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Moved
To my two followers, o have moved to @onedayiwillfind
Question…
An anguished question from a Trump supporter: “Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?”
The serious answer: Here’s what we really think about Trump supporters - the rich, the poor, the malignant and the innocently well-meaning, the ones who think and the ones who don’t…
That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought “Fine.”
That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, “Okay.”
That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, “No problem.”
That when he made up stories about seeing muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, “Not an issue.”
That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn’t care, you chirped, “He sure knows me.”
That when you heard him illustrate his own character by telling that cute story about the elderly guest bleeding on the floor at his country club, the story about how he turned his back and how it was all an imposition on him, you said, “That’s cool!”
That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw.
That when you heard him brag that he doesn’t read books, you said, “Well, who has time?”
That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, “That makes sense.”
That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, “Yes!”
That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man’s coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, “What a great guy!”
That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, “Thumbs up!”
That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, “That’s the way I want my President to be.”
That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they’re supposed to be regulating and you have said, “What a genius!”
That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, “That’s smart!”
That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was the middle of water and you have said, “That makes sense.”
That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, “falling in love” with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, “That’s statesmanship!”
That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids. has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas - he explains that they’re just “animals” - and you say, “well, ok then.”
That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise.
What you don’t get, Trump supporters in 2018, is that succumbing to frustration and thinking of you as stupid may be wrong and unhelpful, but it’s also…hear me…charitable.
Because if you’re NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are *less* flattering.
>The serious answer: Here’s what we really think about Trump supporters
wow, its exactly as pedantic as every other literal repost of a repost of this sort
A serious answer would involve EXPLORING WHY people support X rather than focus on straw men and the lowest hanging fruit in the opposition.
why is barbie’s the nutcracker the only good film adaption of the nutcracker that has ever been made
because barbie movies slap next question
are u implying barbie rapunzel isnt also the only good rapunzel adaptation that has ever been made
tangled is just a rip-off of barbie rapunzel and that’s just the tea ☕️☕️
anyway here’s a definitive ranking of every barbie movie I’ve ever even vaguely heard of
Hey fucker you dare diss Barbie and The Princess School I’ll fight you at 3:36 am in a Denny’s
i have been fucked up ever since i took a mythology class in college and learned that the greek mythology we know today is not only deliberately patriarchal (i mean duh) but was put in place specifically to abolish the matriarchal religion that came before it, nearly all traces of which were systematically erased. AND, the reason the modern west is so obsessed with greek mythology specifically is that it aligns so closely with our own patriarchal values. like we are literally taught greek mythology IN SCHOOL, that’s how hugely important it is in our culture. (i mean think about it… there is no real benefit to placing that much emphasis on greek mythology specifically over any other part of history)
learning this literally ruined greek mythology for me lmao
artemis and aphrodite are the classic madonna (virgin) and the whore
athena is deliberately stripped of her femininity in order to be goddess of wisdom, springing fully formed from zeus’ head instead of being born from a woman
hera is the jealous, vindictive ball and chain, etc etc.
and the kicker? pandora was a revamped character from an older myth, in which she created every single thing in the universe, good and bad. she didn’t just open a box and ruin everything by not being able to follow orders. pandora literally means “all-giving”. and in the greek mythology we know today, she’s the first woman on earth and manages to fuck things up for everyone. sound familiar? like eve, maybe?
i don’t have sources because i learned this in a college class like 3 years ago but if anyone has access to their college’s academic database and wants to source this for me that’d be awesome. i haven’t tried but i’m guessing you’d be hard pressed to find info about it on google.
here’s a book i’m reading abt it that i picked up at a half-price bookstore. it’s a bittersweet read. there’s references inside the front cover, too, for further reading.
Thank you for adding this! Reblogging so y’all can see it
This book is the bomb diggety. Bittersweet read indeed.
@sisterofiris ?
Wow. No. This is impressively wrong.
