#I’m going into ecology ok

[philosophicalparadox]

Ah, but they do think. They don’t have a brain or spinal cord, but somehow their net of tiny nerves conducts enough energy for them to make decisions and respond to stimulus, which is why although not sapient, they are sentient.

And truly, they challenge the very notion of sentience almost as much as slime moulds do, except that at least jellyfish even have nerves — slime moulds don’t, yet somehow they still function like they do.

Anyway, this jellyfish is perfectly aware of what its body is doing here, even if it can’t know why. To the jelly though it’s about the same as being caught in the tide eddy, which happens to them pretty often. I predict that after this encounter it probably swam down, away from the light, thinking it got too close to the surface. No harm no foul, really, unless it stung itself. Jellyfish aren’t actually immune to their own venom, though they resist it, either with a slick slime coat or thick “skin” on their bell. It’s why you don’t see long-tentacled species in aquariums; they’d sting themselves in the circular current, and die as a result.

That said, jellyfish are one of those very odd creatures that’s both very resilient and extremely fragile at the same time. Most jellyfish can regenerate any part of their body as long as there’s enough food to supply the energy to do so. (Jellies can’t store energy hardly at all). So a tear in the bell or a brush of nematocysts isn’t generally a big deal. But they’re also 99% water, so they’re quite sensitive, but also quite resilient— depends entirely on the metric you’re measuring. Pollutants kill jellies, but they can endure higher and lower temperatures than most animals and still both survive and reproduce. It’s why they’re booming right now in a warming ocean; they can handle the heat.

They’re also weird, in that though they don’t have fat cells and instead store glycogen, which isn’t very effective, they can go months without food. This stumped tf out of people until we realised that they do this by essentially shutting off their metabolism at will.

They just. Turn off their stomach. They still sting, mind, they have zero control over that, but they can choose to minimise their energy consumption to such an efficient degree that it’s virtually unrivaled.

Jellyfish are weird and wonderful creatures that offer a lot to science; their ability to regenerate neurons in particular is of immense interest at the moment.

OOHHH FUUBLBLBLBLB

[ocdhuacheng]

I love my mom but she’s such a fucking liberal

[plethodontidae]

everyone manifest i get to go to puerto rico this summer for an internship 🙏

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Ok, I’m a big Monster Hunter fan, and so I’d like to ask…what do you think of how they go about their mosnters’ wings? Especially given they’ve done some redesigns to them (compare Yian Garuga’s old design)s wings to the new design’s to see what I mean).

oh gosh, there are so many creatures in the monster hunter series and I only know things via my best friend who enjoys playing the game and rambling to me about the worldbuilding and fantasy ecology lol.

I think the wing designs vary in quality. a lot of them, like the yian garuga you mentioned, have oddly chunky wing fingers and are missing a patagium. there are cases where i think the patagium can be ignored, like how modern day flying lizards and squirrels don't have a membrane on the upper side of their forelimbs, but when you're going for that batwing shape on a dragon creature, I just feel like it helps the design look more practical.

The more badass a creature is meant to be, the more chunky it tends to get as well, which only makes them look heavy and impractical in my opinion. from what I understand though, the new games have been getting better with their creature designs and leaning in more with the worldbuilding which is real cool! I appreciate the lore that treats them like actual living animals in an interconnected environment.

[quixoticanarchy]

Ok I read a book on degrowth by jason hickel (Less is More) and I still need to read more but. preliminary thoughts:

I appreciate the quantification of by how much current resource and energy consumption overshoots sustainable limits, and the excoriation of the absurd demand for compound growth on a finite planet; and the book has a decent history of capitalism and the violence and dispossession it rests upon. There is some similar quantification for how proposed degrowth measures would affect resource consumption, though (understandably) piecemeal, so it’s unclear what the full impact of these measures would be vis-à-vis climate meltdown and ecological tipping points, or on what timeline the degrowth transition would have to occur.

