She's imperfect but she tries

Skai | She/They/He | Currently mostly Marvel, Omitb and Psych content | See pinned post for more info | ANTI SYLKI | Attempting artist and rambler | Art account artblockchronicassiconic 

[goddess0fst0ries]

To any new followers or just people scrolling through, here’s a bitty guide to me, my blog and its content:

- Firstly, hello! My name is Skai, I’m a genderfluid theatre kid who loves shitposting, rambling and sprinkling a little bit of my autism into everything I interact with.

- This uh,,,USED to be a specific fandom blog. Most of the content on here isn't fandom related tho and is just stuff I want others to see.

- While the fandom content on here is mostly sparse and random, I will reblog/post about Psych, The Owl House, Only Murders in the Building, The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson, She-Ra, Fringe, Once Upon a Time, various musicals and very occasionally Marvel.

- I do not support Proshippers. Full stop. I would prefer it if proship ppl didn't interact with this blog, period.

- I’m an artist! Check out my art blog to see some of my lil doodles :) It needs serious work and reorganizing but feel free to take a look around!

- On that note, my askbox is open to any random thoughts you want to share with me! I respond to almost anything! Feel free to message me/leave comments as well, I'm always open to new mutuals.

Tags I use frequently are listed below!

[tastefullyoffensive]

[prismatic-bell]

HERE’S THE THING THOUGH

I used to work for a call center and I was doing a political survey and I called this number that was randomly generated for me and the way our system worked was voice-activated so when the other person said hello you’d get connected to them, so I just launch right into my “Harvard University and NPR blah blah blah” thing and then there’s this long pause and I think the person’s hung up even though I didn’t hear a click

And then I hear “you shouldn’t be able to call this number.”

So I apologize and go into the preset spiel about because we aren’t selling anything, etc. etc. and the answer I get is

“No, I know that. What I mean is that it should be impossible for you to call this number, and I need to know how you got it.”

I explain that it’s randomly generated and I’m very sorry for bothering him, and go to hang up. And before I can click terminate, I hear:

“Ma’am, this is a matter of national security.”

I accidentally called the director of the FBI.

My job got investigated because a computer randomly spit out a number to the Pentagon.

[kuroba101]

This is my new favourite story.

[therobotmonster]

When I was in college I got a job working for a company that manages major air-travel data. It was a temp gig working their out of date system while they moved over to a new one, since my knowing MS Dos apparently made me qualified.

There was no MS Dos involved. Instead, there was a proprietary type-based OS and an actually-uses-transistors refrigerator-sized computer with switches I had to trip at certain times during the night as I watched the data flow from six pm to six AM on Fridays and weekends. If things got stuck, I reset the server. 

The company handled everything from low-end data (hotel and car reservations) to flight plans and tower information. I was weighed every time I came in to make sure it was me. Areas of the building had retina scanners on doors. 

During training. they took us through all the procedures. Including the procedures for the red phone. There was, literally, a red phone on the shelf above my desk. “This is a holdover from the cold war.” They said. “It isn’t going to come up, but here’s the deal. In case of nuclear war or other nation-wide disaster, the phone will ring. Pick up the phone, state your name and station, and await instructions. Do whatever you are told.”

So my third night there, it’s around 2am and there’s a ringing sound. 

I look up, slowly. The Red phone is ringing.

So I reach out, I pick up the phone. I give my name and station number. And I hear every station head in the building do the exact same. One after another, voices giving names and numbers. Then silence for the space of two breaths. Silence broken by…

“Uh… Is Shantavia there?”

It turns out that every toll free, 1-900 or priority number has a corresponding local number that it routs to at its actual destination. Some poor teenage girl was trying to dial a friend of hers, mixed up the numbers, and got the atomic attack alert line for a major air-travel corporation’s command center in the mid-west United States.

There’s another pause, and the guys over in the main data room are cracking up. The overnight site head is saying “I think you have the wrong number, ma’am.” and I’m standing there having faced the specter of nuclear annihilation before I was old enough to legally drink.

