spencer speaks (a lot)

Spencer Oliver ~ he/him ~ 21 ~ this is my blog and i'm just here to have fun, I hope you enjoy dark academia, queer ppl, judaism, and my current hyperfixation

[oliverbrnch]

cheers!

i'm spencer oliver, i'm twenty from the US, and this is my blog! I don't really know what i'm doing, i'm honestly just here to have a good time, so i hope you enjoy it too!

i write fanfic, sometimes it's decent, you can find it here on ao3

right now i'm really interested in stranger things, which is why it composes approximately 75% of my blog

if you're interested, i'd be delighted to have you drop an ask in my box or send me a message.

i also have an anon!!

🚀 they're an astronaut pal!!

I sometimes forget to tag things but, in general,

#spencer answers stuff = anything that comes from my ask box

#not cm = has nothing to do with cm

#spencer oliver (dumbass) = my thoughts

#ghosts in his eyes = my fic on ao3

thanks for stopping by!

[saywhat-politics]

Keep your messaging simple:

“Trump fired everyone in charge of airplane safety, and a week later planes started crashing into each other.”

That’s it. That’s the messaging. Don’t get bogged down disputing Trump’s false claims. Just blame him, in short and repeatable sentences.

[queerculus]

Trump removed bird safety regulations in his first term and now bird flu is killing so many laying hens that eggs are $5 a carton

Trump removed food safety standards his first term and now we have recalls every few weeks

Trump cut the subsidies for the solar farms under construction so now electricity costs more

Trump disbanded the pandemic response team and we now we have bird flu and tuberculosis outbreaks

[dinamaliha-deactivated20250102]

Crammed together like heaps of flesh in tents that feel like scorching ovens, our days have regressed to a more degraded version of those of the earliest humans. From morning till night, we search for the same things Abel and Cain sought to survive: water, food, and fire. We endure long hours in queues to get a meager amount of water, and the food consists of old, low-quality canned goods. We sleep and wake to the sounds of savage airplanes, unsure of where they will strike next or who among us will be turned into scattered remains. Here in Gaza, we are living the worst existence humanity has known since its very beginning, You are our only hope for escaping Gaza and its oppression. Please help my siblings and me find a safe place to live💔🇵🇸

Donate to Save Maliha family: Urgent Evacuation Fund, organized by Dina Maliha

I want to die in Gaza. I'm not very interested in my life, but please don't let me see my sisters and brothers die in front of me. Please he

[longlivepalestine]

hey everyone, this is a legit fundraiser vetted by fallahifag here, among other fundraisers and donation links. if you can donate even the smallest amount, please do so. if you cant just reblog their posts.

[capitanpoops]

I missed them sm

[killingmoon]

this is so upsetting, PLEASE rb to spread awareness

[omniscient-omniromantic-deactiv]

PLEASE, PLEASE REBLOG THIS, WHETHER YOURE JEWISH OR NOT.

THIS IS A SUPER IMPORTANT PART OF OUR HISTORY, DONT LET IT GET DESTROYED.

[tinyshe]

Construction firm withdraws lawsuit to evict synagogue in Uzbekistan - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

The nixing of a plan to building luxury apartments on the site of an Ashkenazi congregation of Tashkent followed an international outcry.

perhaps help take steps to stop them now from future attempts...

[wendynerdwrites]

Here Are the Jewish People

Western popular concepts of Jews that people here take as the extent of our tribe:

The reality:

Boys from the Jewish population of Yemen, which has been around for 2500 hundred years but has been slowly massacred over the past few generations.

The Lemba of South Africa and Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe in particular has a large and VERY long history with their Jewish Community)

The Abayudaya of Uganda, some of the great Jewish musicians

The Beta Israeli of Ethiopia

Igbo Jews of Nigeria

Cochin Jews of India 

Baghdadi Jews

Kaifeng Jews of China, who go back to the 7th or 8th century. Unfortunately, during the 20th century much of their culture was almost wiped out and the Kaifeng are currently working to rediscover their Jewish heritage and culture.

