yo btw if u ever have a crush on an aromantic person or anyone on the aro spectrum please don’t try to put the other person on the spot for not returning your feelings.
Like, don’t go “oh my gosh imagine if you weren’t aro! We would have so much fun…” Or “aw man, I wish you weren’t aro…” Because that’s disrespectful and makes it seem like the other person is at fault for the feelings YOU developed.
So if you ever have a crush on your friend who’s aro, please don’t be rude or disrespectful. Don’t invalidate their identity and romantic orientation because you want a romantic relationship with them. They don’t.
This goes for everyone. It’s really rude to tell someone that their sexuality or gender (who them are) inconveniences you because you like them.
What the fuck, is this a thing people do? Who does this? This is so shitty. If you want to privately be sad that someone is (FOR WHATEVER REASON) not returning your romantic interest, that’s okay. But then remind yourself that…shit, man, that person doesn’t owe you anything. No. Nothing. Your unrequited feelings are your problem, not their fault.
I wrote a post a while back about how some people are very good at getting away with doing intentionally creepy things by passing themselves off as just ~awkward~.
Recently, I noticed a particular pattern that plays out. While creeps can be any gender, there’s a gendered pattern by which creepy men get other men to help them be creepy:
A guy runs over the boundaries of women constantly
He makes them very uncomfortable and creeped out
But he doesn’t do that to guys, and
He doesn’t talk to guys about it in an unambiguous way, and
When he does it in front of guys, he finds a way to make it look deniable
And then some women complain to a man, maybe even a man in charge who is supposed to be responsible for preventing abuse in a space
and he has no idea what they are talking about, since he’s never the target or witness
And he’s had a lot of pleasant interactions with that guy
So he sympathizes with him, and thinks he must mean well but be have trouble with social skills
And then takes no action to get him to stop or to protect women
And so the group stays a place that is safe for predatory men, but not for the women they target
For example:
Mary, Jill, and Susan: Bill, Bob’s been making all of us really uncomfortable. He’s been sitting way too close, making innuendo after everything we say, and making excuses to touch us.
Bill: Wow, I’m surprised to hear that. Bob’s a nice guy, but he’s a little awkward. I’m sure he doesn’t mean anything by it. I’m not comfortable accusing him of something so serious from my position of authority.
What went wrong here?
Bill assumed that, if Bob was actually doing something wrong, he would have noticed.
Bill didn’t think he needed to listen to the women who were telling him about Bob’s creepy actions. He didn’t take seriously the possibility that they were right.
Bill assumed that women who were uncomfortable with Bob must be at fault; that they must be judging him too harshly or not understanding his awkwardness
Bill told women that he didn’t think that several women complaining about a guy was sufficient reason to think something was wrong
Bill assumed that innocently awkward men should not be confronted about inadvertantly creepy things they do, but rather women should shut up and let them be creepy
A rule of thumb for men:
If several women come to you saying that a man is being creepy towards them, assume that they are seeing something you aren’t
Listen to them about what they tell you
If you like the guy and have no idea what they’re talking about, that means that what he is doing is *not* innocent awkwardness.
If it was innocent awkwardness, he wouldn’t know how to hide it from other men
Men who are actually just awkward and bad at understanding boundaries also make *other men* uncomfortable
If a man is only making women uncomfortable but not men, that probably means he’s doing it on purpose
Take that possibility seriously, and listen to what women tell you about men
tl;dr If you are a man, other men in your circle who are nice to you are creepy towards women. Don’t assume that if something was wrong that you would have noticed; creepy men are good at finding the lines of what other men will tolerate. Listen to women. They know better than you do whether a man is being creepy and threatening towards women; if they think something is wrong, listen and find out why. Don’t give predatory dudes who are nice to you cover to keep hurting women.
