returned to this hellscape

late 20s, it/they

[guiltfactory]

you can lead a lamb away from slaughter but you can't make it stop feeling like a sacrifice

[magnetothemagnificent]

Yitzchak Avinu

[punished-venom-solitair-e]

oh fuck i just contracted an std from having sex with a mythical half-woman half-bird

[punished-venom-solitair-e]

genital harpies

[inbabylontheywept]

In the D&D campaign I'm running with my wife's siblings, one of them learned about how trolls regenerate within minutes of any damage not caused by fire or acid, and then asked why people don't just like. Cage them and eat them, forever. Why there aren't troll meat dungeons in the king's castle as a safeguard against sieges or famines.

And you know, I thought it was a fair question, so I said that if you eat enough troll meat, you start getting troll-y. And then I went further and just treated it like troll flesh is a general contaminant - if you eat enough troll, you'll turn into a troll, but if you bury enough dead troll flesh in a forest, the trees will start growing in strange ways, and will scream and heal and bleed when you hit them with axes.

I liked this idea. So as we played further, I just played around with the idea of Troll Origins, and I came up with something sort of like the Odyssey, but instead stealing Helios's cattle, it was Hathor's, and the horrible, awful, unending immortality was her curse of the army that pillaged her lands. A god of healing does not condemn you to die, she condemns you to live.

And then I got this fun idea for maybe the king that led the army is still kind of alive in the troll taint. Like a sort of literal fisher king. The kingdom is sick because he is, literally, the kingdom. The trees that bleed, bleed his blood and their screams are his screams. He is both the faintly green bear running down the mountain and the faintly green deer and there is no way past this without suffering. He is the entire ecosystem, and he eats nothing but himself and he dreams nothing but death and yet still, on and on and on and on, he lives.

Anyway they're traveling next session so I'm throwing this shit at them. I already have some gross ideas for like. Describing everything like it's a body (flowers red as blood, white as bone, pink as meat, grass fine as hair) then finally throwing horrible living things at them. Trees that grow eyeballs that turn and stare at them, or flowers with teeth instead of petals and trolls that speak in long dead tongues about how they wish they'd never tried to rob a god.

Anyway I'm passing this on because this is my new troll lore and I want it to become canonized in the way that all D&D lore becomes canonized: By having eople read it and go "oh, neat" then start doing that too.

[bioluminescent-fungus]

affirmations when opening a stuck jar:

I am stronger than the jar

⁠⁠I know what left and right are

⁠⁠smashing the jar will make a mess

⁠⁠I have strong and dextrous hands

⁠⁠I have opened jars before and I will open jars again

[shetheyslain]

Dahling you simply must read this book! It’s all about this devious little caterpillar who simply gorges himself on all manner of divine things

[we-are-sci-fi]

I can't get over how perfectly Grace was the answer to Rocky's every problem.

Stuck in space trying to solve a crisis without any progress? This guy has all the knowledge and equipment to make your perfect counterpart. Together you start to work on the problem and make progress at breakneck speed.

Feeling like a complete failure as an engineer when all the science equipment on your ship breaks down and you can't fix? Grace is amazed by everything you do, he calls you a genius and the best engineer he's ever known. Your work together constantly requires your engineering skills, and you keep succeeding. You are useful, needed, essential for the mission.

Alone for decades? You and the alien are now stuck in a tiny spaceship and you can 'see' him at all times. He even turns out to be fun company! And he thinks the same of you!

Feeling confused and guilty about being the only survivor of your crew? Grace explains what really happened and how there was nothing you could have done. And now you have the opportunity for redemption; the alien is going to die and you can save his life. He's so bad at taking care of himself, he doesn't even keep up with his bedtimes. You can fix that.

Nobody to watch you sleep? Not only the guy watches you, but he also lets you watch him sleep. You can always wake him up from sleep if there's any danger, you can always see his body working. You can fulfill your biological need to guard someone's sleep, but you don't need to worry if this one is ever going to wake up.

Stuck in a rut for decades, doing the same things over and over until you can't stop? Suddenly your world is full of sound, life, new and exciting things. Your mind is not just woken up, but working on overdrive. So many new things to learn and discover! Not only that, the alien creature thinks you are the most fascinating thing in the universe and wants to know everything about you.

And the cherry on top? When you discuss the meaning of names, you learn this fucker is called Grace. A mercy, favor, blessing from god, deliverance from suffering.

