Ruminations

Call me Brooklyn. I'm 25, ENFJ, and Neutral Good.

[rajasconqueso-deactivated201508]

Repeat after me: - Veganism is not affordable - Veganism is not cruelty free - Veganism is not the best choice for everyone

[caged-freedom-deactivated201702]

Repeat after me -I’m an idiot and wrong. -Veganism can be made affordable. -Veganism is fucking cruelty free. That’s what it’s all about. - Veganism is the best choice for everyone, if everyone did it. -I’m a fucking asshole for making this completely wrong text post and should shut the hell up now.

[latinagabi]

Exploiting undocumented immigrants, and other workers is cruelty free? Nearly 500,000 children as young as six harvest 25 percent of US crops.

But I guess brown people don’t fucking matter. 

[sissikuk]

People are literally starving in South America because all the Quinoa crop is being exported mainly for white vegans who want to live “cruelty-free” but don’t care about brown people as much as they do about animals.

[thequantumqueer]

plus, 4 of the 8 most common food allergies (soy, wheat, peanuts, and tree nuts) are common vegan substitutes.

[hallofpenos-deactivated20181120]

o shit

[captainlordauditor]

i would literally starve to death if i couldn’t eat cheese or meats because my body cannot process nuts as they are too rough on my intestines and cause inflammation

[breelandwalker]

Plus there are vegan articles floating around decrying the use of honey, even though the production and harvest of honey by responsible beekeepers doesn’t hurt the bees at all and is not exploitative, and that misinformation hurts the honey industry, which is TRYING TO SAVE BEES FROM EXTINCTION.

[prosthetic-leg]

!

[allbarksomebite]

Seeing as many vegans don’t think (or don’t care) about the human cruelty aspects of veganism, I’ll add that many animals are killed and habitats destroyed to produce arable crops. Rabbits are regularly shot and killed to protect crops. If a farmer has a particularly bad rabbit problem i.e. a large, established warren, they may use a gas bomb like the Rodenator to destroy the warren and kill or relocate the rabbits. Also works well to kill rats and moles. Harvesting crops kills or destroys the homes of many small animals like mice. Even organic farming uses pesticides to kill insects. Poison is used to protect stored food such as grains from rats and mice. Pest control is essential for food production. Without it farmers worldwide simply would not be able to meet the demand for food.

It is literally impossible to live cruelty free in modern western society. Animals have been used as resources, exterminated as pests, and harmed indirectly by humans for millenia. Humans have exploited each other probably since before we were recognisable as humans. There’s also the environmental footprint of producing and importing food.

All we can do is reduce harm. Being vegan does not mean you are living a cruelty free life.

[dhomochevski]

This is how they survive. You must know this. You’re too smart not to know this. They paint the world full of shadows and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments. Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn’t true. We can prove that it isn’t true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it. And who has been so close to doing it as we are right now? […] So, what next, then? What decisions have you made about what our tomorrows will be? […] All this will be for nothing. We will have been for nothing. Defined by their histories distorted to fit into their narrative until all that is left of us are the monsters in the stories they tell their children.

James Flint, a fucking gay character, protagonist of a period drama set in the 18th century that treats social themes better than most present-day set shows. (via flintsjames)

[purenovembersoul]

[duskybatfishgirl]

Always reblog eyelash flutter

[sarahthecoat]

yes ma'am! :)

[wssh-watson-deactivated20191117]

So pretty…. can you believe how pretty he is…

How DEAD will John be the first time he’s got Sherlock’s face this close to his own and he’s just kissed him or told him he loves him so much and Sherlock just blinks, and blinks, and blinks—those lashes lying low on his cheeks, maybe they’ll look like soot because his face is cast in half-shadow from the street lights falling in hesitantly, and maybe it’s after a case and they are standing close just before the doorway, pulling off their jackets and John will say, “You were brilliant tonight,” and Sherlock will laugh a low laugh and reply, “Of course I was,” and he will sound so haughty and proud and entitled and yet look so young without his scarf that John, suddenly breathless at the sight and sound and existence of him, will stare, slack-mouthed, and, after a moment of blinking, he’ll say–his mouth moving on its own, heart overflowing with sentiment so it pours out from his throat–he’ll say, “I’m so in love with you,” and he’ll surprise himself but he won’t deny it, because God, Christ, he could never deny this profound truth about himself, could never deny Sherlock–

And Sherlock, face so close to his, will look young and vulnerable all over, staring back just as surprised and breathless, and his lashes will flutter like soot over his cheeks in the dim light of the streetlamps from outside falling hesitantly inside–

And when Sherlock will breathe, “Oh,” and when he will incline his head–tilt his head–bend forward–when his lips will touch John’s, there will be nothing hesitant about it.

