Anthropology major answer: “There absolutely was such a time! Modern humans and our ancestors shared territory numerous times over prehistory with cousin species like homo neanderthalensis, homo floresiensis, and many, many others!” 

Folklore student answer: “Also, almost all cultures have something like djinn, faeries, hulder, fox spirits, and other similar creatures who can appear at least human and are very, very dangerous to humans!” 

Both of these things are true, and may be connected both to the above and to each other. :D

Biology majors: it’s dead bodies guys. Corpses.

Listen I hate this take on the uncanny valley so fucking much because many subpsecies of homonids lived in the same areas but some of them got along well enough to coexist and neandertals had enough desirable genetic traits to the point where human women (see here for a blanket on female vs male choosiness) would often pass up incel homosepian for the chad neandertal.

Genetics aside, various hominid species didn’t start visually looking all that different until 50,000 years ago, while under the skin changes began as early as 89,000 years ago (ie the development of the Y chromosome but I might be oversimplifying at this point) Point being, even our non-human cousins didn’t. look. that. different. from. us. Especially comparing the diversifying of humans themselves crossing trans continental as it was. And even then neandertals still had advantagious traits for living in the Eurasian hemisphere.

Also I digress, regardless of it being intentional, and with few perserved records from that chapter in our species’ history, I don’t like the implication that the uncanny valley effect stems from humans being inherently racist (for lack of a word for hatred of non-human intelligences). I know that sounds off the wall but prejudice and sense of superiority by birthright is vastly different than othering by means of the sucess of social groups and the need to compete for territory or resources. Racism is entirely a Eurpean fabrication and it’s been proven time and time again to be a cultural outlier and purposfully designed to further the agenda of corroded theocratical religious divinity (here, here, here) and the financial benifits of the exploitation of colonism that otherwise has not been replicated by other cultures to the same degree. (this is the only example off the top of my head but I’m know there’s more.)

You know what’s older than racism?

You know what’s more flesh crawling than neandertals?

fucking rabies

You know what LOOKS like a human but doesn’t ACT human ENOUGH? Do you know what might bite you and get you sick or turn you into something that also moves about in a non human way? Brain parasites that give you painful headaches and intensifies agression and confusion.

Say you’re a monkey and one member of your troop gets bitten by something. Later he starts twitching and swaying about. He keeps stumbling out of trees but barely feels anything when he hits the ground. He won’t eat sleep or drink. He makes guttural noises that keep alerting predators and he’s in obvious writhing agony. Suddenly he’s not your friend anymore. He doesn’t recognize you and he attempts to bite and claw at anything that moves.

Up until preventitive oral medications and vaccines were developed in the 1970s there was NOTHING stopping rabies and it still prevails today and kills hundreds of thousands of people in third world countries with limited medical resources a year. There’s no cure for rabies once youve got it and the only reliable diagnostic is a brain autopsy.

Rabies. TB. Leoprosy. Syphilis. Meningitis. Toxoplasmosis. Anthrax. Mercury Poisoning. Prion disease. These are all bad and in different varying degrees can cause limps, sores, agression, confusion or dazed trances, ambled pacing, convulsions or uncharacteristic behavior in humans.

Basically everything that people are terrified of when it comes to zombies. Vampires bite. Werewolves rip people apart. Demonic possesion? Easy. Changlings take the place of your loved ones.

Also I don’t think that it’s a conicidence that the things we find uncomfortable with the uncanny valley also just happen to line up with predatory behavior, smiling too wide or staring you down, blinking too slowly or moving towards you with a slow steady speed. It’s just a danger signal to keep other monkeys in a troop from getting bitten by an infected monkey. Simple as that.

After all what’s scarier? A dead body, or moving body that will MAKE you dead?

