#NPS

[mybumblebeeblr]

I remember getting the coolest NPS Pride shirt my first month working for the park service. It's not official uniform but employees of the park put an order together and are allowed to use the logos so it's got the right font and everything. It has a little rainbow ranger on the front and was maybe the first time I've ever felt pride for an organization i was working for.

Please read the article. If you have feelings and need to express them, please know NPS has all the social media Facebook Instagram Twitter Official Page. So does the Department of Interior which oversees the Park Service Facebook Instagram Twitter/X Official Page.

Do you have a favorite park?

Acadia Facebook Instagram official page

Yosemite Facebook Instagram official page

Grand Canyon Facebook Instagram official page

Yellowstone Facebook Instagram official page

Zion Facebook Instagram official page

National Mall Facebook Instagram official page

Stonewall Facebook Instagram official page

Chances are they have their own pages that accept comments as well. Hard to say whether they will be allowed to post Pride content this year, but if you're looking for a more positive approach keep an eye out for those posts and show your support in the comments.

The people who run the nps social media are generally really cool. If nothing else you can get some neat facts!!

[constantlyfalling]

Yellowstone Winter 2023

[theslowtravel]

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park

[usnatarchives]

Don't be a litterbug! 🐛

Check out the humorous artwork discovered on vintage decals from the Borden Decalcomania company records. Found in the National Archives Denver our Glacier National Park holdings, they appear to have been mailed to drum up business with the park.

[catboybiologist]

Fuck, man. It's hard to say how much this saddens me. Yosemite has it's own pride. Fucking Stonewall itself is protected by the NPS. From people I've worked and volunteered with in the past, the NPS is an amazingly queer friendly organization to work for.

I think you can also guess that seeing queer people active and out in nature has been a massive inspiration for me.

My first reaction here is to consider the NPS victims, not instigators here. I need more info before jumping to conclusions, and I encourage people to individually research and form their own opinions on this. To be blunt, the NPS is in a sorry state financially. Their budget hasn't increased at a rate that keeps up with inflation, much less visitation, and as someone who's visited national parks throughout their life, it has visibly shown in their infrastructure, public facing services, and employment opportunities. Being the target of a culture war could be terrifying. This is apparently a "reminder" of existing, universal government policy on the conduct of uniformed government officials being banned from participating in events showing political sides on issues unrelated to their organization.

But it's very, very telling that cops are still allowed to attend pride events in uniform.

This is a decision from a scared government institute, I think.

If that's all apologetics, please call me out on it. I'm queer (no shit). I also love the NPS. I'm going to wait until their official statement to jump to conclusions. But fuck.

[wandering-jana]

Joshua Tree National Park, California

Oct. 2018

[faggotfungus]

U.S. National Park Service Search and Rescue staff walking through a river inside of a cave. (1979)

[mxchaelridley]

Get out there and get wet 📍Hoh Rainforest, Olympic Peninsula, Washington

[shutterandsentence]

What would happen if we embraced change instead of fearing it?

Photo: Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan

[djkerr]

Parker being Parker 😂💗

NCIS 20x04 Leave No Trace

[kas-e]

Cold & Moody at the Grand Tetons

[finncapashen]

I really didn't like the LTR basic lands, and then I shitposted myself into some genuine inspiration with these

[constantlyfalling]

Bison.

[theslowtravel]

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park

[mysteroads]

Just bragging, but look at these NPCs I made! Behold! ALL the UA Third Years!

The UA Third Years in no particular order:

Name/Hero Name - M for male or F for female, "Quirk Name" quirk description.

Mirio Togata/Lemillion (canon character) - M, “Permeation” grants the user the ability to phase their body through all matter. ~Doesn’t participate in the Exam~

Tamaki Amajiki/Suneater (canon character) - M, “Manifest”  grants the user the ability to enhance their body parts with the characteristics of anything they consume.

Nejire Hado/Nejire Chan (canon character) - F, “Wave Motion”, grants the user the ability to convert her vitality into energy and release it in the form of exceptionally powerful spiral shockwaves, can fly*

Yuyu Haya/Diana (canon character) - F, “Electric Arrow”  grants the user the ability to create a bow and arrows from electricity gathered from the air around her. She gets very staticky on dry days.