Degrowth measures - resource use caps, a shorter work week, basic income, healthcare, income caps, re-localizing supply chains, killing planned obsolescence, moving to a shared rather than personal ownership model for things like vehicles, etc. - are broadly “good” and have been promoted and supported outside of a specifically degrowth context already, which speaks to their appeal but also their pitfalls. Implementing all these measures and more has to carry the explicit intention of improving human and ecological welfare, GDP be damned, and has to be tied explicitly to a commitment to reducing growth and capping profits; otherwise, the trap I see is attempting to enact some of these measures while keeping the capitalist edifice intact - which, as Hickel acknowledges, would spur a new ‘fix’ in which some other domain or market is forced open for exploitation so that growth can continue.

This is obviously at odds with degrowth and it isn’t anything degrowth advocates don’t know, but it seems naïve to envision states whose existence and operation are so inextricable from capitalism being capable of doing such reforms to the degree and with the ideological shift necessary. It would be suicide. Which I’d welcome, but just saying we need to tackle corruption and have more real democracy so that governments can serve people’s actual needs does not convince me that these policies could be sincerely and radically adopted by any state that exists today.

The book seems to walk a line between “degrowth is very radical since it would require ditching the demand for economic growth and probably most of the profit motive itself, which is a huge mindset and ideological shift - if not to socialism per se then to post-capitalism” and also “degrowth isn’t that radical/outlandish since what it takes is all these commonsense reforms that people already want anyway”. Sometimes the degrowth policy package sounds a lot like just welfare-state capitalism, except with resource and energy consumption dramatically scaled back, and without the economic growth imperative. So… no longer capitalism as such, but still using many of the master’s tools to retrofit the master’s house.

In principle, a world exists in which wealthy countries consume far less and the rest of the world is freer and not (or at least less) exploited. In principle, degrowth measures could help us realize that world. Saying it’s not a revolutionary process might keep some readers from being scared off, etc, but I’m left wondering then: where does the force come from to make these changes happen? Are wealthy countries and individuals and corporations going to just agree to resource caps and wealth caps and redistribution? The argument that degrowth is a kind of decolonization and requires the demise of the colonial and capitalist view of people and nature is compelling to me, but that seems to conflict with the idea that degrowth can be implemented as a set of reforms to the systems that exist now, without the messiness of revolution and without somehow being co-opted by capitalism or packaged as ‘green growth’ (which Hickel makes clear would be bad and is bullshit). The ideological shift and end to growth is the big ask here - without that, the reforms are just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic, or maybe on the lawn of the master’s house, if you will.

[baddybaddyadardaddy]

I love how in your fic you address the environmental devastation wrought by the volcanos eruption. From a forestry background, I just??? I want to grab Adar and shake him like a dog with a chew toy. What was the afterwards plan?? What were they going to eat?!? Like I get that the sun is a deadly laser and is burning your kids, that’s awful, but you know what it also awful? Starving, dying of thirst because the water is poisoned. Honestly I’m so incensed by this it’s driving me to the point where I need an ecological fix it fic because the southlands ecosystem DID NOT DESERVE THAT. Am I going to write it? MAYBE. OK? MAYBE I WILL.

YEAH TBH I DON'T THINK HE THOUGHT IT THROUGH!

Also lol @ Waldreg in S2 Ep1 "work the land well"... um sir... land??? what land??? It's char-broiled!

(Also ask me about my feelings over the fact that in my fic, Adar's long-lost wife is obsessed with trees and growing things and to save his children, he.. had to destroy all of those. THE FEELZ ARE ENDLESS.)

Actually one of the AU ideas that's been kicking around my brain is Adar lives and ends up having to atone by planting seeds with Arondir on the borders of the Southlands. Under the supervision of Winterbloom. I think that could be neat.

[justalittlesolarpunk]

do you think the upcoming election is going to be okay? i’m sorry for asking a negative question, but i’m a scared teenager in america who is trans, queer, and a climate activist. i don’t really know what to do.

