#bronx human zoo

[reasoningdaily]

The operator of the venerable Bronx Zoo, one of the world's most famous wildlife parks, has apologized for two "unconscionable" racist episodes in its past, including placing an African man on display in a monkey house in 1906.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronx Zoo in addition to three other zoos and an aquarium in New York City, said in a statement this week that in the "name of equality, transparency, and accountability, we must confront our organization's historic role in promoting racial injustice."

"His name was Ota Benga," the statement said. Bronx Zoo officials "put Ota Benga on display in the zoo’s Monkey House for several days during the week of September 8, 1906 before outrage from local Black ministers quickly brought the disgraceful incident to an end."

One of those ministers, the Rev. James Gordon, "arranged for Ota Benga to stay at an orphanage he directed in Weeksville, Brooklyn," the statement said. "Robbed of his humanity and unable to return home," Ota Benga died by suicide a decade later.

Harvey Blume, who co-authored the 1992 book "Ota Benga: The Pygmy At The Zoo," said the zoo's apology is too little and too late.

"And to whom was this apology? It's a little late for Ota," Blume told NBC News on Friday.

All known records about Ota Benga at the wildlife society are now being made available online as part of an effort to "publicly acknowledge the mistakes of our past," the Wildlife Conservation Society's statement said.

The organization, founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society, also denounced the "eugenics-based, pseudoscientific racism, writings, and philosophies" advanced by two of its founders, Madison Grant and Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr.

Grant penned an infamous eugenics book, “The Passing of the Great Race,” with a preface by Osborn.

The book was submitted as a defense exhibit for Nazi doctor Karl Brandt, a director of the Third Reich's "euthanasia" program, and other defendants in the Nuremberg trials.

Brandt, who was also Adolf Hitler's personal physician, was convicted by the war crimes tribunal in 1947 and put to death in 1948.

"Back in that day, science and anthropology were based on explicitly racist principles," Blume said. "That there was a hierarchy of races, culminating with the white race on top, looking down."

The role once-respected scholars played in propping up debunked scientific theories to justify white supremacy has been overlooked for far too long, according to the author.

"Madison Grant was one of Hitler's favorite authors," said Blume, who co-authored "Ota Benga: The Pygmy At The Zoo" with the late Phillips Verner Bradford, grandson of the man who purchased Ota Benga in Africa and brought him to America.

"These were not Nazis, but in some ways they were too."

The wildlife society said in its statement, which was first reported by The New York Times, that it is obligated to confront these episodes.

"We deeply regret that many people and generations have been hurt by these actions or by our failure previously to publicly condemn and denounce them," the statement said.

"We recognize that overt and systemic racism persists, and our institution must play a greater role to confront it. As the United States addresses its legacy of anti-Black racism and the brutal killings that have led to mass protests around the world, we reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that social, racial, and environmental justice are deep-rooted in our conservation mission."

The organization also announced it was hiring a diversity officer to help "ensure diverse pools of candidates for recruitment, promotion, and succession planning, including our board and leadership."

"Today we challenge ourselves to do better and to never look away whenever and wherever injustice occurs," the statement said.

[hamyilton]

can't believe there's people out there that really believe riding an animal is inherently abusive...

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

The Bronx Zoo has just released Flaco's necropsy results.

He was not thriving, as the people championing the ideal of "freedom" claimed.

He was poisoned.

He was sick.

He was suffering.

"Freedom" would have eventually killed him. A building just happened to do it first.

"Postmortem testing has been completed for Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl that was found down in the courtyard of a Manhattan building a little over a year after his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo was vandalized on February 2, 2023. Onlookers reported that Flaco had flown into a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on February 23, 2024, and acute trauma was found at necropsy. Bronx Zoo veterinary pathologists determined that in addition to the traumatic injuries, Flaco had two significant underlying conditions. He had a severe pigeon herpesvirus from eating feral pigeons that had become part of his diet, and exposure to four different anticoagulant rodenticides that are commonly used for rat control in New York City. These factors would have been debilitating and ultimately fatal, even without a traumatic injury, and may have predisposed him to flying into or falling from the building. The identified herpesvirus can be carried by healthy pigeons but may cause fatal disease in birds of prey including owls infected by eating pigeons. This virus has been previously found in New York City pigeons and owls. In Flaco’s case, the viral infection caused severe tissue damage and inflammation in many organs, including the spleen, liver, gastrointestinal tract, bone marrow, and brain.   No other contributing factors were identified through the extensive testing that was performed. Flaco’s severe illness and death are ultimately attributed to a combination of factors—infectious disease, toxin exposures, and traumatic injuries—that underscore the hazards faced by wild birds, especially in an urban setting."

The naturalistic fallacy kills animals in horrible ways. The romanticism of what humans want to think of as a "free, wild, pure life" cannot be allowed supplant the reality of injury, sickness, and death. Releasing captive animals (or keeping them from being recaptured) because it's "better" for them to suffer untethered than live a healthy, safe, captive life is inhumane and horrific.

Flaco's life didn't have to end in pain, sickness, and suffering.

Flaco's death didn't have to be tragic.

But once the idea of "freedom" entered the chat, Flaco's fate was unavoidable.

[souliebird]

[[and then I met you || Ch. 25]]

Series: Daredevil || Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader || Rating: Explicit

Summary:

A one-night stand years ago gave you a daughter and you are now able to put a name to her father – Matthew Murdock. Everything is about to change again as you navigate trying to integrate your life with that of the handsome and charming blind lawyer’s and Matt realizes he needs to not only protect his new family from Hell's Kitchen, but from the world.

chapter masterlist

Words: 4.4k

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It is a beautiful Sunday morning at the Bronx Zoo - the sun is shining, the weather is warm, and there is hardly a crowd to speak of. Tourist season is over, and the school year has just started, so all the locals who would be here with their kids are otherwise preoccupied. Navigating through the pathways has been a breeze and there has been no one to block your view of the animals.

Another perk from the lack of patrons is the opportunity for a unique interaction at one of the exhibits Minnie was the most excited to visit.

“You has…you have very pretty fur,” Mouse whispers to the massive lowland gorilla that is mere inches from her face. There is a thick glass barrier between them, but you can’t help but feel a little bit nervous, especially with how the great ape has her full attention on your daughter. Large soulful eyes are focused on your little one as she gives compliment after toddler compliment. 

“It's a lot of colors and it looks really really soft,” Minnie continues on, nose practically smooshed flat against the glass. “I bets you gotta brush it lots. Mommy brushes my hair, but I can do it myself. Like a Big Girl.”

The gorilla responds by chewing on some leaves that she has in her hands. It is what she has been doing since she came down from the trees to sit right in front of you five minutes ago. This, of course, doesn’t deter Minnie at all and she asks, “Does your Mommy brush your hair, too?” 

As she has her imaginary conversation, you steal a glance at Matt.

After you learned about his senses, you thought joining you at the zoo would be torture for him. Even though the exhibits are kept clean, you know they must smell awful and there are loud birds screeching everywhere. It is completely different from the city noises he must be used to, and you even packed ear plugs and ibuprofen for if it became too much, but to your surprise, he seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself. 

Minnie has taken on her role as his Guide, excitedly explaining what each animal is and what they look like, to the best of her abilities - making you oh so proud. You’ve noticed that as your daughter takes in the sights, Matt will tilt his head minutely - his tell that he is intently listening to something. Occasionally, he’s asked a question - usually pointing to an animal Minnie did not describe and asking what it is. You’ve found lots of hidden creatures that way.

You cannot imagine what inputs he must be receiving from the gorilla in front of him. You know humans and great apes are closely related, but how does that come across to Matt? The smell must be different, but is he able to distinguish between her heartbeat and the heartbeat of someone observing her? Do her lungs sound human? 