Sherlock’s lashes will brush over John’s face, so close and almost unbearably soft; John’s lashes will flutter back, less like soot and more light, and not hesitant at all as, fluttering, they will grow damp.

[sherlockiansoufflegirl-deactiva]

[bakerstreetbabes]

Will reblog this picture forever.

[serafinewine]

are you fucking kidding me

[gyarados]

You’re welcome

[lady-gorthaur]

This is the most useful thing I’ve ever reblogged.

[danwasonfireonce]

i used to think when people said my cousin twice removed that their cousin must’ve did some fucked up shit to get kicked out of the family twice

[bogleech]

Conservatives have so much fucking nerve talking about how “ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS ARE OUT OF CONTROL” when absolutely no-one feels inconvenienced by them or has ever even encountered them in their personal lives unless they’re the CEO’s of a megaconglomerate bitter that they couldn’t rip up a national park and buy like their fifth house boat

[zenosanalytic]

Yeah, it’s literally the Kochs saying “It’s so UNFAIR that when the oil pipelines we own but don’t maintain bust and flood a town with toxic sludge, that WE have to pay to fix it.” and “An employee we forced to clean chemical storage tanks without the proper gear for 15 years developed cancer, and they’re allowed to sue us over it? TYRANNY!!”

[thehumanarkle]

How is it never occurred to me to put it like this before?

[xtremecaffeine-deactivated20181]

“It’s so unfair that we can’t just dump coal waste into rivers!”

[stability]

he has a point

[imaglne]

team “I wore this yesterday but I’m going to a different place so it doesn’t matter”

[staff]

A few literary suggestions for Black History Month

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Maybe you know Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from when Beyoncé sampled her TEDx talk, “We should all be feminists,” or maybe you’ve been following her emergence as one of the most prominent voices of African literature over the last two decades. Her latest novel, Americanah, was selected by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013.

Edna Lewis

Edna Lewis had a hell of a career. She worked her way up as a seamstress, eventually fashioning a dress for Marilyn Monroe. Then she became the first African-American celebrity chef. Then she broke her leg, so she wrote a cookbook. The Taste of Country Cooking was interspersed with personal stories of growing up in a freed-slave settled town in Virginia, and redefined what many thought of Southern food.  

Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay (@roxanegay), famed author of Bad Feminist, is a Tumblr favorite, and not just because you can follow her. She writes about what it means to be a woman of color. She’s the first Black woman to write for Marvel, and she’s writing queer WOC into their storylines. She pulled her unreleased book from publishers Simon & Schuster after their deal with Milo Yiannopoulos was announced. It’s easy to admire her actions as much as her writing. 

Follow these too:

Afro Editions (@afroeditions) posts and reblogs all things Black lit, including this bell hooks Valentine’s Day card and these suggestions for Black sci-fi.

The Center for African-American Poetry and Poetics (@caapoetryandpoetics) highlights exactly what you think it will.

Bonus: We highlighted it last year, but Black Children’s Books and Authors (@blackchildrensbooksandauthors) deserves a spotlight on it again. 

Don’t miss our upcoming BHM Answer Times. This week and next week, we have:

2/21—Angelica Ross (@missrosscreative), transgender rights advocate.

2/22—Actress Amandla Stenberg (@amandla)

2/23—Comedian and actor Andrew Bachelor, better known as King Bach (@kingbach).

2/24—Washington Post (@washingtonpost) editorial board member and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart.

[micdotcom]

Fox News’ Shepard Smith called Trump out for his BS — and his conservative viewers are livid

[hellooteapots-deactivated201905]

GO TF OFF SHEP

[warmth-and-constancy]

I’m hashing out an idea I had this morning on my way to work:

So, at the moment, the showrunners remain largely silent about the backlash that they know is happening and have apparently even anticipated; there’s been no announcement about a fifth series happening or not; there have been winks and hints from Moffat and the Sherlock YouTube channel guy about a fourth episode and plenty of reasons to believe one exists, but nothing concrete has emerged so far, even though the production team is still releasing behind-the-scenes stuff to social media; and we may have an ARG on our hands. We are definitely in a holding pattern, but we have no idea how long this could go on. It is possible that TPTB could be facing the public and talking about their “brilliant” S4 finale before we get anything else.

They are professionals at bullshitting and at keeping secrets, and Moffat and Sue have got the balls to show up at a manga signing, so I’m not convinced that they “have” to reveal something by the time, say, Radio Times Fest rolls around, lest they face hordes of disappointed fans. The disappointed fans (which includes ex-TJLCers, disgruntled casuals like Tammie and Cathy and Susan from the Masterpiece Facebook page, and people like us who think TFP is fake) don’t even want to spend money on the S4 DVD, much less on buying tickets to an event. When it comes to the latter, I think we should.

