mutuals DM me for other socials| I tag for myself and even that's not consistent tbh| ace discourse veteran who loves aro and ace solidarity| this blog is currently a Shadow and Bone fandom/ Mal appreciation space... also follow for shitposting, daily dose of gay juice, pretty things, UK politics, and generally liberation politics|
genderfuck~ bi/enbian~ relationship anarchist~ also a political anarchist oop~
they/them. 23.
drinking a can of soda is better than not drinking anything at all. “junk” food is better than no food at all. just rinsing your mouth out with mouthwash is better than no oral hygiene at all. changing into a different set of pyjamas is better than not changing at all. getting up just to sit down on the chair across the room for a bit is better than not getting up at all. changing just your pillowcase is better than not changing your bedding at all. cracking a window open is better than getting no fresh air at all.
if you don’t have enough spoons for full tasks, smaller adaptations are better than nothing at all. it’s okay if you don’t have the energy to actively fight today. just staying afloat is enough. you are enough.
Men need to normalize having friendships with women without a sexual or romantic foundation. Some women are just really cool people to know, regardless of your attraction to them.
I really believe there’s some sort of “emperor’s new clothes” phenomenon happening with Gen Z discoursers where they’re too afraid to question the logic of some of the discourse being thrown at them for fear of appearing to be unwoke so they just blindly parrot it not to be excluded by their peers
not just a Gen Z thing, like that’s a valid criticism of tumblr few years back, and I’m not ashamed to admit it sucked me in too. people can say whatever shit they want as long as they use the right vocabulary and an agressive tone that just implies that disagreement is out of the question. it sinks in because you will get similar messages about legitimate issues and sometimes from the same people.
“While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.”
(Why does this belong on my decidedly not-fan-fiction-related blog, you ask? Because this quote illustrates very well how assuming that anything where people put sex in it is debasing it, objectifying it, or simply ‘sexualizing’ it, etc. often misses a lot of the real picture of why people do that thing.)
yes! my favorites are The Tiger and the unnamed werewolf fridge poem
for context these are the poems
also I almost forgot but the r/ambien Gives Us The Sleep post takes a completely serious third place in my favorite poems list:
and COMING HOT at NUMBER FOUR on my list, it’s Fragment 147! an accidental poem created when the original parchment containing a text by Sappho was used to stop a wine jug more than 2,000 years ago- eventually the wine dissolved most of the parchment, leaving just a few words and BOY do they prove that the Universe has a sense of irony.
i am not joking we need to force teach cooking in schools. like. it is an essential thing for survival. do you know how easy it is to make things if you know even the bare bones shit about how cooking works. we need to teach teenagers how far you can take an onion and some other veggies it’’s sad that people grow up not knowing how to prepare literally anything. and i’m not talking about oh this home ed class taught me how to make chicken nuggets at home i’m talking about learning the balancing of sweetness and acidity and saltiness and bitterness and shit like that and techniques and oil temperatures and how meats cook. it needs to be taught because it’s literally not even that difficult and it matters so much
Wait what’s a buildings fire evacuation plan if you aren’t supposed to use the elevator to get down
You go down the stairwell/fire escape. Is that weird?
But what if you have a walker or a wheelchair??
in america at least, in this situation, there isnt one. either your loved ones or the firemen can get you out using the emergency fire escapes or stairs, or you die
That’s fucking horrific, thank you
“fun” little story:
last summer my friend who is an amazingly talented artist and i were in this super tall building, and she’s in a wheelchair and i’m pushing her around the room. it’s an art exhibit and some of her art was chosen to be showcased there and so it’s all fine and dandy until suddenly an alarm starts going off
a FIRE ALARM
everyone starts running for the stairs and my friend just looks at me with this forlorn look on her face
“i can’t go down the stairs”
but i’m a stubborn bitch “i’ll carry you”
“what about my chair? it’s too expensive for me to be able to get another one if i can’t get this one back”
“i’ll carry that too”
and i did. we went to the stairs (by then most people from our floor were gone) and i lifted her up in a fireman’s carry over my shoulder and then lifted her chair up and used the ridiculous amount of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins to make it down approximately 20 half-flights of stairs until we met some people exiting lower floors, one of which who kindly took the chair. I changed positions so i was holding my friend bridal-style which was, somehow, easier and the person who took her wheelchair (with her permission to handle it of course) accompanied me to the ground floor and then out the doors
basically there is no real protocol for people who can’t use the stairs in an emergency. it’s up to the people with them, if anyone, to help them or the person to somehow make it down the stairs alone, unassisted
thank fuck that it was just a faulty alarm system, because if i was unable to carry her down those stairs and the building was on fucking fire???? then i don’t know what would have happened to her, but i don’t think it would have been very good.
