in general, i suppose. i’m not very fond of little kids. i don’t want them. they give me headaches and i cannot deal with their antics.
HOWEVER
you know what i do when kids talk to me? i smile. i answer them. i tell them their scribbles look really good. i open their juice boxes for them and ask to hear more about their power rangers.
because although i may not be fond of children, i was one. i remember being a kid and how much sour adults impacted my life even today. so when a child who is screaming and crying with a runny nose walks past me, i put on my smiling face and ask them what’s wrong instead of rolling my eyes.
because that’s what you do. you tolerate children even if you tend to dislike them. because kids are so impressionable and remember everything. i cannot bring myself to enjoy being around children. but that doesn’t mean i let them know.
I never thought of it that way…
Woah.
I always get the ‘I thought you hated kids’ when people see me being nice and talking to littlies and all I respond is ‘sure, I’m not a fan of kids and I’m not really planning on having any, but I’m not a complete asshole’
Don’t be a dick to kids, it’s super uncool.
and if you see a baby smiling at you please for the love of fuck smile back. you smiling back allows babies to develop an awareness of their impact on other people and how their emotional expression impacts others - basically their social abilities. when you smile back, the baby’s brain registers ‘i expressed a positive emotion and this caused the other person to express that same positive emotion’.
Yall thinking Trump’s run for the presidency is over the same way yall thought Brexit wouldn’t happen. Yall gon stay yall lazy asses home on November 8th and wake up to a nightmare on the 9th.
No but seriously, waking up to Brexit was one of the most horrible moments of my life. You never think it’s going to happen until it does. Please, please don’t screw yourselves and the rest of the world over like the UK has, America.
But what about vampire history teachers. Vampires who read something from a text book then proceed to light the book on fire and throw it out the window because “No. that’s not even close to what really happened. Listen up nerds I’m about to teach you what really happened in France during the revolution”
I need this as a series
Vampires sharing the recipe for Greek fire.
Vampires speaking in dead languages.
Vampires being able to translate untranslatable scripts.
Vampires who react to straightwashing historical figures like “Are you kidding me everyone knew that man was queer!”
Vampires from cultures who were once antagonistic towards each other stubbornly maintaining a friendship that’s lasted longer than their civilizations.
Vampires who honour forgotten deities you won’t find in mythology books.
Also, vampires who secretly saved stuff from the Library of Alexandra.
A vampire show that does not revolve all around sex and eternal cursed love.
nerd vampire whose knowledge of current events is terrible but they can always remember everything that’s considered “history” so they have a super-detailed knowledge of everything up to about thirty years ago and then ?????
vampire who couldn’t tell you what caravaggio was known for but duelled with him at least three times and slept with him at least ten. “cara-who OH YOU MEAN MICHAEL yeah he was cool”
vampire who spent 100 years in a convent and is still so bitter that in all that time they never made her mother superior “GODDAMMIT I HAD SENIORITY! I HAD SENIORITY!” “okay so first off janet, that was six hundred years ago, but more importantly, maybe if you didn’t always start those complaints off with blasphemy…”
vampire professor who just sort of showed up at oxford when it was founded and is still there (and nobody’s noticed because he still never actually shows up to his lectures)
vampire politician who lifts all their campaign speeches wholesale from speeches given 200 years ago and just waits for someone to catch them out (nobody ever does they’re prime minister and their approval ratings are through the roof)
WAIT I HAVE MORE
queer vampire who constantly talks about the fashion for straightness and you need to be really careful because if you tell them straight is default they WILL scream at you for five days straight about what a modern concept heterosexuality is
vampire hoarder who has an entire town where they just kept having to buy new houses to keep their stuff in and some of it’s probably worth tens of millions by now but you’ll never find it in among the 1950s kitschy kitten sculptures and boxes of newspaper (the newspaper is a wonderful mix of yesterday’s guardian and daily courants from 1725)
vampire sailor from manderville’s time who just has so many stories and some of them might even be true
vampire bluestocking girl who took to the internet like a fish to water and spends her whole unlife engaging reddit antifeminists about women’s rights because that’s one fight she’s determined to see through. also with the advent of cheap dyes she literally wears blue socks every day and hopes one day someone gets the joke
vampire doctor who just gets SO CONFUSED about the literature because do you know how hard it is to keep up with medicine kevin? when i got my doctorate we thought leeches were good and then they were bad and now they’re good again? i was published in issue one of the lancet kevin that is 387 lancets kevin how the hell am i meant to remember which one’s current kevin why are they saying cannabis is good for pain like this is news??? (but also lives in a state of wonderment every day in hospital because wow look at all this stuff we can do now look at it kevin!)
