Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

queer-gal:

supernaturally-marvelous:

is-getting-old:

eva-420:

i feel bad for teachers because i distinctly remember my mom bursting into tears once when she was grading papers and she was just mumbling “theyre so goddamn stupid” over and over

every time i read this i laugh a little harder

My teacher was grading our history tests in class once, and it was all quiet. Then suddenly she just threw down her pen and slammed her head into the desk. We all looked up, wide-eyed and confused. then she just sat up after a minute and whispers “Mexico is not in the Middle East.”

Our English teacher was so upset with our quality of work one morning that she picked up someones paper and threw it. She hadn’t crumpled it into a ball or anything, so it somehow caught the air, looped right around and hit her in the back of the head. Our eyes all bulged as we sat there trying our hardest not to burst out laughing. 

sapphireswimming:

 “it’s the morning of the tournament and I need some help with my boards” “sure, I have a huge emergency repair kit! what do you need?” “well I have some boards here, and these are some pictures I printed off from the hotel printer last night” “oh my god”

 You’re about to get kicked out until you can adhere to tournament attire. Good thing I have duct tape and the rules don’t actually specify what your tie has to look like.

 I’m going neg against the most annoyingly stupid case in the world but no one’s been able to beat it yet and when you heard I was debating them you ran up with three separate briefs specifically written against their case even though you’re from a different club.

 You keep trying to give a full round of applause every time they call my name during awards and everyone kind of hates you right now.

 It’s the 6th round and we just went up against novices. You’re convinced it was power matched and I’m trying to persuade you it was power protected before you start crying on me.

 I asked for a copy of your IAC in cross examination and you handed me a double sided piece of paper in size 3 font.

 I don’t recognize the team I’m about to go up against from the postings so I’m running through the hallways desperately asking people if they know them, where they’re from, or what case they’re running. You are the team. Oh, awkward.

 “can we run our squirrel case?” “no” “can we run a counter plan?” “… we’re affirmative” “can we-” “NO”

 You found me crying in the hallway and asked if I was alright but I was just practicing my interp and now you’re all flustered but it was really sweet of you to ask.

 I’m doing debate plus five speeches at this tournament and don’t have time to eat. You’re a stranger who offered me an energy bar as I was running to my next room but now it’s two days later and I still haven’t been able to track you down to thank you.

 I was 110% sure we didn’t break so I spent the last half hour before announcements puddle jumping in my suit in the rain but now that I’m soaked it turns out that we made it to Quarter Finals so… oops?

 You wanted to support me so you came to watch my impromptu but all of the options were awful and my speech was less than a minute and now I can never look you in the eye again and why would you even come watch an impromptu?

 You always use this one analogy in your debate rounds and I’m sick and tired of it so I decide to use it first and the expression of shock and betrayal on your face is priceless.

 I totally blank in the middle of my speech and stand there trying to remember what comes next. After about twenty seconds you say “Houston, we have a problem”

 Our judge got a phone call in the middle of the round and stepped out to take it. Neither of us know what to do, or if we’re allowed to talk to each other, but I guess we have unlimited prep time now?

Keep reading

cosmic-noir:

sourcedumal:

wondergirlrps:

sourcedumal:

arandomcoyote:

sourcedumal:

rm4rqu3s:

sourcedumal:

It kills me how entitled these nerd boys get when it comes to sex like bruh, Revenge of the Nerds lied to you, the jock she likes so much isn’t an asshole, you’re just a fuckboy with no social skills and no willingness to actually see her as anything other than a human toy for your penis

And even if he is an asshole, you’re not any better, so simmer the fuck down and shut up.

^^^

But let’s be real. 99.9% of the time, he isn’t an asshole. The nerd boy whining is just a fucking jealous asshole who is overexaggerating those ‘she complains about her boyfriend’ posts those assholes do.

