Dodging Billables

I'm one of the old ladies of Tumblr, a married lawyer mama adulting on a daily basis. Vote blue every time and fuck the GOP. I'm happy in the Dramione dumpster and fell hard into Heated Rivalry. I loved Captain Swan and Reylo (see "cs fic rec" and "reylo fic rec" tags), and still love wheel of time, pretty dresses, the Muppets, feminism, mental health, and angrily ranting about gerrymandering, voter suppression, and reproductive justice. If you are a fan of any of the above, you can come sit by me. Please make a plan to vote in every election and then actually vote.

[whydidisavethistomyphone]

[chiffonandribbons]

Zuhair Murad Couture F/W 2013

[clytemnestraaa]

and if i said #myirina who does the same ilya mouth thing

[clytemnestraaa]

the other reason she is irina to me. teary ilya voice. shane would you like to see a photo of my most beautiful mama…

shane voice. oh uh. yeah. i do see the resemblance.

[fromthedeskofcripslock]

@amarguerite

[wheelie-sick]

"oh, I live in a desert and-"

"wow that must be so terrible" "deserts are so ugly" "I would never want to live in a wasteland like that" "it's just empty nothingness"

wishing 10,000 exploding hammers upon you

behold New Mexico

[ID 1: tall, snowcapped rocky mountains rising above a plain filled with desert scrub

ID 2: brightly colored banded cliff walls of several mesas climbing their way into mountains

ID 3: a desert prairie

ID 4: colorful hoodoos against a twilight sky

ID 5: white sand dunes as far as the eye can see

ID 6: a collection of hoodoos against a stormy sky at sunset

ID 7: a juniper tree standing with a cliff wall in the background

ID 8: several juniper trees on a rocky landscape]

[wheelie-sick]

this post and all its wonderful additions (look in the notes) is circulating again. these photos and many of the ones added in the notes come from the US Southwest.

right now the trump administration is attacking the public lands in the Southwestern US. most recently (July 2026), in Utah the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments have been cut by over 90% to allow for mining. these lands are sacred to multiple Native nations in the area and contain irreplaceable archeological sites. additionally, the commission of Native representatives who aided in management of these lands has been dissolved leaving Native people without a voice in caring for the remaining land. (read more here)

here in New Mexico, the 10 mile buffer zone surrounding Chaco Canyon preventing oil and gas drilling is under attack. Chaco Canyon contains incredibly old and incredibly fragile archeological sites sacred to Pueblo people. these sites are threatened by mining and drilling. (read more here)

The attack on the Chaco buffer zone is currently in a public comment period open until July 29. PLEASE leave a public comment to save these irreplaceable places.

[crimsonservbot]

You ever hear that old chestnut about how most people neglect the part of the story of Icarus where he also had to avoid flying too low, lest the spray of the sea soak his feathers and cause him to fall and drown? You ever think about how different the world would be if Icarus died that way instead? If the idiom was to Fly To Close To The Sea? A warning against playing it far too safe, about not stretching your wings and soaring properly? You ever think about how Icarus died because he was happy?

[stoopkidlisteningtocsh]

Was feeling Emotions than was quickly hit by very different ones upon opening the comments

[ceruleanheaven]

religion is so fucking funny the world is just too beautiful there must be a higher entity behind all this. lets oppress women

[krampusmad]

I have let to see a more ungrateful, uneducated post not understanding the reason you get to write something, like this, on tumblr, on the internet, from your home, with NO repercussions from the law, using the infrastructure that grew together with the law, order, and hierarchy, that comes from western civilization, which is built on, guess what. Christianity. one of the main three religions of the world.

People, on average, cannot be atheist. Not the majority, not great people. Especially great people. Almost every truly great person (either with infastructure, civil rights, or art) in history was at least spiritual if not devout.

Why the frick would anybody want to put any effort at all into maintaining society (and building it from the ground up, making new infrastructure and laws, serving justice, maintaining it) if they didn’t have some higher goal to serve? For COMFORT? that may be true now, but what about in the 1700s when life was hard, the industrial revolution was still going around, creature comforts were few, for the majority?

Why would they put any effort into that when they could just as easily pick berries in the woods, might makes right, every man and woman for themselves, hunting animals?

[andwhatexcellentboiledpotatoes]

This is the funniest thing I have ever read on this site. I am obsessed with the implication that every advancement in society was not because people wanted to make their own lives better but because they thought a higher power wanted it and that without religion we would never have had the agricultural revolution and still be eating berries from bushes.

[spin-the-wheel-polls]

you are now a cat in the warrior cats universe! Spin these wheels for your name!

Do you like it?

YES!!!

yes

eh it's okay

no.

IM MOON MOON

results/other

Remaining time: 5 days 18 hours

note: I (the owner of this blog and maker of wheels) am not into warrior cats! I just thought this would be fun to make

(prefixes and suffixes from @yarrowleef)

[spin-the-wheel-polls]

I DON'T WANNA BE DEAD WOLF

[gallusrostromegalus]

It's me. Football Cat.