Jewish Children in Puerto Rico (Jews have been in Puerto Rico since the 15th century, many fleeing from the Inquisition)

The Beit Shalom Choir in Japan

Kosher comes in all colors, from all over the world, and in a variety cultural groups. We’re a small portion of the human population, but we have EVERYONE. We are all members of this tribe.

Because stereotypes are bullshit.

[watchingthedetective]

Boosting because you sure as fuck won’t see this in any Western textbook. 

[particularlyparasitic]

Shoutout to the regularly erased JOC

[elizabitchtaylor-deactivated202]

I learned about the murder of Kitty Genovese in two separate psychology classes, at two separate universities. It was studied as an example of the “bystander effect”, which is a phenomenon that occurs when witnesses do not offer help to a victim when there are other people present.

I was told by my professors that Kitty Genovese was a 28-year-old unmarried woman who was attacked, raped, and brutally murdered on her way home from her shift as manager of a bar. I was told that numerous people witnessed the attack and her cries for help but didn’t do anything because they “assumed someone else would”. Nobody intervened until it was too late. 

What I was not told was that Kitty Genovese was a lesbian who lived more or less openly with her partner in the Upper West Side and managed a gay bar. 

Now… is it likely that people overheard Kitty’s cries for help and ignored them because they thought someone else would deal with it? Or, perhaps, did they ignore her because they knew she was a lesbian and just didn’t care?

Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe it was just a random attack. Maybe her neighbours didn’t know she was gay, or didn’t care.

But it’s a huge chunk of information to leave out about her in a supposedly scientific study of events, since her sexuality made her much more vulnerable to violent crimes than the average person. And it’s a dishonour to her memory.

RIP Kitty Genovese. Society may only remember you for how you died, but I will remember you for who who were.

[chemicalheart-deactivated202009]

this was one of the first lessons I had in psych too and we were never told about this either nor was it in any of the reading materials

[thelingerieaddict-deactivated20]

I never knew this.

[dsudis]

I also never knew this about Kitty Genovese, but I do know that, in fact, many of the dozen (not thirty-eight) people who witnessed some part of the attack (which took place after 3AM, on a chilly night in March when most people’s windows were closed) tried to help in some way.

One shouted out his window for the attacker to leave her alone, which did successfully scare the man off temporarily.

Another called the police but, seeing her still on her feet, said only that there had been a fight but the woman seemed to be okay.

And when Kitty Genovese was finally attacked in a vestibule where she couldn’t be seen from outside, Karl Ross, a neighbor, saw what was happening but was too frightened himself to go to her rescue–so he started calling other neighbors to ask what he should do. Eventually one of them told him to call the police, which he did, and the woman he called, Sophie Farrar, rushed out to help Kitty even though she didn’t know whether the attacker was gone.

Kitty Genovese died in the arms of a neighbor who tired to help and comfort her while they waited for the police and ambulance to arrive. Kitty was in fact still alive, although mortally wounded, when the ambulance reached the scene.

The man who saw the final stabbing? Who panicked and called other neighbors first instead of the police? The man who said, infamously, that he “didn’t want to get involved” because he was reluctant to turn to the police for help? He was thought to be gay himself. He was a friend of Kitty and Mary Ann’s. After being interviewed by the police he took a bottle of vodka to Mary Ann and sat with her, trying to comfort her.

So, no. I don’t think the evidence indicates that Kitty Genovese’s neighbors let her die because she was a lesbian, because Kitty Genovese’s neighbors tried to help.

See also: Debunking the Myth of Kitty Genovese (The New York Post)

A Call for Help (The New Yorker)

(Also, going by the content of the murderer’s confession, it was indeed a random attack.)

[talesofthestarshipregeneration]

how on EARTH was this “scientifically” studied but the details gotten so wrong and the wrong as hell conclusion published and taught in schools?!?!?! where were those scientists observation skills?! on vacation?!

