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I feel like Bruce Wayne projects the kind of amiable playboy 'fun' vibe that he'd be the type of celebrity that certain interviewers feel comfortable surprising with puppies.

You know the kind of shows I mean.

The late-night talk show situations where they're making benign small talk with their smiling guest, and there's a segment where animals get brought out, usually to talk about some sort of ecological relief effort.

So you're watching your trash TV talk show late at night, and you get to watch billionaire pretty boy Bruce Wayne be begrudgingly talked into holding a (relatively) harmless creature which inevitably gets a lot of delighted shrieks from the audience as it starts being a lot more active than the handler promised. And to his credit, Bruce doesn't flinch, he doesn't freak out. But his eyes are a little wide, and his voice a little tight as the smile on his face takes on a slight rictus quality before he's inevitably rescued by an apologetic handler who is also laughing because they all know there was no real danger, it was just funny to put Bruce, who is an undeniable good sport and already laughing along, out of his comfort zone for the sake of charity.

Meanwhile, up in the Justice League headquarters, several founding members of the League are wondering how fast they can get a fake Oscar award shipped to the space station because fuck off. Absolutely fuck off, Bruce. Where the fuck did he study? Juilliard? (Probably.)

(Clark ends up going to a novelty store during the commercial break. It's faster than trying to get anything shipped, even with the infrastructure Bats built for them. He finds it several days later taped to his console in a conspicuously empty briefing room. It's gaudy and awful, the words "Best Actor" engraved on the plaque. No one's around to see him smile. No one comments when it vanishes. Everyone thinks it's been yeeted out an airlock. Dick absolutely comments when it shows up in the manor, stashed in one of the trophy cases that sprung up for all the bat kids' school awards. Bruce has no idea how it got there. Must have been Alfred. (It was not.))

Anyway, consider, for your amusement, Bruce Wayne getting highjacked on The Gotham Toight Show with a handful of wriggling puppies and, for a split second, not having to pretend he's delighted to be there.

thebibliosphere

I need you all to know this was in my queue, so it jump scared me when it popped up on my dash, but that I also misread "puppies" as "puppets," and now I'm choking to death on my water imagining Bruce Wayne on a guest panel with Kermit the Frog and Ms. Piggy whose puppeteer is absolutely shooting their shot through the medium of puppetry.

thebibliosphere

"Bruce Wayne, everyone. What a fantastic guy. All right, don't go anywhere, folks, we'll be right back after the commercial break when we'll be joined by the legendary Kermit the Frog and the effervescent Miss Piggy as they promote their latest movie, The Muppets Take Metropolis!"

The applause is deafening for a moment as the live band behind the podium strikes up a lively tune, ushering them into a commercial break.

"Really, thank you, Bruce," Murray Franklin says over the noise, angling his mouth away from the microphone on his desk. "You couldn't have got me to hold that fucking thing for all the money in the world."

Bruce inclines his head, a benign smile ever in place. "Oh, you know me, Murray. I'll try anything once."

"Well, that sounds promising," says a shrill, familiar. Bruce turns in time to find stagehands working rapid-time to construct a staging area behind the couch. And two humans holding two very distinct puppets aloft. Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.

"Hi-ho, Kermit the Frog here." The frog puppet extends a hand toward him, causing a ripple of laughter to go up from the audience. Bruce arches an eyebrow at the puppeteer but reaches out to take the felt-green hand being offered to him. Apparently, he's not supposed to engage with the humans. "This is my companion, Miss Pigathia Lee."

"Mr. Frog," he greets the muppet formally, feeling the first hint of a genuine smile tugging at his mouth. "Charmed to meet both of you. I'm a big fan of your work."

"Oh, gosh! Really?" The Frog gushes, emoting the pure joy Bruce remembers from watching television as a child. "I could say the same to you! All that good work you do for the city! It's really something."

"Thank you." Don't cry, Bruce thinks suddenly. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

Christ, it's like Mister Rogers telling you you did a good job.

"All right, save it for the camera," Murray interjects good-naturedly, pressing a finger to his ear and listening to whatever the producer is saying on the other end.