entire coven of vampires constantly quibbling over manners because they’re all from different periods: “HATS OFF AT TABLE” “SCREW YOU LEONARD ONLY PEASANTS EAT BAREHEADED” “TABITHA THAT HASN’T BEEN GOOD MANNERS SINCE THE 1500S NOBODY HAS LICE ANY MORE” “IT ISN’T ABOUT LICE LEONARD IT’S ABOUT GOOD MANNERS YOU NEED TO HAVE GOOD MANNERS WHEN YOU HAVE PEOPLE OVER FOR DINNER” “I SWEAR TO GOD TABITHA IF YOU MAKE THAT PUN ONE MORE TIME I WILL SHOVE YOUR STUPID HAT DOWN YOUR THROAT”
vampire musicians who might not have been child prodigies but goddammit 500 years of practicing an instrument is bound to get you somewhere (also knowing the composer and being the first person to start playing a song doesn’t hurt either)
my favorite will always be vampires who know fuck-all about the standard major historical events because they were always somewhere else whenever big shit was going down:
“yeah i heard about the hundred years war but i was in northern african at the time so…”
“the roman empire fell??? how did the fucking roman empire fall??? i spend a fucking handful of decades in india and i come back to this???”
“russia needs to stop having revolutions, i can’t keep them all straight…”
“when did france become a democracy?? and america’s now it’s own country??? i’ve spent the last century in a forest in wallachia scaring small children so––wHat dO yOU meAn we’re calling it romania now??? when the fuck did it become romania???”
“WE HAD A WORLD WAR??? WE HAD TWO WORLD WARS???? well obviously ‘world’ is an exaggeration because i heard nothing about it while i was lost in the amazon rainforest for the last fifty years…”
“listen i spent most of the fourteenth century as a pirate in the south china sea so someone’s gonna had to clue me in on all this ‘black plague’ nonsense.”
Ladies, I am holding out my hand. Do you trust me?
I need you to open Google Maps. Locate your nearest mall. Get in your car. Drive to Yankee Candle.
Past the seasonal pumpkin display, near the back of the store, you will find a trash pile Man Candle section. You will see candles called MMM, Bacon!. Riding Mower. Man Town. (I’m not kidding. Man Town.) Stay strong. Not in this section, but likely very near this section, you will find a candle called Mountain Lodge.
Hold this jar in your hands like a talisman. Close your eyes and picture a man.
I want to be clear: I’m not talking about a Hugh Dancy. Or an Andrew Garfield, a Ben Whishaw, even a Tom Hiddleston. This exercise requires someone in the Chris Evans weight class. The Richard Armitage department. Someone with smile lines around his eyes who could chop the cedar for your bower with his own hands, strangle an alpha wolf, carry you home when you sprain your ankle in the woods, bench press your entire body. Picture this man in your mountain home with a full beard, a slightly grimy white henley, a fond half smile he reserves only for you. Now open the lid and smell Mountain Lodge.
Steady yourself on the man candle display. Give yourself a second. No, you’re not wrong. Yes, the Yankee Candle Company has just eliminated the need for men. This medium tumbler Mountain Lodge candle jar is now your boyfriend. The Yankee Candle Company has effectively replaced the need for contact with the male half of our species with a compact and clean-burning candle in a jar.
“Do you like this one?” the cashier asked, ringing me up. “Every man should be required by law to smell like what this candle smells like,” I replied intensely. “That’ll be $12.01,” she said.
MOUNTAIN LODGE
it literally smells like waking up on a cold night to find a bearded richard armitage adding another quilt to the bed before he gets back in and pulls you snugly against his chest
I’m not fucking around I feel like I should be watching chris hemsworth in flannel and suspenders whittling a delicate masterpiece in front of a fireplace rn
All right, Tumblr, I saw this post a few months ago and immediately realized I had to smell this candle. I have never in my life experienced such a burning need (pun intended) to smell what the Yankee Candle website described as a warm aroma of cedarwood and sage, but what Tumblr described as my new boyfriend.
The trouble is that nearest Yankee Candle Company store was a bit of a trek, and my schedule tended to prohibit this olfactory adventure.
So for the last few weeks, as I’d scroll my Tumblr dash and look at images of attractive manly men, I’d sigh and wistfully think, if only I could engage another sense with this image. If only I could I could truly fathom the ideal fragrance of this man.
And then this happened.
And I knew.
I knew whatever was happening, I needed to get to a Yankee Candle Company. The scent of Mountain Lodge would transport me instantly to this scene. The aroma of this infamous candle could make me live out a self-insertion Avengers fanfic.
So I got in my car, made the drive, and located the Yankee Candle Company. The store was crowded with holiday shoppers. My nose was immediately assaulted by hundreds of warring scents.
I battled through the sea of humanity and the Angel Wings-Merry Marshmallow-Magical Frosted Forest assault, buoyed on by my need to understand what Steve Rogers ripping a log in half with his bare hands smelled like.
I waded toward the back of the store, only to discover the man candle section seems to have been discontinued. What was I going to steady myself on, once I found my scented gateway to hanging out with the Avengers on Hawkeye’s farm? I felt lost, adrift, unable to find my bearings amid Soft Blanket-Fluffy Towels-Home Sweet Home.
