#THIS is what conservation should look like

[ckret2]

Wanted to see a horror movie. Watched Grimcutty. Wasn't surprised to see it got low reviews. Was surprised that not even tumblr enjoyed it.

I thought it was a pretty good take on misinformed moral panics over non-existent internet trends. Not to be that person but I feel like a fair amount of people who watched it, like... almost got the point but missed it at the last minute.

(Some people who watched it REALLY missed the point. I saw one reviewer who claimed the point of the movie is that the internet is terrible and dangerous and everyone would be better off without it. That's like saying the message of Dracula is that we should donate blood to Transylvanian counts.)

Nearly every point I've seen someone go "X was so cringe" about was something I'm pretty sure was cringe on purpose. "The name is stupid, it sounds like a shitty creepypasta" yeah, the name isn't supposed to sound like a good creepypasta, it's supposed to sound like what the most credulous, out-of-touch, & paranoid parents think a creepypasta is. It's supposed to sound like the kind of strawman boogeyman that conservative mommybloggers imagine is peer pressuring their kids to do stupid shit.

You're not supposed to be scared of the monster. You're supposed to be scared of anyone who tells you you should be scared of the monster. You're supposed to hear its name and go "god, pff, wow, really? who could take that seriously? ... what the fuck do you mean parents are taking it seriously"

And the monster was cute. C'mon. Come on now. This is the site for people who look at tall pallid gangly wide-grinned fang-toothed serial-killing monsters and go "heyyy~ ❤️" The monster is cute.

Saw reviewers say it looks like a mix between Slenderman, Ryuk, and Momo like that's a bad thing.

Grimcutty was fun. This is a hill I'm willing to die on. I will fistfight the rotten tomatoes audience score in a denny's parking lot.

[sickness-stricken]

Analyzing Lily Orchard losing her fucking mind in real time

@lily-is-a-gooner has the post debunking the fact that this event was not staged, but I wanted to go over some of the noteworthy things I think are worth dissecting. Strap in, this one’s probably gonna be long.

Video link for anyone playing along at home:

[3:15] “You’ve got these things causing fucking car crashes, cuz they go off in people’s cars, startle them and cause them to veer into oncoming traffic!”

I’ll need to see a source on that before I believe it. Looking up “car crashes caused by amber alert” only brings up instances of kidnapped children that the amber alerts were for being involved in a car crash. Wouldn’t there be some study showing that reports for car crashes have an uptick within the hour of an EAS alarm being sent out?

[3:26] “AND THEY SEND THEM ALL THE GODDAMN TIME! […] You’re gonna get one of these things once a fucking week!”

No you won’t. Like. That is factually false. Excluding the test that just got sent out this month I get MAYBE one every three months. They are NOT common.

I thought maybe I was the outlier in that I live in Middle-of-nowhere, Alberta so I asked my Ontarian friend if they were more common there (you know, given the larger population) and what do ya know

[3:42] “We had one of these come out when Covid was happening! Like, Stephen, we all knew Covid was deadly, we didn’t need you to blow up everyone’s phones over it!”

I was ready to clown on this given I thought she was referring to Stephen Harper who hasn’t been PM since 2015 but I THINK she’s referring to Stephen McNeil who was the Premier of Nova Scotia in 2020. I don’t personally remember that alert going out (but I also have the memory of an anemic goldfish so that isn’t a high bar to clear) so maybe it was only a NS thing but I would assume for a national state of emergency that would be sent out by the NPAC? So, all parts of Canada? What would that have to do with Premier McNeil?

Don’t take this part super seriously I’m mostly just spitballing, this very well could just be an honest slip up on Lily’s part

[5:52] “I get amber alerts for shit that happens in Yarmouth! That’s a 3 hour drive away from me, the fuck you want me to do?!”

Hey, you know how earlier you said the amber alerts are usually about kids that wander off or are taken by a parent in a CUSTODY DISPUTE? Ya think that parent taking the kid is gonna STICK AROUND? They very well could be in Halifax by the time the alert actually goes out depending on how far the parent is willing to go. I myself jumped provinces to escape an abusive situation, that’s not exactly a long drive in comparison.

