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to all it may concern :

i'm broke

So many ruthless/pragmatic characters get revealed as hypocrites when the sacrifice required is personal, and that's why it's really important to me that Stratt does genuinely care about Grace and also it doesn't make her hesitate for a second. That's her friend and she dragged him screaming to the sacrificial altar with clear eyes and no apology and she would do it again. What a woman.

ana-rinray-art

"Outlines" [72]

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Tip jar || coffee button

Music: Ch.4 Playlist (YT)

demilypyro

vampires are so full of shit. "oh the human race is beneath us, you're just livestock to us" I don't think you know what livestock is. do you feed us? care for us? protect us from predators? no. you just slink around dark alleys and ambush people. that's not what a higher being does. that's a bottom feeder. a parasite. karate punches your head off

septembersung

janusfnc14

She Would Say That. She would DO that.

should-be-sleeping

You are 60% water and every lake, river, pond, swamp, creek, and ocean you encounter wants to reclaim it desperately. Be careful out there.

should-be-sleeping

Good, I hope it haunts everyone about to enter a body of water so bad that they wear a life jacket. 🙌

should-be-sleeping

Every single person I knew (past tense) who has drowned was "a strong swimmer." Water in the wild does not care how good you are at swimming.

should-be-sleeping

I mean this with all due respect:

You are not going to pass a skillcheck against a rip current once it has you.

Waves will not bow to your physical prowess no matter how impressive.

Shock does not care that you used to be on your school swim team.

If you hit your head, being good at swimming isn't going to turn you face-up while you're unconscious.

You may be unable to return to shore. Rescue may be unable to find you quickly.

joanthreatt

Scheduling this for when weather starts warming up. Be careful swimming this summer

thereal-sillyguy

Also, If you don't know how to swim; learn. It doesn't matter if you never intend to go near a body of water. Too many of my friends have told me that they don't know how to swim and never plan to despite me telling them that they should.

Learn how to swim and always swim with another person, and tell people where you've gone.

blumineck

Sorry to keep banging on about this! I just have a few days left to meet the funding goal!

Blumineck is trying to fun a video series doing fun and serious historical and fantasy testing in fitted plate armour.

blumineck

Thank you all so so much, you wonderful, mad bunch! I woke up this morning to find that the project had met its funding goal, and despite inching closer over the last few weeks, I think there was still a part of me that didn't believe that this would actually happen.

Massive thanks to all of you for contributing, sharing etc. I have a lot of people to contact and confirm things with, and will keep you all updated with how things are progressing.

I can't wait to get testing, and will begin weighted training etc. asap so that I can hit the ground running once the armour is complete!

If you specifically want any of the funding tier rewards then you’re welcome to contribute, as additional funds will go towards production costs, but as of now we have raised enough to cover the cost of the armour, maille, and filming, so the project can begin as soon as the kickstarter concludes on Friday!

doyouknowwhatimeme

serenity-bitty

reminds me of

the shellfish allergy NO NO FUCKING S HRIMP OR HE D IE post

p1netre3s

reminded me of this

yamada-ryo

honestly one of the all time tweets of all time tbh

currentlycryingaboutlancelot

thinking about when my friend found a book from the 70s in a church office with truly some of the most insane prayers I have ever heard

lasrina

oh this was about someone specific

cloudabserk

grace is like rocky be honest am i too clingy? and rocky is like grace i would mind meld with you if i could.

mossworth

Guys, queers. Specifically my fellow queers.

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

This isn't a vague post, there's no one person I'm hinting at or calling out. I'm not even talking directly to anyone who's directly in my line of sight. I just want everyone to hear this. Big library, small library, whatever. Doesn't matter. Please, we cannot be losing our shelf visibility like this.

alanfromrochester

I work in a different library and can confirm, it's a decision based on popularity not censorship

we're big enough to have lots of shelf space but still have the problem on a different scale. We do have a back storage room rather than completely getting rid of some things, but having to ask for that might be a barrier for sensitive subject matter and prevent people from casually stumbling across something of interest

paintedpigeon1

Yep. Different library worker here, we weeded adult non-fiction recently bc it's most rarely used and we needed to clear a bookshelf of space, and there were a decent number of queer books on the list. Thankfully not all of them, but some (we had a lot lol). Our criteria is also no borrows in 3yrs. I can't borrow the whole list by myself. I do try to get these books in, and the local authority are happy to buy them, but we need space for new books every so often and we can't keep everything forever! If you want them, you have to use them!