Things that this post gets entirely right:
Greek mythology is deliberately patriarchal (which should be obvious, because it was written by people living in a patriarchal culture, so of course it reflects their values)
myths changed with time
Pandora had another, more positive role
Ancient Greece is given more attention than other, equally deserving cultures
the OP doesn’t have sources
That’s it. That’s literally it. As for the things that this post gets wrong, let’s take it step by step:
1. Pre-Greek matriarchal religion, “nearly all traces of which were systematically erased”
This pre-Greek matriarchy is usually identified with the Minoans of Crete, who depicted many women in prominent positions in their art. Unfortunately, as I’ve outlined before, this isn’t enough to prove that the Minoans had a matriarchal society and religion. What’s more, the Minoan script (Linear A) remains undeciphered to this day. So until the Minoans can tell us about their myths, beliefs, and social hierarchy in their own voices, I’ll be very skeptical about anyone who claims they were definitely matriarchal (or patriarchal, for that matter).
As for their traces being “systematically erased”, I can only laugh. The Minoans (like the Pelasgians, i.e. the pre-Greek people of the Greek mainland) weren’t erased. The Mycenaean Greeks eventually took over Crete, but Minoan civilisation continued to exist, and many cultural and religious elements were incorporated into Mycenaean society - including writing. From an article about an early Mycenaean tomb:
The griffin warrior’s grave at Pylos offers a radical new perspective on the relationship between the two societies and thus on Europe’s cultural origins. As in previously discovered shaft graves, the objects themselves are a cross-cultural mix. For instance, the boar tusk helmet is typically Mycenaean, but the gold rings, which are rich with Minoan religious imagery and are on their own a hugely significant find for scholars, says Davis, reflect artifacts previously found on Crete.
(…) This has led Davis and Stocker to favor the idea that the two cultures became entwined at a very early stage. It’s a conclusion that fits recent suggestions that regime change on Crete around the time the mainland palaces went up, which traditionally corresponds to the decline of Minoan civilization, may not have resulted from the aggressive invasion that historians have assumed. The later period on Knossos might represent something more like “an EU in the Aegean,” says Bennet, of the British School at Athens. Minoans and Mycenaean Greeks would surely have spoken each other’s languages, may have intermarried and likely adopted and refashioned one another’s customs. And they may not have seen themselves with the rigid identities we moderns have tended to impose on them.
TL;DR: The Mycenaeans didn’t erase Minoan religion. They liked it, and syncretised it with their own.
The only reason many of these Minoan beliefs vanished was due to the Late Bronze Age collapse, which saw the end of Mycenaean Greece and Minoan-Mycenaean Crete. Many elements of early Greek civilisation were lost, or preserved in fragments thanks to mythology and epic poetry. This collapse was obviously not a systematic erasure, but a widespread destruction of civilisations, caused by foreign invasion, drought and famine, internal revolts, earthquakes, or a combination of the above. Eric Cline’s book 1177 BC: The Year Civilisation Collapsed (2014) is an excellent discussion of the topic.
2. Earlier versions of Greek myths
Any time someone mentions the “pre-patriarchal” or “original” version of a myth, be skeptical. Be very skeptical.
The problem with these “original” myths is that we have little to nothing to base them on. Their reconstruction is a theory - often a modern feminist theory - not a certainty. I should also point out, as @rembrandtswife did, that Lost Goddesses of Ancient Greece is “basically AU fanfic of the Greek mythology we have”. It’s retellings and speculation, not earlier myths that we can confirm existed.
You know what are earlier myths that we can confirm existed? Mesopotamian and Anatolian myths. These have been extensively studied, and it’s been shown time and time again that they influenced Greek mythology - especially Homer and Hesiod. Martin West’s The East Face of Helicon (1997) and Mary Bachvarova’s From Hittite to Homer (2016) are good introductions to the topic. Here’s a recording I made which shows obvious parallels between the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the Hurrian-Hittite Song of Kumarbi, and Hesiod’s Theogony. Looks pretty different from the modern speculative retellings, doesn’t it?
