brzaski

[brzaski]

[id: a 10-panel black and white comic.

First panel: two people are standing next to each other. Person A, with a concerned smile, says to person B: "You're quiet. Why don't you ever talk?"

Second panel: person B shrugs with a neutral expression on their face.

Third panel: Person A, with a big smile, says "Tell me more about yourself. Anny hobbies? Favorite movies?". Person B, with a neutral facial expression, replies "I like Jurassic Park".

Fourth panel: Person A, still smiling, says: "Oh, I never watched Jurassic Park. Tell me about it.".

Fifth panel: Person B, with a doubtful expression, says "Are you sure you want me to do that"

Sixth panel: Person B, with a smile on their face, starts talking. Instead of normal dialogue, their speech bubble is filled with a screenshot of a Wikipedia article about Jurassic Park. Seventh panel: Person A, with a wide smile, says "That's cool! Which movie is the best?" Eighth panel: Person B speaks excitedly. Their monologue is written in gray letters behind them, only fragments legible : " I- WOAHH OK, there [...] a-a, um, bunch of things I-I like ar [...] The Spinosa [...] Cool a-and I LOVE the [...]". Person A watches with a smile.

Ninth panel: Person A smiles and nods, person B's dialogue in the bottom right corner of the panel now saying "BLAH BLAH BLAH"

Tenth panel: Person B, still looking excited, thinking "wow they are so patient". The panel's background is a fragment of a Wikipedia article about Spinosaurs. /end id]

It makes me happy when they listen

#described #this looks so good i wish i could find a person like person A #but about like other animals and stuff #although i have to admit i sometimes find it hard to be like person A i can't focus so it's especially impressive

[brzaski]

Please don't forget Armenians

Today is Armenian genocide remembrance day. On april 24, 1915 started mass deportations of hundreds of Armenian intelectuals and community leaders, who were (most of the time) eventually killed. Armenian women and children were systematically r//ed and forcibly converted into islam. There were more than 2 milion Armenians in ottoman empire prior to ww1, 1,5 milion of them were viciously killed. Three millennia of Armenian civilaziation in eastern Anatolis was fully destroyed. Turkey today refuses to acknowledge genocides of christian minorities in early 20th century.

Do you know that mass ethnic cleansing of Armenians in ottoman empire inspired Lemkin to coin the term 'genocide'?

Last year in september azerbaijan allied with turkey initiated a war against Armenia. More that 5000 Armenians were murdered, thousands of Armenia families had to live their ancestrial land to not get murdered. There are hundreds of vids on internet where armenian p.o.w.s are tortured. Recently azerbaijan opened a "museum" displayind dead or dying Armenians and kids were allowed to visit it.

Please educate yourself on Armenian genocide. You can also donate here to help Armenia. Thanks for reading!!

#no id

[brzaski]

daily reminder that boycotting is not a moral stance but a political strategy, so the whole “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” argument is not the gotcha you think it is

you can refer to BDS if you’d like a list of companies to focus your efforts on. you can refer to this website if you’d like to become more conscientious about what you’re buying and check for brands/products to avoid.

*please note that i am a palestinian who has been boycotting my entire life. do not try to explain to me in the tags or reblogs or replies what a targeted boycott is or complain about giving up your comfort for something that you (incorrectly) believe does not make an impact. being quiet is free. exercise your right to remain silent today.

