Blog of an unidentified duck

Be a duck

[shamebats]

[asingularcanadian]

You are not safe from this. You, the person reading this, are not safe from this. No matter how educated or open minded you think you are, you are not safe from this. The moment you think you are safe from it is the moment you become the most susceptible.

Its similar to why you cannot put bad people in a class of their own. The moment you do that you stop being able to see the bad things that the people closest to you do a la "my best friend couldn't have said that racist thing, they're not evil."

The moment you think you are immune from this type of backslide into right wing nonsense is the moment you stop questioning yourself enough to keep yourself from backsliding into right wing nonsense a la "I mean im not antiscience, im vaccinated, I just think that fluoride in our water supply is imparting children's ability to learn as fast as they otherwise could without it."

Remember, being progressive means progressing, its about always moving forward. The moment you rest on your laurels and stop putting in effort to keep the progression is the moment you start becoming left behind.

[thestuckylibrary]

#I'm a millenial and I have caught myself saying things#it can and will happen to you#the trick is to notice#the trick it to keep being curious#the trick is to resist calcifying your brain#keep thinking and keep moving#nothing made by humans is perfect#we can always improve#that perfect plan you thought would fix it all when you were 20#will age like everything else#and the goalposts do move because there will always be bad actors#reinventing all the old evils so they look new and harmless again

[kedreeva]

3 things i want to add, because there are definitely folks that I've had to teach this stuff to: keeping an open mind is not going to be enough, with how misinformation is spreading these days.

Take the example: "I just think fluoride in the water does X"

Thoughts /like this/ don't come from nowhere. When you have "I just think" thought, or "maybe" thoughts, or you notice yourself learning or having a new opinion from one you've previously had, this can OFTEN be mistaken as growth, as improving.

So, #1: Determine where you got that new opinion/fact. Did it come from a reliable source? Can you even ID where you got the idea from or did you just sort of "absorb" it from hearing it around? (an example: there are PLENTY of 'old wives tales' type bits of information floating around. One of the more common ones I see in chicken keeping is people recommending apple cider vinegar for everything, despite a complete lack of scientific evidence that apple cider does.... well, anything, aside from slightly inflame the GI tract due to acidity. The info doesn't come from science, it comes from one person saying it and others playing Telephone until "everyone knows" except no one actually does know)

#2: if it didn't come from a reliable source, is there a reliable source that actually backs it up? Is there more than one? Are there any extenuating circumstances or conflicts of interest evident? Does the "news headline" of the story match what the source material actually says or did it sensationalize it? (an example: I OFTEN hear people quoting that opossums eat 5000 ticks in a season. This isn't true. Opossums eat no ticks. There was ONE poorly done study that "found" they groomed them off and ate them, compared to 28 other studies that found zero tick parts in stomach contents or fecal matter from opossums. Which is a more reliable "fact" in this instance? I'm going with 28 studies that found opossums don't eat ticks).

And perhaps most important to not finding yourself calcifying propaganda or false info: #3 How do you KNOW the source is reliable? where did the source get their info/how was that info acquired? Were there any conflicts of interest? Has the info been corroborated by anyone else? How long ago was the info generated? Is there anything that might pressure this source into being unreliable? When was the last time you checked who runs the source and how? (example: chicken world again, there was a pretty well known chicken blogger who was releasing medical info on birds, particularly nutritional info, and recommending diets to people, as well as food additives. Even slightly scratching the surface revealed she was heavily recommending Purina products not because they were actually good [they are NOT, Purina is one of the worst for fowl feeds], but because her blog was sponsored by Purina... not exactly unbiased opinions being given)

Part of questioning information is questioning the sources for your information, not just the info itself.

That is one of the huge reasons FOX news has managed to get its hooks into people like my parents; the moment they decided that FOX news was a completely reliable source and stopped questioning where FOX got their info (and whether THAT source was reliable), they started going down the rabbit hole of mind calcification and falling for propaganda, to the point where my mother - a woman who worked for like 40 years in a research lab specifically for respiratory illness research - got angry with my sister during early COVID times when my sister insisted they get vaxxed/had to wear PPE before they were allowed to visit their vulnerable newborn grandkid.