This isn’t to say that there weren’t earlier myths in which women had different, more influential and positive roles. Pandora does in fact fit into this category: her names (Pandora, “all-giving”, and Anesidora, “sending up gifts”), as well as ancient sources (scholia on Aristophanes’ Birds being one example), attest to her originally being an earth deity. Hesiod is well-known for his misogyny, so him transforming her into a mortal woman and giving her a negative role makes sense. However, I would advise against applying this theory more broadly, and taking it as proof that there was a widespread revamping of female deities to make them fit patriarchal ideals. I would especially advise against taking any of this as confirmed fact, when the “original” myths themselves are lost.
3. The Gods as archetypes
I am personally very against interpreting the Gods as archetypes (i.e. Artemis as madonna, Aphrodite as whore, etc). There are far, far more aspects to them than these, and reducing them to single-word descriptions erases the complex reality of Greek mythology (and religion, while we’re at it).
What’s more, these archetypal interpretations are incredibly modern and don’t reflect Ancient Greek perceptions. The idea that Athena is “deliberately stripped of her femininity” because she is not born from a woman, for one, sounds very much like late 20th century radical feminism. (I’d also love to know if Typhon, who was born from Hera alone (see the Homeric Hymn to Apollon), was “stripped of his masculinity” for the same reason.) But more broadly, these Jungian-like archetypes correspond perfectly to 19th century views, which liked to fit the Gods into neat categories. Most notoriously, Apollon, who represented order and enlightenment, was opposed to Dionysos, who represented chaos and madness. Thanks Nietzsche.
I’ve said this before, but to interpret Greek mythology, we need to look for Greek sources. Not the theories of a 19th century philosopher. Not the speculation of a 20th century feminist. If the Gods were viewed as complex figures in Ancient Greece, then we need to study them as complex figures. Simple as that.
4. Why we are taught Greek mythology, aka “the reason the modern West is so obsessed with Greek mythology specifically is that it aligns so closely with our own patriarchal values”
Actually, no. If you think Greek mythology aligns closely with our own values, then you’ve been reading retellings and Mythology 101 books, not the original texts. (Or, alternatively, you’re very confused about what modern society’s values are.) Here is an abridged list of gender-related values from Ancient Greece that we don’t share:
female identity is tied to weaving
rape can only happen in the countryside or in deserted places
men who cry openly are still manly
marriage is between a 15-year-old girl and a 30-year-old man
funerals are women’s business
it’s okay to have gay sex if you’re a top
wearing boots and being a shopkeeper is unmanly
and more
The more you study Ancient Greece and read the texts themselves (preferably in the original language, so as to avoid as much modern bias as possible), the more you realise how different the Ancient Greeks were from us. This is a foreign culture with foreign values. Yes, a lot of it is familiar, too - much of European civilisation has its roots in Ancient Greece, hence why it aligns with a certain number of our values. But claiming that the ideas promoted in Greek mythology are virtually identical to our own is doing a disservice to the rich, unique culture that was Ancient Greece.
So why do we focus on it so much, as opposed to other cultures? Unfortunately, this is because of how history played out. Ancient Greece highly influenced Rome, which went on to conquer most of Europe; many countries went on to claim it as their ancestor, from the Ottoman Empire to the Napoleonic Empire to Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, other cultures which had influenced Ancient Greece itself (and therefore modern Western culture) disappeared: the Hittites of Anatolia had been virtually forgotten since the Late Bronze Age, Mesopotamia was on its way out by the first century AD, and Ancient Egypt by the beginning of the Middle Ages.
As a result, a lot of emphasis is put on Ancient Greek (and Roman) culture when in reality, we don’t owe much more to it than to the Sumerians. I absolutely think that we should study other cultures more. I also absolutely think that the fact we don’t has nothing to with patriarchal values.
5. Sources, aka “I don’t have sources because I learned this in a college class like 3 years ago”
Okay, so I have nothing against people taking electives in college and posting about what they learnt. By all means, do so. But it becomes a problem when people start reblogging without fact-checking or thinking twice about information that is presented without sources, by someone with very little experience in the field, and lathered in rhetoric.
