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

eveningrelics:

sophaoat:

sweeter-than-cynicism:

apismel1fera:

northray:

msdisdain:

WE NEED 3 SENATORS TO CHANGE THEIR VOTES TO PREVENT DeVos FROM BEING CONFIRMED!!!

The vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Sec of Education was delayed. The hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will now be held at 10 a.m. Jan. 31, according to an advisory from the committee.
And now to act (esp my ME, GA, NC and SC friends)! Betsy DeVos is up for confirmation as U.S. Education Secretary, and many, many educators have expressed strongly that she is not qualified to ensure quality education in this country.

Please consider calling one of the following Republican Senators (key in the confirmation vote) to express your opinion on the appointment. At least 3 of these need to be convinced in order to block DeVos’ nomination. Don’t email. Don’t tweet. Don’t complain on Facebook. Call them!

Then, PLEASE SHARE WIDELY:

If you live in one of the states represented below, PLEASE call YOUR Senator, If you don’t, pick one and call him/her:

Susan Collins (ME) 207.622.8414..&..202.224.2523
Lamar Alexander (TN) 615.736.5129..&..202.224.4944
Lisa Murkowski (AK) 907.586.7277..&..202.224.6665
Johnny Isakson (GA) 770.661.0999..&..202.224.3643
Orrin Hatch (UT) 801.524.4380..&..202.224.5251
Richard Burr (NC) 336.631.5125..&..202.224.3154..&.. 910.251.1058..&..828.350.2437
Michael Enzi (WY) 202.224.3424
Dr. Bill Cassidy (LA) 202.224.5824
Pat Roberts (KS) 202.224.4774
Tim Scott (SC) 202.224.6121
Rand Paul (KY) 202.224.4343

Battlestations, my Yankee Activist peeps

gonna call lamar alexander tomorrow

Booooooost

CALL YOUR DANG REPRESENTATIVES

Susan Collins (ME) 207.622.8414..&..202.224.2523
Lamar Alexander (TN) 615.736.5129..&..202.224.4944
Lisa Murkowski (AK) 907.586.7277..&..202.224.6665
Johnny Isakson (GA) 770.661.0999..&..202.224.3643
Orrin Hatch (UT) 801.524.4380..&..202.224.5251
Richard Burr (NC) 336.631.5125..&..202.224.3154..&.. 910.251.1058..&..828.350.2437
Michael Enzi (WY) 202.224.3424
Dr. Bill Cassidy (LA) 202.224.5824
Pat Roberts (KS) 202.224.4774
Tim Scott (SC) 202.224.6121
Rand Paul (KY) 202.224.4343

IF the state is one you live in call. They don’t really have reason to listen if they don’t represent you. 

If your state is not listed here, signal boost.

(via skymurdock)

littlestartopaz:

flightcub:

my three favorite things are the oxford comma, irony, and missed opportunities

@fujoshi-kianna-leigh @words-writ-in-starlight @lathori

(via littlestartopaz)

littlestartopaz:

writing-prompt-s:

While walking home one stormy night, you are struck by lightning. Instead of dying, however, you hear an electronic voice in your head say, “Power level at 100%. All cybernetic systems online.”

@words-writ-in-starlight and in that moment, I’m remind of your revolutionary… Whose name i am hard core blanking on.

LESSA MY ELECTROKINETIC BABY

You’re not even wrong tbh

(via littlestartopaz)

citizenpublius:

I keep seeing people putting Animorphs #16: The Underground, aka “the oatmeal book” on their “favorite trash books” or such, and I frankly don’t see why it even qualifies in the “trash” category. I mean I know out of universe Instant maple and ginger oatmeal was chosen as the drug that is to Yeerks what meth is to humans because of the “lol oatmeal really” bit of humor. 

But in universe? While the Animorphs at first don’t take it seriously (because it’s oatmeal), it’s soon made clear it’s played serious enough. Because while Applegate lets these kids laugh at what would normally be a humorous situation, she also shows that there’s really nothing funny about it. If Yeerks consume the stuff, they are freed of their dependency of Kandrona rays, but become hopelessly addicted to oatmeal that it eventually leads them to insanity. We the reader first think it’s still outrageous, but I mean, our species can eat chocolate fine, but do we think it’s funny if it’s fed to a dog?