[undeadhousewife]

[eeby-deeby-dark-and-creepy]

Ok now I’m curious… Which do you prefer:

I have lived in and out of the city, I prefer the city

I have only lived in the city, I prefer the city

I have only lived out of the city, I prefer the city

I have lived in and out of the city, I prefer out of the city

I have only lived in the city, I prefer out of the city

I have only lived out of the city, I prefer out of the city

Bald/vanilla extract/I reject dichotomies under all circumstances/I can’t read

Remaining time: 2 days 7 hours

[viralfrog]

[keyfili]

PACIFIC RIM / faceless 2013 • dir. Guillermo del Toro

[goldcrescent]

My new pet peeve is people completely misunderstanding the term Male Gaze and making the term female gaze based entirely on that misunderstanding

[goldcrescent]

the white boy of the month pushing his hair back and reading poetry for the camera is not the equivalent of the dehumanization of women in visual media by way of presenting them primarily as vessels for sexual gratification

[poetrylesbian]

[poetrylesbian]

[mf-dooom]

[yetanothergreyjedi]

that is the face of a man worried he will be next

[ashtraythief]

Good news, he was not next! In fact, she accepted him as her mate, he learned the crane mating dance and now every year, he artificially inseminates her with crane semen to expand the very endangered crane population. True story.

[luulapants]

Sorry, he WHAT? Imagine being this man's boss and having to sit him down like. Listen. Brian. We need you to fuck the bird. You have to act like you're excited about it.

[whetstonefires]

crane husband.....

[roach-works]

this is the diametric opposite of all those awful swan wife stories and i love it.

[alex51324]

(WalWaPo makes you jump through like three separate hoops before you can read the article, so I will share some of the highlights:

Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s.  The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.  

As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.  

It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.  

Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.  

The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.

They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.   

Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.  

Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.  

Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent.  (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)  

It worked!  

Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.  

However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them.  (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)

Chris accepts that he is pretty much married to this bird.  White-naped cranes live to be about 60, and they mate for life, so he knows he can’t retire while Walnut is alive.  (At the time of the article, Walnut was 36, and Chris 42.)  

[thesylverlining]

Legit cannot pick the funniest part of this

she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)

His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)

the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)

"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")

chris sits any potential human partners down, like "my love, you must understand before we wed,,, i am already... Attached" (camera drifts wistfully to the above photo) "Lady Walnut and I have an,, Understanding... the relationship is open, but very committed"

[anais-ninja-bitch]

just had to explain this post to my father bc he thought my stifled laughter was a signal of illness.

well done, everyone, good game. hit the showers.

[largishcat]

[eshlimoriarty]

[lazorsandparadox]

Not only is he 'married' to walnut, this has apparently happened SEVERAL times, so he has MULTIPLE crane wives, none of which know about any of his other crane wives. This man is, for some unknown reason, irresistible to cranes

[queersatanic]

the “this content has been removed for violating Tumblr’s Community Guidelines” notice really adds a lot of flavor to this post and somehow makes it MORE obscene than whatever that actually was

[worldheritageposts-official]

World Heritage Post

[kedreeva]

I regret being the bearer of bad news, but I thought it should be shared that Walnut passed away in January of this year (2024). There's a lot of mixed info about the lifespan of cranes (due to people misunderstanding what a median is...) but the average for most species I know of is 20-30 years (in the wild if nothing eats them/they don't die young), and 30-45 in captivity, with the oldest known white-naped crane having loved to be 46. Given that she was 42, this old gal did good, and I'm certain she will be missed by folks here.

[optimysticals]

Fly on forever Walnut Crane-Crowe

[blumineck]

I’ve got a lot of Thoughts(tm) about The Odyssey at the moment, but damnit Blum I’m an archer, not a film critic, so here’s something in my lane!

[personsonable-deactivated201908]

me holding a gun to a mushroom: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit

mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters

me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face: I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU

[miaislying]

Hey OP? What the FUCK does this mean?

[personsonable-deactivated201908]

decay exists as an extant form of life

[miaislying]

That’s a terrifying answer, have a nice day

[haystarlight]

THE ORIGINAL?!?!!!!!!!!;!!!!!!!!???

[rabidwolf2point0]

Every time amber heard gets brought up as the butt of a joke I am obviously expected to agree with and accept, I face this internal battle. Like it’s often this aside in conversation where I don’t want to derail the larger point, depending on the person. But also. Did you know it was a civil case? Did you know she was sued over the op-Ed about dv that did not mention Depp by name? Did you know about their age gap when they first met? Did you know about his extensive, and expensively suppressed, history of violence and abuse? Did you know about the perfume in the bathroom during the trial? Have you read The Gift of Fear (and thus know that certain abusers prolong abuse within the courts)? Did you ever consider that the inundation of reels and other short form videos during that joke of a trial, was by design? Did you know I don’t much use Facebook, or YouTube, but whether logged out or logged in, all my suggestions were cruelly mocking her?? Did you know about the Saudi money? Did you know we all have a predisposition to savage women? Did you know we are all excited when we have an excuse to direct misogyny towards a rationalized target? Did you know expressing misogyny is conditioned to inherently feel good? Did you ever wonder if you fell for a scheme on a scale beyond the comprehension of the ordinary individual, within scope, expense, and effort? Nah she’s probably just a bitch.

[3liza]

once you reach a certain level of Animal Knowing you become burdened with two absolutely true, completely contradictory facts:

animals are basically the same, a lion is a big kitty

a lion is absolutely not a big kitty, are you fucking stupid?

[hasufin]

Back when I was in high school, volunteering at the zoo, I had this encounter with one of our mountain lions.

Now, I had actually petted the older, calmer female. But this was one of the males - they'd never been even slightly interested in me. But today? He made eye contact with me. He hunkered down. He did the butt waggle like he was going to pounce. Again. And... POUNCE. That cat crossed a good 20 meters in about 3 seconds. He only turned away at the last moment because there was an electrified fence.

He made sure I knew he was there. He wasn't hunting: he was playing. This was exactly like a housecat playing with you.

But, just because he was playing, didn't mean I wouldn't have been dead if he'd actually pounced on me.

They are big kitties. It's just that housecats are small and can't seriously injure you.

[beginning-to-be-happy]

Thank you, that was terrifying