And lets not forget that these are the same guys who think ‘negging’ is a good idea. No charisma, no actual personality whatsoever, they have to be trained to treat women like shit because some Hot Topic reject told them its our fault they aren’t getting laid.

it gets even worse because instead of seeking blame on the “asshole” they blame the woman for being with the supposed asshole, so instead of finding hate towards a supposed abusive piece of shit they find hate towards the woman. They literaly wire themsevles to hate women in any way they can and then wonder why nobody likes them.

It’s sad, really.

Like real talk? I’ve been in nerd culture for a long time, I worked in a comic shop when I was in high school, I’ve dated a lot of nerds, and I’ve dated a lot of jocks (before I realized I was a lesbian anyway). Like 9 times out of 10 the jocky guys I knew were way nicer than the so called nerds. 

I NEVER had to prove myself to any of these “jocks” to be deemed “cool enough” to be worthy of their time. It’s like “Hey you like video games? that’s awesome!” “You read comics? so cool!” “Hey you don’t like sports/this sports team? That’s fine.” Whereas I was constantly tested, and judged, and criticized by these “nerdy” guys who never wanted me in “their” space. 

I wonder why these types of guys are alone.

Yep. These are the same males prattling on about “beta males” and other PUA nonsense.

Originally posted by yourreactiongifs

sxeli:

roaringwhitelion:

okcissie:

I’ve noticed that Minion bath products are a thing, and that many of them are banana-scented.

The fragrance used to impart a banana scent is called isoamyl acetate. Isoamyl acetate is also an alarm pheromone in bees. It’s released when a bee stings something/someone, prompting other bees to sting the same target.

The Minion shampoo has mysteriously infiltrated my house, and my youngest sibling (the only one who uses it) has not been stung since its appearance, but I wouldn’t count on anecdotal evidence…

If you have an allergy to bee stings, I strongly recommend choosing a different scent.

I’m a chemist and I found out I’m allergic to bees after working with isoamyl acetate and being stung twice on my way home from work. Do not use isoamyl acetate as a fragrance and especially not on children, which Minions are marketed to.

Please please please not on children. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Minions products are going to kill someone. only then will this chaos end.

faithinhumanityr:

By Amanda Jette on upworthy.com —

Society, pay attention. This is important.

My wife, Zoe, is transgender. She came out to us — the kids and me — last summer and then slowly spread her beautiful feminine wings with extended family, friends, and neighbors.

A little coming out here, a little coming out there — you know how it is.

It’s been a slow, often challenging process of telling people something so personal and scary, but pretty much everyone has been amazing.

However, she dreaded coming out at the office.

She works at a large technology company, managing a team of software developers in a predominantly male office environment. She’s known many of her co-workers and employees for 15 or so years. They have called her “he” and “him” and “Mr.” for a very long time. How would they handle the change?

While we have laws in place in Ontario, Canada, to protect the rights of transgender employees, it does not shield them from awkwardness, quiet judgment, or loss of workplace friendships. Your workplace may not become outright hostile, but it can sometimes become a difficult place to go to every day because people only tolerate you rather than fully accept you.

But this transition needed to happen, and so Zoe carefully crafted a coming out email and sent it to everyone she works with.

The support was immediately apparent; she received about 75 incredibly kind responses from coworkers, both local and international.

She then took one week off, followed by a week where she worked solely from home. It was only last Monday when she finally went back to the office.

Despite knowing how nice her colleagues are and having read so many positive responses to her email, she was understandably still nervous.

Hell, I was nervous. I made her promise to text me 80 billion times with updates and was more than prepared to go down there with my advocacy pants on if I needed to (I might be a tad overprotective).

And that’s when her office pals decided to show the rest of us how to do it right.

She got in and found that a couple of them had decorated her cubicle to surprise her:

And made sure her new name was prominently displayed in a few locations:

They got her a beautiful lily with a “Welcome, Zoe!” card:

And this tearjerker quote was waiting for her on her desk:

To top it all off, a 10 a.m. “meeting” she was scheduled to attend was actually a coming out party to welcome her back to work as her true self — complete with coffee and cupcakes and handshakes and hugs.

NO, I’M NOT CRYING. YOU’RE CRYING.

