My Servants Never Die!

The World Of Becca Blake

Art by Dan Schkade

In any world, please don't put anything but clean water in your eyes. Milk is effective, yes, effective at washing out tear gas but also effective at causing infections in your eyes. Just. Use. Water.

saw a christofascist die today: effervescent

whenever I tell someone “I’m tired” and they say “go to sleep” and I say “I’m not that type of tired” and they say “there’s only one type of tired” I always feel amazed. Astounded. How do they not know the different versions of tired.

5. The kind of tired that comes with severe brain fog. You don't mean to be struggling so much just to answer a simple question, but you are. And the effort makes it worse.

6. Drained in the sense you've gone over this a million times, people don't get it, you are just so damn tired of explaining

i think the main thing that pisses me off about people refusing to acknowledge the copaganda in across the spiderverse is that they believe all the cops featured in the story are shining examples of how cops “should be.” i.e., family men who are supportive of their kids and want to make a difference in the world. like, genuine question: do you think the REAL cops who brutalize civilians at protests not have nuclear families at home, don’t go to parent teacher conferences, don’t love and support their teenage daughters, etc? or do you believe the requirement for becoming a cop means having a loveless lonely life akin to that of ebenezer scrooge

like i hate to break it to you, but cops were always meant to be oppressive and violent, if not against everybody then at the very least against a specific class of people. there is no good way cops “should be”; the force is operating the way it’s always been intended to. the idea that cops in media can be good at all (fictional or not) instills the idea in the public that the leading example of a few good apples can reform a system that was never meant to work in favor of the oppressed in the first place, which thereby just pushes total abolition farther back. which is how copaganda fucking works

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

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

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

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 

That's fucking horrific, thank you

“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.

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.  

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

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. 

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

After 9/11, and again after Hurricane Katrina, there was movement for awhile around disaster planning for people with disabilities.  There were some grants to fund research on best practices and some guides issued and some calls for publicly funded housing and healthcare in particular and employees in general to come up with emergency planning.

In practice, it didn’t really take.  People who understand the issue tried, but ... it just isn’t even on the list of things to plan for in most organizations.

There are guides to planning:

https://www.ready.gov/disability

https://archive.ada.gov/pcatoolkit/chap7emergencymgmt.htm

https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/Public-Education/By-topic/Disabilities/EvacuationGuidePDF.ashx

You’ll note that many of them can only suggest that people unable to evacuate themselves either rely on a coworker who may or may not remember to come for them, or wait for emergency personnel to show up.  

Ok, putting my WH&S trained hat on for a tick: for Australians, I know that most multi-storey buildings are SUPPOSED to have fire doors on the fire exits right? So that means, if you have mobility issues of any type, you should get through the fire doors on your floor, and shut them and wait in the fire exit stairwell. Fire doors and the fire escapes typically are rated for two hours before a fire will get through them. So you can wait inside the fire escape/stairwell and the first thing the firefighters do is send someone up the fire escape to make sure everyone is clear. That's protocol for multi-storey fires. That's why you have a fire warden whose job it is to account for everyone in the building. I've done endless fire drill trainings where I've been the one sitting inside the stairwell and waits for a fireman. In a drill, they're timed on how quickly they get people out - I've never had to wait more than 15 minutes before one appeared. You can also have a buddy with you (you should where possible) to wait. Take a torch or use the one on your phone if you need it. Helps the firemen know you're there too. I think New Zealand might be the same, I'm not sure yet. Anywhere else, it pays to find out this information for your building.

hey i get that this post and its reblogs are a very important statement about the pulse nightclub shooting. dont fucking reblog this persons addition when they spread rhetoric that gets trans people fucking killed themselves

I want this to be an actual poll, so I'm gonna need a REALLY big sample size, so do ANYTHING you can to get this around! Reblog it! Kung-pow-penis me, if you have to! Wreck my notifications! Just do ANYTHING!

21 THOUSAND VOTES

93.2% yes

Love that his reaction to being pranked was to pull the exact same prank on his buddy

Oh no

oh baby

that kitten has never had a thought in it’s tiny life

He’s working so hard 🥺😭

angel in space who falls in love with an astronaut floating out in the void, not realizing they've been dead for years out there nor comprehending what death even is. is that anything

the angel starts leading them back to earth cuz they think that's what'll make them feel better, finally talk back to them, open up. it takes lightyears to get back to earth's atmosphere and when they do, the angel embraces them as gravity takes hold and pulls them crashing down. they both incinerate into ash and disappear. is that anything

idk is this anything

TV Executives: “if the strike goes on, you won’t get new episodes of your favorite shows! You won’t get new movies you were looking forward to! Isn’t that terrible, what the writers are doing to you?”

