Makalaster Says

Things in my head or that I find on the webbernets that may require ≥ 140 characters. @makalaster

[thehmn]

Wait…why are busses depicted as a dangerous way to commute in American media?

I never really thought about it before but busses are one of the safest ways to commute to work I can imagine. I’m not ever worried when I take the train but if I had to pick which I’d feel more safe on it would be the bus.

I used to travel between towns late at night when I was a teenager/young adult woman and it would be straight up cozy and a nice way to end my day.

I think a bus feels safter to me because the driver is always right there in case something happens, while you’re kinda on your own on a train late at night.

[aetherograph]

So did you ever see Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Remember the plotline about the Red Car trolley being bought out and dismantled by Cloverleaf, and the villain's Big Reveal that they planned to demolish Toontown and put a highway through it, and people would use it because the Red Car trolley wasn't there to use anymore and so they'd be FORCED to buy a car?

That really happened, in the US. Only instead of the villain being an evil cartoon posing as a judge, the villain was General Motors and Ford and all the big car companies. They bought public transit lines and dismantled them. They lobbied congress to fund the interstate highway system and they CONTINUE to lobby the us govt to keep trains and public transit from having any money, while making sure the roads get lots of it. They are responsible not only for the dismantling of public transit but also the public's perception that public transit is bad and even dangerous.

American media thinks busses and trains are dangerous because the car companies have spent DECADES and billions of dollars on propaganda making sure Americans think that so they will continue to buy cars and not question how much roads and highways have destroyed the landscape.

[trans-ralsei]

[trans-ralsei]

[caughtthedarkness93]

I love my job, but reblogging employment jelly for someone else I love.

[taijispearman]

Taken from a friend of a friend.

This friend of mine has been very consciously raising her young daughter outside of stereotypical gender norms. They’ve done quite a number on my friend, and she’s like, “Nope, my kid’s life will be different.”

Her daughter is small for her age, and will probably remain small. This has affected her self-confidence. Earlier this year, my friend decided to tell her daughter a slightly sanitized version of Arya Stark’s journey in GoT, to basically demonstrate how a small girl could learn to be badass.

Six months go by, and the daughter turns from 5 to 6. Her mom asks her what she wants for her birthday. The daughter says, “I want to learn how to fight.” So my friend, who has zero martial arts experience, looks up a place, and they go there.

The moment they get there, my friend is thinking, “This may not be the right place.” It’s a Krav Maga/MMA gym. Lots of burly dudes beating the crap out of each other, basically. Not your kid-friendly karate dojo.

But she doesn’t want to tell her daughter that they have to leave because the place is filled with intimidating men – it would pretty much fly in the face of everything she’s trying to teach her. So she says, “Okay. I don’t know if they have a kid’s class here. Why don’t you go ask who the teacher is, and then ask them?”

So her daughter walks up to one dude, asks for the teacher, then gets pointed to this tattooed, musclebound dude with his head shaved and a goatee. As my friend put, “The guy looked like your bigger, meaner younger brother.”

She trails behind her kid a bit, ready to step in, and listens in. Her daughter walks up the guy and says, “Hi! Do you have classes for kids? I want to learn how to fight.”

The guy looks down at this wee little girl, and he says, “Uh, well, no, we don’t really. Maybe I can talk to your mom and suggest some places for you? This isn’t really a place for little girls.”

Her daughter reaches into her jacket pocket, pulls out a nickel, holds it out to the guy and says, “Valar morghulis.”

The guy takes the nickel, looks at it, then says, totally deadpan: “Valar dohaeris. Of course I can teach you.”

The mom comes over and says, “I thought you said you didn’t have kid’s classes?” The guy says, “We do now. Come into the office and we’ll work up a training schedule.” The mom: “Do you have any idea how much it’ll cost?” The guy holds up the nickel. “She’s already paid up.”

[feministism]

[shegufta]

Since St. Valentine was also the patron saint of the plague, let’s celebrate this year’s Valentine’s Day by VACCINATING YOUR FUCKING CHILDREN

[lynati]

Cat Valente WENT OFF:

[millennial-review-deactivated20]

[liberalsarecool]

Never normalize Nazis.

[fanfckery]

I hate _% of people statistics being used like “oh it’s such a small number” cause 1% is a small number but 1% of 7 billion is 70 million. That’s more than the population of the UK, France or Italy.

6% of the US is 19 million, as stated above. There are only 3 states that have over 19 million people in them. 19 million is the population of the entire state of New York. That’s more than half the population of California.

Taking populations and turning them into percentages is okay until you try to say “oh that’s not a lot of people” but the reality is… That’s millions. That’s enough to be its own country. That’s fucking scary.