I did go to my wife’s office that day. But instead of having my advocacy pants on, I had my hugging arms ready and some mascara in my purse in case I cried it off while thanking everyone.

I wish we lived in a world where it was no big deal to come out.

Sadly, that is not the case for many LGBTQ people. We live in a world of bathroom bills and “religious freedom” laws that directly target the members of our community. We live in a world where my family gets threats for daring to speak out for trans rights. We live in a world where we can’t travel to certain locations for fear of discrimination — or worse.

So when I see good stuff happening — especially when it takes place right on our doorstep — I’m going to share it far and wide. Let’s normalize this stuff. Let’s make celebrating diversity our everyday thing rather than hating or fearing it.

Chill out, haters. Take a load off with us.

It’s a lot of energy to judge people, you know. It’s way more fun to celebrate and support them for who they are.

Besides, we have cupcakes.

umqra:

sometimes i laugh at my tags

because they’re just like

‘#FUCK YOU #YOU’RE A FUCKING ASSHOLE #YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY #WELL IT’S NOT YOU DICK’

shortly followed by a calm and collected ‘#daniel radcliffe’

theragnarokd:

involuntaryorange:

fatfeistyandfashionable:

starseed-drops:

drabblemeister:

spookihope:

whenever i’m talking to someone and they tell me about something that happened to them i always tell them about something that happened to me that’s similar to what happened to them. i do it as kind of a “oh hey yeah this happened to me so i can relate to what you’re going through” but i’m always afraid it comes out as “oh yeah well this happened to me so clearly i have it tougher than you” or “i’m done talking about you let’s talk about me”

i swear i don’t mean it like that……..

I run into this a lot with my job - so instead of telling the whole story I say something like, “Oh my gosh, I had something REALLY similar happen. What did you do after that??” And I’ve found that works. Usually they explain and then ask, “So what happened to you?” And then you’re invited to share, and the formula for conversing continues on. :)

of all the tumblr posts i’ve read, this one is going to change my life the fastest lol.

Thanks to both the OP for posting a thing that so many of us do, and the responder who gave us a better way to do it. You’re doing the lord’s work, my friend!

Fun fact: there isn’t anything wrong with you if you do what OP is describing.

Deborah Tannen’s work focuses on different conversational styles — the sets of behavioral norms and expectations that we bring with us to conversations. In one of her earlier articles, she describes two conflicting conversational styles that exist in the US. 

One, which she (perhaps inaccurately) dubs “New York Jewish conversational style,” is based on the principle of building camaraderie with one’s interlocutor. The other, which she doesn’t really name but which we could call “mainstream American conversational style,” is based on the principle of not imposing on one’s interlocutor.

Each conversational style has its own behavioral norms. Mainstream American conversational style involves things like asking your interlocutor questions about him/herself and waiting until your interlocutor is clearly finished speaking until you say something. These demonstrate a focus on one’s interlocutor and a clear resistance to imposing. NYJ conversational style involves things like conversational overlaps — speaking at the same time as one’s interlocutor — and “swapping stories.” These demonstrate a high level of engagement with one’s interlocutor. Conversationalists using the mainstream American style make space for each other; conversationalists using the New York Jewish style carve out their own space.

Each of these conversational styles works well when the two people conversing have the same style. Imagine two friends meeting for drinks after work:

“Oh, hello! How was your trip here?”
“Oh, it was awful. There was so much traffic on the turnpike.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I know. How was your trip?”
“Well, there was an accident on the bridge.”
“Oh no! Was there a big backup?”
“Yeah, pretty big.”

“Oh, hi!”
“Hey! Ugh, sorry I’m late, there was so much traffic on the turnpike—”
“Oh my god, I know, there was an accident on the bridge and the cars were backed up a MILE—”
“That is the worst, I remember one time I sat in traffic for an HOUR waiting to get through that toll, they really should—”
“Add more EZ-pass lanes, right?”
“Add more lanes, yeah, exactly.”

