#love places like this i swear

[violetsandshrikes]

I wanna draw attention to a really cool place operating in Aotearoa NZ: Wildbase Recovery Centre!

Based in Palmerston North, these guys rehabilitate native wildlife to be reintroduced back into the place where they were found pre-recovery. They take patients from the local wildlife hospital up at the university and work on preparing them for release.

They're free to the public and educate people on wildlife and nature in Aotearoa, and how people can help conserve it! They also have some animals are are unable to be released that serve as ambassador animals - my personal favourites are the resident kākā pair, Tāne and Māia, who you can learn about here.

These guys are known nationwide for their amazing work. If you're interested in supporting them, you can do so here! This helps them with maintenance, operational costs, helps keep public education free, and helps many of the programmes they do - this includes the rehabilitations and their captive breeding programmes (Whio/Blue duck programme here + Pāteke/Brown teal programme here)

(You can also find these guys across social media - FB/Twitter/Instagram, and interaction helps them keep up funding from local government and generate interest!)

[lucabyte]

some thoughts on Claude

alt title: diversity win! this Butch Nun is crafting bombs in an unventilated room in her convent while actively courting Mother Superior! Do Not Give Them Access To Unlimited Power No Matter How Nice They Are

+ bonus

[lazylittledragon]

i refuse to believe that boycotting is hard. my favourite thing in the world is ordering maccies after a late night at work/a concert/getting drunk. yes i do miss it sometimes. but the other night i ordered from a small place near my house instead and it was the most orgasmic burger i've ever had in my life. i very rarely say this but fucking suck it up people are DEAD

[fairylando]

imagine you are YUKI TSUNODA and you are constantly HARASSED for being violent (you're really not) and harsh with words (not more than the others) and you change THREE TEAMMATES in three years and they all get to be CONSIDERED for the RED BULL MISSING SEAT???? and you don't!!!! and you're stuck at the SUGAR FREE REDBULL TEAM for FOUR years and you get a year-end bonus of 22 EUROS... and all because the TALKING CORPSE hates you.

[villetela]

I love this guy sm you guys have no idea, he's in my brain 24/7.

Mmm I love animatronic with rayss mmmm 😌😌😌 he's such a cutie and I'll probably draw this guy daily and not post the art to you guys/j (I finally have the motivation to draw YESS!!!) This buddy belongs to @cookiiemancer btw, eclipse my beloved. Oh how I could never see you do anything bad. Your too innocent.

(I forgot to add small details so this is clearly an early edit of this post.)

[luna-loveboop]

Had the dumbest conversation with my sister and it reminded me of these two. Sending a resume including SCUBA ocean diving certifications without context while applying for a job seems like something Wind would do.

:)

[turtleblogatlast]

Love the thought of Leo just casually being well traveled to absurd degrees. Like one day they’re facing their new Big Bad of the year and like, Draxum or whoever says that the key to their fight is located somewhere in, like, Latvia or some place, but no one knows where to start.

Then Leo’s like “oh I know a place” and when asked how the heck he could know of one it smash cuts to Leo falling through the ceiling of said place due to a portal mishap.

Also love the idea of Leo, being as accidentally (and then later, purposefully) well traveled as he is, sometimes taking his family on outings to different places all over, maybe to some new Yokai spots he found along the way.

In these places, Leo 100% lets his bros get scammed by tourist traps.

[kiivg]

.Gossip.

[ryllen]

You know I am surprise Sebek that is never jealous to anyone who is close to Yuu. It is a boys school and I can imagine some have crushes on her.

[ducktracy]

The Mouse Comes to Dinner is probably tied for my favorite T&J short, and this gorgeously funny Irv Spence animation is a big reason why! he's a huge influence on my art with how he uses his shapes--love how organic and tapered they can be. Scott Bradley's score is on fire throughout the entire thing, but that just comes with the territory

[questionable-idea]

hey past me who wrote this late at night, what the fuck

[telesodalite]

Never getting over Fulcrum being a project manager...