"Mr. Wayne?" Bruce turns to find his handler waiting for him, a makeup artist behind him. "Can we ask you to move over for this next part?"

"Of course." Bruce shuffles over. As he leans back, arm stretched out across the back of the couch he realizes what they're doing. They're using his bulk to block the sight of the puppeteers from the angle of the fourth camera. Clever.

He sits placidly as the makeup artist dusts powder over his face, listening to the instructions about how to talk to the muppets. Don't look at the puppeteers, look at the puppets. Treat them like real people. Try to keep it pg-13. Just act natural.

Natural, he thinks, his eyes skirting up to the stage beams and the shadows hovering above them. There's nothing natural about being Bruce Wayne.

"And we're live in five, four, three, two, one..."

The music swells to rising applause, and his smile slips back in place, as firm and solid as his armor. He zones out as Murray goes through the introductions. He's learned that no one minds if Bruce Wayne looks a little checked out at times. Christ, he's tired. He's half tempted not to go on patrol tonight. There's a dull ache building behind his eyes, and his ribs still hurt from getting hit with a crowbar. He hopes Dick is all right. Last night's patrol had been hard on both of them, hard enough that Dick had to miss school and spend the day in bed. Though he'd gotten up before Bruce left, adamant that he wanted to watch him make a fool of himself on television. He hopes no one else is watching. He hopes there's a mild disaster happening somewhere, and he won't have to listen to Clark ribbing him about how good he is with children and animals. Again. It's like being made fun of by a slice of apple pie.

Slowly, he becomes aware of the presence beside him. Bruce looks down to find Miss Piggy staring up at him, snout turned upward, head tilted in a manner that heavily suggests flirtation. Oh God

"Not that you have anything to worry about, Mister Wayne," the high, piping voice of Kermit the Frog informs him. "Gotham's far too damp for us Muppets to want to take over Wayne Tech, too."

Bruce smiles. He's vaguely aware of the plot of The Muppets Take Metropolis. Something about taking over LexCorp. He's surprised Luthor green-lit it. The other billionaire is normally so precious about being taken seriously.

"Oh, I don't know about that, there are lots of nice swamps around here," he says, gaze still on the amorous pig puppet inching closer to him. "Mud baths, too."

"Really?" Miss Piggy drawls, flicking her blonde wig over her shoulder, much to the amusement of the audience. "And are any of these mud baths on Wayne ground?"

He can't help but smile properly at that, mouth crooking to the side. He supposes he should have seen this coming. "Oh, yes," he says, inflecting the famous Bruce Wayne charm into his voice. "More than you can shake a stick at."

When the puppet's hand comes to rest its hand on his arm, his laughter is genuine. This might be the surrealist fucking thing that's happened to him in a while. And that's saying something because he got dosed with fear toxin last week.

"Now, Brucie," Miss Piggy drawls, "Don't tempt a girl with a good time."

Some absurd instinct makes him angle his body toward the muppet, smiling down at it like a real person. "Oh, Piggy Lee, you should know I never tempt. I can call you, Piggy Lee, can't I?"

"Honey, you can call me a cab because I'm ready! Let's skedaddle!"

"Well, how about that!" Murray exclaims, drawing the attention back to him as the audience loses it. "Kermit, he's trying to steal your girl!"

The Frog turns to look at him, to Miss Piggy, then back to Bruce. "Y'know something, Murray, I don't mind. Say, Bruce, are, uh, are any of those swamps nearby?"

Oh, he's never going to live this one down.

***

"So what's it like?" Clark asks, tone deceptively neutral.

"What's what like?" Batman asks, tone sliding like gravel over sheet metal.

"Meeting the Muppets?"

He thinks about it. "Surprisingly hard to look at the humans."

Clark nods sagely. "I've heard that."

thebibliosphere

The amount of psychic damage I'm taking from the tag "Bruce Wayne Muppet Threesome" is not insignificant, but I suppose I had it coming.

Also, because I might as well ride this crackfic into the Lazarus Pit:

The Muppets eventually do make a film with Gotham in it. The premise starts not unlike the other Muppet movies, where the Muppets are fractured, and Kermit is trying to get the gang back together. For this, he must travel around the US, finding the location of the other Muppets.