And then… rising from the “Fresh” display, there it was.
Mountain Lodge.
It was the moment of truth. What would it be like to smell this infamous candle?
I opened the lid. I took a deep breath.
And I giggled.
Ah yes. This was it. This gentle, pleasantly masculine fragrance, in fact, reduced me to what I’d probably do in the actual presence of Chris Evans: giggle like an idiot.
The smell makes me smile, makes me laugh, makes me gently swoon: all reactions that, indeed, can be elicited by an ideal man. I can barely handle the true power of Mountain Lodge.
Several months have passed since this discovery. I have regaled friends with the saga, and after hearing of it, they, too, felt the burning need to smell the candle. One by one, we have all become Mountain Lodge converts.
In times of need, this candle is our refuge. Our group has developed escapist superpowers, infused by the Yankee Candle Company.
THE CANDLE, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND.
MOUNTAIN LODGE.
This is how you do advertisement
we love everything about all of this. We will always be there for you, just light your Mountain Lodge candle and know that our love burns bright for you.
The official Yankee Candle™ tumblr account has recognized the Mountain Lodge mythos. My work on the material plane is finally complete. A being of pure light, I slowly ascend to the aether.
I still have the mini Mountain Lodge candle that @pandolfo-malatesta sent me, and omg it’s divine
I don’t care if Hillary Clinton is corrupt. I don’t care if she lies, if she cheats, if she eats bowls of newborn chipmunks for breakfast.
She is literally the only thing standing in the way of a fascist dictator becoming President of the United States with a Republican majority congress that guarantees he can do anything he wants and nothing will be able to stop him.
I was and still am a Bernie supporter, and I hate a lot of things about Clinton, but none of that matters anymore. If Trump is elected, people are going to die. Women are going to die when Roe v Wade is overturned and Planned Parenthood is defunded. LGBTQ people are going to die when conversion therapy is further legalized and more bathroom bills are passed. POC are going to die as Trump rounds up Mexican immigrants, gives more power to the police, and fuels the fires of Islamaphobia. Poor people are going to die as Obamacare gets overturned and further cuts are made to welfare programs. And that’s just in this country. That’s not even taking account the all-too-likely outcomes of Trump starting new wars in the Middle East and having control of nuclear bombs that he’s said he ‘would not rule out’ using.
This is no longer even about ‘the lesser of two evils’. This is not ‘scare tactics’. This is literally life and death. Don’t fuck around and tell me you’re voting third-party or not voting at all, because you don’t have that luxury.
I am delighted that this post has gotten as many notes as it has, but as Election Day grows closer I would like to flush it out with some additional information and facts, particularly for those people who are still considering voting third party and those who still consider Clinton “just as bad” as Trump.
The official Republican platform includes banning abortion, overturning marriage equality, no background checks for purchasing guns, declaring coal “clean energy”, religion used as a guide for legislation, a border wall, and pornography declared a “public menace”.
Me:
*sits down to read Augustine* Alright dude I tend to dislike theologians who worship you so I'm just gonna assume we're not going to get along. Behave yourself and this will be over for both of us quickly.
Augustine:
*argues that evil has no substance in its own right, but is simply the interruption of God-given good by human action, and that by virtue of being vulnerable to evil influence, creation must still be essentially good, nay, very good.*
Car companies should periodically produce replicas of iconic cars with EXACTLY the same exterior design specifications but modern internal engineering and instruments.
omg yes please! this is all i have wanted since i was a young teenager. please, god let them do this.
because, like, okay I can buy that maybe he can disguise himself well enough to hide the fact that he’s superman, but i doubt any amount of slouching and glasses wearing can truly disguise that he’s a very tall EXTREMELY muscular man with a jawline that can cut glass.
So basically this newspaper office has this guy who looks like a weightlifter/supermodel just hanging around but he wears glasses and acts like a huge nerd and everyone just goes with it???
Like “Oh yeah, that’s Clark. No no he works here. Oh no don’t bother being intimidated by him, talk to him for five minutes and he’ll devolve into a lecture on proper tractor maintenance. We like Clark.”
I wonder if the ladies in the office ever drag him with them to bars so they don’t have to worry about creeps trying to harass them like “back off creeps our friend here is 6′4″ and grew up chucking hay bales” And then it’s funny because (as far as they know) Clark is like, the meekest lil nerd around. (He don’t look it though!!!!)
It’s just incredible to me that Clark Kent can pull off being a quiet harmless dork while still looking like, well, superman.
Do you think he occasionally turns up to the office Halloween party wearing a really shitty Batman costume?
Remember how I have no impulse control? Yeah, I wandered into a Barnes and Noble and bought three books AND ONE OF THEM WAS THIS.
