfortable situations
This is fun :)
Except I’m pretty sure you can only bring 2 items to be appraised on Antiques Roadshow.
…do YOU want to be the one to tell the dragon that there’s an item limit?
my nursing lecturer was saying how her daughter almost died at birth and the doctor said ‘you’re lucky she’s a girl because girls are more resilient, even from birth’ and she just thought he was comforting her but she researched it later and there had been studies literally done into it
Not even just from birth. Female fetuses are less likely to miscarry in adverse conditions, such as famine. It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. If a sexual dimorphic species is to survive, it needs far more females than males. In nature, males are pretty expendable.
I just randomly thought of something that was probably inspired by another post about fans interacting with the people they admire and I thought I might as well put it out there while it’s in my head.
Now, I’m sure you are all familiar with the meaning of consent and I don’t need to go into the details of what defines consent. I mention it now because it’s going to be the entire point of this post.
Which brings me to this:
DO. NOT. TOUCH. A PERFORMER. WITHOUT. THEIR. CONSENT.
When you are at the stage door, for the love of all that is holy, do not lay a single FINGER on a performer unless they give verbal consent or they initiate physical contact. For example: hugging a performer. I’m going to draw from two personal experiences for this point. Last summer, when I saw Phantom, Sierra Boggess was playing Christine and she came to the stagedoor. One of her fans, out of nowhere, practically jumped on Sierra in order to give her a hug, which left Sierra wide-eyed and stunned for a few seconds. Don’t be that person. Instead, be like the girl I saw at the stage door in Toronto when I saw Julia Murney in concert who asked Julia if she could have a hug before the two of them hugged one another. Just take two seconds to ask if it’s okay instead of assuming that the performer you want to hug is okay with you invading their personal space. Or, if the performer knows you well enough or recognizes you from a time you’ve gone too see them perform before and initiates the hug, then you’re in the clear.
I won’t even wrap my arm around a performer when I get my picture taken with them unless they wrap their arm around me first (which is something I believe every stage door patron should put into practice). This allows the performer to be the one to, you guessed it, initiate physical contact.
I understand that you may be a touchy/feely person. I am aware that their are performers out there who are the same, who have no issues whatsoever when it comes to physical contact with fans. But this doesn’t give you the right to invade a performer’s personal space against their will.
TL;DR: DO NOT BY ANY MEANS WHATSOEVER TOUCH A PERFORMER AT THE STAGE DOOR WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT
okay so let’s break this down. first the sisters save furiosa by pulling nux off her:
that’s your pretty clear, straightforward life-saving courage. and it’s significant that the sisters are ready to fight like that even so early in the story.
but then furiosa goes for nux’s throat
in the sort of interaction she’s internalized after years of repetition: one of the war boys comes for her, she ends them. end of fucking story.
a moment of reflection, a moment of flinching back from immediately killing, would have doomed her in the past
she’s programmed herself to kill without mercy in order to survive. she doesn’t even consider if there’s an alternative. there never has been.
20 years and nobody’s ever stopped her. the only people who tried wanted to hurt her. but they didn’t succeed. otherwise, no matter what she did, who she hurt, nobody cared enough to stop her. they gleefully supported it or considered it her right or her obligation
murder, murder, murder, life means nothing. only weak people flinch from inflicting pain. and you know what happens to weak people. they end up dead or in cages. that’s the law of the Citadel
furiosa didn’t intellectually believe that fully, but you do something long enough and it gets inside you.
but for the first time in twenty years someone knows right from wrong and cares enough to stop her
i think angharad mostly cares for the principle of the thing. definitely condemnation is in there. but… you can read it as a very angry form of reaching out. you can read it as angharad’s response to furiosa’s lecture earlier about how “everything hurts” out here. whatever the case, furiosa is and always will be someone who kills. that’s key to how she survives and protects those she loves. but it’s possible to fight and kill without losing touch with the idea that killing doesn’t have to be the only answer. that killing is always wrong, even if it’s necessary. that you should be thinking about when it’s unnecessary to kill.
i think the sisters save furiosa’s life and nux’s life here but also are part of the journey of saving their souls in this scene
the lecture on Wasteland feminist theory nux received is more obvious, but angharad stopping furiosa is also this huge huge thing
for the first time in her adult life someone cares enough to stop her. to say: he’s just a kid. you don’t have to this time. and if you don’t have to, you shouldn’t.