[deadcatwithaflamethrower]

How to take facts and turn them into an urban legend that gets taught in schools: Make a bad made-for-t.v.-movie about it, watch it, believe everything the movie says, annnnnnnd go!  That’s how it gets taught as this supposed “scientific study.”  Someone got fucking lazy.

Spread the real deal, kids.

[tehriz]

A book about this, “No One Helped”: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy, won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Nonfiction this year! if anyone wants to check it out try your local library!

[racefortheironthrone]

I want to add one crucial but telling detail: the story about the 38 witnesses didn’t come out of nowhere, it was handed to the New York Times City Editor by the Police Commissioner in order to distract said editor from asking unwelcome questions about a different case, and the story that was eventually written and which made headlines was almost entirely composed from police sources. 

At the time, the NYPD was coming under quite a bit of criticism about rising crime rates and the seeming ineffectiveness of the police’s response to the problem. In the Kitty Genovese case, even though people did in fact call the police, it took about an hour for them to show up and the first detectives didn’t arrive until three hours later (at which point they mostly spent their time interrogating Kitty’s girlfriend about their relationship, because for “some reason” they considered her to be the most likely suspect for the murder. In fact, the police wouldn’t catch the actual killer until six days later when he was picked up for having a stolen TV in the trunk of his car, at which point he admitted to having committed a total of three murders). It’s not an accident that one of the things to come out of the Genovese case was the establishment of the 9-1-1 system, because at the time that the attack happened, you had to call the specific number of a particular police precinct and it was up to the duty sergeant on the desk to take action - which was usually to send someone out from the precinct to the address reported, because cops on foot patrol wouldn’t be outfitted with two-way radios for several years. It’s more than a little convenient that at a time when the NYPD is coming in for public scrutiny about its ability to do the basic job of responding to reports of crimes in a timely fashion, the Police Commissioner happens to hand the City Editor of the city’s most prominent newspaper a story which puts the blame for the slow response on the apathy and inaction of New Yorkers, neatly absolving the NYPD for its ridiculously poor performance in this case in particular and its response to the rise in crime in general. 

It’s also quite telling that the New York Times ran with the story the way they did. It’s not like there weren’t people on the scene who said they had called the police, or that the basic facts about how many witnesses there were and what they had seen didn’t match the account that the commissioner had given. The writer the Times sent out chose not to include this information because “it would have ruined the story.“ The Times wanted to frame the story as a narrative about how the root of NYC’s problems was urban apathy and anomie - and the news organizations that picked up on the Times’ reporting and made the Kitty Genovese case a national and global story wanted to frame the story as proof that NYC was a dangerous urban jungle that deserved its decline because of the bad character of its residents.  I think the takeaway from this case isn’t just about sloppy scientific research, it’s that you have to always consider how official narratives are used to assign blame to specific individuals and groups and absolve larger institutions of responsibility. 

[emmaharwoods]

you can click on this button once daily to help palestine and support other causes in the middle east for free. it takes literally 5 seconds and could help save lives so please take the time to click and share this link.

[melodiesforyouandmetooooooo]

Would you mind if I sat down next to you? Please! I’m begging you don’t look away, I need help! Please reblog

The city says 132 out of the 216 people who died were residents of homeless shelters.

PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN ANY AMOUNT WILL HELP Please If anyone can spare just a couple dollars so I can go inside a coffee shop and warm up at night !PLEASE HELP ME! 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 If you see this please REBLOG it, I am desperate. I’m relying on the REBLOG’S spreading the word to get a donation each day to survive.

I need help to survive the winter nights

PLEASE I need help, winter is here in Canada. They are turning away 200 people a day from each shelter because they are at full capacity. Pl

A total of 216 people experiencing homelessness died in Toronto last year, according to new data from the city.

Figures released on Friday by Toronto Public Health (TPH) indicate that there was an average of 4.2 deaths per week of unhoused people last year.