When the time comes to find Miss Piggy, the screen cuts to Wayne Manor, the other Muppets standing outside the imposing iron gates.

"Well, we tried," Rizzo intones nasally, already walking off. Gonzo catches him around the neck, hauling him back.

"Where are you going?"

"Home! What, you think she's going to leave Bruce Wayne?"

Kermit's face goes through numerous stages of grief before squaring into the kind of grim determination that can only happen when you have a fist for a jaw. "We have to try," the Frog affirms, then stoically presses the gate buzzer.

The scene cuts to inside the manor, where Miss Piggy is shown lounging on an opulent chaise, surrounded by immense wealth and luxury. Empty bottles of champagne everywhere and an inordinate amount of food. It's clear there was a party last night. She is dressed not unlike Debbie from the Addams family, her face covered by a fluffy pink eyemask embroidered in gold thread that reads "Wake Me In Paris" in gaudy, swirling font. In the background, a picture of Bruce Wayne and Miss Piggy can be seen on a table. The frame is neon pink and shaped like a heart. Bruce looks happier than he's ever done in his entire life. (Probably because he couldn't stop cracking up when it was being taken.)

There's a knock at the door, and she wakes with a snort, ripping away the eyemask. "What?" she demands harshly before correcting herself into a more ladylike twinkle. "I mean, who is it?"

Alfred appears as firm and imperious as ever. Perfectly straight-faced. "Forgive me, madame, but we appear to have a common rabble at the door."

"So? Release the hounds. Brother, do I have to think of everything around here?"

Alfred clears his throat, the slightest twitch of a smile on his face. It's gone before the camera can narrow in on it. "It appears they are friends of yours, madame. Ah, one Mister Kermit the Frog and, um, associates."

"Kermi!" she exclaims before she can stop herself. "I mean, uh, very well, send them in."

The Muppets traipse into the opulent room, googly eyes roaming everywhere in astonishment. "Wow," Gonzo breathes.

"Food!" Rizzo exclaims, lunging toward the comestibles and shoving his face into a bowl.

Gonzo hauls him back, glancing at Alfred apologetically. "Sorry.

But Kermit only has eyes for Ms Piggy. "You look well, Pigathia," he says solemn and sincere.

"I do? I mean, of course, I do." She harumphs, turning her back on him. "How could I not? I'm only the wealthiest pig in the world." She turns back, expression coy over her shoulder. "What do you want?"

"Well, we're trying to get the old gang back together. Our old theaters being shut down, and I just thought that maybe one last show might--"

"That's why you're here. For the show?"

Kermit takes a deep, shuddering breath. "No. That's not why I'm here. Gosh darnit, Piggy Lee, I want you back. I love you, and I know deep down" -- "way down," Rizzo supplies before getting elbowed -- "that you love me too."

She turns slowly. As though drawn by some invisible string. Her expression falls. "I do. I did. Once upon a time. But Kermi... Bruce takes care of me."

"I'll say--" "Rizzo!"

She carries on as if the others hadn't spoken. "I know you love me. But I also know I'll only ever be second best to the show. With Bruce," she sighs dreamily. "He's rich, handsome, and most importantly, dumb as a rock. I'm the most important pig in town. I'm practically running the joint. You really think I'm going to give up all this." She gestures around the grandeur. "For a penniless Frog who can't see past the next show?"

"Well..." Kermit hesitates, face falling. "Yes. I guess... I guess I did."

Gonzo and Rizzo share a look. "I think we better go," Gonzo says, placing a consoling hand on Kermit's shoulder. "Come on, guys. It was nice seeing you again, Piggy."

"Yeah, real nice," Rizzo intones, shoving as much food into his pockets as his little rat hands can grab.

Kermit shakes himself. "No. I refuse to believe it! This isn't you, Piggy Lee. You might think it is, but it isn't. All this wealth, the silk robes, the fancy food. I know you, Piggy Lee; I know you better than anyone, and you're not this shallow. You're a performer, a star. You were made to be loved by the stage. Not just some... some billionaire playboy who can give you whatever you want whenever you want. I have to believe that because otherwise, what the heck has it all been for? What have we been for? So what do you say, Pigathia? Will you come home? Come back to the show where you belong. For me?"