okay but please please tell me someone sat down and wrote after-mulan fic where some days li shang wakes up and rolls over and murmurs mulan’s name and reaches out for her only to hear “call me ping today” whispered back
and how everyone else not in the know thinks he has a wife and a secret army boyfriend and that he’s hiding one from the other
and someone tries to tell mulan and she just collapses laughing because they’re close but totally wrong
and li shang all the time just deals with it because he loves ping and he loves mulan and he doesn’t care what name he’s using or what gender he’s kissing as long as he can sneak one kiss a day
the dragon kind of creeps him out sometimes but it’s all cool
There’s been so many studies on this it’s ridiculous and I think we need to stop focusing on the why and just respect people’s genders and stop forcing gender roles on to people (and I totally see how a TERF could twist this so don’t even try). However, as a genderqueer person I do get a little joy from this. Now we just need someone science-y to point out sex is a construct.
get fucked gender essentialists
someone send my dad this lmao
HUMANS ARE A SEXUALLY MONOMORPHIC SPECIES
HUMANS ARE A SEXUALLY MONOMORPHIC SPECIES
HUMANS ARE A SEXUALLY MONOMORPHIC SPECIES
This is pmuch common sense. We are not anglerfish. We are not elephant seals. We are not orangutans. We are not peacocks. We are sexually monomorphic - that means there are literally no actual difference between males and females outside of our genitalia, and humans are similar to crows and dolphins in that aspect. And thus, our rigid concepts of gender and sex roles are entirely social constructs. One based on a myth of sexual dimorphism that does not exist in our species.
Science, motherfuckers
THERE WE GO. Now when someone tries to de-legitimize your gender identity, your response can be “SCIENCE BITCH I’M VALID AS FUCK.”
“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” is a phrase often thrown around to prove that women are materialistic, but if you listen to the song you realize that it’s really about how men think a woman’s looks and youth are the only valuable assets she has. They’ll trade her in when she “loses her charms”, so she needs to collect diamonds and valuables to sustain herself when she’s old and alone.
Consider that the song was written and performed during a time when women couldn’t find a job for decent pay, that the only way they could survive financially was to tie themselves to a man and hope he’d stick around and provide support.
The real message is that men are shallow and flighty, so take their sweet words with a grain of salt and make sure you get something real out of the relationship.
Someone calling in sick to work in order to sleep for their hour long shift.
Someone breakdancing to a boombox blasting Christmas music on the quad.
Someone crying because they got a free sandwich.
Someone walking into the lounge at 1 am with a huge stack of books, and the determination of someone who forgot a term paper.
Someone putting off writing their thesis because someone else needed math help and “logarithms are fun!”
Someone taking a lighter to a notebook as soon as they left the science building.
More than one flask being carried to class.
Someone literally giggle evilly when given a 6-pack of beer.
A freshman taking gen eds complaining about everyone else complaining about how hard finals are. (Note: the freshman may or may not have ever been seen again.)
Someone crossing campus at a run in slippers.
A nursing major explaining that finals are actually natural selection, and that she is the strongest and most adaptable and she was going to survive, while talking to herself.
A different nursing major looking very forlorn because she just ran out of wine.
Someone sleeping on a bench in the music building, with actual pillows and blankets and everything.
Sticky notes with swearwords written on them littered around the science building.
A group of students trying to one-up each other about how badly their juries had just gone.
Someone leaving for the library at 3 am, because there was free coffee there.
Someone flipping off the professor after being wished good luck on the final.
The same person realizing that they have an entire lifetime of that class ahead of them, because it’s their major.
Someone being questioned about how they wanted their funeral to look, after talking about the 8000 words they had due.
Just, so many people sprawled on floors because it’s easier to do that than anything else. So many.
The most genuine gratitude I’ve had directed at me possibly ever, because I gave someone a peanut butter cookie.
Finals: we’re all tired, hungry, and a little unhinged. It’s okay.
hey also remember that guy, martin shkreli, who bought the rights to that HIV drug then jacked up the price like crazy?
not only did he get arrested today but his lawyer increased his hourly rate by 5000%
“Shkreli, who reportedly received the news about the price hike while he was being fingerprinted, cried foul and accused his attorney of “outrageous and inhumane price gouging.” (Source)
let’s stop seeing sex as the biggest thing you can do to show someone you love them
everyone knows that the real way to show someone you love them is to find them a really cool rock. not a diamond. just a neat rock that you think they will enjoy
Not a rock THE ARKENSTONE
Why just one rock Why not three Why not the silmarils
Listen up turd turrets, I WANTED to just play video games, I WANTED to just have fun, I NEVER wanted my gaming to be political or a struggle, I just wanted to play.