Hello my love, I’m so sorry you’re feeling so afraid. It’s a completely natural reaction to a situation that is unbelievably unfair and shit, and it makes me indescribably angry that you have to endure this.

I’m not in the USA, so I don’t have a full grasp of what the cultural discourse is like at the moment or what sort of conversations are happening, so do bear that in mind. That said, I’d like to tell you that I’m 100% confident that Trump won’t win, but I’m not, so I can’t. Lying to you isn’t going to make any of this easier. But I want you to take heart. No matter what the outcome of this election, there will be people of all ages and backgrounds willing to work together for mutual aid, ecological justice, queer liberation, landback and many other worthy causes. They are doing that work now despite repression even from a Democrat government. I know it’s not much comfort in the face of a potential administration that wants to outlaw your existence, but remember that the Biden administration is approving fossil fuels, arming vicious militaries and crushing student protest. American progressives have always had to operate without state help regardless of who is in the White House.

All this to say, you will be ok. It will be scary and unfair and hugely dangerous if Trump gets back in, but there are networks of support you can key into now. There are adults who can stand up for and support and protect you. There are ways you can learn to protect yourself. We can’t wait for the government, we have to start building a better world piece by piece, every day, from the ground up, and there are a myriad ways of getting involved in that. Whether the Republicans like it or not, the age of fossil fuels is coming to an end, trans people exist and the vast majority of younger generations wholeheartedly accept and celebrate them.

I still deeply hope that Trump loses, and I still think he could. There are things you can do to help push for that goal, like helping to register voters and more, but when certain things are beyond our control we have to focus on what we can control. When the dominant system threatens only evil we have to construct alternative realities. You have the power to do that. So once you’ve taken some time to rage about how messed up it all is, why not start looking into ways to make the world better without and in spite of the so-called ‘leaders’ who profit from making it worse.

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

hi!! Can you please explain to me the drama of what happened with the rap music thing and people calling you racist??

this is a side note but I saw someone post about it saying this is how white asexuals treat black asexuals and included me and I’m not white?? It says in my intro but ok….

Yeah basically saw some one post in the asexual tag with a screenshot saying “as a sex repulsed ace I don’t listen to most music with lyrics (90% of pop) this isn’t aimed at rap”

The OP who screenshot the reblog tags was calling them racist for it, I jumped in and said “uhh what no? They said pop music as well and yeah it’s a little weird to mention rap in this but not racist” And they lost their shit, calling me a racist for saying that.

In the end it spiralled, someone made a blocklist for anyone (including POC aces) who said anything similar to what I was saying/saying that that wasn’t racist, calling them racist and saying we were spreading “white supremacy talking points”

They also called someone racist for listening to another kind of music and they called me racist (again) for saying I liked music that I could relate to more and as im not interested in sex a lot (not all) of popular (again not all just a lot of the popular) rap didn’t relate to me.

I AM AUSSIE I DO NOT HAVE ANY INTEREST IN AMERICAN SHIT FURTHER THEN “don’t vote for trump” AND MAJOR ECOLOGICAL ISSUES (mining ect)

I think a big issue comes from the fact im not American and therefore know fuck all about American history with people of colour (apart from the obvious; “not very good (read: genocidal) relations with the Native Americans”) and a bit about the slave trade

I in the past did say I wasn’t going to speak about this again but thought I would finally explain everything I know about what’s going on. This is the final post on the matter

The others on their list are more then welcome to explain in the replies/reblogs their side of the story and anyone else is also welcome to.