There's a long, heavy pause, and Miss Piggy sighs.

The following scene cuts to the Muppets flailing down the Wayne Manor driveway, yelling comically as several snarling rottweilers chase them.

"And stay out!" Miss Piggy yells after them. When she turns back to Alfred, she resumes her ladylike poise. "Alfie, be a dear and tell Brucie I'll be home late tonight. Mama's got some shopping to do."

"Very good, Madame."

She eventually shows up at the Muppet show at the last minute to save the day, a happy, bumbling Bruce tagging beside her. Later, when the Muppets are all on stage, the human protagonists, who are in the audience and seated next to Bruce, remark, "Wow, I can't believe they raised the money to save the theater!"

"They didn't," Bruce says with a small, knowing smile. His gaze turns to Miss Piggy adoringly, sighing wistfully. "But I just can't say no to that pig."

Henceforth it becomes Muppet canon that Miss Piggy and Bruce Wayne are in a heated on-again-off-again relationship. Neither Kermit nor Bruce seems to mind each other, leading to an episode of Sesame Street several years down the line where Elmo explains that sometimes a child can have one mommy and no daddy, or one daddy and no mommy, or have one daddy and one mommy, or two daddys and no mommies or vice versa, and sometimes if you're the Wayne kids, a daddy, a frog, and a pig.

Bruce will never live it down, but it's worth it. Letting the Muppets into his life is possibly the best longcon of his life. Who the fuck is going to believe he's Batman now? No one. Not even the butts matching can hold up to him being Miss Piggy and Kermit's sidepiece.

speciesofleastconcern

morrak

My first biology professor had an ‘inadequacy drawer’ full of things to remind him he wasn’t, in fact, the dumbest and laziest person to ever exist. It was mostly Darwin, notably these two bits:

‘But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.’

‘I am going to write a little Book for Murray on orchids and today I hate them worse than everything.’

funkyness

“I am at work on the second vol. of the Cirripedia, of which creatures I am wonderfully tired: I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship.”

-Charles Darwin on a letter to his cousin

rhube

Charles Darwin: unexpected depression hero.

sophiamcdougall

I knew about “I am very poorly and very stupid and hate everybody and everything,” but not the others.

“I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees” is A Mood.

anima-beata

My favorite Darwinism: “I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects”. Hits me right at the center of my hyperfixated soul.

dwellerinthelibrary

I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before

cakesandfail

“The work has been turning out badly for me this morning and I am sick at heart and oh my God how I do hate species & varieties”

saucywenchwritingblog

I’ve seen five different authors take down, or prepare to take down, their posted works on Ao3 this week. At the same time, I’ve seen several people wishing there was more new content to read. I’ve also seen countless posts by authors begging for people to leave comments and kudos.

People tell me I am a big name fan in my chosen fandom. I don’t quite get that but for the purposes of this post, let’s roll with it. On my latest one shot, less than 18% of the people who read it bothered to hit the kudos button. Sure, okay, maybe that one sort of sucked. Let’s look at the one shot posted before that - less than 16% left kudos. Before that - 10%, and then 16%. I’m not even going to get into the comments. Let’s just say the numbers drop a lot. I’m just looking at one shots here so we don’t have to worry about multiple hits from multiple chapters, people reading previous chapters over, etc. And if I am a BNF, that means other people are getting significantly less kudos and comments.

Fandom is withering away because it feels like people don’t care about the works that are posted. Why should I go to the trouble of posting my stories if no one reads them, and of the people who do read them, less than a fifth like them? Even if you are not a huge fan of the story, if it kept your attention long enough for you to get to the bottom, go ahead and mash that kudos button. It’s a drop of encouragement in a big desert.

TL;DR: Passively devouring content is killing fandom.

shells-void

Reblogging again

hannibalsbattlebot

So much this

genufa

You know, kudos and comments are much beloved by all esp. yrs truly, but I have to say: I’ve been posting fic for 20 years, and I have never in my entire life had a story stay above a 1:9 kudos to hits ratio (or comments to hits, back when kudo wasn’t an option). Usually they don’t stay above 1:10, once they’ve been around for a few weeks.