Seriously, if you didn't bring this creature back home, you would have been tempted to believe your traumatized mind just made him up. Grace a bit too perfect to be true.

[fuzzytheduck]

the thing about using Bce/Ce isn't that im pretending the calendar isn't based in Christianity, its that i dont want to literally participate in christianity every time i talk about the year. ill use the common calendar for the sake of convenience but im not saying ad because it isnt the year of my lord.

[decentluck13]

My marriage license came with AD pre-printed on it, and when my rabbi signed to officiate she crossed it out and relabeled it CE and I think that is so iconic of her

[natalieironside]

Next week people are going to start angrily asking me "Are you a squeedus or a colmfnart" and I'm gonna ask "What the fuck does that mean" and they're gonna say "Oh, one means AFAB and one means AMAB but we wanted to say it with different words" and I'll say "That does not seem like a nice question to ask strangers" and then they'll get very mad and say something about how of course a fucking squeedus would say that

[natalieironside]

Star Bellied Sneetch ass discourse

[natalieironside]

"Are u a FNAF or a FMAB" I am a taxpayer

[plasmalink]

Pronoun roles on discord servers aren't a bad idea, but there is the fun implication that you can ping an entire pronoun set.

Hey I got a problem with something, this is an all they/thems on deck situation

[enbyfication]

priest kink but midway through sex you find out he's one of those liberal protestant priests so it's like not even a big deal for him. and he just wanted to fuck you for normal reasons

[enbyfication]

and it didn't even symbolise anything when he sighed and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and put his clerical collar on the dresser by the side of the bed. his neck was just feeling a bit tight

[covington-shenanigans]

#I cannot imagine a more tragic disappointment. truly.#how heartbreaking to realize that you're fucking a protestant.

@notbecauseofvictories you get back here and say this with your whole chest

[drizzles-in-paradise]

I find it really disappointing that the incredibly basic statement "Pronouns don't equal gender and presentation doesn't equal gender and presentation doesn't equal pronouns" Was only an accepted and respected take in the broader queer community for about two years and now we've regressed so far that it's seen not just as silly but as borderline problematic to expect people to gender you correctly if you use he/him as a fem presenting person or she/her as a masc presenting person or neutral pronouns as a person who is not 100% perfectly androgynous. But you're not allowed to be androgynous either because apparently genderfuckery is actually harmful to binary trans people and if you don't conform to cis patriarchal standards you're just as bad as the oppressors enforcing them because you might make somebody a little uncomfortable... right.

[antigonehappy]

someone can be an abuser and a victim of abuse. someone can be an oppressor and oppressed themselves. discussing these issues like there's clear-cut lines of 'good guy' and 'bad guy' just adds onto a lack of awareness and understanding of when a boundary needs to be set or a system needs to be challenged.

[soberscientistlife]

Do Not Let HR do this to you. It is not illegal to talk about wages in the work place. I did and got a 12% raise!

[katsdom]

True info. Now let me add something: The power of documentation. (I was a long time steward in a nurses union.)

Remember: The "'E" in email stands for evidence.

That cuts both ways. Be careful what you put into an email. It never really goes away and can be used against you.

But can also be a powerful tool for workplace fairness.

Case 1: Your supervisor asks you to do something you know is either illegal or against company policy. A verbal request. If things go wrong, you can count on them denying that they ever told you to do that. You go back to your desk, or wherever and you send them an email: "I just want to make sure that I understood correctly that you want me to do xxxxx" Quite often, once they see it in writing, they will change their mind about having you do it. If not, you have documentation.

Case 2: You have a schedule you like, you've had that schedule for a while, it works for you. Your supervisor comes to you and says "We're really short-handed now and I need you to change your schedule just for a month until we can get someone else hired. It's just temporary and you can have your old schedule back after a month." A month goes by and they forget entirely that they made that promise to you. So, once again, when they make the initial request, you send them an email "I'm happy to help out temporarily, but just want to make sure I understand correctly that I will get my old schedule back after a month as you promised." Documentation.

[can-i-make-image-descriptions]

[Image ID: Text reading: In the middle of a busy clinic at our practice, I got pulled in by my manager to speak to HR, who must have made a special trip because she lives several states away, and told I was being 'investigated' for discussing wages with my other employees. She told me it was against company policy to discuss wages.

Me; That's illegal.

Them: (start italics) three slow, long seconds of staring at me blankly (end italics) Uh...