[identifying-cars-in-posts]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on electric cars. ive been thinking of getting one myself, so ive been seeking out as many opinions as i can

ok so i personally really really don’t like them. i don’t think they’re as good for the environment as they’re made to sound - sure they have zero emissions but the amount of damage caused by lithium mining, producing the batteries, and then having to dispose of the batteries makes them far from ecological. they’re heavy, almost impossible to maintain on your own unless you’re super well versed in them, and as a result a slap in the face of right to repair. i think they have their purpose, and are good for super high performance cars and race cars, but the complete shift from gas power to electric really rubs me the wrong way.

i think the best way to lessen the environmental impact of cars, at least in the states, is to work more on less car centric infrastructure, lessening the impact of things like high traffic highways by not forcing everyone to own a car or drive it everywhere. trains are almost always the answer here. i love cars and want anyone who wants or prefers to drive to be able to, but i think the economic impact and financial impact for the individual would be far more greatly improved by implementation of accessible public transport than electric cars

and also yeah electric cars don’t go vroooom grumble grumble stutututututu and i like when cars do that lol i’m not gonna pretend that’s not part of it

[sprout-senior]

ok so

im planning on befriending my campus birds as soon as i start college and obviously the thing to do is feed them

but do you really think i would go out and buy any old birdseed?

fuck no.

i am to be the almond dad of birds. i would NEVER give them any shitty cheap store bought crap filled with disgusting additives(said with a thick midwestern accent)

i am going to meticulously craft the BEST birdseed with only the BEST ingredients from the BEST sources, backed by the BEST research.

PUMPKIN SEEDS from homegrown pumpkins, for the bigger birds.

everything else shall be from my local co op, safe haven to the crunchy community.

im talking BLACK OIL SUNFLOWER SEEDS, im talking QUINOA in true almond parent fashion, im talking CHIA SEEDS, im talking EGGSHELLS FOR CALCIUM.

any suggestions and warnings for good and bad things to add are more than welcome.

i am to be the Best Bird Benefactor.

i am to obtain the Best Bird Battalion.

i am to RULE the community college campus with a SEED COVERED FIST, MOTHERFUCKERS

and hey, maybe while i’m at it i’ll do some guerrilla gardening and make seed bombs with native wildflowers.

BIODIVERSITY! SUPPORTING THE POLLINATORS! ESTABLISHING DOMINANCE THROUGH ECOLOGY BASED COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT!!!

FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

[museaumofnaturalhistory]

A Borneo Orangutan on a Fearless Quest for Figs: Tim Laman’s Best Photograph - Interview by Amy Fleming | The Guardian - Wildlife - Photography - My Best Shot | 20th/11/2024

‘While it Was Dark, I Managed to Climb Up & Put Remote Control Cameras in the Tree. I Wouldn't Get the Shot if I Was Up There. An Orangutan is Always Aware of Your Presence’ - Tim Laman

I was following orangutans in Borneo with my wife, Cheryl Knott, a primatologist who has spent 30 years working in Gunung Palung national park, in the Indonesian part of Borneo. I am a biologist by background, and did my PhD research in rainforest ecology in Borneo, before I went into photography and film-making. I saw so much destruction in the rainforest back in the 90s, and it dawned on me that I could publish scientific articles that maybe 10 people would read – or an article in National Geographic that 10 million people would see.

I was getting increasingly serious about my photography while working on my PhD when I got funding from the National Geographic Society for field research. Through that connection, I was able to show them my pictures and eventually I published an article in the magazine about my work, which in turn meant I was able to get an assignment to document Cheryl’s orangutan PhD.

This fruiting fig tree was unique, in that it didn’t have any branches connecting it to other trees, so the orangutan had to climb right up the roots growing on the trunk to reach the canopy. I had been thinking about getting a picture like this for years: a wide shot looking down on an orangutan in its habitat. I was on the ground when one first passed me and I thought: “OK, it’s going to come back tomorrow – there’s a lot of fruit there.” I went and got my gear, climbed the tree and rigged up three camera mounts with different viewpoints.

While it was still dark the next morning, I put the cameras up and, over the next three days, another two orangutans visited. I had a remote control on the ground so when the orangutan was climbing, I triggered the camera. Had I been up the tree myself, I would never have got the shot.