I also have a working background in online marketing. In social media 1:10 is what you would call a solid engagement score, when people actually care about your product (as opposed to “liking” your Facebook page so they could join a contest or whatever). If BNFs are getting 1:5 - and I do sometimes see it - that is sky-high engagement. Take any celebrity; take Harry Styles, who has just under 30M followers and doesn’t tweet all that often. He regularly gets 3-400K likes, 1-200K retweets. I’ve seen him get up to just under 1M likes on a tweet. That’s a 1:30 engagement ratio, for Harry Styles, and though some of you guys enjoy my fics and have said so, I don’t think you have as lasting a relationship with my stories as Harry Styles’s fans do with him. XD;

Again, this is not to say we, as readers, should all go home and not bother to kudo or comment or engage with fic writers. That definitely is a recipe for discouraging what you want to see in future. But this is not the first post I’ve seen that suggests a 20% kudo ratio is the equivalent of yelling into the void, and I’m worried that we as writers are discouraging ourselves because our expectations are out of whack.

avoresmith

I think about this a lot, because it’s important to know what a realistic goal to expect from an audience is, even though I admit it definitely is kind of depressing when you look at the numbers. I was doing reading on what sort of money you can expect to make from a successful webcomic, and the general rule of thumb seems to be that if your merchandising is meshing well with your audience, about 1% will give you merch. I imagine ‘subscribe to patreon’ also falls in this general range.

Stuff that is ONLY available for dollars are obviously going to have a different way of measuring this, but when it comes to ‘If people can consume something without engaging back in any fashion (hitting a like button, buying something, leaving a comment)’ the vast majority will.

And as a creator that is frustrating but as a consumer it’s pretty easy to see how it happens. I have gotten steadily worse at even liking posts, much less leaving comments on ones I enjoy, since I started using tumblr. It’s very difficult to engage consistently. I always kudo on any fanfic I read and comment on the vast majority, but then again I don’t read a lot of fanfic, if you are someone who browses AO3 constantly/regularly for months or years, I could see how it’s easy to stop engaging. I don’t remember to like every YT video or tumblr fanart I see, much less comment on them.

When we are constantly consuming free content it’s hard to remember to engage with it or what that engagement means to the creators. And lol, honestly that sucks. Certainly as consumers we should be better about it. But also like, as a creator be kinder to yourself by setting a realistic bar of what you can achieve.

And IMO, if numbers matter to you (kudos, comments, etc) be honest about the fact that you CAN improve those things by marketing yourself better. The ‘I just produced my art and put it out there and got insanely popular because it was just so brilliant’ is less than a one a million chance. Lots of amazing content is overlooked every day because there is a lot of good content and a metric fuckton of mediocre to bad content. You can only SORT of judge the quality of your work based on the audience it generates, but if what you WANT is an audience there is way, way, WAY more you can be doing than simply producing whatever you immediately feel like. Marketing yourself is a skill and if you want the benefits of it you have to practice it.

calpatine

I have a professional background in internet marketing as my day job and a moderate hobby business. My definition for “moderate” is “it pays for itself, keeps me in product, and occasionally buys groceries.” In the day job, which is for an extremely large global company, there are entire teams of people whose entire purpose of employment is to ensure a 3% conversion rate. That’s it. That is for a Fortune 100 company: the success metric is for 3% of all visitors to a marketing web site to click the “send me more info” link. My moderate business that pays for itself has a 0.94% conversion rate of views to orders. Less than 1%, and it’s still worth its time – and this is without me bothering to do any marketing beyond instagram and tumblr posts with new product. I know it feels like no one is paying attention to you and you’re wasting your time if you don’t get everyone clicking kudos or commenting but I promise, I PROMISE, you are doing fantastically, amazingly well with your 10% rate. You probably aren’t going to go viral AND THAT’S FINE. You’re only hurting yourself if you’re expecting a greater return – don’t call yourself a failure, because you’re NOT. You’re just looking at it the wrong way. I promise, you’re lovely just the way you are.

plaidadder

Reblogging this bc it is a take on fan engagement at AO3 that I haven’t seen before, and as a writer I find it helpful to have this reality check. Also I wonder which came first: the overall low engagement rates in internet commerce, or the freaking shit-ton of unwanted spam and advertising we’re constantly bombarded with?