The red phone never rang again while I was there, so the people doing my training were only slightly wrong in their estimation of how often the doomsday phone would ring. 

[arctic-hands]

Every time I try to find this story, I end up having to search google with a variety of terms that I’m sure have gotten me flagged by some watchlist, so I’m reblogging it again where I swear I’ve reblogged it before.

[voroxpete]

But none of these stories even come close to the best one of them all; a wrong number is how the NORAD Santa Tracker got started.

Seriously, this is legit.

In December 1955, Sears decided to run a Santa hotline.  Here’s the ad they posted.

Only problem is, they misprinted the number.  And the number they printed?  It went straight through to fucking NORAD.  This was in the middle of the Cold War, when early warning radar was the only thing keeping nuclear annihilation at bay.  NORAD was the front line.

And it wasn’t just any number at NORAD.  Oh no no no.

Terri remembers her dad had two phones on his desk, including a red one. “Only a four-star general at the Pentagon and my dad had the number,” she says.

“This was the ‘50s, this was the Cold War, and he would have been the first one to know if there was an attack on the United States,” Rick says.

The red phone rang one day in December 1955, and Shoup answered it, Pam says. “And then there was a small voice that just asked, ‘Is this Santa Claus?’ ”

His children remember Shoup as straight-laced and disciplined, and he was annoyed and upset by the call and thought it was a joke — but then, Terri says, the little voice started crying.

“And Dad realized that it wasn’t a joke,” her sister says. “So he talked to him, ho-ho-ho’d and asked if he had been a good boy and, ‘May I talk to your mother?’ And the mother got on and said, ‘You haven’t seen the paper yet? There’s a phone number to call Santa. It’s in the Sears ad.’ Dad looked it up, and there it was, his red phone number. And they had children calling one after another, so he put a couple of airmen on the phones to act like Santa Claus.”

“It got to be a big joke at the command center. You know, ‘The old man’s really flipped his lid this time. We’re answering Santa calls,’ ” Terri says.

And then, it got better.

“The airmen had this big glass board with the United States on it and Canada, and when airplanes would come in they would track them,” Pam says.

“And Christmas Eve of 1955, when Dad walked in, there was a drawing of a sleigh with eight reindeer coming over the North Pole,” Rick says.

“Dad said, ‘What is that?’ They say, ‘Colonel, we’re sorry. We were just making a joke. Do you want us to take that down?’ Dad looked at it for a while, and next thing you know, Dad had called the radio station and had said, ‘This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.’ Well, the radio stations would call him like every hour and say, ‘Where’s Santa now?’ ” Terri says.

For real.

“And later in life he got letters from all over the world, people saying, ‘Thank you, Colonel,’ for having, you know, this sense of humor. And in his 90s, he would carry those letters around with him in a briefcase that had a lock on it like it was top-secret information,” she says. “You know, he was an important guy, but this is the thing he’s known for.”

“Yeah,” Rick [his son] says, “it’s probably the thing he was proudest of, too.”

So yeah.  I think that might be the best wrong number of all time.

Source:  http://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371647099/norads-santa-tracker-began-with-a-typo-and-a-good-sport

[arty-ari]

No okay THAT is adorable and I’m queueing this for next December.

[sweetfirebird]

Hey the US government is proposing to get rid of the Endangered Species Act. Please go comment.

(yes this entirely for corporate profit)

Cut and paste the docket number to put in your response if you remember. You can comment anonymously if you want.

The Oregon Zoo has some sample arguments you can make.

We have until December 22nd!

[six-improbable-things]

I don't usually add on to stuff like this, but this is really really important to me.

Since OP didn't explain what's actually changing (lots of things) here's a simple explanation of one of the Big Ones.

One of the biggest changes is a proposal to remove the ESA’s Threatened Species Blanket Rule (FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0029). The Blanket Rule is extremely important because it automatically extends the same protections given to endangered species to all newly listed threatened species, quickly providing prohibitions on harming, killing or trading the species. If the Blanket Rule is rescinded, species-specific rules would have to be enacted, imposing additional procedural delays and uncertainty at the most critical time for the species' survival. And with more and more species in danger each year, that’s a risk that we as a country cannot afford to take. 