Both of these conversations worked: the participants feel that they’ve had their say and that they’ve been understood. They feel connected to their interlocutor.

But when people with conflicting conversational styles converse, that’s where things go wrong. Because we interpret other people’s contributions according to our own conversational style. So the person with mainstream American conversational style comes away thinking “Why did they keep interrupting me? Why didn’t they ask me any questions about me? Why were they so loud and emotional?” And the person with the New York Jewish conversational style comes away thinking “Why were they so disengaged? They didn’t seem involved in the conversation at all. They didn’t even offer any personal information.”

Rather, they would come away thinking that, except that we’re taught growing up that the first example conversation up there is what conversations should look like. So the person with the New York Jewish conversational style actually comes away from the conversation thinking “oh my god, what was I doing? I kept talking about myself. I think I kept interrupting them. I am so rude, god, I’m the worst.” When in fact: a) it’s about cultural difference, not individual moral qualities; and b) one conversational style isn’t inherently “better” than another.

Which isn’t to say that we shouldn’t attempt to bridge the gap between conversational styles, as suggested above. But we should be aware that:

TL;DR: Cultural difference is often mistaken for individual moral failings.

*memorizes “Oh my gosh, I had something REALLY similar happen. What did you do after that??” for next time this happens to me*

oathstrong:

sonicbluebowtie:

I end up staring at my notifications like

If you are reading this and think it could be about you then it probably is.

pterodactyl-screams:

thelilnan:

enoughtohold:

god i HATE the way crime shows aggressively push the idea that only guilty people (or occasionally innocent but morally repugnant people) want lawyers when talking to the police.

it’s one of the most harmful lies on tv honestly because it encourages real people to waive their right to counsel making it vastly easier for cops to take advantage of them, lie to them, railroad them etc. regardless of your guilt or innocence, if you’re suspected of a crime, you need a lawyer.

this is literally how thousands of innocent people end up in jail/prison because cops have a strong as hell confirmation bias and will use tricky language and leading questions to either get you to confess or admit enough fault to convict. people have been sent to death row over this shit. ALWAYS get a lawyer.

Omg if I had a real keyboard and not my phone right now, the tales I would tell. The fact that police have tried to argue silence shows guilt or the fifth amendment doesn’t cover body language, make me speechless with rage. Also if you invoke fifth amendment rights it doesn’t mean they have to stop talking/questioning you. You have to invoke fifth amendment and Miranda rights (right to council). Once you say you want a lawyer they can’t continue. But you must invoke with each officer. Officers don’t have to share that you invoke with the other officers. The national layers guild and there know your rights trainings are indispensable.

erwinsmitn:

erwinsmitn:

my dad works for the white house and he just told me that apparently the government banned kissanime on the white house wifi cause officials were watching it like, a noticeable amount

wait, I just mentioned this to him again and he said “no, they didn’t block kissanime from the White House, they banned it from the entire Department of Defense”

caprette:

lettersiarrange:

Imagine if Alya and Marinette got into an argument because Alya was tired of Marinette never facing her fears and talking to Adrien. So Marinette, enraged and determined to prove Alya wrong, storms over to Adrien and says “You wanna go?!?”

It’s only after Adrien nervously chuckles and hesitantly backs away that she realizes that she forgot the “to the movies with me” part of her sentence

writing-prompt-s:

Aliens invade Earth and everyone finds out that they’re actually huge nerds who fall in love too easily and really love cats.

See now this is great because it basically implies that the aliens invade Earth, guns a-blazing, and STOP DEAD the first time they see a cat and do the standard “OOOOH FUZZY THING” coo and drop their guns and the cat’s owner comes out and makes friends with the aliens and suddenly the invasion turns into…like a very large parade with a lot of cats and alien affection.

setepenre-set:

gatheringbones:

concept: Aliens who have absolutely no cultural or personal use for humor as a concept, but are very adept at figuring out socio-linguistic systems and how to manipulate them. Being funny makes humans more comfortable and easier to negotiate with, and it’s easy enough once you familiarize yourself with a particular culture and set your speech synthesizers to the correct setting. 

and i mean sure eventually they’re great at it, but at some point in time a group of haggard aliens in a room somewhere compare notes on irony, hyperbole, and cultural references, with one exhausted individual clicking “No, Gxiiijhux VIII, puns are a no-go, puns are counterproductive, I don’t care if Susan emitted optimal pleasure decibels, everyone else in that room hated you.” 

