#there is factual mistakes

[sunshineandlyrics]

*the only explanation for it, 12 April 2024

(Mink music?? Collab with DJ Snake and Liam Payne?? His birth name? 2 fan question and 1 was about Grease etc)

[timdrakemybeloved]

Snape makes me so fucking mad holy fuck, I’m incapable of thinking of him positively. I don’t even like Draco and I think of him 10x more positively than I think of Snape.

What kind of person gets bullied as a child and then grows up and bullies the child of his bully like that makes him way worse than James (btw I love James and I fully believe he matured and grew up and is a good person who deserved more than for Snape to tell a literal Nazi terrorist to kill him and his infant son but to leave his wife alive). Snape had way more power over the kids he taught than James did over him and what did he do with it?

He made fun of their appearance and scared them to the point that he was Neville’s boggart (which when you think about it is so awful because 1, Neville’s parents got tortured into insanity and I’m pretty sure he was there, and his boggart probably should have been Bellatrix or his uncle even, and 2, he did it because Neville was the other possible prophecy child and Snape was upset that Voldie didn’t pick him to kill when HE GAVE HIM THE PROPHECY IN THE FIRST PLACE).

He said shitty things about Harry’s dead parents and orphan-hood, was glaring at Harry literally right off the bat so don’t say it was because he got into trouble a lot, asked him questions he couldn’t possibly know, told Draco to summon a serpent during duelling club??? How irresponsible is that???

Literally lied to the minister just to get Sirius killed, which atp is ridiculous (I think Sirius was dumb as fuck, careless, possibly malicious, to tell snape where to go to find moony, but snape literally already suspected that Remus was a werewolf so idk what the fuck he thought was gonna happen if he found him during the full moon, and calling it a murder attempt is a stretch), like grow up please this man was in Azkaban for 12 years which is a hugely disproportionate punishment for anything he did do to you, and the reason he was there in the first place was literally fraudulent, which he knew and he lied anyway.

And honestly the Legilimancy lessons were fucking joke, who looks through an abused kids memories and makes fun of both the abuse and the few good memories he has?? And then he’s surprised that Harry tried to equal the playing field between them?? Snape had way more power than Harry did, and obviously it wasn’t the best thing to do to a person but yk what I’m not going to judge Harry’s actions, Snape was abusive and the victim isn’t to blame for their reactions to their abuser.

And he threw Harry across the room for seeing his memories?? Abuse. To be honest even seeing the memory about James being a bully felt like JKR trying to make shit up as fast as possible to make Snape seem more redeemable, which apparently worked for some people who think abusing kids is okay as long as you have a tragic backstory and an abusive parent. And it actually makes me really mad that he thought Harry was treated like a prince so decided to treat him like shit so he wouldn’t get any ideas about having self esteem or confidence, then found out that he was abused and then just did nothing and tbh treated him worse. And the lessons themselves were actually painful to Harry?? They definitely made his mind more vulnerable, he had more nightmares.

And let’s not forget that he joined a Nazi group that wanted to exterminate people like his best friend, called his best friend a slur, viewed Lily as an exception to the other muggleborns, and invented sectumsempura for his enemies IN SCHOOL which means the Maurauders.

And it makes me sick that he looked in a room with a crying baby whose parents just got murdered, his mom right in front of him, and a dead woman who was killed by his Nazi leader like directly because of his actions, and then he ignored the baby and went to hug the woman’s dead body. Like if I was Lily, I wouldn’t want him near either my body or my child, but if he was my only option, then he better be fucking taking care of my living son. Like she rejected him his weird obsession for her freaks me tf out.

And I get that without Snape asking for Lily to be spared, Voldemort wouldn’t have asked Lily to stand aside and the blood protection wouldn’t have been activated, but literally once good thing happening because of a tragedy he caused doesn’t make him a good person.

Anyway. Think I got it out of my system for now. Fuck Snape. :)

Edit: Just to be clear, I actually find his character really compelling, even though I dislike him and his actions. And of course I’m not saying no one can like Snape.

[thissying]

.