Kazue Yokota/Illusionist - F, “Light Illusion” grants the user the power to generate and manipulate small to moderate sized illusions. Requires concentration.

Yōta Hidaka/Ricochet - M, “Kinetics” The power to store kinetic energy after being hit. Limit to how much he can store before it has to be released. (Toga stabs this one)

Naomi Ikeda/Lady Luck - F, “Luck” grants the user the ability to shift probability in their favor. They can’t do anything huge like survive jumping without a parachute, but quarter machines are theirs to toy with.

Yoshio Yamaguchi/Shield Hero - M, “Shield” grants the user the ability to create shields of various sizes and types.

Haruna Shinkawa/Soulsword - F, “Demon Weapon” grants the user the ability to shapeshift into a sword. Haruna specifically changes into a European style sword and is a fan of Arthurian Legends.

Juro Nishimura/Morph - M, “Body Builder” grants the user the ability to temporarily change his body to mimic any construction-style substance he touches (ex: concrete, steel, wood). Changes can last for up to an hour, but the more he changes, the faster he runs out of energy and the less time he has for each morph.

Hideyoshi Kanda/Roostertail - M, “Chicken” grants the user the ability to transform into a giant 10 foot rooster (think terror bird) with a sonic crow.

Chō Sugimura/Pause Button - F, “Time Stop” grants the user the ability to freeze time for thirty seconds. Recharge of one day required. 

Katsu Saitou/Tremors - M, “Earthquake” The ability to make the ground shake, can cause liquefaction under the right circumstances.

Yoshie Urano/Plasma Bolt - M, “Plasma Bolt” grants the user the ability to generate and manipulate plasma balls, including throwing energy blasts.

Yaeko Moriyama/Eleventh Metal - F, “Magnetic” grants the user the ability to mess with metal's polarity, as well as magnetize themselves. She can use this to “jump” long distances by pushing off metal and then pulling herself to a new metal by changing her and its polarity. Only works if the metal is heavier than she is.

Kōta Yukimura/Rōnin - M, “Stat Boost” grants the user the ability superhuman reflexes and increased stamina. Prefers to use a katana because aesthetic.

Reiko Hino/Misty - F, “Sublimation” grants the user the ability to transform into a fog-like form. The user still has to take in oxygen and cannot permeate through objects.

Akiko Yamauchi/Whirlwind - F, “Telekinesis” grants the user to move objects with her mind, but only objects weighing less than 20 lbs. She can pick up quite a few though and likes to make a vortex of ouch! around her.

Takako Shibuya/MoonBeam - M, “Laser Beam” grants the user the ability to shoot a laser beam from his third eye. The beam is a bright silvery white and can vary in temperature, from mild burn to welding-torch. Too much use can cause MoonBeam to go temporarily blind in his third eye.

Isamu Iwai/Featherweight - M, “Mass” grants the user the ability to change an object’s mass temporarily if he touches it. Mass returns to normal after five minutes.

Hayate Miyamoto/Aquifer - M, “Water” grants the user the ability to create water and, to some extent, manipulate water he did not create. 

 Ryoichi Miyake/Hermes - M, “Winged Feet” grants the user the ability to fly very fast with winged feet.

 Hachirou Hashiguchi/Wolfgang - M, “Wolf” grants the user the ability to blow giant gusts of wind with his mouth. (He’s also a wolf heteromorph and Winterheart’s big brother!)

Miki Amano/Slime Devil - F, “Slime” grants the user the ability to generate slime that can either stay slick, get sticky, or harden to trap villains. She can generate slime from anywhere, but she prefers to use her hands.

Naruhito Sano/Batman - M, “Bat” a partial bat mutation. Can’t fly fast but can still fly, very good at echolocation and can even knock someone out with a sound wave if he gets close enough. He has very sensitive hearing, but is nearsighted. 

Kiyo Takenaka/Delirium - F, “Fever Dream” can cause terrifying hallucinations when she meets her opponent’s eyes. A strong willed enough victim can break free, though.

Shizuko Inaba/LaVenus - F, “Venus Flytrap” grants the user the ability to grow giant venus flytraps from her fingers and arms. The stems can get very long, and the flytrap heads are the size of basketballs. The flytraps can move independently of her will. She can also create one giant flytrap.