So yes, examine the beliefs/opinions/"facts" you know, but remember that part of that is examining the sources of those things.

[ayeforscotland]

The new ‘AI’ Scottish voice being used by ScotRail is being used without the consent of the voice actor.

Professional VA, Gayanne Potter wrote the following on Facebook.

[lillagrim]

[relelvance]

In what world is tall muscular man not conventionally attractive

[piedude]

We've all been down here too long. I truly think there's a chunk of tumblr's population that can no longer survive sunlight.

[reagan-slayer69]

women will say “hear me out” and show u a photo of pyramid head and then tumblr users will go “this is a perfectly normal man and an ice cold take”

[memescomedy]

[necrobob]

That’s not quite true. The reporter behind the story, Daphne Caruana Galizia, was murdered.

[whatisthisplaceidonteven]

After mass protests, the Prime Minister of Iceland was forced to resign, along with many other members of the ruling party.

After mass protests, the President of Pakistan was forced to resign, along with many other members of the ruling party.

Worldwide, hundreds of people – many rich and powerful – were arrested.

Billions in stolen assets were returned to the people.

And 82 countries changed their laws to crack down on the wealth hoarding the papers revealed.

(Source here)

To say the Panama Papers accomplished nothing is an insult to Daphne Galizia’s memory. Her work, and the work of the hundreds of other journalists who contributed to the Papers, changed the world.

Disinformation like this is designed to discourage you, to make you feel you’re powerless against the monsters of the world. They want you to feel that way, because they are terrified of your power to make change.

Take your power back. Demand better. Keep fighting for a better world, because a better world is possible.

[betterstayabsurd-deactivated202]

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Gomez gives out better relationship advice than like 90% of dudes.

[obstinate-nocturna]

Gomez Addams is a suave motherfucker who loves his wife more than his own life.

Everyone should want a Gomez. He’s p cool.

[breelandwalker]

Gomez and Morticia Addams actually have a very loving and extremely healthy relationship, both in the old TV show and in the more recent movies. They were also one of the first television couples to be shown to have an active (albeit offscreen) sex life. Their frank attitude towards sexuality was shocking in its’ time, but their relationship and their family dynamic is actually more functional and more…dare I say it…sane than most families portrayed on TV.

The comedy in the show came from the family’s “odd” lifestyle, rather than from infighting and petty bickering, or worse, as was common on other shows of the time, thinly veiled references to spousal abuse. They didn’t make fun of each other or act like their children were creatures from another world. Were they strange and outside of social norms? Yes. Were they united in creating a loving home and being good, supportive parents? Absolutely.

These two support and adore their children, care for an aging mother and an estranged brother, put family before everything, and they love each other, wholly, fiercely, without reserve. They are every bit as much in love after at least a decade of marriage as they were the day they met.

Relationship goals. LIFE goals.

[avotica]

Just remembered in the second movie when their third child became “normal” for a period and although they were shocked and didn’t know how to handle it, they didn’t mistreat the child or love it any less. They accepted the difference, even though it was hard for them. 

[drnerdlove]

Reblogged for truth.

[franklyunfabulous]

❤️❤️❤️

[endreal]

Posts about Gomez and Morticia Addams are almost always uplifting and I’m happy to have them on my dash, but I think my favorite bit about this conversation is what Gomez is actually saying to Fester.

It’s nobody’s surprise that many of the aesthetic and thematic elements of The Addams Family in its various incarnations are influenced by Gothic tradition (not goth, that mostly came later. And not Goth, that was much much much too early), and I think Gomez’s words are a dead bullseye in terms of Gothic mentality.

“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”

The sublime is a recurring theme throughout Gothic literature. Although the word (like “awesome”) has lost a lot of it’s original luster over the intervening decades, sublime doesn’t really mean elevated and lofty (or even heavenly) as it’s often used today, but rather something possessing the power and grandeur to induce awe and veneration in the mind of the beholder. Although less than divine, something sublime possessed a wildness and power that transcended human ability to control…or even to comprehend.

