#service organizations

[frodo-a-gogo]

Let us be brutally honest with ourselves and with eachother for a moment. If he weren't obese you motherfuckers would be capable of percieving evrart claires sexy sexy moral ambiguity and complex charms

[aromanticduck]

I know both are bad, but which causes you more inconvenience or annoyance?

Please reblog if you're voting 'see results', as I need votes from a specific demographic.

[imperceiveable]

idk is this anything?

[snurtle]

I've been thinking about the templars lately. they were promised honor, virtue, told that they would be charged with protection of the innocent... And then those same people are systemically exploited and abused, abuse others because they're taught to regard everyone else as either sheep who need to be lead or potential threats. Never equals, except in their brothers/sisters-in-arms. They act as the guard-dogs and military arm of an entirely different organization that they're only a functionary member of but have no governing say in. Even the chantry aren't their equals- they function as the templar order's supervisors! And all this isolation and closing of ranks ends in disability, addiction, death, and abandonment by the system they spent their bodies in service of.

To top that off, retaliations against them just confirm the paranoia they were taught to embrace. It's probably a long hard road to get out of that hole.

Like, listen. the dichotomy of mage vs templars is a satisfying and easy one, but the system is tearing them apart too. have you ever heard of a retired templar?

at the end of it, mages and templars need to unite against the real threat. the chantry.

[imma-ghost-bunni]

✨ the Ultimate Studio Ghibli Desktop Set ✨

I'm so excited to share this! I adore Studio Ghibli and its beautiful worlds and characters, so I created this massive desktop set that includes as many beloved movies as I could, for anyone else who wants to bring some Ghibli magic to their desktop! 🖤(there are more icons than pictured above ;) )

holds desktop set out to you like No Face giving gold

uh. uh.

^ me when I finally finished making this set. I spent four months working on it (two and a half of those were JUST the icons). But my main mindset when making this set was to really do as much as I possibly could, because there are SO MANY amazing movies and characters and everyone has their favorite and I wanted to do my best to have something for everyone! 🌿🌸🩷 This has been a LABOR for sure, but I also poured as much love as I could into it! So this was also me (and my sisters xD) when I finished:

Also, what's this? -> TOTORO4TUMBLR

hm.. maybe if you feed it to etsy checkout it does something *shrug*

[halorvic]

The danger is clear and present: COVID isn’t merely a respiratory illness; it’s a multi-dimensional threat impacting brain function, attacking almost all of the body’s organs, producing elevated risks of all kinds, and weakening our ability to fight off other diseases. Reinfections are thought to produce cumulative risks, and Long COVID is on the rise. Unfortunately, Long COVID is now being considered a long-term chronic illness — something many people will never fully recover from. Dr. Phillip Alvelda, a former program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office that pioneered the synthetic biology industry and the development of mRNA vaccine technology, is the founder of Medio Labs, a COVID diagnostic testing company. He has stepped forward as a strong critic of government COVID management, accusing health agencies of inadequacy and even deception. Alvelda is pushing for accountability and immediate action to tackle Long COVID and fend off future pandemics with stronger public health strategies. Contrary to public belief, he warns, COVID is not like the flu. New variants evolve much faster, making annual shots inadequate. He believes that if things continue as they are, with new COVID variants emerging and reinfections happening rapidly, the majority of Americans may eventually grapple with some form of Long COVID. Let’s repeat that: At the current rate of infection, most Americans may get Long COVID.

[...]

LP: A recent JAMA study found that US adults with Long COVID are more prone to depression and anxiety – and they’re struggling to afford treatment. Given the virus’s impact on the brain, I guess the link to mental health issues isn’t surprising. PA: There are all kinds of weird things going on that could be related to COVID’s cognitive effects. I’ll give you an example. We’ve noticed since the start of the pandemic that accidents are increasing. A report published by TRIP, a transportation research nonprofit, found that traffic fatalities in California increased by 22% from 2019 to 2022. They also found the likelihood of being killed in a traffic crash increased by 28% over that period. Other data, like studies from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, came to similar conclusions, reporting that traffic fatalities hit a 16-year high across the country in 2021. The TRIP report also looked at traffic fatalities on a national level and found that traffic fatalities increased by 19%. LP: What role might COVID play? PA: Research points to the various ways COVID attacks the brain. Some people who have been infected have suffered motor control damage, and that could be a factor in car crashes. News is beginning to emerge about other ways COVID impacts driving. For example, in Ireland, a driver’s COVID-related brain fog was linked to a crash that killed an elderly couple. Damage from COVID could be affecting people who are flying our planes, too. We’ve had pilots that had to quit because they couldn’t control the airplanes anymore. We know that medical events among U.S. military pilots were shown to have risen over 1,700% from 2019 to 2022, which the Pentagon attributes to the virus.