Me: Bitch, that might have been an effective threat in 2007, but we have since survived a Covid shutdown and discovered ways to amuse ourselves while we waited, we can outwait this shit, too. I got a pile of shows saved I haven’t even watched yet, and a Mt. TBR waiting for me.

Compensate (and respect) your writers for their work, assholes.

And the thot plickens….

HOLY FUCK

SAG-AFTRA = Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists

More info:

- The actors walk off at the end of June if the studios don’t sit down with the writers

- Rumor is directors will follow. This will grind everything to a halt.

- Nobody is asking for a boycott. Neil Gaiman has pointed out that making Good Omens S2 a huge hit actually puts more pressure on Amazon to negotiate with the writers

- This implies it’s okay to catch up on old streaming content without breaking the line too

- This is a screenwriter strike; books will keep coming out.

- Movies already made will keep coming out for months. Again, actors have not called for a boycott; you aren’t breaking the line if you go see a movie.

- I don’t know where this puts podcasts but none of them have studio funding or platforms so they’ll probably keep going.

- Substack/Tumblr book club are all public domain works and will keep going. In addition to Dracula Daily there’s Whale Weekly, Dickens Daily, My Dear Wormwood (The Screwtape Letters), Letters from Watson (Sherlock Holmes) and more.

- Your local library always needs love. With the Libby app you don’t even need to physically go there.

I wanna emphasize "nobody is asking for a boycott." A thing that's happened a lot in the last decade or so is that workers will pursue a particular action, and as it starts to go around online, the internet game of telephone expands and expands the actions called for and who's expected to take part in those actions.

The problem with this is that what makes organized action effective is that it's decisive, specific, and clearly bounded. That's because it has to be extremely legible to the targeted institutions that the losses taking place directly correspond to the demands of the workers. When workers are striking, and some people are boycotting, and starting and stopping on different days, that's not expanding the impact of the strike. It's making the contours of the effects of the strike blurry, and therefore debatable. At the negotiating table, the bosses will interpret that blurriness as favorably for themselves as possible. This functionally diminishes the power of the strike.

The "organized" part of organized action is essential. 21st century corporations are designed to absorb the impacts of disorganized action against them. This is why "voting with your dollar" doesn't work: the market is not a democracy. In order for conscious consumer behavior to matter, it has to be sudden and dramatic.

When you hear about strikes, check whether they're calling for a boycott. If they are not, don't boycott, and don't tell people to boycott. It's actively harmful to muddle the messaging like that.

Wow I'm weirdly unhappy and there's no reason for it I'm sure this has nothing to do with any sort of biological process my body has regularly undergone for years now

By Talos this can't be happening

Hey, this pride month (or literally any time of year), you wanna know something fairly easy and great you can do?

Contact your local library (or comment on their social media) positively for any pride/LGBTQIA+/queer-related displays or events they have going on.

Seriously.

What I’m seeing and hearing from the (mostly US-based) library workers in my groups and social circles is that the anti-queer (anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-drag queen story time, etc.) comments and complaints that have ramped up in the past year aren’t going away. Even library workers with supportive coworkers/bosses/boards are steeling themselves to deal with an avalanche of garbage, or are second-guessing their displays and events because the amount of vitriol can wear a person down so much. And the ones without supportive people or work environments? It’s worse.

Give the library something else: give them both the ammo (by being one of the numbers they can count worth the positive group) if they need to show their community isn’t wholly negative. Give them the compliment of knowing that their work got appreciated.

Matthew Hodson: “ 20 years ago, 2 years after the arrival of combination therapy that effectively treated #HIV, the Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco’s LGBT newspaper ran ‘No Obits’ as its headline. It was the first edition not to report an AIDS death in almost 15 years.”

Y'all need to appreciate that this was practically fucking *yesterday*.

as of today: june 1, 2023, that headline is 2 ½ months shy of being old enough to rent a car

for everyone bad at math, like me lol: the original print date was August 13th, 1998

Internet Safety

This is your warning.

some of my biggest insecurities only became insecurities after my mother pointed them out to me and turned my characteristics into flaws. parents, fucking watch what you say to your kids. 

I know this post is meant for women, but this.

This post is for everyone actually, no worries. Boys and other genders can definitely experience what I’m talking about in my op.

OP where is motorcycle dad

Closest would be submarines but my dad was a ship dad. Especially navy ships.