I’m not going to be a hypocrite by pointing out racism being excused as a stemmed human behavior without claiming that the deep seated primal fear of disease doesn’t make a good excuse for ableism as well. I mean we use othering to discern friend from foe, and then at some point decided that was a good enough excuse for racism. Theres legitimate proof that ancient homonids could and would be hospitible to the disabled out of compassion. The point of having these initial fears is to guage saftey measures first, but once someone or something is proven to be harmless that normally should be the end of it. I mean if an adult wild silverback gorrilla can look at a spycam and decide it’s chill after a moment of inspection then there’s really no excuse for any of us.

Healthy othering =/= newly invented racism.

healthy fear of infectious diseases =/= excuse to hate disabled people.

But yeah rabies is more likely the reason for the uncanny valley effect thanks for coming to my goddamn ted talk.

Reblogging this version bc of sources and I personally think this makes for much more interesting (and terrifying) lore than any other post in this thread.

So, we already have zombies is what you’re saying. People with Rabies Also, what about the 5 injections in the stomach after someone gets bitten by something that presumably has rabies? Isn’t that supposed to cure it?? I’m confuse. PLEASE TELL ME THIS ISN’T SOMETHING MY NARC MOTHER MADE UP LIKE HOW DRIVING WITHOUT SHOES/DRIVING WITH THE INTERIOR CAR LIGHT ON/PULLING THROUGH A PARKING SPOT TO PARK FACE OUT IS ILLEGAL!!! YES SHE FUCKING TOLD ME ALL THIS SHIT WAS ILLEGAL!!!

hang on I got you

https://youtu.be/0PHoioJ2ViY

hate how they forced bugs bunny into anti-weed propaganda in the 90s, as if bugs bunny wouldn’t love smoking weed 

To be perfectly fair, bugs bunny would also love taking money for starring in anti-weed propaganda and then using said money to buy weed

Do not punish the behaviour you want to see

I mean, it seems pretty obvious when you put it like that, right?

But how many families, when an introvert sibling or child makes an effort to socialize,  snarkily say, “So, you’ve decided to join us”?

Or when someone does something they’ve had trouble doing, say, “Why can’t you do that all the time?” (Happened to me, too often.)

Or any sentence containing the word “finally”. 

If someone makes a step, a small step, in a direction you want to encourage, encourage it. Don’t complain about how it’s not enough. Don’t bring up previous stuff. Encourage it.

Because I swear to fucking god there is nothing more soul-killing, more motivation-crushing, than struggling to succeed and finding out that success and failure are both punished.

As someone with mildly toxic parents and as someone who is (so far) able to do so without being placed in danger, I’ve began to stand my ground on some things, example: “*mom giving me advice on a social situation i already have a hold of*” *I’m listening, but wont take the advice bc ya know, i got the situation covered* *Mom sees this and has a meltdown along the lines of: “I’m just a horrible mother, right? No, no, I’m 54 and don’t know anything” I finally told her today that I was tired of her victimizing herself and jumping to that point, she tried ti say that’s how she felt and I said “obviously it’s not bc if it were, you would change something. me not taking your advice doesn’t make you a bad mother or stupid, it just makes me set in my way.” lol she also trues to stir it back up by asking if i’m “still mad at her”. I just shake my head most of the time.

Mood. -V

This reminds me of a party I went to last year. I was standing with some friends, chatting, and someone said something that indirectly implied that sexism exists. Some trivial recounting of the basic facts of daily life for most women. Something so mild, so uncontroversial, so mundane that I don’t even remember what it was. 

Suddenly, this man standing on the outskirts of our conversational circle piped up with “actually, I think men are more discriminated against than women these days.”

 All conversation died.

I turned to look at him and he had this smug, insufferable grin on his face, relishing this moment, expecting us to waste our time and energy refuting this ridiculous thing he had just said.

The Devil’s Advocate was among us.

And, in my mind, I saw the next 15+ minutes playing out. The parade of facts and statistics in a vain attempt to defend ourselves, our gender, and to prove that misogyny is real. The glib, snide denials from some shithead who is getting off on our pain and frustration. The Gish Gallop of bullshit that would take a whole evening to properly dismantle. It was depressing and overwhelming. I hated it. I had to kill it before it began.