People in this fandom frequently tell me that I word good, so the idea I had was to put that to some use (apart from writing meta and going off on antis) by compiling a list of trickily worded questions that TJLCers could ask at public Q&A events in an effort to make the showrunners respond with either panicked bullshitting or sincere defensiveness. You know how we always cringe when people start asking questions at public Q&As, and how we all have questions that we wish would get asked, but don’t? Why not create an organized resource so that TJLC questions do get asked? Remember that brilliant “Are we ever going to see Mrs. Turner’s married ones?” question that made them sweat? That’s the idea. Or remember how that one person at Comic Con got that long, eloquent answer out of Moffat about representation of gay characters by asking a question that was basically pointed criticism dressed up as a question? I’m not suggesting that we make Johnlock front and center in our questioning, as that person sort of did, but instead dress up the S4 “backlash” as panel questions. I think it could be useful to have a pre-planned and organized list of community-sourced questions that are not “Why didn’t you make John and Sherlock gay?” or “Is X, Y, or Z going to happen in series 5?” or “What ice cream flavor would series 5 be if it were an ice cream flavor?” but instead “I thought it was interesting how you chose to include A, B, and C in The Final Problem. What went into your decision to write those things into the show in that way? In a previous statement, you said X about them, which differs a lot from what you ultimately chose to do with them.”

I’d create this with, and solicit suggestions, review, and feedback from, trusted and established members of the community – and most importantly, I wouldn’t share it publicly. I’d create a private document away from Tumblr to which I would grant people access once I’d verified that they were legit fandom members with an established fandom presence and with plans to attend Radio Times Fest, or Sherlocked Con, or what have you. That wouldn’t completely prevent the showrunners from being aware of fandom’s criticisms/questions and having prepared responses ready to go, but it would at least protect the element of surprise in terms of the actual questions they’d face. No one would be obligated to ask the questions on the list, but they would be there as a resource for people who really want to ask a question about, for example, obvious visual TAB/TFP parallels in such a way as to make the showrunners aware of what we think/know and require them to either engage with what we think/know or else do some serious Bullshit Improv which could be equally revealing. Previously I would have said “we shouldn’t dig too deep with our panel questions, we don’t want to force them to lie to protect spoilers” but I think in this post-TFP, insane new world, we should apply some fire to their feet about the fakeness of the episode.

Thoughts, positive or negative? Good idea? Bad idea? Is this something people would be interested in? Is there an obvious flaw that I haven’t thought of?

[warmth-and-constancy]

Bringing this up again to solicit more feedback. The response so far has been universally positive, so I’m probably going to do this, but please don’t put suggestions in my inbox yet – this is still in the idea stage and I wouldn’t want anything to get buried under a pile of anons. If you’re interested in contributing something, please stand by.

[rthrmrgn]

I'm not saying this with any authority on the matter, but if you combine what you know with others you'll achieve something. Only the rarest of beavers have been known to scream past 4am and bee seen the next day. I'm not saying they disappear because they come back 19 days later

joke’s on you because i dont know a fucken thing my guy

[hellooteapots-deactivated201905]

we don’t run shit errands, fucko

[burnhamandtilly]

19 days from now is march 8th.. 

[hellooteapots-deactivated201905]

“Firstly, there are ARG community sites that announce forthcoming and current ARGs:

Alternate Reality Gaming Network: announcements & articles about ARGs

UnFiction UnForums: where just about all ARGs are announced, played & discussed

ARGNetcast: ARG community podcast featuring announcements, discussions & interviews

ARG Reporter: ARG announcements & wiki for Germany

ARG Fan: ARG site in Japan

Brazilian Alternate Reality Game community in Orkut

ARG Brasil: Brazilian Alternate Reality Game community wiki

GAMEPLAY GUIDES There are also a few guides that players and designers have created to explain the basics of how to play an ARG. For instance, read Brooke Thompson’s ‘Alternate Reality Gaming: A Quickstart Guide’ and the ‘Tutorial for Playing Alternate Reality Games’ by the ‘Collective Tutor’ at Unfiction.

GLOSSARIES There are many ARG-specific terms that you’ll need to know to read, or join in with, forum discussions. Check out the Unfiction Glossary and the UnForum Glossary. Now, test yourself with Brian Enigma’s ARG Buzzword Bingo (click on ‘generate card’ button).