[6:36] (I’m gonna paraphrase this but essentially she’s talking about how 911 got swarmed with calls just bitching about the alarm going off in the first place and when they said not to abuse the line Lily calls this hypocrisy)

Lily the alerts are reporting imminent emergencies. If a kid (or really anyone) goes missing and they aren’t found in 48 hours it’s safe to assume they’re GONE. Calling 911 to complain about the alarm waking you up (despite them not being responsible for it) clogs up the lines when an ACTUAL report could be trying to get through. This is not comparable to a province using an emergency line for something that needs immediate attention just because it doesn’t affect you directly.

Feel like it’s also worth noting I’ve never seen anyone who wasn’t a conservative complain about the alerts at night. If it’s really that much of an issue you can turn your phone off at night (which you really should do anyway, it’s better for the battery) and get an alarm clock. If you know this to be an issue for you and the solution is completely within your control it is your responsibility to avoid this specific issue.

[7:46] (paraphrasing again: Lily is accusing people who are okay with the alerts going off at night of being hypocrites because they’ll just click their phones off and go back to sleep)

Again, this reeks of self-centrism and I’m once again unsure if Lily is aware that people who aren’t her exist. Yes, the person who acknowledges night alerts as a good thing may dismiss the notification. However, they acknowledge that people working night shift, such as hospital workers or those working at 24hr drive thrus/gas stations ARE awake and able to keep an eye out for certain descriptors, licence plates etc. This is not a hypocritical stance.

[9:10] “I can’t do anything while [the alarm] is playing. I just have to clap my hands over my ears and wait for it to end.”

…no??? You can literally swipe it away like any other notification and the noise stops. What are you talking about.

[9:30] (Not typing allat: Lily uses Japan as an example of how they use different alarms for different emergencies)

Oh hey look! Lily saying Japan did something good for once!

Gotta love how she picked the one country that doesn’t have an alarm that’s ominous as hell because literally almost every other country has an alarm that is just as if not more shit-in-pants worthy than Canada’s if it was played abruptly and at max volume

Maybe this is just personal opinion but I think it’s a good thing that all emergencies are regarded at the same level here. If we had a different, lessened alarm for when a child goes missing then people could immediately go “cool don’t care” instead of reading it at least once quickly to see what it says.

Alright that’s it for me I didn’t have a closing statement I’m gonna go take a nap… with my phone off

[soupinaboot]

I know I said Steve is more math smart than english smart and that he'd have a hard time in history as well... but he should also be very political and know what the fuck he's talking about.

Punk Steve is rather popular, yet the ideologies and politics that are associated with the punk movement seem to be forgotten whenever he's brought up, which is a real shame cause I think he'd really agree with it. Like, let's say before he discovers punk, the clothes or the music, or the hair, he reads a lot of books.

His dad has a bunch of history and law books lined up on his self in his office, and ever since he was young, Steve would pick one up and read it hiding in his room before Richard got home. He wasn't supposed to touch the stuff in his office, but he just got curious. The more he reads, the more he learned about the government and the system and the police and so on.

Then, as he got older, he just kept reading. Not just older books, but newsletters and articles. He kept up with the news around the world and in America, and the more he learned, the more pissed he got. All his friends were joking about how hot Ronald fucking Reagan was, that they just didn't even give a shit about how bad he was as a president. Every time he brought it up, people acted like he was overreacting or some crazy liberal that they didn't want to associate with.

So he stopped bringing it up. Clearly, people didn't want to hear his opinions on the current War on Drugs and the police. Plus, everybody got this weird look when he talked about it. Some of his friends would scoot away from him, others would awkwardly chuckle and stop talking for a while, like they were scared someone would over hear him.

He wasn't stupid, he knew Hawkins was a conservative town. If he wanted to keep his peace, he'd shut up when he knew when to. Which just so happened to be all the time. But that doesn't mean he stopped paying attention, in fact, he started paying a lot more attention after the whole "Oh there's a weird hell dimension under our town where people could be killed in and the government is covering it up to protect their asses? Typical"

But he still doesn't talk about it as much as he wants to. Around Robin and Eddie, he'll mention things once or twice, but they don't really pay attention to Steve's opinions on those types of things, or if they do, they believe he learned that stuff from them.

So anyway, yeah. This headcannon comes from the idea that his dad is a lawyer of some kind, and Steve was raised surrounded by political talk all the time.

[iamthemaestro]

Oh boy. I have a lot to say on this. I 1000% think that one of the biggest issues in AWI reenactment is the failure to reach the younger generation and I also wish the article had talked more about this and how it intersects with the inclusion of historically marginalized groups within the hobby.

