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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
badjokesbyjeff

A woman driving along at speed passed over a bridge only to find a cop with a radar gun on the other side lying in wait. The cop pulled her over, walked up to the car, with that classic patronizing smirk & asked, ‘What’s your hurry?’

She replied, 'I’m late for work.’

'Oh yeah,’ said the cop, 'what do you do?’

'I’m a Rectum Stretcher,’ she responded.

The cop stammered, 'A what?…………

'A Rectum Stretcher!’

'And just what does a rectum stretcher do?’

'Well,’ she said, 'I start by inserting one finger in the rectum, then work my way up to two fingers, then three, then four, then with my whole hand in I work from side to side until I can get both hands in, and then I slowly but surely stretch it, until it’s about 6 feet’

'And just what the hell do you do with a 6 foot arsehole?’ he asked.

'You give him a radar gun & park him behind a bridge…

funny humor jokes lol comedy
andlightplay leepala
captainlordauditor

Fact: Wikipedia defines Principalities as “the angels that guide and protect nations, or groups of peoples, and institutions"

Fact: Aziraphale has been hanging out in gay spaces since at least a century and a half ago.

Fact: People automatically assume Aziraphale is gay.

Fact: Aziraphale does not mind this assumption, and seems to actively cultivate it.

Conclusion: Aziraphale is the angel in charge of protecting gays.

captainlordauditor

To be clear: I don’t mean that Aziraphale is accidentally the angel in charge of protecting gays, nor do I mean that people believe he is the angel in charge of protecting gays. I mean that someone, or possibly Someone, in Heaven pointed at all the little queers on earth and said “Go look after them” and he saw that assignment and leapt right into queerness like it was a bathtub filled with a glitter bathbomb

aziraphaleswings

#i prefer to think that he wasnt assigned it he just. chose it in the grand queer tradition of choosing our families and fates (via @mortuarybees )

that’s my boy s’pose this is the start of a good omens tag
elodieunderglass the-awkward-turt

Anonymous asked:

I just read that post going around about how “we only have 18 months to save the planet from climate change and also the Arctic is on fire” and I’m just so scared and tired. It seems like every time I try to fight anxiety, something comes out like “nope sorry your worst fears are true we’re all going to die within a year and a half” and I just don’t know what to do anymore. I’m scrolling through your blog trying to calm down—thanks so much for doing this, it really helps. You’re awesome!

hope-for-the-planet answered:

Hey Anon!

I’ve gotten a couple of asks about that article, so I’m going to cover them all in one fell swoop.

It’s really important to remember that articles on the Internet (particularly the headline and introduction) are designed to be dramatic and attention-getting. Despite what the headline implies, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has not changed the 12-year deadline that it issued in October.

What that article IS saying:

-Some scientists believe major political and social changes need to be started in the next 18 months for us to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement

-Specifically, the headline references a quote by Britain’s Prince Charles, in which he was talking about a series of critical UN meetings on climate change that will take place in the next 18 months

What that article IS NOT saying:

-The world will end in 18 months

-Human society will collapse in 18 months

-All scientists agree that this is our last chance to stop apocalyptic climate change

-We are all doomed

A quote from the actual article:

“Whether it’s the evidence of heatwaves, or the influence of Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg, or the rise of Extinction Rebellion, there has been a marked change in public interest in stories about climate change and a hunger for solutions that people can put in place in their own lives.

People are demanding significant action, and politicians in many countries have woken up to these changes.

Ideas like the green new deal in the US, which might have seemed unfeasible a few years ago have gained real traction.

Some countries like the UK have gone even further and legislated for net zero emissions by 2050, the long-term goal that will keep temperatures down.”

Yes, we need to make big changes and we need to start making them as soon as we possibly can, but there are already many cities and countries taking big steps towards making those changes and public concern regarding climate change is increasing rapidly.

Unfortunately, the internet really likes to pass around dramatic, out-of-context screenshots, which are understandably very upsetting when they make it sound like the world is going to completely end in a year and a half.

Remember to take breaks from the bad news if you need to and focus on things you can actually have an impact on (voting for and promoting leaders that take climate change seriously, supporting causes working to fix environmental damage, making your community more sustainable, etc). You aren’t alone and there is always hope. Take care of yourself. Keep fighting. <3

leahazel

Another thing on that article that’s been running around. I’d like to stress again that responsible reporting is climate action and that applies to bloggers and non-professionals as well.

elodieunderglass

ABSOLUTELY, such a good point, and this is something I am personally working through. So apologies for the rant. In science communication there is a tendency to amplify the belief that “the public NEEDS to be panicked! panic will make them take action!” and “We can’t deliver nuanced messages; the public barely understand SIMPLE messages!”

and I’m honestly changing my mind about this. I don’t think that inflicting the symptoms of mental illness on the public is appropriate! Toxic thought patterns are DISABLING, not enabling, that’s why we get treatment for them when they happen in the rest of our lives.*

And this is the discussion people are having in science and science communication. People in these fields are usually good at holding others accountable and answerable!

