Weltschmerz and Wanderlust

70% memes, 25% fandom, 5% science!

[pmamtraveller]

Cats by Shou Xin

[demilypyro]

having free control over our endrocrine systems and the ability to change our genitals is currently inextricably tied to trans rights, and for good reason, but frankly i don't think it even needs to be. it should just be a matter of bodily autonomy, and that should be universal. if a cis dude wants tits and a pussy i think that would be fine. if cis women want a dick or nothing at all that should be allowed i think. people shouldn't need to be transgender to be allowed to change their bodies. free the nipple, enlarge the nipple, remove the nipple. whatever the fuck you want. i dont know if there's a term for this belief but i hold it very strongly. everybody biohack yourselves NOW

[asneakyfox]

the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.

[asneakyfox]

btw this is maybe the single most key distinguishing feature of the terfy strains of radical feminism, the seed all the rest of it springs out of: they have absolutely no faith in the ability of feminism to actually destroy patriarchy. they do not think feminism can truly build a better world. they cannot really even imagine that possibility. they think patriarchy is an inevitable natural consequence of unchangeable biological facts, and therefore the goal of feminism can only be to mitigate the worst effects of patriarchy, not to get rid of it.

they can imagine a society where women get some designated safe spaces without men around. they cannot imagine a society where the presence of men is not inherently a danger to women.

[dogpuppy]

[nineteenyearoldmeblog]

im fucking crying

[beardedmrbean]

this sounds like a party to me

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

[androdragynous]

there is a screen reader / magnification program that is the only one the low vision clinic knows of with these features and it is $650 Canadian Dollars behind specific approved vendors that require you to be geographically close to them and get government approval of a degree that I am only just now reaching after being visually impaired for going on seven years. I feel normal about this

[androdragynous]

if you can code a program that does any or all of the following:

Magnifies a display beyond standard options with keyboard / mouse movement inputs or voice commands,

Can read text on the screen,

Has different color filter options for text / background distinction,

Can change and magnify the cursor beyond standard amounts,

Works on Windows or more than just Windows,

Has a keyboard echo (says the character you've pressed on the keyboard out loud)

... there is a genuine, GENUINE need for you to code this and put it at a more accessible price point than $650 Canadian Dollars which I also just learned is a SUBSCRIPTION FEE AND NOT EVEN PERPETUAL. if you are reading this and able to code I am begging you. would genuinely change lives

[pangur-and-grim]

I won't publish the ask (they asked me not to), but I thought I'd still answer it publicly!

no, royalties are not a significant source of income for most authors. if you wrote something like Project Hail Mary, then absolutely, the royalties would be substantial! but that's like winning the lottery. Ryan Gosling is not starring in the movie adaption of most books.

when you sell a book to a publisher, you get what's called 'an advance against royalties'. it's usually split into multiple parts, so you might get one third for the initial sale, one third for the final revised manuscript, and one third on the publishing date.

an advance against royalties is the publisher saying "we believe you will eventually make X amount in royalties, so here it is ahead of time." and then you don't actually see any money from royalties until the advance is paid off. most books do not make enough in royalties to pay off the advance (I have two children's books and one fiction book, and have yet to see royalties for any of them).

advances are still great, but you need to make them stretch! for instance, last year my net income was about 30k Canadian (21k USD), which is fantastic when you consider that I mostly made it through writing. but I'm definitely not a millionaire. I can live off my writing (not trying to undersell that!) but I'll probably remain in a low income bracket for the foreseeable future.

this isn't meant to discourage anyone from seeking out writing as a career! however, there is a reason that many authors have alternate jobs with writing on the side. or, you know, rich spouses.

[pangur-and-grim]

this isn't me making a fuss about pirating (I've pirated way too many shows to run my mouth on that lmao), but there IS actually a financial incentive to having people buy your books!

buying books shows the publisher that they can make money off you, which means they're more likely to give you advances for future books. and advances are what authors live off (if they don't have a side job). that's why I always push pre-orders so hard! you have to be a racehorse worth betting on, or else they send you to the glue factory....

if I can offer one alternative to pirating: asking your library to stock the book also helps authors, and doesn't cost anything. the only downside is the patience required.

[pangur-and-grim]

OOPS yes, @stjohnstarling makes a good point! everything I'm saying is from the perspective of traditional publishing, but it's a very different game if you're a self-published author

[flagellant]

Hey guys I made a pride flag for when your gender is nobody else's fucking business! Check it out!

[flagellant]

happy one year anniversary to this post getting marked as "potentially mature content" and then never leaving content review when i appealed. tumblr's own default loading graphic is considered by their own tos "potentially sexual" it seems.