I do a lot of bird photography, often from hides. You effectively have to make yourself invisible to get a shot. But that doesn’t work with orangutans. I’ve built hides up in the canopy where I’m totally camouflaged and birds, gibbons and monkeys all come, not noticing me. But an orangutan always knows you’re there.

They are not aggressive toward people, generally. I’m drawn to them because they’re one of the great apes – our closest relatives – but they’re much harder to photograph and study than, say, chimpanzees or gorillas, because they spend very little time on the ground and don’t live in social groups.

Wildlife photographer of the year 2024 winners – in picturesRead more

This image won me the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award in 2016. I think its success is due to the perspective. Most of the orangutan pictures I’ve taken have been with a long lens from down on the ground, or from a hill with an eye-level view. So being able to get a wide shot looking down – that’s probably what captured the judges’ interest. There are so many great wildlife photographs out there: to win, you need to shoot something in a unique way.

I do all kinds of nature photography, from underwater to big mammals to insects. But if I had to pick one thing, birds are my biggest passion. You have to be patient, keep trying new things and put in the time, waiting for the animals to show up, for good light, all that stuff. There are definitely frustrating moments: like trying to photograph a bird of paradise, sitting in a hide for a week, and they never come back. Or you don’t get any good behaviour to capture. Or it rains. There can be times when you spend a week, get nothing and have to give up. But it beats sitting in an office in front of a computer all day.

Tim Laman’s CV

Born: Tokyo, Japan, 1961. Trained: “Trained in field biology, self-taught in photography.” Influences: “Fellow Harvard biology grad student Mark Moffett turned his PhD research on ants into a National Geographic article, which inspired me to do the same with my research in the Borneo rainforest. And many National Geographic photographers whose work I admired in the 70s and 80s, especially David Doubilet and Mitsuaki Iwagō.” High point: “Publishing my first story in National Geographic in 1997, and winning Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 2016.” Low point: “Usually about 3.30am when the alarm goes off, before I get ready and then have to hike, climb or whatever to get into position before sunrise for a day trying to photograph wildlife.” Top tip: “Wildlife photography is all about getting to know your subject and spending time in the field. So even if it means getting up at 3.30am, it’s worth it. You’ll never get the shot if you aren’t out there.”

 This image features in 60 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, published by the Natural History Museum

[unlicensedmortician]

bad movies with j&j: divergent part three. the final part. thank god. i never have to watch these again.

- I WAS RIGHT ABT EVELYN BEING THE NEW DICTATOR

- how much time is supposed to have passed??? that’s at least 8 months of hair growth

- i wonder if they want to kill him

- not how trials work!

- four still looks like he’s in his late 30s

- jesus christ??? dude??

- oh ok he’s fine

- thank god for peter he’s the only thing that’s making these movies watchable. guy who’s the fucking worst but at least he’s entertaining

- rip tori u were the most iconic bitch here

- hm. that looks like some form of ecological crisis

- do love a good blood river

- “this hole looks radioactive” hole you say?

- also that’s not even a little bit how radioactivity works at all

- “this is fun i’m glad we did this” cryingggg thank u for ur commmentary peter

- “someone’s coming for us 🥰” wrong tone! you are being hunted

- how are you not hitting any of them they’re running in straight lines

- huh?????????? what’s going on?????

- the future is more color coding apparently

- i feel like im having a fever dream

- at the very least tris has a cunty little bob

- jester: oftentimes what a main character girlie really needs is a cunty little bob

- we’re the good guys :) welcome to eugenics city

- also how the shit do they know who these random teenagers from the isolated city tm are

- i bet she has absolutely zero body hair

- get GLOOPED

- fist the wall hole, tris

- ok i’m sure these tattoos are a cool completely fine thing

- oh! so they have aggressively overt eugenics! great!

- right ok. and none of you are unsettled by this

- oh this is terrifying. we’ve been surveying you your whole life and you didn’t know we existed until rn :) don’t worry about it :)

- oh so those are. barcodes.

- providence?? rhode island????