Can he tell if she’s sick or well taken care of? Is that something he can determine in an animal he has no history with? 

He must sense you looking at him because he tilts his head towards you and grins. Your heart squeezes in your chest and your stomach does a sort of funny flip. 

He is so handsome and charming, and you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into. You weren’t prepared to get into a physical relationship with Matt, but you don’t want to roll back on it. 

You like how touchy he has been all morning. It hasn’t been anything obscene or inappropriate, but his hand has found its way around your waist more than once. On the subway, standing in line, or even just watching the animals, if you were next to him, he’d wrap you up and pull you a little closer. His hand would rub up and down your side and each time you’d feel like a little picture-perfect family on an outing.

You haven’t kissed in front of Minnie, but you have both been sneaking them in - when you woke up, when you were making breakfast, when Mouse was preoccupied getting ready. 

You feel giddy and like you belong in a teen romance movie. This is something you haven’t had in such a long time - or ever really - and you don’t want to ruin it by overthinking.

You made a deal with yourself that morning - you were going to enjoy your trip to the zoo with your family and you were not going to overanalyze sleeping with Matt. It will be a tomorrow problem.  

Right now, you are going to soak in all the goodness that is happening - including the pleasant ache in your core from getting thoroughly fucked.

You break yourself out of your own head and take a small step, so you are properly beside Matt. You reach up and wrap your arm around his bicep, leaning into him a little as you ask, “Who would win in a fight - you or the gorilla?” 

“Oh, the gorilla,” he whispers back. “She’s all muscle and teeth. One good whack would easily break bone and even I’ve heard the stories about angry primates. I’m not that reckless.”

You have to bite your lip to keep from smiling too much, then you lightly squeeze his arm and tease, “Exactly how reckless are you?”

You don’t realize the innuendo until the words leave your lips and then you can’t take it back. Matt’s grin only grows, and he ducks just slightly so he can nuzzle into your ear to purr, “would you like to find out?”

Your face heats up and you have to hide your face in his shoulder, so you don’t die from absolute embarrassment. He gently pulls his arm from your grasp so he can instead wrap it around you and hold you firm against him. He rocks you slightly and you conclude that yes, Matt is very much enjoying his time out at the zoo. 

In front of you, the gorilla stuffs the last of her leaves in her mouth, chewing slowly as Minnie babbles away about hair care. 

“..and if you braids it, it makes it super-duper wavy after,” she wisely tells her new friend, “You could be really poofy. Like a flower.” She pauses, then you watch her as she watches the great ape stand back up and start to walk away. You expect her to be sad, but instead, your sweet girl just calls out, “Okay, bye-bye, I love you!” before whirling around to beam up at you. 

“Can we go see the mices now?” she asks, all sunshine and rainbows. 

To your great amusement, Minnie is dead set on following the plan she made. She only wants to visit certain animals and she must see them in a certain sequence. She brought the map of the zoo you bought her all those months ago - the one she’s drawn all over and has practically memorized - and they are your marching orders. You and Matt are more than happy to follow her lead - especially because she does not want to see any of the birds, which saves you a lot of walking. 

“Let’s go to the Mouse House,” Matt agrees. 

You have to pull away from him to be able to walk and your little Mouse goes right for your hand so she can hold it. She has been extra good all day about holding your hand and staying by your side - loudly saying she’s a Big Girl and can follow all the rules. You’ve been very impressed with her determination and definitely plan to reward her for her behavior. 

Matt falls into line beside you as you begin to lead the way, lightly grabbing at your elbow. You feel a tad bad for taking up so much space on the path, but luckily there is no one around. 

“What did you think of the gorillas?” you ask as you make your way to the next exhibit. 

“They’re amazing!” Mouse says with the biggest little grin, “She was really big and pretty and soft and went…she went,” she proceeds to make soft little grunts like you imagine a monkey would make, but you didn’t hear the gorilla make any noises beyond chewing.

“She really liked you, huh?” Matt teases with a little hum, his own smile as large as his daughter’s. 

“She did!” Minnie absolutely preens, “She’s my favorite!” 

Every animal has been her favorite, but you do think, for the moment, the gorilla does take the cake. 

“You’re favorite, huh?” You muse, “I don’t know, I think the tiger was really cool.” The cat had been much larger and vibrantly colored than you expected, and you had been a little bit starstruck by the apex predator. You might just see if there are any tiger shirts in the gift shop.

“He was sleepy!” Minnie proclaims, and it is true - the tiger was enjoying a midmorning snooze.

“What about you, Matt, who has been your favorite?” 

He makes a show of tilting his head back and forth as he thinks, “My favorite? I liked the elephants - I didn’t expect them to be that large and using their noses like that is…unique.” 

“It’s called their trunk!” Mouse eagerly tells her father, repeating what the zookeeper told you. “They can use it…to… to …to… grab things and drink water!” To emphasize her point, she raises her free arm up to her face and mimics an elephant’s trunk waving around. 

“That is impressive,” he says, “can you do that with your nose?” 

Minnie halts, then screws up her face to try to wiggle her nose. She purses her lips and pushes them around, but she does not succeed in independently moving her cute little nose. She does not give up right away, proceeding with multiple attempts before declaring rather cheerily, “Nope!”

You both laugh at your daughter’s antics as you start walking again. As you get closer to your destination, your little one gets more and more excited - she takes bigger steps, and you can tell she wants to run towards the building. 

At first, she thought one giant mouse lived in the Mouse House, but you explained it held lots of little houses for different types of rodents. Now, you think, she is determined to make sure all her tiny brethren are happy in their homes. She takes her role as Mouse Princess very seriously, after all. 

Like the Congo Forest, the Mouse House has a scarce population of humans. You let go of your daughter’s hand once in the darkness of the building so she can run up to view the first set of new friends. Once she is thoroughly distracted and talking to the little creatures, Matt moves. 

He lets go of your arm to slip behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and resting his chin on your shoulder. You rub at his forearm as you pull your phone out - you don’t want to miss any cute moments of Minnie with her subjects. As you bring up the camera app, Matt nuzzles at your neck, placing a sweet kiss there. 

“Good day, so far?” He asks against you, and you can’t help but smile and duck your head a little. You aren’t used to affection, let alone public affection, and his attention makes you a bit dizzy. 

“So far, so good,” you whisper in response. To distract yourself from how solid Matt is against your back and how he’s practically wrapped around you, you start tapping at your phone to get it to focus in the low light. “Are you having a good time?”

He hums into your skin, then gives another kiss, “the best time. Doesn’t smell nearly as bad as I thought it would and the animals seem well taken care of.” 

“It’s AZA accredited,” you instantly chime, and he huffs against you. You did so much research about the zoo beforehand, so that you could answer any questions Minnie had. So far, she’s had zero. 

“I don’t know what that means.”

You angle your phone to get a picture of Minnie and the enclosure she’s looking into, and whisper back, “It’s like the board that makes sure the zoos are humane and everything is done properly.” 

He hums again, then buries his nose into the crook of your neck. You try to not shiver, but you do end up pressing back into his hold as you watch your daughter. You fall into a pleasant silence, swaying slightly in Matt’s arms, as Minnie moves between the different displays. She has no apparent interest in learning the types of animals she’s looking at - she goes right into talking to them. When she gets a little too far away, you gently guide Matt down the hallway, all while he stays wrapped around you. 

“I like your feetsies,” Mouse tells an elephant shrew, and you turn on your camera to record her interrogate the little creature. “How many toes do you have? I can…I see…I see three toes. Do you have three toes? I gots five. But they go in shoes. You don’t haves shoes. Where are your shoes?”

