LadyTe's Story Stash

Call me Te | 30 | LGBTQ+ | Jewish (but NEVER pro-Netanyahu/IOF/Settlers) | NOT IN MY NAME | icon by @cinnabowlii2 | Saringold on Ao3

[saringold]

I firmly believe that Jews should have a homeland, should have a country of their own, but I'm not sure that the current country of Israel can continue in the state that it's in. It teaches its children to distrust outsiders and that its neighbors are the enemy. There have been documented examples of antisemitism from various Western and Middle Eastern groups, to be sure, and terrorists' actions against Israel need to be defended against and dealt with in a reasonable fashion. However, just to be clear, much of what Israel is and has been doing doesn't qualify. Even though what Hamas has done has also been absolutely horrific in terms of the severity of their actions, Israel has caused so much more overall damage and death. How can your children live like this? It's another neverending cycle of pain and fear and hatred.

I'm a Jew from the U.S. who went to Israel on Birthright when I was 18. I remember going to Israel and being shocked at how vitriolic the soldiers accompanying us (a batch of new conscripts + a trained soldier) were toward non-Israelis, and how much they tried to convince us to see their side. Opposition was quickly shut down. It was incredibly uncomfortable and I felt a strong disconnect between myself and the Israelis. In my Reform Jewish temple, we try to have meals with our Muslim neighbors. We try to understand each other. We try to form bonds. To go to a place where the exact opposite seemed to be commonplace felt incredibly alienating.

The modern-day state of Israel was built on a native people returning to their homeland (and there is plenty of historical evidence to prove it), but in doing so, immense harm was caused to the people who had built lives there in the interim. Israel is not a settler-colonial state by any means, but its founders did resort to conquest as their means of obtaining that land after the people who controlled that land refused to give any of it up during initial negotiations. Yes, we were victims before to these peoples. Yes, Jews lost their ancestral homeland and scattered across the world. However, in the modern day, the Israeli government and IOF have become the aggressors. The cycle has begun again. And frankly, cozying up to Western powers that only see Israel as a source of benefits or as a religious vehicle for the Endtimes, as well as supplying other countries with weapons to do appalling things... is that really the change that Israel wants to be in the world? Is that what a country that supposedly represents Jews should look like?

I don't want Israel to stop existing. I believe that Jews deserve and should have a country of their own, and if possible, a country on land that once was ours (and again, there's plenty of documentation to prove it). However, I also don't think it's right that Israel's founders became West-sanctioned conquerors to do it, not to mention teaching their children to hate and distrust, and the consquences of those choices are reverberating even now. Between their initial propping up of Hamas and their other actions, Israel's past is coming back to haunt it. The monkey's paw has curled.

I will never support a government that claims to act for me and yet perpetuates horrors like this. NOT IN MY NAME.

I don't know what's next for Israel. But unless the cycle ends, unless Israel's children are able to work toward making peace with those whom they've hurt and make themselves and their country more upstanding players on the world stage, unless Israel defeats those who would harm it by means other than bombing everything, Israel will soon find that it has no friends, and a country without friends, historically, does not stand for long.

[karcatgirl-vantas]

the default way for things to taste is good. we know this because "tasty" means something tastes good. conversely, from the words "smelly" and "noisy" we can conclude that the default way for things to smell and sound is bad. interestingly there are no corresponding adjectives for the senses of sight and touch. the inescapable conclusion is that the most ordinary object possible is invisible and intangible, produces a hideous cacophony, smells terrible, but tastes delicious. and yet this description matches no object or phenomenon known to science or human experience. so what the fuck

[skluug]

this is what ancient greek philosophy is like

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

False! “Sightly” is a positive word, so the default way for things to work is good as well.

The true most ordinary object is beautiful, horrible sounding, very smelly, intangible, and delicious.

I still don’t think it matches anything in existence but to truly understand a thing one must know its true nature.

[professionalchaoticdumbass]

"touchy" is also a word! however it's mostly used for things that aren't objects, like subjects of conversation. it either means "oversensitive and irritable" or "requires careful handling/wording, delicate"

i think the second one works well for our hypothetical object. so we can use that.

therefore, the Default Object is:

beautiful

makes a horrendous sound

smells absolutely awful

is very fragile

tastes delicious

and i still cannot think of anything that matches this

[and-a-pidgey-in-a-wepear-tree]

behold, the default object!

[ernmark]

Just learned about garden path sentences.

They’re basically a literary prank– the sentence starts out in such a way that you think you know where it’s going, but the way it ends completely changes the meaning while still being a complete and logical sentence. Usually it deals with double meanings, or with words that can be multiple parts of speech, like nouns and verbs or nouns and adjectives.

