Geniushockeystick - Zay_terror

WMUR

United States Postal Service to cut workforce by 10,000 by voluntary buyouts

The United States Postal Service is the latest federal agency looking to reduce its staff, according to a letter sent to Congress by the Pos

Next time you're around when the mail gets delivered, ask your delivery person if they're understaffed or not.

But don't hold them up too much, they have a lot of work to do.

honestly reading the Neil Gaiman piece on Vulture I was just thinking about Bojack Horseman the whole time. like. he's got trauma and whatever else, maybe he even convinced himself it was all consensual, but at the end of the day he's empowered by a larger system to do this type of shit & it will always be easier to not change, to not grow, and to just indulge your worst possible impulses over and over again. because everyone around you wants you to do that. they want to enable you. they want you to either get away with it so they don't have to face consequences by extension, or they want you to do it so you're as bad as they are and you're less likely to challenge them when they do it.

Like no, he's not a monster; he's a human person who knew better but chose worse anyway. I don't totally believe he knew exactly what he was doing, or that he's doing it to maintain some kind of rich vs. poor, powerful vs. powerless dynamic.

I think he's a man with childhood trauma who has been told that he should not heal, he should not change, he should not challenge the system, and in fact it is better that he participate in it. That he can take the easy way out (not that it'll ever actually lead him anywhere close to "out"), and he should, and it'll be easy, and everyone around him will enable and protect him if he does. That if he decides to fight for real healing and real growth instead, he will have to fight hard against everything and everyone around him, and he will be alone in that fight.

That's the wrong choice. He's responsible for all of the hurt he caused every single time he made it. He deserves no sympathy from fucking anyone for any of it. The only way out is through, and that means facing all of the full consequences of his many, many fucked up and horrible choices.

And I think we need to reckon with the system that makes the horrible shit Gaiman did feel like the easiest option, or we're not gonna get anywhere.

hey genuine question why do people put that fucking water filter over screenshots. just post them. fuck you.

It bugs me that so many people's default example of published fanfic is 50 Shades of Grey.

What about West Side Story, a famous modern AU of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?

What about Dante's Inferno, a self-insert RPF if I've ever seen one?

What about Wicked, a pre-canon AU of The Wizard of Oz?

Hell, what about Percy Jackson? There's definitely an argument to be made that that's a modern AU of various Greek myths.

Humans have been writing fanfic as long as they have been telling stories. In about the year 20 BC, our dear Roman poet Ovid wrote the Heroides, a series of aggrieved "letters" from the female characters of famous myths to their respective male heroes. Are you telling me that Ovid, writing a letter from the perspective of Queen Dido to Aeneas -- Aeneas, whose fantastical adventures were put into poem by Virgil -- wasn't writing an outsider-POV fic? A fic that is, in fact, translated in Latin classes world-wide today!

There is so much famous fanfic out there, but people tend to forget that it is fanfic once it becomes mainstream enough. And as a consequence of that, people who aren't into fandom don't see how beautiful fanfic is, and some members of fandom feel shame associated with writing and reading fic. But fanfic is beautiful, and it is something humans have always done, and it is nothing to be ashamed about.

So if you ever find yourself in a situation to give an example of published fic, think outside the box. Remember that published fanfics hide in plain sight; once they're famous enough, we no longer think of them as fanfic. And never forget that fanfic is a very, very old human tradition, and your ancestors who partook in it would not have wanted you to feel ashamed of it.

The Ithaca Voice

Museum of the Earth faces extinction under “imminent” threat of foreclosure - The Ithaca Voice

ITHACA, N.Y. — The Museum of the Earth, one of the last natural history museums in Upstate New York, faces an imminent threat of foreclosure

If you have ever been tempted by a Paleozoic Pal, like a a stuffed trilobite or a full size eurypterid body pillow, now's the time to buy one, before they and a really lovely little museum are gone for good 😭😭😭

Paleontological Research Institution

Plush

Paleozoic Pals™ Paleozoic Pals™ are the Paleontological Research Institution’s line of plush fossils. The Paleozoic is the era before dinosa

Something so profoundly fucked up between the inverse ratio of shrinking middle class and ever increasing aggression of advertisement

Hey, I know it's fun to make fun of Henry Kissinger. But you know what's even more fun? Donating to organizations that help undo some of the damage that Kissinger inflicted on various countries. Here's a couple of links!

Cambodian Children's Fund (I donated $50 to this one- that's enough feed 26 families by providing 5 kilograms of rice each month!)

FAFG (This is a charity that helps Guatemalans find loved ones who disappeared during the Guatemalan Civil War.)

The Halo Trust (This charity is dedicated to removing landmines in Angola. Since 1994, they've destroyed nearly 100,000 landmines!)

Children of Vietnam (This charity helps impoverished Vietnamese families.)

TECHO-Chile (A really great charity that focuses on housing and community-based projects in the slums of Chile)

Outsiders are not not saving a language by learning it.

While I’m personally grateful services like Tribalingual exist, creating some academic access to Indigenous languages, particularly for Indigenous diaspora (if they can afford it), I’m extremely dubious of the notion that a outsiders learning an Indigenous language is somehow “saving” it. There was a testimonial from some white American girl learning Ainu itak, and she spoke of it as if she were collecting some rare Pokemon card before it went out of print or something, framing it in typical dying Native rhetoric. What is she going to do with Ainu itak, except as some obscure lingual trophy?

If you want to save a language, save the people.

Language means nothing without history and culture breathing life into it, and in turn we are disconnected from our history and ancestors without it. Support Indigenous quality of life, ACCESS to quality education, quality health services (mental and physical), land and subsistence rights, CLEAN DRINKING WATER, advocate against police brutality and state violence, DEMAND ACTION FOR MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN.

Damn, if you really want to “save the language” pay for an Indigenous person’s classes for them to reconnect to their mother tongues. I’m not saying outsiders shouldn’t learn languages they’re invited to learn, but don’t pretend like you learning conversational Ainu itak is saving it from extinction.