You and Matt follow Minnie all through the Mouse House for almost thirty minutes. You let her take her time - you are in no rush to go back out into the heat, and you want her to not only enjoy herself, but tire herself out. She’ll get a burst of energy after lunch, but by the time you leave for the day, you hope to be a zonked-out toddler. 

At the last of the exhibits, Matt gently nips at your throat before mumbling against it, “I have a surprise after this.”

You have no idea what he could possibly have up his sleeve, but whatever it is, it is making him start to grin and get a bit of cockiness to his voice. So, to tease him right back, you play dumb.

“After this?”

“After the Mouse House,” he confirms, squeezing you and rocking you in place. You start to smile at his teasing and let yourself enjoy it. 

You hum, then begin to trace your fingers over one of the hands on your hips as you question, “A surprise? After the Mouse House?”

“A surprise after the Mouse House.”

That, of course, gets Mouse’s attention. She whirls around, eyes going wide with toddler excitement as she asks, “A surprise?”

“After the Mouse House,” Matt repeats, a mix of pride and smugness in his words. You can tell he is enjoying this interaction and that funny feeling in your heart and stomach return. 

“Is it a pony?!”

You pull away from Matt just as he starts to laugh, and as you do Minnie hurries over to take your place. He scoops her up into her arms, and with all the fondness in the world, tells her, “No, it’s not a pony.”

She dramatically flops over his shoulders with a big pout, then, like it was all a joke, hurriedly moves to hug him around his neck and with pure toddler innocence tell him, “You’re better than a pony!” 

Always ready for their sweet moments, you snap multiple pictures as Matt hugs his daughter back tightly and you just barely hear him whisper back, “I think you’re better than a pony, too.”

As always, it takes him a few moments to release Minnie and set her back down. She instantly latches onto his hand and begins to shake it vigorously, “I wanna know the surprise!” 

Matt is quick to concede to her demands, “Okay, okay, sweetheart. Let’s go to the surprise.” 

You put your phone back into your purse so you can slip over to the pair and offer your arm to Matt. He takes it just above your elbow, and you start towards the exit of the Mouse House, Minnie skipping along on the other side of Matt.

You’ve not walked with Matt before where he is the one to lead you, but you are sure to be in step with him, so no one takes a second look. His cane is folded up and tucked into your purse, so you don’t think anyone would guess he is blind just by looking at him, but your anxiety tells you someone is always watching and one little slip up will have people questioning you. 

Once out in the sunshine, Matt directs you back towards the gorillas again. You are confused about what could possibly be back that way that you don’t already know about, but you trust him.

“For your surprise,” he says to Minnie as you walk, “you have to be quiet, okay? We can't be loud and attract other people because this surprise is a secret.”

That has you even more curious about what could possibly be going on, but you focus on your daughter’s reaction to the request. You know she knows what a secret is, but you don’t remember if you’ve ever asked her to keep a secret before.

Mouse’s free hand goes into her mouth as she thinks over Matt’s request, and you try to not gag. Her fingers must be covered in all sorts of germs, and you should have been more on top of sanitizing them. A nice lesson in hindsight.

Moments later, she drops her hand, and she looks up to Matt and squints suspiciously, “can Mommy know the secret?”

Pride streaks through you at her question and you might get a little bit teary eyed. She never fails to amaze you with how her mind works and what information she takes in. The fact she’s aware she shouldn’t keep secrets from you is probably the highlight of your week - Matt eating you out included.

“Of course, Mommy can know the secret,” Matt tells her instantly, “We should not keep any secrets from Mommy. It’s important she knows everything so she can keep us safe and happy.” 

As he says that, he squeezes your arm a little and you know he is talking about himself as well. You remember all the times he’s told you he doesn’t want to keep anything from you, and you know he’s telling the truth. He’s been very open with you about everything, even if it has taken some time for everything to rise to the surface. You don’t blame him for that at all - the things he keeps close to the chest are pretty important and you more than understand him not telling you on day one.

But he did tell you, and he has been honest about not being ready to divulge everything just yet, and that is what matters. 

“Mommy keeps us safe and happy,” Minnie mimics and you have a feeling that is going to be added to her repeated phrases.

“Mommy keeps us safe and happy,” Matt repeats, then adds, “Can we be quiet, though, so other people don’t know?” 

Mouse nods and you have a feeling that whatever Matt has planned is going to get her extremely worked up. 

You end up in a very secluded inlet, away from the main path, surrounded by trees, and part of you wonders if you are meant to be able to come to this spot. There is no one else around and you don’t know what sort of surprise Matt could possibly have that requires you to come here.

Your questions are answered only seconds later, when a friendly voice comes from above you.

“Hi, there!”

You jerk your head up, and hanging there upside down from a tree, is Spider-Man. 

Your daughter loses her fucking mind. 

It’s like it is in slow motion - Minnie gasps with her whole body before dropping Matt’s hand. She turns to latch onto his pants, instead, and begins to pull on them over and over with enough force you think she’ll rip them. You don’t know if she remembers that she’s supposed to be quiet or if she’s so excited she can no longer vocalize, but she starts to whisper-scream.

“Daddy, Daddy! It’s Spidey-Man! It’s Spidey-Man!!!”

You try to not go slack-jaw in your own amazement as the vigilante lets go of his web and drops to the ground right in front of your daughter, doing a backflip in the process. 

“That’s me!” Spider-Man declares, and he sounds way younger than you thought he would. “I heard it was your birthday, so I had to come and say ‘Hi’!” 

You rip your eyes away from the hero to stare at Matt and he looks like he is trying to not look smug as hell. You have no idea how he pulled this off - this is the real Spider-Man. The fake ones can’t hang from webs and sneak into zoos. 

Does he work with Spider-Man when he’s out as Daredevil? And did he actually request for the man to come say Happy Birthday to Minnie? Does that mean he knows who Spider-Man is behind the mask? And vice versa?

“It’s my birthday!” Minnie chokes out and she sounds like she is about to start crying. You know she loves the hero, but you did not think he would get such an intense reaction. You turn your gaze back to her, your own excitement growing in your belly.

“Happy Birthday, Minnie!” Spider-Man tells her in the cheeriest voice, before crouching down and throwing open his arms, “Do you want a hug?” 

He barely finishes getting the words out before Mouse is letting go of Matt to launch herself at him. He wraps her up in a hug and she just clings on. You want so badly to take a picture, but you respect that this is a secret meeting just for your baby. 

You’ll just have to commit every moment to memory.

Matt has let go of your arm, so you turn so you can grab onto his bicep again. You lean against him and let yourself grin like an idiot as you watch your daughter with her hero.

“Your Dad told me that you’re really smart and like to learn new things,” Spider-Man says to the top of Mouse’s head. You wonder exactly how much information about your family was exchanged, but that’s something you can review later. 

Minnie just barely nods against the man’s chest, and you can hear her start to talk, muffled against his suit, “I knows my ABCs and how to count ands I can do one plus one.” 

“You can do one plus one?!” 

“Elmo taughts me,” she explains in the sweetest and watery voice, “Its two.”

“That’s amazing,” Spider-Man tells her, “Keep watching Sesame Street, it has a lot of good lessons. Do you like Beaker and Dr. Honeydew from the Muppets? They were my favorites when I was little like you.” 

Minnie squirms against Spider-Man and you expect her to pull away, but apparently, she is just getting more comfortable, because she nuzzles back into him and goes, “Meep, Meep.” 

You laugh into Matt’s shoulder, overwhelmed with how sweet she is. Matt gently pulls his arm from you so he can yet again hold you close. You hand moves from his bicep to his chest, and you curl your fingers into his shirt, over his heart. You can’t tear your eyes away from your daughter to look at his expression, but you have a feeling it is a lot like yours.