So I looked him dead in the eye and I said “OK,“ shrugged, and just walked away. 

Nothing I have ever said to another human being has ever been so crushing. As I walked away, I watched the smug grin vanish and confusion and anxiety set in. The rest of the group turned their backs to him and carried on as if he had never spoken - as if he was invisible. He was still staring at me when I walked over to another friend and told her what he had said. I pointed him out for her and made direct eye contact with him while we both laughed.

tl;dr: Don’t feed the troll. Let it perish, cold and hungry, in the wasteland of your indifference. It is weak and you are strong. Live your best life.

This is the most hilarious thing and the best advice I’ve ever read on this damned hellsite.

As someone I respect very much has written on more than one occasion, you don’t have to engage in every argument you are invited to.

I read this great post about The Old Guard not sexualizing the women, but dressing them in functional costumes appropriate for their activities. No bare midriffs or thigh-high slits when they’re supposed to be warriors. Great point.

The Old Guard doesn’t sexualize the men either. The men are VERY nice to look at, but they haven’t been put through the Hollywood body-building treatment. I mean, have you read what Hugh Jackman went through to bulk up and be Wolverine? Daily hours-long grueling workouts combined with a high-protein diet of pretty much nothing but boiled chicken, then days of dehydration before a scene shoot because being dehydrated makes your muscles stand out more.

There was none of that in The Old Guard. When Joe and Nicky have their shirts off, this is what they look like:

Normal muscle definition, not body-builders; no veins lining their muscles because they’re not dehydrated. Then, as soon as they’re freed, the first thing they do is put shirts on to fight their way out of the facility. This is Joe and Nicky ten seconds after Andy unstraps them:

I love the way this movie treats their stars. The focus is on the emotions, on the people as human beings, and they aren’t fetishized.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go write fanfiction about how sexy they are because of the way they treat each other, not because they went to extreme lengths to look a certain way.

I’ll confess I hadn’t noticed the non-sexualisation of the men in this film, and this post is great, but it leads me to wonder:

The over-muscled men in superhero films often have a variant of super-strength as a reason for the actors to be so ridiculously muscular. The Old Guard, however, are not shown as having super-strength. All we really see is them coming back from the dead. They heal from their wounds, but that’s it.

And I wonder if that’s because they don’t need super strength. They know that they’ll keep coming back from death. They’ll heal from their wounds. Yes, they’ll need sleep and food, but otherwise, they’ll just keep coming back. Someone like that doesn’t need super strength to defeat their enemies.

In a given battle, the 20-30 seconds it takes for them to heal and wake up can allow enemy combatants to flee. But if those combatants stick around to make sure The Old Guard are definitely dead then that’s going to end well. TOG are skilled in various forms of combat and, more often than not, that’s what defeats an enemy. Skill, rather than strength. Skill and time: if the enemy combatants flee, TOG will wake up and keep pursuing them.

That all being said, it is nice to see a film where the main people are allowed to just look like people who go for a run sometimes rather than people with muscles in places you didn’t know muscles existed.

I disagree with a key point in your analysis: super strength would, more often than not, lead to realistic bodies rather than the blatant unhealthiness seen. The reasoning is put forward in (surprisingly) Disney’s Hercules. Super Strength is not inherently tied to muscles in most films (the one exception I’ve seen is the Hulk), and even if it is, it’s tied to invulnerability (Captain America, Superman (some versions)), and we’ve seen that Spider-Man almost never has as much muscle definition, so there’s an exception to that as well. The examples usually given in hero films (Wolverine, Captain America, Batman, Superman) usually don’t have a reason to have overdefined muscles. Wolverine’s powerset is having a metal skeleton and claws. Captain America has (it seems nobody actually remembers this) cellular hyperregeneration, the speed of which basically makes him too powerful for pain and even death/aging (get it right endgame), Batman is a martial artist, and martial arts teachers of most variants usually teach proper/balanced diets to account for calorie loss (see Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan natural bodies:

even in a good chunk of movies they keep natural proportions), Batman wouldn’t dehydrate himself, it’s not something he would do or let someone do. Superman is invincible and his power comes from the sun, so muscle overdefinition is a stretch, especially because he’s a farm boy, he would be fond of good food (while that’s not a bad thing, I appreciate good meals, his muscle definition would be closer to this

than to this, which is the prime example of the problem at hand:

see the difference and the problem?)