No lie, kiddos, Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff might legitimately be the best book I’ve read all year. Have I read the rest of the series? NO I HAVE NOT, because I blew through this thing over the course of like six hours today (I mean…I slept for two of those hours) and I have not shut up about it long enough to buy the next two in the trilogy. My parents are going to tape my mouth shut if I keep going, so I’m foisting all my need to rant onto you lot.
Okay, so, here’s my pitch. First off, yes it is just as badass as the cover suggests. But seriously
THE ‘VERSE: a futuristic steampunk universe based on feudal Japan (and it’s not that standard steampunk isn’t fun, but my God it was nice to get the fuck out of Victorian England), comprised of four clans (Dragon, Fox, Phoenix, and Tiger) on the islands of Shima, ruled by the Shogun, Tora Yoritomo. Shima runs on the blood lotus, which provides everything from the drug of choice to the chemical used to power their engines (called chi), and the blood lotus (and the chi) is controlled by the Lotus Guild, which is…hella sketchy. Their dependence on the lotus has turned their lands black, their skies red, their rains acidic, and their air so thick with exhaust that anyone too poor to afford a pricey respirator dies slowly of blacklung. The worldbuilding is goddamn beautiful, everyone, and the mythos is so gorgeous.
OUR HEROINE: Yukiko of the Kitsune (Fox) clan, the daughter of the Shogun’s Hunt Master, the Black Fox of Shima, who is yokai-kin, able to speak to animals with her mind. This talent, rare and powerful, makes her one of the Impure, according to the zealots in the Lotus Guild, who will burn her alive in the city square if it comes to light. She is fierce and grieving and the perfect combination of the open hand and the hidden knife–she cries and screams and loves and fights and I am in love. I would like to officially request ten thousand more kick-ass stubborn girls of color with messy morals and more determination than training as my novel heroes. Yukiko is everything to me, guys, she’s so much to me.
THE PLOT: Everyone on Shima knows that, once, arashitora, thunder tigers (half eagle, half tiger), flew in their skies, and sea dragons swam in their oceans. But the lotus that poisons their lands has choked out the great beasts of myth, too, and now it’s been generations since one was seen. When the Shogun dreams of himself riding an arashitora into battle like the stormdancers of old lore and summons his Hunt Master to make it a reality, no one expects them to succeed–not the Black Fox, not his two comrades at arms, not the crew of the sky-ship they hire, and not his daughter, Yukiko. So you can imagine their shock when they manage to capture an arashitora in the middle of a thunderstorm. The situation goes from baffling to life-threatening when creature’s struggles and the storm wreck the ship, stranding Yukiko alone on a mountainside with herself, the clothes on her back…and a crippled arashitora who wants her dead. And that’s just the first hundred pages.
TL;DR: this book has it all. Badass women of every flavor. Revolution. Magic. Demons. Found family feelings. Women getting to do vengeance quests. POC as far as the eye can see. The writing style–ugh. *claps hands to chest* Fucking slays me. Radically original take on the steampunk vibe, with worldbuilding that is just beautifully intricate. And the arashitora. I’m not telling you anything about him, but the arashitora is A MASTERPIECE of a character.
Read this and come talk to me about it because I am howling.
Reblog for the morning crowd, because!!! This book!!!!
a major coping mechanism for dealing w/ abuse, esp in the longterm, is erosion of self worth. seeing yourself as worthy of basic respect as a human being is incompatible w/ surviving a lot of relationships emotionally
part of healing is rebuilding (or sometimes building for the first time) a sense of your own value. something painful that comes along w/ that is realizing how wrong the shit that was done to you was. when you look at your abuse after internalizing that youre not undeserving of any kindness, its completely healthy to be angry. thats an appropriate response to fucked up inequity
experiencing justified anger doesnt make you scary or a bad person, by any means. you deserve to be safe, and people who consumed you to sustain themselves deserve to be the subject of your righteous indignation
Remember how I have no impulse control? Yeah, I wandered into a Barnes and Noble and bought three books AND ONE OF THEM WAS THIS.
No lie, kiddos, Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff might legitimately be the best book I’ve read all year. Have I read the rest of the series? NO I HAVE NOT, because I blew through this thing over the course of like six hours today (I mean…I slept for two of those hours) and I have not shut up about it long enough to buy the next two in the trilogy. My parents are going to tape my mouth shut if I keep going, so I’m foisting all my need to rant onto you lot.
Okay, so, here’s my pitch. First off, yes it is just as badass as the cover suggests. But seriously
THE ‘VERSE: a futuristic steampunk universe based on feudal Japan (and it’s not that standard steampunk isn’t fun, but my God it was nice to get the fuck out of Victorian England), comprised of four clans (Dragon, Fox, Phoenix, and Tiger) on the islands of Shima, ruled by the Shogun, Tora Yoritomo. Shima runs on the blood lotus, which provides everything from the drug of choice to the chemical used to power their engines (called chi), and the blood lotus (and the chi) is controlled by the Lotus Guild, which is…hella sketchy. Their dependence on the lotus has turned their lands black, their skies red, their rains acidic, and their air so thick with exhaust that anyone too poor to afford a pricey respirator dies slowly of blacklung. The worldbuilding is goddamn beautiful, everyone, and the mythos is so gorgeous.