Also, @why-animals-do-the-thing / @animalphotorefs this seems like something that your reach might help with, and that's relevant to your blog(s).

If you run into issues, try turning off your VPN if you have one, in case it's getting annoyed that you're not "in the U.S.".

If you need a template, I'm putting one I got sent at work under the cut. (But check out the Oregon Zoo link, too! Or better yet, write your own! Unique and individual comments catch more attention than copy-pasted ones!)

"For over fifty years, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has played a major role in protecting wildlife, preventing nearly 99% of listed species from becoming extinct. This legislation has had support across the country since 1973 because safeguarding America’s wildlife is not only a responsibility, but a proud part of our nation’s history. The proposed change to remove the ESA’s Blanket 4(d) Rule will result in fewer protections for threatened species and compromise the ESA’s mission. It is imperative to maintain our commitment to protecting endangered species and their habitats. I encourage the Administration to withdraw all proposed changes to the ESA in order to ensure our country’s wildlife will continue to be protected for generations to come."

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Thanks for the tag, I definitely want to jump in here because the most helpful thing any individual can do is write your own comment.

I’m going to give you a little bit of information about the process that’s happening here, why it’s happening, and how you can best contribute to protecting the Endangered Species Act. You can skip it by scrolling to the red text, but you’ll be best set up to comment and help if you know some things about what’s happening first, so please stick with me. I promise to be as simple and jargon free as possible.

First, and to catch people's attention as they scroll, here's two red wolf sisters: a species the ESA actively preserving. This is who we're doing this for.

To clarify one thing: they’re not trying to totally repeal the ESA, the entire law, they’re looking to roll back regulations implementing it/enforcing it to what was being used in 2019. This is still bad! Very bad! But a thing that’s important when dealing with legislation/regulation is precision in the language we use.

Okay, so here’s what you need to know. This is part of what is known as the “notice-and-comment” rule making process, which is federally mandated. This happens with the implementation of regulations to enact new laws, or changes to the interpretation of laws. Laws like the ESA, once passed, are delegated to various federal agencies and departments to enact and make happen, and they do that by deciding what regulations need to exist to fulfill the text and intent of the law. This change to the ESA is happening because one of the earliest executive orders from this administration “directed all departments and agencies to immediately review agency actions to identify those actions that potentially impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources, and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, consider suspending, revising, or rescinding agency actions identified as unduly burdensome that conflict with this national objective.” So, as @sweetfirebird said, literally go figure out what laws and regs and protections they can interpret differently, put on hold, or trash for the energy sector. Fucking gross.

This “notice-and-comment” process is the process with which all these federal agencies go about exploring changing regulations. It’s a formal process that is specifically designed to allow stakeholders to have input on what happens. Good news: in the ESA, the public is literally a stakeholder! It’s written into the law that any “person” (basically an individual or a group of individuals) can sue the government for a violation of the law. This is actually historically the prime enforcement mechanism of the ESA. Which means you, as an American on tumblr reading this, have absolutely valid standing to go tell the feds to knock this shit off. And with the way the “notice-and-comment” process works, they actually have to take your argument into account. (Yes, even though we know this admin is a piece of shit and dgaf). Here’s why.

A “notice and comment” process has four major steps.

Agency issues a notice of proposed rulemaking. That’s what you’re looking at in the first link @sweetbirdfire shared. They have to describe what the rule they want to make/change is and explain the legal authority for the rule.

The public must be given an opportunity to participate in a written comment period. That’s what you’re being asked to do - submit a comment before the comment period is over on the 22nd.

The agency must “consider all relevant, timely-submitted comments. If it decides to issue a final rule, the agency develops the regulatory text along with a preamble explaining the rule’s basis and responding to all significant issues raised in the comments.”

Final rule is published.

