R.L.P : Freak of nature @meetmyinsanity - Tumblr Blog

One time this man approached me in a bar talking in Spanish. So I assumed he was Spanish and we started speaking, we had a whole ass conversation and at some point he was like. So what part of Spain are you from? And I said well I’m Italian actually. What part of Spain are you from? And he was like. I’m Greek.

pastelpinkcheeks

One time I was in Argentina and I was so tired of trying to speak Spanish because I’m not very good at it lmao so I broke into exasperated English and the retail seller girl quickly understood me and engaged me in conversation. We talked for a while, she introduced me to a makeup brand, and then I decided to buy it. While she was packaging the purchase, she asked me if I were from the US or perhaps the UK and I just said “oh no I’m Brazilian hahah” and she looked me straight in the eyes and said, in clear Portuguese, “I’m Brazilian too”

ex-evil-genius-deactivated20220

When my dad went to China on a work trip, his Mandarin speaking wasn’t great but his listening was fine (his first language is Cantonese) and he encountered a German guy who had moved to China to work. My dad knew how to speak German because he studied it in university (but wasn’t great when it came to listening to new vocab he hadn’t studied before), and the German guy knew Mandarin because he lived and worked in China, so they had a conversation where my dad spoke to the German guy in German and the guy responded in Mandarin. I’m sure it confused a lot of their coworkers who just saw the Asian guy speaking German and the white guy speaking Mandarin.

theriversdaughter

Some years ago, I worked for a manufacturing company that had a service depot in China. One of the engineers from the main office here in the US spent most of his time at the depot. The problem was that he didn’t speak *any* of the various Chinese languages, and no one at the depot spoke any English. They all, however, spoke Spanish.

1stsana

I love the world

hiveswap

When I was in Amsterdam with a few people from my school, we got told that the lockers were full at the train station, and we had to go to a smaller luggage office next to a church nearby.

When we got there our teacher started talking to the man behind the counter in english, then she turned back to us and said something in hungarian, only for the man behind the counter to immediately switch and say “Oh hi i am also hungarian!”

musings-of-a-monster

Before COVID shut the library down, I was helping a little boy and his mom find books.

“What do you like to read about?” I asked. “Dinosaurs!” This is common request, but can mean different things, “Okay. Do you want a story about dinosaurs, or facts about dinosaurs?” “Facts.” I took him to the dinosaur section (567.9) of the juvenile nonfiction. He picked out a couple books, and I asked him if there was anything else he was looking for. “Do you have anything on DNA?” I had to think about that for a second. “I think so…but I’ll have to look it up.” The boy beamed, “I want to find out how DNA works, so I can bring them back!” “We just saw Jurassic Park,” his mom explained with a smile that did not waver when she added, “We didn’t learn anything.”

leviathan-supersystem

90% of arguments about media could just be solved by saying “different people like different things in their stories” and leaving it at that

fakeosphere

this person probably humanizes cops/racists, rape, child abuse, incest etc as long as its fictional lol

judygemstone

this is a good and normal leap in logic to make from this post!

wetwareproblem

I certainly hope they do, and not just when it’s fictional. Humanizing them is an important step in stopping the actual real-world harm.

If you recognize that they’re human, then you can understand it’s an issue of rationale and perspective, not Inherent Evil - and you can learn to think like an adversary. This is the first step in developing a good security mindset. That mindset, in turn, is the first tool you need to build functional safety measures and protections for your community.

There’s an added bonus, too - if you recognize that they’re people, you’ll notice that not many people are villains in their own narratives. They aren’t choosing to be evil, they’re rationalizing their harmful choices. And you start asking questions.

If you recognize that cops are people, you learn to ask yourself “Am I being reactionary, authoritarian, and needlessly violent?”

If you recognize that racists are people, you learn to recognize and unpack the racist lessons you were taught.

If you learn that rapists are people, you learn to actively verify consent.

By recognizing that terrible people are not Inherently Bad, but choosing to do terrible things for reasons they think justify them, you get better at protecting yourself from them - and protecting everyone around you from your worst tendencies. It’s a difficult and ongoing process, but it’ll protect you far better than any list of specific Bad Things to watch out for.

wetwareproblem

There’s a flipside to this, of course, and it’s important:

Anyone who tells you that your enemies are inhuman monsters is using you.