But you wouldn’t fucking let me, you brought up my gender, you judged me based on it, YOU made it political.
So now I WILL wreck everything with my fucking feminism, I am the feminist nightmare you fucking created.
“The truth is, chivalry has basically fuck all to do with women, and everything to do with horses.
See, the word “chivalry” comes from the French word “chevalier,” which comes from “cheval,” which means “horse.” Chivalry is literally just “rules for if you have a horse.” This was an important set of rules to have in chivalry times. Horses were the Blackhawk Helicopters of the Middle Ages; if you had a horse, you could absolutely kill anybody who didn’t have a horse and nobody was going to say a god damn thing. The only thing stopping you was chivalry.
That’s what chivalry was for. Chivalry was – and still is – basically a way of saying, “okay, I have an optimized death machine between my legs, maybe I should look out for people who don’t have one of these.” So it’s not that chivalry is specifically about defending women because women are weak. It’s that chivalry is about defending people who don’t own horses, and in the middle ages women didn’t own shit.”—
“Chivalry boils down to three things: mercy, charity, and humility. Mercy means being conscious of your advantages, and treating other humans gently. Charity means giving without expecting anything in return. Humility means accepting your mistakes, and recognizing that those who don’t have your advantages aren’t your inferiors.“
*bangs fists on table repeatedly* TELL US THE STORY TELL US THE STORY
SO OKAY
Picture the scene. Eighth grade. Tiny baby earlgraytay- young, scrappy, hungry, and with a chip on their shoulder from being the Weird Kid who was constantly in and out of trouble.
Tiny baby EGT has an American History teacher that we’ll call Mrs. B. Mrs. B. was very loud and very Long Islander and liked baby me for being just as nerdy about history as she was (though I think she occasionally wanted me to stop blurting out all the answers so that the other kids could learn something.)
We did a Mock Constitutional Convention wherein every kid in the class got the part of a delegate. If you were quieter and/or needed to watch more than talk, you got an obscure delegate and could mostly watch.
If you were a blabbermouth, like me, you got Alexander Hamilton.
So, I was really proud of myself, because Alexander Hamilton was a big important guy who talked a lot and had a lot of opinions.
My mom helped me make a terrible tiny Hamilton cosplay. I had a frilly shirt and buckle shoes and I distinctly remember putting my hair in the rattiest boy-ponytail in the history of boy ponytails.
I spent like three days reading over all my notes and vibrating intensely, and vowed I would give, like, the best performance ever, and do all the arguing.
Unfortunately, there was a flaw in my clever plan.
The flaw in said clever plan was that everyone else in my class was in eigth grade. They thought history was a thing you slogged through to get an A, and no one else was as into this as I was.
So, I basically had the floor for the entire mock Convention.
I seem to remember spending a lot of time talking about the National Bank and making compromises with imaginary opponents because our TJeffs and our John Adams and just about everyone else were wayyyyy happy to let me talk and get graded for my performance.
tl;dr: Imagine an AU wherein Alexander Hamilton wrote the entire Constitution single-handedly because no one else showed up.
clint and nat getting into arguments about stupid things and nat calling him ridiculous bird names like ‘bluetit’ and ‘penguin’ just to watch him get irrationally angry over it like “PENGUINS AREN’T EVEN REAL BIRDS!” and “I’M A HAWK! A HAWK!” and her responding with “whatever you say, goose”
and one day in the middle of a fight, he just stops yelling and looks at her and whispers, “brown recluse.” she doesn’t talk to him for two days.