[brzaski]

she has a willatine for you ☺️

[brzaski]

one of the most infuriating things about becoming an adult is when you realize that it actually is 10x easier to solve problems by making a phone call vs literally any other communication method

[brzaski]

it literally drives me insane that so many companies refuse to send rejection emails like it’s disgraceful tbh. you put so much time and effort into putting together an application and they can’t even be bothered tell you via some measly automated message that you didn’t get the job. you’re expected to just infer

[brzaski]

why would I camp somewhere named Hole Where You'll Freeze To Death

[brzaski]

“if you’re working a full time job you should be able to afford to live on your own and have access to food and transportation” gonna be real with you brother. everyone deserves this. Not just people working 40 hrs a week

[brzaski]

her armpits would NOT be clean shaven

[brzaski]

so: masking: good, unequivocally. please mask and please educate others on why they should mask to make the world safer for immune compromised people to participate in.

however: masking is not my policy focus and it shouldn't be yours, either. masking is a very good mitigation against droplet-born illnesses and a slightly less effective (but still very good) mitigation against airborne illnesses, but its place in the pyramid of mitigation demands is pretty low, for several reasons:

it's an individual mitigation, not a systemic one. the best mitigations to make public life more accessible affect everyone without distributing the majority of the effort among individuals (who may not be able to comply, may not have access to education on how to comply, or may be actively malicious).

it's a post-hoc mitigation, or to put it another way, it's a band-aid over the underlying problem. even if it was possible to enforce, universal masking still wouldn't address the underlying problem that it is dangerous for sick people and immune compromised people to be in the same public locations to begin with. this is a solvable problem! we have created the societal conditions for this problem!

here are my policy focuses:

upgraded air filtration and ventilation systems for all public buildings. appropriate ventilation should be just as bog-standard as appropriately clean running water. an indoor venue without a ventilation system capable of performing 5 complete air changes per hour should be like encountering a public restroom without any sinks or hand sanitizer stations whatsoever.

enforced paid sick leave for all employees until 3-5 days without symptoms. the vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through industry sectors where employees come into work while experiencing symptoms. a taco bell worker should never be making food while experiencing strep throat symptoms, even without a strep diagnosis.

enforced virtual schooling options for sick students. the other vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through schools. the proximity of so many kids and teenagers together indoors (with little to no proper ventilation and high levels of physical activity) means that if even one person comes to school sick, hundreds will be infected in the following few days. those students will most likely infect their parents as well. allowing students to complete all readings and coursework through sites like blackboard or compass while sick will cut down massively on disease transmission.

accessible testing for everyone. not just for COVID; if there's a test for any contagious illness capable of being performed outside of lab conditions, there should be a regulated option for performing that test at home (similar to COVID rapid tests). if a test can only be performed under lab conditions, there should be a government-subsidized program to provide free of charge testing to anyone who needs it, through urgent cares and pharmacies.

the last thing to note is that these things stack; upgraded ventilation systems in all public buildings mean that students and employees get sick less often to begin with, making it less burdensome for students and employees to be absent due to sickness, and making it more likely that sick individuals will choose to stay home themselves (since it's not so costly for them).

masking is great! keep masking! please use masking as a rhetorical "this is what we can do as individuals to make public life safer while we're pushing for drastic policy changes," and don't get complacent in either direction--don't assume that masking is all you need to do or an acceptable forever-solution, and equally, don't fall prey to thinking that pushing for policy change "makes up" for not masking in public. it's not a game with scores and sides; masking is a material thing you can do to help the individual people you interact with one by one, and policy changes are what's going to make the entirety of public life safer for all immune compromised people.

#YES!!!!!!!!! #PLEASE #the sick leave #the virtual schooling....... please........ life would be so much better.... #we had even 'hybrid' classes for some time where you could connect through zoom if you were sick #but now the professors don't bother anymore #i hate this hustle culture #i hate that we have to put our health on the stake for the capitalistic society to continue #we are not machines

[brzaski]

i have so many friends that already have little quirks about them like "everyone always thinks I must be really religious but I'm not" or "everyone always thinks I must be really good at math, but I'm not" or yes, even "everyone always thinks I must be gay but I'm not".

there's a million things people run into where they might have a minor misconception they have to correct about themselves here and there, and it's usually fine. pretending that the mere act of someone asking you if you might be trans is some terrible slight is JUST transphobic. every single cis person I know personally, who isn't already a transphobe, would just laugh a little and wonder what about them came off as trans. hell, some cis people LOVE to be told they look a little queer.