I’ll put it this way: as of 2024, the BAR has an article in their constitution that prohibits women in ranks. As a young, non-male, and only sometimes white-passing reenactor, this has caused me issues in the past. People from the BAR have complained about me—a young, fairly new, dedicated reenactor—being on the field as a musician. Now, I’ve had the good fortune to be part of a unit with significant influence in the hobby, who have gone to bat for me in these instances and allowed me to feel relatively safe coming to these events, but I still can’t take up a musket at a BAR event if I want to. Over the past year I have become acutely aware that if it weren’t for the fact that I do music and not hat company, I would not be able to interpret at these events in the way I have repeatedly proven myself capable of doing.

So you have the primary overarching association responsible for organizing large-scale AWI reenactments literally denying interested, dedicated people from the younger generation the opportunity to participate in the hobby. And this is just one official organization—this is to say nothing of the culture. At the end of the day, sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia is rampant in these environments. I do think the culture is slowly improving with time, but still, there are spaces where I do not feel safe in the hobby, and I spend a lot of time considering what my future as a reenactor might look like if I ever decide to medically transition, for example. My love for this hobby means I put up with a lot, even within my own unit, but I cannot fault other people who take one look at this mess and decide it’s not worth it. Of course there are going to be less reenactors. If individual units and the overarching organizations are going to actively resist a new generation of young living historians, interest in the hobby is going to waver.

I also think there’s an important distinction to make between so-called “progressive” units and a broader sense of historical accuracy, because ultimately reenactment is a hobby. I strongly believe that no issue of historical accuracy should take precedent over actual issues of discrimination (if we were going to really pursue historical accuracy, we would be excluding probably 90% of the reenactment community as it is!). But I also believe that the spirit of this hobby is one that is educational and authentic: second to having fun and staying safe, of course, I think the priority should be pursuing as accurate of an impression as you can in the meantime. “Progressive” units often get kind of a bad rap but ultimately I think they have the right idea. They’re what’s going to keep this hobby relevant as an educational tool and pursuit, as opposed to just being a bunch of grown men running around playing war with each other. Progressive units are, in my opinion, the future of this hobby. And yet a lot of more conservative units have this weird resistance to this philosophy simply because they don’t… want to have to adapt to what it means, I suppose. But I really do think that if that philosophy prevails, we won’t have educational reenactment—it’s possible we won’t have much in terms of reenactment at all. Ultimately I want to believe this, too, will improve in time, but the fact that we have to violently contest, for example, whether British soldiers had to shave (which they did) just because some reenactors desperately want an excuse not to… does not bode well for garnering interest from historians and enthusiasts in time for the 250th.

Anyway, that’s been my experience. I should probably stop talking about this because I think about it constantly and could go on forever. But that’s my (admittedly rather scathing) two cents on why this is the case.

Who has Wall Street Journal access I heard there’s an article about 250th reenactors and I need the tea

[lady-raziel]

hilarious that with each new day that passes a new bit of dirt from JD Vance's past gets discovered and plastered over the internet...it's almost as if this is why presidential campaigns have always announced their running mates well before the convention...so that if glaring issues with a candidate came to light quickly there would be time to replace them on the ticket before they were officially locked in...it's almost as if certain things in political campaigns were done for a reason, donald...because the very same critical failures had happened before...but no i'm sure you and your guys attempt to recreate a fantasy version of history while ignoring all the reasons that history was a disaster will work this time...because you are built different and the 10000th time trying fascism will work like a charm...

[megpricephotography]

Beach Boy! Barney, jumping for joy during a trip to the beach in July of 2012.

[celtrist]

I love how you draw Alastor with the dark patches on his skin/fur. Although I feel bad for him being forced into outfits he's not comfortable in, I have to agree with Charlie that he looks super cute in that dress!

Tis the burden he bears being attractive: people wanting to put him in outfits he'd 100% not be cool with wearing.

[gingerhastoomanyobsessions]

I’m reminded of the Green Belt Movement led by Dr. Wangari Maathai.