“There’s also the argument ‘Books are supposed to challenge you!’ which is an interesting argument, but I don’t actually like it very much. Most of my books aren’t actually supposed to challenge you, they’re supposed to comfort you because life is a hard country and we all need a little kindness along the way. (It is totally fine if other people’s books are supposed to challenge you, just… er… #NotAllBooks or something.) I do not actually feel bad about this, because I think comfort is hard to do and generally worthwhile.”—Ursula Vernon, as if speaking directly to me. (via lotstradamus)
Also, apparently we’ve all decided that we’re all going through life like the most important part of The Winter Soldier wasn’t that Pierce referenced Mama Fury? Like we’re okay with the movie throwing out her existence and none of us picking that up? It’s not like we needed canonical confirmation that Nick Fury was in fact of woman born, but like…she’s real, guys. She was recently alive. She was probably a SHIELD agent in the Civil Rights Era and left her son with her dad for weeks on end as she worked some real Cold War shit. She probably tangled with the Winter Soldier once in go-go boots. She probably told her son to believe in heroes, but you gotta go looking for them. She probably should be fancast as Nichelle Nichols and featured with Grandpa Fury in a billion different fanworks because Mama fucking Fury, are you kidding me
Seeing this old post getting new notes has reminded me that timeline can be whatever we need it to be, and these characters can be as old or as young as suits the story, and we need Mama Fury in Agent Carter, this isn’t even a question, we need it, we need her, we need the Fury family representing and being as much a legacy as the Starks ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Mama and Papa Fury meeting in the fledgling SHIELD under Director Carter, though.
Let’s put problems with spelling, grammar, narrative flow, plot structure, etc. aside and just look at the story and, in particular, the character arc of Bella Swan.
At the beginning of the story, she is moving from Arizona to Washington on her own volition - she has decided to give her mother and her step-father some time and space and to spend some time with her father. At this point in the story, she is, admittedly, a bit of a Mary Sue, but an endearing one. She is sensitive to the needs of others (moves to Alaska for her Mom’s sake, helps her Dad around the house, is understanding and tries to give the benefit of the doubt even when the other students are somewhat cruel to her when she first arrives), clumsy, out-of-sorts, and a little insecure. She’s not a girly-girl or a cheerleader type, doesn’t get caught up in the typical sorts of high school behavior, and in general functions as an independent person.
It’s worth noting that if Tyler’s van had smashed her, she would have (at that point) died as a fairly well-rounded, empathetic individual. We certainly wouldn’t say she died in need of redemption, at any rate. Instead, Edward ‘saves’ her - and this supernatural ‘salvation’ marks the beginning of a journey that ultimately destroys her.
As she gets more entangled with Edward, she becomes less and less independent, more and more selfish. She is accepting of his abusive behavior (stalking her on trips with her friends, removing parts from her car so that she can’t go see Jacob, creeping into her window at night, emotional manipulation) to the point that when he completely abandons her (walking out on the trust and commitment they’ve built together, in spite of having vowed to remain with her no matter what), she is willing to take him back. Edward is clearly entirely morally bankrupt.
Her father, Charlie Swan, is sort of the Jimminy Cricket of the story. His intuition is a proxy for the reader’s intuition, and he’s generally right. He doesn’t like Edward, because he can sense the truth - not that Edward is a vampire, that doesn’t matter in particular - but that Edward is devoid of anything approximating a ‘soul’ (for those strict secularists, you could just say Charlie can see that Edward is a terrible person). Bella is warned by numerous people and events throughout the course of the story that she is actively pursuing her own destruction - but she’s so dependent on Edward and caught up in the idea of the romance that she refuses to see the situation for what it is. Charlie tells her Edward is bad news. Edward tells her that he believes he is damned, and devoid of a soul. He further tells her that making her like him is the most selfish thing he will ever do. Jacob warns her numerous times that Edward is a threat to her life and well-being. She even has examples of other women who have become involved with monsters - Emily Young bears severe and permanent facial disfigurement due to her entanglement with Sam Uley.
Her downward spiral continues when, in New Moon, she turns around and treats her father precisely as Edward has treated her - abandoning him after suffering an obvious and extended severe bout of depression, leaving him to worry that she is dead for several days. She had been emotionally absent for a period of months before that anyhow. Charlie Swan is traumatized by this event, and never quite recovers thereafter. (He is continuously suspicous of nearly everyone Bella interacts with from that point on, worries about her frequently, and seems generally less happy.)
