badminton is dont hit the fucking ground you stupid disgusting baby bird
Hockey is I’m gonna launch this peppermint patty at you and the only way to stop me is violence
curling is my two friends and i really want to put a watermelon in that exact spot, but the floor disagrees
relay racing is "here, you take this leek"
From the article:
“If you look only at the trend of species declines, it would be easy to think that we’re failing to protect biodiversity, but you would not be looking at the full picture,” said Penny Langhammer, lead author of the study and Executive Vice President of Re:wild. “What we show with this paper is that conservation is, in fact, working to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. It is clear that conservation must be prioritized and receive significant additional resources and political support globally, while we simultaneously address the systemic drivers of biodiversity loss, such as unsustainable consumption and production.”
This massive meta analysis (for those not familiar, a study analyzing the results of many studies on similar topics) found that the vast majority of conservation efforts show much much better results than doing nothing. In many cases, biodiversity loss was not only stopped but reversed.
This shows that conservation efforts really work and money invested is put to very good use. Legally protecting endangered species really works, restoring habitat really works, removing invasive species really works, returning land to Indigenous communities works. All of the blood, sweat, and tears being poured into protecting the natural world has been making a real, big, tangible, difference on a global scale.
throwback to that time in my existentialism class where the professor asked ‘who thinks hell is other people’ and half the class slowly and meekly put their hand up
then the prof was like ‘…i mean who originally said it’
there are some posts that sound utterly made up for the joke or for the notes, but this one I whole heartedly believe
Sounds right to me…
That quote is amazing to me in that it’s quoted completely accurately and yet in a way that means something completely different from what it meant in context.
(Sartre was claiming that Hell was other people. He was not claiming that other people were hell.)
…I can’t actually tell what distinction you’re drawing there. Can you expand?
The line comes from No Exit, which is set in Hell. Spoilers for No Exit follow
In particular, three people who have been condemned to hell are trapped eternally in a room together. And at first they think they got off easy without any pitchforks or fiery lakes or anything. But over the course of the play they discover that they have been chosen very specifically to have neuroses and character flaws that interact with and torment each other.
Each one needs the approval of a second in an unstable RPS cycle so that any time one of them might be satisfied by a second, the third swoops in and ruins it.
And when they figure this out, one of the characters expresses his understanding, that hell isn’t physical torture. “Hell is just—other people.”
So the point isn’t that other people, generically, are hellish; it’s rather that you can build a hell out of other people.
But when I hear people quote it, it’s usually sort of an introvert-pride thing. “Other people are hell; you should spend time alone.” And that’s not the point at all. It’s a statement about how bad unhealthy relationships can be, not a statement about how all relationships are unhealthy!
See also Sartre’s own comment here:
“hell is other people” has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell.
Reblogging for the original post which was hilarious and also for that explanation which is beautiful
Another big point in No Exit is that the characters find out at the end that the room they’re in is not locked. They could just leave, but they’re each of them incapable of just leaving without winning their arguments. So really, hell is when we stay in dysfunctional relationships that harm us, when we can’t just leave other people be and move on.
A Vulcan named Stork works at the Terran adoption agency. Parents always request that he be the one to deliver their child to them.
It’s years before anyone explains it to him.
People keep gifting him robes with long white birds on them.
The fun thing is he would understand why people were getting him outfits with storks on them. That’s a word, it’s his name, straightforward. All the humans get him the same gag gift, but like, they’re putting effort in at least. This is a genuinely nice outfit. Stork will be a walking zero-effort pun sometimes, rather than waste a perfectly fine robe.
It’s fine. This is a readily comprehensible human illogic. Exactly the kind of thing he expected from moving to Earth.
Six years in he finds out about the stork bringing babies.
Stork has a good long meditation session about this myth, his name, his job, the outfits, the whole shebang (or whatever Vulcan concept is the equivalent).
And he decides he’s honored by it, in a humanly illogical way.
The humans are asking him to do what is after all his job, and specifically requesting him for the joy his name brings them on top of an already agreeable and satisfying task. He has no objection to engendering positive emotions in others. Harm hastens the heat-death of the universe, Surak teaches, so happiness must logically slow it down.
Plus, Vulcans of his generation love puns. There were two decades of punning competitions in colleges across the planet. So when he realizes that he is a walking zero-effort pun, and that the humans also love the pun, he is all for it. He is the Joe Cool of the entire Vulcan population in his city.
And via this pun, the humans are including him in a cherished and traditional myth, by casting him as the literal bringer of life and the expander of families.
There’s no downside. Stork wears his robes, pins, keychains, and other bird-related tchotchkes with genuine pride.
YES IT’S BACK ON MY DASH AT LAST
For real though working together with some human social workers, a Vulcan would be an excellent caretaker for children in an adoption center.