[deadworldwideweb]

It might be nothing and just me over-interpreting stuff cause I love to but I've started a new RDR2 save, and I noticed something about Abigail during the very first scene. Reverend's first line is "Abigail says he's [Davey] dying." and when Davey do die, he tell her (but with the way he's positioned he could be saying that to everyoke else) that there's nothing she could have done. We even see Abigail reaching for Davey, and leaning forward either to listen to his pulse or see if he's breathing, and she's the one to tell everyone that he's dead.

And it make me wonder why she seems to be implied to have a caretaker (as in nurse/doctor) role for some reason in this scenes as IIRC it's never brought up again, and in latter situations where a characters get hurt (like Arthur’s kidnapping) she doesn't do anything specific. [correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't recall any scenes except the one where she sits at John's bedside, but I assumed it was more cause he's her kind-of boyfriend]

I wonder if she was either put on caretaking duty during this specific scene (which would imply a certain knowledge), if she's quite knowledgeable in health/injury matter but it was never brought up again, or if that's characterisation that would have mattered more but it was cut later into the game development.

[xiaoluclair]

some of y’all will really look at a man who always talks with unparalleled animation through his entire big-breasted, thick-thighed self, who can never ever make up his mind because I Mean, It Depends and I Like Both I Like Boats *0.03* seconds later* I Hate Both Boats and coincidentally gives off the biggest bisexual energy, who newton-cradles between terrible dirty jokes and terrible-er dad jokes faster than the race car he drives that he never ever fails to acknowledge the brilliance of and the minds and designs behind, who laughs at said terrible jokes with his entire face and accompanying crow’s feet and is a dad to both two cats and a sweet little girl whom he carries on his shoulders and smiles at like she’s the only person ever, who unfailingly throws all caution to the wind in press conferences like fruit this fruit that i’m the fucking fruit bowl the fruit forest, here let me press my mouth up to this piece of glass like a silly little fish to make this man laugh and here let me talk about us as two men in a heteronormative sport cuddling together at night and massaging each other and here let me tease you for spinning and making me slow for yellows and lean forward to see if it makes you laugh or blush or both, who has been found on the floor and butt-naked by his teammate like bro what the fuck happened there, who hugs with his entire soul and buries his face into collarbones and cries sweet tears of happiness and has an entire team who loves him from their toes up take him into their arms and lift him on their shoulders and catch him when he runs to them after a race and throws himself into their embrace, who sizzles years worth of fighting and dreaming and achieving down to it Just Brings Back A Lot Of Rest and This Hasn’t Been For Nothing and the quiet blame he sets on his own self of a doomed marriage he had no control over he was a child (a child), who has the smallest dearest freckle on his lips that sends strangers into deranged sweats and righteous mutiny when even touched by photoshop, who wears one singular type of cap like a farmer who was warned by a witch that his carrot farms would die from famine if removed, who when he heard theories about how the curved cap gives him more luck over his regular bae only wore the regular one out of spite bc Fuck You Superstition!! who retains information about countries and flags and world cup trivia like it’s a human citizenship requirement, who has retained this information from when he was the littlest boy the smollest potato with dreams dropped onto his shoulders and determination in his spark blue eyes that crinkle so beautifully at literally anything even remotely funny to his relatable and therefore hilarious shit humor, who lets his heart go without limit and knows his self worth and isn’t embarrassed to speak out against something that hurts him and especially hurts his friends and family, who will defend the people he loves with everything in him to a fault and then some more, and go

[transmasculinizing]

pokemno fans so weird u discuss something that would objectively improve the game and they make up excuses like um nooooo nono this is fine actually i like it this way and it would be worse if they went with ur idea i love your games gamefrick i will alwqys buy keep doing what u doing pls let kiss ur boots

[comas-are-for-sleeping]

my mom doesn’t think im autistic and then i write shit like, “yeah i look for patterns in my life but for some reason socializing and people never fit? why cant i apply other knowledge to being a person with other people”

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

A CORRECTION MUST BE MADE

@cursemewithyourkiss has kindly pointed out that the image shown in this past post:

is not in fact of Sir John Martin-Harvey playing Carton but in fact...