Okay, so why did I jump to a direct quote from federal documents in the third bullet point? Because that’s the really important shit. When federal agencies move forward with rulemaking after a public comment period, they are required to consider and response to all significant issues raised. And that is why you should write your own comment if you can.

It’s really common for organizations encouraging people to leave public comment to ask people to send in form letters. It’s easy, it takes no time or real work, it shows a lot of general public support on the issue, and they can quote the comment numbers when they’re lobbying.

But! What I’ve been told by serious professional people who work with regulatory agencies is that all those form letters only have the functional weight of a single comment during the “notice-and-comment” process. If 100 people only bring up the same significant set of issues, that requires far less time and work for the agency to respond to than even 20 people writing in with their individual concerns. I’ve seen follow-ups on comment periods where they actually count how many people raised issues on a single topic or concern - but the form letters only counted as one “comment” because they were the exact same thing.

And while the political agency head probably wants to fast-track this process of changing the regs to let the feds tear up whatever the fuck they want, a “notice-and-comment period” is a really good way to gum up those gears. There are still people in lower-level positions who do this daily work and I expect that they’re opposed to this and will go through the whole process like they’re been trained to. Under normal administrations, an overwhelming number of concerns raised during comment periods have stalled the creation/change of specific regulations for a decade. This is a process that works best when as many people as possible participate, and it’s detrimental to our interests as invested members of the public that that isn’t more widely known or the process understood.

So! What does that mean you should do here?

Write your own comment if you have the time/spoons.

Literally, write it in your own words, rather than using the form letters provided. If you make it a “different comment” it has to be considered separately and your concerns on the topic will be given more weight. Even if you just stick to the topics the Oregon Zoo offered: to be clear, they’re really good ones.

But, you’ll have even more impact if you can tie it to specific concerns for you. It takes a little more work so I don’t expect everyone to do this, but if you have some specialized or local knowledge that can be relevant, this is a great time to drop that in. Tie the concern to endangered or threatened species in your specific community, or an ecosystem that you know companies might want to pillage.

Your comment doesn’t have to be super well written or perfectly edited. It can be in language about as casual as you’d use in a tumblr post (with punctuation, though). This isn’t something you’re turning in for a grade - it’s raising your hand to say hey, I object! You’re not a major advocacy group or professional org, you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to tell them how you feel. That being said. Public comments are public record. You can submit them anonymously but don’t include identifying information.

Here’s a link directly to the comment portal. While the site has a text box embedded in the page, you can also submit a document/file containing your comment.

https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0039-0001

Comments close at 11:59 PM EST (4:59 GMT) on December 22nd. We have less than five days to get more comments in. I’m really not kidding when I say every unique, individual comment makes an impact. Let’s do this.

Images from @animalphotorefs

[genderkoolaid]

Found a guide from protectdemocracy.org on how to write an effective public comment (these images are edited slightly for readability; go to the actual guide for more resources):

Public comments are not a voting process and simply expressing disagreement is not effective.

I personally disagree that you should write as informally you would a tumblr post. I would not trust that the regulators reading these comments have such principles about the importance of listening to people's concerns regardless of how informal or uneducated they sound.

Honestly, I would treat this as you would a graded assignment, because they are not obligation make any decisions simply because people comment that they don't want a rule made. You need to convince them that there are significant concerns, and you should be imagining the person you are convincing is an old white cis male politician who regularly complains that kids these days don't know cursive. That is the kind of person likely deciding if your comment is relevant to the regulation and brings up significant enough concerns.

But you could write out your thoughts in informal language, and then use Grammarly or something similar to help polish it into a more formal comment. Following the suggestions in that guide should help give you a basic structure for what your comment should look like.

Unique comments are most effective; copy-pasted ones are not. This is a process which requires intellectual labor and there's no getting around that, but there's nothing wrong with getting help.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Very good additions!

I framed it as “this doesn’t have to be a graded assignment” because I didn’t want it to sound super formal and hard after going into a ton of detailed federal processes. It doesn’t have to be scary was really my point. Like, I’ve read a lot of federal comments for various zoo-related laws, and I’ve seen some of the stakeholders submit pretty casual comments. Is it ideal? Not really. But I know everyone is stressed as hell all the time these days and the idea of doing a bunch of intellectual labor on a foreign topic with real world consequences can be really intimidating.