So we get gems like

The old man the boat. (The old people are manning the boat)

The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families. (The apartment complex is home to both married and single soldiers, plus their families)

The prime number few. (People who are excellent are few in number.)

The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississipi. (The cotton that clothing is made of)

The man who hunts ducks out on weekends. (As in he ducks out of his responsibilities)

We painted the wall with cracks. (The cracked wall is the one that was pained.)

[rhyselinn]

In Defense of Toby Fox’s Halloween Hack

Twitter is all in a tizzy about the Halloween Hack as of late. The apparent reason for this is because the Halloween Hack uses a word commonly used as a homophobic slur, not taking into account that the hack was created in 2008 (when the internet was a different place) and that 2008 was 14+ years ago (and people are known to grow and change over this time). There appears to be some amount of discussion over whether Toby Fox should be “cancelled” for this.

I’ve seen a fair bit of banter from both sides on this, but what I haven’t seen people on the internet talk about is the CONTEXT of the game in which this word is used. And while I don’t spend a lot of time talking about HH due to Toby’s stated embarrassment when people draw attention to it, if the internet’s gonna go dig up old drama for some reason, then by golly, I’m going to go dig up my old love for this game.

So if you want to come take a wild ride through some internet history and literary analysis, then go buckle your seatbelt and click the Readmore.

(content warning: discussion of homophobic slurs)

Keep reading

[ebookporn]

• An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.

• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

• A question mark walks into a bar?

• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."

• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

• A synonym strolls into a tavern.

• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• A dyslexic walks into a bra.

• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony

- Jill Thomas Doyle

[wickedsnack]

so as long as tumblr keeps this, here's the tumblr version of etiquette that was maintained when twitter's quote-retweets affected artist visibility/notes:

for art that someone has added reblog commentary to (or removed the caption from), reblog from the source

otherwise, avoid adding reblog comments to art (as this will affect the artist's notes/visibility)—utilize tags and replies to provide commentary (which artists will absolutely appreciate)

reblog comments are comments added to the body of a post, not the tags and not replies.

[chestharrington]

PSA: For fan works, reblog and like from OP

Tumblr is rolling out a new reblog/notes system that completely disregards creators. In their new system, they're taking a twitter-style approach where reblogs will have their own notes that DO NOT contribute to the original post's notes.

Because of this, creators will no longer be able to see an accurate display of likes/reblogs/etc. This is completely altering the way feedback and responses to works are going to be received on this website.

If you come across a fan work that you enjoy, please take the extra step to go to OPs original post, and leave your comment/like/reblog there. Or go one step further and send an ask to OP directly to tell them what you liked!

I really hope Tumblr staff reverses course and reverts to the original reblog system for the sake of the large base of creators who use this site to share their works, but until then, please be considerate and make sure the creators here see/feel the love.

[this-machine-k1lls-fascists-dea]

Really happy to see this at my local library

[oracleanne]

OOOOH. *happy YA librarian dance*

[thessalian]

I want this in every library, everywhere. After all, some kids won’t even google this stuff because they don’t want parents/siblings checking their browser history.

[adventurer-c]

This is really awesome. And if you’re not familiar with how the Dewey Decimal system works - the numbers subject-based, which means these numbers are applicable in EVERY library. So if you see something you want to research on this list - look for those same numbers in any of your local libraries.

[jkfngkjwnfgkfnkslf-deactivated2]

This is wonderful.

[the-woman-of-belgravia]

Reblogging to possibly save a life

[savedfromsalvation]

Relogging for “Dewey Decimal System!” Laz, the English Major!

[parsley-the-crow]

@deweydecimal-system

[lloras]

exactly

[damnselfly]

it also doesn't mean "everything is happy and easy between us all the time" or "none of us can have sex with each other"

[saringold]

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS OH GOD THIS

[regulus-leonis]

AO3 👏 TAGS 👏 ARE 👏 NOT 👏 SPOILERS 👏

i’m so tired of authors not tagging correctly because they don’t want to “spoil the fic”

correctly tagging your fic allows readers who DON’T want to read things like major character death, gore, mpreg or whatever may be their squick to filter your fic out from the main ship/fandom tag. not including the correct tags on your fic is harmful to readers and i’m tired of pretending it’s not.

“don’t like don’t read” great! i won’t! tag your fic correctly next time ffs

[missfangirll]

if you fear a tag will ruin the plot or reveal a twist write that in the notes at the beginning and a detailed warning in the end notes!

[starfieldcanvas]

Ao3's tag system is a great tool that helps sensitive readers take more educated risks, but if we're jumping all the way to 'if you don't tag my squick then you are HARMING me' then we've gone waaay too far.

(If OP had just been talking about failing to follow Ao3's rules around the major warnings that would be one thing, but they also threw in 'mpreg or whatever may be their squick' so now it's rant time.)