ARG WALKTHROUGHS Most of the sample ARG/walkthroughs created have been puzzle-heavy, so while they’re not indicative of all the aspects of ARG gameplay they are nevertheless helpful.

Dave Szulborski’s ‘Errant Memories’ is a specially-created 19 step sample ARG/puzzle trail with a downloadable annotated guide. Check out ‘Errant Memories’ on this page.

Sapagoo and Jamesi’s puzzle walkthroughs: Decipher Walkthrough and Puzzle Deconstruction.

John W. Gosney’s ‘Route 66′. Like Szulborski, Gosney guides you through the steps in his specially-created ARG. It is in his book Beyond Reality: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming, 2005, pp: 105-180.

TJ Jackson’s ‘Troy’ was created for the Experimental Gameplay Project. You can play it and read the post-mortem which explains the gameplay process and how it was created [DOC]

Andres M. Quijano’s ‘Greg‘ is another sample ARG, with a walkthrough [PDF].

You can also read through the ‘Guide‘ created by Adrian Hon for the first ARG, The Beast. The Guide is a player’s documentation of their experience of the game and may be helpful in understanding what it is like to play an ARG.

This resource created and developed by Christy Dena, who you can contact through this email address if you have any corrections or additions.”

[teaandforeshadowing]

if it was ‘just a joke’, why wasn’t martin allowed to joke about it on snl?

[happyblueberrypancake]

@teaandqueerbaiting BUT LIKE,

THIS IS NOT

(from ASiP)

EVEN FUNNY ANYMORE

(from Unaired Pilot)

THEY EVEN HAVE THE CANDLE/RED TIN BOX PLEASE KILL ME

[happyblueberrypancake]

but also the fact that they had to make Sherlock a woman to drive home the romantic subtext -_-;;

[multifandom-madnesss]

@hollyberrypie WOAH!

[wsswatson]

it’s always interested me how watson gives extremely romantic descriptions of male physical beauty while acd avoids overt implications of homoeroticism by throwing in lines such as ‘very well equipped to steal the heart of a country girl’ and ‘which might easily hold an irresistible fascination for women’

and whenever holmes comments on female beauty, he does pretty much the exact same thing but inverted - ‘a face that a man might die for’ and ‘no young man would cross her path unscathed’

like watson distances himself from attraction to men by denying that men can be attracted to men

while holmes distances himself from attraction to women by denying that he is a man

yet continues to refer to male characters as ‘incredibly dashing’ and ‘remarkably handsome’ and ‘attractive’ with no such distancing lines whatsoever

and people wonder why queer theorists have always loved sherlock holmes

[vivahate1988]

i expanded on this point with reference to the language used to discuss sexuality in late victorian england in the second issue of the practical handbook of bee culture, if anyone is interested!!

[graceebooks]

social anxiety and confidence advice: that totally normal stuff that you instinctively feel the need to prevent strangers from seeing you doing for reasons you can’t even really articulate, like eating your fries on the subway platform, putting cover-up on a blemish in a public restroom, or quietly singing along to the music in your headphones while walking down the street? if you start forcing yourself to just do those things anyway, not only will YOU begin feeling more comfortable and confident existing in public, but you’ll start to come off that way to the people around you as well. 

[isxa]

What woman is Sherlock Holmes interested in? It sure as hell isn't Irene if that's your idea

He admits liking women…. in the books… where have you been

[hiltontower]

He’s gay dude stop it

[noadventureshere221b]

I think the passage they are looking for would be from The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane.

There was no gainsaying that she would have graced any assembly in the world. Who could have imagined that so rare a flower would grow from such a root and in such an atmosphere? Women have seldom been an attraction to me, for my brain has always governed my heart, but I could not look upon her clear-cut face, with all the soft freshness of the downlands in her delicate colouring, without realizing that no young man would cross her path unscathed.

[…]

Maude Bellamy will always remain in my memory as a most complete and remarkable woman.

While there is some debate over the authenticity of these later stories, I find no quarrel with them. I don’t think this is incompatible with a homosexual Holmes. Maybe he’s a Kinsey 4 or 5. Very few people are a flat 1 or 6.

[snussyeating]

what’s hilarious is that holmes doesn’t even say he’s attracted to her

he basically says she’s aesthetically nice looking

like… this is such a typical example of writing a gay character in such a way as to avoid suspicion and it requires an a heteronormative assumption in order to conclude from this that holmes is attracted to her

the fact that op read this passage and managed to conclude that it’s an admission that holmes is attracted to women is truly hilarious to me

especially if this is op’s best example from the whole canon lmao

sherlock holmes has never been attracted to a woman in his life and the closest he’s able to come to it is acknowledging that a woman is pretty enough for other men to be attracted to her