OUR HEROINE: Yukiko of the Kitsune (Fox) clan, the daughter of the Shogun’s Hunt Master, the Black Fox of Shima, who is yokai-kin, able to speak to animals with her mind. This talent, rare and powerful, makes her one of the Impure, according to the zealots in the Lotus Guild, who will burn her alive in the city square if it comes to light. She is fierce and grieving and the perfect combination of the open hand and the hidden knife–she cries and screams and loves and fights and I am in love. I would like to officially request ten thousand more kick-ass stubborn girls of color with messy morals and more determination than training as my novel heroes. Yukiko is everything to me, guys, she’s so much to me.
THE PLOT: Everyone on Shima knows that, once, arashitora, thunder tigers (half eagle, half tiger), flew in their skies, and sea dragons swam in their oceans. But the lotus that poisons their lands has choked out the great beasts of myth, too, and now it’s been generations since one was seen. When the Shogun dreams of himself riding an arashitora into battle like the stormdancers of old lore and summons his Hunt Master to make it a reality, no one expects them to succeed–not the Black Fox, not his two comrades at arms, not the crew of the sky-ship they hire, and not his daughter, Yukiko. So you can imagine their shock when they manage to capture an arashitora in the middle of a thunderstorm. The situation goes from baffling to life-threatening when creature’s struggles and the storm wreck the ship, stranding Yukiko alone on a mountainside with herself, the clothes on her back…and a crippled arashitora who wants her dead. And that’s just the first hundred pages.
TL;DR: this book has it all. Badass women of every flavor. Revolution. Magic. Demons. Found family feelings. Women getting to do vengeance quests. POC as far as the eye can see. The writing style–ugh. *claps hands to chest* Fucking slays me. Radically original take on the steampunk vibe, with worldbuilding that is just beautifully intricate. And the arashitora. I’m not telling you anything about him, but the arashitora is A MASTERPIECE of a character.
Read this and come talk to me about it because I am howling.
“I believe it’s time for my usual disclaimer: now would be an excellent time for someone who doesn’t have 6 Charisma and no ranks in Diplomacy to interrupt me and take charge of the conversation.”
My friend got married yesterday and we missed the wedding because of work but we made it to the reception. Because its mid-September and the reception was in a nature center (awesome!) there was a little bit of a fall theme. Not overbearingly, but the tables all had these tiny pumpkins.
So they’re cleaning up at the end of it and we’re still hanging out because we haven’t seen these people in forever and we can talk until three in the morning when we get together. All of a sudden, the Maid of Honor hands us a tiny pumpkin.
“Take one.”
“Um… okay?”
“Take another.”
“….?”
“It is my duty as Maid of Honor to make sure that the guests leave with an uncomfortable number of tiny pumpkins.”
So it turns out that she’d gotten a bunch of them for a Halloween party last year and after the party was over her mom threw them into the compost heap thinking that would be the end of it. But what she didn’t seem to realize was that if you put pumpkins in a compost heap- it grows more pumpkins. It grows pumpkins exponentially. Serious mathematical anomaly pumpkins.
So this year she has even more tiny pumpkins and she figured it would be a good idea to have them as decor for the reception. BUT- she would still have to throw them out at the end of the day and no matter where you throw them you are doomed to have a ridiculous amount of tiny pumpkins growing SOMEWHERE at your fault.
So everyone left with at least two tiny pumpkins and that’s how we made friends with the Maid of Honor.
So I forgot about it and then the next morning I woke up and found these two tiny pumpkins in my purse and had a puzzling moment of ‘what?’
We were invited to the Maid of Honor’s house the other day so we could:
take some of the flowers off her hands
help with some post-wedding stuff
watch the presidential debate
play Clue for like three hours
drink a lot of booze.
And there are just… tiny pumpkins EVERYWHERE.
They were in the bathroom.
At the end of the night, I counted 26 tiny pumpkins, and that was just what I could see.
“Decorative” pumpkins are just pumpkins. They’re all gourds, like Summer Squash. They can be cooked really similarly…. Yes, there is a difference in the texture of different pumpkins - specifically bred ‘Pie’ pumpkins (sugar pumpkins) are sweeter and have denser, smoother flesh. Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins have stringier flesh and thinner shells, but….
My grocery store sells pumpkin at $1.70 per pound, but I can get 10lb pumpkin at the local patch for like, $8….
Just like Spaghetti Squash and Acorn Squash have wildly different textures and tastes, the varieties of pumpkins shouldn’t be abandoned to rot… Plus they’re way cheaper… and you can roast the seeds. ;A; I just get so sad at all the rotting edibles laying around in autumn… baby pumpkins deserve to be eaten, too!