I do think warning your readers about major common squicks outside the archive warnings is a great impulse! I do it myself! And yet it's also true that literally anything can be a squick or trigger. A potential trigger may seem obvious to you while being totally unnoticeable to the author, and vice versa. Maybe you remembered to tag mpreg, but did you tag for needles? Vomiting? Menstruation? Blood? Doctor's offices? Drug use (because the character takes tylenol one time)? Car crashes? Underage drinking (that isn't considered underage in your country of residence or the time period in which your story is set)? Fatphobia? Character skipping meals? Racial slurs (against Vulcans)? Child endangerment? These are all things that might be reasonably expected to squick or trigger readers because they bring to mind real-world awfulness. I see all of these used as content tags sometimes, but waaaaay less than they 'should' be if authors were truly obligated to protect us from being squicked. And that's not even getting into common narrative or sexual squicks that might be a huge deal to some (unprotected sex, unlubed anal sex, rimming, ass to mouth, breeding kink, daddy kink, undernegotiated D/S, etc) but are so entirely within the realm of normal for others it would never occur to them to tag.

I certainly encourage authors to use tags to help readers find what they're looking for and avoid what they don't want, but enthusiasm for Ao3's tagging system can go too far, wherein readers with specific squicks or triggers begin to hold authors more accountable than they hold themselves. Tagging literally everything is impossible, and there is no fandom consensus on what has to be tagged other than the standard archive warnings.

Creating a new fandom consensus on what MUST be tagged beyond the existing consensus of rape, under-18 sex, graphic violence, and major character death would be incredibly fraught. Standardizing a warning is a powerful normative act, one that can easily inflate existing personal feelings into harsher moral judgments. "We all agree this topic is so upsetting it MUST be warned for" is one step down from declaring a topic entirely taboo. And that has consequences. Victims of rape and child abuse talk about how psychologically damaging it can be to have to cordon off a major part of your own life experiences lest they discomfort others; it can easily feel like you yourself are being declared a blight rather than the harm that was done to you.

Awareness of this impact is why I confess I do find it concerning that the untagged sqicks people get most vocal about tend to involve deviation from sex and gender norms. I understand that pregnancy is a horrifying threat to many fanfic readers and that a lot of us have deep discomfort with our sexual traits, which can naturally lead to us only being able to enjoy a narrower slice of available fictional content, but I never see anybody up in arms about undeniably negative shit like untagged car crashes the way I see some people up in arms about having to occasionally encounter neutral things like untagged mpreg or omegaverse or gender-atypical genitalia.

This is always especially unnerving to me when the offending topic is something that is both inherently morally neutral and entirely possible to encounter among real-life strangers in a positive context. Sure, getting hit with a wave of gender dysphoria when you're trying to read erotica is a bad time, and it's entirely logical to want to select your erotica according to your own genital preferences, but the level of moral outrage people occasionally exhibit when they encounter unexpected genital configurations in erotic fanfic tends to be, uh, pretty unmistakably hostile towards trans bodies, even when it's coming from trans people. Like, okay, say mpreg is a trigger for you because you associate it with threats of corrective rape and you don't want to read about it in your escapist fanfic—fair enough. Do you also ask real pregnant trans men in real life to put content warnings on their happy selfies of themselves just existing? Do you get why that would be fucked up? Do you get how it would be extra fucked up to make that request mandatory at an institutional level? Especially if cis pregnancy didn't require any warnings?

Then there's the structural question.

Ao3 content tags were designed to be used positively—the 'exclude' feature did not exist at launch—and as such there was an implied expectation that if you tagged your story as x, you were putting the tag there for people who might want to filter FOR stories with x. That meant a very brief mention of x occurring offscreen wouldn't merit an x tag; nobody came to a fic tagged Arranged Marriage expecting to hear about the main character's cousin having an arranged marriage.

The recent push to use content tags as warnings has led to aggressive overtagging of minor mentions of x, making the x tag less and less useful as a positive filter. This is somewhat mitigated by people using 'minor x' or 'x mention' instead of clogging the 'x' tag (shoutout to people putting background ships in the content tags instead of the ship tags!) which I appreciate. However, this points to a fundamental tension in the practical use of Ao3 tags now that we do have the 'exclude' feature.

If the point is to help readers avoid things, authors will tag very differently than if the point is to help readers find things they might like. And the original structural design of content tags was to help readers find things they might like. Ao3 is firstly for authors to archive their fics and secondarily to help readers find those fics. Only thirdly is it optimized to help readers NOT find fics.

