yknow i really dont feel like i should have to say this but um. stop referring to kinks as degenerate

like really just stop using that word ever but *especially* don't use it here

dragging this one out of the storage locker again. being queer and referring to yourself as a degenerate is fucking embarrassing. you're doing the fascists' work for them. knock it off

My favorite part is when the kitty runs to the window and looks out like “the outside stuff????? It is inside?????”

i

i had to

Y’all this is a great video to study to observe the body language of a very happy but also very excited cat.  Lots of people see videos of excited cats doing things like climb rock climbing walls or get on small boats and think they are angry or scared, when they aren’t.  Here’s a good example of happy excitement and tension in a cat where the cat’s pleasure is easy to see.  The cat’s tail is lashing and its ears are going backward and forward like crazy, but the cat is not angry, it is merely off its shits because snow is just incredible.  This is a wildly playful cat which might play-attack a hand or other animal because it is so excited, but not out of anger.  Note the zoomies at the end to burn off some of that energy!

Think about it. When we humans do something fun and very physical, our bodies are often tense, at the ready, and a lot of our body language does look kind of aggressive or even scared. Cats are the same!  Animals at play or investigating new things often show some tension, but tension is not the same as anger or fear!

ALL the residents are evil? what are the landlords doing to them

1,000,000,000 OYSTERS TO FEED COMRADE MAMDANI'S NONBINARY NEW YORK HYPERCOMMUNE

Vinyl records are circular because it's an efficient use of space: the grooves that encode the music are laid out in a spiral on the disc, so that the needle only has to move as far as the disc's radius to read the entire thing. Before this clever idea was thought of, the grooves were instead laid out in a straight line, and every LP was a narrow rectangle more than a thousand feet long. To flip an album to side b at least two people were needed, one at each end, coordinating via shouted instructions.

For the cassette tape they revived this idea with the genius addition of rolling the rectangle up so it would fit inside the tape player.

[Fictional character who is worse than me in every way] save me

#me with gob #me with shmilk

slogans for the upcoming orc election

imagining the king in those horrid mobile game ads as Gavilar Kholin

writing tip: searching "[place of origin]ish names" will get you a lot of stuff and nonsense made up by baby bloggers.

searching "[place] census [year]" will get you lists of real names of real people who lived in that place.

I feel like I'm constantly shilling for them but BehindTheName.com, the only baby name site that doesn't feel like it's run by mommy bloggers, includes census-based graphs for dozens of countries/regions (though not all of them go back very far yet)

And you can expand them to see rank, number of babies, and percentage of babies and add a second name to compare. (in 1973 four percent of babies were named Jennifer! 1 in 25!!!)

Also this. Cursed.

@homoqueerjewhobbit what name did you search for your example, and what's going on with Moldova?

Those are the graphs for Samuel. They only have 1 year's data for Moldova right now, so that's why it's a straight line. Similarly, they only have 2 years for Mexico right now. The US goes back to 1880. I'm not sure how much of that is publicly available/translated records and how much of it is that it's like 1 or 2 guys maintaining a website of 27000 names and a finite amount of time to format and upload.

Here's the list of all of the countries/regions they have popularity statistics for if you want to nerd out on it!

You can't advertise BehindTheName for writers without mentioning the advanced search! You can search names based on cultural origin and usage, gender (including unisex), meaning, and even things like meter and number of syllables, or famous namesakes (you can also see a list of famous namesakes on every name's page, along with meaning, history, related names, alternate spellings in different languages, the above popularity graphs, and more).

I wouldn't even call BehindTheName a baby name site. They have a surname sister site and a random name generator with tons of variables to set that is very clearly intended to be used for fictional characters (iirc it can even generate a cause of death? I haven't looked at it in many years so it might have changed but these things predate generative AI so unless it's been forcefully enshittified it shouldn't be slop). Like, you can use it for baby names, but the website isn't explicitly intended for that purpose. This website caters to us.

people have this tendency to believe that fandom discourse exists because people in fandoms are Stupid Nerdy Losers, but in fact fandom discourse exists because anytime you get a group of more than 100 people together, they will start creating interpersonal bullshit. fandom is not special in this regard

People leaving comments on my posts about Indigenous knowledge as a science and its relationship with Western science like, "I know Indigenous knowledge is extremely valuable and important, but I only trust verified science." You're just racist. I'm not going to be polite.

Today, many scientists acknowledge the troubling attitudes that have long plagued research projects in Indigenous communities [...] But some Indigenous groups feel that despite such well-intentioned initiatives, their inclusion in research is only a token gesture to satisfy a funding agency.

That's you. You only want tokens for optics. You can't say, "I respect Indigenous knowledge but—" No, you don't respect Indigenous knowledge. Western science is not the only "real" science and your attempts to argue otherwise are racist. There is no argument.

It's like I'm talking to a wall. All the time when I discuss my work as a wildlife & fisheries biologist, I discuss what I have learned directly from Indigenous people in my everyday work yet it's so clear that so many people hear that and think I'm bringing it up for what reason? To appear somehow progressive?

Has everyone just believed this whole time that I bring it up for optics?

Everyone nods, "of course he mentions Indigenous people," because they believe it would simply look bad for me if I didn't.

In fact Indigenous knowledge is a constant topic of conversation and point of reference when I discuss my work as a scientist who uses Western science because my work is useless without it.

I work with endangered species which are endangered solely due to continual colonial violence against people and the land. I can follow the Western scientific method all I want and publish 100 papers on how to fix salmon populations—and get nowhere without Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty.

Indigenous knowledge is not an afterthought to reference as back up to Western science. Believe it or not, we can and should lead any number of scientific projects with Indigenous knowledge.

You need to change how you regard Indigenous knowledge on a fundamental level.

bagele chilisa's book 'indigenous research methodologies' was published in 2019, btw. it's focused on decolonizing current western research practices, but obviously to decolonize you have to understand how and why indigenous sciences deserve consideration in the first place, and what counts as evidence when we look at a body of research.

Thank you! I'm adding this to my reading list now!

i hate getting blackout drunk bc i talk to too many strangers and like make plans and promises i don't wanna follow up on. this morning i got up super hungover and made a fried egg bagel & as soon as i took the first bite a stats menu briefly manifested into existence over my head and OATHBREAKER appeared after my name 😭😭😭 what could that even mean

I do think it’s funny when headcanons are presented as objective character facts bc I get “He would not fucking say/do that” as much as the next guy but I must also humbly acknowledge its powerful cousin named “A skilled enough writer could make me believe he would”

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest civilizing mission.

Edward Said, Orientalism

reblogging again in light of recent events

humans will see a swamp and build a city on it and then spend the next 2,000+ years struggling to keep it from turning back into a swamp

everybody saying a different city is cracking me up