“That’s right, ‘meep, meep, meep, MEEP,’” the vigilante does a good Beaker impression, causing a round of giggles. “Well, because you are so smart and your Dad is a pretty cool guy, I got you something I think Dr. Honeydew and Beaker would approve of.” 

Your eyes go wide at the statement, and you cannot believe what you heard - Spider-Man, the famous New York vigilante, got your daughter a birthday gift?

Apparently, Minnie can’t believe it either, as she pulls back just a little so she can look up at him, and asks in the tiniest voice, “A presents?”

“A present!” He explains, then, so fast you barely see him do it, he flicks out a hand and shoots a string of web up into the trees where he has been waiting. Then he pulls and a box comes flying back at him. He expertly catches it, and you can see it is wrapped in blue wrapping paper that has white sparkly snowflakes all over it - clearly Christmas themed. You don’t think Minnie cares at all, because when it is held out to her, her little brown eyes just get so big.

“For you! Happy Birthday!” 

Mouse looks back at you for permission and you quickly nod. She delicately takes the gift and once it is fully in her grasp, tears into it. As soon as it is free of its prison, she holds it up in triumph, “A mibo-scope!”

It is indeed a miniature microscope - at least that is the main picture on the box. You think it is one of those ‘Baby’s first science kit’ type things and you just know you are going to spend so much time over the next week hunched over it with Minnie. 

“What do you say, sweetheart?” Matt gently prompts and she instantly throws herself back into Spider-Man’s chest. She drops the box in the process, but the vigilante has lightning-fast reflexes and catches it before it hits the ground. He sets it aside before properly hugging your daughter again.

“Thank you, Spidey-Man! You’re…you’re the bestest! Bestest-bestest! I loves you!” 

“Aw, thank you! I love you, too!” 

There is a gentle pressure to the top of your head, and you realize Matt has turned his so he can press his lips there. You shuffle even closer to him, tightening your grip on his shirt. 

As you watch your daughter hug her favorite super-hero, you realize you have never been this happy before in your life. Everything in this moment is perfect. You would not change anything at all, and you do not think you would change anything that lead up to this moment of time. You wish and pray you could trap the day in a bottle and hold it in your heart forever. 

You and your precious Winifred Love are blessed that not only is Matthew Murdock a good man, but he is also a good father. 

---

a/n:

And that concludes Season 1 of 'and then I met you'!

Next, we are onto Season 2 and diving into the Sokovia Accords and how it will affect our perfect little family.

Special thanks to @ebathory997 for their help with information about the Bronx Zoo and special shout out to @bellaxgiornata @mattmurdocksscars @she-likesorchids and @loveroftoomanyfandoms for all of their amazing support <3 You guys are amazing and I could not have written any of this without y'all.

--

tags:

@midnightreids @cloudroomblog @yeonalie @thychuvaluswife 

@petrovafire39 @ghostindeath @roxytheimmortal 

 @allllium @waywardcrow @thatkindofgurl

@anehkael @akilatwt @lostinthefantasies @reluctanthalfwayoptimism @ethereal-blaze

 @nennia-2000 @seasonofthenerd @abucketofweird  @mattmurdockstateofmind @imagineswritersblog @hazelhavoc @smile-child-13 @allst4rsfall @hashcakes @kezibear @mapleaye @sammanna @gamingfeline @moon-glades @nightwitherspring @phoenix666stuff @dare-devil

@ladyoflynx @hobiebrowns-wife @sarcasm-n-insomnia @lillycore

@dorothleah @mattmurdocksstarlight @mars-on-vinyl @mywellspringoflife @sleepdeprived-barelyalive @simmilarly @soupyspence @darkened-writer @akila-twt

@murc0ckmurc0ck @groovycass @sumo-b98 @just3rowsing @tongueofcat @zoom1374

@theclassicvinyldragon @aoi-targaryen @lunaticgurly @nikitawolfxo @shireentapestry @snakevyro @yondiii @echos-muses @honeybug-victoria @the-bisaster @ristare 

@mrs-bellingham @eugene-emt-roe @cometenthusiast @stevenknightmarc @yes-im-your-mom @hunnybelha @actorinfluence @capbrie @prowlingforfood @jupitervenusearthmars

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Specialagentjackbauer @yarrystyleeza @ofmusesandsecrets 

@mayp11-blog @danzer8705 @thinking-at-dusk @remuslupinwifee @akila-twt  @nommingonfood @mattmurdocks6thscaleapartment @dil3mma @allllium 

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[alwaysbewoke]

Ota Benga was born around 1883, in what is now the Republic of Congo. Theirs was a hunter-gatherer society. When he became a man, his teeth were chipped into sharp points, part of his tribal customs. His world came crashing down when King Leopold II of Belgium (The butcher of Congo) established a colony in the Congo to exploit its valuable resources. The demand for rubber was increasing around the world and Leopold wanted to corner the market. He subdued the native population to force them into laboring on the rubber plantations. In Belgium Congo, women were held hostage until their men returned with enough rubber for the colonizer King Leopold. Some had their hands chopped off for not meeting rubber quotas. Ota was out on a hunting expedition when his village was attacked by the slavers. Whether they were Force Publique or an African group working to collect people to sell to them varies from story to story. He was taken captive. On the other side of the globe, a man named Samuel Verner was preparing exhibits for the 1904 World's Fair. The fair's organizers wanted to do an exhibit showing the progress of mankind “from the dark prime to the highest enlightenment, from savagery to civic organisation" He was given a hefty budget to collect living "specimens" of people from Africa to represent the "savage depths" from which mankind had sprung. The experience of young African men at the 'fair' aka Human Zoo, was not a pleasant one. Billed as cannibals, they shook spears at the crowd and grimaced with their filed teeth, modeling their "war dances" Verner sent Ota to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In 1906, Verner found a new home for Ota: The Bronx Zoo. Ota was put as an "exhibit" A plaque was erected, describing him in the same way an animal would be described and put into a cage in the monkey house. The Minneapolis Journal declared Ota to be the "missing link" between chimps and humans. On March 19, 1916, he stole a revolver gun and shot himself through the heart.

x

[dandylovesturtles]

@theplacewhereidumpmyinterests I can't talk about most of them because they're part of an AU verse I want to keep secret until I have the first fic that's part of it written, and idk when that will be (by summer?? HOPEFULLY??), but I guess I can talk about the other one because idk if/when I will write a fic for him (I'd like to but like I am only human)

"more AUs Dandy?" LISTEN all I do is sit around and think about "what if"s, okay?

ok so this started as me being like, hm, we see Lou Jitsu with a rotating door of women, so many he doesn't seem to remember all their names, so it's not totally out there to think he might have gotten one of them pregnant, right?

and thus Marcus (middle name Kyle) was born! literally!

so the story for this is, Lou Jitsu had a fling with a woman in the early 90s, pre-Big Mama. they were both in agreement that the whole thing was casual and it didn't last very long, but oopsie-daisy about six weeks after their last night together she finds out she's pregnant.

she debates what to do for a bit, because, as established, Lou Jitsu is kinda a fuckboi and she doesn't really want a relationship with him. But once she decides she's definitely keeping the baby she feels like she can't just not tell him, right? so she tries!

...unfortunately he's dating Big Mama by that point and she interferes to make sure that Lou Jitsu never meets with the woman and never finds out, because she knows this would get in the way of her plans.

she takes never hearing back from LJ as a sign he just isn't interested in the kid and resolves to single-motherhood. which she is the best at, btw.

she's still considering trying to introduce Marcus to his dad at some point, but unfortunately her kid isn't even 5 before Lou Jitsu suddenly goes missing, with his teary fiancée telling a sob story to the cops. assuming, same as everyone else, that he's dead, she lets the whole thing go, though she does tell Marcus who his dad is once he's old enough to understand everything.