Either they’re trying to convince you that they couldn’t possibly be an Enemy because they’re a normal person… or they’re trying to keep you from noticing the little rationalizations. To convince you that atrocity is okay when you do it.

Don’t fall for either lie.

somenoneelse

That last point there is really important. How often do people get away with truly atrocious shit, because everyone around them thinks that inhuman monster thing?

Of course my friend can’t be a rapist. They’re my friend, not some inhuman monster!

Of course my sibling doesn’t hit and gaslight their spouse. They’re my sibling, not some inhuman monster!

etc etc etc

So all the little and big things that point to [fill in blank] doing [thing] are rationalized and explained away. Because [fill in blank] is a person and not some inhuman monster, so they’d never!

By dehumanizing people who commit atrocities, we blind ourselves to the ability to do that shit in people we first and foremost see as people already (friends, family, co-workers, etc.) and in ourselves.

thebadchoicemachine

Reminds me of the cautious: People don’t want a democracy, they want a dictatorship they agree with. The problem with that, of course, is when a dictator changes you don’t get a say.

sgt-dignam

valdomarx

#lonely man treats the removal of his parasite like a breakup (via @sgt-dignam)

bunnalien

BONCLES

lilacandladybugs

my friend told me that her boyfriend got her a super cool rock while they were on vacation together and you would not BELIEVE my disappointment when i realized she was talking about her engagement ring

lilacandladybugs

*holds your head in my hands* im sorry i let you down

xanemix

Here’s some fossilized coral.

lastoneout

goodlouse

how to solve a rubik’s cube a gay valentine’s/anniversary comic about trying to impress a boy (my now boyfriend) [rbs&follows>likes]

thecollectibles

Dragon heir by tobi 泳

beggars-opera

Do you ever get a wave of nostalgia for a hyperfixation that’s never coming back with the same sort of melancholy with which you mourn a lost childhood friend

beggars-opera

Like “you consumed my every waking moment for six entire months, and now I haven’t thought about you in years…I miss that passion”

always-rolling-my-eyes

drownedinlight

Queen and Prince Consort*

departmentq

The first link is a page six article from 2008

Response from Fraser's reps, trying to get the artists paid

Dave Rand's original tweet

pyuart

She's doing her best

(Please do not repost!)

tiktokmuseum

he was in the fridge!!!

myusersnamegoeshere

ovbiously this person has done so much research and cares about their tortoise so much but…. the mf idea of having a live tortoise in a TUPPERWARE?! IN MY FRIDGE?? WITH ME FOOD? ahahahaha

rattle-my-stars

the concept of opening someone else’s fridge only to find a WHOLE ASS TORTOISE in there… idk if I’d ever recover

blog-carmex

@esperantoauthor when the food doesn’t come to Tesla, Tesla comes to the food

esperantoauthor

Reminds me of when I accidentally stumbled across this photo for the first time…

marraphy

mutuals put me in your fridge

gallusrostromegalus

Back in 2015, I went over to a classmate’s house for group project work late in the fall, and in the middle of working on the presentation, offered to grab sodas for people but they were out of pepsi and Andrew whose house we were at said “Oh, there’s more in the basement fridge.”

So I go down to the basement, which is well-lit and finished and indeed there are more pepsi but also in the fridge is a massive tortise. This animal was the dimensions of a desktop computer and probably outweighed a labrador. It’s not moving, and is set in the middle of a plastic tray so it’s apparently supposed to be there. I go back upstairs.

“Hey Andrew.” I say, nonchalantly. “So is the tortise in the fridge down there for soup or what?”

“The what?” says the other member of the group project. I don’t remember her name, just that she always wore her hair in pigtails with butterfly clips that were based on real butterflies and she had at least a dozen species.

“Oh! No, that’s Andrew Too.” he says. “His species hibernates so he stays in the fridge for the holidays.”

“You named your tortise after you?” I ask.

“No, uh- Well, my grandfather got him in Egypt or somewhere while he was on leave during the war and He was named Andrew, so he thought it would be funny to name him ‘Andrew Too’. …Then Mom named me after him so Gandpa left me Andrew Too in his will. He’s pretty cool when he’s awake. Lets us dress him up for summer holidays, doesn’t bark.”

“Oh!” Said Butterflies. “My dad served in the Gulf War too! What unit was he in?”

“Oh no, Grandpa was with the Royal Air Force in World War Two. Andrew Too is going to be 70 this year! We’re going to make him a carrot cake!”