@support you got any explanations for how this post got flagged? or why it never got reviewed? or what mature content might potentially be happening? believe me i am ALL ears

[flagellant]

it's 2026 and this post is officially no longer "potentially mature" and is just "mature". so: either tumblr's own default loading graphic is now confirmed to be explicitly sexual and pornographic

or the concept of a pride flag is considered to be inappropriate for 13 year olds.

happy pride 2026. here's a pride flag for when corporate interests of a site run by dogshit transphobes, handwringing pearlclutchers, and "powerless" "allies" tell you that pride and your gender is no one else's fucking business:

[beemovieerotica]

the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.

[beemovieerotica]

@velvetdemon I'm doing a full reply because I want to give this question the time and space it deserves, and I really do appreciate your curiosity about this.

The short answer: It is deeply unethical. There are nowhere near enough willing patients in the world to be able to do this, and it would be criminal to put them through this.

The long answer: The one side of the equation you're focusing on is: how much of a drug is too much, to the point where it will cause negative side effects or even death? And this is crucial to know. But it's not just a matter of finding out the lethal dosage of a heart cholesterol medication, you need to know that it can actually lower the cholesterol of any living thing. There is no way to know this without giving it first to...a living thing.

But beyond this, I need to emphasize: The goal of a drug trial is to effectively cure people who are already suffering from disease, who are living on limited time.

Drug trials don't just happen on any member of the public, they need to happen specifically on people affected by the disease you're trying to treat. There is at any time a very limited and very marginalized population of the world affected by early onset, familial Parkinson's disease. Because you cannot ethically induce disease in a human being, you are working with, speaking with, and helping patients and their families who are hopeful and desperate for a cure.

If you were to jump straight to human trials from petri dishes, not knowing absolutely anything about how the drug functions in a living, breathing animal body, it would look like this:

We didn't know that minute quantities of the drug interact lethally with x, y, z medication that people are commonly also taking. X number of patients have died as a result.

We didn't know that the drug is fatal to people with [common variant] in their genetics. X more patients have died.

We didn't know the drug exacerbates x, y, z chronic illnesses. X number of people have acquired permanent, lifelong disabilities.

We didn't know the best way to deliver the drug, so we tried multiple ways: the people who received it intravenously are now suffering from a painful, costly, and debilitating condition that did not happen with the ingested form.

I could go on, and on, and on.

The vast majority of these problems can be nearly or almost entirely averted by testing other animals first.

These are all people who possibly could have waited for the normal progression from animal testing to human testing and thus received better outcomes. Some people will pass away in the time it takes to get to that point, and that's heartbreaking, and we all wish science could be faster.

But the cost of expediting science could mean a life of profoundly greater suffering or an even shorter life than the one where no intervention happens at all. And at that point, you have completely exhausted your trust, your goodwill, and your patients' hope, after you've failed to do anything or even worsened the lives of people who are already deeply suffering.

[manslaughter]

hi, i’m an animal research professional. making sure laboratory animals stay alive, healthy, and enriched has been my full-time job for several years now.

animal research is not the mad scientist wild west that PETA wants you to think it is. there are extremely strict federal laws in place to protect the well being of these animals. animal welfare organizations like AAALAC ensure that lab animals are treated with dignity & respect and are given enough specialized care & enrichment to be happy and content in captivity, just like AZA accreditation with zoos.

not a single animal from a zebrafish to a mouse to a dog to a macaque goes unaccounted for. if an animal gets moved to a new cage, paired for breeding, has a procedure performed on it, gives birth, gets sick or injured, dies, etc. it is legally required that this information is recorded and kept on file for the US federal government to access. failing to record & retain this information is very much punishable by US federal law.

let me tell you - if you abuse or kill an animal, even a mouse - you are almost certainly getting both fired & blacklisted from the industry. if you abuse or kill a more ‘advanced’ animal, such as a dog or monkey, you will likely face criminal charges. killing a monkey is as serious and disastrous as a nuclear meltdown. you are expected to reasonably explain every illness, injury, or death of an animal under your care. you must record all of this information. animals that are clearly suffering with low QOL are required to be euthanized according to AVMA guidelines.

research animals are highly expensive. yes, even the "lesser" animals like mice. the cheapest mice will run you a few hundred $ per individual, with some of the most expensive mice i've cared for being $25,000 per individual. in research we have the "three Rs" - reduction (reduce amount of necessary animals to a minimum), refinement (refine processes to ensure research is accurate and animals feel no pain or distress), and replacement (replace animals with non-living research models as they become available). i can assure you no proper research team is wasting animals (*do not* say "b-b-but elon musk--" his research team is actively being investigated for animal abuse by the government).