Her refusal to break her codependence with Edward eventually leads them to selfishly endanger Carlisle’s entire clan when the Volturi threaten (and then attempt) to wipe them out for their interaction with her - so she is at this point in the story willing to put lives on both sides of the line (her family and the Cullens) at risk in favor of this abusive relationship. Just like in a real abusive relationship, she is isolated or isolates herself from nearly everyone in her life - for their safety, she believes.
Ultimately, she marries Edward, submitting to mundane domesticity and an abusive relationship - voluntarily giving up her independence in favor of fulfilling Edward’s idea of her appropriate role. Her pregnancy - which in the real world would bind her to the father of her children irrevocably (if only through the legal system or through having to answer the kid’s questions about their paternity) - completely destroys her body. The baby drains her of every resource in her body (she becomes sickly, skeletal, and unhealthy) and ultimately snaps her spine during labor. Her physical destruction tracks with and mirrors her moral and psychological destruction - both are the product of seeds that she allowed Edward to plant inside her through her failure to be independent.
Ultimately, to ‘save’ her (there’s that salvation again), Edward shoots venom directly into her heart. Let me repeat that for emphasis: The climax of the entire series is when Edward injects venom directly into Bella Swan’s heart.
Whatever wakes up in that room, it ain’t Bella.
I’ll refer to the vampire as Bella Cullen, the human as Bella Swan.
Bella Swan was clumsy.
Bella Cullen is the most graceful of all the vampires.
Bella Swan was physically weak and frequently needed protection.
Bella Cullen is among the strongest and most warlike of the vampires, standing essentially on her own against a clan that has ruled the world for centuries.
Bella Swan was empathetic to the needs of others before she met Edward.
Bella Cullen pursues two innocent human hikers through a forest, intent on ripping them to pieces to satisfy her bloodlust - and stops only because Edward calls out to her. Not because she perceives murder as wrong. (Breaking Dawn, p.417). She also attempts to kill Jacob and breaks Seth’s shoulder because she didn’t approve of what Jacob nicknamed her daughter (Breaking dawn, p.452). She no longer has morals .
Bella Swan was fairly modest and earnest.
Bella Cullen uses her sex appeal to manipulate innocent people and extract information from them (pp.638 - 461) - she does so in order to get in touch with J. Jenks.
In short, her entire identity - everything that made her who she was - has been erased.
This is powerfully underscored on p. 506, when Charlie Swan (remember, the conscience of the story) sees his own daughter for the first time after her transformation:
“Charlie’s blank expression told me how off my voice was. His eyes zeroed in on me and widened.
Shock. Disbelief. Pain. Loss. Fear. Anger. Suspicion. More pain.”
He goes through the entire grieving process right there - because at that moment, he recognizes what so many readers don’t - Bella Swan is dead.
The most tragic part of the whole story is that this empty shell of a person - which at this point is nothing more than a frozen echo of Bella, twisted and destroyed as she is by her codependence with Edward, fails to see what has happened to her. She ends the story in denial - empty, annihilated, and having learned nothing.
holy shit
now who wants to write fanfiction emphasizing this point
Now that’s cool
Did I just read a Twilight literary analysis that I liked?
What have I become?
This was so good oh my god. I’m actually so tired of people hailing Twilight as a love story and this was the most accurate thing I’ve ever read on the matter.
omg i really want this mixed with actual gore and horror
y’know if i were mother gothel i wouldn’t tell rapunzel that her birthday was ACTUALLY her birthday. like i’d probably tell her that her birthday was any other day where floating lanterns from the castle do NOT fill the sky and make her think they’re for her. hell whats the point of even telling her that birthdays exist, its not like she’s gonna ever know anyone else besides mother gothel who’ll tell her about birthdays
also what is rapunzel’s real name? is it actually rapunzel; is that what the queen and king named her? if that were the case then mother gothel should have definitely renamed her and had her grow up with a name that is different than the missing princess. like if she got to the town in the movie and heard someone say “this is for the missing princess, rapunzel” she’d be like “holy FUCK”
kiana this is a children’s movie
a man gets fatally stabbed and a woman literally turns to dust as she falls from a 60 foot tower. im talking about birthdays and names so i dont know what the fuck your point is
Moves by truck, train or boat. Ridiculously common. And see those holes on the bottom? Mobile by forklift. Also, HEAVY, even when empty they’re in the tons. If you had some warning you could string these things end to end for miles and human bodies can’t move them. Plus they’re nice and wide so you can comfortably walk on top of them for patrols.