Speaking of rhetoric, other people have pointed it out in the comments, but the person who shared the Lost Goddesses of Ancient Greece book is a TERF. This obviously doesn’t mean OP is a TERF as well (I had a look through their blog and they seem not to be), but you may want to think about what ideas the LGoAG person is encouraging here, as well as what could appeal to a TERF in this post, and consider whether that’s something you want to align yourself with.
TL;DR: Don’t believe something just because it appeals to you. Check out my Layperson’s Guide to Online Research for more details on how to fact-check.
This is how it is fucking done.
Addendum: Aragon
Also, argan.
Hey, if it's okay, I have a question! I've been wanting to learn about servitors, but I'm not sure what texts are good for foundational stuff - I don't want to do tulpas because I'm not a Buddhist much less Tibetan and don't understand the system they came from, but there are so many texts on servitors with such variety I'm kind of overwhelmed. Are there any authors i should look out for or red flags or things to indicate a text is good?
Honestly cultural issues aside, messing around with tulpas is bad fucking news. You’re basically intentionally giving yourself DID.
So the issue with servitor creation is that there isn’t and hard and fast guide to making them because everyone seems to develop their own personal system over time. Phil Hine’s Aspects of Evocation has some good advice but overall I would recommend reading a shitload of guides, note the similarities in technique, and just start testing them out until you find something that clicks with you. Just make sure that no matter what you do, you include an easy way to kill it in case something goes wrong (and when you’re starting out, something almost certainly will go wrong)
A couple things to consider in your search Anon,
The ideas surrounding Tulpas all pretty much go back to Alexandra David-Neel. She brought over the idea based on some ideas in Tibetan mysticism and magic. The idea most closely corresponds to western “Thought Forms”. Fear of DID is definitely an issue.
For some background:
https://selfdefinition.org/tibetan/tulpa-creation/alexandra-david-neel-comments.htm
One of the reasons it was used in Buddhism is that it trained you into having the insight that the “mind-stuff” you associate as “self” is not actually you. By building a deity, and experiencing this deity as one’s self you come to two realizations:
1. The thoughts, sensations and experiences you have are not fundamentally *YOU* and in fact are just arising and passing away of experiences, sensations and thoughts. This is seen in Kabbalah as all things being created from Kether moment to moment. The next realization which comes from that is that if all of these experiences moment to moment arise from the source of creation then, well, so does your inner experience, therefore you must exist in a non-dual world, a world where you are one with all creation/creator.
2. You can change thoughts, sensations and experience through the power of concentration. So much so, that it can effect the world around you.
Here is Shinzen Young describing the process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WtPrOE1JSk
The tulpa isn’t so much the end goal. The tulpa is the project you work on to come to a realization or pass the final course. The destruction of the tulpa/thought-form is in realizing that this is the way all thought-forms work that you are allowing dozens or hundreds of these little bastards to tell you who you are, what to do and what to experience all the time, and then not allowing them any more of your creative-vital-power.
You can use the same process not to create some “being” but instead use that concentration power and imagination to “create” or develop your own personal divine power.
Ok, so speaking as a psychologist yes you can fracture yourself and cause damage but no you can’t “give yourself” DID. DID is caused by repeated trauma, often abuse, often in childhood and comes about as a coping mechanism. It is not just having other people in your head or thinking from alternative view points. It involves black outs, memory loss and a division of memories and abilities. It is also one of my specialist areas.
However, as a witch, I will say that certain mystical practices should not be done without adequate research as yes, you can fuck yourself up.
I’m well aware and neither of are saying literally-the-DSM-disorder-DID (hence saying basically rather than literally). The point is that intentionally fracturing your psyche into autonomous parts can produce the outward appearance of DID, blackouts and memory loss included, and severely damage you psychologically. Just like if you’re not careful with magick and especially evocation, you can fuck yourself up badly enough to outwardly appear schizophrenic. You aren’t actually schizophrenic, you’ve just magickally fucked your brain to pieces. I’m sure more than a handful of us have seen the latter happen to fellow magicians. I know I have, more than one of my friends who was totally fine before did some terrible shit and now spends their lives in inpatient treatment for schizophrenia.