Me: That's an illegal policy to have. The right to discuss wages is a right protected by the National Labor Relations board. I used to be in a union. I know this.

HR: Oh, this is news to me! I have been working HR for 18 years and I never knew that. Haha. Well try not do do it anyway, it makes people upset, haha.

Me: people are entitled to their opinions about what their work is worth. Bye.

I then left, and sent her several texts and emails saying I would like a copy of their company policy to see where this wage discussion policy was kept. She quickly called me back in to her office.

HR: You know what, there is no policy like that in the handbook! I double check. Sorry about the confusion, my apologies.

Me: You still haven't given me the paper saying that we had this discussion. I am going to need some protection against retaliation.

HR: Oh haha yes here you go.

I just received a paper with legal letterhead and an apology saying there was no verbal warning or write up. Don't even take their shit you guys. Keep talking about wages. Know your worth. /End ID]

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

At one of my old (shit) jobs my boss would continually come have these verbal discussions with me and would never put anything in writing I took to summarizing every discussion we had in email. Like “just to confirm that you asked me to do X by Y date and you understand that means I won’t be able to complete the previous task you gave me until Z date - 2 weeks later than originally scheduled - because you want me to prioritize this new project.

The woman would then storm back into my office screaming at me for putting the discussion in writing and arguing about pushing back the other project or whatever. At which point I would summarize that conversation in email as well. Which would bring her storming back in, rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

Anyway I cannot imagine how badly that job would have gone if I hadn’t put all her wildly unreasonable demands in writing. Bitch still hated me but she could never hang me for “missing deadlines” because I always had in writing that she’d pushed the project back because she wanted something else done first.

Paper your asses babes. Do not let them get away with shit. If they won’t put what they’re asking you to do in writing then write it up yourself and email it to them.

[cockbiteindustries]

Does anyone have that one story of the lady who worked at a bank or something and management tried to can her, but she had evidence or something that ended up having her win a lawsuit? If I recall that story had both evidence, and the importance of employee communication as a co-worker tipped her off so she made sure she had an evidence papertrail

[jacobwren]

"But AI can't do your job. It can help you do your job, but that doesn't mean it's going to save anyone money. Take radiology: there's some evidence that AIs can sometimes identify solid-mass tumors that some radiologists miss, and look, I've got cancer. Thankfully, it's very treatable, but I've got an interest in radiology being as reliable and accurate as possible. If my Kaiser hospital bought some AI radiology tools and told its radiologists: "Hey folks, here's the deal. Today, you're processing about 100 x-rays per day. From now on, we're going to get an instantaneous second opinion from the AI, and if the AI thinks you've missed a tumor, we want you to go back and have another look, even if that means you're only processing 98 x-rays per day. That's fine, we just care about finding all those tumors." If that's what they said, I'd be delighted. But no one is investing hundreds of billions in AI companies because they think AI will make radiology more expensive, not even if that also makes radiology more accurate. The market's bet on AI is that an AI salesman will visit the CEO of Kaiser and make this pitch: "Look, you fire 9/10s of your radiologists, saving $20m/year, you give us $10m/year, and you net $10m/year, and the remaining radiologists' job will be to oversee the diagnoses the AI makes at superhuman speed, and somehow remain vigilant as they do so, despite the fact that the AI is usually right, except when it's catastrophically wrong. "And if the AI misses a tumor, this will be the human radiologist's fault, because they are the 'human in the loop.' It's their signature on the diagnosis." This is a reverse centaur, and it's a specific kind of reverse-centaur: it's what Dan Davies calls an "accountability sink." The radiologist's job isn't really to oversee the AI's work, it's to take the blame for the AI's mistakes. This is another key to understanding – and thus deflating – the AI bubble. The AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job. This is key because it helps us build the kinds of coalitions that will be successful in the fight against the AI bubble." - Cory Doctorow, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI

[minyard-05]

don't let being born a girl stop you from being the man your father never was

[fairycosmos]

TBH we give tumblr a lot of shit rightfully so but tags is such a good feature like i need to say this. under my breath. but i need to say it. and youll listen. youll fucking love it even

[storyweavingspider]

Heartwarming! Man pissing on subway stairs genders you correctly, mortified he was doing that in front of a woman

[storyweavingspider]

He was doing it while on the phone and said “so long as there ain’t a woman around it’s fine” then turned around, saw me, and went “oh shit!” And started apologizing

[yeahcanigetuhhhhh]