This Land

dislike and discomfort are normal and healthy parts of the human experience actually

"I find this off-putting" and "this is harmful to me" are surprisingly not the same thing. i know, i'm as shocked as you are

the thing about being nonbinary is that you really do start to forget that other people have such strict walls around what is and isn’t allowed for genders. i thought we all agreed that we made that up. could you climb out of the cave real quick and feel the sunshine for a minute.

I feel compelled to add, as someone moving to Canada as a cis white woman in a straight-passing relationship with spousal sponsorship:

1.Still not cut and dry and easy, in any way, for ME. I just spent most of my evening filling out ever more paperwork. So, yanno.

(I know he literally said this but I feel like it needs yelling, cause oh god, so many people think it's this easy:)

2. DO NOT TRY TO COME HERE AS AN ASYLUM SEEKER JUST BC YOU'RE AFRAID. There are extremely specific, rigid rules, definitions, and situations for seeking asylum in Canada (think, 'I live in a country where it's legal to hunt gays for sport' definitions), and if you don't meet them and still apply, you cannot ever apply for Canadian citizenship again.

I have had to tell SO MANY queer buds that info, plz I'd love to have you here with me but that definitely won't happen if you try seeking asylum right now. Take up welding or AC repair!

It's always so weird to come down from the biology heavens to see what the average person believes about animals, plants, ecosystems, just the world around them. I don't even mean things that one simply doesn't know because they've never been told or things that are confusing, I'm talking about people who genuinely do not see insects as animals. What are you saying. Every time I see a crawling or fluttering little guy I know that little guy has motivations and drive to fulfill those motivations. There are gears turning in their head! They are perceiving this world and they are drawing conclusions, they are conscious. And yet it's still a whole thing if various bugs of the world feel pain or if they are simply Instinct Machines that are Not Truly Aware of Anything At All????? Help!!!!!! How can you look at a little guy and think he is just the macroscopic animal version of a virus

Had an anthropology professor explain once that emotions are instincts.

"their instincts are telling them" means they're scared or angry or horny or in love

Our emotions are not what make us more evolved that animals, it's our ability to rationalize past them and use logic instead that makes us human

ALL animals feel emotions. The "more evolved" an animal is the more nuance the emotions have, but they still feel more than they think

I think that’s a good way to look at it! Emotions likely evolved to benefit us: doing things that help us survive feels good, unknown things are scary to protect us, shame and sadness makes us not do something again, things like that. It’s weird to think that animals, who clearly react to things, would not have any sort of feeling on things, and simply factually react to stimuli. “Oh, my foot is being chewed to the core. This is bad, I guess. I should try to get away, so the bad thing will stop,” except also not really as thoughts but like, instant response, somehow.

Humans are different from other species of course, but sometimes we need to remember that we are but animals and also have instincts, and other species are more similar to us than we think

Oftentimes I see people just make shit up about bugs and other invertebrates. People will say stuff like "actually it's been scientifically proven that insects are physically incapable of cognition" with no source, and then you look it up and in fact there is tons and tons of literature reporting results on this exact thing. A while back after getting into an argument with people online about wasps, I decided to try compiling sources on invertebrate cognition out of spite and I had to take a break at some point because there is so much literature out there, it is actually overwhelming. Just with fruit flies alone, there's studies on how they form stable social networks and fight to establish hierarchies; how they make group decisions and act differently in crowds; how they pay attention to what other flies are doing and teach and learn from each other, even with other species. When subjected to pain out of their control, they can develop depression and respond to SSRIs to the point that they are literally used as animal models to study how to treat depression in humans. And that's just like, one animal!

Even with all the research there is though the truth is that we just haven't studied things like cognition, perception, behavior, sociality, etc. for the vast majority of invertebrates (i.e. the vast majority of animals). Most behavioral research (honestly, just bio research in general) is focused on vertebrates -- particularly mammals -- and the research that has been performed for invertebrates has still only been done for a small handful of species and lineages. Fruit flies are one of the single most studied organisms in the world (and there's still a lot we don't know about them). If idk, clams felt emotions, do you think you would be able to tell by just looking at them? (I have no idea if they do or not, I don't think anyone has studied this. we do know scallops can see.) But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and given the small glimpses of insight we have gotten into the vast world of unknowns, I think yeah it's pretty obvious that there is way more going on with a lot of animals than people think. Scala naturae my behated

what's more likely: the entire animal kingdom is unfeeling automatons mindlessly grinding through meaningless clockwork cycles of birth and death, devoid of sensation from the ant to the elephant

or that you, a small and fragile human, already haunted with a lifetime of regrets, already beholden to one species' weight of pain and hunger, don't you think that maybe just once you glimpsed the edge of a perspective that could recognize the life of every bug you've ever smashed as deep and meaningful, and you got scared

