Counterclockwise Universe

I'm rereading Unseen Academicals and hit this "me and bad bitch I pulled by being autistic" moment

Reblog if you too would like to be told the interesting thing about ships.

my favourite thing is characters who just met the person theyre literally going to be wildly in love with for the rest of their lives and theyre like “:/ they’re not all that” this is so embarrassing for u

@brightwanderer

PUTTING MY BOYS ON BLAST LIKE THIS

I think what I love most about mythology is that the “Trickster God/Spirit” is an archetypical character found in almost every body of folklore. It’s like “Oh, here’s our God of the Sun, our God of the Sea, our God of Fertility, and our God of Being A Wretched Little Gremlin Who Causes Problems On Purpose”

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

Reblogging because it’s a damn potato and I want to encourage people to assume potatoes are magical.

I’ll do it because in this day and age it doesn’t seem too far fetched to think a golden potato may be our only hope

uk people, sign and share

non uk people, share but don't sign

terfs, get in the bin and stay there

today i found out that when monarch butterflies migrate south for the winter, all the ones that go across the middle of lake superior suddenly stop going south and go west for five miles and then continue south. which really freaked scientists out cos like What is in the Middle of Lake Superior what do Butterflies know that We Dont Is This The End Times etc. anyway turns out about a hundred million years ago there was a mountain there and the butterflies still think they gotta fly around it. classic butterflies

Y’all, unfortunately, this is just not true. A few months ago, I urged people on this site to be skeptical specifically about ecology & wildlife biology posts with no sources. This is a perfect example.

This post has made its rounds for ten years (originally posted in 2015), and the earliest source I have ever been able to find for this claim is an article posted in 2013, which says:

“Biologists, and certain geologists, believe that something was blocking the monarchs’ path. They believe that that part of Lake Superior might have once been one of the highest mountains ever to loom over North America.”

Who these “biologists” and “certain geologists” are is a mystery. The article links two sources:

Dillard is an acclaimed author and nature writer, but she is not a biologist or geologist and cannot be referenced as such. The referenced excerpt from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

Dillard credits this claim to nameless entomologists and a book with no title. It’s a dead end. Bear in mind, the entomologists and books who may have made this claim, which Dillard later read, would have done so pre-1974.

The truth about monarch butterfly migrations may lack the sci-fi/fantasy allure of a mountain range that exists only in a butterfly’s primordial memory, but it’s still incredible.

These creatures with magnificently intelligent and fragile bodies are believed to use internal solar and magnetic compasses to traverse mountains and lakes:

The geologic history of Gichigami, aka Lake Superior, is also extremely cool:

But as far as I can find, there is no Monarchs’ memories of a long-lost mountain which dictates their modern-day migration route. If anyone has more insight on this, I would appreciate it, because I am not an entomologist. I specialize in marine science and scientific interpretation, and I only used those skills to find and present what I believe is the best available information on this topic. Thank you!

people keep calling this “a net zero information post.” you should click any of the links I shared about butterflies and the lake and learn something new and exciting! : )

It’s going to be something really practical like, that area of the lake tends to have really wild turbulence, or some bizarre thermal effect that they don’t like. Or when people chat it out, it turns out that they’re actually following the shoreline.

... or the butterflies don't do that in the first place. If the claim for this change in course over the lake comes from this same vague and unproven anecdote then I wouldn't assume that even that part is true!

"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.

Someone who says they don't care if dudes wear dresses and makeup is a better ally than someone who says they're a safe space for women and non-binary people. I am not joking.

yeah I went to a gay bar recently with my husband tumblr user beemovieerotica, and a VERY confused capital S Southerner straight man in cargo shorts and a trucker hat showed up

apparently he (who through my drunken memory I remember only as Earl) liked some woman, and she told him that he wasn't cultured enough and needed to attend his first drag show (she also flaked on him)

Now I'm reasonably androgynous and was wearing makeup, a short leather skirt, and black heeled boots, but still when this guy came up to me when I was standing off alone and asked "So. Do you come here often?" with a very earnest expression, I thought. Surely not. This guy doesn't think I'm a straight woman does he????

Anyway I start talking with this guy and he has no idea what the fuck is going on but he is just a very kind and earnest dude and asked a lot of questions (while asking if it was alright if he asked those questions). I track down my husband and friends and I'm like y'all. We need to make sure that Earl has a Good Fucking Time tonight.

Man was completely out of his depth. At one point they put on a puppy auction to raise money for Pride, that started with a 6 ft drag queen in all her glory leading a leather pup out on a leash to the tune of that damned RSPCA "in the arms of the angels" song

We look at Earl. Nervous. He squints, laughs, and then goes "I was wondering why people were dressed like that!" He turned to me and asked "So they're like dogs?" And I said yeah pretty much. And he just chuckled and went "Yeah I thought so with the tails! Never seen this before!"

When the first drag king came out, Earl looked at me wide eyed and went "There's a dude version too?!" And I said yeah they're called drag kings. And he said, low, "Drag kings."

During one of the queens performances, he frowned, shook his head and told me, "Your legs are better than hers." in a tone that implied he thought there was some travesty taking place and I should also be getting paid

When he found out I was there with my husband (and that I am not a woman) he profusely apologized and said "I'm so sorry, it's dark in here and I thought you were a hot chick! I wouldn't have said nothing if I knew you had a husband, I'm so sorry about that."