“But we don’t have easy ways to kill them!”
Put the shotgun down you fucking idiot.
No tires to pop. Heavy and slow but inevitable. Climbing required to enter and thus, relatively zombie proof, especially if you spend like an hour to protect the glass.
A lot of large farming equipment can destroy cars.
Want to guess what it’d do to a decaying human body? It’s not pretty.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Merely flattening them with common construction equipment or farming gear isn’t enough.
“But we need ways to move a lot of people that zombies can’t stop!”
BEEP BEEP MOTHERFUCKER. Deer don’t have a chance and neither does a zombie.
“But that’s not good enough!”
NOW it’s time to call our friend the military because this ride stops for no one.
Do I need to keep going or is it clear the movies are bullshit yet? Seriously a dozen prepared people with heavy equipment licenses could clear an entire street of zombies AND powerwash it after.
I was looking up the etymology for Succubus and Incubus to find a gender neutral term, and I found your post. From what I can tell, Incubus comes from in+cubare, Latin for "to lie upon" and succubus from sub+cubare, Latin for "to lie beneath." Using this knowledge, I made the term Procubus, which should be the equivalent of "to lie beside." I thought to share it with you, in hopes that you may find it useful.
Hey this is a really interesting concept to consider! Also takes away the sexism that incu/succubus connotate. Thanks,
I was looking up the etymology for Succubus and Incubus to find a gender neutral term, and I found your post. From what I can tell, Incubus comes from in+cubare, Latin for "to lie upon" and succubus from sub+cubare, Latin for "to lie beneath." Using this knowledge, I made the term Procubus, which should be the equivalent of "to lie beside." I thought to share it with you, in hopes that you may find it useful.
Hey this is a really interesting concept to consider! Also takes away the sexism that incu/succubus connotate. Thanks,
i love moviegoing experiences where people clap and cheer because there’s no point to it, the people who made the movie can’t hear you, but people do it anyway because they’re just so moved or excited by the film that they burst into applause even though the only people they have to share it with are each other. that’s nice.
mccoy:
are you out of your mind what is this bullshit we're in the middle of nowhere what do you want me to do make bandaids out of rocks?? replace a limb with a cactus??
kirk:
well if it's too hard--
mccoy:
YOU LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT DON'T YOU SASS ME NOW GET YOUR OAF HANDS OUT OF HERE AND LET THE PROFESSIONAL DO HIS WORK DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM
I was musing on the everyday passive-aggression of business emails at work the other day after a particularly pissy back-and-forth with my least favorite coworker, in which we basically told each other to fuck off in plain view of both our bosses (who were cc’d on the whole thing), but because we did it in professional language we can get away with that. So, I decided to make a list of the most common code-words and phrases and what they really mean, for anyone entering their first white-collar business environment who might want help translating or need to know how to deliver a polite, professional “fuck you”.
“I’d just like to get some clarity on this/can you clarify for me” = what the fuck are you talking about/what the fuck did you do?
“Let’s discuss next steps” = get off your ass and make it happen you lazy shitwad.
“Thanks for following up with me about this” = I’m busy and I’ll get to you when I have a moment. Quit fucking riding my ass.
“If you need it sooner than that” = I have my own work to do; do it your damn self if it’s that urgent.
“What’s our timeline on this?” = I have no intention of doing that for you right now. How long can I put it off?
“It’s going to be challenging, but…” = do you have any fucking idea what you’re asking me to do?
“I see where you’re coming from” = you are so fucking wrong
“Would you like to take the lead on this?” = this is not my problem and I refuse to clean up your mess.
“Maybe we could schedule some time to discuss this over the phone” = stop avoiding me and answer the fucking question, asshole
“[Someone on the CC line of the email], please feel free to weigh in!” = I don’t have the authority to tell this shithead how wrong they are. Kindly step up and do it for me.