This book poses perhaps the first real moral dilemma for the Animorphs when it comes to this war and how they should fight it. These Yeerks have discovered completely by accident that oatmeal is an addiction to them, and they happened upon it because the Animorphs destroyed the Kandrona generator of the Yeerk pool: the Yeerks who weren’t high rank were left out of the ship with the only generator to starve, and here they thought they found a new means of survival, but instead it destroys them. With their insanity also comes a price to their hosts: they cannot leave their hosts’ heads, and while humans might sometimes break through the Yeerks’ insanity, they can never be rid of them. This was enough to drive the human controller Edelman to attempted suicide. 

So the Animorphs have an option: they have a substance that is easily obtainable and almost a joke to them. But they essentially have a chemical weapon at their use; it obviously has freaked out the Yeerks enough that they bought every ounce of the stuff they could find so it couldn’t be used against them. For the first time, the Animorphs really feel they have something big on the Yeerks. They can dump it in the Yeerk pool and inflict harsh mental damage on a sentient race. But they then have to ask themselves: is this right? 

Amazingly it’s Cassie who suggests that they just dump a case in the Yeerk pool (this is obviously before she met Aftran and the Yeerk Peace Movement; compare this to her later decision to not try and blow up the Yeerk pool, yay character development). And they do it. They drop the proverbial bomb on the pool, essentially dooming hundreds or thousands of Yeerks to a lifetime of insanity (or more realistically, as the book implies, Visser Three will just kill them since they are useless now). And that kind of victory proved hollow. After all, they didn’t get Visser Three or any high-level Yeerks; those Yeerks in the pool were just grunts.

Ultimately the Animorphs decide never to use the weapon again. They choose to erase the possibility of biological warfare from their arson. Applegate made me take oatmeal as a weapon seriously.

I’m really really glad I didn’t have to be the one to make this post.

(via sohmamon)

havingbeenbreathedout:

Sometimes I think back on the time I spent working as a barista, and it seems SO STRANGE to me that “coffee shop AU” has become synonymous with narratives that are low on conflict, high on wholesome romance. During the year I spent working at a coffee shop:

• A coworker of mine took a bunch of psychedelics, walked through some strangers’ plate-glass door, and threatened them with a bowie knife, leading to his arrest and imprisonment (and, needless to say, a late opening for the coffee shop that morning). 
• Another coworker, an ex-military type with a young wife and a new baby, decided to smoke up for the first time ever with two other mutual coworkers, in the back of one of their trucks; and ended up having a three-way with them which ended his marriage. 
• I had a nervous breakdown, stopped being able to eat food or hold conversations, and ended up sleeping on my coworker’s couch for three weeks before she finally called my parents to come collect me.
• Multiple store managers were fired for embezzlement. (Reminder: this was within the space of a single year.)
• Yet another coworker, who was seventeen at the time, started dog-sitting for a couple of regulars in their (I’m guessing) early 50s, and ended up in an ongoing creepy and incidentally illegal ~relationship~ with them both. 
• Various employees discovered, in the course of cleaning the bathrooms: couples fucking in the bathrooms; junkies passed out in the bathrooms; drunks puking in the bathrooms; both adults and children weeping in the bathrooms; a woman bleeding all over the bathroom from a gash in her throat (??); a dude standing in the middle of the bathroom floor and pissing in the opposite direction from the toilet, so that when the employee opened the unlocked door she got piss all over her (????). 
  