- haha this is terrifying. “i’ve observed every second of your life” WHAT

- she’s the ONLY ONE.

- yeah of course tris (cis straight white skinny neurotypical) is the only genetically pure person alive. what the fuck

- oh so u can get full access to people’s memories. that’s terrifying

- sure her mother might as well have been from outside

- the tattoos indicate how damaged they are that’s so cool and great. and that also determines how much access they have. awesome.

- there’s no way this guy is a good person

- when i say this surveillance technology is scarier than any horror concept i’m being serious

- really really interesting to have a black woman defending the status quo

- if they’re the good guys why is everyone else so afraid

- also like. why wouldn’t they take adults in also? what’s the cutoff point?

- “we’re here to help” while pointing a gun at a family. what. BRO YOU JUST FUCKING SHOT HER DAD?

- what the fuck they just wipe these kids’ memories ??

- the political messaging here is confusing at best

- this is the first time i’ve been anything more than completely neutral on four

- can i blame the current lack of media literacy on this franchise or

- tris. what the fuck

- who would win: guy who stuck by you through all the absolute batshit insanity of the last two movies and was like. decent through all of it. or old guy eugenicist who says he knew your mother. the answer will shock you!

- kinda ate with tris’ costuming evoking jeanine

- who media trained her

- “we’re not taking you to chicago” four is like. sure. this might as well happen. i guess. gonna make this ship crash now

- so were they gonna execute him? i’m confused

- “this ship is the only one that can fly through the camo wall” immediately crashes it

- wait lmao is this actually rhode island

- oh wow the eugenics guy is untrustworthy! who could have seen this coming

- “the factions work” they literally didn’t. that was. the point of the whole two other movies? are we forgetting those

- matthew and four should’ve been endgame thanks for coming to my ted talk

- thank you peter for always serving cunt

- yes girl completely wipe your ex husbands memory

- i don’t think anyone talked about tris’s terrible fucking tattoo enough

- yeah girl of course he’s wiping the memories of everyone in chicago

- she can do whatever she wants. she’s the protagonist

- peter cmon i liked you

- ok but like. the gas is still there? whatever

- i feel like this plot is not finished

- oh my god it’s not allegiant did so bad in box offices that they cancelled the fourth one. that’s hilarious. thank god.

[jjmichie]

Ok I’m so curious about your environmental science degree!! I’m so impressed!! Did you have fun? Learn all the things? What was your senior year requirement?? I’ve thought about going back to school for an ecology degree so many times!

Hi @lick-anthonys-heart thanks so much for the ask!

Yes, I loved all my classes and had a lot of fun. I got the degree at the University of MN. It covered all the basics of areas of ecology: Forestry, Hydrology, Fisheries, Meteorology, Soil Science, which turned out to be fascinating, and basic science classes like Chemistry, Ecology, Biology, then got into some environmental specific stuff, like the history of Conservation in the US, Air Pollution/Mitigation, wetland management, Agricultural best practices, Environmental law, the Environmental Impact Statement process, and covered politics of the environmental movement and current events. We really learned a LOT! Also took some classes on Geographic Information Systems and the technology around environmental sampling and mapping, etc. which was what eventually led to my job.

For a senior year requirement we had the choice of doing an internship or going up to spend a summer session in the woods at Lake Itasca. I had a job at a power plant, and ended up doing a project on an initiative they were doing to burn recycled materials as fuel, which was interesting, but in hindsight, would have rather spent the summer in the woods.

Anyway, I'd recommend it! It was a really valuable experience, a lot of fun, and learned a lot.

[themirokai]

I would love to hear your drunk joy about your restoration projects!

Hello hello! Unfortunately all I can offer is sober joy since it is now the next morning. I gave one answer to this over here but I would love to talk to you about stream restorations!