But outside of scicomm, there’s something I find more upsetting: the belief that generating inaccurate/misleading “science” content, with the intended purpose of upsetting the public, is ethically okay - because it (supposedly) gets the public to care.

But what expertise, responsibility, and accountability does random internet content demonstrate? Where is the evidence that the writer knows the topic, that they’re trying to uphold the truth, that they’re trying to anticipate/measure their impact, or even that they’re trying to do what’s best for the public and the environment? People who care about the environment are encouraged to fill their heads with outright trash, recirculated from blogger to blogger, like “the leading cause of climate change is meat-eating” and “shopping is activism” and “moss will break the laws of physics to absorb more carbon dioxide than 250 trees”. And accepting these messages uncritically is meant to show how much you care about the environment. “Oh, well, who cares if it’s entirely true, SURELY it’s more important to make people CARE. Don’t be pedantic and elitist! The goal here is to make people frightened!”

The anonymous person that sent the original ask is experiencing life-affecting symptoms of mental disorder because of the content they’re being exposed to. And the content they are being exposed to is irresponsibly presented, it’s changing the message of the primary resources, and it’s deliberately being generated for attention and emotion - not to convey evidence or relay useful action points.

Content like this is made in the belief that the public needs to “care/engage more,” and that this means they need to feel more panic/anxiety/depression about the planet. But there’s absolutely no evidence that panic, anxiety and depression make people better at things like voting/activism/science… and there is plenty of evidence that those conditions make people so much worse at living their lives, that they are encouraged to get treatment for these conditions, so that they can live their lives.

And therefore, that type of content actively undermines the public’s ability to help the environment.

Anyway.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO THE ENVIRONMENT IS NOT OKAY.

BUT NEITHER ARE THE WAYS THAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

AND WE HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THAT TOO.


* (Now, evoking feelings of fear and helplessness CAN be used to manipulate the public, and very effectively, too! But note that the groups who use this strategy best are the ones who offer a clear action plan tied to an accessible platform - Scared of immigrants? Vote for X! Do you have this Flaw? Buy Y! - and it works best for getting a specific audience to do a specific task. It’s also outcome-oriented from the beginning. The desired action plan is developed first (we want them to buy this, we want them to vote for that) and then the story is shaped to fit the plan, so that the story makes the plan happen. This is not how science reporting is usually generated!)

the-awkward-turt

I’m the person who runs @hope-for-the-planet (reblogging this from my personal blog because I try to keep hope-for-the-planet as focused on hopeful messages as possible). This ask is by no means an outlier.

I get SO MANY asks on that blog from people thanking me for the positive news because they were experiencing climate anxiety so bad they couldn’t sleep or were overwhelmed with despair/anxiety. I get asks from young people who had accepted that they wouldn’t live past 50, or who believed they would have to end their own lives when society collapsed. People who tell me that they broke down into tears when reading so much positive news because the release of tension was so powerful.

I’ve received SIX asks of this nature in the last 24 hours. And those are only the people who feel compelled to send an ask or message; imagine how many more there probably are who aren’t talking about it.

Damaging peoples’ mental health with panic and fear-mongering is not an effective (or ethical!) means of inspiring sustained positive change. ESPECIALLY when people are not presented with a clear way to help. That’s how you get apathy and learned helplessness.

Science interpreters have started to talk about “ecophobia” in young children: Essentially they are so pummeled with news about the loss of the rainforests or coral bleaching (without first being taught to love the natural world they are increasingly isolated from) that they begin to avoid the subject because it’s so distressing. That’s not how you build a next generation of conservationists!

^Like this, right here, is an example (not to pick on Conservation International in particular, this one just really stuck with me when I saw it). What exactly does this accomplish, other than making people feel terrified? “The ocean is antagonistic towards humankind and wants to guilt trip and drown us all”. There’s no hope in that message, there’s no call to action or example of how to help, it only makes people feel powerless rather than empowered to make a difference. 

We need to give people examples of how environmental protection has been successful, we need to show them other people helping, we need to trust them to deal with nuanced messages rather than hitting over the head with guilt and fear. Most of all we need to provide people with concrete, scientifically-valid ways to participate in the solution.

I do understand the impulse to want to make people feel scared and guilty. It is frustrating to work towards environmental protection and see the general public seemingly not care about something so vital. But some of the messages we are putting out there right now are not helping our cause and they are incapacitating people who are on our side with despair and anxiety. 

We ALL need to do better: Scientific educators, bloggers, even just environmentally conscious individuals with a social media account. Promote hope. Promote community. Promote action.