it’s fucking ridiculous and ableist to the absolute max.
I use a cane. When I did a day-long fire safety training at my northeast American university (UMass Amherst), I asked that exact same question: “what am I supposed to do if the fire alarm goes off and I’m in my lab on the twelfth floor?”
the fire marshal hemmed and hawed for a while and then said to take the elevator- you’re supposed to leave it free for the fire department to use and they want able-bodied people out fast not waiting for elevators. if the fire alarm has just gone off the building probably hasn’t suffered enough structural damage to make using the elevator dangerous, and modern elevator wells are heavily reinforced. many large and high-trafficked buildings on my campus have fire rated elevators that link in with the fire alarm system so they won’t let you off on a floor with a possible fire.
if the elevator isn’t working, wait in the stairwell and call the fire department to let them know where you are. modern stairwells are also heavily reinforced- it might not be pleasant but modern building code usually requires fire-resistant stairwell doors in office and big residential buildings, also to help firefighters get in and out safely. older buildings’ stairwells may or may not be retrofitted with fire-resistant doors but a stairwell is generally the safest place to wait if you can’t get out.
what happened to your friend was horrible, and i’m very glad you were there to help her out, but you can absolutely use the elevator to evacuate if it’s not shut down. those don’t-use-the-elevator rules are for abled people.
This is GOOD TO KNOW. why do they not tell people this??
Okay, firefighter here. If you are not physically able to use the stairs, and the elevator is NOT compromised, use the elevator. But you MUST be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the elevator is NOT compromised before you get into it, because there is always the chance that once you get into it, you may not exit it. Power could go out. The elevator may actually BE compromised and you just couldn’t tell from where you were until you were in there, and it suddenly shuts down on you. Something else could happen.
Understand that once you enter the elevator, you could POTENTIALLY be taking your life into your hands there.
It is NOT LIKELY, to be perfectly honest. It’s only in a pretty catastrophic scenario - think the Twin Towers, USA, on September 11th - that the elevators will be compromised and out of service. But there is a NOT ZERO PERCENT CHANCE and you need to understand that and accept it.
As for leaving the elevators free for the firefighters, okay, here’s the deal. Unless your nearest fire station is literally right next door? Your first on scene fire truck is NOT likely to be there on scene and needing that elevator before you get to the ground. It takes us TIME to find the address, gear up, and drive to the building. Then we need to hoof it into where the elevators even ARE, so YOU HAVE TIME to use the elevator to get down to the ground floor… BUT ONLY IF THERE’S NOT A RUSH ON THE ELEVATOR! And THAT is WHY we don’t tell people this shit. That’s WHY we tell people to NEVER USE THE ELEVATOR… because every self-entitled asshole will use it because they don’t feel like walking, and then put YOU in danger by delaying the elevator’s arrival to you.
IF, however, the elevator IS compromised, or you just can’t get it to come for you, or whatever, and you either don’t have anyone with you who has the adrenaline fueled BALLS to be able to toss you over their shoulder and hoof it down the stairs with you - because, let’s face it, that is RARE AS FUCK, then HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:
You call 911 and tell the call taker that you are in the building that has a fire alarm going off, and you are not able to evacuate because of a physical disability, and you tell them what floor you are on, and EXACTLY what stairwell you are waiting at. And the very FIRST thing that the firefighters are going to do once they arrive, if it is, indeed, a REAL emergency, and not a false alarm, is come get your ass and bring you down. Whether that means carrying you down the stairs, or whether that means locking out the elevators so that no one else can override them and coming to get you themselves, they WILL come get you FIRST THING if it is a real event. And if it is a false alarm? You will probably be the first person who is not involved with the building to know, because the call-taker is going to stay on the line with you until you are under someone’s care and out of danger, or until the scene has been sorted out as real or false, and you are out of danger that way.