[...]

LP: You’ve criticized the track record of the CDC and the WHO – particularly their stubborn denial that COVID is airborne. PA: They knew the dangers of airborne transmission but refused to admit it for too long. They were warned repeatedly by scientists who studied aerosols. They instituted protections for themselves and for their kids against airborne transmission, but they didn’t tell the rest of us to do that.

[...]

LP: How would you grade Biden on how he’s handled the pandemic? PA: I’d give him an F. In some ways, he fails worse than Trump because more people have actually died from COVID on his watch than on Trump’s, though blame has to be shared with Republican governors and legislators who picked ideological fights opposing things like responsible masking, testing, vaccination, and ventilation improvements for partisan reasons. Biden’s administration has continued to promote the false idea that the vaccine is all that is needed, perpetuating the notion that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to do anything about it. Biden stopped the funding for surveillance and he stopped the funding for renewing vaccine advancement research. Trump allowed 400,000 people to die unnecessarily. The Biden administration policies have allowed more than 800,000 to 900,000 and counting.

[...]

LP: The situation with bird flu is certainly getting more concerning with the CDC confirming that a third person in the U.S. has tested positive after being exposed to infected cows. PA: Unfortunately, we’re repeating many of the same mistakes because we now know that the bird flu has made the jump to several species. The most important one now, of course, is the dairy cows. The dairy farmers have been refusing to let the government come in and inspect and test the cows. A team from Ohio State tested milk from a supermarket and found that 50% of the milk they tested was positive for bird flu viral particles.

[...]

PA: There’s a serious risk now in allowing the virus to freely evolve within the cow population. Each cow acts as a breeding ground for countless genetic mutations, potentially leading to strains capable of jumping to other species. If any of those countless genetic experiments within each cow prove successful in developing a strain transmissible to humans, we could face another pandemic – only this one could have a 58% death rate. Did you see the movie “Contagion?” It was remarkably accurate in its apocalyptic nature. And that virus only had a 20% death rate. If the bird flu makes the jump to human-to-human transition with even half of its current lethality, that would be disastrous.

[jangillman]

[ehlihr]

there is something sick and twisted wbout me (i love to make spreadsheets)

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Wrens played a major part in the planning and organisation of naval operations, serving at Bletchley Park and its out-stations, operating machines used in code-breaking.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[poppy5991]

The fact that Bud the Postman is harassing Kristen’s parents on her behalf with no one knowing while he delivers their mail lmao

[smoozie]

The permit office bit is funny for now... but like... the post office WILL need a permit to sell stamps. It's funny that Grian is refusing to answer his nonsense questions rn, but eventually there does need to be a proper system. Especially since people will probably want to sell services (Scar's landscaping, Iskall's hitman, etc) and need to create permits for them.

[moregraceful]

max and i are closing in on launching [redacted sports rpf charity fest] and i am once again pondering how do i write "experience with writing form emails and manipulating google forms in ways no one has dreamed of" in a cover letter without saying "i did it for the rpf grind"...like there's no way unless everyone in this microsoft teams meeting gets really cool about a bunch of stuff really quickly. you know

[aromanticduck]

Purchasing bads and disservices at the inconvenience store.

[preciousmetaltimeofnight]

I feel like the fandom needs to be reminded that in RP characters who haven't interacted a lot with federation workers don't know that the federation workers are in a bad situation and have their own emotions. That it actually makes sense for most characters to assume that federation workers are emotionless or malicious in a similar way to Cucurucho.

Like if the majority of your interaction with the federation has been through Cucurucho or guards gunning you down ofc you assume all federation employees are similar?

Even if you say interacted with Walter Bob a bit after his makeover he is visibly different than the other federation workers who all look like they belong to some sort of hivemind or are robots / some sort of non-human entities. So you might rationalize him as an exception.

Idk I'm just tired of people being like ohhh hurting the employees is unjustified how dare they make this decision. These are workers of an evil organization that have been hurting the islanders for months. So no I don't think it's unjustified for them to assume that the workers are guilty, or to not immediately suspect the workers of being in a similarly bad situation. In fact it would be unreasonable for them to immediately treat every worker they find well.

[queerliblib]

okay folks, this is it. one week to go! when we sent the newsletter out to all our subscribers this morning we were at 79% - that’s already jumped up to 82% funded!! help us make it all the way to 100% 💸

[kazanskyy]

shiv having her husband in her contacts as FirstName LastName with no photo of him, so an incoming call from him would just look like a call from any other random contact...but then also having him set up as her Emergency Contact in her phone's Medical ID profile...shiv thesis.