(all images used are stills from movies/images from movie sets)

In conclusion, Strength, while it does come from the muscles, is not particularly hindered by a layer of natural fat to protect the muscles from overheating, etc.

TL;DR The idea that super strength needs muscle hyperdefinition to the point of nearly killing the actors is stupid and needs to be removed from the media we regularly consume.

Me on Fourth of July like

Anyway, stop spreading white nationalist rhetoric and toxic nationalism thanks

Nobody said anything about race. Stop that.

It’s nationalist to state facts now?

How is this toxic?

Show me countries better than the USA.

economically

x

human freedom

x

quality of life

x

social progress 

x

income equality (america was among the worst)

x

healthcare

x x

gender equality

x

what exactly makes america the “best country” here? america doesn’t excel in anything.

I was gonna say aren’t we like #1 in a bunch of bad stats? Like aren’t we the top for rape and abuse?

we are superior in waging wars, exporting and using firearms, and incarcerating the population among a lot of other terrible things. how depressing is patriotism and nationalism?

I remember this epic moment from The Newsroom

Americans just buy into the propaganda they are the greatest country when there is absolutely zero evidence to say so.

I reblog this post every chance I get.

Two years ago, weeks before the mid-term election. Guy at work: Why does this wagon train of rapists and drug dealers want to come here anyway? Me: 1: If there are rapists and drug dealers they aren’t telling us from a thousand miles away that they are coming and would like to apply for a process where their background is examined. 2: Some clown told them how great it is here.

george lucas spent like thirty years shitting his pants in rage every time anyone suggested luke might be gay and then mark hammil was like "lol anyway media is for the audience not the creators and if you like gay luke then luke is gay" at every opportunity. i love this man.

My mom is starving to death- please HELP!!!

This ISN’T a call for money!!

Alrighty tumblrites, I need you now more than ever. Your ideas, you resources, your suggestions- I’m listening.

Since March my mom has been extremely sick- every time she tries to eat, she throws up. I’m not exaggerating- EVERY TIME she takes a bite of something, she vomits. Even when she isn’t trying to eat- she vomits. 8-12 times a day, sometimes more.

Since March.

She can barely drink anything, it all tastes s bad that it makes her vomit too- yes, even ice chips. 

Her primary won’t see her- of the three telecom appointments we’ve gotten with his office (not HIM), all they have done is sent her antibiotics and, after I demanded them, referrals to specialists. She has seen an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor and a Gastroenterologist- both have encouraged my mom to see a Rheumatologist, which we have gotten several referrals for, except none of the one’s accepting patients take her insurance. 

Aside from whatever is causing the vomiting, they suspect she has Sjögren’s syndrome, because she has also been suffering from an inability to produce either saliva or tears. I mean, her mouth is bone dry, 24/7 and it is probably the reason everything she tries to eat tastes like sand, even water.

But we can’t get into a Rheumatologist atm. On top of that, her gastro dr. did an endoscopy and colonoscopy on Aug 11 and found signs of Barrett’s esophagus, several polyps, and a twisted colon- so twisted that they couldn’t complete the colonoscopy and now have her scheduled for a virtual colonoscopy on the 20th. I know they are investigating Chronic Vomiting Syndrome and Gastroparesis… but she wasn’t able to complete a stomach emptying study because to do it she has to swallow a medicine they track and… you guessed it- she can’t swallow anything. She threw it up.

 But NONE of this helps her right now- she can’t eat anything despite being constantly hungry. I rubbed her back toady as I held her hair back and could feel her ribs- I am literally watching my mom starve to death, and watching her get weaker and weaker and we don’t know what to do.