The city says the number of deaths in 2021 rose significantly from 2020. Seventy-two more people died last year than in the previous year, when 144 unhoused people died. The number of deaths has more than doubled since 2017 — the first year that the city collected such statistics — when 101 people died.

[simpforsauron-deactivated202302]

After the Gate is closed, the Fruity Four get walkies to make fun of the Party. But they're a lot more 'serious' with them. They all have code names and they won't respond unless you say 'over'.

Except, because they're on different sets of walkies, the kids don't know about the Fruity ones. So when Steve's right pocket announces 'Hey Loverboy, this is Birdie, do you copy?' everyone is pretty shocked.

But the teen Fruits end up having fun doing nerdy shit with each other and Nancy ends up enjoying DMing for weekly campaigns (Eddie gets to take a break and play for once) and Eddie learns to skateboard (Max teaches him).

Steve and Robin make up the summer they missed while in the Russian Base and recreate the You Rule/You Suck board. Except this time, Steve gets a point for You Rule. (I mean that he kisses Eddie and then immediately calls Robin and screams 'HARRINGTON'S STILL GOT IT BABY!')

What I mean is is that the teens need some time to catch up on the childhood they lost.

[guendysan]

5 people were killed and 18 wounded in shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs

A suspect is in custody, and police said the investigation is in the initial stages.

There’s really nothing to say is there? Just everything to feel.

[guendysan]

Club Qs website is currently down. I’ll let you all know when a gofundme or something similar is created.

[guendysan]

[guendysan]

Support for the Club Q Families and Survivors, organized by Faith Haug - Good Judy Garage

On Nov. 20, there was a mass shooting at an LGBTQ Club, Club… Faith Haug - Good Judy Garage needs your support for Support for the Club Q F

GOFUNDME

FOR VICTIMS

[vvtshh]

my fruity four's punkfication art from june🍒🍑🍇🍓🍊

[shark-boys]

i think about nancy leaving the most soft and affectionate kisses on robin’s top scars a lot

[ronanceisintheair]

I'm stealing this but in reverse for my fic, thanks I love you🥰🥰

[shark-boys]

[shark-boys]

girls don’t want boys, girls want gnc ronance

[jedthewolfdog]

upset and don’t know why? Appease the Brains

lizard brain

questions: do i have food, water, and safe shelter? 

solutions: drink more water. drink things with electrolytes. make and stick to a food schedule that works for you. clean your room. if you are in an unsafe situation, talk to someone trusted about creating a plan to get out 

toddler brain 

questions: have i had enough rest? am i been getting what i need to be healthy? am i cared for? am i frustrated? 

solutions: make sure you’re getting enough sleep on a schedule that works for you (people naturally sleep better at different times and need different amounts of sleep. if youre young you will need to sleep more than 7 or 8 hours). make sure you have varied nutrition in your diet. make sure your medications and supplements are working for you and take them on schedule. work on developing a support system that meets your needs. take breaks from things if you feel burned out, even if it’s only for a day 

monkey brain 

questions: have i had enrichment in my life? am i stuck in a rut? have i had socialization, entertainment, and creativity? has anything challenged me lately? 

solutions: limit your time on social media. make an effort to be in new environments - even if its another room in your house or backyard. examine what is or isn’t working in your routine. pick up a new hobby (if you’re more physically active, consider a hobby like writing or coding. if you’re more mentally active, consider a hobby like woodworking, bookbinding, or a sport). write stories, make art, and write analyses (if you haven’t tried original work - focus on that for a little while). try new music. try a new food. build something with legos. consume a new type of media even if you’re not sure you’ll like it (like graphic novels, radio plays, or watching ballet). take on a long term project and set aside time to work on it on a schedule (whether its every day, every few days, or specific days each week) 

human brain 

questions: do i feel loved? do i feel understood? am i existentially fulfilled? do i have a sense of purpose? do i have a sense of meaning? am i contributing to the lives of the people i care about and are they doing the same for me in return? 