Anthony Mackie: *Talks about raising his kids to be masculine which to him means respect, compassion, responsibility, protecting your family etc.*

Anthony Mackie: *Talks about how growing up in the 80s and 90s in the south you grow up misogynistic sexist and homophobic*

Anthony Mackie: My roommate was gay. I didn't know how to deal with that. My brother is gay. I didn't know how to deal with that. So being a MAN I used my art to better myself. I played Perry so that I could understand my brother better

Anthony Mackie:

A bunch of people online: He is clearly a homophobe alpha male type

___

Look. I get seeing a headline and taking it a certain way. I get the kneejerk reaction to not read what someone says in good faith. But Mackie has been pretty open about a lot of things in his life. So you can find out pretty quickly how he feels about things and that he is teaching his kids non toxic masculinity.

Alsooo, this is important: There are plenty of masculinities that exist both in spite of and outside of patriarchy. There are plenty of indigenous cultures where patriarchy simply didn't exist. A part of liberation for women and queer people involves redefining, uprooting and reshaping masculinity. Masculinity is not in itself corrosive and bad but it's the type of masculinity that is taught that is the problem. Patriarchal masculinity is specifically the problem! Masculinities like Mackie's should be embraced and nurtured.

The thing that gets me about the impending Harry Potter show is like. I'm able to, for entirely hypothetical purposes, put aside my disdain and disgust for the author's full-tilt bigotry and put myself in the shoes of someone who's still a Fan, like I would be if the author hadn't doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on being a full-tilt bigot, and even then, imagining the alternate universe where JKR remained a staunch ally and well-meaning if clueless liberal philanthropic darling, I still can't quite wrap my head around why I'd want this show to be made

Everyone keeps saying it's going to be a Faithful Adaptation Of The Series and I'm just like... okay? This isn't A Series Of Unfortunate Events that got a bad adaptation and they had to go back and try again to get it right. The majority of fans liked and continue to like the movies, a lot, and despite some minor quibbles here and there, they're considered incredibly faithful adaptations. The Fandom isn't exactly divided on this, either.

Like, I imagine a nearby alternate timeline where JKR was never hit by the Idiot Stick That Makes You Hate Women and remained normal, and I remained a fan of a flawed but influential children's fantasy series, and I can't really think of a reason why I would be excited about them trying to make lightning strike a second time. Are people really that mad about Michael Gambon saying "Harry did you put your name in the goblet of fire" animatedly instead of calmly? Or is WB just worried that the incoming demographic of theme park attendees have nowhere near the nostalgic link to the series that millennials would, and that if they don't inject the series back into the zeitgeist, the golden goose might stop laying eggs?

If JK Rowling hadn't gone full terf and this remake was happening then we'd all be wearily rolling our eyes at yet another carriage being hitched to the endless train of unnecessarily remade hits that nobody wants. People would be joking about "they're making a live action Harry Potter now" (the joke of course being that the previous one was also live action this time so they don't even have the normal excuse). People would revive old comparisons of Lion King shots and Mulan shots and put up Harry Potter ones next to them and joke about how expressive the animation is in the original. I can't see any world in which anyone would want this.

While I was playing a game with Sark online, the sky outside turned VERY suddenly Ominous. That looks it gets when there's about to be some shit going down. I logged and booked it outside to close the birds in for safety, and I didn't even make it all the way out to the back of the barn for the first pen door before I heard it.

This loud, strange roar in the distance. Building and definitely coming closer.

I closed up the first pen and as I exited to head for the one with Bug in it, the trees in the distance started swaying heavily. The birds were just standing there confused, until I started calling for round up, and then they immediately ran for the coop. Bug waited until I got there, but she bolted with me to the coop, and got inside ahead of me. I couldn't bring her with me right then, and the wind was howling and the rain hit like a brick wall, instantly soaking me as I closed their coop.

The rain was coming down so hard that I couldn't see much as I ran for the last coop. Aurora and Eris and Stella couldn't see either, and were panicking in the wrong side of the pen. They heard and saw me, though, and ran with me around the barrier that had confused them, and came with me to safety inside the coop. I stood with them and watched the rain come down in buckets for a minute before I got out and closed their door.

I dashed to the barn, checked on everyone in there, and closed it up. I wanted to get Bug and bring her in the house, but the rain was coming down hard and the wind was blowing like crazy. I thought for sure she would freak out. I went anyway, thinking maybe I would just ride it out in her coop so she wouldn't be scared, but when I got there she was waiting up on the shelf for me. I picked her up and tucked her close to me, and she held on as I RAN through the yard back to the house. She's never sat so pretty in her life, but she didn't give me any hassle at all.