Talking like the 'correct' use of Ao3 tags is to optimize exclusion means you've got your understanding of Ao3 tags backwards.

tl;dr:

there is no standardized list of minor archive warnings; squicks/triggers are so varied it would be impossible to mandate warning for all of them

mandating warnings for x inherently imposes a structural & cultural penalty against x content

ao3 is structured to favor positive content tags (help readers find) over warning tags (help readers avoid)

Authors can be expected to tag the stuff they personally find most relevant about their fic, in much the same way a book in the library has a few major keywords attached. More granular content warnings are a bonus. If you as a reader are highly sensitive to encountering a type of content that falls outside of the major archive warnings, you have to take responsibility for that yourself; it will never be reasonable to 100% conclude that a given fic lacks your squick just because your squick isn't tagged. Unless somebody is blatantly lying about archive warnings or actively mis-tagging, they are not tagging their fic 'incorrectly.'

It's great to encourage people to tag more comprehensively! Explaining why certain tags are of interest to readers would be a good start, or perhaps explaining how to maximize the use of filterable tags that work as both positive and negative simultaneously. But OP's post is neither helpful nor accurate.

[lgbtranswoman]

Ice cold takes from a Transgender Woman:

Men are not inherently Evil

Everyone has the capacity for evil

Transgender Men are men

Transgender Women are women

Excluding Cisgender Men from your spaces requires Transgender Men to out themselves if they want to engage (Same for Women)

Anyone can be Non-Binary, there is no "look" or requirement

Non-binary masculine presenting people should be welcome in queer spaces, many are just treated as men and predators

Non-binary feminine presenting people should be welcome in queer spaces without being seen as "Woman-Lite"

Edited the wording on the first point because too many terfs keep thinking I'm their friend.

[lgbtranswoman]

This post has given me 80k notes and a blocklist longer than my follower+following count.

Happy 80k to what should be basic common sense/knowledge but is instead divisive because people are either transphobic, hate men, or both.

[bff0f7]

so can we start hunting down white liberals now or what

[adamtheredbeard]

The full picture is even more heart breaking after you open the uncropped version. Just a heads-up, it's rough

“The Roman Catholic Parish in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was just grafitted.”

[afronerdism]

Nah let’s post it. Let’s feel it. Don’t look away.

[doobiebenson]

[butch-bakugo]

I notice alot of my followers on here skipping these posts just to mess with my lgbt ones, suspiciously the white popular ones.

Heres a not so friendly reminder, as an lgbt metis person, i dont give a single fuck what your blog is themed or if this is too painful for you to look at. Reblog this post. Reblog this post with the sources of the 751 children who were found.

Your compliance and silence as well as the compliance and silence of your ancestors is what allowed these schools to open and kill first nations children. The children of MY people.

Dont follow me if you cant reblog this post or the one with sources to your political blog or your most popular blog. Add trigger warnings if you must but if your political blog is only focused on the harms you personally face like being lgbt then you need to see some bigger pictures and stop being afraid of angering your racist mutural or actually saying some shit about racism. If you can reblog some antifa graphics or add blm to your bio to be a surface level ally, you can reblog some sources on the genocide first nations people faced and still face today.

They were CHILDREN.

They were murdered in cold blood.

[churchoftheconfusedchicken]

I’d like to add this photo I took last night in Victoria of the statue of Captain Cook. Though I myself am not indigenous, I 100% agree that these murderers, kidnappers and rapists shouldn’t have huge statues and plaques that decorate them and say how “great” they were.

Here’s another photo of the legislative assembly from yesterday. Later on there were more items, candles and signs at the memorial, as well as a big poster with 1505 painted on it but I didn’t get a picture

People need to see this. Not just quickly glance at the photos and keep on scrolling. They need to see this.

Reblog this or just stop following me

[ifiknewiwouldtellyou]

I had seen the first picture of the church, but not the second.

I went to a “Cancel Canada Day” event and burst into tears - not because I was surprised to learn of the unmarked graves (survivors told us they were there. Our government pushed it aside, and we let them), but because seeing all the people gathered in mourning drove it home: They. Were. Children.

This is my country’s legacy - and it’s not history. The last schools closed during my lifetime. My Father went to school with students who lived at the local residential school, after it was changed to a boarding house (read: holding centre) for indigenous youth who went to local schools.

They were all children, injured, abused, and killed in my country’s attempt to erase them. I want the world to see this and hold the state accountable to *active* reconciliation> I mean we could at least truly adopt UNDRIP in action instead of words for god’s sake.

[gayvampyr]

here you can read an article about a survivor of the church and some of the things he experienced to help put into perspective how awful and just how recent it was

[nothingweirdhere]

this is the memorial at the vancouver art gallery. 215+ pairs of children’s shoes (as well as stuffed toys and flowers) cover the steps…

[saringold]

"Never again" is a popular saying re: the Holocaust, but it's something we should say in the face of every human rights violation and every massacre and erasure of people. It is not your duty to take on the full sum of responsibility for their suffering, but it IS our duty to know it exists, acknowledge it, lessen harm how we can, and support local groups if possible.