YAY UPDATES!!!! I am so excited. I was wondering the other day if you were going to update soon and I can say I am not disappointed. I love it when R gets on Es nerves. A+ for you.❤❤❤
Oh, sweetie, I’m so glad I didn’t disappoint! Thank you so much for sticking with me through the TOTALLY EXCESSIVE delay. *hugs* You’re too nice to me!
Alllll the groveling, guys. All of it. Remember how I was talking about totally not having time to write long fics? I TOTALLY don’t. But I am. So here.
Anyone who guessed Enjolras’ in-universe identity before the big reveal gets a cookie. Also I am taking votes on whether I should include smut and up the rating of this thing, and yeah, I’m taking those votes now because it takes me a goddamn long time to write smut. I have to, like, prepare myself, if y’all want smut.
OK people, we have a really important thing
to say about this. OK. Ready?
If you get antibiotics to treat an STD YOU REALLY GOTTA TAKE ALL OF THEM AS DIRECTED. Even if you feel a bit better, or a sore heals
up, or whatever. Seriously. When you do not take all of your meds you may not
actually clear up your infection. And what happens then? THIS:
Health officials have been warning us about the threat of “super gonorrhea“—a strain of the sexually transmitted disease that is resistant to all known antibiotics—for over a year. But the superbug is here, much faster than previously anticipated. On Wednesday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a cluster of gonorrhea infections that shows both decreased susceptibility to ceftriaxone and very high-level resistance to azithromycin. It’s the first time this superbug has been found in the U.S.
Reblogging this because ~this is important~
I’ve never been so happy to not have sex.
Reblogging because I tell my patients this all the time and we talk about this at work all the time ☝🏼️☝🏼☝🏼
There is a famous story told in Chassidic literature that addresses this very question. The Master teaches the student that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson.
One clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”
The Master responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs and act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that god commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”
“This means,” the Master continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”
ETA source: Tales of Hasidim Vol. 2 by Mar
imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”
All right, this is the last (and longest) part of Deorum! The rest of the story is in this tag (Parts I, II, III, IV, and V). This takes place a about a week and a half after Part V, and includes the grand reveal about Jack’s…situation. I hope you guys like it, and thanks so much for sticking with me through this mess of a story! If you have any questions, I have a bunch more stuff worked out for the universe, so feel free to ask away.
The newly arrived family across the hall
from Jack hadn’t tried to invite him over again, but Marcus and his wife—Dorothea-call-me-Dot,
as Jack learned upon meeting her—still greeted him when they passed. He knew that the son, Jesse, was quiet and
smiled shyly at him, and Apollo had been elated with the boy’s interest in art,
and that Mac, the daughter, was buoyantly energetic at all times and drove her
parents to distraction. Dot was handling
the adjustment better than her husband, which he knew for a fact because he had
seen her talking to Sekhmet about getting blood out of clothes after Mac’s
latest mishap.
Marcus, on the other hand, had
almost swooned when he saw Hapi and Bragi together in front of Starbucks. Jack had been more than a little judgmental
when he saw Marcus waver and grip the edge of the table outside.
So it was a shock when there was a
sharp hammering on his door on Wednesday afternoon, and Jack opened it to
reveal Marcus standing there and looking disheveled.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, sweeping
a glance over the man. His usual tidy
suit was missing its jacket and his hair stuck up in clumps as if he’d been
dragging his hands through it.
“Have you seen my kids?” Marcus
asked, skipping any semblance of polite greeting.
Jack paused. “…no?
Are they not where they’re supposed to be?”
if a teenager is at your door and they are wearing a costume!! please give them candy!! they are still in it for the halloween spirit and it honestly no different from a little kid in a costume. they are just as excited and happy as all the other lil tykes and dont you dare tell them they are “too old for trick-or-treating” because that will literally break their hearts and that’s not cool.
Its getting close to Halloween again so I just thought I’d reblog this again
this is why I was a ghost from 10 to 18 except at 12.
Also…when I went trick-or-treating with my teenage friends, we made the streets safer for the little kids. The teens who were out to do mischief, who were generally not in costume or toting their own pillow cases, did not mess with the littles who were near us, because they knew we’d get involved. Make kids safer by encouraging Hallowteens!
I’d also like to add that a lot of kids–especially kids of color–get mistaken for being a lot older than they really are.
I’d also like to add that Jehovah’s Witness children aren’t allowed to celebrate Halloween or go trick or treating, so many of us go trick or treating after leaving the cult, and most newly freed ex JWs are around 18-25. And some of us, including me, have anxiety about going door to door.
Please keep in mind that some of the older people trick-or-treating might be autistic or otherwise neurodivergent and not understand why people think they shouldn’t be trick-or-treating! And, really, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be. Trick-or-treating is good, inclusive fun that everyone can enjoy, so please be nice if a bigger kid or even an adult comes to your door! Besides, it’s only one piece of candy and you probably have hundreds.