...of Sir John Martin-Harvey playing Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a.k.a. the French army officer during the French Revolutionary Wars who wrote the song that would become known as La Marseillaise - you know, the French National Anthem😭

like. oh my god.

so anyway: thank you so much to @cursemewithyourkiss for this correction, and may we all grieve the undeniable coolness that might have been😔...

...and. you know what just happened? for those of us who were fooled, we. we mistook a French man for Carton...

[sensitivegoblin]

Vent

Tw: sh

[wainswright]

Longer I’ve been alive the more I’ve started to realize the singsong style of guerrilla manuals (furtively trying to spread a means of resistance) in a kind of affected prose is not thought out nor intentional, but more of a lack of understanding on how to effectively convey information. Same for anything with a strong stylistic bent but meant to be informative or viral.

[fingertipsmp3]

Gotta be honest lads I get Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos mixed up all the time

[kaijutegu]

Alligator Body Language and You, or: How To Know When An Alligator On Social Media is Being Stressed for Views

Alligators are wild animals. Despite the idiotic claims of animal abusers like Jay Brewer, they cannot be domesticated, which means they are always going to react on the same natural instincts they've had for millions of years. Habituated, yes. Tamed, yes. Trained, definitely. Crocodilians can form bonds with people- they're social and quite intelligent. They can solve problems, use tools, and they're actually quite playful. Alligators are also really good at communicating how they're feeling, but to somebody who doesn't spend much time around them, their body language can be a bit mystifying. And it doesn't help when social media influencers are saying shit like this:

That is not what a happy gator looks like.

That's a terrified, furious gator who isn't attacking because the ogre handling her has her in a chokehold. She's doing everything she can to express her displeasure, and he's lying about it because he knows his audience doesn't even know how to think critically about what he's doing. He knows that because his audience doesn't know anything about these animals, he can get away with it. This I think is why I hate him so much- he deliberately miseducates his audience. He knows what he's doing is factually inaccurate, he just doesn't care because attention means more to him than anything else in the world.

Let's change that! Here are two really important lessons for understanding alligator body language on social media.

Lesson 1: Alligators Don't Smile (in fact, most animals don't)

So what's going on in this video? Jay Brewer is aggressively choking his white alligator Coconut while scrubbing algae off of her with a toothbrush. And make no mistake, he is digging into the creature's throat while she is visibly distressed. He claims she's happy- but she's not. He is willfully misrepresenting what this animal is feeling. That's a problem, because people... well, we actually kind of suck at reading other species' body language. The reason for this is that we tend to overlay our own responses on their physical cues, and that's a problem. For example, let's look at an animal with a really similar face to ours, the chimpanzee. Check out Ama's toothy grin!

Wait, no. That's not a happy smile. That's a threat display. When a chimpanzee "smiles," it's either terrified and doing a fear grimace, or it's showing you its teeth because it intends on using them in your face.

How about a dog? Look at my smiling, happy puppy!

Oh wait no, this is a picture of Ryder when he was super overwhelmed by noise and people during a holiday party. He'd hopped up in my sister's lap to get away from stuff that was happening on the floor and was panting quite heavily. See the tension in the corners of his mouth and his eyes? A lot of the time when a dog "smiles," the smile isn't happy. It's stress! Why Animals Do The Thing has a nice writeup about that, but the point is, our body language is not the same as other species. And for reptiles, body language is wildly different.

For instance, look at these two alligators. Pretty cute, right? Look at 'em, they're posing for a Christmas card or something! How do you think they're feeling?

Well, I'll tell you how the normal one is feeling. He's annoyed! Why is he annoyed? Because the albino just rolled up, pushed another gator off the platform, and is trying to push this guy, too. I know this because I actually saw it happen. It was pretty funny, not gonna lie. He's not gaping all the way, but he was hissing- you can actually see him getting annoyed in the sequence I took right before this shot. Look at him in this first shot here- he's just relaxing, and you can see he isn't gaping even a little bit.

By the end, he's expressing displeasure, but not enough to actually do anything about it. He's annoyed, but he's comfy and that's where one of the best basking areas is, so he'll put up with it.

Reptiles open their mouths wide for a lot of reasons, but never because they are actively enjoying a sensation. Unless they're eating. No reptile smiles- they can't. They don't even have moveable lips. If a reptile is gaping, it's doing so because:

It is doing a threat display.