[lilnasxvevo]

the other day, my dad was driving and i was in the passenger seat and we were talking about, i think poetry, and we were talking about war poets and poets we like whose names we always forget, and john gillespie magee, jr. fits into both those categories for my dad

and he said “oh, what’s that one poem–does it start, something about ‘to break the bonds of earth?’ can you look that one up for me?”

“found it, i think. ‘high flight,’ john gillespie magee jr.?”

“yes! that’s it. i haven’t read that in a long time. could you read it to me?”

so i started to read it and about halfway through i started getting choked up and i knew i wasn’t going to be able to finish reading, but i managed to read all the way up through “the high untrespassed sanctity of space” before i physically couldn’t keep reading. 

it’s one of the most beautiful poems i’ve ever read, and that’s one of the reasons why i got choked up (read it out loud and see if the alliteration doesn’t get to you), but i think really the main reason was that i knew that john gillespie magee, jr., was a pilot in the royal canadian air force who was killed in world war ii when he was only 19 years old. nineteen. i am currently almost two years older than he will ever be. imagine being a freshman or sophomore in college who can write like this. imagine being that young and already having a soul this beautiful.

maybe it’s dumb, but my dad says that this poem is one of the best arguments against war he’s ever seen, all by itself. 

[thedreadpiratejames]

I had heard lines from that poem before, but never knew the story of the writer. I just looked him up and found that he wrote many other poems, including this one that he seemed to still be working on when he died.

A less well-know poem by Magee is Per Ardua, written after his first combat mission, 8 November 1941.

(To those who gave their lives to England during the Battle of Britain and left such a shining example for us to follow, these lines are dedicated.)

They must have climbed the white mists of the morning; They that have soared, before the world’s awake, To herald up their foemen to them, scorning The thin dawn’s rest their weary folk might take;

Some that left other mouths to tell the story Of high blue battle,—quite young limbs that bled; How they had thundered up the clouds to glory Or fallen to an English field stained red;

Because my faltering feet would fail I find them Laughing beside me, steadying the hand That seeks their deadly courage—yet behind them The cold light dies in that once brilliant land …

Do these, who help the quickened pulse run slowly, Whose stern remembered image cools the brow— To the far dawn of Victory know only Night’s darkness, and Valhalla’s silence now?

[teaboot]

Wait what's a buildings fire evacuation plan if you aren't supposed to use the elevator to get down

[lazodiac]

You go down the stairwell/fire escape. Is that weird?

[teaboot]

But what if you have a walker or a wheelchair??

[durpacerangerrogjro]

in america at least, in this situation, there isnt one. either your loved ones or the firemen can get you out using the emergency fire escapes or stairs, or you die 

[teaboot]

That's fucking horrific, thank you

[official-lucifers-child]

“fun” little story:

last summer my friend who is an amazingly talented artist and i were in this super tall building, and she’s in a wheelchair and i’m pushing her around the room. it’s an art exhibit and some of her art was chosen to be showcased there and so it’s all fine and dandy until suddenly an alarm starts going off

a FIRE ALARM

everyone starts running for the stairs and my friend just looks at me with this forlorn look on her face

“i can’t go down the stairs”

but i’m a stubborn bitch “i’ll carry you”

“what about my chair? it’s too expensive for me to be able to get another one if i can’t get this one back”

“i’ll carry that too”

and i did. we went to the stairs (by then most people from our floor were gone) and i lifted her up in a fireman’s carry over my shoulder and then lifted her chair up and used the ridiculous amount of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins to make it down approximately 20 half-flights of stairs until we met some people exiting lower floors, one of which who kindly took the chair. I changed positions so i was holding my friend bridal-style which was, somehow, easier and the person who took her wheelchair (with her permission to handle it of course) accompanied me to the ground floor and then out the doors

basically there is no real protocol for people who can’t use the stairs in an emergency. it’s up to the people with them, if anyone, to help them or the person to somehow make it down the stairs alone, unassisted

thank fuck that it was just a faulty alarm system, because if i was unable to carry her down those stairs and the building was on fucking fire???? then i don’t know what would have happened to her, but i don’t think it would have been very good.

it’s fucking ridiculous and ableist to the absolute max.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

I use a cane. When I did a day-long fire safety training at my northeast American university (UMass Amherst), I asked that exact same question: “what am I supposed to do if the fire alarm goes off and I’m in my lab on the twelfth floor?” 

