#enlightened beings

[miraclemaya]

this is problematic of me (joke) but i really enjoy the splashing of french into english speech or writing. just adds a pizzazz

[monicascot]

Message Of Hope to Avoid Becoming a Social Justice Warrior | It is Not Sustainable | Woke Up

In this Kelly Lamb Interview. Those attracted to the Social Justice Movement need to stop being driven by emotion. You must stop demonizing others and find solutions together with others. Activists who are all in are almost impossible to reach, but they can be influenced to be others when they come to an end of themselves. People can change but we need to be patient for a breakthrough to come. It is often through them coming to an end of themselves.

[transmechanicus]

Polyamory is not inherently bad or toxic, it just has higher demands on time and energy to manage multiple relationships, which means people who would arguably struggle to manage an entirely mono relationship are going to struggle even more in a poly one, and due to the interlocking relationships and elevated public scrutiny, that’s going to be viewed as much messier than it would otherwise.

[sugarcube-stillabookworm]

what wot fandom spaces and especially mat enjoyers are like rn

[hivemindscape]

the buddy-buddy act ends now

[slow-reader-reads-books]

I find the most interesting difference between Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan isn't "malice" and "kindness" but rather Shen Jiu being a desperate-to-survive sore loser and Shen Yuan being an uncompetitive good sport, and it's interesting to see how their differences kind of flow from those two opposing traits

Both are desperate to survive in their own ways, however I guess you could argue Shen Jiu did everything to secure the life he wanted, meanwhile Shen Yuan idled and idled until fire was put under his ass and he finally had to do something to secure better living standards for himself

You could argue Shen Jiu has a stronger will to survive, but even being alive he didn't seem to enjoy it and be happy all that much. Meanwhile Shen Yuan strives for very little but generally is happy with the bare necessities and choosing to just loudly inflate his complaints about little things instead, which probably endears him to the people around him

[painfully-unoriginal]

So I drew these under the assumption that diane used to be part of kitty's crew and realized after that i don't actually know if that's tru or not so uuuuuhhhh probably should've just waited for the movie to come out to start drawing shit but 👍

[jatersade]

this too is yuri

[reasonsforhope]

Note: Reasons to Be Cheerful has had weirdly huge formatting issues for the past six or so months, so if that version is a mess, this link should work better.

"Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the Sunshine State’s largest power utility, employs all the people you might expect: electricians, lineworkers, mechanical engineers — and a few you might not. For over 40 years, the company has kept a team of wildlife biologists on staff. Their task? Monitoring the giant carnivorous reptiles that reside in one of the state’s nuclear power plants. 

Saving the American Crocodile

What sounds like a low-budget creature feature is actually a wildly successful conservation story. It goes like this: In 1975, the shy and reclusive American crocodile was facing extinction. Over-hunting and habitat decline caused by encroaching development had pushed its numbers to a record low. By 1975, when it was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, there were only 200 to 300 left. 

Three years later, in 1978, workers at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in Homestead, Florida happened upon something that must have made them gasp: a crocodile nest along one of the plant’s 5,900-acre “cooling canals.” Rather than drive the crocs away — perhaps the easiest solution — FPL hired a team of biologists and implemented a Crocodile Management Plan. Its goal was unconventional: provide a suitable habitat for the crocs within the workings of the nuclear power plant, allowing both to coexist.  

Over the course of the next 30 years, FPL’s wildlife biologists monitored nests, tagged hatchlings and generally created a hospitable environment for the reptiles. As it turned out, the plant’s cooling canals provided an ideal habitat: drained earth that never floods on which to lay eggs directly adjacent to water. Over the years, more and more crocs made the cooling canals home. By 1985, the nests at Turkey Point were responsible for 10 percent of American crocodile hatchlings in South Florida. In 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the American crocodile’s status from endangered to threatened, singling out FPL for its efforts. 