Dr. Maathai grew up on a farm in rural Kenya, seeing the effects of desertification on the landscape and people firsthand. She went abroad to study biology in the USA before returning to Kenya to teach at the University of Nairobi, but she was quickly dropped by the university in favor of a male professor with the same credentials. She relocated to Germany, got her PhD, and came back to Nairobi, where she finally became a professor, became a speaker for the National Council of Women of Kenya, and used these resources to fight the desertification and environmental degradation she’d been observing her whole life.

Maathai realized that environmental issues, caused by the havoc that colonization wrought on the environment, were deeply entangled with poverty and food insecurity. Forest outskirts die —> erosion and desertification happens —> agriculture suffers —> people are forced to exploit what’s left of the forests for food and firewood more. It was a vicious cycle. The stress of living this way put a strain on social issues, too, and impoverished families were more at risk of domestic abuse. Because employment was an issue, many women were completely reliant on their husband’s income, making it next to impossible to leave abusive situations.

The Green Belt initiative trained and employed these women in jobs related to forestry, sustainable agriculture, beekeeping, and other environmentally restorative trades. By planting windbreaks of trees, erosion and desertification were stopped in their tracks. Reforesting degraded forests allowed the plants and animals to recuperate, re-opening opportunities for sustainable foraging and providing a new source of food. Reducing erosion improved water quality. The women who worked in for the initiative now had a source of income and greater independence. Similar movements emerged in other countries in Africa and around the world inspired by Dr. Maathai’s strategy.

Dr. Maathai knew what rural Kenya needed because she WAS a rural Kenyan. She had lived experience that allowed her to identify the interconnections between issues of environmental degradation, poverty, and gender inequality. Combining that knowledge with the scientific strategies she spent years studying, she was able to create a two-birds-one-stone solution that benefitted both the land and the people who lived with it. THAT is what conservation is all about.

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

Sometimes when my dad and I disagree, the amount of utter confidence on display would obliterate an unprepared observer, I think

[palaceoftears]

Magnificent Century Rewatch: One Picspam per Episode

Episode 17: The Double Joy

-My dear mother used to say "walk barefoot on earth and it shall take away all your troubles and sorrows, earth shall give you happiness and joy"

-Your mother spoke well, one can only find peace in earth. But I'm not sure if it is on earth or in it.

[here-there-were-dragons]

i have to wonder what super hardcore militant vegans think should be done about obligate carnivore animals, because in all my painfully-rapidly-approaching-30-years i've literally never actually seen anyone give a clear consistent much less halfway feasible answer on that

[depoteka]

what if i will just never romantically vibe with any man i meet in my entire life. what then

[tevatron]

i'm so glad i won't be working with my pi after this month. i think i've reached my limit. i just can't deal with her anymore

[mint-mumbles]

Gonna use this image any time someone says something low key sexist about Sable (ie "she's showing too much skin" regarding a fucking bathing suit 😭🤦)

I don't hear you complaining about Spirit 😭

[monsterfuckermilligan]

Thoughts on Sam x Jack

personally not into winkline, like people can ship what they want it’s just not for me. kinda like dean and amara. (NOTE: my blog is anti anti and proshipper safe bc i’ve been in fandom since 2012 and know how media works. idk what the obsession with everyone being the fandom police about ships or literary themes as of late, but i think it’s related to the concept of equating media consumption to morality. like in the same vein as “video games make people violent ” or “true crime fans wish they could” and etc and i’m anti censorship bc just bc i think something is icky doesn’t mean it’s morally apprehensible and shouldn’t exist or that people should be harassed/doxxed/etc or laws should exist that only allow “good media” because it’s a slippery slope) i think mostly in sam/jack’s case it’s because in that context (and in general) sam is often looked at as jack’s mother figure when he’s…not. now if, let’s say…time travel and jack goes back to meet early seasons sam? might get cancelled but that would be … so juicy. like the concept. do u see my vision. but my unpopular opinion that there there is more substance to dean/jack. maybe im remembering the show wrong but after s13 sam and jack just don’t interact that much? i blame the writers for that but we got optimism that was a jack + dean hunting episode and we got dean taking him out to do stuff when he was dying. i don’t remember an episode that was jack + sam centric which makes me wish we had one. sigh. this kind of went off on a tangent lol but these r non linear my thoughts haha

[jules-van-hering]

how the fuck do you calm yourself down from wanting to completely rip into those dudes on dating app who just saw the non-mono tag on your profile didn't read any further then texted you the most offensive shit and now you just wanna rip his head off