Idk why, but something about that is so funny to me. Not just because the title of "project manager" is inherently kinda funny for a Decepticon, but also because-

1. It's vague sounding and hard to explain irl because it technically exists in multiple fields, like healthcare or manufacturing, which surely translates into canon in some way.

2. In canon, it's simultaneously a really mundane, innocuous sounding job, yet it's also a super morally awful position to reside over depending on the context. (*cough* forced colonization and cyberforming *cough*)

And 3. It solidifies the fact that behind all the surface level militaristic work we get with both the Decepticons and Autobots, there's also Cons and Bots with "normal" jobs in both factions.

Like, sure yeah we get scientists and doctors, engineers and programmers, but usually in big important or warfront positions. (For plot reasons, understandably.) But it's also really funny and interesting to think of those that worked background positions, or minor jobs.

Like an Autobot working in their equivalent of an HR department, or a Decepticon who runs one of their outpost's or starship's kitchens.

Just all the pre-war jobs that didn't just disappear with the war, but instead evolved to exist within the factions.

It's particularly funny with the Decepticons though, because it could be a super mundane job or situation, but because it's them, it has to have an air of ~e v i l~ to it, either legitimately and/or merely for the vibes, like Tarn's "performance reviews".

[eddiezpaghetti]

It has come to my attention that SOME OF YOU who read my last Byler post remain UNCONVINCED. So I'm gonna tack onto it this:

I'm older than fucking God and air, and I've been out and proud since 2007. Yes, I know what homophobia is, and yes, I know what queerbaiting is. I know about Supernatural and Teen Wolf and Sherlock and blahdyblahdyblah. No new ground is being covered here. I thought I made that clear in the original post, but, clearly, I did not.

I am aware of queerbaiting and homophobia, and I'm still wholeheartedly certain in Byler being canon anyway.

Okay, so there are three types of relationship I want to discuss when it comes to queerbaiting. They're all, like, "queer relationships that could have happened, but didn't".

First off, queer-coding. This isn't really a thing so much anymore, but it still crops up every once in a while. I'd argue it probably happens most with male-male relationships in family shows these days. First example that comes to mind is Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowny from Steven Universe. You can't make a relationship canon because some shitty overhead bastard overhead said no, so you get as close as you can without compromising the show. Can't make someone gay? Well, now their comedy routine is a blatant allegory for a romantic relationship. Boom-shaka-laka. This is something I don't see being a problem with regards to Stranger Things, but I want it to be there as contrast, a demonstration of one of many things queerbaiting is not. However, one could argue that, thus far, Will Byers is, canonically, queer-coded. It's pretty fucking heavily implied in the show, and the creators have confirmed it, and you're gonna be able to see it if you're not FUCKING BLIND, but word of god is not technically canon which means that interviews don't technically make something canon, blahdyblahdyblahdyblah, technicalities, Robin has been explicitly stated in the text to be queer while Will has, thus far, not, outside of good ol' Show-Don't-Tell. Of course, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that that's going to change by the end of Season 5, but, hey, for what it's worth, I'm throwing this out there.

Alrighty, Thingamajingama Number Two: "Oops, I accidentally made the greatest love story known to man." AKA, a genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake. Unfortunately, we do live in a heteronormative society. Sometimes people who don't think about being gay much write a friendship that's incredibly compelling and don't even consider the possibility that it could have been read as romantic. Something something Top Gun something. This is, again, not queerbaiting. This is Steddie, this is Ronance, this is Elmax, this is your favorite flavor of non-canon ship this week, this is not Byler. The creators know DAMN well what they're doing. They've talked about it. We know this. Nothing new here.

Which brings us to the topic of discussion here. Actual queerbaiting. This usually starts out as an "accidental greatest love story", and then reacts to fan response. And when I say "reacts", I mean like a goddamn chemical reaction. Like bleach and ammonia, bitch. It's noxious and it's gonna kick your fucking ass without mercy. This is when a creator is like, "Hey, let's get our queer audience invested, but we're not actually going to give them what they want because our straight audience isn't here for that/we personally think it's gross/we don't give enough of a shit to want to research a goddamn thing to write a real gay character," blah blah blah whatever excuse they want to come up with this time.