The program continues to this day. To date, biologists have tagged some 7,000 babies born at the plant. In 2021, there were a record-setting 565 crocodile hatchlings at the Turkey Point facility. 

"Reconciliation Ecology"

Turkey Point’s efforts are an example of what is known in the conservation world as “reconciliation ecology.” Rather than create separate areas where nature or animals can thrive in isolation from humans, reconciliation ecology suggests that we can blend the rich natural world with the world of human activity. Michael Rosenzweig, an emeritus professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, was a leading force in establishing this concept. The author of Win-Win Ecology: How the Earth’s Species can Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise, Rosenzweig has pointed out that although human encroachment has typically been considered a threat to biodiversity, the notion that the world must be either “holy” or “profane,” ecologically speaking, is simply not true.  

“In addition to its primary value as a conservation tool, reconciliation ecology offers a valuable social byproduct,” writes Rosenzweig in his first chapter. “It promises to reduce the endless bickering and legal wrangling that characterize environmental issues today.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, May 5, 2022. Article continues below. All headings added by me for added readability.

Dr. Madhusudan Katti, an associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, was inspired by Rosenzweig when he did his postdoc at Arizona State. Katti has now been in the field of reconciliation ecology for two decades and teaches classes on the subject. “To me it’s finding solutions to reconciling human development with biodiversity conservation,” Katti says.

This common ground between development and conservation can be consciously planned, like FPL managing a crocodile habitat at a nuclear power plant or the state-sponsored vertical gardens and commercial farms on high-rise buildings in Singapore. Other examples include the restoration of the coral reef around an undersea restaurant in Eilat, Israel, or recent legislation in New York City requiring patterned glass on high-rise buildings, making windows more visible to migratory birds. Other planned examples of reconciliation ecology can be more individually scaled: a rooftop garden in an urban setting, modifying your garden to earn a “backyard bird habitat” certification from the Audubon Society, or even just mowing your lawn less often...

Reconciliation Ecology: Nature's Already Doing It Without Us

But there are countless examples of “accidental” incidents of reconciliation ecology, as well. One of Katti’s favorites is the kit fox of California’s San Joaquin Valley. “The kit fox was one of the very first species listed on the Endangered Species Act,” Katti says. Its decline was caused by habitat loss through agricultural and industrial development, as well as the extermination of the gray wolf population, which led to an increase in coyotes. So kit foxes adapted and moved to new habitats. One of these was the city of Bakersfield, California.

“Bakersfield, surrounded by oil pumps, would be the last place you’d expect to find an endangered species,” Katti says. But researchers think kit foxes have migrated to Bakersfield because they actually have more protection there from predators like coyotes and bobcats. “The kit foxes have figured out that if they can tolerate the human disturbance and live with people, then they are safer from all these other predators,” he says. 

Living in the city has led to some interesting behavioral changes. In the wild, for instance, a female kit fox gives birth to her young and raises them by herself in a den. But in the city, researchers have observed multiple females raising their litters together in the same den. “It’s like a form of cooperative breeding,” Katti says. “That wouldn’t happen in the wild.” ...

The Big Picture: How We Think about Conservation

Reconciliation Ecology isn’t just we humans welcoming animals like crocodiles and foxes into our environments, though. It’s also living with nature in a way that most Western societies haven’t done since the Enlightenment. “In recent years, there’s been a recognition that the ‘fortress conservation’ model — keeping nature separated from humans and not thinking of or valuing human-inhabited landscapes — those ideas are outdated,” says Katti.

In fact, in Katti’s classes on reconciliation ecology, he embraces the notion of reconnecting people with their land if they have been unjustly separated from it. “The term reconciliation also applies to all the colonial legacies where both nature and people have been harmed,” Katti says. “For Indigenous communities, the harm done to ecosystems, it’s happened together. So you can talk about addressing both. That’s where a lot of my thinking is at the moment.” 