Ok, so simplifying a whole bunch of stuff here…

When rain falls on a forest or other natural area, it gets absorbed by plants or seeps into the ground, and slowly makes its way to water bodies. This is good. When rain falls on roads and buildings it moves pretty fast to the lowest possible point, picking up dirt and pollution along the way. When that lowest point is a stream, this fast-moving water can erode away the stream bank, causing more sediment to get into the stream and scouring the bottom in a vicious cycle that just makes the water flow faster and erode the stream more. Plus fast moving water hangs on to all of the pollutants it picks up along the way because they don’t have time to settle out, so they all get dumped into the big water bodies.

Look at those sad roots hanging out there! Breaks your heart!

What we do is take these beat up, polluted streams, and we engineer ways to slow them down. That usually involves digging a new path that meanders more, putting in stone that won’t be eroded, and re-grading the banks so that they slope gently and are planted with native plants that naturally slow down the water and suck up the nutrients it’s carrying.

Sometimes, where It’s ecologically appropriate, it involves building beaver dam analogues! This is where we take any trees we had to cut down because they were in the way of a good meander or they were an invasive species and pile them up like a beaver would! On one of our recent projects we actually had a beaver move into the structure we built!!! He made some renovations of course but seems to be living there happily!

When we’re done, in addition to creating good natural habitat, we’ve got a whole lot of native plants that are slowing down the water and using the nutrients, and the slower water is dropping its pollution so it’s dispersed and not hurting anything.

I’m resisting the urge to post pictures of my company’s projects because I don’t actually want to dox myself, but this is a good example of a restored stream.

So that’s the other part of what the money from this deal is going to go into!

[firespirited]

Yesterday’s film was Avatar, the way of water.

I saw the first one ages ago and mostly forgot the details except “noble savages, white saviour” “guy in a wheelchair gets his wish to be an able-bodied blue sphinx catboy” “wonderbread!guy level deforestation kink”.

I’d seen reviewers i usually respect who found part 2 delightful and fun, ok so a JCameron sequel flips the script on the first (think Aliens and Terminator2) so we’ll get some sort of deeper exploration of the themes right? If it’s getting decent reviews, it can’t just be as clunky as Avatar 1? I decided to go in without researching anything or watching any trailers.

It’s bad. Sure it’s pretty but I’ve seen children’s tv offer more nuance on a topic.

Review: half a star out of 5 for the pretty nature graphics, the mixed emotion and action pacing and the single line indicating that the sentient whales used to be belligerent.

A lot of terrible choices were made here. You’d think there would be idk, consultants for the whale CGI who might also know a little about whale behaviours, a consultant for where to put the lit up parts on the brain scan CGI when you have epilepsy to give the basics. Maybe some language and accent consultants?

I mean yes this is Avatar2, the “dead dove” is right there so yeah what was I expecting? This is somehow more racist and ham-fisted 13 years after.

About four minutes in there’s a kid who hasn’t been taught how to brush his hair that’s hint 1, a minute later Zoe Saldaña is playing yet another grieving strong warrior woman: hint 2, a few minutes later marines think vengeance is a good tactic: hint 3, then you hear Sully’s Na’vi sons be like sir, yes sir... That is where my brain went from enjoying seeing non muted colours on screen for the first time in ages to “oh no. oh. no. this movie is going to be wrongTM on so many levels” and I think the fact that it’s colourful and we’ve missed that counts for so much. If they’d released GOTG with proper colour grading I’m pretty sure it’d get even better scores. Our eyeballs are hungry for anything but grey-blue.

It’s a film that makes you care about these caricatures and their caricature world while also repeatedly whacking you over the head with A Singular Message and I’m afraid that specific message is 35 years too late (yep once upon a time, people actually cared enough to ban CFCs) and too blunt and is used to hurt indigenous hunters. Analysing the ways this film is insulting to biology, ecology, sociology, pharmacology and our understanding of our relationship to the environment would take as long as the film and is not worth the effort of me ranting and you reading.

It’s insulting to many specific groups and to any viewer, including children, and it’s a waste of money (New Zealand’s money in particular) and time.

