to thyself be true & screw what the world thinks

Parker, 30's, disabled artist and cat lover. gaming nerd, art history enthusiast. If you see me like your art, I reblogged it to @spaceisjustanocean

[cleverclovers]

Does anyone else have trouble parting with a flattened pillow? Because I got a new one when my mom visited last, at her behest, because my no longer fluffy pillows were concerning (pillows plural intended as there are three flat fuck pillows) and a "worrying sign of self neglect"... But the pillow she picked out is too big and too squishy. A size and fluffiness allowed in squish allows, but not my pillow

I told her I'd throw the old ones out when she left but trying to switch to the new one is harder than I thought possible. Feels wrong. I don't rest my head on my squishmallows. They go over my head in migraine times, never under.

[everythingfox]

A gentle awakening

[gaysie]

do u think omegaverse acknowledges covid-19 and the generation of people who permanently lost their sense of smell like how are they all scenting each other now is the omegaverse economy in shambles

[gayagendaofficial]

actually pheromone sensing works differently from normal olfaction, since humans in our world don’t have a functioning vomeronasal organ (VNO), we don’t have any data on how covid-19 would affect a functioning VNO in omegaverse AUs

[gaysie]

Actually there is evidence that covid probably would affect the VNO and it stands to reason would accordingly impair its function. Briefly:

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid, can only infect cells expressing a certain protein called ACE2

ACE2 is expressed widely in nasal cavity epithelial cells but not in olfactory sensory neurons. 

Seo et al. (2021) studied potential nasal targets for SARS-CoV-2 using golden hamsters as a model organism (commonly used as a proxy for humans in virology studies)

They found ACE2 expression in the main olfactory bulb epithelium (MOE, your “normal” nose organ) as well as the vomeronasal organ (VNO)

Several cell types in the VNO were able to be infected and they also found significant inflammatory activity (macrophage activation, apoptotic cells, etc) 

The specifics of how covid actually causes dysosmia are not known for sure but epithelial damage by local inflammatory immune responses likely plays a role, especially because sensory neurons themselves are not affected (Bilinska, & Butowt, 2020). Therefore I would suggest a potential similar effect of VNO dysfunction as we see in the main olfactory bulb

From Seo et al.: “Considering the function of the VNO, infection and subsequent pathologic changes may affect the behavior of Syrian hamsters”

If it stands to reason that omegaverse individuals have functioning VNOs similar to members of the animal kingdom, then it is more than reasonable to conclude that covid may cause them to lose not only their main olfactory function, but also their VNO function as well

 References: (1) (2)

In conclusion the omegaverse economy IS in shambles.

[mahalidael]

OP this is very well-written but im still hung up on how you came onstage dressed as a clown only to tear off the costume and reveal yourself as a biologist

[while-i-kiss-the-sky]

Mama cat gargoyle

Cat with a kitten statue on the roof of the castle of Château de Pierrefonds, France. It was built between 1393-1407.

[that-house]

lets endure for 618-632 years with mama…

[everythingfox]

“I can explain”

[interestingmistakes]

Reblogging this manually. Op doesn't want credit for fear of being terminated.

[blignick]

[depsidase]

[pyronado-moved]

Please stop trigger tagging with #epilepsy tw/cw/warning/etc.

I need every single person to understand how horrible tumblr’s tagging system is

I go into the tag for epilepsy and its all flashing lights. We can’t use our own tag because people without epilepsy fill it up with improper warnings.

Use ‘flashing’ in place of ‘epilepsy’ in your tags. You aren’t warning people of epileptics, you’re warning us of flashing lights. Please please tag properly. Epileptics say this endlessly and constantly and it’s ignored. You are risking lives by doing this.

Here’s proof of what I mean:

THIS POST IS 100% OKAY TO REBLOG, I ENCOURAGE PEOPLE WITHOUT EPILEPSY TO ESPECIALLY DO SO!

[demonicsymphony]

And if you’re in the notes or tags telling us to “just get a new tag”

Fuck You

[ittybittymattycommittee]

#raise your shields #because you’re about to get wrecked

[jewishgarygreen]

#this is the star trek i wanna see#like when somebody asked gene roddenberry why piccard was bald#because wouldn’t they have found a cure for male pattern baldness by then?#and he was like ‘no by the 24th century no one will care’#i wanna see that attitude with disability and neurodiversity#it’s not that we’ll have a magic cure for everything#there’ll always be something new#but disabilities and neurodiversity will be celebrated and seen as part of the norm#it will be accomodated#so blind people can serve in star fleet#and so can people in wheelchairs and autistic people and people with prosthetics and people with chronic illnesses (via @hunterinabrowncoat)

[kiapet2]

This episode ends with Geordi saving the planet by using something derived from the technology found in his visor (an adaptive device that lets him sense things around him). So a disabled man literally saved the lives of an entire culture that wouldn’t have considered his life worth living, using technology they would have never deemed necessary without the presence of his unique needs.