A hopeful version of this sort of reconciliation is happening in California where colleagues of Katti’s who are tribal members are re-introducing “tribal burns” in some areas. Controlled burns have been a part of many Indigenous cultures for millenia, both as a way to prevent devastating forest fires, but also to encourage the growth of certain plants like hazel that are used for basket-weaving and other crafts. 

“The notion that people don’t belong there and ‘let nature take care of itself’ doesn’t really work,” Katti says. “That’s the legacy of Western European Enlightenment thinking — a divide between human and nature. That is a real faulty view of nature. People have been part of the ecosystem forever.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, May 5, 2022

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

y'all need to get a grip. you blab all day about how much you hate bigots and hateful people and how evil it is to dehumanize anyone and then you turn around and say "kys" and "i think [x] should all just kill themselves" and other disgusting, violent and childish trash

so many people on here are just full of hatred and vitriol and turn into frenzied sharks anytime the target 'deserves it' and they think they can get away with it and not be called bad people. then they whine about how sad it is that we can't all just get along and if only all the evil people in the world would stop doing evil things wouldn't that be nicer

you're just as vicious, hypocritical and fanatically puritanical as the caricature you have made in your minds of the people you think you have nothing in common with. if you've ever told someone, ANYONE to kill themselves you're not advocates of justice, you're not artisans of peace, and you certainly don't have any moral high ground that would allow you to pass judgment on others

[rockyteriyaki]

okay SO my beloved ezra @hellohallowedhalo inquired after my tags on this post, which made me realize that my FIRST EVER F1 FIC is almost an entire year old (??????) and THEN i read THIS MASTERPIECE by @fast-burn and it set off a nuclear bomb inside my head...so i wrote a free-use-ish factory followup to RSWT. thank you all for one year of freaky derangement <3333 ily

Daniel leaves Red Bull as a driver and becomes—he doesn’t even know what to call it. In his contract, it says ambassador. On suspended Twitter accounts, they call him a blood bank.

Max doesn’t know about that part, because Max doesn’t have Twitter, and even if he did he wouldn’t be term-searching his own name with asterisks in the vowel places like a nutter. Daniel’s people tell him soothingly to block and report, if he insists on being on social media in the first place, and Daniel does–he reports. He doesn’t block. Sometimes, he screenshots.

It had been a leap, obviously, to go from–from a driver, incidentally bound to the whole blood thing, to then this: a full-time gig. A singular purpose. They’d gone over the language of the contract in more detail than Daniel thought was possible, rewording and reworking every point until it maybe resembled something that seemed less obviously like exploitation, but even after it was all printed out with the little RBR letterhead, it felt swampy in ways nobody could explain or do away with.

Still, when Daniel put pen to paper, it was with life-ruining clarity. I want this, I want this, I want this.

“Ah, here you are,” Max says, knocking on the glass wall of one of the conference rooms in the factory. He cups his hands against the pane, like a kid against a department store display. “Are you hiding, Daniel?”

“Nah,” Daniel says. He hasn’t been, actually; he just wanted someone to find him. He puts his phone down as Max pulls the door open. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” Max says, and it’s so uncomplicated Daniel doesn’t feel the need to even ask a followup, which is what he likes–loves, even–about Max. Daniel crowds him in the doorway, leans on him.

“You need it?” Daniel whispers.

“Yes,” Max says. “Please. I have, already–they have everything they need, so. We can go now, if we are back before the hour.”

Daniel reaches behind Max, pulls the door closed. It pushes Max into him a little, feet falling forward. Max blinks.

“Why not here?” Daniel says. He stretches his neck out, which he knows is a dirty move, but it works; Max’s nostrils flare. His eyes dart to the glass wall, the big transparent window that looks out onto the floor where dozens of people in navy polos are working to make sure Max can deliver them to glory next year.

Well, Daniel is one of those people, technically, now. Working.