If you don’t think magick can fuck your brain up badly enough to appear to have a severe psychiatric disorder, you’re fucking kidding yourself.
This is what a real, qualified OBGYN will tell you about what women feel when they get an abortion
Dr. Willie Parker, who is trained as a gynecologist and OBGYN, is a hero for the pro-choice movement because he’s honest about the undiscussed aspects of getting (or not getting) an abortion. Watch how he gives a consultation.
That last statement about regret is so important, because so many people don’t understand what it is or what causes it. Anti-choicers exploit this by manipulating pregnant people and creating doubt, which only increases the likelihood of regret, no matter what decision the pregnant person makes. You know what is best for you, even if it takes some time to figure it out.
More posts on Dr. Willie Parker
Willie Parker is a HERO among common people!
Dr. Parker is one of the few things I like about Alabama and we are so fortunate to have him here.
Wow god looks just like how I imagined
This is a summary of college only using two pictures; expensive as hell.
That’s my Sociology “book”. In fact what it is is a piece of paper with codes written on it to allow me to access an electronic version of a book. I was told by my professor that I could not buy any other paperback version, or use another code, so I was left with no option other than buying a piece of paper for over $200. Best part about all this is my professor wrote the books; there’s something hilariously sadistic about that. So I pretty much doled out $200 for a current edition of an online textbook that is no different than an older, paperback edition of the same book for $5; yeah, I checked. My mistake for listening to my professor.
This is why we download.
Alternatives to buying overpriced textbooks
Textbooknova
Bookboon
Textbookrevolution
GaTech Math Textbooks
Ebookee
Freebookspot
Free-ebooks
Getfreeebooks
BookFinder
Oerconsortium
Project Gutenberg
Spreading this shit like nutella because goddamn textbooks are so expensive.
not necessarily art related but as someone who couldn’t afford their textbooks this semester this is a godsend
REBLOGGING because after a little digging, I found my $200 textbook for free in PDF form.
friendly reminder that this exists since I know we’re all going back to college soon
The accuracy 🤦🏾♀️😭
The economic realities of Baby boomers versus Millennials
that comment has had me thinking for days… like im reblogging this shit a week later from my likes cus its the PERFECT analogy
twitter is incredible
oh man:
she didn’t lose her internship because “her friends” used a hashtag, she lost it because a bunch of 4chan fuckers found out she’s trans and decided to doxx her and harass her employer about the ~image~ she was sending. like this wasn’t her public face account, she wasn’t spouting racist garbage, she mistook someone in her mentions for one of the randos she gets regularly harassed by (because, yknow, if someone tweets “language” at you on twitter, 99.9% of the time they’re not actually concerned for you) and transphobes used the opportunity to fuck up her life. it’s great that hickam is behind her on this but a lot of people are sharing this and laughing at how hilarious it is that “a furry got fired for swearing”, which is the smokescreen being used to cover how this was doxxing a trans woman to ruin her potential career
Lilo and Stitch presenting an accurate representation of Hawaiians perspective on luaus held by tourists.
#what’s sad about this is that this is actually what Hawaiians had to do when the western culture took over #a luau was a sacred practice #until the westerners took the concept and had the audacity to change it into a time to stuff your face with food and put on grass skirts and coconut bras and dance the hula #and when they had these events, they didn’t even let actual Hawaiian people in #so to make money to take care of themselves, the Hawaiians were hired to work in these disgraceful events to clean up after the tourists like slaves only to make less than a buck #so good job disney for doing your fucking research and educating these people #sadly, this still goes on even until today and it makes me sick
“good job disney” my ass, good job CHRIS SANDERS
Let’s not credit just Chris Sanders for this. This happened because they cast actual Hawaiian Actors like Tia Carrere and Jason Scott Lee to play Hawaiian characters, and allowed the actors to have input into writing the characters’ lines.