[scholarlypidgeot]

I don’t watch Star Trek, but I can’t stress enough how important this message is

[fictionadventurer]

My favorite thing about this episode is that, while the rest of the characters are taking a more Star Trek philosophical approach to this situation, calmly debating the good and bad points of this colony built upon eugenics, Geordi is just seething. Troi is having a romance with their flippin’ president, but Geordi never hesitates on his morals. He’s always aware that this world’s supposed perfection is built upon the despicable philosophy of killing people like him. He barely even bothers to hide his anger as he has to work alongside their scientists. He’s snappish and short-tempered and bitter, clearly only working with these people because lives are at stake. When he discovers the solution is based on his VISOR, he is viciously triumphant, his joy at saving the people boosted by a bitter sense of righteousness that these people were only saved because someone like him was allowed to survive.

And even though this anger and bitterness are very un-Star-Trek-like approaches to diplomacy–it works. The scientist who works alongside him is the first person who decides to jump ship and leave the colony behind. She sees the stagnation of their bland “’‘‘‘‘utopia’‘‘‘‘‘ and realizes that diversity and adaptation create a much better society. And while the other Enterprise crew members have some wishy-washy lament over how this will destroy this planet’s ‘‘‘culture’‘‘, Geordi never waffles. He has far too personal a stake in this to lose sight of the fact that peoples’ lives are more important than any high-falutin’ philosophical justifications. The episode might waffle over the Prime Directive points of this society’s decline, but Geordi’s perspective is the one showing clearly why it needs to die.

[everythingfox]

Fluffy boy

(via)

[twofingerswhiskey]

reblog if you hate the current interior design trend of painting everything white with hints of grey or black. ignore if you have no taste

[the-semicolonoscopy]

It’s Pride Month Eve, so leave out some milk for Freddie Mercury and his cats.

[the-semicolonoscopy]

Time for the annual Pride Month reblog of Freddie Mercury and his fabulous cats!

[catasters]

[fluoresensitives]

Personally I hate AI because it uses slave labor, is killing the planet and is making people stupid, but that's just me. The soulless art aspect is just one little piece of my grander disdain.

[castrolle]

wait how does AI use slave labor? Do you mean the human works that are stolen and not credited or compensated? Because technically under capitalism everything is exploited but there are varying degrees

[postillfastill]

Aside from the scraping, AI tech companies, including openAI/chatGPT, have outsourced training their models to countries in the global south, specifically Kenya in openAI's case. These workers are working in sweatshop conditions for less than 2 bucks USD per hour. I'm on mobile, but if you search 'openAI Kenya slave labor' and related keywords, you can find multiple articles about it.

[almostdefinitelydying]

Kenyan workers with AI jobs thought they had tickets to the future until the grim reality set in

Training AI takes a heavy toll on Kenyan workers, who say they earned $2 an hour to label and sift through gruesome content for American com

[brightlotusmoon]

[pronouncingitwang]

at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you

[yokowan]

at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.

[le-jardin-inculte]

at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly

[shithowdy]

at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.

[cleverclovers]

When youtubers from the commentary community come to tumblr and expect us to use tags in a way that makes sense to the wider internet, but we use them in a way that acknowledges that the site wide tag search function is broken and always has been... tags have become a way to commentate on a topic without having it in the reblogs, unless someone else sees it and goes "OH, you know what?" and screenshots it then posts it with "DON'T LEAVE THIS IN THE TAGS WTF"

Kinda like passing notes in school while whispering your thoughts on the contents to your neighbor, where in they go "WAIT WHO SAID WHAT?" and now everyone knows

That said, this site is deeply unserious and always has been, however we do know when to take our clown nose off and put away the shoes to have serious conversations. These interloping youtubers just don't know the culture of the site.

Don't use us as a source unless you can discern when someone is saying something unhinged for the laughs, or is truly unhinged. We can generally tell the difference and will deal with the latter on our own, thanks