Field Notes

K. 30s. PhD. Evolutionary biologist, always looking for the next adventure.

[allyalbonart]

Smaller fish such as the neon tetra particularly like shoaling around deer with bigger antlers. It’s a good sign of prowess to have a large group hanging around.

[meercrystal]

Mom seal and seal pup :)

(Referenced from pinterest image)

[great-and-small]

A tragic scene:

My turtle notices the blueberry I put out for him but in his excitement he drops it into his pond. He considers a recovery mission on his own, then turns to me for assistance instead.

Fear not- the berry was retrieved and the turtle was able to enjoy it as intended

[thisobscuredesireforbeauty]

“Baikal Zen”: Rocks that have fallen on the ice of Lake Baikal are heated by sunlight and emit infrared rays that melt the ice below. Once the sun is gone, the ice becomes solid again, creating a small support for the rock above.

[modmad]

scrolling down I was like “oh what a cool idea! someone skipped stones on a lake and took high speed photographs to get these pictures where it looks like the water is holding up the stone which is kinda was does happen a-oh, no. nope. it’s just Fucking Lake Baikal up to its god defying nonsense again”

[manuciruja]

awww the like button turns into a rainbow when you press it! that's so cute...hey staff what's with all the trans women you keep nuking?

[manuciruja]

i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users

[smadsel]

would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.

[smadsel]

that’s not the whole flag, now is it

[manuciruja]

hey staff what the fuck

[villainessbian]

hey staff don't you think you're being too on-the-nose

[shrodingers-catgirl]

HEY STAFF DONT YOU THINK YOU'RE BEING TOO ON-THE-NOSE

[drarry]

Imagine being the gays at a pride event in 2004 living their lives when someone grabs the microphone and announces to the room that Ronald Reagan was pronounced dead. Can you even imagine the hype, the celebration, the pure elation

[drarry]

This is the Pride Month that It will happen. I feel it in my gay bones

[broken-horn-of-equius]

[krasnoarmeyets]

i bet it feels good as fuck to intend to do something and then actually do it

[creekfiend]

I'm so glad that that truncated fucking ran-into-a-wall-at-speed tadpole-ass looking squirrel only lives in high altitude forests in Borneo bc this means I am extremely unlikely to encounter one in my day to day life. thank god

[tuftedpygmysquirrel]

Hello.

[creekfiend]

DID YOU MAKE THIS BLOG SIMPLY TO TORMENT ME

[tuftedpygmysquirrel]

I can go upside down.

[creekfiend]

WHERE IS THE REST OF YOU

[biglawbear]

I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

[biglawbear]

You have to understand. I watched the movies maybe once as a kid when they came out twenty years ago. I've somehow avoided learning like anything about these books my entire life. Literally everything about these books was a complete unknown and surprise to me. Totally blank slate going on. I barely even knew how it ended.

Holy shit.

[biglawbear]

Frodo didn't complete his task. Sam literally carried him up Mount Doom. And when he got to the end, he couldn't throw the Ring away.

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

I'm not okay. Holy fuck you guys.

[biglawbear]

It's been a week and I'm still not over this, I'll never get over this.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.

How am I supposed to move on with my life after reading this?

[three--rings]

Certainly there are many messages within Lord of the Rings, but you have to think that Tolkien would have been happy that this message in particular was still being conveyed all these years later.

[humanoidhistory]

Robert McCall poster art for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[herpsandbirds]

American Purple Gallinule (Porphyrio martinica), CHICK, HIM SO FEET!!!, family Rallidae, order Galliformes, FL, USA

photograph by Charlie King

[urgetocreate]

Nikita Chan (Chinese/American), Rainbow Shower, 2025, Colored pencil on paper

[urgetocreate]

Nikita Chan (Chinese/American), Rainbow Shower, 2025, Colored pencil on paper

[hollowedskin]

I got a 4 min long video of Kimchi dreaming today, so here's a clip

You get the whole walk cycle and the little sprint at the end.

Sometimes her sprints last for like 4 or 5 seconds and she can shoot herself off the couch or into a wall if she gets a grip with her back claws. If she does it next to a wall, her head smacking into it sounds like someone is trying to break into the house. She doesn't wake up.

Later in the dream she injured her paw and was limping, and earlier she caught something and ate it.

[hollowedskin]

[tmp-art]

“I met the night and they purred"  

Based on this post

[plumslices]

$20 used to mean something

[bisonwares]

Just finished the test pattern of the new Arapaima

I am so in love with how she came out 💕