This sort of authenticity comes from accuracy and authenticity in casting choices. The fact that Chris Sanders as direct/writer facilitated that does not mean he gets credit for the actors’ experience.
This is why diversity and representation in media matters.
Dude as a hawaiian, this is like straight up what my life as a kid was. My mom worked at those fakey luaus full time to pay rent. My mom is someone who is absolutely passionate and proud about being a hawaiian, living and teaching the ways our ancestors lived and taught. See, we Hawaiians, we live by the way of aloha. And not by the way of “hello” “goodbye”, let me educate you. As Pono Shim, CEO and President of Enterprise Honolulu, the Oahu Economic Development Board, states absolutely perfectly “aloha is to be in the presence of life, to share the essence of one’s being with openness, honesty, and humility. It is a way of being, a way of behaving, a way of life. It is a commitment to accepting others and giving dignity to who they are and what they have to offer.” Aloha is more than hello and goodbye. Think of aloha as an abbreviation. Akahai: meaning kindness Lokahi: meaning unity Olu’Olu’: meaning agreeableness Ha’aha’a: meaning humility Ahonui: meaning patience This is something we all need to live by, seriously, we all should
the dropped sub-plot was that lilo hated tourists, which is why she goes around taking pictures of them like they were attractions instead of people; like how they took photos of locals
similarly there was a deleted scene where she scares tourists off of a beach by sounding a false tsunami siren to watch them run screaming deeper in the lore that kid thats a prick to her, mertyle, is the daughter of the person who runs the megamart and crushed a lot of other local businesses- when they have to do a hula to tell a story mertyle actually uses it to describe the low prices, where lilo does a hula about a traditional creation myth that was important to her mother. you may notice both lilo and nani are on first name basis with both the coffee shop owner and the fruitseller, there is big disparity between the locals and foreign interest businesses relegating them to just be tourist industry
friendly reminder that lilo & stitch is indisputably the best disney film
she just lets them wear whatever tf they want :’)
@theocseason4 Miss Fox Did That!
did U GUYS KNOW, that the way stores get the balloons off of the ceiling is with ANOTHER balloon, w tape on the top??? and they just dont cut the string so it’s like super long and u gotta aim it right n reel it in. i just found that out today when i DID IT and it’s been the best working day of my life i had a blast blowing up balloons and fetching some off the ceiling. i had so much power? and NO ONE ELSE in my department likes that job so now it’s MY job when need be
omg so I work at a museum and one of our buildings has a) very high ceilings and b) a bizarrely sensitive alarm system that will go off if anything touches the ceiling. Because of this, helium balloons are considered public enemy #1 and are strictly forbidden from entering the museum. But just in case an illicit balloon is successfully smuggled in, the museum has acquired a fucking b.b. gun for the express purpose of shooting down rogue balloons.
lawful good vs chaotic good
chaotic evil
You people are all extra. We just waited for ours to deflate eventually, at which point they would float softly down and scare the shit out of whatever cusomer or employee they landed on.
SO I’M GONNA TELL YOU A STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED TO ME TODAY because I think I accidentally made friends with a benevolent trickster god/fey animal/werewolf???
backstory: I have been afraid of dogs since I was in first grade and two of my classmates both independently got hospitalized for dog bite injuries within a week of each other. ever since, I have been attempting to get over this fear. it’s going pretty solid lately. it helps that at my bus stop, there’s a large and fenced in property with a dog that is afraid of humans. he’s a gorgeous german shepherd?? who I have taken a few sneaky photos of and always manages to look angelic.
so this pup is scared of humans and I’m scared of dogs. but for months we see each other every day. and we nudge closer and closer. and one day I’m feeling brave and pick up a stick and hold it out to the fence and this good good doggo gennnntly takes it between his teeth and runs off with it. since then it’s been a game we play every day and this buddy’s tail starts wagging when I come down the street towards the bus stop and frankly it adds life to these brittle old bones of mine.
today however was the reckoning… I was a bit distracted by school stress when I came down the street, and so I take a moment for myself and when I look back up, the puppy is GONE. I look around the yard, seeing if he’s behind a tree, then see him leaving the yard and merrily skipping down the sidewalk, where he suddenly stops. I ask my group chat for advice.
trick question by the time the answer comes I’m already walkin towards him. he’s sitting still, tail wagging. right in front of him on the ground, with no one in sight? a $20 bill.
