People who say ‘there’s nothing more boring than hearing about someone else’s dream’ I’m sorry that you and your circle are lacking in the department of spectacular and unsettling dreamscapes
I bet there’s at least one guy who uses a wheelchair who became a sneakerhead just for the laughs. Wearing pristine bright white brand shoes like “if you let your shoes touch the ground you’re a bitch. If you keep them on display and never wear them, you’re a coward. I’m the only one doing this correctly. Fuck you, get on my level.”
It is still wild to me that I legitimately have to research in a bikini in order to effectively collect data.
And the reason being is that people (of all genders equally) perceive me as a threat otherwise.
Like
Threat vs not a threat
People have said before that they are concerned I’m gonna get them in trouble, but I think the real reason folks get mean is that tourists effectively enter a liminal space when they go on vacations (especially American tourists on tropical vacations) and they don’t want anything to pull them out of that mindset.
So when I show up with a clipboard and wanting to talk while wearing an outfit that clearly says “I’m working, but not in any sort of position that exists in your vacation fantasy,” that pulls them out of the fantasy and they react negatively.
Meanwhile, if I’m dressed the same way everyone else is, even if I have a clipboard and want to talk about the same thing, I automatically become a wacky NPC who is part of the fantasy.
I no longer hear “It’s really weird that you’re just out here watching people” but instead “You get to lay on the beach all day and call it “work?” Hell yeah! Living the dream!”
Yes I study raccoons. The critically endangered pygmy raccoons like to live at beach clubs. My current study is looking at interactions between tourists and/or tourism industry staff and the raccoons.
Surely this is just environmental camouflage that let’s you get closer to your subjects?
It’s just as valid as when wildlife photographers cover themselves in netting with twigs and leaves attached or hide inside a fake rock right?
I love how we all glossed over the idea of a pygmy raccoon
Yeah, this is Mama, a full grown pygmy raccoon. They are a completely separate species than common raccoons. Their scientific name is Procyon pygmaeus and they are a critically endangered species. There are only around 120 left in the world and they are only found in the island of Cozumel in Mexico. I, tumblr user raccoonmilf and the creator of Dashcon, am the only United States citizen legally allowed to research them. I am currently studying how pygmy raccoons are impacted by direct human activity within the tourism industry.
I usually try to be tolerant of anachronisms in books, particularly ye olde medieval generic swords and sorcery type books, but I think I broke the sound barrier with how quickly I just shot out of my immersion in this book when ye olde ancient archivist in the ye olde fantasy-england castle’s library tells the protag where to find a certain book by giving him its dewey decimal number.
Today in an arthurian retelling set in pre-saxon britain I encountered a character who said he was going to quit drinking “cold turkey,” which I think puts him roughly a thousand years prior to European awareness of the existence of turkeys, and the dissonance had barely registered in my mind before I remembered the medieval lending library run on the dewey decimal system and decided a chronologically misplaced poultry idiom wasn’t worth noticing in comparison.
Paying your way through college by selling weed or doing Only Fans or whatever is infinitely more honorable than joining the military to get an education. Never forget community college is an option and you do not have to contribute to American imperialism to attend. I knew a girl who had scholarships but sold her dirty socks and underwear to pervs online for living expenses and she is stronger than any US marine for that.
