Lurker's Corner

 You get twitchy boycotting tumblr for even just one day.

In other news, I now have a (very low-paying) job that starts one year and two days after my last one ended.

Some sweet thing on tumblr asked about the difference between the "mature" and "explicit" ratings on the AO3 fanfiction archive. Some kind soul answered:

tinsnip answered:

Mature is ‘and then they made love.’ Explicit is ‘and here’s how they did it exactly.’

To wit: mature.

He looked at the envelope, spread out before him.

God, he’d never been this hungry.

Could he be gentle enough? Slow enough? He didn’t want to damage it, didn’t want to do anything he’d regret… but no, no, it seemed the envelope wanted this as much as he did. It slipped into his hands, it folded as he asked. When it was time for more, the card was waiting, and he somehow knew exactly what to do. He moved with his correspondence in a dance as old as the mail system, and when it was over, he was smiling and the envelope was completely, thoroughly sealed.

Explicit:

The envelope waved its flap in the air slowly, gently, and he could see the faint shimmer of the adhesive traced along its fold. It was like a taunt, a dare: won’t you? And he would, oh, God, he would, lifting the envelope firmly to his lips, licking slowly at first, then faster, more firmly, tasting the envelope’s essence, the faint bitterness, the sweetness to follow–

Oh, he couldn’t help but smile at how it felt in his hands. It was so perfectly folded. Its paper was rough against his fingers, and its crossed folds shifted slightly as it opened for his eager tongue. Yes, yes…

Now the card, and his hand trembled as he lifted it, as he held the envelope, stretching it wide. Would it fit? Oh… oh, yes, it would fit, it slid in smooth and quick and filled the envelope to bursting, oh, made for each other, and he smiled in delight at how perfect it was.

He was ready. Now, now, now: with one swift movement he folded the flap over and he pressed, yes, he pressed the flap down and it stuck, God, it stuck perfectly, and he closed his eyes in bliss.

Afterwards, he stroked the envelope, and thought about addresses.

===

I have never regretted online bill pay more.

Can you lick the science?
An abbreviated list.

Genetics: Do not. Unless cheek swabs?

Chemistry: NO!!!!! DO NOT!!!!!!

Archaeology: Perhaps. But might be human bone.

Geology: Sometimes needed, sometimes dangerous

Psychology: Best not.

Physics: ????????? How??????

Zoology: In zoology, science licks you.

Anthropology: Maybe ask first.

Herpetology: bad plan bad plan BAD PLAN

Sociology: Yes, if you have time and dedication and a willingness to piss a lot of people off.

Botany: You might hallucinate or die, OR it might be delicious

Computer Science: the tingle of electricity on your tongue is how you know it’s working

Epidemiology: FOR THE SAKE OF THE WORLD PLEASE DO NOT

Linguistics: Despite the name, please probably don’t.

Engineering: Maybe, but it’ll probably taste like spreadsheets

Software engineering: nothing else has made the code work so you might as well try it

Biomedicine: Go ahead, but it’s probably at best urine and at worst a strain of infectious bacteria that has no cure yet.

Astronomy: I’m not gonna stop you from trying, it may just take a lot of time and a lot of money

Some things your local librarian would like you to know:


It is not a stupid question. Even if it is a stupid question, we have been thoroughly trained to answer your question without judgement or second-guessing. Besides, we’re mostly just glad you’re not asking us about the noise the printer is making again.

There are probably (at least) two desks in the library. One is where you check out books and is mostly staffed by people wearing nametags that say “Circulation Clerk.” These people can answer your questions about damaged or missing books, fines, and how many forms of identification we’ll need if you want to get a library card but your mailing address is in Taiwan. The other one is closer to the books and computers and is mostly staffed by people wearing nametags that say “Librarian.” These people can answer your questions about spider extermination, how to rent property to the United States Postal Service, and the number of tropical island nations in which you could theoretically establish the first United States Embassy. We would love to answer these questions for you. It would be a nice change from the printer.

We probably own a 3D printer by now. 3D printers, are cool, right? Please, please come use our 3D printer, it’s so lonely.