(incidentally, the whole list was 35 pages long, which... please borrow the books you want people)

qbdatabase

I didn't have time to comment the first time I reblogged, but I can add now:

I'm also a librarian and queer books are almost always cut first when we have to weed for space or prioritize new releases over old items because no one reads them

I will say, when I worked at a large downtown location, we had a "browsing card" that we would check out items we found taken off the shelf and left on a table, as an example of a book that had clearly been read, just not checked out by anyone

it's possible queer books do actually get a bit of unfair treatment in this regard because people may be nervous or outright scared to check them out onto an account with their name on it. so they get browsed at a much higher rate, but if a library doesn't have a specific system in place (or need for it) to count browsed items, then it looks like they aren't being used and they get weeded

for other librarians, a browsing card is a great idea if you have enough staff for the extra work / enough items left out to justify it

for patrons, check out queer books even if you don't read them! you're not lying or committing any type of fraud. you're keeping books on the shelf long enough for pride season when people are interested in checking them out again and for people scared to use their own accounts or who don't have library cards

for anyone nervous about using their library card, libraries do not keep search histories of what you check out!! this means even if the government does come back with a warrant, *wet farting noise* too bad! it doesn't exist!

so please check out queer books!

vtothefun

I have to wonder how often they aren't checked out because those in an exploratory period may not feel safe enough for them to go home with them, too. Kids, for example, or folks who have ended up in a het marriage that... Doesn't feel like it's quite right (or may be physically abusive).

mossworth

This is most definitely one of the causes of this. That's why it's so important for folks who *can* to *do*.

It feels like such a small thing, but all movements are made up of small things! We have this mindset that in order to get everything done, everyone must be doing their (or *the*) absolute best at all times. But not everyone can do the same things, to the same degree, with the same amount of productivity or success. Not everyone can; sometimes, they're the ones that need help. Sometimes people just need help.

This post is very much so intended for the people who can. I've seen a lot of replies from folks who say they don't have to (or don't think about) checking out or requesting queer books from the library specifically because they *can* buy them, can pirate them, or already have them in their house or on their computers or phones. But in instances like that, keeping these books in circulation is less for you and more for the people who can't. The folks who come to the library, who don't have access to internet--or even electricity--at home and would never--have never--been able to interact with this "ubiquitous queer community" we have here online who has made so many of these. materials so avaliable to the rest of us.

And... if I can be a little frank. Sometimes the hyperaccessibility of these materials online (through pirating, cheap e-book copies, etc) gives people a false sense of security. It implies that these things are an infinate resource, good for "When I get around to it".

And often, you won't. There's so much to read and so much to do. So much to download and so much to sit down and stare at for hours. That kind of mental scope puts books in people's hands (or phones), but never in their heads.

But the moment your favorite document archival site gets knocked offline for breaching copyright or your go-to mega corporate audiobook distributor decides it doesn't want "those" materials anymore, what's left? What did you download? What information did you internalize? Did you ever get around to it? If you did, great, but what good does that do for the person who didn't? Are you going to be the one to redistribute that information? Are you going to communicate it in the place of the author whose words are no longer publically accesible or, mostly avaliable, but only behind hefty paywalls and financial gatekeeping? How would someone else get a hold of it? How could they, if they wanted?

vtothefun

This is excellent info.

What are some good books to check out for those who can?

mossworth

Gosh... there's so many options. I wouldn't know where to start without knowing who I'm talking to and what they're looking for. What I can recommend is for folks to check out creators like @makingqueerhistory who have spent just a ridiculously beautiful amount of time collecting queer history and book lists! You'll find something in seconds reading their page.

Personal pitch: I liked the books Tar Hollow Trans and Gay Poems for Red States. Both great.

makingqueerhistory

I'm glad I was tagged in this because it means I can cosign (and also add a little nugget of info).

I live in a province that is currently trying to ban queer books from libraries, and as a library patron, this is terrifying. 95% of the books I read are from the library and a lot of them are way out of my budget to buy personally.

Making Queer History would not exist without the school library I skipped class in to write articles. It would not exist without my friends with library cards for their universities sharing them and getting me access to rare texts. I would not be able to read as much as I do without Libby and Hoopla. If I have ever given you a book recommendation, know that I likely got it from the library first.