the fire marshal hemmed and hawed for a while and then said to take the elevator- you’re supposed to leave it free for the fire department to use and they want able-bodied people out fast not waiting for elevators. if the fire alarm has just gone off the building probably hasn’t suffered enough structural damage to make using the elevator dangerous, and modern elevator wells are heavily reinforced. many large and high-trafficked buildings on my campus have fire rated elevators that link in with the fire alarm system so they won’t let you off on a floor with a possible fire. 

if the elevator isn’t working, wait in the stairwell and call the fire department to let them know where you are. modern stairwells are also heavily reinforced- it might not be pleasant but modern building code usually requires fire-resistant stairwell doors in office and big residential buildings, also to help firefighters get in and out safely. older buildings’ stairwells may or may not be retrofitted with fire-resistant doors but a stairwell is generally the safest place to wait if you can’t get out. 

what happened to your friend was horrible, and i’m very glad you were there to help her out, but you can absolutely use the elevator to evacuate if it’s not shut down. those don’t-use-the-elevator rules are for abled people.  

[tisfan]

This is GOOD TO KNOW. why do they not tell people this??

[ravynfyre]

Okay, firefighter here. If you are not physically able to use the stairs, and the elevator is NOT compromised, use the elevator. But you MUST be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the elevator is NOT compromised before you get into it, because there is always the chance that once you get into it, you may not exit it. Power could go out. The elevator may actually BE compromised and you just couldn’t tell from where you were until you were in there, and it suddenly shuts down on you. Something else could happen. 

Understand that once you enter the elevator, you could POTENTIALLY be taking your life into your hands there.

It is NOT LIKELY, to be perfectly honest. It’s only in a pretty catastrophic scenario - think the Twin Towers, USA, on September 11th - that the elevators will be compromised and out of service. But there is a NOT ZERO PERCENT CHANCE and you need to understand that and accept it.

As for leaving the elevators free for the firefighters, okay, here’s the deal. Unless your nearest fire station is literally right next door? Your first on scene fire truck is NOT likely to be there on scene and needing that elevator before you get to the ground. It takes us TIME to find the address, gear up, and drive to the building. Then we need to hoof it into where the elevators even ARE, so YOU HAVE TIME to use the elevator to get down to the ground floor... BUT ONLY IF THERE’S NOT A RUSH ON THE ELEVATOR! And THAT is WHY we don’t tell people this shit. That’s WHY we tell people to NEVER USE THE ELEVATOR... because every self-entitled asshole will use it because they don’t feel like walking, and then put YOU in danger by delaying the elevator’s arrival to you.

IF, however, the elevator IS compromised, or you just can’t get it to come for you, or whatever, and you either don’t have anyone with you who has the adrenaline fueled BALLS to be able to toss you over their shoulder and hoof it down the stairs with you - because, let’s face it, that is RARE AS FUCK, then HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:

You call 911 and tell the call taker that you are in the building that has a fire alarm going off, and you are not able to evacuate because of a physical disability, and you tell them what floor you are on, and EXACTLY what stairwell you are waiting at. And the very FIRST thing that the firefighters are going to do once they arrive, if it is, indeed, a REAL emergency, and not a false alarm, is come get your ass and bring you down. Whether that means carrying you down the stairs, or whether that means locking out the elevators so that no one else can override them and coming to get you themselves, they WILL come get you FIRST THING if it is a real event. And if it is a false alarm? You will probably be the first person who is not involved with the building to know, because the call-taker is going to stay on the line with you until you are under someone’s care and out of danger, or until the scene has been sorted out as real or false, and you are out of danger that way.

These are pretty standard operations in the fire service throughout the United States. There may be some minor variations based on specific municipalities, but, for the most part, this is pretty typical: LIFE BEFORE PROPERTY. So, as long as SOMEONE knows where you are - hence why you call 911 - Firefighters will come get you. You are NOT alone, and you have NOT been abandoned. I PROMISE. It’s like, our whole reason for doing the shit we do: to save lives and to break shit. Sometimes, we get lucky enough to do both at the same time.

High rise fires suck ass, and I always hated them. But the very FIRST thing I asked anytime we got one was if we had “any entrapments” - which is what we call anyone who could not self-evacuate for ANY reason. We ain’t leaving you behind. And yes, your friend who doesn’t have the stamina to carry you down can stay with you, too. Because I would never ask that of someone, honestly. 

Also, just a little FYI... MOST fire alarms are false alarms. Not to make anyone complacent or anything, but, yeah. Most of them are either system malfunctions, someone accidentally hit a pull station, or someone burned popcorn in a break room. So don’t let a fire alarm freak you out until you need it to - by smelling or seeing smoke or flames. 

[gentle--riot]

i have had multiple nightmares about this very thing because NOBODY BOTHERS TO ACTUALLY TELL WHEELCHAIR USERS THIS STUFF

[downwiththebad]

I am loving these additions!

If you're disabled, this is worth the time and focusing energy to read through!!!