Sublime is standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon leaning as far as you dare over the railing and still not being able to see the canyon floor below. Sublime is warrior-queen Galadriel being tempted by the One Ring. Sublime is waking up in the middle of the night in the heart of a wild thunderstorm.

“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”

Gomez isn’t advising Fester to treat a woman he fancies like a princess, or even elevate her to pedestal of angelic nature (who’s idea was it to equate femininity with purity anyway? What a laughable and historically damaging idea. Shame on whatever dead (probably) white dudes promoted that!)

Gomez is advising Fester that if he truly loves a woman he must do everything he can to remind her of how she’s an untameable force of nature who’s grandeur brings him to his knees in awe and terror. Just like Morticia, for Gomez.

I’ll sign off with one of my most favorite quotes of all time, because it feels suddenly very relevant:

“When I find myself surrounded by so much beauty, I feel as if I am the eye of a hurricane.”

- -Sanjay Kulkarni

[coldalbion]

Reblogging for the commentary on the Sublime

[socialistguineapigs]

Whoa

[jeanritchie]

this is like so ridiculously evil i cannot believe it. i hope vivian kills him

[beauty-funny-trippy]

Rachel Maddow looks at a string of peculiar behaviors by Donald Trump, and his administration's policies, and wonders — since those policies are bad for the U.S., who are they good for? The obvious answer: Putin The obvious conclusion: Trump is a traitor.

[thestuckylibrary]

This is so important. Good for her for speaking out and laying it out so clearly. I highly recommend watching this. Literally from day one Trump and his cronies have been going through a bucket list of all of Russia’s highest priorities. They are Russian agents acting against the American people.

Watch this. Share it. Call your representatives (federal state and local blue or red). Get out and protest.

[iamnmbr3]

MAGA = Moscow Agents Governing America

[mrshamill]

rachael has no more fucks to give, obviously. and neither should we.

[empire-of-light]

Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002)

[i-am-the-oyster]

What’s your most used Simpsons reference?

Mmmm. Floor cake.

Why, why was I programmed to feel pain?

This was the largest vehicle I could afford.

It’s my job to be repetitive.

Yes Lisa, some kind of ✨magical animal ✨

It’s a perfectly cromulent word.

Get out your circles of paper and your safety pencils.

Other (please share)

What’s The Simpsons?

Voting ended onMar 12, 2025

[grimeclown]

Putting all tabletop players into a college level ethics class and forcing them to turn in a paper on moral philosophy before buying a new book

[grimeclown]

This is…. An interesting thing to say… on this post in particular….

[grimeclown]

I think a lot of people reblogging this from @probablybadrpgideas are interpreting this as “this would be such a funny wacky way to make the table soooo complicated” but I mean this as a complaint about the way that so many tabletop players seem to just. completely lack an understanding of ethics. what it actually means to behave ethically and treat others ethically. and i dont mean this as "why do people want to be mean and play as villains? :(" i mean "why are there so many tabletop players that sympathize with outright fascist factions to the point of wondering why theyre listed as 'Lawful Evil' in the book"

[grimeclown]

can you talk me through why this was a particularly bad or challenging thing for your party to have done

[wizard-of-soup]

Goblins were in fact, for me, a turning point on this concept. I had a player who wanted to be a goblin, and I forgot about this fact up to the point that the party got a quest to kill goblins. As soon as I was announcing the quest I realized it would be a problem, though I didn't have anything else ready so I went with it. And it was! The players immediately questioned why the mayor was paying mercenaries to kill goblins, and then further questioned his justifications, at which point I realized it would be a better story if the goblins were a scapegoat and not an actual villain. This turned into a terse interrogation where the mayor threatened to put them in jail once their questions got pointed enough that he would have to either field accusations or lie; they then went CSI on the situation and drilled through his political cabinet to get answers. I had to improv pretty much all of it and I don't remember the actual ending (I know they sided with the goblins and the mayor was guilty), but this helped me realize that the Gary Gygax writing style of "certain races are just BAD and that's why they hang out in dungeons" was very short-sighted.

D&D writing, by and large, encourages a lack of questions. The surface runs deep. "Go into a cave and chop up goblins." Why are we doing this? "Goblins are bad." All goblins? "Yes."