• The owner of the bridal shop across the street was exposed as both abusive toward her employees and also cooking the books, which led to my coffee shop taking on a couple of untrained and weirdly conservative bridal shop workers for a few months while the bridal shop was shuttered and sold to new owners. Later the larcenous former bridal shop owner came down with some horrible disease which caused her to lose both her hands.  
• There was a regular universally referred to as “Sketchy Steve,” who came in at 7am for a three-shot latte with room for Seagrams 7, and dealt drugs to all us baristas. I actually, at one point (I cannot believe I was this stupid), went inside Sketchy Steve’s house, and allowed him to spend like half an hour showing me his collection of découpaged outlet plates and also soliciting me for sex while I uncomfortably yet studiously declined.
• Right before I started, the store manager had walked off the job in the middle of a shift, and ¾ of the employees had walked out after him. None of them ever returned. 

Like, working on the front lines of food service was the most operatically sordid professional experience I have ever had, and one of the most surreal; and it is hilarious to me that THAT, of all jobs, is the one that has come to stand for soft-focus domestic romance in fandom circles. 

(via wildehacked)

tips for writing void and water navies

fourtygay:

So, since I actually work around boats all day and also have a thing for blathering about the voidfaring life, here’s a few things I wanted to share that maybe other people might find helpful for adding some realism and believability to their own fictions involving the same things. 

Naming Conventions: 
Ships are often referred to incorrectly in fiction. A ship’s name does not have “the” in front of it, unless that is actually part of the name of the vessel. Example sentence: 

Correct: Vengeful Spirit was an exceptional vessel, the only Scylla variant-build ever constructed of the ancient and intimidating Gloriana pattern. 

Incorrect: The Vengeful Spirit awaited them, a hulking monstrosity cruising slowly just above atmos as she waited in low orbit.

Now, this is not a hard and fast rule. There is a time that you can call a ship “the -name-,” and that is if the ship has been destroyed/sunk/decommissioned, is a piece of history thought to be destroyed, etc. Examples of this: The Black Pearl, the Edmund Fitzgerald. Just be aware that, generally, if your ship in question is still in service and has not become a legend yet, she probably doesn’t have “the” in front of her name. However, you /can/ name a vessel The Fickle Female, or something like that,in which case “the” is part of the name and is fine. Also, pirate ships and privately-run vessels may have “the” in front of their names, though this can make them sound a bit hokey and corny. Another semi-exception is when using the vessel’s full name/title, example “the U.S.S. Enterprise” or “the H.M.S. Titanic” (although Titanic could also call under the “historical indicator from “the.” Passengers who are not familiar with shipfaring may also think of the vessel as “the Glorious Name,” but your crew, and most likely your omniscient narrator, would not. 

Long story short? If your vessel left for her maiden voyage ten or a hundred years ago and hasn’t yet left service… no need for “the”– especially if it’s a crewman doing the talking.

Terminology:
Ships have their own words for everything. Here’s a quick rundown: 

Berth/Berthing: places where crew or possibly passengers sleep.
Quarters: Same as above, but generally insinuating more luxurious accommodations.
Bow: The front/nose of the ship, as a noun
Stern: The rear/ass end of the ship, as a noun.
Prow: The very front of the bow, the “nose” of a ship.
Transom: The flat “ass” of a ship. 
Engines: Whatever makes your ship go. Boats may have motors, but ships have engines. 
Bulkhead: An interior wall of a ship. 
Gunwale: Pronounced “gunnel.” The outside “wall” of the ship as created by the hull.
Hatch: A door or doorway. You can close a hatch or walk through a hatch.
Hatchway: Doorway. You cannot “close” a hatchway, but only walk through it. 
Porthole: a window
Ahead: To engage the engines in a way that the ship moves forward, as in “full steam ahead.”
Astern: To engage the engines in such a way that the ship moves backward/in reverse.
Deck: Any “floor” in or on the ship. Stuff you walk on.
Topside/abovedecks: the “outside area” of a boat. Where you can stand and feel the air on your face.
Belowdecks: “inside” the ship’s hull. “below” is a shortening of this. 
Bilge: A pump that removes water (or whatever) from inside the vessel.
Scuttle: to trash something or throw it out.
Scuttlebutt: Rumors and gossip, trashtalking.
Galley: The kitchen.
Head: bathrooms
Bridge: The part of the ship where it is controlled.
Helm: Phrase for describing the person actually controlling the ship’s movements. The person “at the helm” is the person making the decisions, not the person with the wheel in their hands. If your captain tells his first mate, “Six degrees to starboard, steady on”, the captain is at the helm. If the first mate is making that decision himself because the captain can’t, he’s “at the helm.” 
Moorings: attachment to a dock. “moored” meaning attached in this way.
Flotsam: Stuff floating in the water, or in space.
Masts: Big posts that sails fly from.
Boom: Big post going across the mast that sails attach to.
Make fast: tie shit down
Eye: a round thing to tie to or pass a rope through. 
Cleat: a thing for tying shit to.
Lines: Ropes.
Hold: Any large space inside of a ship to put shit, or “stow” it.

