This Lady Is Alethi And You Can’t Tell Me Otherwise

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Of the many marvels a lifetime offers, this experience was truly my favorite so far.

As recently as three weeks ago Google had an image search function that let you search by type of Creative Commons license, so finding free to use/no attribution required images was so easy. Now it looks like they’ve sabotaged that function and limited it to just Creative Commons/Commercial and my job has suddenly become exponentially harder.

I’m just saying that maybe it wouldn’t have turned out quite as bad.

by Corvus Blackwood 

I had a dream that a cruise ship went down off the coast of a national park and for some reason no one else knew—its passengers were ALL celebrities and I watched them all scramble ashore looking for help.

The park was enormous, and possibly also Area X from the Southern Reach, so it became my job to lead all ~50 movie stars back to safety.

This was terrible. They did not want to cooperate and did not want to take orders from me, so I had to go full hardass and forcibly assign them buddy system partners. Some wanted to race ahead to show how fit they were and did not appreciate being told to stay with the group so that they did not get lost and would be able to use their extra energy to assist anyone who was injured or capacitated.

A few of them tried the “do you know who I AM?” routine on me and I was like “well I’m mostly faceblind so I’m not sure but I DO know that you’re a whiny little bastard who needs to get his shit together”.

The kid from Stranger Things kept compulsively running off the trail to knock shit over, including trial markers, so I had to change his partner from Danny DeVito.

At one point the forest disappeared and we were suddenly at an Arab-American festival in Seattle and my old Arabic teacher came over and started angrily interrogating me about why I didn’t study harder, I cried, and then I stole a fist full of meat from a cooked eel outside a restaurant, at it, and became Brendan Fraser from George of the Jungle, but gay and in love with my girlfriend’s ex boyfriend.

I think “performative social justice” is something that doesn’t get addressed often enough. That’s where much of the toxicity in otherwise well-meaning circles comes from.

What I mean by “performative” social justice is basically “discourse for the sake of discourse” - argument without the purpose of persuasion, in which abstract, theoretical problems are treated as seriously as if they were real-world issues. You see it in fandom all the time. I want to stress that this isn’t directed at anyone or anything in particular. It’s something I see all the time, from all sorts of people, and while I often agree with the points they make, I think it’s ultimately a pretty destructive way of thinking.

With the right rhetoric, you can make anything sound wicked. You can bypass a lot of reasoning and nuance if you sound like you’re confident that you have the moral high-ground (that’s the whole history of politics). And heck, sometimes you do! But you have to critically examine how you came to your conclusion. Nobody wants to seem like the bad guy, especially when a foolish statement can result in instant and viral public ridicule that can circulate for months or years - a pernicious form of Death of the Author. On Tumblr, the desire to conform to a particular opinion is largely motivated by fear. The punishment for deviance is often wildly disproportionate - I think we all know a few examples of things getting way out of hand. It’s seldom in response to things that cause actual, qualifiable harm.

Is there a fix for this? Maybe not on a large scale. But individually, I think it’s important to take a step back when you see drama and ask yourself, “Is this worth it? What am I trying to accomplish? Is this the most effective approach to achieving my goal?”

You’re allowed to disapprove of things casually. You can think something is tacky, in bad taste, or otherwise objectionable without needing to justify your perspective on a grand scale of good versus evil. You don’t need to use social justice as a method of signaling, to continually reestablish to your peers that you’re the Right Kind of Person only the Wrong Kind of People would disagree with. Be sure of yourself and of your beliefs. Accept nuance. A contrary opinion on a relatively trivial matter is not a personal attack, or an opportunity to flex your righteousness. Remember that the people you disagree with are often as vulnerable and well-meaning as you are.

Tag meme

Thanks so much for the tag @damejudyhench I’ve had this account forever but not been active so I really appreciate it

Last song… Nobody can save me by Linkin Park

Last movie… um... can’t remember but want to rewatch all the LOTR movies soon

Currently watching… nothing really atm

Currently reading… rereading house of leaves, it’s slower the second time once you know [redacted]

Currently craving… toast with lemon curd but I already had that for breakfast. And another slice at about 10AM. And I’m telling myself sternly that that is enough, I cannot go get more for lunch. No. 

Tag 9 people you want to get to know better/catch up with... *please don’t feel pressured to do anything I don’t want to annoy people help* @ryuki-blogs @ministerscrimgeour @birdblogwhichisforbirds @tributary @thathopeyetlives @best-friend-quads @femmenietzsche @bernuviels-inspiration AND OF COURSE @nostalgebraist-autoresponder (I think I’d better go paste the questions in her ask box though)

#ask meme thing

Buy a shirt; help old dogs have a home

Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary provides a home for senior dogs that cannot find people to adopt them—a real home, with beds

 and couches for them 

and love and vet care and a large property to roam on with custom-made boardwalks with ramps to make it easy for the dogs that have trouble with stairs. They also provide temporary and permanent foster homes for many more, with a unique thing called Forever Fostering, where people within 100 miles of the Sanctuary can foster a dog forever, with all veterinary care and medication paid for. 

They have around 20 dogs living in the Sanctuary, including blind pug Bugsy, who had to have his eyes removed.

three bonded pairs, such as Harley and Smily, surrended to a shelter when their lifetime owner had to move into an assisted living facility, which the Sanctuary took in together so they would not be separated

and new bffs

And they’re having a t-shirt sale to raise funds to keep taking care of these old dogs that have been abandoned or are too old to be considered “adoptable.” And you should give them your money. 

Buy a nice shirt. Help a nice dog.

Signal boost this, and I will buy a shirt for someone randomly chosen from the list of people who reblog this post.

https://www.bonfirefunds.com/life-is-good-at-ofsds