Child has a meltdown? Imagine Stork, perfectly calm and unbothered, approaching the kid and saying “You appear quite upset, Eliza. If you would please allow me to relocate you to the ‘bean-bag-chair,’ we can discuss the source of your distress.”
A Vulcan educated in medicine and child psychology would be endlessly patient with a kid with behavioral issues. Stork wouldn’t get or upset or frustrated. After all, these are children with medical and psychological conditions. It would be illogical to blame the child or to not treat them with the appropriate care.
Even if the a little one was having a bad day or was just overtired, Stork wouldn’t get angry. He might even be a calming presence. Any new kids acting out would learn real quick that they’d have better luck trying to arm-wrestle a Klingon than get a rise out of Stork.
Not only that, Vulcans live much longer than humans. Imagine Stork looking virtually unchanged as decades pass. Kids he’d helped years ago would turn up fully grown, maybe there to adopt their own kids, and run into Stork, looking almost exactly as they remember him.
And he’d probably remember them too. “Welcome back, Eliza.”
“…Harm hastens the heat-death of the universe, Surak teaches, so logically happiness must slow it down…”
Will reblog every time it crosses my dash 🖖🏾
star trek heritage post (November 14th, 2020)
Periodic reminder that the compiled tag I use on AO3 is “Stork The Vulcan (fanon)” and so far there are 6 fics featuring him:
- Heed The Stork
- There’s Always A Chance and
- Not Logical by MarlinSpirkHall (hi)
- What Stork Brings by AfterIWake @mousedetective
- One (1) Daily Shoulder Pat by Android_And_Ale @android-and-ale
- Just This Once, Everybody Lives by @alternatefuturesao3
Various iterations of this thread ^ have also been bookmarked under the tag for future reference 🖖
Also periodic reminder that the heat death bit is a Callahan’s Cross-Time Saloon reference.
Callahan’s Law: “Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy.”
so i impulsively deleted my account on here and then immidiately regreted it a couple of days ago and now i made this new blog that i'm trying to set it up just like my old one, so if anybody comes across this post could you please reblog so i can find my old mutuals
Found a scan of this issue on the Internet Archive (it's the back cover). This scan is 4000x6000 for all your high resolution needs!
The caption reads: "Defeated by roses. Near Turin's Lingotto station, along a lonely path, Miss Guida Concetta Rinino, 28 years old, who was bringing a nice bunch of roses to a relative, was accosted by an unknown young man. The young woman, rather than losing heart, defended herself with extraordinary energy, using the bunch of flowers as a weapon. So it was that the scoundrel, his face all scratched up, had to flee. (Drawing by Walter Molino.)"
Incredible. At a distance I understand how the woman might appear to be the abuser and the man the sympathetic victim, but the second you zoom into the man’s face the pink-cheeked rage- not remorse, or rejection, or embarrassment- not heartbreak or despair- but RAGE- the deeper story speaks itself into your suspicions.
And the bit where they’re HER roses? Almost a relief, but also sadder, as she will arrive at whatever event without them, or with them destroyed.
Do you think when the righteous anger and anxiety and annoyance fade, when she arrives at her destination- will her loved ones applaud her? Will she be proud? Will her hands shake? Will she walk home with company from then out, and for how long?
In this moment, she is provoked into anger. Anger is good- it appears strong. But look at his face. Would you put it past him to linger there after dark, in case she returns alone?
What story will HE tell, of ‘I was perfectly polite, but she didn’t even give me a chance- women like that, they’d swoon for a jerk in a heartbeat, but kind and flattering men like me?…”
I love this piece. It paints both stories while illustrating the power dynamics and struggles at play. This should be shown in art classes
OP: Of all the different contact-free greetings used in historical China, which one is your favorite? (They may seem similar, but there are subtle differences)(cr 南陌 国风)
oh my godddd I'd completely forgotten that they all fly up out of the boats except Su She, who can't control his sword, and nobody tries to help him except Wen Ning.
and then once Wen Ning is in danger, then WWX comes to rescue Wen Ning, and then when WWX is in danger, then LWJ comes to save all of them
yeah Su She is not the one who comes off looking bad here
Plunging Seagull, Hidden Meta
My second offering for @tolkienwomensweek, for Day Five, prompts: Battle and Sacrifice, concerns Elwing.
I needed an Elwing for an earlier fic, and she arrived there with a strong personality and an interesting backstory... And, of course. my Valar are always Like That.
It's a bit tacky to be reblogging this just because I'm disappointed with its reception, but it's like... as I wrote this, I thought "ooh, now I'm participating in the Tolkien fandom properly!"--and being An Adult, instead of sitting at the kids' table writing crack and a niche slash pairing.
Anyway, my from-the-kids-table postings will resume soon!

