@genderkoolaid provided some great resources on writing a good comment, and I really like the idea of using online (non-genAI) services to get help with polishing. If you have the labor to put into a really polished comment, so that. But if something more informal is all you can do, do that instead of nothing.

[mioxenoblade]

Reblog to put candy in your followers halloween buckets :)

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

I haven't seen dancing pumpkin guy ONCE this year, are you guys okay?

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

FINE! I'll do it myself

[eldritchbauble]

Food stamps may stop in November if the shutdown continues. This may be a good time to look into food banks, kitchens, meal trains, and discount markets and programs for outdated foods if you are depending on SNAP.

[eldritchbauble]

As it stands, SNAP benefits end October 31st.

There's at least one regional org where we live doing a massive food drive in response, so we'll be participating. I'm openly asking anyone who can help out to do the same for your local communities.

[littleoblivions]

findhelp.org is a resource that can help you find food banks/pantries in your area

[soft-butch-cassidy]

depression tips™

shower. not a bath, a shower. use water as hot or cold as u like. u dont even need to wash. just get in under the water and let it run over you for a while. sit on the floor if you gotta.

moisturize everything. use whatever lotion u like. unscented? dollar store lotion? fancy ass 48 hour lotion that makes u smell like a field of wildflowers? use whatever you want, and use it all over. 

put on clean, comfortable clothes. 

put on ur favorite underwear. cute black lacy panties? those ridiculous boxers u bought last christmas with candy cane hearts on the butt? put em on.

drink cold water. use ice. if u want, add some mint or lemon for an extra boost.

clean something. doesn’t have to be anything big. organize one drawer of ur desk. wash five dirty dishes. do a load of laundry. scrub the bathroom sink. 

blast music. listen to something upbeat and dancey and loud, something that’s got lots of energy. sing to it, dance to it, even if you suck at both.

make food. don’t just grab a granola bar to munch. take the time and make food. even if it’s ramen. add something special to it, like a hard boiled egg or some veggies. prepare food, it tastes way better, and you’ll feel like you accomplished something. 

make something. write a short story or a poem, draw a picture, color a picture, fold origami, crochet or knit, sculpt something out of clay, anything artistic. even if you don’t think you’re good at it.

go outside. take a walk. sit in the grass. look at the clouds. smell flowers. put your hands in the dirt and feel the soil against your skin.

call someone. call a loved one, a friend, a family member, call a chat service if you have no one else to call. talk to a stranger on the street. have a conversation and listen to someone’s voice. if you can’t, text or email or whatever, just have some social interaction with another person. even if you don’t say much, listen to them.

cuddle your pets if you have them/can cuddle them. take pictures of them. talk to them. tell them how u feel, about your favorite movie, a new game coming out.

[yournudemom]

Circulating. Seasonal depression is creeping around now.

[shadowjag]

Lets keep this moving

[lo-andbehold]

I’m so emotional about dinosaur stuffed animals,,, there are these creatures, extinct long before any of us were alive, but we found their bones and their eggs and their footprints. And we made drawings and models of what they could’ve looked like. And we made them into stuffed animals so we could hold them. We made them soft so we could love them. I’m sobbing

[vintagewildlife]

Crying over the Kouprey. Most ignored of extinct vertebrates. My beautiful, beautiful kouprey, you deserved to live, you deserved to thrive, you deserved everything, and instead you got nothing. Sometimes it feels like only I remember the kouprey. But by the powers that be, I will do what I can to keep that memory alive.

[the-scungles-of-crungles]

I humbly request you show me this creature of legend

[vintagewildlife]

The beautiful kouprey

[iinsawdious]

"this movie doesn't hold up bcos of dated special effects :(" to you, maybe. i would clap at a bat on a string

[iinsawdious]

reblogs are back on for october! limited edition

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Friends don’t let friends make jokes about zookeepers getting killed/eaten by tigers. Or other big cats.