I slooowly bend down and pick up the money and a nearby stick. put the money in my pocket. put the stick out to my doggo friend who gently takes it as always. and then awkwardly I kinda “well, thanks for the money! you should get home now, my bus is coming and your person won’t like you being out of the yard.” and just like that. the dog just trots back to the yard happy as a clam and slips in through the gaping wide bars of the fence. meanwhile, three high schoolers on the way to school are staring at me and laughing but like. okay what am I supposed to do, not thank this blessing dog. I actually tell him thanks once again for good measure before the bus comes.
so basically my fear of at least one dog is cured, my curiosity is piqued (coincidence? maybe. smart dog? perhaps. but this is the same city I got cursed in and the same city I wandered into a fey subway sandwich shop in so), and I got 20 bucks. so reblog for money dog? I guess?
Waitwaitwait… can I hear about that fey subway sandwich shop, please?
okay okay so a little under a year ago now I was craving a sandwich. I went to my normal downtown subway, but it turned out it was buy one get one free day so it was crowded. after some thought, I remembered that there was another subway almost exactly across the street. same franchise, different location, very close to the one I go to and yet I’d never been. I decide to go see if it’s as swamped as my normal one.
I walk in and it’s as good as dead. there’s two people in line in front of me, four people behind the counter, and two employees wandering the store. it’s gorgeous. clean as anything. a fireplace with a burning fire (nice as it’s the dead of winter in pennsylvania at this point), and smooth jazz playing softly on the speakers. it’s huge. there are armchairs. the windows have curtains and a lovely view of downtown. it’s immediately the kind of place you could stay forever but I have a bus to catch in like half an hour so I walk up and get in line.
as I do, I see the first two behind the counter employees. one looks dead. one looks angry. the dead one… and I call her this because she literally looks zombified. not normal min wage worker dead but like her brain was removed dead… asks what she can get for me and I place my normal order. it begins to go down the line. it gets to the second person, the angry one, who says with the most INTENSE STARE to Dead Eyed Girl, “if we all had to come in and we don’t get busy, I’m burning down the city.”
Dead Eyed Girl, eyes still dead, says “Except for this store, of course.”
“Of course not, we can’t burn down this store.”
Dead Eyed Girl literally echoes “We can’t burn down this store.”
this is when I start to go from curious to a little freaked out. angry one takes my subs out of the toaster and begins to put veggies on it, then shoves it over to the person at the register who is, according to the logs I looked up to make sure I remember this accurately, remarkable for one reason… I was paying attention to EVERYTHING and yet I can’t remember what they looked like at all. I pay and I get my sandwiches and my drink cup and go to fill my drink up.
standing near the drink machine at this point are two more terrified looking employees who are talking quietly to themselves. I fill my cup up with sprite and am about to put a lid on it when one says “oh. that machine… doesn’t work.” note: at this point I have the drink already and it looks and smells right. “here, let me go replace that for you. don’t drink that! one second!”
he looks TERRIFIED as he goes to the cooler and pulls out three bottles of sprite and looks TERRIFIED as he holds them out to me asking, terrified, “here, is that enough?”
and so I just “yeah… thank you?” as he takes my cup and gives me the bottles. it’s more sprite than I paid for.
I sit down as far from the counter as I can and begin to eat. my first toasted sandwich? cold. according to my phone I’ve been in here for five minutes only. I didn’t see the customers who were in here when I entered leave. nobody else has come in. I’d planned to get out my laptop and wait here out of the cold for the bus, but even as I eat the sandwich time seems slow so I just devour it and leave. it’s not even been ten minutes since I came in. just take my second (cold) sandwich and my bottles of sprite and book it.
and I ask around about this subway. everyone I know says it’s perfectly normal and they’ve been there several times and it’s fine! and sure enough when I work up the courage to go back in two weeks later, the fireplace is not operational (in fact it’s blocked off), the music is staticky and pop, there’s no armchairs, and it’s not very clean at all. is there a possibility they cleaned it up for the event and redecorated in two weeks? yes. is it more likely that I wandered into the fey realm for a bit? perhaps.