[suicunesrider]

Like don’t get me wrong, that’s nicer than the idea that Americans are split pretty 50/50 on such issues…. but that’s still 3 neo-Nazis for every Jew in the country.    6% is a nice, softened way of saying “over 1 in 20 people”.

[shoshanah-ben-hohim]

3 neo-Nazis for every Jew in the country. 

3 neo-Nazis for every Jew in the country. 

3 neo-Nazis for every Jew in the country. 

Let that sink in. Then think about how your Jewish friends and neighbors feel right now, and have been feeling all this time.

[feministism]

[elaenathedefiant]

countries where prostitution is legal have higher rates of human trafficking. that’s like an actual fact. not an opinion or anything. so tbh it seems a bit ‘swerfy’ to completely ignore that

[patrexes]

speaking, uh, as a formerly-trafficked sex worker, it’s extremely difficult to come forward as a trafficking victim in countries where sex work is criminalized; you just… get criminalized under those same anti-prostitution laws. of course reported trafficking would increase when the sole fact of coming forward as a sex worker at all no longer endangers you.

[xenoqueer]

This line of argument is the same one that you see with conservatives who point to the increase in divorce rates as proof that making divorce safer is endangering marriage, while ignoring the massive drops in domestic abuse, murder, and suicide.

It’s a shot argument with them, and it’s a shot argument here.

[61below]

In WWI, when they introduced helmets, they saw a sudden spike in head injuries.

What the casual observer may miss was that they were seeing the increase because of a dramatic decrease in deaths from head wounds.

[space-psychopomp]

Survivorship bias

[bunabi]

Hmm this is going to sound decrepitly sentimental but there’s just some games you wish you could experience for the first time again.

[accidental-muse]

Horizon Zero Dawn

The Last of Us

Journey

The Last Guardian

[socalscot-deactivated20190620]

The Legend of Zelda. Final Fantasy. Dragon Warrior.

Crap, did I just age myself?

[agrownupgeekgirl]

Since I didn’t play video games until I was an adult.. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect 1

[makamusings]

Myst, Riven

[haiikyuus-remade]

tumblr flagged a post of a girl eating berries so fruit is for whores now reblog if youre a fruit eating whore

[partywithponies]

Headcanon that in the new good future where Marty McFly never has his accident, he does become a famous musician, while still going on time travel adventures with Doc, and then when the internet comes along, people on forums and message boards start discovering and posting photos of people in the past who look eerily like famous rock star Marty McFly, and as time goes on, “Marty McFly is a time traveller” becomes one of the biggest and most long running memes on the internet.

When Doc finds out he freaks out and panicks and makes blog posts (because of COURSE Doc runs a blog) talking about how UTTERLY RIDICULOUS the idea of a time travelling rock star is, which the internet finds hilarious and only makes the meme spread more.

Marty meanwhile thinks the whole thing is the funniest thing ever and is just wheezing at every new forum or jokey article about it, and directly addresses the meme in interviews, bringing up this “crazy conspiracy” that people have, until eventually he can just say things like “well of course I am a time traveller” or “oh you like my hat? Thank you I got it in the 1910s”, and people just crack up, and Marty cracks up too because no-one realises that he’s not even lying.

[partywithponies]

When Marty starts doing this Doc’s blog posts get even more annoyed and passive aggressive, saying things like “even if time travel WAS possible, a SENSIBLE time traveller would KEEP OUT OF THE PUBLIC EYE and not just TELL EVERYONE LIVE ON TV”

Eventually a secondary meme starts up where people start joking “Doctor Emmett Brown is a time traveller himself and that’s why he’s so worked up about it” and Doc very nearly just deletes his blog and throws his computer in a skip.

[raychleadele]

@enthusispastic

[shinyhill]

[southernsideofme]

[slowrub]

perfect 

[leupagus]

oh my god IT’S TRUE

[starwarsdumpster]

That’s why Obi-Wan talks to Chewie first in ANH

“Yeah, man, we can get you to Alderaan, but I got this rescue human, he wasn’t very well socialized and he can be little aggressive sometimes. Come on, let’s see how he reacts to you.”

[politicalsci]

[bendingsignpost]

a Christmas movie I want to see

It’s very relaxed up at the North Pole ever since the top demands for toys changed from handcrafted to mass produced. Most of the elves are in “qualify control” these days (very important to check those video games for violence, y’know), and Santa and Mrs. Claus are basically reindeer farmers most of the year. 

Then, in late autumn, Santa checks his list. 

He checks it twice. 

He checks it a third time, and then he calls Mrs. Claus over to the computer, because clearly he’s messed something up and deleted something he shouldn’t have. Mrs. Claus waves him out of the chair, sits down, and starts checking the settings. 

She goes very, very still. 

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