I am... so insanely glad that I work with my birds daily. That they see me and hear me and follow directions, and follow me if I need to move them in a hurry, even when they're scared and confused. Especially when they're scared and confused.

The storm was intense, but thankfully short lived, and while the rain is still going it doesn't feel like it's trying to murder anyone anymore.

So happy wet beast Sunday!

by god I was RIGHT. The sky did that 'turns green' thing it does right before tornadoes (which is what got my ass out of my chair as fast as it did), and the roaring I heard in the distance that I thought "god that sounds like a tornado" was probably a tornado. I thought it might have just been the sound of the rain, since the rain hit pretty hard, but I've never heard rain sound like that, and I've been in some pretty intense rain. But I just saw some news coverage that multiple (thankfully small???) tornadoes touched down in my area. No wonder it sounded and hit like it did!

THE PITT 1.08 • 2:00 P.M.

It wasn't just in the US that black people started the EMT services. In Britain, the Harrow and Wealdston train crash in 1952 was the worst peacetime rail disaster in UK history(112 dead, 340 wounded). A United States Air Force medical unit was among the first responders, and while most ambulances at the time(including this incident) just picked up anyone injured and rushed them to the hospital, the USAF people recognized that things were so bad this should be handled like battlefield medicine, treating and triaging on-site. 7 doctors and, crucially, 1 nurse, Abbie Sweetwine made up the USAF medical unit.

While ambulances were rushing off with "walking wounded" who had made it out of the accident first, the more seriously injured were still being dragged from the wreckage. The doctors who had rushed over with whatever they happened to grab treated those on-site. Meanwhile, Lt. Sweetwine handled triage and recorded what treatments had been performed by writing on the patients with lipstick and directed the returning ambulances which patients to take back to hospitals next. This was crucial for saving lives, and when the various UK organizations were figuring out how to make sure this sort of disaster didn't happen again, the role of ambulances as actual medical providers rather than as a fancy taxi service was one of the big realizations. It wasn't a wholly new concept, but news articles and pictures showing doctors on-site, crucially with Abbie Sweetwine following up with patients and covering basic care, gave a solid basis that the NHS could model it's Paramedic system after.

And Abbie Sweetwine was black. This was almost unheard of for the time, a black woman serving with the USAF, and the impact of a black woman being lauded for heroism throughout the UK on your average Joes cannot be overstated. She basically just did her job, continued doing it for the next few decades, and retired to her home state of Florida with some unusual medals on her wall, but she also changed a country and that's not something most people can say.

(source, please click through for a better writer than me tackling this)

"Disabled people can do everything abled people can!1!1!!" I'm gonna have to ask you what you think disabled means

This is also what I think when I see the whole "You people can't do anything" shit. Like, yeah. It's in the fucking name. Dis-Abled.

I love when singers think maybe their song requires a little prerequisite information so they just cover it real fast so everyone’s on the same page. I love that TLC opens No Scrubs quickly reviewing exactly what a scrub is and when ABBA was like “just in case you didn’t know, famed 19th century militant ruler Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated in the battle of Waterloo. We though perhaps not everyone would know that. Alright, so moving on to my love life, which is similar to that actually,”

exactly thank u yes I saw that too. this is about in-song debriefing specifically. when the lyrics themselves are a quick explanation of the info you need to set u up for the rest of the song

there was a certain man in Russia long ago

“That’s why we don’t work in Canada.”

“Why, what did you do?”

Leverage Redemption S01E14 The Great Train Job.

the rubber duck

For anyone curious what they mean by the rubber duck, rubber duck debugging is a tactic used by programmers to figure out bugs in the code. To do it, they explain the code, verbally, line by line, to the rubber duck until they find it. 

It’s also very useful for writers, and I’ve used it multiple times with rubber ducks, stuffed animals, and my friends.

“when i say it out loud i realize where the stupid was”

I literally cannot count the number of times I’ve gone to someone and told them ‘I can’t figure out what’s wrong with my story, please let me explain it to you’ and that was all it took. Sometimes they ask helpful questions like ‘did you remember to feed them’ or ‘so is this all on the same day’ but other times I don’t even need that, it just figures itself out as soon as I try to explain it to someone else.

It’s one of my go-to pieces of writing advice. You’re stuck on your story? sit down and tell me/someone all about it. 

Chinese dancer on xiaohongshu display bellydance in fox style (cr 舞贝勒）