These are pretty standard operations in the fire service throughout the United States. There may be some minor variations based on specific municipalities, but, for the most part, this is pretty typical: LIFE BEFORE PROPERTY. So, as long as SOMEONE knows where you are - hence why you call 911 - Firefighters will come get you. You are NOT alone, and you have NOT been abandoned. I PROMISE. It’s like, our whole reason for doing the shit we do: to save lives and to break shit. Sometimes, we get lucky enough to do both at the same time.
High rise fires suck ass, and I always hated them. But the very FIRST thing I asked anytime we got one was if we had “any entrapments” - which is what we call anyone who could not self-evacuate for ANY reason. We ain’t leaving you behind. And yes, your friend who doesn’t have the stamina to carry you down can stay with you, too. Because I would never ask that of someone, honestly.
Also, just a little FYI… MOST fire alarms are false alarms. Not to make anyone complacent or anything, but, yeah. Most of them are either system malfunctions, someone accidentally hit a pull station, or someone burned popcorn in a break room. So don’t let a fire alarm freak you out until you need it to - by smelling or seeing smoke or flames.
I know it’s got 100k notes but I haven’t seen this and even though I would 100% attempt to haul any one of you down a dozen flights of stairs, I know enough of my followers are disabled in more ways than one and ought to know this
I will happily delete this if I’m derailing or taking away from the original message (initially I put this in the tags, but a friend asked me to reblog as text)
If you don’t want to pursue an autism or adhd diagnosis and you have access to a doctor or therapist you can get them to write you a note attesting to a symptom of your neurodivergence (rather than naming the condition itself) and stating the need for accommodation.
It’s something my therapist told me about when we were still working in offices. I have sensory processing issues and on multiple occasions the noise in my office was so bad I broke the skin on my hand clenching my fist.
This work-around of course won’t fix structural ableism and relies on you having access to a doctor/therapist who actually gives a crap, so still might only help a couple of folks.
Mr. Jorge Gutierrez is an inspiration, a trailblazer, a singularly visionary artist with an instantly recognizable style and I love him and admire him so much. But the family of the main character (girl on the left) in his new Netflix show “Maya y los tres” (”Maya and the Three” in English) looks like this:
and one of my special personal character design least favorite things is this god dang
HUGE DAD tiny dainty mom and look-alike dainty daughter animated family arrangement
and I am at my limit, sir. Mr. Gutierrez I love you and I’m going to watch this show but you are on thin ice my man
Hiccup isn’t a daughter but How To Train Your Dragon did this exact same thing and I was just as disappointed with that too. So he’s also invited to this post.
One day someone will do an animated family where the mom is huge and beefy and the dad is small and delicate, or the courageous daughter main character takes after Beef Dad much more than she takes after Dainty Mom, or some other kind of subversion, and on that day I will be healed. But today is not that day.
Ya’ll be like “Shang was having a bi freak out, realizing he was into Ping”. NO HE WASN’T. He already knew he was into men. His bisexual freak out was when he realized Ping was Mulan and hey maybe he’s into girls too whatdoya know?
Legit you think a bi man who has always been in such a male-dominated space like the army hadn’t already figured out that he liked men? Come oooonnnn… It’s women he has rarely had contact with and has no idea how to talk to or flirt with (you fight good) I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.
In “A Girl Worth Fighting For” Shang has zero lines I REST MY FUCKING CASE.
ppl don’t like to imagine bi ppl coming to terms with being bi after identifying as gay bc they think that’s a downgrade lol. That’s why there’s like 100000 stories about cishets realizing they were bi and like 2 of gay ppl realizing they were bi.