Gxiiijhux VIII finds xemself unexpectedly annoyed at the Merchant-Leader’s correction. 

Although further experience indicates that the Merchant-Leader is right about the puns, Gxiiijhux VIII somehow cannot help xemself from clicking out several more of them during the next negotiation session. (All of the humans in the room groan except for Susan, who, again, emits optimal pleasure decibels)

“You need to stop,” the Merchant Leader clicks in frustration.

(But Gxiiijhux VIII can’t seem to stop.)

Gxiiijhux VIII realizes halfway through the trade negotiations that xie is more interested in causing Susan to emit the optimal pleasure decibels than in the successful negotiation of a lucrative trade regulation treaty. This causes xem much stress and confusion.

Eventually, the marriage of Gxiiijhux VIII and Susan is included as a feature of the treaty.

(Gxiiijhux VIII’s former associates breathe a sigh of relief as the merchant ship pulls away from the space station, leaving Gxiiijhux VIII, Susan, and the terrible puns behind.)

Gxiiijhux VIII never does quite get the human concept of humor, but xie is quite content to spend xyr life listening to Susan make the optimal pleasure decibel sounds anyway.

tarathefeminist:

Okay, this is such a yucky subject, but unfortunately it could happen to anyone. I just went through ALICE training at my school and I wanted to share what I learned just in case

1. Get as much information out as possible. Obviously the best tactic for this is like in a school setting announcing over the PA where the shooter is and what he looks like. That way people not near there can get away

2. GET AWAY. Run. Get out. Don’t huddle in a corner like school lock down drills teach you. Pretty much no school shooting death has been someone the shooter chased. They’re there to hit as many easy targets they can then kill themselves, so don’t just wait for them to shoot you. Make a barricade if you can to buy yourself time then find a way to get out.

3. If you run out of other options due to circumstance or proximity, throw something at the shooter. Do something to surprise them and throw off their concentration. They’re generally not trained to ignore distractions. So throw things at them, then SWARM them. The strongest body builder you know couldn’t fight off 5 people at once. Everyone grab a limb ( grab the one with the gun first is the beat option obviously). If you’re not able to coordinate efforts, just find the bravery to dive at them. Statistics and psychology say that others will join in help once they see one person taking action.

4. This is a scary thought, but good to know. If you are shot and conscious, chances are VERY high you’ll live. Like 85%. Humans have a habit of getting shot so doctors and first responders have gotten very good at fixing them. So just keep in mind that (while it won’t be pleasant) its not over if you get shot. Remember that when you’re deciding whether or not to dive at the shooter.

5. If you happen to get the gun away from the shooter, kick it away and secure it (put a trashcan or something over it) but DO NOT PICK UP THE GUN!! if the police get to the scene and see someone waving a gun around, who do you think they’ll shoot first? Secure the gun and the bad guy, but do not hold the gun ever.

Again, not a nice thing but I know a lot of teacher blogs follow me, plus it could happen anywhere. Pls be safe. If you have questions ask because maybe they covered it in my training!

Also: in the event that someone has been shot, grab something like a shirt and apply as much pressure as possible.  It will not be fun for anyone involved (applying pressure tends to make the pain level skyrocket), but slowing the bleeding raises your chances of survival significantly.

sourcedumal:

thomas4th:

prismatic-bell:

thedreamingbutterfly:

You hear all these “you’re not a real fan unless” and it lists a hundred things, but I met a dude today who saw my Deadpool pin and asked what my favorite story arc was, and I explained that while I loved Deadpool, I was new to Marvel (I only really got into it a year and a half ago) and hadn’t been able to find a lot of the comics. Instead of making a face or a derogatory comment, he just offered to send me all the stuff he had. That is a true fan.

