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

Funny Story (Not Really)

So funny story.  I hear people tell me that I’m excessively paranoid a lot of the time–mostly guys, but the reason I’m making this post is because of a conversation I recently had with a woman who’s been friends with my dad a long time.  I love my dad a lot and he’s mostly pretty on top of his shit (he’s also going to therapy to get more on top of his shit, so PROPS for that, Dad), and this woman (we’ll call her Janie) is nice enough.  She has a daughter who’s just starting high school and a son who’ll be in college next year.  I was talking with her about my college experience and she asked if I went to parties and stuff.  I don’t.  At all.  I told her as much and she asked me why, and I said because I’m busy, because I’m an introvert, because of any of a number of reasons, and I finished the list by admitting that I don’t trust a lot of the guys on my campus.

She asked why.

I hemmed and hawwed and said ‘uh’ a lot, and then I told her that my campus of four hundred people had five sexual assault cases last semester alone.  My freshman year there were at least two people outright expelled for it.

Janie, mother of a teenaged boy about to go into college and a teenaged girl just going into high school and already growing up into a stunner, wrote it off by saying “well, most of them must have been misconceptions; you know, it’s easy to miscommunicate when romance is involved; I’m sure there were a lot of overreactions and morning-after regrets.”  I stared at her for a moment and went “Actually, one of the reports last semester was mine, and I know two of the other people who filed them.  It’s usually pretty obvious when someone’s trying to force the point.”  I gave her a summary of what happened to me (look, it’s a long story, some dude came over to watch a movie with my roommate and me and the day ended with him pinning me to the floor while I jammed my thumb into his throat and my roommate helped pull him off) and she kept at it, talking about how I had probably just given him mixed signals, how people probably didn’t listen when I told them not to touch me because I go from zero to sixty real quick (if I say ‘stop touching me’ and you don’t, my next statement will be ‘stop touching me or I’ll break your finger,’ and I expect people to thereafter stop touching me).

And all I could think was “My god, you’re raising a daughter, I’m so scared for her right now.”

I’ve become aware of late that I’m a statistical outlier, whether it’s from poor luck or because I attract a certain kind of trouble or because I act a certain way.  Most girls don’t have five (six depending on how you reckon it) assaults committed against them by their eighteenth birthday.  I hope to God that Janie’s daughter is as lucky as Janie evidently has been, that she’ll never know how terrifying it is to know that the person holding your down is twice your size, or that if you scream for help no one will believe you (fun fact, no one except my parents believed me four times out of five).  I hope that she never asks herself “do I grab my roommate’s switchblade and go outside and check on that freshman sitting outside in the dark, or do I go get an RD because that’s a very tall young man.”  I hope she lives a safe enough life that she never finds herself sitting there in the aftermath of violence, whether it’s just an unwelcome hand groping her thigh or something much worse, and wonders to herself who the hell will believe me.

But most of all, I hope that, in the event she’s ever in the position I’ve been in, or worse, her mother doesn’t fucking tell her she’s overreacting and making shit up.

JESUS SHIT, WOMAN.

On Hardison’s paintings

parvasilvi:

The painting of old Nate had started out as a joke, but after he’d finished it, Hardison found he couldn’t just stop there. He needed to have the whole set. So he painted them all; stunning Sophie, powerful Parker, enigmatic Eliot, even Hardison himself. Old Nate was blown up, but the other four portraits are still kept safely in one of Hardison’s safehouses.

Sophie’s portrait is the busiest, but your gaze is drawn immediately to her dark, smoldering eyes. She holds your gaze there despite the many paintings that hang in the background behind her, despite the expensive vases on delicate antique tables. It takes more willpower than you can explain to avert your gaze and take in the rest of the painting. She’s seated on a dark-red settee, twisted slightly to show off the curve of her body, her hands on her knees. At first, you think the glittering golden fabric covering her is a dress, but you notice her legs end in a fish’s tail, and you realize they’re scales. The portrait is titled “Siren Sophie”.