There’s lots more, and lots if you want to get into sailing vessels involving the names for the different sails and masts and such, but this is enough to get you started.

Directions and time: 

Ships have their own way of designating the “directions” on  the ship. Aft and stern are not synonyms: aft is a direction, the stern is the actual physical part of the ship. Same with forward and bow. 

Forward: The “front” direction, anything from the middle of the ship to the very tip of the prow.

Aft: The ass end direction. Anything from the middle to the very farthest back part of the ship.

Port: If you are standing on the ship and looking forward, this is going to be on your left. It’s easy to remember because “left” and “port” both have four letters.

Starboard: Pronounced “starberd.” The “right” side of the ship, if you are standing on the ship, looking forward. Two R’s in starboard– “right.”

This is helpful in writing because you can use these words to describe how your characters move about their surroundings, IE, “She looked up, lost, heading what she assumed was aftward.”

Ships generally have their own clock and specific time. Even today in real life, submarines will have their own times and clocks, often with each crewmember on his own clock.

Summary: Idk people, talk about the cool shit in your spaceships more! Hope this helped.      

(Source: grettir-dun, via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

fialleril asked: Jersey please tell me the story of the time you punched a Nazi.

jerseydevious:

did u actually punch a nazi in a food lion tell the story please

i call it the time that @flaminganakin became my lawyer and spent an amount of time panicking. here it is, the highly dramaticized because it is not actually that impressive story:

so it was one of those days, you know the ones. where you’re just having a bad existence, and you’re not about to stand up for any bullshit, no siree, not on this here day. the kind of day where you just really want to choke people for chewing too loud, seriously, lady. or strangle people for eating pork rinds. they’re too loud, and the smell makes me nauseous, and i’m not about this life, but i procrastinated on the grocery shopping so there i am, suffering my way through food lion. fucking pork rinds, hate that shit, just eat pringles 

anyway, i grab my hamburger helper, and i’m in the aisle waiting for the moment i can not be here. i knocked over a stand, earlier, and it sucked, and i just wanted to leave. 

the dude in front of me pulls out this galaxy - the kind you can land airplanes on, and i’m caught up for a minute thinking about what an ostentatious phone that is. it’s huge. no one needs a phone that huge, i can see what you’re typing from three stories away - wait. what is that. so i lean around him to peer closer, and you know what i see? the fucking stormfront website. i’d know that stupid gray face and the ‘boyle’s law’ shit anywhere, that’s the fucking stormfront website, i’m losing my mind here. stormfronters are supposed to be, like, the moon. they have no business being out during the day, and yet, here they are, using up perfectly good air boy please go apologize to some plants for wasting their hard work

so this guy, he’s reading. intently. he puts his shit on the conveyor, mostly ignoring the cashier, a lovely black lady. you can see where this is going. but, as it is, she’s not going fast enough for him, and then this bitchass starts yelling slurs at her. really awful shit, like ‘go back to the circus if you can’t work a computer monkeyass ‘n****r’! i lose it the second he yells ‘n****r’ at her and i turn him around with his shoulder and clock him in the face. it was totally worth the sore hand, i can verify that the look on his face was the best thing i had ever seen in my life. the cashier nods to the door, i got a free box of hamburger helper, personal pride, and i haven’t been to jail yet

he may have not been a full nazi, only a racist, but it was worth it anyway