[possessionisamyth]

If you live in the USA and you're pleading for donations to pay your rent, bills, or get food then dial 211! Please dial 211 before the last minute!

It's a toll free service with people who will help you find programs in your community to pay those bills, find food, and find housing! They will give you numbers to call so you can get help.

It is not 100% foolproof. Their job is to direct you to a program they believe will help your current issue, but it's still a step up from praying random strangers online will give you enough cash before a deadline! The added benefit of these community programs, which get funded by the local government most of the time, is if there are more people using them then they can get more money to help more people.

You're not taking resources from other people if you use your community services. Your taxes pay for them. Use them.

Dial 211 first to see if they can help, and if for some reason they can't, then make your donation posts!

https://www.211.org/

[dcmcboxers]

Hi I work for my state's 211 service. It really breaks my heart how many people only know to call us at the last minute. 211's can provide a whole wealth of resources to use before things ever get to a cut off utility, eviction, or homelessness!

I can't speak for all 211's but most should also have a website detailing all the agencies in their database. if you don't like phone calls, this can be something to reference instead.

If you don't have health insurance but you need to see a doctor, reference 211! We list clinics that provide free or discounted general care, vision, and dental services to low income households and people without insurance! Many hospitals also have financial aid policies that can severely reduce your bill if you had an expensive procedure!

If you're stuck in a dead end job or need educational resources reference 211! There are a lot of programs focused on providing basic adult education as well as trade skills or other high demand fields! State governments are generally more interested in funneling people into work than providing benefits, but you can still use this to your advantage especially if you have some form of disability but are still able to work. That includes if you're neurodiverse or have mental health issues! Most of these programs are extremely underutilized.

If you believe you qualify for public benefits but the bureaucracy of the process is in your way, reference 211! There are agencies specifically geared towards helping people obtain the benefits they qualify for- for free!

If you need help with your taxes-

If you need help finding a pro bono lawyer-

If you need help finding affordable housing/section 8 housing-

If you need help finding food pantries-

If you need help paying for your prescriptions-

If you need help obtaining disability aids or assistive technology-

If you need help finding transportation options-

If you need help following a natural or personal disaster (like a home fire)-

If you need help repairing a home you or your family owns or it needs modifications to be accessible-

If you need Queer resources-

Reference your 211!!!!!

I had no idea what 211 was before working for it but I wish I had. I've learned so much about what resources are actually available to the community even in a ho hum area of the country like my state. I've saved my partner literally thousands of dollars just from the medical resources I've gathered.

Not enough young people know about or utilize these services but they are there for you!

P. S.

This isn't an intended use of 211, but I like to reference the agency listings when I look for jobs. Many of the agencies listed are non-profits which, while they certainly are not perfect, generally have lower barriers of entry to decent paying jobs with benefits. The work environments tend to be much kinder and at least pretend to be forward thinking. You're more likely to find jobs without as many people applying as well, especially if they're only advertising their positions through their own website.

[sameenbyhat]

Homepage

Get help paying bills, finding food, and locating other resources near you. Call 211 now for confidential help from a caring expert.

[brosser-les-dents]

Oh my goodness. Sharing this because maybe your state has something to help you see a dentist! If it's been a while, please see I'd you have any dental services in your area. It's really so important to see a dentist.

[taylor-titmouse]

i wrote this post over on bluesky today and, after receiving a few of the predictable "but what if i Want to write badly" responses you get to any opinion that can be taken as prescriptivist writing advice, i thought i'd talk more about what i'm getting at.

basically, it's an issue of suspension of disbelief. there are a lot of things in fantasy and historical writing that we're willing to look past. dragons, potatoes, the divine right of kings. we are able to suspend our disbelief that a monarch could be anything but a despicable tyrant if the story we're being told is convincing enough, or plays to our comforting worldviews about nobility and Great Man theory. we can also suspend it if we straight up didn't know that europe didn't have potatoes pre-columbian exchange. basically--it means it doesn't bother you that these elements aren't perfectly realistic. fiction is not required to be realistic. clue's in the name.

but there are some things we just can't ignore. some things hit us as out of place for the setting we've been presented, or the world as we understand it. it pulls us out of the story by reminding us, in that moment, that we are reading a constructed narrative made of a series of choices by an author. and for whatever reason, they made a Wrong choice, like plucking the wrong guitar string.

bdsm safety protocols are the classic example, since a majority of people that encounter this sort of thing often enough to identify it online are reading fanfic and romance. things like a red light/green light system appearing in a chinese fantasy world where cars have not been invented, or cowboys intuiting the concept of a safeword while having spit-lubed anal sex in the desert. absurdisms that break suspension of disbelief, because who is teaching these cowboys the principles of consent. nobody.