Parker’s portrait is much starker, almost empty compared to Sophie’s. In a silver rectangular frame, it’s background is completely black. Cutting through the darkness are bright white lasers, spreading out from the centre in a web-like pattern. At several places, a small origami fly is trapped in the web. Upon looking closer, you see they’re folded from 100 dollar bills. In the dead-centre of the painting is Parker, hanging comfortably from her rig. Her legs are bent underneath her, one hand on a thigh, the other wrapped around the dark chord above her to keep herself steady. She’s looking out at you with a half-grin on her face, like you’re just another 100-dollar fly she’s about to ensnare. A circular sign at the top of the frame reads “Spiderwoman”.

Eliot is the only one of the group who is not centered in his own portrait. Instead he stands to one side in his usual hitter-pose: arms crossed, feet firmly anchored, an unimpressed scowl on his face. What isn’t usual is his clothing: he’s wearing a long, dark golden cloak. A matching circlet is in his long, loose-flowing hair. He’s standing in the middle of a yellow desert, impossibly blue sky above him. In the centre of the painting is a huge pyramid, with two more in the background. The title is carved into the simple dark wood frame: “Sphinx Eliot”. You wonder idly what kind of riddle he would pose.

As weird as the first four paintings were, Hardison’s is the most unexpected. You’ve come to expect overconfidence from the boisterous geek. Maybe “Hero Hardison” surrounded by his favorite tech gadgets. You’re unprepared for the honesty you find in the hacker’s self-portrait. The painting looks like you’ve just thrown open the door to go outside. On the doorstep is a young, curly-haired boy that you hardly recognize as Hardison. The boy, dressed in a suit and bow tie, stares up at you with wide eyes. In one hand he holds a worn little suitcase. In the other is a slip of paper that reads: “Please take care of this boy”. The title is written on a similar, slip of paper pinned to the top of the simple frame: “Alec Paddington”.

(via renew-leverage)

guiltyhipster:

“I enjoy that villain as a character, but their charm doesn’t excuse their actions and neither does their tragic backstory.“ 

“Poor misunderstood baby!”  

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

mindcrankismycommander:

quixotess:

smallapplegoat:

cupcakeinatorellie:

denyselfandfollowchrist:

cupcakeinatorellie:

Hey

Psstt

The guy who invented the theory that vaccines cause autism had his medical license revoked for it

thats ridiculous

they took it away because he came up with a seemingly plausible theory?

They took it away because other scientists have been unable to reproduce his results, his results were made up, he didn’t even get approved by an ethics committee, and now he’s risking the health and lives of a whole bunch of people

It’s not just that he came to incorrect conclusions, he falsified data on purpose, apparently because he had patented a related medical test and stood to make a lot of money off people using his test instead of vaccinating.

It’s crazy how this one person, in a study of only twelve children, gained so much traction in the world. He put this lie out there—and it was a lie, not just interpreting data incorrectly—and now it doesn’t even matter that he’s been proven totally false. Years of effort to reestablish the truth can’t undo the lie once it’s out there in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people believe that lie, and actual children are getting sick and dying because of it.

This is a really troubling aspect of how human minds work, and it’s something conservative politicians take advantage of on a regular basis. If you just say that “well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does“ is provide abortions, it doesn’t matter how often people recite the objective truth that abortions are a tiny fraction of Planned Parenthood services. You can say the truth 1000 times for every one time the lie is repeated, and thousands of people will still trust the lie.

I’d never heard this before, and it’s actually really helpful information to have, so thanks. Here is a scientific article by the American Academy of Pediatrics explaining the flaws in Wakefield’s research and briefly summarizing four studies that refuted the fraudulent claims. Here is an article by the editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal calling him a fraud in no uncertain terms. Here is the first part of a nine-part investigative journalistic series, published in the BMJ, uncovering his fraud.  And the General Medical Council conclusions that stripped Wakefield of his clinical credentials can be found here.

I’m honestly so mad right now reading about this guy. People are dying of measles right now because vaccinations fell off so sharply, and those deaths can be laid at the door of this man.

When the apocalypse comes, pestilence will ride wearing Wakefield’s face

(Source: cakesexuality, via lupinatic)