We spent a lot of money to hire this woodworker to come and teach a class at the library which you can attend for free. You will probably be the only person between the ages of ten and fifty in attendance, but your presence will fill the librarian with an unnameable joy. They will float back to their manager in a daze. “A young person came to my program,” they will say. You will have made their entire job worthwhile.

Every time you ask us for a book, movie, or music recommendation, a baby librarian gets their first cardigan.

Somewhere in the library, there is a form. If you fill out this form with your name and library card number and the details of the thing you are looking for, we will find you the thing. Sometimes the answer is “the thing is in Great Britain and they will not send it to us,” but more often the thing will just appear on hold for you, and one day you will pick up a copy of that out-of-print book you never thought you would read and maybe you will say, “Wow, the library is amazing,” and the librarian’s heart will glow.

Please bring back book #2. The rest of its series misses it very much.

Five dollars is not a large library fine. Believe me, before I started working in libraries, I too wondered how someone could sleep at night, knowing they owed money to the library. When we laugh as you sheepishly apologize for your $2.50 in overdue fees, we are not mocking you, we are thinking of the ten people we sent to debt collection already today.

We really don’t care why you’re checking out Fifty Shades of Grey. Maybe you have a specifically-themed ironic bachelorette party to plan. Maybe you’re working on a thesis paper about mainstream media’s depiction of female sexuality. Maybe you just got curious. We will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Whatever you’re smoking in the family restroom, please stop.

Somewhere on the library’s website, buried under “Links” or “Research” or “On-line Resources,” is a page that a librarian spent a month’s worth of work on. It contains many links to websites you thought everyone knew about, and one to a page that you could never have imagined existed that perfectly solves a problem you never expected to be resolved.

Imagine the kind of person who would think to themselves, “Library school sounds like a thing I should do.” For the most part, you are imagining the kind of person who is now a librarian. We want very much to help you, but we’re not entirely sure how to do that unless you ask. You are not bothering us. Please, come and say hi.

wehatefeminism:
Feminists say that if they walk around naked and get raped, it’s not their fault. Let me ask you this, if you owned a bank and left the doors wide open with no security and you got robbed in the middle of the night, is it the robbers fault or yours?

chemicallysleeping:
Literally the robber’s fault??? They walked in and took something that wasn’t theirs??? They knew pretty well that they shouldn’t steal things??? What is your argument even trying to prove???

supersmashmother:
Also can we stop equating women with inanimate possessions in an attempt to show their value and worth??? Jesus fucking christ. I’m not a bank with the doors left open. I’m not a car parked in a “bad neighborhood”. I’m not a shiny wrist watch, or a purse left unattended. I’m a fucking human being. I am not a consumable good. I’m not here for the taking. And if your miniscule brain can’t wrap around that concept, don’t confuse yourself by thinking that your opinion is in any way valuable or worth sharing.

Aside from the constant stream of (your taste here) art and fanfiction, I now accept the words "math," "science" and "adult" as verbs, even though there's a 35 year old adulting better at his age than perhaps I have at any. (chagrin)

Okay, yeah. My emotional age today is about 12. Also, I'm easily entertained.

Link to tumlr post showing text message exchanges between guys buying tampons and their girlfriends.

I have no idea how to cite tumblr, but here's the link to the post I saw.

edited to add: this works as a fairly brief overview of the history of feminism, especially if you add "and then we started suing people" to the end.

There's this tumblr post about how humans are SO NOT the default everyman species, which then goes into considerable detail about what might make us horrifying to alien species. I reblogged and added:

"I have this head canon where we freak out the aliens who eat rocks because they think a civilized species eats rocks OR organics, and we put salt on everything. Then, we freak out the species that eat organics because carnivore OR herbivore and…omnivore is just NOT NATURAL. Plus, rock on our food. (shudder) Also, we’re completely irrational about what we’ll go to war over. Land, water, minerals…and the vegetarians are just SITTING there, letting the omnivores run amok. WTF, humans? (Humans are all looking at each other, rock/paper/scissoring over who gets to explain politics, religion and money.)"