He steps back towards the conference table, a dark fake-oak thing that’s big enough to fit the shareholders and their massive egos all side-by-side. Max follows. The number of times they’ve done this and it hasn’t ended in one or both of them coming can be counted on one hand. Max knows this, and Max is following, with a blinding willingness reminiscent only of Daniel’s own desire to get Max’s fangs on him, in him, since the first time he saw that glossy pink shine over them.

“I was just thinking about my contract,” Daniel says, as casually as he can manage, which is probably not at all. He scoots onto the table, kicks the rolling office chairs out to carve a gap. “You can, y’know.” Max nods fervently, even though Daniel isn’t making any sense. “Like, anywhere? If you wanted.”

He can pinpoint the exact moment the images parade into Max’s mind. Daniel in meeting rooms, instead of bathrooms and backseats. Daniel on his lap. Daniel over dinner, only one plate between the two of them because–because he’s Max’s—

Max sinks down to his knees, cradles his head in Daniel’s thighs. It takes Daniel a moment to pinpoint the feeling through the denim of his jeans, but the saliva gives it away–Max is rubbing his gums over the seams. The hooked points of his fangs snag and retreat on the fabric.

“Hey,” Daniel says, on a shaky exhale. “Is that good teeth? Or, like, bad-idea-Daniel teeth?”

“If I don’t, I will bite you here.” Max gestures miserably to the glass wall. “And then, probably against the window too.”

There are people walking past now, and Daniel can see them look inside only long enough to register who’s who, and then avert their eyes. Daniel’s laughs turn into moans. He can’t help it. Max laughs too.

“Go on then,” he tells Max. “They don’t pay me enough to keep secrets.”

[ghostlyarchaeologist]

Leverage Redemption S01E06 The Card Game Job.

[bougiebutchbinch]

Hi sorry if this comes off as rude but...what's a stone top trans?.

You use it with Logan as a headcannon and I'd search it up on Google but..google hasn't been my best friend when it comes to LGBTQ+ and I can't find anything on your page that explains (I maybe I'm blind and there is and I just haven't found it)

haha no worries, not rude at all!

'Stone top' is a term for someone who doesn't like to have their genitalia touched during sex, whether due to dysphoria or just personal preference. I've frequently heard it used among trans men and lesbians especially, though I'm sure other queer folks use it, too! A lot of trans men are stone to some degree, and I wish this was represented more in fandom. To be clear, 'stone' doesn't automatically translate to 'top' or 'dominating'! But it does in Logan's case... >:3

'Top' in general is someone who prefers to penetrate others, rather than to be penetrated. Again, plenty of transmasc tops out there, but a tragic deficit in fandom.

My Logan is a strap king who also likes to fingerfuck and tonguefuck his partners, and do every damn other thing to them besides! He likes to dom! He likes to sub! But he is NOT cool with having his genitalia touched, and certainly not ever cool with being penetrated, anywhere. It doesn't matter if he's with a cis or trans man, a cis or trans woman, or a nonbinary individual. It's not 'something he's not going to get over'. It's not 'because of trauma'. He's not gonna change his mind once he really gets to know his partner. It's just a perfectly valid sexual preference!

Basically I just want to see more trans men topping in fandom, and more stone rep in general! Especially if this preference is treated with respect, rather than as a problem that needs to be fixed; and if the stone top is a fully fleshed out character~

[archersartcorner]

Spock officially adopting Saavik my beloved…

[communist-hatsunemiku]

ever since like midde school, ive had this vague goal of "being done with everything" in the sense that I have no homework overdue, no projects im neglecting, nothing I need to get done but am not. As an adult I still kind of cling to this idea that I could be totally 'done' with everything. All bills and debts paid, all appointments made and gone to, all my chores done and my apartment totally clean, pets taken care of at the vet, car in perfect working condition. No calls to make, no forms to fill out, no obligations I'm neglecting. Just totally and completely 'done'

I know its a fake ideal now, as a teen I thought you could actually be done with everything but now I know there's always going to be some fucking thing. ALWAYS.

[potatobugz]

reference