Marcus goes through periods of being obsessed with Lou Jitsu, watching all his movies and consuming every piece of media about him that he can find, and periods where he can't stand to even hear the name. it's up and down. from his perspective, LJ abandoned him and his mom, but he's also dead, so it's not like he can have closure on this ever, right? so it's just a thing he has to deal with on his own.

but he's fine! he's alright. he gets through high school, then college, then accepted into vet school just fine.

then... his mom gets sick and dies.

yeah, that's a hard blow.

but he's alright! he has a few buddies from college he still sees now and then, and he's started his zoo vet residency at the Bronx Zoo (with a particularly special interest in reptiles), so lots of new people to meet that way! he's doing great! he's not lonely at all!

(a few months ago, he was suddenly woken up by a surge of something, like dozens of voices were crying out to him for help, tugging him toward something, saying his family needs him...

yeah, no idea what that was about. he doesn't have any family anymore.)

then the sky opens up and aliens come out.

Marcus is at work, because of course aliens would attack at the beginning of his shift. he spends the day ushering survivors into safe zones within the zoo, using his medical knowledge to handle first aid, and just trying to stay sane as the whole world turns upside down.

and then just as suddenly as it all started... it stops.

in the aftermath, everyone around him is just trying to get home, desperately calling their loved ones and praying for the best. Marcus starts trying to figure out how he's going to get home, because the trains definitely aren't running, and as he looks as his phone for a spark of inspiration, he realizes... no one has tried to call him. his coworkers' phones have been going off all day, whenever they can get signal, as loved ones try to reach them, but... he doesn't have anyone trying to reach him. and as he sits there he realizes he doesn't know who he should be calling, either.

so. that's pretty depressing.

and as he's sitting there, thinking about his life and what led him here, in a now empty vet clinic outside the bronx zoo... he hears a noise. and then, voices.

ah great. looters.

at first, Marcus tries to call 911 - but obviously the call center is swamped. so he decides to take care of the problem himself, going to see who's there and get rid of them...

wait, who is he kidding? he's definitely not paid enough to confront potentially armed looters! he's going to get out of here.

but just as he starts to leave, he hears the voices again - coming from one of the surgery rooms this time. and they're talking about IVs... scalpels... anesthesia...

suddenly he realizes that these aren't looters - they're here to try and treat somebody.

and like hell is he going to let some idiot kill someone trying to do DIY surgery.

so he turns back around and bursts into the room... on two humans, a rat that counts as giant even for New York, and four very big, very injured turtles.

one of whom immediately points a gun in his face. to be fair, that's what he thought would happen.

"Donnie!" yells the biggest one, and, oh, they can talk. huh.

"Relax, it's just a tranquilizer!"

"Donatello!" that's the rat. there's a sound like a whip cracking and the one with the gun makes a startled noise and drops it.

now the rat is in front of him. he's looking up at Marcus imploringly. "Do you work here?" he asks.

"Y-yeah. I'm a vet."

the rat bows very politely. "my sons are seriously hurt, and I don't have the supplies to help them at home. I understand it is a lot to ask, but... we must use your supplies. please, if you could just look the other way."

Marcus looks around at the turtles, especially the one on the table, the one worst off. he looks mangled. he won't live long if he isn't properly treated.

a rat, two humans who look like teenagers, and the turtles. who the rat called "sons". now that he's noticing, they're all pretty short, other than the big one. are they also teenagers?

"...Are any of you doctors?" he asks. the littlest one starts to raise a hand, but the girl grabs it and forces it back down.

everyone else has left by now. he's the only doctor here.

alright. guess he's doing this.

"...okay, everyone make some room. let me get sterilized, and I'll see what we're working with here."

and that's how the son Lou Jitsu didn't know he had becomes primary care doctor to his teenage mutant ninja half-brothers. ^^

(and then a bunch of other stuff happens)

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The old New York Aquarium in the process of demolition, 1941.

Opened in 1896, it was described as having "a pungent and warm blend of age and familiarity and long affection and human scale, of busts of old singers and the flash of bright fish, of gloomy corners where one could neck with one's date, of being easy to get to and free, so that people could simply walk in as if it belonged to them." Robert Moses disagreed. He called it "an ugly wart on the main axis leading straight to the Statue of Liberty."

But he really wanted it gone to satisfy his imperial ambitions: a bridge on the site (Castle Clinton in Battery Park). When that plan was frustrated, he tried for a tunnel. He got neither. But the building was torn down, the animals and fish given to facilities in other cities, and the sea lions, temporarily, to the Bronx Zoo. Fourteen years later, another aquarium was built at Coney Island, but unlike the original, which was free, it charged a pretty high entrance fee. In his biography of Moses, The Power Broker (from which the description above of the old aquarium was taken), Robert Caro called the new aquarium Moses's revenge for not getting his bridge.

Photo: Jacob Harris for the AP

[toastling]

A 21st Century Girl's Guide to the Modern Magic User

Druids: A sort of prototypical magic user who is extremely connected to Mother Nature and all her spirits; these days a lot of people who call themselves druids have some... interesting, takes on the past and on modern society, but there are still some true examples out there

Shamans: Not actually a magic user as such, more of a spiritual authority than anything, but still known to dabble in magic from time to time and from culture to culture

Witches: A natural evolution of the magic users of ages past like druids, reverent of nature and observant of the old ways; they champion community more than any other class of magic user and are therefore the most dangerous and tenacious of them all in threatening situations

Warlocks: Magic incels who practice witchcraft but are too poisoned by their masculinity to call it such and don't understand why the proper witches won't stop hexing them

Mages: Natural born, naturally gifted magic users who were performing magic without any formal training or indoctrination of any sort from birth, as varied in their practices as humans are from one another

Sages: Kind of like a mage but they majored in philosophy in college and got all pretentious about it (not that this is always a bad thing); they often end up influencing the morality of magic in their respective eras, for better or for worse

Sorcerers: Magic users of the highest caliber when it comes to elemental magic and devastating offensive spells; once a sort of "warrior class" of magic user depended upon by their monarchs to fortify their armies and their defend their settlements, but now just the guys you call when the occasional dragon or manticore escapes from the Bronx Magic Zoo

Wizards: The answer to the question "Hey, you know what would be a funny trick to play on God?"; fuck your life, Chain Lightning be upon you

[anonymouscatloaf]

personally i think more pnf fic authors should work the hilarious story of penelope the platypus into any fic involving OWCA/perry

AKA today's post brought to you by the dumbest paragraphs in a fic i've ever written:

OWCA had never been the most standard agency, however: they’d started out as someone’s crackpot idea to train actual animals into agents, an initiative which had been quickly dropped when the only animal that had shown even the slightest ability to reach levels of sentience OWCA needed had been a female platypus named Penelope a few decades ago. She was ultimately gifted to the Bronx Zoo when OWCA gave up on animals altogether, and then promptly made the news for faking a pregnancy for extra rations and then escaping back to OWCA—not that the general public knew about that last part. (Penelope had been hastily shipped back to Australia and hopefully lived a long life in the wild.)

OWCA had stuck with animal code names for their now very much human agents, however—and in honor of Penelope, the best agent of every generation was assigned the platypus.

(Perry still kind of thought he ultimately won the moniker because ‘Perry the Platypus’ rolled off the tongue better than most other agents’ names.)

