Marks and Rec: Misc #2378

("Except that the internet is real, of course.") (Dialogue from tumblr.)

This pride month y’all have got to offset your doomposting with some gay fun you’ve had. And if you haven’t had any gay fun then you need to stop doomposting and work on that. I know we’re descending into fascism and there’s always kink at pride discourse and threats of violence and actual violence and hollow corporate allyship. But I only have so much room for that in my brain. I want to hear about the party you went to or the guy you met at the bar or the girl who strapped you within an inch of your life or hell the new clothes you bought. I as a gay person on the gay people website should NOT have to dread the gay month

One of the Pride events I attended last year was outside, with a variety of acts, including a really fun drag queen who did a joyous sing and dance along there in the public park.

And when she was done, and coming off the stage, I saw a pre-teen approach, a pride flag clasped around their shoulds like a cape, a sketchbook hugged to their chest.

"Excuse me. May I draw you?"

It was said with such hope, and such respect, and I winced anyway. The Queen had just put on a hell of a show, and she'd been paid for her skills, and she had to have been exhausted. I expected her to say no, and honestly, I would've thought that was her right.

But she looked down at this child, and flicked her hair back, and said, "Honey, for you? I. WILL. POSE."

And then she did, perched on the edge of a stone wall, in the June sunshine, as a young artist sat in the grass and filled pages of their sketchbook. For 30 minutes or so, she posed and chatted with fans and laughed.

I will never forget that kindness. May we all be so welcome.

“Progress Shark” outside the Australian Museum, ahead of Sydney Mardi Gras/World Pride Festival 2023.

More flags should be inflatable sharks

also I promise this is unrelated to anything else I've been posting about but like. We're not doing the "rainbow capitalism" complaint this year. Sorry. I know pitching this particular hissy fit is really important to some of you. But years when the conservative movement du jour is to have a literally identical tantrum about any company that's putting rainbows on drink cans or reusable grocery bags because they view that as "supporting groomers and pedophiles," we don't get to throw fuel on that fire. Even if you disagree with the fire on an ideological level, it doesn't matter to the fire! This year, feel however you want to feel about any given company making their logo into a rainbow flag, but I promise the "boycott Anheuser Busch because they're supporting Deviants by making our beer gay" people do not give a shit whether you're supporting their cause from a gay standpoint or a homophobic one, they just care about the net result, which is that by getting outwardly mad about this, you are lending them support

Rainbow capitalism is what happens when the soulless money-hungry engines that dominate the world economy conclude that the Queer Side of The Force is winning. That the money lost by alienating hateful shitweasels is less than what they expect to gain from reaching out, in their infinite hunger and cynicism, to queer people.

Like, it’s crass as hell, but it’s still a good sign and we should encourage it, as it may help to drive the people who hate us for being alive back in to their holes.

there’s been a really bizarre trend in the past couple years of TERFS/radfems getting pissed off about biology posts. posts about the bilateral gyandromorph cardinal (one half male, one half female), posts about older hens beginning to crow and act like roosters, posts about animals being animals. and it’s hilarious because they interpret these posts as some kind of agenda. no! these are animals not choosing any gender identity or sexuality but being born into bodies they have no control over. weird how that happens in nature huh

never tell terfs about white-throated sparrow or they will lose their fucking minds

Do you want to hear about white-throated sparrows?!

Of course you do, they’re fantastic. They come in two models, one with tan head stripes and one with white head stripes. But the gene that controls stripe color also has a bunch of other effects! It’s a supergene!

To briefly sum up a grueling amount of fieldwork by people who were probably not getting paid nearly enough, basically the tan-stripes are nurturers and the white-stripes are fighters, across both males and females. White-stripes chase away intruders more, tan-stripes bring more food to the nest. Tan-stripe females bring more bugs to their chicks than white-stripes, white-stripe females are more aggressive and sing more.

There is a reason Jordan Peterson picked lobsters, not sparrows, to get all MRA about, because the sparrow ladies are ALL about the tan-striped males. Sexy nurturing tan-stripe males are immediately grabbed up by the more aggressive white-stripe females (who are also dead sexy if you’re a sparrow.) Then the remaining birds pair off, so you get tan and white couples reproducing in virtually all cases—nurturing male with aggressive female, hyper-aggressive male with hyper-nurturing female.*

And this is good!** Because it turns out that they can have a tough time if they don’t mate across stripes—white x white sparrows often come out undersized if they come out at all. There was some cool recent genetic sequencing and one particular chromosome is way funky, inverted, and scrambled in the white-stripes. So now every white-stripe has a funky chromosome and a normal one, and every tan-stripe has two normal ones.***

This is all really unique and means that white-throated sparrows effectively have four sexes, because they now only reproduce with a member of the opposite stripe and sex chromosome, and their offspring may be any one of the four sexes. The stripes have essentially become a second sex chromosome.