I think as writers our assumption (my assumption anyway) is that the portion of hits that don’t convert to kudos equals the portion of readers who looked at your fic, didn’t like it, and never finished it. But it would seem that is an overly pessimistic assumption.

I should know this, because I ‘like’ very sparingly here and reblog only less sparingly, and yet I read and enjoy a lot of posts I don’t like or reblog.

sniperct

#also something that is really obvious that none of this points out#(probably someone did somewhere in the notes but I do have a life)#your hit count will go up by virtue of PEOPLE REREADING YOUR FIC#a hit count disproportionate to kudos/comments#which are things that are only really done once #is INEVITABLE#and a GOOD thing #people rereading your fic is a good thing

starswirls-planet

rare aesthetic: adhdcore

piles of app games on your phone you played constanly for a week and then abandoned

setting your alarm to 30 minutes earlier than needed to account for the periods of staring into the middle distance that occur while getting ready

impulsively doing arts and crafts when you should be getting ready for bed

always needing some sort of project to obsessively work on cause otherwise you'll spend all your free time doing nothing

carrying bandaids with you at all times because you always end up needing one

constantly setting timers because you have no sense of time

being pretty good at like 20 different and completely random hobby skills because you hyperfixated on it for a month 2 years ago

forcing yourself to finish an important task by withholding something from yourself until it's done (I don't reccomend it)

never being able to throw anything away because you're emotionally attached to every single stupid trinket you have

always feeling at least a little sleepy

always being very longwinded because you fear being misunderstood so you overclarify but end up just confusing everyone

#MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

mollymendoza

Prints now available of the Mirror Series // Molly Mendoza

https://buyolympia.com/Artist/Molly+Mendoza

mckitterick

2022 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards Winners

the competition is open to wildlife photography novices, amateurs, and professionals, celebrating the hilarity of our natural world and highlighting what we need to do to protect it

full roster of this year's winners with narratives by the photographers: X

elodieunderglass

I grow our own vegetables. Many hybrid and heirloom varieties are bred for flavor rather than for commercial appeal and travel. There are entire species on the allotment that you can’t easily buy in stores because of this - like salsify, a root vegetable that tastes of fish and shellfish. Our neighbours happily take it to make vegan latkes of alarming similarity to fishcakes. You cannot sell it in stores because - despite looking like a white parsnip - it turns brown when you pick it if you scrape/bruise/cut the white root in any way, or damage the delicate little hairs, for some reason, it BLEEDS RED and is very upsetting to look at.

There are whole classes of foods like this. Foods that just don’t ship well or look good on supermarket shelves. Forbidden fruits. Vegetables that bleed and taste like meat. Sorry about this

curioscurio

disasterscenario

This website is one of my fav places to find interesting heirloom stuff! I ordered a bunch of seeds to try growing next year I’m really excited about!

https://www.rareseeds.com/

ct-7567

@angelsaxis

itsdetachable

I’ve gotten and plants seeds from that site, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and they grow fantastically well for me.

I’m really looking forward to next season

incremental-revolution

Baker Creek Heirloom has good seeds but bad politics. They were going to host Cliven Bundy of the Occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Reserve who’s also pro the Capitol Riots and has made a lot of racist nastiness, although backlash made them cancel their guest list (which included other racist folks) Good sources of heirloom seeds:

Each of the varieties offered through Truelove Seeds was grown by small-scale urban or rural farmers committed to sustainable agriculture, f

Alliance of Native Seedkeepers is North Americas Top Native American Source for rare heirloom Non-GMO vegetable, flower and herb garden seed

Native Seeds/SEARCH (NS/S) is a nonprofit seed conservation organization based in Tucson, Arizona. Our mission is to conserve and promote th

elodieunderglass

^^^

plum-soup

Highly recommend Native Seed/Search and Truelove. Baker Creek has an amazingly large catalog and has some very cool and rare stuff, but they are also Mennonites and as you might expect, they do have terrible politics as listed above, although they do some decent work preserving heirloom seeds from threatened communities.