I told the guy at the comic shop when I went in for Black Widow that I’d seen a few Harley Quinn panels on Tumblr and thought it looked badass but didn’t know where to start because my entire involvement in DC fandom was watching the Batman cartoon as a kid. This guy sitting at one of the tables playing Yu-Gi-Oh, wearing a comic shirt and carrying a definitely-hardcore-fan amount of swag, spins around and goes “dude! You’ve never read DC? Check out the back issues wall. They’ve got all kinds of Harley Quinn.” He then proceeded to explain how “New 52″ was a spinoff, and had some split opinions in the fandom, but either continuity is good as long as you pick one and stay with it so you don’t get mixed on what’s going on. 

True fans love to see other people loving the stuff they love.

See how easy it is to be “that cool person who helped me get into X” instead of “that asshole who made me feel bad for not knowing everything about X”?

IT’S NOT EVEN DIFFICULT TO NOT BE A SHITLORD. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE. And you never had one.

This. Be a helping hand not an asshole gatekeeper

humanityinahandbag:

ikrit:

@ 14 year old side of tumblr

Please stop giving away so much personal information about yourself. 

It doesnt seem like it but your blog is visited by hundreds of people with hundreds of different intentions weekly (or hell daily if ur a popular blogger). And posting your height, age, gender, privileges, all of your triggers, gives away a lot of information that you may regret posting later on.

The internet is a very scary place. Full of people who could do you harm with that sort of information.

You all have to understand that nothing on the internet is ever truly deleted or gone. So you REALLY have to be careful about what you post and say.  

A lot of you are keen to posting opinions online and as we all know on the internet opinions are going to anger a lot of people. 

People could potentially track and harass you. It is a very dangerous world full of messed up people. And as minors you should all be very wary of who you trust online and think twice before you post something. Just posting “please dont follow if youre _____” isnt going to help from that.

ALSO

@ 14 year old side of Tumblr

Please stop posting your skype address.

I know it’s tempting to make new friends. And I know that faceless people are easier to talk to. But it’s dangerous. And we’re not trying to parent or berate you. We just want you to be safe.

Trust me.

Down the road you’re gonna realize you made a lot of dumb mistakes trying to be friends with the world. The world isn’t made of all friendly people. And I truly adore your optimism. I’m the same way.

But I’d rather you learn in a safe setting then after putting yourself in harms way.

Love,

the 21 year old side of Tumblr.

arcticfoxbear:

xtremecaffeine:

roachpatrol:

iztarshi:

Inspired by various tumblr posts.

Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.

Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.

You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.

That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?

You really want a human.

you know fantasy dragon soulbonding fic i want more of that where the humans are the dragons, like, we’re huge, we’re old, we’re scrappy as hell, and if you are small and cute enough we would be delighted to carry you around on our back 

“One time, I was trapped in an asteroid belt when the main fission compensator blew. Normally it’s no sweat, right? But for no good reason, the backup has failed as well. So the light on the dashboard is saying ‘Abandon Ship’ but we’re in the middle of an asteroid belt, y'know? We’d never make it out alive. So anyway me and the rest of the guys are just like, well, I guess this is our lot in life, we’re done for. At least we have enough power to send transmissions to our broods and go into hibernation and maybe some other group of dumb fucks can find us out here.
But then, right, the human goes crazy! She jumps up on the table and starts shouting about how we’ll never surrender, right? It made no gods damned sense! But somehow, she won us all round and we’re all pumped up.
Then she started marching around the ship, gathering up all the spare cabling, tape, those little paperclip things they always demand to have on board?
So anyway, she goes into a trance, starts building something, and we’re just like, well, even the human has gone nuts, must be because they can’t go into hibernation naturally.
So anyway, after a few minutes she jumps up and starts screaming, screaming at the top of her lungs, takes this bizarre sculpture thing to the engine room and wires it in place of the fission compensator’s tertiary manifold.
And somehow, somehow, it works.
So we limp to the nearest base, and they test this heap of junk, and it should have never worked, there’s no possible way this tangle of cables and bent wire could possibly interface with the engine’s systems, let alone work with them.