[realjaysumlin]

The Tragic Story of Ota Benga (c.1883-1916) – HistoryVille

https://www.thehistoryville.com/ota-benga/

Kidnapped from his homeland in Africa by Christian missionaries and put into an animal cave in the New York Bronx Zoo where he is put on display and people made fun of him even chased him around like an animal and after a brief history of solitary he took his own life.

This is one of many disheartening stories about innocent Black Indigenous Children were treated as nothingness for the sake of white entertainment no matter how brutal or torturous the suffering may be, simply because they see Black Indigenous People as nothingness.

I wonder how they would feel if someone did the exact same thing to their innocent children? 😭. No human beings should be mistreated especially if they claim to be godly even though Christianity committed the greatest genocides in human history because they are absolutely evil.

[reasoningdaily]

https://www.liberty.edu/champion/2017/10/lynchburg-honors-ota-benga-with-historic-marker-where-he-died/

Lynchburg honors Ota Benga with historic marker where he died

Lynchburg unveils historic marker to honor the memory of the Congolese pygmy Ota Benga.

Ota Benga found sanctuary in Lynchburg after being displayed at zoos in New York and St. Louis in the early 1900s.

Among the hills of Lynchburg’s White Rock Cemetery lies the body of a Congolese pygmy named Ota Benga, who found deliverance in the Hill City after being displayed for his appearance at the Bronx Zoo’s Monkey House in the early 20th century. Where exactly Benga is buried remains unknown—decades of neglect caused the cemetery itself to be forgotten up until 1998 when it was rediscovered.

Despite the 101-year span between now and the day he killed himself on Seminary Hill, the memory of Benga has not been completely erased.

Formerly known as Mbye Otabenga, and later as Otto Bingo by Lynchburg residents, Benga and his incredible story have been depicted through movies and books.  Brooklyn-based band Piñataland paid homage with a song titled “Ota Benga’s Name.” He even has a MySpace page.

And Benga was once again remembered Sept. 16 as the city of Lynchburg unveiled a historic highway marker in his memory.

The News & Advance reported more than 50 people gathered that Saturday morning to dedicate the marker at the intersection of Garfield Avenue and Hewitt Street. Among the crowd was Lynchburg Africa House Director Ann van de Graaf, Benga’s biographer Pamela Newkirk and others whose ancestors had welcomed the man into their city.

During the ceremony, Lynchburg Mayor Joan Foster announced Sept. 16 to be Ota Benga Remembrance Day.

“I want this to be remembered as a day of remembrance for Ota Benga,” Foster said at the ceremony. “His story touches me deeply.”

Benga had been living in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the turn of the century when his Mbuti tribe was virtually exterminated by the Force Publique—a group of Congolese and Belgian soldiers under the King of Belgium’s command.

The soldiers killed Benga’s wife and two children, and he was subsequently sold into slavery. In 1902, he was eventually traded for what van de Graaf said was salt and a piece of cloth to South Carolinian explorer Samuel Verner.

Verner had been commissioned by the St. Louis World’s Fair to venture out and retrieve Africans for an exhibition. He convinced Benga to travel with him, and two years later, he was a hit at the World’s Fair.  People flocked to witness his 4-foot-10-inch, 104-pound frame. If they paid Benga five cents, he would flash his pointed teeth—”Gim’ nick, show teef,” he would allegedly say.

After the exposition, Verner brought Benga back to Africa, where he tried to readjust back to normal life while exploring the continent with Verner. But after his second wife died, Benga returned to America with his companion, and entered into an unorthodox living situation at the American Museum of Natural History in August 1906 and later, the Bronx Zoo.

There, he was free to roam the facilities, often helping employees take care of the animals and befriending an orangutan named Dohong. However, Zoo Director William T. Hornaday had different ideas, moving Benga’s hammock in a vacant cage of the zoo’s Monkey House and convincing him to shoot targets with a bow and arrows.

The New York Times caught wind of the Bronx’s newest resident, according to the Sept. 9 issue bearing “Bushman Shares a Cage With Bronx Park Apes” as its headline.

September 1906 saw 220,000 patrons of the zoo—double the number of visitors from September a year before. Upon entering the park, many would head straight to see Benga—billed as “The Missing Link”—wrestle with Dohong or play with his weapons.

Pamela Newkirk, author of “Spectacle:  The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga,” writes of the damage the crowd inflicted upon the African.

“Benga became the object of pointing fingers, audible gasps, and bellowing laughter,” Newkirk wrote. “He did not initially comprehend their language, but could feel both the sting of their scorn and the pang of their pity…[He] could see his humanity…monstrously distorted.”

The exhibition, however, was short lived. Despite the grotesquely substantial enthrallment of the crowd, opposition quickly grew. New York’s African-American community was outraged, and Hornaday finally released Benga from his care.

The Mbuti pygmy spent the next decade of his life trying to adjust to American culture. In 1910, he relocated to Lynchburg, which became his sanctuary for the rest of his life.

Here, he enrolled in Virginia Theological Seminary, living with the school’s president, Hunter Hayes, for the next six years. He befriended African-American poet Ann Spencer, who taught him English, and worked at a nearby tobacco factory.

“He was so badly treated in New York at the zoo, and also in St. Louis,” van de Graaf told the News & Advance in a March interview. “But in Virginia, here in Lynchburg, he was happy… Here he found some peace, I think.”

But whatever peace he found was not enough. His desire to return to Africa grew stronger, as did his despair when the emergence of World War I hindered his plans to do so. On March 20, 1916, Benga shot himself in the heart, possibly out of torment at the hands of the 7,000 miles separating him from his home.

Over a century later, the marker now stands on the last street Benga walked, its inscription relaying his tragic story to anyone who might walk by. During the ceremony, Newkirk said the marker—the brainchild of van de Graaf— not only pays respect to Benga, but also to the city that sheltered him.

“Lynchburg gave this tragically displaced stranger home and semblance of family,” Newkirk told the crowd, as reported by the News & Advance. “This marker reflects your city’s values and highest ideals. So as you honor a man whose soaring humanity could neither be tarnished nor erased by the inhumanity of others, you illuminate your own.”

[mookymilksims]

Woc don't have higher levels of testosterone than white women lol. That woman is just your typical white female leftist who is just as racist and Anti-black as the 'Terfs' she despises.

Also that is straight up race science. Race is a social construct, not a biological one

Hm.

Ok so I still have not been able to find any science that supports that persons claims that WOC are born with higher levels of T than white women. So you do have a point there. Because the study they sent was talking about hormonal levels in post menopausal women and then expanded on post menopausal women with diabetes. Both effect hormonal levels in the human body, but I agree the study is interesting, it just doesn't back up the claim we have more T than white women.

To your next point, I have no idea who that person was, I just saw someone else in the replies ask the same question I had as far as providing any proof that WOC have more T than white women. I did suspect they were maybe not a black woman, at least, when they claimed that white academia wouldn't post about how black women have higher levels of T in fear of being accused of perpetuating the myth that black women are more hyper-masculine than any other race of women.

I did have to remind them that nothing, and I do mean absolutely nothing, has ever stopped white academia from making any kind of disparaging claims about black bodies not historically nor currently. If they did in fact find any kind of evidence to prove that WOC, especially BW, had higher levels of T than white women, I wouldn't have to spend several hours searching for this information, it would be in the first page of google results, it would be in prestigious scholarly works, cosigned by scientists all over the world, and a known fact until someone else proves otherwise.

This has always been the case, like for instance when the entire world thought black people were the closest relatives to apes, and were by then an extension of apes, this was used to justify our dehumanization, put us in zoo's, with like literal apes.

This reality the poster claims where white science wouldn't post this information on WOC and higher levels of T in fear of retaliation is just not the world we live in. So that part did confuse tf out me I'll be honest.