research methods that do not require live animals are currently being looked into & efforts spearheaded by - you guessed it - the animal research industry itself (notice how the animal rights people are strangely silent & unhelpful when it comes to this?) but current technology is rudimentary and does not compare to live animal models.

some research animal fun facts (US edition):

all species of animals are only allowed to have one single major surgery performed on them in their entire lifetime.

institutions with nonhuman primates must have a behavior program in place (run by knowledgeable primate specialists) to ensure that they are happy and receiving enough daily enrichment and social interaction.

institutions with dogs are required to have physical exercise programs in place. this means every individual dog gets a substantial amount of leashed AND free-roaming exercise daily, including playgroups with other dogs.

a majority of nonhuman primates get to retire to sanctuaries like peaceable primate sanctuary, and almost all dogs get retired and adopted out by organizations like homes for animal heroes. some institutions will also adopt out unneeded young rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, etc.

some strains of mice glow neon green (or orange or blue) under UV light. this is not harmful to them and is commonly seen in cancer research.

so yes, you can rest knowing that laboratory animals are treated with the utmost respect by their caretakers. and you can stop this awful, ignorant talk of human experimentation that will only end in the abuse of nonwhite people, LGBT people, disabled people, indigenous people, and so many others. please just take a look at this wikipedia page if you think “ethical” human experimentation can exist.

[larkiethings]

if you care about science and medicine in this country please email the OHSU board of directors and tell them to maintain the Oregon National Primate Research Center. Next Monday, July 27, 2026, they will be voting on a resolution to try and reduce the footprint of the center. There are a lot of things in their resolution, but most dramatically, they want the center to no longer be a National primate research center, and no longer want it to be a National resource. Currently, the ONPRC does a ton of research on HIV, but also women’s health - including the affects of THC on fetal development, non-surgical sterilization for people with a uterus, as well as things like studying effective treatments and preventions for alcohol use disorder (which is a genetic condition, not a moral failing). I’m happy to talk more about it if people have questions, but a simple email saying that you support the ONPRC and you value it as a national resource would have a huge impact.

remember. closing nationally funded research centers doesn’t end primate research in the US. it just pushes it further behind closed doors, into large pharma companies like Pfizer which have a profit motive. They do not care for their animals the way that public research institutes do. They do not have the transparency and oversight that public institutions do. It is better for animal welfare and human health to maintain our public research institutions

[tamamoland-of-the-deep-abyss]

since football and football have the same names i think we should resolve this with my new sport Definitive Football, detailed thusly:

the field is a standard football field including the goals, goalposts, and end zones

there are four teams: two football teams, and two football teams

the two football teams play football and follow all the usual rules for it

the two football teams play football and follow all the usual rules for it

at the same time

on the same field

while dodging around the teams playing the other football

either football can be interacted with by either team as if it were their football, including all rules for how they can interact with it and how they can score with it

[tamamoland-of-the-deep-abyss]

i think this would result in several exciting new and innovative forms of long-term injury

[mythicfictionist]

im incredibly conflicted by the phrase ‘the question is not who will let me but who will stop me’ because on one hand its so fucking raw and powerful but on the other hand it’s derived from ayn rand but on yet another hand the first and primary time ive ever seen it was on a picture of a lawnmower flying through the sky which is the perfect level of absurd and nonsensical that would piss ayn rand off

[mythicfictionist]

reblog to piss off ayn rands ghost

[sapropel]

Sometimes your bad coworker will be like "I can't do anything right & I ruin everything I touch :(" and you can't even comfort them because like damn. Yeah. You really can't do anything right and you do ruin everything you touch☝️

[sapropel]

HE'S GETTING FIRED. NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS!!!!!!!!!!

[sycamorality]

did you know you can rename everything on your pc

[wagitfag]

picklesbaseball

[magikonch]

[segamascott]

taylor swift invited a guy who owns and operates an ice detention center to her wedding swifties can pack it up forever now your bitch is awful

[originalitysquared]

Wild how no one made announcements like this about P.Diddy when his trial was happening.

Wild how abusive artists like Micheal Jackson can have biography movies made and not a single mention of accused abuses or the subsequent trials will be mentioned.

Hmmmm I wonder why people feel the need to explicitly condemn women and any action they may have possibly been a part of (like inviting a shitty guy to your wedding) yet do not extend this same behavior to men in the same industry who commit abuse and atrocities on a much larger scale 🤔?

[segamascott]

yeah i hate concentration camps because i hate women you caught me

[human-pet-they]

when the author describes someone dying and you can just tell they’ve never actually died by the way it’s written

[knifefightscene]

Anyone can be discarded by society

[knifefightscene]

People get made fun of for being scared of aging but it comes from the very real fear of being discarded by society that’s why i always say the goal is not to never become old or disabled the future comes for us all the goal is better social policy