For just one second. I don’t often make posts directly addressing people on anything more serious than fanfiction, but.
The election. I’m not going to spin you the same explanation everyone else has given about why voting third party is dangerous in this situation–all you have to do is google the Bush-Nader-Gore situation and find many people with much better explanations than I could give. I’m not going to list every law that Hillary Clinton would support and Donald Trump would repeal–I’m too tired to put myself through that panic attack. Rest assured, there are many, and the Supreme Court decision of last year regarding marriage equality is just the tip of the iceberg.
Just. Listen.
I have friends, old friends and new ones, who are observant Muslims. I want to keep those friends, I want them to be safe and happy in their homes and in their faith. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I have trans friends that I adore. I want them to be at ease in their own bodies, given the right of their own names and their own identities. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I have cousins adopted from other countries, friends who are exchange students working on a citizenship, friends whose children are natural-born American citizens. I want them free to live where they want, with their family or overseas from them, because they’re people and they deserve that choice. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I have black friends, black family I love. I want them to be safe, and alive, and goddamn, that’s not a guaranteed thing right now but under a Donald Trump presidency, it would be impossible.
I’m queer–men, women, none of the above, all of the above, I don’t care. I want to be able to marry a woman, if I fall in love with one, just like I would be able to marry a man. I want to feel as safe with a girlfriend in my arms as a boyfriend, without a care in the world for what someone might get away with doing to us. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I have a history of sexual assault that statistically predisposes me to being a victim of rape. In the event that the worst happens, I want to be able to bring that to court. I want to be able to get an abortion without going to jail. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
I am a woman, for Christ’s sake. We are half the world, and we deserve to be paid equally, treated like adults rather than children, respected as thinkers and dreamers, mothers and scientists, artists and politicians and human beings. Under a Donald Trump presidency, that would not happen.
We are people, us who are under threat from this man. And if your plan is to ‘vote your conscience’ by voting third party, whether as a protest vote or as genuine support, far be it from me to dictate your morals. But let me take this moment to remind you that we are people. If Donald Trump is elected and has the prerogative to appoint judges and select cabinet members and run the country, we are not going to be treated like people. If Donald Trump is elected and we are shafted in the process, and you did not do everything in your power to stop that, you bear some degree of responsibility.
So whether what’s driving you to vote third party or abstain altogether is sincere conviction, arrogant moral superiority, or just a desire to not take either of the two options available, think about that. Take that into your considerations. You might sleep great, knowing you didn’t sell out like the rest of everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton.
How are you going to sleep if Donald Trump wins the election after a split vote and the fallout starts to take lives?
not voting for hillary clinton is a vote for donald trump
But also THERE ARE MORE THAN TWO CHOICES IN THIS ELECTION pls people, I know it seems unlikely, but if everyone who didn’t want either candidate wrote in a name, someone else would stand a chance [and we could live with ourselves, not having voted for one or the other]
no they wouldn’t, literally do not do this
please educate yourself about nader and the 2000 presidential election before encouraging this literally terrible idea
People on both sides say “Not voting for my candidate is a vote for the other guy” No, it’s just not a vote for your fucking candidate. Vote for who you actually believe in, otherwise you might as well not vote. If Hillary actually gave a damn she would try harder than just say “Vote for me cause I’m not Trump” No bitch, how about you show me something I can believe in. God damn, no wonder so many people don’t fucking vote.
*sigh*
Let me explain why they say a vote for a 3rd candidate or not voting for Hillary is voting for Trump:
The United States does not have a direct democratic voting system. We have an indirect system called the electoral college.The electoral college is a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.
To win the Presidency you do not need a popular majority; you need the majority of votes of the electoral college.
The way the college works is that the two parties select the delegates that will serve as electors, and the electors pledge to vote for the candidates, depending on their party affiliation, of either the democratic or republican party. So, when people go vote, they are actually going to vote for electors that have pledged to vote for a specific party/candidate.
Each state is allocated a different number of electoral seats, and so not every state is truly worth the same given that every candidate is racing to secure 270 seats (minimum required to win the election).
What’s important to note is that the electoral college is a winner take all vote in 48 of the 50 states, meaning that the candidate with the higher number of votes in a given state will get ALL of the seats. This is one of the reasons why third party candidates are a wasted vote.
Based on our country’s history, most States around the country have already been defined as either red or blue, because the majority of the people that go and vote in said states tend to stick to either one or the other no matter who is on the ballot. It becomes a bit of loyalism to a party or, more accurately, just a strong distaste towards the ideals of the other party. However, there are a few swing states that really define the elections, for each election cycle they tend to change depending on who is on the ballot.
Now, third party candidates, which is often used as a protest vote, have never worked because a) they are not written into every state ballot, meaning that there are states that don’t offer these candidates given that they did not qualify b) have rarely gotten enough votes to even be up for electoral seats c) ALWAYS end up hurting one of the two candidates, for, in close runs, they can make one of the other two candidates lose a SWING STATE.