It is making certain vocalizations, all of which are threats. Alligators are one of the rare reptiles that do regularly vocalize, but most of their calls aren't made with a wide open mouth.

It is about to bite something delicious or somebody stupid. Check out this video- virtually all of the gaping here is anticipatory because these trained gators know darn well that the bowl is full of delicious snacks. (I have some issues with Florida's Wildest, but the man knows how to train a gator AND he is honest about explaining what they're doing and why, and all of his animals are healthy and well-cared for, and he doesn't put the public or his staff at risk- just himself.)

It's too hot and it has opened its mouth to vent some of that heat and thermoregulate. This is the main reason why alligators will often have their mouths part of the way open, but sometimes they'll open all the way for thermoregulation. This is what a thermoregulatory gape looks like- usually it's not all the way open, kinda more like < rather than V, but you can't say that 100% of the time. Additionally, a thermoregulatory gape... typically happens when it's hot out. If they're inside, maybe they've been under their basking light for too long. Heat's the dominant factor, is what I'm getting at.

There is another reason that a captive crocodilian might be gaping, and that's because it's doing so on command. Some places have their gators trained to gape on cue, like St. Augustine Alligator Farm and other good zoos. They have the animals do this in presentations that are genuinely educational. They ask the animals to open their mouths so that they can show off their teeth and demonstrate how their tongues seal off the back of their mouth. They'll also do it as part of routine healthcare, because looking at their teeth is important.

In this case, the animals aren't gaping because they're stressed, they're gaping because they know they're gonna get a piece of chicken or fish if they do it. And what's more, they're doing it on cue. They have a specific command or signal that tells them to open wide. It's not an instinctive response to a situation. It's trained. If the animal provides the behavior after a cue, the situation is much less likely to be negatively impactful.

It's also important to remember that there's a difference between a partially open mouth and a gape! As discussed above, alligators will often have their mouths a little bit open just to maintain temperature homeostasis. It helps them stay comfy, temperature-wise. These guys are all doing thermoregulatory open-mouthed behavior- that slight open and relaxed body posture is a dead giveaway. (That and it's the hottest spot in the enclosure.)

Lesson 2: A Happy Gator Is A Chill Gator

So if alligators don't smile or have facial expressions other than the :V that typically signifies distress, how else can you tell how they're feeling? One way is stillness. See, alligators subscribe to the philosophy of if it sucks... hit da bricks.

Basically, if they hate it, they'll leave. Unless, y'know, somebody has their meaty claws digging into their throat or is otherwise restraining them. (Restraint isn't always bad, btw. Sometimes the animal is going through a medical thing or needs to be restrained for their safety- which a responsible educator will explain.)

Let's look at a very similar scenario, in which a captive alligator is getting his back scrubbed.

As you can see, it's quite different. First, he's not being restrained at all. Second, look at how relaxed he is! He's just chilling there vibing! He could simply get up and leave if he wanted to, because he's not being held. Towards the end of the video, as he lifts his head, you can see that his respiratory rate is very even as his throat flutters a bit. I'm not sure what this facility is, so I can't comment on care/general ethics, but like. In this specific case, this is an alligator enjoying being scrubbed! And you can tell because he's not doing anything. A happy gator is content to be doing what they're doing.

Why Should I Listen To You?

Now, you should ask yourself, why should you listen to me? Why should you trust me, who does not own an alligator, versus Jay Brewer, who owns several?

Well, first off, there's no profit for me in telling you that what you're seeing on social media is in fact not what you're being told you're seeing. I'm not getting paid to do this. That's the thing with people who make social media content. The big names aren't doing it just for fun. They're doing it for money. Whether that's profit through partnerships or sponsorships, or getting more people to visit their facilities, or ad revenue, you can't ignore the factor of money. And this is NOT a bad thing, because it allows educators to do what they're passionate about! People deserve to be paid for the work that they do!