[mimicrypkmn]

introooo

✨ hiya! i’m chat, 22, right now i’m studying at an EDUCATIONAL PLACE in paldea to learn more about freshwater ecology and water types (that’s vague enough for any school faculty that i won’t get in trouble for my social media image, right?) but unova is my home! they/them pronouns please!

more below the readmore ^^

✨ i do work with other pokemon for academic and ‘helping classmates with training’ and demonstration reasons, but my team is all tatsugiri! (don’t ask about how long i hang out and look for them to have found shinies like this. don’t ask) they are as follows:

🤍 twitch, shiny droopy tatsugiri! he’s my first pokemon i caught and own, since i’m not the one who’s the OT for the family pets. he’s really cute-looking but he’s a total manipulator and will steal food right out of your hands if you don’t watch him </3 the others tend to listen to him, so he helps me keep a lid on things when everyone’s out at once! very helpful little guy outside of his shenanigans. if i can only keep one of my pokemon out at a given moment, usually he’s my go-to.

❤️‍🩹 kirby, regular droopy tatsugiri, and towards ME, he’s very sweet. buuuut he’s a bottomless pit and likes to try to hunt a lot though, so i can’t let him hang out around a lot of flying-type pokemons or trainers who specialize with them :[ i’m doing what i can to try to curb and redirect this behavior, any advice from others in a similar boat is very much welcomed

🤎 choco, shiny curly tatsugiri, she’s very much cuddly. note to anyone who hasn’t pet a tatsugiri before: they are slimy-feeling and they keep themselves wet so if they flop on your shoes you WILL get wet socks so keep that in mind when i say she will almost Always curl up next to me if we’re settling for the night and she’s out of her ball and there’s nowhere better (aka, a lake) to sleep.

❤️ figy, regular curly tatsugiri, she’s the biggest of the bunch and is pretty mild-mannered and chill. i think she was a clodsire in a past life tbh... i HAVE made sure it’s not a health issue since at first i was worried it could be some kind of lethargy, but she’s just older than the rest and has a laid back personality, clean bill of health otherwise.

🧡 stripes, shiny stretchy tatsugiri, he is sunny’s big brother! they’re inseparable. they’re the youngest of the bunch, very playful with each other, though stripes is a bit nervous around strangers.

💛 sunny, regular stretchy tatsugiri, she is stripes’ little sister :] she’s a bit more brave with new faces than stripes is, she’s helped get him out of his shell. really likes cheese.

✨ team intro aside, school staff if you’re reading my posts: no you are not <3

✨ clavell if you’re reading this: i promise there will not be another kirby incident and i am making honest efforts to prevent him from chasing after other students’ pokemon. also if you are reading my posts no you are not

✨ if you’re at the academy and taking a class i’m in feel free to hit me with an email if you want to meet up and have our pokemon meet up! (no bird-like ones yet!! i’m sorry) kirby, stripes, and sunny would really benefit from socializing more and we can trade some class notes, maybe?

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[[ ooc: ]]

ok that all aside, this is a pokemon irl blog, and i tag all posts as pkmn irl!!

irl i am a biology major, so my activity will probably flux as the semester progresses since it’s the last one before graduation and i can NOT fuck up my grades. if i go inactive dw abt it, i probably got busy or distracted :]

when it comes to my interpretation of pokemon its like schrodingers cat when it comes to People just over-anthropomorphize their behaviors Vs they are all quite intelligent like in the anime. its like the way people talk about cats on the internet but being a cat owner and knowing cats can really be Like That. like yeah tatsugiri are probably very smart but also i do see them as coldblooded little bird eaters and dondozo egg-destroyers being little brood parasites. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

also if it bothers anyone i do hc ppl eat pokemon outside of those that r mentioned in the pokedex bc how else do you get the beef for paldean hamburger patties than the local tauros + miltank. and also bc i think pidgey tenders should be real. i will make an effort to minimize talk of it on the blog fr those that dont hc that or dont like the implications but i am a pokechicken nugget truther