I think the question of "why are there players comfortable siding with fascist factions and wondering why they're called 'lawful evil'" is pretty easily answered with... because D&D itself is inherently kind of fascist. And it's the most insidious kind of fascist, too- its villains are fascists, so how could you point fingers at the book?

Fire Giants are dwarf slavers. Drow are a megalomaniacal theocracy who hate men. Orcs are violent tribes of marauding killers. Illithids want to destroy all life and keep an entire civilization to scrub their floors. But these narratives still push the idea that "evil" is a racial trait. The players are not only justified in their campaign to destroy these cultures, they're encouraged to do it.

They let the cat out of the bag by making these playable races; because now, they're not cut-and-dry villanous societies. They're people. There are Drow accountants whose lives are about balancing taxes, not worshipping Lolth. There are Yuan-Ti who don't sacrifice babies on altars, and much prefer playing the lute or sewing blankets. Yet we're still expected to read "Chaotic Evil" under the Monster Manual entry for a bugbear and take it seriously.

[quantumcartography]

Reblogging again to add a quick take: as a DM introducing ethics makes your game so much better.

I had an intro to my campaign that involved a mad scientist kidnapping someone and turning them into a wererat. I didn't think much of it and I spent way more time fleshing out the other NPCs, I just wanted to use that wererat as a boss fight.

Once the party encountered him though they immediately saw what I totally missed: the guy who became the wererat was absolutely the victim of this story. I did my best at thinking on my feet and made the wererat this defeated guy who only followed the mad scientist because he felt like his life was ruined. So they, through good rolls, convinced him to help them fight the mad scientist and it made for such a better story.

The moral I'm trying to convey is that you need to treat every NPC in your game as a world within themselves. And I mean EVERY NPC. Why are the wolves attacking people? Are they desperately hungry? Mind controlled? Territorial due to poachers? Why are the goblins working for the wizard? Extortion? Promise of riches? If the bandits see that everyone is in armor, why wouldn't they just let the party pass and wait for easier prey? If one of the bandits die, why wouldn't the rest of them run for the hills?

[dunmertitty]

here’s a couple of articles on the history of racism + xenophobia in tolkien & how that influenced dnd

Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part I: A Species Built for Racial Terror — James Mendez Hodes

This is the first installment of a two-article series about the racist origins, nature, and ramifications of orcs, a malevolent humanoid spe

Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part II: They're Not Human — James Mendez Hodes

This is the complement to my previous article , “Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part I: A Species Built for Racial Terror.” In t

anyone interested in the subject should definitely also check out the whole Three Black Halflings podcast, which talks about being black in nerdy spaces. a lot of times they’ll have on guests talking about their intersections and experiences in nerdy spaces. they have an episode with the author of the articles above.

they’ve also played a ttrpg based on african mythologies rather than mostly european ones like most mainstream fantasy.

highly recommend!!

[ravioliage]

The whole DA team is gone (everyone credited on all games) and this fucko gets $30 Million.

[ravioliage]

Same

[saywhat-politics]

Keep your messaging simple:

“Trump fired everyone in charge of airplane safety, and a week later planes started crashing into each other.”

That’s it. That’s the messaging. Don’t get bogged down disputing Trump’s false claims. Just blame him, in short and repeatable sentences.

[queerculus]

Trump removed bird safety regulations in his first term and now bird flu is killing so many laying hens that eggs are $5 a carton

Trump removed food safety standards his first term and now we have recalls every few weeks

Trump cut the subsidies for the solar farms under construction so now electricity costs more

Trump disbanded the pandemic response team and we now we have bird flu and tuberculosis outbreaks

[mikedawwwson]

"Read Banned Books" a new full page cartoon essay published in The New York Times Arts & Leisure section today.

[niki-smith]

A good day to reblog this, I just found out The Deep & Dark Blue is on another new ban list, this time in Colorado. Hooray.