When beemovie invited me to the dance floor with him later and I still had a drink in my hand, Earl said "Oh don't worry about that I can hold your drink, you get on out there and shake your ass with your husband!" Then before we left, Earl bought me drinks for "Putting up with me all night and answering everything. Y'all helped me have a great time tonight."

like. You gotta recognize there's going to people who have never had interacted outside of their of their own community. This includes you. And just because your community is familiar with all the right vocabulary and how to correctly say something, it doesn't mean they're actually going to support you. If someone like Earl shows up, confused and out of their depth but kind and curious and earnest, you gotta have patience and truck through the small things, so when he goes back to his friends and his coworkers and they snicker asking how the drag show was, he can genuinely talk about how included we tried to make him feel and that he had a great time

The person matters more than the language

I will fuckin never not reblog this.

I think I've reblogged this before, but it bears repeating.

I think some of the worst damage to leftist causes is done by that specific set of people who claim that they care about marginalised groups and the prejudice they face, but whose principle activism consists of using progressive language to pick fights with people from up on their home-made moral high-horse.

had a coworker once who found out i was married to a gay guy and would sometimes ask me questions because he just genuinely had no clue how anything worked. like, he thought maybe "trans" was like, somehow like gay but moreso? and he had genuinely no idea what any of this meant. and he wasn't hostile, he just never ran into any of this. so i took no offense and answered his questions and he was glad to know because it meant he wouldn't say as many clueless things to the next person he talked to, or risk offending them. all good.

Almost the conversation I just had with @brightwanderer

current fan creation landscape is kinda like if you went to a party with a homemade cake and everyone takes a slice and silently thumbs up at you with no attempt to start a conversation except for occasionally some guy sits in the corner with a tape recorder critiquing the cake as though he was a restaurant critic and another guy is handing the cake to an uber driver like "yeah i need you to find a restaurant that makes cake like this so i can have more of it" and the only person that's talked to you in 30 minutes is a very sweet little guy who was like "hey i liked your cake" and then ran away apologizing for bothering you the moment you said thank you.

someone brought a cake analysis robot to feed the cake into to determine the exact ingredients and supposedly it can spit out the exact same cake. and if you're like dude. what. then they're like well if it bothers you you should have made more cake. i'm hungry and i deserve cake. and you're like dude we're at a party.

Three months later you find out that fifty people locked themselves in a room to discuss how much they loved your cake and how they wished you made more. None of them ever told you.

I want this BLAZED across tumblr like a banner at the top of the screen, permanently

I don't know why but imo large mammals sometimes do smell sweet-ish during early-mid stages of decay.

Dead deer smell a lot like old leather, with like... an undertone of overripe fruit. Dead sheep have a stronger musky hair smell, and goats are like... sour, kind of? People smell different but I'm not sure if I can describe how. Kinda wetter, maybe? More bitter, like. In a sweet way? Like beer, almost?

I wouldn't say that decay smells sweet like sugar, more sweet like bile, or sourdough bread

If I had to hazard a guess, it's that the most common exposure to rotting flesh most people have is expired grocery meat, and when it's JUST gone off, beef smells sort of "sweet but bad"

IDK enough about wild corpses to know if they also do that, but that's probably what many authors are thinking of.

I think you should probably also not underestimate the number of people who have never smelled rotting flesh.

A lot of the weird “why do writers always describe X like that” examples come from a self-sustaining cycle of people who have never experienced the thing, but are used to seeing it described a certain way, and so use that description in their own writing.

You’ve never smelled rotten flesh but the “sickly sweet” smell is something you’ve read over and over, so you reproduce it without thinking twice (after all, you’ve also read a dozen other stock descriptions of experiences you HAVE had, and they were accurate). You don’t know that there’s a difference between “prone” (lying face down) and “supine” (lying face up) because every single time you’ve seen a character described as lying “prone” it’s also carried the meaning of “unconscious/unwell/completely helpless” so that’s how you use it. The sensation of touching a snake is always described as “cold” and you know they’re ectothermic so that feels like it makes sense and you’ve never touched one yourself (but they’re not cold per se, they’re the same as the ambient temperature and it feels like touching a piece of polished wooden furniture, albeit one that wiggles).

I don’t think I’ve ever smelled rotting flesh, not even properly spoiled meat, but I’ve smelled rotting plant matter enough times, and that does usually have a cloying, sweet stench. Up until now I would definitely have assumed that the standard “sweet smell of decay” was accurate.

The unfortunate removal of the video has caused a global panic so huge that even the news covered it

I'm trying desperately to wind something up. I often write out of order, so in this case winding it up consists of going back and writing a scene about 3/4 of the way through that I just hadn't got round to yet, stitching together two halves of another scene and probably finessing the end a little more because there's a few lines that don't quite work how I want yet.

Anyway, all this to say that I am sharply remembering that when I started writing this back in March I said to @brightwanderer something along the lines of 'it's a few scenes and I've already written loads and I have a plan and notes. It'll take me maybe two weeks.'

And SHE LAUGHED.

And now here I am three months and 7000 words later.

For the record I am STILL LAUGHING

“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

#tapping the reblog button with utmost care because i’m handling a historical artifact (via @malarkiness)