And when you think "queerbaiting", I want you to think "bullying". Because that's what it is. It's lucrative bullying, like beating us up and taking our lunch money, but it's bullying all the same. And it's a real goddamn thing, even if people misuse the word a lot, often when they mean one of the two above, sometimes when they mean "bury your gays", which is another homophobic thing entirely that I'm not going to get into here. Queerbaiting is the thing we're focused on, and it's real, and it's bullying. And here's the reason I want you to think of it as bullying:

They

Think

It's

Funny.

They are actively making fun of us.

That's why Dean had the "Cas, get out of my ass," line in Supernatural. It's why the "Do you like boys?" line happened in Teen Wolf. It's why "Lie with me, Watson," happened in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies. Because "It's just a joke, mate." "It was just a prank, bro." "You didn't really think it would happen, did you?" "You should see your face."

So here's probably the biggest reason I don't think it's specifically queerbaiting in this specific instance of Will Byers and Mike Wheeler.

Stranger Things has never, not once, made a gay joke. Ever.

Every single time queerness comes up, it's dead serious.

Lonnie calls Will a fag, and the show is not at all reluctant to show what a goddamn horrible person he is. And when Hopper latches onto that, it's not as "Hahah, is he gay, though?" It's because he's trying to determine a potential motive for Will's disappearance, and even if someone had interpreted it as a joke, Joyce immediately has a line that functions as snapping her fingers in front of the audience's face and yelling "FOCUS" when she says "He's MISSING." Basically outright saying "This isn't funny!"

Troy calls him a fairy, along with targeting Lucas and Dustin for their skin color and disability respectively, and Mike gets damn near murderous. Troy is portrayed as a goddamn monster and the show portrays it as justice when El makes him piss his pants and later breaks his arm.

Steve calls Jonathan "queer" as a slur and gets the shit beat out of him for it.

Billy's father is revealed to be homophobic and abusive in the same breath.

Mike says "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" and we're shown how devastated Will is and Mike immediately follows him to beg for forgiveness.

There is a joke in Robin's coming-out scene, but it's not at Robin's expense. It's at Steve's. Specifically for being heteronormative.

Jonathan has multiple scenes where he's trying so hard to tell Will that he's always going to love him as he is, whether he's gay or not, without pressuring him to come out before he's ready.

Even when there's a little bit of ribbing at Robin's expense, it's always because she's an awkward nerd who's nervous around pretty girls, just the same as Lucas and Dustin are teased when they both first develop crushes on Max, and even then, even then, it always comes as a package deal where they make fun of Steve's girl problems at the same time.

Stranger Things is an emphatically pro-gay show. It may not be the core point of the show the way it is in, say, Our Flag Means Death, but there is nothing less than respect for its queer characters. Its queer characters are always taken completely seriously. No one is making fun of us. They never have. That's why I have serious doubts that this is queerbaiting. It would come completely out of left field for the bullying to start in Stranger Things' final season.

So it's not at all likely to be queerbaiting because queerness is taken completely seriously. The creators have talked about Will's queerness, at least, so it's not an accident. And queer-coding would be silly to expect from this show when it's already on its final season. Like, what is Netflix gonna do? Cancel it? Not to mention all the explicit queerness that's in there already. And no one's gonna "What about the children?" a show that's had sex scenes in it since the first season.

There's no fakeout here. It's gonna happen. Breathe.

[starscreamingg]

Detroit Become Human and why does this game decide that the problem in society is individual people treating androids poorly because those androids are choking them out of the workforce and NOT the corporations and governments who deliberately designed the androids to do this

[pisshandkerchief]

why do you mean you have trouble discovering new music. back in my day we got our obscure music recs from the welcome to night vale weather and we fucking liked it

[waywardted]

I really do have love to give. I just don't know where to put it.                - Magnolia (1999)