now, we've beaten the dead horse of 'don't write like you're afraid of a callout post' a million times when it comes to including bdsm best practices in writing. you are allowed to write whatever you want forever, and if what you want to write is perfectly safe, negotiated sex between two adults who would have never received sexual education and probably thought a woman's uterus wandered in the body depending on the temperature, you are free to do that. i'll think your writing is bad, but you don't have to care what i think. you don't have to care about the people who'd get upset at cowboys doing unnegotiated "lasso tricks" either.

anyway, i'm getting off track. the actual point of the post above was that i see this same kind of thing with modern terminology for queer concepts in completely incongruous settings, and it pulls me out just as bad as any cowboy therapyspeak. i simply do not believe the local dirt farmer who binds his chest and changed his name from helen to troy would call himself "trans". i do not believe the wizard who has no time or interest in sex would call himself "asexual". and 1800s english dandies would not be calling themselves "gay" unless they were in a holiday mood.

that doesn't mean they couldn't understand those concepts, but it's not the language they would use to express them, because they would not have it. you see this with discussion of actual literal history--we technically cannot call historical figures "gay" or "transgender" with 100% confidence, even when their behavior lined up very closely with our modern idea of those concepts, because those people did not have our modern idea of those concepts. would they have identified that way, if a time traveler taught it to them? possibly! but we can't know that. they might like "transsexual" better, even if it's no longer in vogue.

and much like nobody is teaching cowboys the concept of aftercare, nobody is teaching our dirt farmer troy the word "trans", which is itself a shortening of several words that have come in and out of fashion as recently as the last century. troy would be calling himself something else, if he even has a word for what he is.

and that's where you, the author, have a Choice. there's plenty of reasons to default to the modern term--you're writing for a modern audience, you want to be clear about your representation, you're afraid of getting yelled at for getting something wrong--but i think it's the wrong move in any serious writing. because what you're losing by doing that is an opportunity to get creative and actually say something with the character, rather than tick a box.

troy might describe himself as a man trapped in a woman's body, because that is how he experiences it, and that experience informs his character. or he might think of himself as a man who just has breasts, because he's always been a man and has been treated as a man, and he's never had to examine it. or he might call himself a "rock", because he lives with dwarves and that's the dwarven word for masculine-presenting.

or he can just say he's "trans", and you don't explore what it means to the character in the world he lives in, while also implying somebody sat this boy down on a stump in the dirt fields and said the word "transgender" to him, and then said it often enough he shortened it to "trans". while living on his dirt farm. where he would never have seen a pineapple.

i am more interested in a troy who doesn't have a perfectly modern understanding of what he is and what he wants, because that's where a story lives. i don't read to see my understanding of things perfectly mirrored back to me, i read to experience something different. i want to read about the guy who calls himself a slur because it's the only language for himself he has, and what that means to him. i want to read about the guy who never calls himself a man, but understands implicitly that he's something different. i want to read about messy, complicated people who don't know shit from fuck. it'll absorb me a hell of a lot more.

anyway.

this is all opinion and i am just one guy so you're allowed to disagree with me. i just won't be interested in your work if you do. and that's only a loss if you make it one.

[elumish]

I think one of the really interesting ways to differentiate your characters is to play with their motivations and their approaches to doing good, in whatever form that looks like.

Some characters may not care about doing good, in whatever form that might take, but in a lot of fantasy/sci fi, murder mysteries/suspense/romantic suspense, etc. there is some push for at least some of the characters to do good in some form or fashion (e.g., saving someone, solving crime, stopping a bad guy).

Not everyone want to make a positive change for the same reason, and this motivating drive can give a lot of flavor to your character.

A common version that I see particularly in fantasy is a sort of vague "this is my responsibility" or "I am chosen to do this and so I must" but there are a ton of options for what is driving characters to do good:

Belief that doing good is required to get into heaven (or equivalent)

Belief that balancing out prior bad deeds with good deeds is required to get into heaven (or equivalent)

Belief that doing good is a personal obligation that people have to their community/world

Belief that balancing out or mitigating prior bad deeds with good deeds is a personal obligation that people have to their community/world

Guilt

Desire to look good

Desire for fame/adoration

Desire to protect specific person or people

Desire to protect themselves from the bad that they are stopping

Belief in the specific action or policy being implemented

Desire to make the world better because they will benefit from a better world

Desire to make the world better because their offspring/descendents will benefit from a better world

Desire for a legacy

If three characters are working to throw an evil dictator, one might be doing it because they are sick of living under the evil dictator, one might be doing it because they think they can be the next leader if the evil dictator is gone, and one might be doing it because they want to be in the history books as someone who overthrew the evil dictator.

Characters can also have multiple motivations for it--it doesn't need to just be one motivation per character.