An organization that does really interesting work preserving seed from threatened communities (and larger companies like baker creek often piggyback off of some of the work done by orgs like this and NS/S) is the Experimental Farm Network. They are very explicit about their (left-leaning) political views and you don’t have to worry about them being Problematic. They have lots of interesting and rare varieties and species you really cannot find anywhere else.

An important part of our mission involves preserving and sharing seeds from communities under threat, and attempting, wherever possible, to

If you are looking for a wider selection of heirloom seed varieties, these two companies are very good resources as well, and carry many of the same things as Baker Creek. Afaik they are not expressly political beyond their general mission to preserve heirloom seeds (although southern exposure does a good job of preserving some very traditional african-American heirlooms from the Southeast US in particular).

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Saving the Past for the Future

Heirloom seeds from Seed Savers Exchange. Buy rare, organic seeds and support our nonprofit mission to preserve garden diversity. Free catal

neolithicsheep

Omg I hadn’t heard of the Experimental Farm Network and I am delighted! I am also completely thrilled to see people other than me remember that Baker Creek is a bunch of lying fash. They claimed they did not know about Cliven Bundy AFTER VISITING HIM IN JAIL. He was literally in jail for his anti-social bullshit when they first talked to him about the watermelons he and his mentor stole from Indigenous people and made their name on. They also take seeds from Indigenous communities globally and profit from them without sharing those profits with the communities they took the seeds from.

…I am blocked by them on Twitter after publicizing the Cliven Bundy crap, full disclosure, I have an actual feud with these people and their unethical practices.

tkingfisher

I was trying to get signal in the goddamn Himalayas to argue with them about Bundy. *grumble*

I also second Native Seed/SEARCH as a great org doing great work. Some of their stuff is so desert-adapted it won’t grow for me, but I’ve had great luck with some of their bean varieties.

ayamccabre

New Zealand people: have some links.

https://www.sentinelsgroup.co.nz/ Heirloom growers group in Canterbury. Some truly unusual stuff.

https://southernseed.org.nz Another group out of Christchurch. These guys went out of their way to help me find a rare plant that had shown up in their area like five years before I contacted them. They found it for me and shipped tubers to Wellington.

https://www.seedstofeeds.nz/upcoming-events Seed and seedling swaps, all over the country.

https://www.urbanorganics.org.nz/seed-exchange Otago seed exchange

https://kahikateafarm.co.nz/ Live plants, some of them truly hard to find.

https://koanga.org.nz/ These guys had a scandal a while back and never really recovered. Their range is much reduced (unless you’re a member), but they do the work of importing new species into the country, so some of their stuff can’t be found anywhere else.

https://www.sporeshift.co.nz Mushrooms!

kingsseeds.co.nz/ A large commercial grower. Their seeds are clearly labelled if they’re heirloom (older varieties) or open pollinated (you can save seeds for next year). They have some less common things, as well as all the more popular stuff.

marinella-ela

saerinn

My full illustration of Barnham as the Knight of Swords card for aa meiji tarot on twitter! Went for a more graphic composition~

discoasphodel13

Hey so it's come to my attention that the Creators of Disco Elysium want you to share the game and not give the company who took over and fired them (illegally)?) any profits off of their ideas and work, and I originally joined tumblr 2 weeks ago when that post was going around about the Steam sale and how you should [Skull and Crossbones flag] it instead.

So.

in light of that.

Check the replies/notes of this post :)

I was informed that posts containing links in them aren't findable in the search so i'll just.... drop a link in a seperate reboot :)

first things first though, copy this key:

q4-EJ9G2DV7MYYI-Vs0KdQ

discoasphodel13

here's the edited version with the captal YY in the key above!