As far as your race science claim goes, I will have to disagree with you there. We do have racial differences, well to be more technical, genetic traits through evolution, migration, culture, mating practices were widely spread, which you can find more commonly in certain groups of people in comparison.

For example, east Asians have a gene that makes their ear wax dry, and also they tend to not have an odor in their armpits as a result of this.

That's a racial difference. Proven by science. It gets even more fascinating than that. Did you know the genetic trait that causes wider pronounced noses is because of how flat and hot the desert terrain is? Noses stretched out across the face to be able to obtain more oxygen in this environment.

On the contrary, people with thinner sharper noses, developed from humans in, for example, the Caucus Mountains, the birthplace of Caucasians. Where the climate was colder, dryer, much higher up in the literal mountains, and so while the nose was originally wider and flatter (early humans migrated out of Africa, trekked across Asia, and settled in these mountains), evolved over time to become thinner and push out in order to be able to obtain oxygen in areas of the world at higher altitudes = less oxygen.

So you see, we shouldn't shy away from our racial differences. They have fascinating details that is a testament to our survival. When you are someone who only cares about the objective facts you quickly gather there is nothing superior/inferior about these differences, they evolved in a rather innocent manner, our nature recognizes us all as one and helped us adapt to our environment.

It's hard for me, someone who is entranced by science (I wanted to be Einstein when I was a kid), to hear "race is a social construct". Racism is a social construct, race is not. It's just a term we used to describe our origin. Mongoloid = Asian. Caucasoid = White/European. Negroid = Black/African. It's your signifier. We even process the same chemicals in our food slightly differently from each other. We have average height, weight, muscle differences. An average toned white man is different from an average toned black man. And wait until you find out that breaks down according to which region of which continent you predominantly hail from.

So yeah, I'll be frank, I don't think I'm going to find any evidence that woc have higher levels of T than white women, this will become ironic but I believe it is the same white supremacy standards that is causing woc's femininity to constantly be in question that lead this person to this belief that woc somehow have higher levels of T. Firstly, they should've attached those studies to their post, secondly the studies they provided did not prove this claim, in basic terms the studies provided a jump in T just after menopause then levels back out then actually dips lower than white women. So if I am using the posters logic, from this angle, technically it would be white women who have higher levels of T than any other race of women -after menopause-.

Which was the missing context the poster kept leaving out? And when I pointed that out, despite how many times the poster claimed to study women's bodies for a living they just ended the exchange on a "well it's not studied very often so let me know what you find :)"

???

You study women's bodies for a living apparently, educate me. I want to read the name and number of the genetic traits that you claim is affecting woc??? I want to see a graph that directly shows higher levels of T throughout those patients lives, I want that study to track the hormonal levels of it's patients from birth???? If you supposedly study women's bodies for a living you should've been able to completely wash my analysis of the study you linked.

But you don't need to be a scientist to read the study. It said post menopausal and diabetes. And the findings actually went against what the poster claimed when you get to the end of it.

So I mean I guess the take away from all of this is don't just trust people because they had a mostly logical approach to the Olympic boxer incident, and then threw in that very strange claim somewhere in the middle. Think for yourself, ask for sources, read it yourself, and ask the next logical questions, this will lead you to my conclusion: those sources don't back up your claims.

-shrug-

[mysapphicmercy]

When my brother and I were really young my dad used to tell us bedtime stories that we referred to as monkey stories because the premise of each one was that my brother and I were baby monkeys at the zoo (we had a season pass to the zoo as kids and my dad took us every day while my mom was at work) that broke out of our habitat and my parents adopted us, and we hilariously struggled to adjust to life as humans. We would all pretend that the stories were real and since then I’ve loved monkeys. My childhood was awful but truly the best memories were sitting around with my brother and my dad and laughing so hard we cried while my dad told us those stories. It also gave me that fun autism thing where you believe you’re secretly a fairy or an alien or something because you’re autistic and don’t fit in, but I liked to imagine I was just an escaped monkey from the zoo. And also I thought monkeys were as smart as humans but just chose to live like that and could live as humans if they really wanted to. That was honestly the best childhood belief I had actually. I miss going to the Bronx zoo so much I haven’t been in years. We used to go once a year after we moved states but we stopped as we got older. I love you monkeys.

[aegor-bamfsteel]

You are so smart. Are you single?

Thanks. I’ll take compliments where I can get them.

Like most humans, I was a single baby (known in zookeeper parlance as “a singleton”). Contrast to big cats, who usually have litters, to the point that some mothers will abandon singletons (in which case the zoo will set them up with a foster litter) since there’s not enough stimulation for continued milk production. Other singletons get all the milk, causing them to gain too much weight too fast and develop swimmer’s syndrome, a condition that makes it hard to crawl and impossible to walk, and needs to be corrected by weeks of physical therapy, as in Bala the snow leopard at the Bronx Zoo:

Don’t worry, guys; Bala completed the therapy over the course of a few weeks and was climbing, running, jumping, and generally being a nuisance to her mother K2 who just wanted a little nap (snow leopards can sleep up to 18 hours a day):

[surferspider]

LOVEBUG V. SPIDER-SURFER #1 – @lvebug

IF one incarcerated a sufficient amount of kindness/ignorance in their heart to disregard the bursting veins of his mask’s googly eyes, the assortment of bruises blooming underneath the rest of his costume, and every crime report to have ever been submitted after Spider-Surfer came swinging into town, Porter was, like, really good at all the superhero stuff. No, he was being tremendously serious about that. Yes, even if his tendency to take more time reapplying the decorative elements of his suit rather than heroically saving anyone excretes the pungent ooze of an opposing opinion. He could totally web your face shut if he wasn’t distracted by saving someone right there, right then. Except, of course, he doesn’t have webs, and he wants as many people as possible to witness his acrobatic acts of bravery. Get it? Acrobatic? Because he keeps on flipping between being an egotistical public exhibition who thinks he’ll save everyone on land and sea to some kind of sentient jellyfish whose nervous system is touchier than its heartbreaking attempts at humour? Everyone laugh, please. Not at him, please. Do not say it’s too late to specify, please.

Porter Palmer was not selfish. Not on purpose anymore, anyhow, and when he caught himself in the absolute crime of doing something that doesn’t directly help another person (no, he’s not being acquisitive of undeserved achievements when he counts plants as people), he made sure to make up for it as soon as possible. As expected of someone with extremely healthy thought habits, he kept a running tally of his good and bad deeds for the day and will reward himself accordingly at the end of the night. Good Deed Number One, for example, was not crying as soon as he landed in the big, wormy apple that was home to a minimum of one of his competitors. Allies in the betterment of the state of humanity. Whatever. He needed the international merchandising opportunities. Bad Deed Number One, for example, was walking past someone drinking a pumpkin spice latte without lecturing them on the fact that the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the steamed milk in lattes could be four times as high as that of a regular espresso. Good Deed Number Two, for example, was collecting his thoughts on coffee trade, tracing back his steps, and approaching the offender in a friendly tone that was perhaps a little too loud and a lot too aggressive. So on and so forth. Nobody needed to know what happened in the laundromat afterwards. All Porter needed to know is that he needed those international merchandising opportunities as soon as possible.