This is what happened with Ralph Nader in 2000. The votes that he received hurt Gore in certain states, particularly florida, which led to Bush winning as he had the majority of electoral seats even though he did not have the majority in popular vote.
Now, in the latest poll, it shows that the race between Hillary and trump is very close, and, when third party candidates are involved, it actually HURTS Hillary’s chances.
Now, if it hurts her enough, Trump can obtain the much needed swing states. If he gets over 270 seats (and thus more than hillary) he WILL win the goddamn election.
This is not a year to vote for a third party candidate. This is not a man you want in the oval office of the most powerful country in the world.
There is nothing NOTHING you can pull out that will make Trump the lesser of two evils.
We live in a country that has a two party system, so yes, a vote for a 3rd party candidate or a non-vote IS actually a vote for trump.
I was a Bernie supporter too, but “Bernie or Bust”ers are fucking idiots. Yes the system is corrupt, but you certainly wont fix anything by letting Trump win. Put your personal ideals aside for the good of the country.
Here, I even made a graph
If Everyone Pulls Together And Votes Hillary
If Y’all “Bernie Or Bust” People Vote Third Party
See? Not that hard.
Seriously, guys, do not vote third party. The electoral college will not vote third party. I know it sucks and it’s unfair, but it’s pull your heads out of your asses or have President Trump.
And this is why America’s political system really, REALLY sucks at Democracy.
I feel like there’s been at least one Federation egghead who has tried to show proof of queerness in classical Klingon culture as a kind of gotcha to Worf. (Who they assume is a Straight because Klingon.) And Worf is just not having it in that subtle way of his.
Like, “Hey, Worf, isn’t remarkable how homoerotic [insert great Klingon poet]’s third collection is?”
Worf stares at them for a long time. “Those poems were written for his husband.”
I don’t care if you’re Jewish or not. If you act like commemorating the deaths of 6 million of our number is somehow a privilege and that we are not allowed to mourn our own dead or speak out against the hatred that caused such horrors without ALSO simultaneously talking about other genocides, you are being antisemitic. I spent a lot of time, effort and ink fighting the Darfur Genocide along with a large number of other Jewish activists and so many of the people criticizing how Jews talk about genocide weren’t there. In fact, many of them criticized us for not focusing our activism on Palestine. I won’t be lectured by these kinds of people. The number one cause of death in my family over the past century has been murder by Nazi. I have spoken to every living member of my father’s family out to my third cousins. I have been told that I should thank Hitler for being alive because my grandparents met at a DP camp and wouldn’t have met were their entire families not murdered. I’ve been told that the “real Holocaust” was of Ukrainians (many of whom were collaborators and whose descendants are trying to deny Babi Yar), or that the Holocaust targeted people who had brown hair (like Hitler himself), or that it wasn’t antisemitic because of other victims, as if “Mein Kampf” didn’t have numerous explicit passages targeting Jews specifically, as if there weren’t boycotts of Jewish families specifically, as if the Yellow Stars were universally applied.
If I take these things personally it’s because they are personal. I am labelled as a “Third Generation Survivor” at the US Holocaust Museum. I have a 90 year old grandmother who survived Bergen-Belsen and the Warsaw Ghetto and there are people who are telling that narrowly avoiding being murdered alongside the rest of her family is somehow a privilege. Or that I somehow “celebrate” the Holocaust. What the hell kind of word choice is that?
no offense but im sick of a school system that constantly preaches “dont be afraid to fail!!!” and then creates an atomsphere where grades are so excessively important and youre anxious if you get anything less than an A
I started to read animorphs thinking it would be a funny, cute and happy story of some kids with superpowers, kind of your typical shonen manga style. Some nice characters with strong and vivid personalities, and a simple, lineal plot, centered in trust, friendship, family, love, and all these stuff with some action and a simple white/black morality…. I DIDNT SIGN UP FOR THIS SHEET!
RIGHT, sorry for the delay, I forgot this was a thing. Here is Part V, set about six days after the last bit. Parts I,II, III, and IV are also available
It was a Friday morning again when
Jack woke himself up from a dream with shouting in a language he didn’t immediately
recognize. This would have alarmed him
more if he hadn’t discovered, over the past several days, a native speaker’s
knowledge of German, Japanese, Welsh, Spanish, and Slovakian, as well as
passable fluency in a handful of other tongues—including, to Anansi’s supreme
satisfaction, Akan. The shouting was
new, though, and as his brain caught up to the adrenaline in his veins, he vaguely
recognized it as Russian, diphthong vowels dripping from hard consonants.
Jack tried to recapture the sound of
his words, as if he could collect the echoes from where they had settled in
corners of the room and hollows of the blankets, reassemble them into
speech. He opened his mouth and let his
lips move to form the syllables he had heard.
“Something meshok moi,” he said aloud.
“Popast’v meshok moi.”