To end on a positive note: I also get a lot of asks from people telling me that seeing positive environmental news inspired them to look into activism, call their representatives, or donate to an environmental cause for the first time.

@elodieunderglass

elodieunderglass

“We ALL need to do better: Scientific educators, bloggers, even just environmentally conscious individuals with a social media account. Promote hope. Promote community. Promote action.”

climate change science communication
crackyfanfic kittyknowsthings

Anonymous asked:

Hearing you’re a pro-shipper hurts, honestly. As someone who’s been abused, its not ‘harmless’, it romanticizes it often and can be incredibly triggering, especially when there’s no warning (ex: just put in tags, not in the first 5 that determine if it’s filtered through Tumblr) You don’t have to post this, honestly it’s just more getting it out so you might understand where people come from when they say shipping pedophilic/abusive relationships isn’t okay. Thanks for your time and good night

intersex-ionality answered:

So. I’ve been looking at this ask for a few hours now, trying to decide how I want to approach it.

The thing that gets me, in the end, is that you seem to believe that me being pro-shipping changes the rest of my politics, beliefs, or stances.

But I’m still exactly the same person I was yesterday, before I answered the previous ask about shipping. I’m still a vocal, ardent believer that sex workers of all sorts–including writers and illustrators of erotic fiction–have the right to do our work in peace. I’m still a vocal believer in all labour rights, not just the labour rights of sex workers. I’m still a vocal supporter of the right of queer people to have sex any way they want, and to expression their sexual interests in art freely. I’m still a supporter of women’s right to freedom of sexual expression too.

And all of those beliefs require a foundational assumption: that sex is not a shameful things by nature.

Like anything, it can be used to hurt others. I know that all too well. I was a man’s personal sexual slave for most of my early adolescence.

But then, I have also been hurt by many things that are not sex. By racial discrimination, by anti-queer bigotry, by the belief that autistic and chronically ill people are subhuman and deserve to be eradicated from the human population and gene pool.

And in all of these cases, the common factor for what hurt me was not the act of being disabled, or brown, or queer, or sexual.

It was other people rejecting my right to express those aspects of my self. My right to exist openly along those marginalizations.

The fundamental difference between the pro-shipping and anti-shipping stances is that pro-shippers want greater freedom of expression, and anti-shippers want lesser freedom of expression.

That thing you mention, about tagging fiction so that it can be found and avoided?

That’s a pro-shipper concept. Shippers came up with it, and shippers enforce it.

However, in recent years, people have been tagging less and less, and with less and less detail. Because tags are no longer seen as a neutral tool to help people avoid or seek out particular kinds of content.

They’re seen as an act of support for the thing tagged.

Once upon a time, tagging a piece of fiction as #rape was not a seen as a statement about the morality of rape. It was merely a fact. “This story contains rape.“ People seeking out content about rape would know it was there, and people seeking to avoid content about rape would know it as well.

Now, specifically because of the anti-shipping mentality, tags are seen as condoning something. A story tagged as #rape is now often interpreted as being, “this story claims rape is a good and positive thing.” This leads to harassment, abuse, threats of violence, and even actual physical violence against artists (content warning: graphic images), sometimes requiring hospitalization. The worst case scenario for these kinds of harassment involve artists–sometimes underage artists, even–being driven to suicide.

Why would you tag your story as containing rape, if it could lead to a level of violence that makes suicide seem like the better option?

It’s no longer a safe, morally neutral statement. It’s an invitation for harm.

So people have slowly but surely stopped tagging.

And that means more people who want to avoid fiction about rape are exposed to it instead.

But this is not the fault of the artists, making the rational choice to protect their own welfare.

It is the fault of the people making the threats that have caused thorough tagging to be unsafe.

If you want people to tag more completely, then that’s a pro-shipping stance.

It’s only an anti-shipping stance if you want people to stop writing entirely. And the most common expression anti-shippers have, when they want people to stop, rather than to make ourselves avoidable, is violence.

You seem to think that my being pro-shipping is somehow a deviation from the rest of my politics and my beliefs.

It is not.

Supporting freedom of expression is one of my foundational tenets. It’s not axiomatic to my politics, but it’s very close.

And supporting shipping is supporting freedom of expression.

Supporting shipping is supporting the freedom to avoid others’ expressions, too.

it is anti-shipping that leads, inexorably, to the destruction of safe places for survivors who want or need to avoid triggering content to relax in peace.

And it is pro-shipping that leads, eventually and albeit with stutters and stumbles, to the creation of those spaces.

drpathetique

The Longest Journey, and I mean the original 1999 version without any fancy texture packs, is a corny goddamn game with uncanny valley character models and awful animation

But when April is hanging in space in front of a wormhole that will bring her to the in-between place that holds up two universes, with her breath echoing in the rusty maintenance pod that is keeping her alive, I got goosebumps

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