 Kenzou Satō/ZoomZoom - M, “Speedster” grants the user the ability to run very very fast. They are not as fast as the Flash or Hawks, but he’s considered on par with Ingenium. 

Akane Arima/Comet - F, “Meteor Hands” grants the user the ability to create bowling ball sized rocks, set them on fire, and throw them with incredible speed and accuracy.

Sumire Fukui/Obscurus  - F, grants the user the ability to create a field of darkness around themselves up to thirty feet diameter. They can see in the dark, but it cancels out all other types of vision.

Akihito Yoshino/Tarantella  - M, “Tarantula” grants the user the ability to use thermal vision, web creation (from their wrists) for sticky nets and ropes, and climb sheer walls. Since they’re a spider heteromorph, they have six arms, extra eyes, and is extra strong.

Shichirou Iwamoto/Captain Kangaroo - M, “Kangaroo” can do everything a kangaroo can, BIG muscles and can punch your lights out. Kangaroo heteromorph, of course.

Shinsuke Shimizu/Catscratch - M, “Scratch” grants the user the ability of silver fingernails that can lengthen to a foot long and can cut through steel.

 Osamu Ōshiro/Freeze Frame - M “Finger Frame” grants the user the ability to freeze something just by catching it between the square of their fingers, like he was making a frame around it. Freeze as in stop, not as in cold, and the fingers must be square and touching. The farther away and the more things caught between the frame, the harder the frozen things fight to start again.

Sayuri Hashiguchi/Winterheart - F, “Cold Breath” grants the user the ability to breathe freezing air and snow. Basically the exact opposite of breathing fire. (She’s Big Bad Wolf’s twin sister, but she’s not a heteromorph!)

Masato Yoshida/Bones - M, “Bone Armor” grants the user the ability to create armor made of super dense bone. He can even bounce bullets off it. Has been likened to an armadillo to tease him.

Yuu Seki/Cable - F, “Steel Medusa”  grants the user the ability to manipulate her hair made of steel cables.

Akito Maeda/X-Ray - F, “Identifying Eye” grants the user the ability to see weak points in structures and enemies. However, she herself has no extra strength or speed, and her vision can be overwhelmed.

Daigo Kanemaru/Porcupine - M, “Needle Spit” Can spit various amounts of needles of different sorts and lengths.

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

The thing about politics and administration changes are that they affect so many different branches of government. Personally I am at the moment sad about losing Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

Deb Haaland is the first Native American Cabinet secretary, a 35th-generation New Mexican and an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna. She's especially passionate about environmental issues, climate change, healthcare for all and missing and murdered indigenous peoples. She created the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, an investigation of old boarding schools which came after the discovery of the mass grave at Kamloops. This would be "an effort to document known schools and burial grounds, including those with unmarked graves" and to, where possible, return remains to their families/nations. (x) She also created a new Missing and Murdered Unit to "pursue justice for missing or murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives" which has investigated 728 MMIP cases and solved 263 missing persons cases and 8 murders.

I'm currently a seasonal NPS employee so I've been getting weekly update emails from her office, and she includes her pronouns in her signature, which is encouraging to see. She also un-banned NPS uniforms at pride after there was a kerfuffle with that.

She's visited various corps and volunteer organizations (none that I was in. I'm not jealous!...), including Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps, shown here in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado:

She's rejoiced at fish progress:

(x)

(X)

And this is just an incredible picture:

(X)

She was present at Biden's historic apology for government-funded boarding schools, an apology which was suggested as part of the road to healing in the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report. This was also the first time a sitting president has visited Tribal lands in 10 years.

Secretary of the Interior is a president-appointed position and she will almost certainly be replaced in January. We got an email from her about a 'peaceful transition' which sounds like she knows she's on her way out. In the (paraphrased) words of my self-proclaimed moderate republican christian coworker, 'It's too bad, I liked her. Trump isn't going to want a Native American. He's going to appoint a middle-aged white businessman to maximize the profits of the National Park System so we can pay for ourselves and so he doesn't have to give us as much of a budget.' Everyone I've talked to has been sad about likely losing her as Secretary of the Interior.

Though many Department of the Interior employees will miss her and in my opinion the department will suffer without her, she'll still be around and now that I know she exists I'm going to make sure to follow her next projects, whatever those may be.

(X)