But the problem starts when you chase the algorithm instead of actually educating. A "smiling" alligator gets the views, and if people don't know enough to know better, it keeps getting the views. People love unconventional animal stories and they want those animals to be happy- but the inability to even know where to start with critically evaluating these posts really hinders the ability to spread real information. Like, this post will probably get a couple hundred notes, but that video of Coconut being scrubbed had almost 400,000 likes when I took that screenshot. Think about how many eyeballs that's reached by now. What I'm saying here is that it's just... really important to think critically about who you're getting your information from. What do dissenters say in the comments? What do other professionals say? You won't find a single herpetologist that has anything good to say about Prehistoric Pets, I can tell you that right now.

Another reason you can trust me is that my sources are not "just trust me bro," or "years of experience pretending my pet shop where animals come to die is a real zoo." Instead, here are my primary sources for my information on alligator behavior:

Dragon Songs: Love and Adventure among Crocodiles, Alligators, and Other Dinosaur Relations- Vladimir Dinets

The Secret Social Lives of Reptiles- J. Sean Doody, Vladimir Dinets, Gordon M. Burghardt

Social Behavior Deficiencies in Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Z Walsh, H Olson, M Clendening, A Rycyk

Social Displays of the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)- Kent Vliet

Social Signals and Behaviors of Adult Alligators and Crocodiles- Leslie Garrick, Jeffery Lang

Never smile at a crocodile: Gaping behaviour in the Nile crocodile at Ndumo Game Reserve, South Africa- Cormac Price, Mohamed Ezat, Céline Hanzen, Colleen Downs (this one's Nile crocs, not American alligators, but it's really useful for modeling an understanding of gape behaviors and proximity)

Thermoregulatory Behavior of Captive American Alligators (Alligator mississippiensis)- Cheryl S. Asa, Gary D. London, Ronald R. Goellner, Norman Haskell, Glenn Roberts, Crispen Wilson

Unprovoked Mouth Gaping Behavior in Extant Crocodylia- Noah J. Carl, Heather A. Stewart, Jenny S. Paul

Thank you for reading! Here's a very happy wild alligator from Sanibel for your trouble.

[this-is-not-a-slow-burn]

I feel like such a fraud! (amused)

I have been at this shit since 1999 and this is first time I've actually ever *really* understood clearly what DPI means for an image. I've read a million things, and had a photography teacher explain, and I sort of mostly got it, but this? This just made it finally click. From Spoonflower:

I'm fully blaming graphics programs for why I wasn't totally getting it. And here's why.

When you create a new blank canvas to work on, you have to input the dimensions you would like it to be. You can choose which unit of measure you'd like to use, inches, pixels, cm etc. In my mind this set up a situation where "pixels" was a fixed unit of measure, immutable, just like an inch is. That it could be measured with a ruler and would always be the same size no matter how many were present. I wasn't thinking about the DPI making the pixels change their relative size, therefore changing the dimensions.

This is one of those OH. Fucking DUH things where once it clicks it really makes sense and you'll never forget it because this is your new mindset. Like. Before now I sorta got it? But was still a little *head tilt* about it. Now I'm a digital image professional, ready to tackle all of your visual arts needs.

(The reason I was even on that page is because I'm trying to determine how to get the best looking result for a sublimated print on a pre-made garment. I know Spoonflower does custom fabrics, and figured they would have info on best practices for image sizes and resolutions. Was not expecting to have my mind blown.)

[die-tenebris]

or, lol, lmao. you all could just stop spouting whatever bs hearsay you make up in your minds BEFORE it gets circulated.

[tiger-moran]

I should probably work out what rank Watson is supposed to be in this too shouldn't I

Captain?

If I'm loosely following canon though he was probably only in the army for like a year before getting forced out by injury so...

[biceratops7]

Bro I haven’t seen The Takes first hand but I am NOT looking forward to them

'they killed off a protagonist' no they didn't

'they killed off one of the only characters in the show that's played by a queer actor' not really

'well they killed off the only character in the show that's played by an actor that's vocal about queer rights' 1. no 2. please don't say shit like this when vico ortiz is right there 3. no again

'they fridged him' nope

'they only killed him for ed's development' also nope

'they caved to anti pressure' lmao

'they buried their gays' 1. [hot fuzz voice] just the one gay actually 2. that's not what that means

'this is ableist' it's not

'this is homophobic' it's not that either