[gwyoi]

[hexpress]

ty for stealing this one much appreciated

[str0kethebigtree-deactivated202]

people in the notes suggesting it was "improper" for the juror to do this or that it "introduced bias" to the court proceeding 🙄 the ice agent in question accused a moc of assaulting him / resisting arrest. how is the agent being a white supremacist not relevant. what universe are you living in

Juror fined $11,227 after googling ICE officer's peculiar uniform patch | Boing Boing

A juror was held in criminal contempt and fined more than $11k for researching his case online. The man, named as Stephen Miele, told other

[3fluffies]

As a member of the world’s SECOND oldest profession, I assure you this is just one of many ways the justice system is systematically fucked up.

[a-method-in-it]

For anyone who wants to know how to fact check something you are told while on jury duty without getting fined:

First, you need to understand that the rule that jurors can’t just google things is coming from a good place. Like imagine that you are on a jury that’s considering, say, a medical malpractice lawsuit and one of your fellow jurors comes into the jury room and says to you, “I think the victim’s expert was lying because WebMD totally contradicts everything they said.”

And you might be like, “But WebMD is notoriously unreliable website and the expert you’re talking about is a researcher from Mayo Clinic.” But this person cannot be swayed.

Like, we can all agree that would be bad.

So even though these rules can contribute to unjust outcomes as in the case above (and seriously, the fact that the defense attorney didn’t fact check that is probably grounds for legal malpractice), they also prevent jurors from just looking up bullshit online and taking it more seriously than the actual experts the court has put on. And I think in the era of anti-vaxxers/QAnon/COVID denial/etc., we can all understand why it’s a bad idea to trust that people can tell fact from bullshit online.

So in light of this, how do you as a juror fact check something?

The key here is that you have to ask the court for information. Jurors can ask questions of the court during deliberations, so if something you said sounds off to you, you can ask for more information.

The key term you want to use here is “credibility.”

The job of a jury is to decide what are called “questions of fact.” Long before the trial even starts, lawyers will have hashed out all the “questions of law” --- like, what the statute of limitations is; what laws, exactly, were allegedly broken; whether the court you’re in even has jurisdiction; stuff like that. Jurors are responsible for deciding which side’s version of the facts has more credibility.

For instance, if the prosecution’s witness says X and the defense’s witness says Y, the jury is responsible for deciding which is true, X or Y. And you do this by weighing which one is more credible.

So in this case, if the juror had known to, he could have told the judge, “In order to properly assess the ICE agent’s credibility, I need more information about his tattoo. I have doubts about whether he was telling the truth about it, which would impact how credible I would find his testimony. Can the agent please provide evidence that it really is what he says it is?”

There are a lot of problems with our legal system, and I think one of the biggest is that jurors aren’t educated about what they can and can’t do. Juries have a lot of power, if (and only if) they know how to use it.

[lytefoot]

Reblogging for that last post, because frankly, “what to do as a juror” is one of those things the schools should really be teaching us. Serving on a jury is one of the most powerful rights of citizenship and everyone should be educated in how to exercise it correctly.

[folklorespring]

If you want to support Ukrainians, DO NOT donate to Red Cross. Can't speak about their work in other countries, but they're useless in Ukraine. The only trustworthy international organisation I can think of is World Central Kitchen.

Donate to World Central Kitchen

And it's even better to donate directly to Ukrainian organisations. Here are a few good legit places:

hospitallers.life - "Hospitallers", Ukrainian paramedics on the frontlines

savelife.in.ua - "Come Back Alive", assistance to the army

prytulafoundation.org - "Prytula Foundation", assistance to the army, humanitarian causes

starenki.com.ua - "Starenki", helping elderly people

everybodycan.com.ua - "Everybody Can", helping disabled children, elders and hospitals

uanimals.org - "UAnimals", saving animals

[aspiring-weird-old-man]

Hey, USAmericans? Wanna save your country? Run For Something!

[liberalsarecool]

First Felon needs Russia for help. Acts tough.

First Felon needs Vance to sit in on Heads Of State meetings for help. Acts tough.

First Felon needs Musk to run Cabinet meetings. Acts tough.

In reality, First Felon is a wimp.

Trump and shillbilly interloper Vance are abusers and con men looking to sabotage America on behalf of Putin.