I cannot overstate the importance of protecting libraries and checking out queer books. And I want to say thank you to everyone above for being as passionate as I am about queer books in libraries.

Love y'all <3

allthefoolmine

@official-library-posts

official-library-posts

official library post

storm-of-feathers

EVERYONE STOP TELLING ME HOW OLD YOU WERE IN 2008 I DONT WANNA HEAR THAT SHIT

#I was seven hundred and fifty three #those were the days...#truly my younger years

frownyalfred

Bruce can and will lurk in any and all JL group comms, Batfamily “siblings only” encrypted chats, and even the rudimentary chat function YJ came up with on a bunch of old flip phones, and while his aura alone is enough to keep people nervous, nothing brings a conversation to a screeching halt quite like Batman dropping a singular 👀 into the chat.

javieyau

In a random group chat

Kon: so anyway look at tim

Kon: hear me out

Bruce: 👀

Kon: goes offline

great-and-small

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

handforthstudy

Unfortunately, I don’t have citations, but I have heard about the same phenomenon through Nat Geo Live presentations in the Amazon and Serengeti. Most individuals who are poachers or use slash-and-burn farming are doing this out of survival, not ignorance or greed. They have families to feed and children who will starve if they don’t find food or money. As OP said, fixing the human suffering fixes the conservation issue and is a win-win, while preaching conservation to starving people does nothing.

But on top of that, you know who the most ardent conservationists are once security has been achieved? The people who had once been forced to poach or slash-and-burn to survive. You know who’s great at tracking down gorilla poachers? Ex-poachers. Who’s good at understanding and advocating for people forced to do these things to survive? Ex-poachers. Who can convince others to take a chance on finding a better way to survive? Same answer.

It is win-win-win. As ecologists, conservationists, and environmentalists we must get out of our ivory towers of knowledge, stop carrying them into the field, and remember humans are part of the ecosystem too. And that sustainable change will never happen if human needs aren’t addressed.

buttons-beads-lace

I also love this story about the arapaima in Brazil. They increased the population of this endangered giant fish literally a hundred times over- from 3,000 to 300,000- by ending the total ban on arapaima fishing and instead creating legal fishing organizations. The fishing organization members get trained on how do population counts and determine how many fish they can take while still leaving enough for the population to grow.

The former illegal fishers are now sought-after experts, because they know how to spot the arapaima and tell juveniles apart from adults. They get to keep practicing the fishing skills that were passed down to them. The actual process of fishing is easier because they can work together and don't have to sneak around. The profits are higher because they can sell the fish openly to restaurants and to the public. The fishing organization members make sure that other people in their communities don't fish illegally. And the numbers of arapaima keep going up and up, so there's plenty to go around even as more people join the fishing organizations.

If you click all the way through to the report from the conservation org that started the fishing organizations project, there are quotes from fishing organization members:

"We built a second house and I'm putting my oldest two kids through college on the money we get from fishing."

"Nowadays you have young people walking around with pockets full of cash saying "I got 6,000 from fishing this year!" It used to be you wouldn't even get 50 reais of pocket money."

"At the first harvest after we started the fishing organization, I saw full-grown arapaima for the first time, really big ones like they're supposed to be. Before, I had only heard about how big they could get. That's when I knew that our work was paying off and we could keep moving forward."

demilypyro

It's what he would've wanted

lindleland

trainwrrck

pokemonheritageposts

Pokemon Heritage Post

gutsygills

mold pisses me off so much

oh you have to eat your produce the moment it leaves the store or the fuckin Hungering Dust will get it. and. poison your food

tobiasdrake

I ran into this post years ago and to be honest, it has completely reoriented the way I engage with food.

Like. I’ve always sorta understood that things grow moldy or stale or sour or such if left out, but I never really internalized it in a meaningful way.

But now I’m just like.

Yeah. The hungering dust. There exists omnivorous dust in the air that will eat my food if I don’t.

Those bagels have been sitting there for a week. Are we going to eat them soon or are we leaving them for the hungering dust?

Pizza’s been sitting out on the counter for an hour. Everyone’s enjoying the pizza, but if we don’t want “everyone” to include the hungering dust then we should probably put it away soon.

That’s just. That’s how food works to me now. There exists an invisible predator in the air that hungers for your yummies, and it will not hesitate to eat your food if you don’t make the effort to protect and preserve it. And eat what can’t be preserved before the dust can.

Life-changing.