We take her to the ER, and they give her a bag of fluids and send her home. We tell her doctors she isn’t eating but all her blood tests and stuff come back normal, so they just shrug. 

At this point I know what I want- I want home health coming in to support her, to monitor her condition to see what is happening. I want her hospitalized until they can determine the cause of the problem, so that if nothing else they can hook her up to a feeding tube so that I don’t lose my mom.

I don’t want my mom to die guys… I don’t want to stand by, helpless as she starves, I don’t want to wake up and find she dies in her sleep because she aspirated, or her body simply gave up. I hear people talking about being ready to die because they are miserable, and in the meantime I’m grasping at straws to try and keep the most important person in my life alive.

And she is suffering, and in constant pain, and I can’t even imagine the torture of being constantly hungry and surrounded by food that you can’t eat and I need help.

Please, please, any ideas you might have, any resources we might not have thought of… I need them. Please, if you can’t think of anything, at least reblog this post- I know it’s long as hell, but I’ve got to hope maybe there is someone on this site that might have an answer.

Help me save my mom.

@thebibliosphere I know you have a large network of people with chronic illness. Not sure if this is the same, but would you be able to boost this? Maybe one of your followers knows a way to help?

I’m so sorry to hear this, it’s a scenario I’m all too familiar with. I’m reluctant to ask for your moms full medical history out in the open on the off chance, but I’m going to drop you a DM.

Imagine that. Hiring people who specialize in solving social problems works better than giving your high school bully, who can’t solve a cereal box maze, a gun and qualified immunity. #shocker

Full article is here.  The social workers are on the police force, responding as 911 calls come in. Police chief says:

Tell your local government about police social workers and link them to this article. Saves money AND saves lives!

your friend group in your 20s will consist entirely of people who are either a) gay b) have the same trauma as you c) work with you or d) all of the above

and how could i possibly forget e) lives too far away from you to meet up irl more than once or twice a year

Black people do not have to be exceptional for their right to life!!!!

Repeat after me:

Black people do not have to be exceptional for their right to life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This hardly has any notes but can I just say that non black people and white people you can in fact reblog this, thanks x

I’d encourage non black people and white people to reblog this so we at least know ya’ll understand and that we’re on the same page.Thanks.

Is it okay to add that Black people also do not have to be saints to have their right to life?

Like, the whole argument “they weren’t doing anything wrong” isn’t always true, and that shouldn’t matter. Sometimes, regardless of race, people steal or do drugs or get in fistfights or make whatever other poor decisions you want to insert here. But if white people get to “make mistakes,” then Black people should also get to “make mistakes.” A poor choice, ESPECIALLY a run-of-the-mill poor choice like getting high or in a fight, should not mean a death sentence. (Or a disproportionate punishment. There’s no need to throw someone in jail for a million years because they hit somebody, for fuck’s sake.)

When Sherry Johnson was eleven, she found one day that she’s gonna marry a 20-year-old member of her church who had raped her. She became pregnant and in order to avoid investigation and criminal case, her family and church officials decided to make the girl a legal wife of this monster.

“My mom asked me if I wanted to get married, and I said, ‘I don’t know, what is marriage, how do I act like a wife?’” Johnson remembers today, many years later. “She said, ‘Well, I guess you’re just going to get married.’” 

However, her case is one of thousand cases of child marriage. According to statistics, children 16 and under are still being married in Florida at a rate of one every few days.

Johnson and her family also attended a conservative Pentecostal church and that other girls of a similar age periodically also married. One girl said when she was 10 she was raped by both a minister and a parishioner and later gave birth to a daughter. There were all documents confirming her and her child’s age, but still, the judge approved the marriage to end the rape investigation, telling her, “What we want is for you to get married.”

And nevertheless, America prefers to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, like in Syria, calling it “defending freedom” rather than to change states’ laws and to protect American children from rape, coercion and molestation. 

Today, Johnson is campaigning for a state law to stop underage marriage that has already become a norm in some states.

Please, help me to raise awareness to this issue. No one can remain indifferent to the problem of child molestation. 