solutions: reach out to friends and loved ones, and do activities together, like play a game online or walk in the park. talk to safe people about things that upset you, such as a trusted friend or a therapist, and find steps to improve your mental health. interrogate whether your religious beliefs are working for you, and if they are, make an effort to practice your faith, whether that is attending services (including digitally if they have them), reading and discussing your religious texts, or following holidays. read self help books or blogs from trusted professionals. read about philosophy and interrogate your own understanding of things. learn how to communicate your needs, thoughts, and desires to people who will listen. be active in your community (whether in community service, activism, or getting involved in local politics). adopt a rescue animal. give money to causes you care about. make an effort to learn about points of view and lived experiences that are different than your own. challenge assumptions about how you are expected to live your life and decide whether you want those things or not. express love for the people you care about - through kind words, good acts, crafts, or otherwise. if there are steps in your life you have been afraid of taking, make a plan to take them 

if you fulfill higher needs before lower needs, you will still feel bad. if you feel bad and don’t know why, start lower and work your way up. basic needs must be met before moving on healthily 

[jedthewolfdog]

upset and don’t know why? Appease the Brains

lizard brain

questions: do i have food, water, and safe shelter? 

solutions: drink more water. drink things with electrolytes. make and stick to a food schedule that works for you. clean your room. if you are in an unsafe situation, talk to someone trusted about creating a plan to get out 

toddler brain 

questions: have i had enough rest? am i been getting what i need to be healthy? am i cared for? am i frustrated? 

solutions: make sure you’re getting enough sleep on a schedule that works for you (people naturally sleep better at different times and need different amounts of sleep. if youre young you will need to sleep more than 7 or 8 hours). make sure you have varied nutrition in your diet. make sure your medications and supplements are working for you and take them on schedule. work on developing a support system that meets your needs. take breaks from things if you feel burned out, even if it’s only for a day 

monkey brain 

questions: have i had enrichment in my life? am i stuck in a rut? have i had socialization, entertainment, and creativity? has anything challenged me lately? 

solutions: limit your time on social media. make an effort to be in new environments - even if its another room in your house or backyard. examine what is or isn’t working in your routine. pick up a new hobby (if you’re more physically active, consider a hobby like writing or coding. if you’re more mentally active, consider a hobby like woodworking, bookbinding, or a sport). write stories, make art, and write analyses (if you haven’t tried original work - focus on that for a little while). try new music. try a new food. build something with legos. consume a new type of media even if you’re not sure you’ll like it (like graphic novels, radio plays, or watching ballet). take on a long term project and set aside time to work on it on a schedule (whether its every day, every few days, or specific days each week) 

human brain 

questions: do i feel loved? do i feel understood? am i existentially fulfilled? do i have a sense of purpose? do i have a sense of meaning? am i contributing to the lives of the people i care about and are they doing the same for me in return? 

solutions: reach out to friends and loved ones, and do activities together, like play a game online or walk in the park. talk to safe people about things that upset you, such as a trusted friend or a therapist, and find steps to improve your mental health. interrogate whether your religious beliefs are working for you, and if they are, make an effort to practice your faith, whether that is attending services (including digitally if they have them), reading and discussing your religious texts, or following holidays. read self help books or blogs from trusted professionals. read about philosophy and interrogate your own understanding of things. learn how to communicate your needs, thoughts, and desires to people who will listen. be active in your community (whether in community service, activism, or getting involved in local politics). adopt a rescue animal. give money to causes you care about. make an effort to learn about points of view and lived experiences that are different than your own. challenge assumptions about how you are expected to live your life and decide whether you want those things or not. express love for the people you care about - through kind words, good acts, crafts, or otherwise. if there are steps in your life you have been afraid of taking, make a plan to take them 

if you fulfill higher needs before lower needs, you will still feel bad. if you feel bad and don’t know why, start lower and work your way up. basic needs must be met before moving on healthily 

[delokami]

byler s4 outfit swap :) instagram liked this one lol