It had been a good excuse to get into costume, or more accurately, into character. He’d thought New York would be more receptive to yet another masked menace instead of a teenager whose every belonging had some Greenpeace slogan tacked on. He’d thought incorrectly, but at least he’d thought, full stop. Besides, New York demanded saving, though of course Porter didn’t get to brawl with any villains other than drunken burglars in alleyways who kept on mistaking him for a circular litany of comedians. Subsequent impressions of the city were somehow less exciting yet far more concerning. Its sewers sounded like they were brimming with animal life being treated better than those in the Bronx Zoo, its service lines smelled of lead slapped on top of the less describable substances in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Dagon”, and its people paid zero notice to him. In Queensland, everybody had a perfectly acceptable reason to hate him. In Queens or Manhattan or Saturn Island or wherever in the world he was, nobody cared about him, which was far worse than being hated. Porter loved nature, nature abhorred a vacuum, ergo everyone on the planet should heralded his presence with palm leaves and an orchestra composed entirely of flugelhorns. Logic, plain and simple.

But Porter was, is, and forever will be really good at all the superhero stuff, so he carried on. He fixed someone’s bicycle lock and chained it to a rusted railway and duct taped the seat to its former glory and then narrowly avoided the park police, who turned a blind eye to another spray-painted display discussing the cons of considering so they could chase after someone who could climb up buildings. Not that they knew that, because he ended up hiding behind an abandoned latrine slashed with organic patterns. The Bigfoot serials made sense, then.

Porter scampered back to civilisation soon after. Back to basics. No crumbling skyscrapers to keep off the spinal cords of hapless citizens, no humpback whale mating ceremonies to conduct. There was a cat stuck in a tree. Porter could conquer a tree easier than a cat could give him rabies. His reflexes, however, were hardly the blessing they were made out to be in every state of affairs apart from his current one. Five minutes later, there was a cat stuck in a tree and a Porter stuck in a tree. His vision was already obscured behind the black visor of his mask and the blood rushing to his alleged brain wasn’t helping matters, so why not? On-hand experience with hailing a ride around these parts would be useful, even if said ride came in the form of a half-familiar blonde throttling him to the land of sewer crocodiles. Those definitely existed.

“How do you live here?” There was a notable desperation to his tone, more imperative and imploring than something said of passing curiosity, that made the cat stop and stare up at him, its eyes dilating at last. Just when he believed there might have been some chance for them to bond, to understand one another on a level beyond the comprehension of both humans and animals, it leapt back to its spot on the branch across from his. He bit his tongue to keep from screaming. He failed, because biting one's tongue with the strength of someone able to press ten tons was never a good idea. “Genuinely, how do you live here? The cats are military insurgents against basic decency, the taxis are on a mission to get everyone bankrupted before twenty, and there are, like, way too many homeless people for anyone’s vibe to not be harshed.”

Porter’s vibe was, in fact, so harshed that he was unable to see the giant sign pointing to the F.E.A.S.T. building a block away. A patron of plain and simple sightseeing, he was not.

[anitosoul]

My Favorite Albums of 2020

9. Adrienne Lenker, songs/instrumentals

Favorite Tracks: zombie girl | come | not a lot, just forever

This album is really special to me because it’s tied to one of my favorite days of 2020. Amidst the chaos that was the global pandemic, the lead up to the 2020 election, and attempting to continue with life despite all of the external strife, I decided to have a “treat yourself” day alone in the Bronx. I had wanted to check out the Bronx Zoo and NY Botanical Garden since I moved to the city and always saved it thinking it could be a good idea for a date or something, but my solo day in the Bronx ultimately ended up being consolation for the (trying not to be pathetic) fact that I didn’t have anyone to go with. I couldn’t be more grateful, though, that I ended up spending it alone, as this album guided my journey and helped me reflect on a lot of my life and insecurities.

The day I decided to do my Bronx excursion ended up being rainy and dreary, immediately adding a wave of melancholic introspection (and slight disappointment) to my plans. I started off at the zoo and wasn’t really feeling it. It was just weird walking around a zoo alone as a 23 year old and seeing the animals just wasn’t as exciting as I’d remembered it being as a kid. After cutting my losses and walking over to the Botanical Garden, I was immediately more interested in the beautiful plant and flower arrangements throughout the grounds. I got a hot chocolate and walked around until I found a part of the botanical garden that was preserved and protected land, allowing visitors to experience what the area would look like without human development. I found a log and sat down, feeling overwhelmed from the day so far and relieved to take a load off. I remembered that songs had released a few days prior and started playing it from my headphones.

From the moment I put on the album, I was instantly put at ease, feeling a sense of relaxation and calm that I had been seeking all along. Adrianne Lenker recorded the album entirely analog directly to tape in a secluded cabin. In the liner notes, it mentions that the album features “Lenker’s vocals and her playing acoustic guitar, as well using a paint brush and the needles of a white pine tree as instruments. It also features recordings of the rain, the wind, the fire from a wood stove, the chimes on her front porch, the birds, and the insects of the forest.” songs/instrumentals are the ultimate expression of complexity in simplicity: despite the sparse instrumentation, Lenker delivers a rich, gorgeous project filled with deep musicality.

songs is an album drawing upon lived experience, but at its core is a representation of individual interpretation of solitude. In this write-up I don’t want to do the album injustice with some pretentious analysis of the meaning behind Lenker’s thoughtful and deeply personal lyrics; you can read Pitchfork reviews for that. I do want to write about some of the things I ruminated on in the rainy botanical garden forest based on one lyric from my favorite track, zombie girl:

oh, emptiness tell me ‘bout your nature maybe i’ve been getting you wrong i cover you with questions cover you with explanations cover you with music - Adrianne Lenker, “zombie girl”

As I walked through the forest, I thought a lot about what it means to be alone. I thought about the stigma I felt about being out in the world by myself: in so many ways it feels as if the world pushes those who are alone out of sight, as if activity can only be enjoyed with company. I always felt insecure about being alone, realizing the pangs of envy when I would see a couple in the park or through a restaurant window. I felt the pressures from all kinds of sources to fear loneliness, that as a young person I should be constantly seeking sex or a relationship and filling the rest of the time with a vibrant social life, that being single and dating is just a hurdle before finding some sense of security and settling down with someone forever. Ever since I could develop crushes, I found myself feeling an inexplicable longing for fulfillment from another person, but this year I’ve finally started to unpack that feeling. This was the first year I truly felt satisfied just being myself and spending time with myself: the space from work, school, and social life gave opportunity for reflection and connection to the environment, allowing me to realize that I feel just as alive sitting under a tree in the rain as I do moshing with friends at a music festival, that my own self-love can be as affirming as that of a partner.

I also thought about solitude in terms of family and how lucky I am to have the life I live. My parents were both born into poverty in the Philippines, which is basically the least privileged position to be born into in the world given the developing status of the Philippines. Recognizing the amount of struggle that was required from my parents, and all my ancestors long before them, to provide me with such an opportunistic life allowed me to view my situation in a different light. My solitude was powerful and gave me reflective space, but I was not alone: I’m bonded through a beautiful, rich culture that continues to thrive despite the impacts of colonization. The awakening of this ancient connection has spurred powerful healing and inspired a relationship with my heritage that I have never felt before.

By giving emptiness and nature its own space and not covering it with questions, explanations, or music, I’ve gained more wisdom than I’d ever thought possible. I considered the fact that the world is a living system in and of itself and it doesn’t have any expectations for us humans—we’re exploiting it, but it continues to nourish us and give us life. Trees don’t have to establish some elaborate rule system about how not to destroy each other like us humans do, they just exist and help each other. Hearing songs on that rainy forest day was the first step towards my 2021 resolution: be more like trees. Thinking about solitude and nature and the process of recording this album also spurred me to commit to building a sustainable off-grid cabin with my dad, something he’s always talked about and that we’re finally turning into a reality. Overall, this album became much larger than a musical body of work; it became a teacher, perfectly capturing my range of reflective thoughts and inspiring action. To me, this album is like looking at a plant—truly noticing the natural grace of its colors, shapes, and textures—and taking that appreciation a step further, planting a seed to inspire that beauty for others in the future.