But there’s another human at the station and they just look at it and nods, like this is the most natural thing ever.

Apparently, the pile of junk was inhabited by one of their ancient gods, name of Ma Kyver?

And THAT my broodlings is why we take a human with us.”

Report from Cultural Researcher Qulix’tch to Home Swarm University:

Re: Human Survival Rates As it Relates To Diet:

Dearest colleges, I am ever grateful for your kind communications and support. I have compiled all collected data and attached it to the overview for your perusal. Let me say first and foremost that the rumors that I was sent to investigate, ie that humans were the first observed truly omnivorous species, have turned out to be a gross understatement.

It is not simply that humans can eat both vegetative flesh and animal flesh, not even  that they can eat anything in between but seriously, they eat everything regardless of it’s inherent nutrient value and risk factor. Indeed this increases their odds of survival but from an intercultural interaction standpoint it is a little weird, and creepy, let’s be honest, that it seems like their first thought when encountering something new that isn’t a rock is  “Can I eat this?”

Mostly they prefer plant matter as (thank whatever deity you will) they seem to be squeamish about eating sentient beings and the odds favor that plants won’t be. It has also come to my attention that our particular eight-legged and multi-eyed form, added to our chitinous outer membrane is particularly unappetizing to them across their multi-culture. This is reassuring but hardly a firm deterrent as they have an instinct set that drives them to make digestible anything that isn’t inherently.  

The nutrients are trapped in an unusable form? No worries, the human just finds something combustible, builds a fire, and heats it till the undigestable fibers or whatever release the nutrients.

Is the edible bit protected by spikes, spines, and thorns they might just grab a rock and beat it until the edible bit is avaliable.

They carry around vats of acid just in case they need to add it to the mix to denature large proteins.

I kid you not they have hundreds, hundreds, of  different species of microbes on their skin, in their mouth, in their digestive tract that help them break down what their own systems won’t.

If the nutrients are contaminated with unfriendly microorganisms they count on this friendly micro-fauna, as they call it, to fight them off.  Failing that they have developed an entire subculture devoted to brewing poison of just the correct potency that it kills the intruding microorganisms while leaving them alive.

And if there is no plant matter they can eat? They just find a (hopefully) non-sentient species that can break it down for them and wring the proteins and nutrients out of them in ways that don’t bear mentioning. (see appendix Eggs, Milk, and Meat)

It has been reported, if you can believe it (and with humans why not), that on their own planet. In an ocean that is full of fish that they can eat with no processing at all, there is one species that is particularly poisonous to humans. Instead of avoiding it and eating the swarming fish species that are so benign that they can be eaten without even the basic heating, humans pay to have a specialist in food preparation known as a chef go through a complicated ritual to remove the deadly toxin. They will do this even when the non-toxic fish flesh is readily and far more cheaply avaliable.

Then, even when they have enough nutrients they will masticate whatever inorganic substance is at hand in some odd, seemingly unconscious ritual. The humans I encountered seemed to have a preference for writing utensils for this purpose

I hope the information I have gathered will prove useful.

mellivorinae:

capitulism:

The largest mass shooting in American history was a hate crime against gay people. Don’t ever forget that.

June 12, 2016. Putting a date on this for when it gets reblogged months from now by people who think the post is about something from 30, 40 years ago.

oudeteron:

wetwareproblem:

Not when used as a self-identification, and not when used as an umbrella term within the community, at least.

See, here’s the thing: The most common identifier used by bi, pan, and trans people to describe their sexuality? Queer.

Given that multiple studies have shown that bi people alone comprise about half the community, that makes it by far the most common term we use to describe ourselves.