i think most people would be touched if you reached out to ask about their identity, give them a chance to talk about it, even if you were wrong. a lot of cis people I know love to be like "haha I'm not trans but you know, I've always kind of liked football, but my dad didn't let me play cuz I'm a girl. isn't that fucked up?" and then you get to have a nice conversation about what you have in common anyway.

but if you bring it up to your friend and they accuse you of "converting them" or "pressuring them" to be trans? those are literally dog whistles for their true fears and beliefs about trans people. trans people "making other trans people" through mere discussion is literally a fox news level bigotry callsign. it's what your transphobic relatives and peers are saying about YOU when you bring up your pronouns around them.

any sincere cis ally would not think a mere question from a friend is capable of spreading The Trans Contagion- they're getting that idea from something rooted deeper and I would be unsettled by it if I were you.

obviously if your friend told you kindly that they didn't like it when you asked if they would ever consider being trans, then you should respect their feelings. but if you're sitting out there right now with that straw man in hand, ready to argue with other trans people for the sake of your poor little cis friend, have you also considered why your friend is so offended at the idea? like, if you're trans and you're caping for a cis friend who gets mad if you say they have tgirl swag or whatever, have you considered that their anger might actually be kind of shitty and you don't need to defend it?

none of my friends would act like that, that's all I'm saying. and if they did I'd be uncomfortable.

#i've never thought about this in detail! maybe bc many of my friends are already trans #but can you imagine being told you have 'tgirl swag' and getting mad? #i'd be honored

[brzaski]

I really can’t stress enough how important it is to talk to your friends, family members, and partners regularly about their right to set boundaries, even ones that inconvenience you.

We absolutely live in a hierarchial abuse culture where people can and do impose their will on each other in a million tiny ways. A lot of people just expect it - they’ll make choices according to the assumption that you, too, are invested in controlling them to whatever degree - because unless you consciously make a point not to be, it’s possible that you are.

In a healthy relationship people ask for consent often - “Do you want to do this? Are you comfortable with this? Is there anything you think we should change about this plan?” And then, they clarify that negative answers are totally normal and okay.

Checking in can sound like, “Hey, you know I love doing X but if you ever don’t want to you know that’s okay, right?” It’s paying attention to nonverbal cues that someone is uncomfortable and giving them an out - “You don’t seem excited about this party, I want you to know it totally won’t be a big deal if you’d rather not.”

In a healthy relationship there’s a huge difference between “no” and “you shouldn’t have asked”. “No” is normal and expected and it’s assumed that sometimes it will be the response. There’s an intentional effort not to punish each other for not always giving each other what you want.

Normalize “no” in all your relationships. Seek it out! Give people extra opportunities to say no! And accept it. Recognise that it’s a good sign when your loved ones feel safe enough to not agree to things they don’t want out of fear of your reaction.

Just - check in. I don’t care what kind of relationship it is, don’t assume people know it’s safe to say no to you unless you remind them and show them regularly. Making space for healthy boundaries is one of the most important things to communicate with the people that you care about.

[brzaski]

btw! I was made aware that many people don't know that we're boycotting Eurovision this year, so.

we are boycotting Eurovision, as per BDS guidelines.

don't watch the stream, don't engage with the videos, don't post it about it on social media using hashtags that are going to trend.

[brzaski]

Ideal work schedule:

I show up and am given a list of cognitively engaging but achievable tasks

I complete the list

I leave immedietly

[brzaski]

how am i doing? oh I’m fine except i’m in a constant state of nostalgia and sentimentality over everyone I’ve ever loved and every age I’ve ever been and every phase of my life and every job I’ve worked and I’m constantly missing people and places that I can never go back to but it’s cool it’s fine

[brzaski]

idk how to flirt but i can make things awkward if you're into that

[brzaski]

I am developing a gay hookup app with roguelike and deckbuilding elements