#StopChildMarriage  #StopChildAbuse

Chris Christie refused to outlaw child marriage in New Jersey when he was governor. Until a few months ago 13 year olds could legally marry here. Fuck Republicans.

Just remember until women got the vote age of consent was like 8 years old. It was one of the first things women changed when they got the legal right to vote and represent themselves as human beings.

(via Saturday Morning Cartoons: Baopu #15) by Yao Xiao

words to remember

these are so hard to ingrain in myself and teach my younger soblings as they come up, but boy is it worth it to try

telling teenagers it doesn't get better is so cruel and irresponsible. you're suppose to be the adult stop trying to get doomer cred and act like a sympathetic human being

*coughs* my parents

FINALLY, A PRESSURE POINT TO FIGHT USPS SABOTAGE: LOTS of calls and emails to USPS Board of Governors. Ready, set, go. We know how to do this. Be concerned, firm, polite. Louis DeJoy, the Postmaster General and Trump appointee who is now dismantling the USPS on behalf of Trump, “serves at the pleasure of” and reports to the 6-member USPS Board of Governors. These six men have the power & duty to #StopDeJoy & prevent Election Day chaos. 5 of the 6 are Trump appointees, but retired Harvard lawyer (CCJ, @NastyOldWomyn) contributing this info on Twitter is clear that a relentless barrage of calls, emails, and other callings-out will absolutely get their attention. She says: · I’ve represented Boards as a lawyer, and I know “this kind of attention is not what they’ve signed up for. It’s disruptive to their day jobs, which is where they make their money.” · “None of the members wants to suffer reputational damage from overseeing the meltdown of USPS during a pandemic. They do NOT want to be in the spotlight, so SHINE IT BRIGHT!” · “Board members HATE being contacted, HATE having their phone mailboxes fill up with messages, HATE being inundated with emails and letters. And, oh, they would HATE being picketed at work, if someone decided to start a demonstration.” · In contacting these 6 Board members, “I plan to be polite but firm about my fury about the recent deterioration of USPS’s service, giving personal & family examples regarding medication & veterans services, & expressing my distrust of & dissatisfaction with the performance of PG DeJoy. In my experience, rudeness NEVER helps. Call & email each of the 6 USPS Board of Governors. Tell them who & what you are (a retiree? Veteran?), what you & family rely on the USPS for in this pandemic, how DeJoy’s changes are disrupting that & causing stress. Express worry about Vote-by-Mail. Their emails: directoraccessmailbox@cigna.com; lee.moak@moakgroup.com; roman@rmiv.com; ron.bloom@brookfield.com; barger.jim@gmail.com; mduncan@inezdepositbank.com.

Tagging @fericita-s @broadwaybaggins @mercurygray @tortoisesshells @britishdetectives @amarguerite @incognito-princess @sassy-doctor-foster @the-spaztic-fantastic to get some traction

To make it a little easier, here’s an email message that you can send:

Dear Sirs,

I write to express my outrage at the actions being taken against the USPS at this critical moment in our country’s history. The Postal Service is an important utility for many people, and any efforts to make it anything other than its best are reprehensible. Please consider speaking with Donald Trump and the Postmaster General about reversing the sanctions that have been put on the USPS in recent months.

Yours truly,

Your Name

And here’s a phone script:

Dear Mr. [Last Name] I am calling to ask you, as a member of the USPS Board of Governors, take action against efforts to slow down the mail service. The USPS is a vital institution to our country and making it less effective will cause irreparable harm. Thank you.

Also here are the phone numbers since it could be hard to tell from the picture:

Robert M. Duncan (606) 298-3511

John M. Barger (626) 460-6321 and (213) 629-8356

Ron A. Bloom (212) 417-7000 and (212) 978-1707

Roman Martinez IV (212) 634-1190, (917) 892-4008, and (917)-270-4608

Donald L. Moak (202) 838-3800

William D. Zollars (913) 696-6100, (913) 232-8068, and (415) 394-9000