What’s more, it’s not just an identifier: it’s a rallying cry. It’s a banner the whole community has assembled under forever. “We’re here, we’re queer” is a cliché for a reason. It’s a statement of power, and of pride - yes, we’re weird. We don’t fit into the “acceptable” categories cisheteronormative society gives us. And that’s a good thing. It’s a call to demolish those “acceptable” boxes, to build a world we’re all part of.

Its rejection is a relatively recent move by the same homonationalism that brought us “Bi people don’t belong,” the thrilling sequel “Trans people don’t belong,” and the stunning conclusion “Ace people don’t belong.” It’s a deliberate strategy employed by respectability politicians seeking a seat at the table - taking the work we’ve put in and distancing themselves from us so they can tell the straights “We deserve your respect because we’re just like you! We even hate queers!”

(And don’t think it’s a coincidence that the community suddenly forgot the massive, massive overlap between “queer” and “poly” when building the very self-conscious image of two clean-cut upper-middle-class smiling young professional men or women either. Anything that wasn’t “respectable” enough had to go. My deepest thanks to the person who pointed this out.)

In the rush for our place in an oppressive hell, we’ve lost our revolutionary edge, lost our fire, and lost a lot of what drove us in the first place. Fuck. That.

I’m queer, and you will never take that away from me.

It’s nice being Tumblr Old and having some recollection of the self-identifiers we used before this website. The slogans alone should tell you the motivators behind using “queer” as opposed to other terms. There was “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” There was “queer rage”. There was “not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you.” That last one especially shows rejection of any neat essentialist boxes – go away with your binaries, your easy categorization, and last but not least your respectability politics.

I’ve never seen “q slur” used before Tumblr, and even that only in the last maybe two years. I’m not playing the whole “you kids turn everything into a trigger” game, that’s not the point. My point is that almost uniformly older LGBTQ+ people on this website associate “queer” with empowerment, and it’s teenagers and early 20-somethings (who are almost the same age group as me, I’m 27) constructing this idea that it has always only been a slur, that it’s more prevalent than any other slurs still in use, and that this is somehow the “historically correct” view of the term and everyone using queer is ignorant of history. Which is just not true.

So anyway, here are some great functions of “queer” that aren’t replicated by any other term:

1) Wide relevance. Queer can be related to gender, sexuality, or both.

2) Opacity. It can be a stand-in for some other term (gay, bisexual, trans, etc), or it can actually mean something else altogether! Something that isn’t fully covered by any of those categories!

3) Queer could, therefore, actually function as an umbrella term (yeah, I know I can’t get away with that in the present climate, thanks for that). Calling everything gay, as has become the norm on Tumblr, isn’t only sticking it to The Straights ™; it’s also sticking it to all the LGBTQ+ people who don’t identify as gay specifically (not to mention straight trans people), and who never see ourselves brought up in casual conversation anymore. It’s back to “gay rights” style language.

And you know what, of course it is, because “LGBTQ+” and other versions of the abbreviation aren’t catchy. “Gay” is catchy. “Queer” is catchy. But for some reason, gee I wonder why it could be, “the community” has decided to eliminate precisely the term that does actually by default encompass a wide range of identities. And replace it with one that again gives primacy to “gay” as the default descriptor, as if the rest of us just don’t matter or should be happy with being “obliquely included” (that is to say, erased). We’ve come up with all this specialized terminology for gender and sexuality, but when it comes to being actually talked about aside from specifically describing yourself in an intro to your blog, it’s underused.

I could go on about how targeting “queer” disproportionately affects MGA and trans/nb people, including people with multiple marginalizations, who especially are likely to have a problem with all these discrete one-dimensional categories and feel that “queer” expresses something the other terms can’t. But that’s already covered in the OP under good old respectability politics.

TL;DR: You can’t just take away a term that many, many people in the community have been actively using for decades before your latest iteration of SGA discourse and expect no meaning to be lost or broken.

whateverdun:

if you’ve ever left me a message asking me if I’m okay, or liked a post in which I was ranting about my bad day, or liked a selfie, or just anything nice like that- just know that I remember you, I am grateful for you, and you made my day better with your tiny gesture.