The geneticists involved think the funky chromosome probably showed up as a weird import from somebody gettin’ jiggy with another sparrow species. Presumably this created a hypersexy female whose white head stripes brought all the boys to the yard, and very unusually, that bred true.

Is that cool or what?!

*No word on whether there is a resulting sparrow tradwife media genre.

**Leaving aside the impact on the emotional health of the non-sexy sparrows.

**A population solely of tan-stripes can reproduce safely, they’re just not that into each other.

please god i have to see so many tags in my notifications about A/B/O this A/B/O that solely due to this post. i am going to blow up

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

BARBIE (2023) via @wbpictures_br

“Poor? Have you tried starving? “

What if we

And I do mean this

Set their buildings on fucking fire

“To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.”

― Oscar Wilde

Looks like they’re doing both at once now!

I’m reblogging this again for a bigger audience, and it’s really funny to me that the tags on this come in only 2 kinds

Where I come from Monday is regarded as the first day of the week, but each calendar row starts with Sunday, such that a calendar "week" actually begins with the final day of the preceding week (while the final day of the current week is bumped down to the next row). This is considered to be perfectly logical.

Monday, non-USA. The calendars and my work schedule do not always *agree* that Monday is the beginning of the week, but that doesn't mean the calendars and my work schedule are correct about this.

unfathomably common christopher eccleston W

he is beinge summoned. remain calmb

cousin bartók is arrivinge imminently !

cousin bartók have arrived bearinge mighty furs & soothinge gift of moss. bad days are now vanquished permanentlé

please look at this feisty, fluffy child

incredible

Ohhhhh, he’s gonna get you!! He’s gonna get you so bad!! He’s so big and fierce!! He’s gonna get you!!!

To note:

FR: concentrer /EN: focus

FR: écureuil /EN: squirrel

FR: pingouin /EN: penguin

FR: câlin /EN: hug

the “PINE-GUINE” fucking killed me asfgashasfg

Google Translate: focus

This man, with extreme amounts of self-confidence: fUCK US

....

EUGHJJ

"hug"

Sometimes the rats in my brain come together and start yelling “YEARNING” and in trying to appease them I ask “FOR WHAT” but they are too small so all they can say is “YEARNING” which is a very big word for such a tiny creature, even collectively

I loved this visual so much I had to doodle it.

ratratratratrat

IT'S "FOUL BAUBLE OF MANS VANITY" DAY!!! REMEMBER TO THROW YOUR MIRRORS OUT THE HIGHEST WINDOW OF YOUR TALLEST TOWER

ALSO! Can we discuss the fact that IT WASN'T THE MIRROR'S FAULT! Mister Dracula, sir, it was YOU SNEAKING UP ON OUR GOOD FRIEND JOHNATHAN HARKER WHILE HE HAD A SHARP OBJECT. Like, you knew damn well he was in the middle of shaving. YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE, YOU ASSHOLE!

I think everyone needs to start posting about how many people have been coming out in solidarity with trans people everywhere in the US especially in vulnerable states, because I’m really touched by what happened at the University of Iowa. These kids shut it down because it’s not just a youtube bigot on their campus it’s so much bigger than that! This is huge

People ARE coming out and packing courthouses and protesting on campuses and in the middle of your town and city in defense of trans people in great numbers. Very few people attended this loser’s speech and were publicly shamed for it. There are literally more of us than there are of them and I think we need to keep saying that

Platforming good things is crucial right now.

Bombarding people will every possible variation of horrible that's going on right now reaches a threshold where it's no longer useful and only fosters despair. It makes people think there's no point, no hope for anything.

But there is! The hateful minority IS that, hateful and a minority. And every time people come in and show support, it's important to put it out. It's important to let ourselves be validated. We're not alone, we're not ignored, we're not facing this fight isolated and without hope.

Be informed, absolutely, but make sure you're not poisoning yourself, letting those who hate you paint a world where you're alone and no one cares. Solidarity matters, and it's out there, if you look for it. Platform it.

Remember: they're lashing out because they are losing.

Public opinion is against them, which is why they're using gerrymandered legislatures and select courtrooms to establish the rules they want.

And they're doing a lot of harm, and they're going to do more.

But they are going to lose. Because that kind of hate can be established by dictators, but they can't maintain it. The protests and solidarity activism and trans-positive messaging matter to show the rest of the public - the ones who really don't care one way or the other - that they're not alone in thinking "oh, people should just be able to do whatever, as long as they're not hurting anyone."

i was yelled at today about this but

example phrase: "OP delete this post"

Listen, if you interrupt me with a new task while I’m midway through another, you aren’t allowed to be mad when I switch to the new task immediately. You clearly thought the new task was important enough to interrupt me with it!

I am just a little pikmin! You’re the one with the whistle!!

‘You need to learn to prioritise’ no YOU do! You’re the one dishing out tasks!! All I need to do is take things back to the onion!