“It was my understanding that” = we’ve already had this conversation, please shut the fuck up
“Please reach out to [person]” = I’m tired of hearing you whine about this, go pester someone else for awhile.
The only one of these I will never use is “Maybe we could schedule some time to discuss this over the phone”. Even if it takes a thousand messages, email whenever possible, because phone conversations don’t leave a paper trail and in a month you’re going to be sending out another email anyway demanding to know why the asshole in question hasn’t done what they said they’d do and you won’t have anything to back it up.
I’ve learned my lesson on that one.
True, but there *is* a way to make it work. I do that one as a two-parter: call and go over whatever it is, then *immediately* - literally 30 seconds after hanging up the phone - send a follow-up email “just to confirm, we discussed X, Y, and decided to do Z by N date. Did I forget anything or leave anything out?” That way you can pin them to the metaphorical wall and force them to stop avoiding answering your question by calling them and having a voice-to-voice conversation, but *also* have a paper trail to go back to. And, for bonus points, ending the email with a question like that pretty much forces them to reply and commit themselves to having confirmed whatever the discussion included and the decision was, and they can’t go back later and say “but you didn’t include ABC!” because you already gave them the opportunity to address any missing agenda items from the call in your initial email.
(This is a technique I was literally explicitly taught by my supervisor, an HR manager with like 15+ yrs of experience, and I’ve seen it used to excellent effect several times. 10/10 do recommend.)
Reblog if its ok to message you during this holiday season incase Im feeling lonely or out of place during family events because no one should be alone on Christmas
God designed everything. Every star, every flower, every heart that beats. It’s all a testament to His great love and great power. If you truly believe that God is powerful, why fear learning about the wonder of His works? If it is discovered, if it can be known, He intends for it to be known. He reveals Himself in the wonderful glory of His world.
Are you afraid that somehow, somewhere, there is something in nature or medicine or psychology that will be God’s great undoing? That somewhere there is something to disprove Him?
Do you really serve such a small God?
this post is actually getting notes and i could not be prouder
A quick perusal of posts tagging the tumblr user in question shows that a lot of people think this is a joke and/or shitpost.
I am a biological anthropologist. I am a scientist who studies human bones and the ethics surrounding them. I am here to remind you that grave robbing, while in and of itself pretty abhorrent, has a particularly nasty history attached to it, especially in America. Early medical specimens were not curated with consent; they were often bought from China and India at best, or taken from graves of poor and/or minority communities. Shit, a couple dudes in Scotland straight up murdered people for medical specimens, not to mention the real-life serial killer/doctor from Devil in the White City. Universities are still finding remains of Holocaust victims among their collections. This is why we have laws like NAGPRA and the Human Tissue Act. Today, medical specimens are donated with consent. My university department and so many others operate thanks to these amazing gifts.
By extension, I don’t find non-scientists buying human bones any more ethical. They were once people. They don’t belong in your curio cabinet and are not yours to own. Want one because they look cool? I don’t blame you, because bones are pretty rad. But there’s an alternative. I’ll let one of my personal heroes, Dr. Kristina Killgrove, explain it to you.
Want one for religious practices? Definitely do not. Look, I don’t advertise this, but I used to be pagan. I get the appeal of human remains for spiritual practices; it’s not uncommon throughout the world. But you’ve got to understand how icky it is for white, New Age American pagans to use the bones of a complete stranger for religious purposes. What kind of energy do you think can possibly come from them?
If you find a bone just hanging out on the ground, call authorities and don’t touch it. Best case scenario, it’s an animal bone (which might also be illegal to take - check local laws). Worst case, it’s from a grave or a modern missing person, and now you’re complicit in a major crime, and their living, breathing family members will have a problem with you.
This neo-colonial attitude of entitlement to access to other humans, living or dead, is disgusting. Learn some empathy. I don’t care if you wouldn’t care if someone were to do that to your skeleton; everyone’s beliefs are different, and it’s the assumption that your beliefs matter more is what is so dangerous about this. You don’t speak for the dead, and they don’t belong to you.