This is not the post I wanted to make for International Tiger Day, but it’s apparently the post I feel compelled to make. A big name photographer decided to make a joke in a post today about maybe needing to use an intern to bait a tiger into approaching for a photo and I just… I’m still upset over an hour after reading it.

It seems kinda silly, right? Like those are really common jokes, right? Especially after Tiger King and shit.

But guys, I’ve seen up close what happens when a facility has a fatality involving big cats. I know people at multiple facilities who have lost colleagues (and in some cases, they were interns). It is horrific and traumatic and people carry it with them for the rest of their lives. The folk I know went on to become staunch advocates for better safety practices - which is an incredible, important thing, and which also means they make a choice to relive that trauma endlessly in front of their peers in an attempt to prevent anything similar from happening to someone else.

It really bothers me that our general online/media culture has decided that zookeeper fatalities are okay to joke about. It’s not. It’s disrespectful to the person who died and it is incredibly unkind to their colleagues and peers and friends. These days, I’m very quick to push back on jokes like that - just a quick, hey, we don’t do that here, that’s not cool - and I guess I’m asking y’all to join me in that.

I don’t have a closing statement, I’m just distressed by the whole thing. I’ll probably post some cute tiger photos on the repository site this afternoon.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

*taps the fucking sign*

These jokes aren’t funny. Never were, never are, no matter the context.

[quasi-normalcy]

Trump threatens to shut down US government unless all trans health care is banned

The US government's looming shutdown hinges on anti-trans measures after Donald Trump refused to speak to Democrats unless they were passed.

You need to flood your democratic congresspeople with complaints telling them not to go for this.

[quasi-normalcy]

[moonfire8]

If you need help finding your reps/need a script:

5 Calls

Spend 5 minutes. Make 5 calls. Make your voice heard.

[terriblelizbians]

some people in the notes saying the first article is false. unfortunately it is not. these people are mixing up the continuing resolution (temporary, avoids shutdown by continuing the status quo budgets for a few days while negotiations continue, does not include anti-trans riders afaik) with the actual appropriations bills (what the negotiations are about, meant to last the entire year, full of anti-trans and other awful riders)

(in my brief look through to confirm this, aside from the trans health care stuff, i saw lines about trans sports participation, abortion access, schools that teach about systemic racism/sexism…)

more info and links to the relevant bill texts in this newsletter:

Shutdown Day Guide For LGBTQ+ People: "Continuing Resolutions" And New Anti-Trans Posts From The White House

Shutdown day is here, and there has been a lot of competing coverage on Republican priorities, Democrat's demands, and what shutdown politic

[tobimune]

another script is on this reblog but this correction is important. please take this seriously

Reblog by @quasi-normalcy · 1 image

💬 21  🔁 10818  ❤️ 7850

[spicyyhobbits-deactivated202411]

Reblog to give your mutuals a mini pumpkin in the palm of their hands. 🎃

[sirpuntine]

Not only did mama raise a quitter, but she also raised a procrastinator, people-pleaser, doormat, coward, and liar, and you can’t put a price on that

[vague-humanoid]

State Department warns immigrants not to mock Kirk's death

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau posted the warning on Thursday.

The State Department on Thursday indicated it would review the legal status of immigrants "praising, rationalizing, or making light" of conservative activist Charlie Kirk's fatal shooting.

[middleearthorcseeksspaceorc]

Because freedom of speech is apparently only for white colonizers.

[catchymemes]

[infinitydivine]

I am not taking a risk

[darlingsstern]

Not risking it pals

[doralimasstuff]

U know what I want potato of luck

[shrewreadings]

Damn right I’m reblogging. See previous post re wrath of whatever from high atop the thing.

[jazfantasy]

I'm not risking anything after the week I've had

[victusinveritas]

Boy is that going to make Thanksgiving awkward. Oh, where's Tyler? On death row waiting to be shot by firing squad because we're in Utah. How'd he get there? Dear Old Dad.