I didn’t drink the sprite I didn’t pay for.
Damn.
Had a thing like that happen with a hobby shop once.
I had thought the place was closed and gutted, but saw to my delight that it was open and occupied while driving by one day. Of course, I had to stop in.
This place is immaculate, although something about some of the displays seemed slightly off.
A guy there was making custom dice. I commissioned one from him and he made it on the spot. Damn beautiful thing, and the luckiest die I own (not weighted, just super lucky… for me… and basically cursed for anyone else).
We had a very in-depth conversation about the presentation of fey in various contemporary novels while he made the die. I paid him (plus extra, cause I loved the work he was doing), browsed, bought some MTG cards, and left a couple of dollars in a donation box as I walked out the door (I think it was for supplying dice and other ttrpg stuff to local schools or something and I thought it was a very worthy cause).
One of the employees said something like “pretty decent for a person” to dice guy, and he replied something like, “yeah, I gave him a good one.”
I realized after I got home that the displays for the current set hadn’t had any letters on them that I could recognize, but my ADHD brain had parsed something on them as writing that said “Magic the Gathering” anyway and moved on (and I don’t mean, like, it was Arabic or Chinese or something. I mean nothing, in hindsight, even resembled writing).
The cards practically show up at the top of my deck when I call them, and the die is, again, fabulously lucky, but only for me.
Tried to bring a friend to the shop literally two days later and it was back to being abandoned and gutted. My friend didnt believe that there had really been a store there, although he has since admitted that those cards and that custom d20 are weirdly good for me… and only for me.
Honestly, I’m super glad not to be the only one to have had such a word experience, and glad to have a better explanation for it than “that time i lost my mind and somehow came out of it with physical items that appear to be more or less +1 ebchanted.”
Name of the die is Fafnir, btw. He named it, not me.
And, here I would love to have an experience like that. Makes life even more interesting.
Anon Hate IS Illegal.
Guys, I’m not kidding.
Suicide-baiting, cyberharassmemt, cyberstalking, death/rape threats, and hate speech are illegal in all 50 states as well as Australia and the UK.
Please click on any state to learn exactly what the bullying and/or cyberbullying law(s) cover.
There is no legal definition of cyberbullying within UK law. However there are a number of existing laws that can be applied to cases of cyb
cyber-bullying.jpg Cyber-bullying or stalking occurs when someone engages in offensive, menacing or harassing behaviour through the use
Some places include school suspension or expels. Some even include jail time for multiple years.
And yes, they can find someone by username or IP alone.
Also, yes. There are methods of catching someone’s IP. Even under a VPN.
Leo Traynor, an Internet user in Ireland, had a problem. More specifically, he had a troll, a very nasty troll.
So.
Next time you get hit with anon hate?
Casually remind them you can very easily take this to the next level. And they can earn jail time while you lay back in your chair, having saved yourself and everyone else from a violent criminal.
Your online actions have real life consequences.
Make sure they learn that.
(Just in case there’s a “the police wouldn’t do that” - Yes. They absolutely would.
Two 12-year-olds in Florida were arrested for cyberbullying in connection with the death of a middle-school student who police say hanged he
The Kerala police on July 28 took into custody the man alleged to have been the key tormentor of Hanan Hamid, the 19-year-old Kerala student
An Onslow County man was arrested Monday after officials conducted an investigation into a cyberbullying case.
Or a “I can handle it.” No. That person will continue to harass others as well. And one of them may not be as strong as you. So do it for them and everyone else.
Or a “It’s not that severe.” Yes. It is. People have died because of this. It really is that severe.)
Take action. And make sure the lives of these bullies are truly wrecked.