2326 files and 29 subfolders

and also the Google drive link :

nobrashfestivity

Ohara Koson Monkey, Wasp and Persimmons 1935.

embrace-crab

Dragons, with jobs

Artist credit to Flamecraft!

viscen-vas-arlesburgh

All but the bottom of these are from the game Flamecraft, a game that was inspired by that bottom illustration when it was posted on facebook All of these are illustrated by the artist Sandara Tang

dingdongyouarewrong

i always think it’s wild when progressive-leaning people get really really really into, to the point of spending hours a week on this, fighting with other people online about the fictional politics of fictional universes. my point isn’t ‘stop caring about your favourite shows or games at all’ but when people spend more time viciously fighting with other gay people online about whether boots longhorn was politically problematic for trying to dismantle the cockandballs empire than they do helping irl people, i think it’s a bit strange. i suppose if they are having fun then it is okay but it doesn’t look fun and those people are often very mean about very unimportant things.

senorita-patita

kabru's fake ass backfires on him once again

#dungeon meshi

mikoriin

trying not to be depressed over this, but genuinely there is nowhere for small artists like me to go anymore. no one reblogs shit on tumblr anymore, fandom or original content, twitter’s algorithm is specifically only for people/posts with thousands of followers and notifs, instagram is littered with ads and toxicity. fuck facebook. pillowfort isnt big enough yet so no one uses it….i suck at patreon because i am not consistent or diverse enough to ask people for money just to see my art like….i genuinely hate the fact that art has turned into capitalism. i hate the captilization of the internet i hate it so much

mikoriin

and like, EVERY artist is having this problem everywhere. bigger, more known artists too are losing traction or overworking themselves to bump out content like theyre a machine because capitalism demands it. viewers scarf down content like a starving creature and then leave artists bone dry and exhausted. so think, if this is happening to bigger artists, imagine what its like for small artists. the artists who go unrecognized and unappreciated because no one sees their art because no one is circulating content.

reblogs on this site are so necessary, likes are nice but im sorry they are Not enough. if you like a post, reblog it. if u like an art piece, reblog it. im not saying u HAVE to reblog every single post that tickles u pink but it sure would be nice for artists to know their work is appreciated, or hell even just seen. my online experience used to be fun, now its lonely and heartbreaking because everyone is consuming media at the speed of light and moving on to the next thing within days to a week. let things simmer in your system for a while, let yourself focus on one thing for five minutes instead of deciding that once its been out for a month and youve consumed a piece of media, its no longer the “hot new thing” and no longer worth your time. its so shallow and also not even fun. fandom, art, and media is supposed to be about having fun pursuing your passions. now everything is a cash grab. please please do not let this trend among the art community continue.

support artists. support content creators. fuck the mega corps. and remember, be creative yourself. its good for the brain.

betterbemeta

Recently, youtuber Natalie Wynn brought up a great concept in her breakdown of why Incels believe the things they do– “masochistic epistemology.” She put it simply, “what hurts, is true.”

She said this in the context of how incels basically form parasocial death cults when they are ‘blackpilled.’ They come to believe that because they feel terrible about themselves right now, that feeling is objectively true and forever, and even the reality of how the ‘world really works’ and there’s no hope to change it, only to “LDR”. Which is, ‘lie down and rot’, a form of suicide baiting. What’s happened here is that otherwise genuine feelings of pain or insecurity have been validated maybe too much and have evolved into an entire worldview centered around affirmation of pain. And once pain-as-truth becomes social capital, the way people behave changes to maximize its growth and spread.

But I have to say? I feel like I have encountered versions of the very same behavior in my own spaces, on tumblr, on facebook, etc.:

There’s definitely forms of love-bombing that surround mental illness or depression support connections that shower you with confirmation and praise only as long as you reject any steps of managing mental illness, so long as it unstoppably dominates your life. Once you question someone else’s behavior or declare that you’re seeing a therapist or something all your new parasocial friends turn against you.

I’ve seen it in supposedly feminist spaces where women that are otherwise strangers to each other talk each other into hopelessness and heightened fear of sex and fear of other people in their life, especially male figures. Sometimes not even based in a specific personal experience, but instead just this collective ‘dark truth’ of womanhood. TERFs love to do this, and segue younger people into fear of trans women this way.

I’ve seen it happen a lot within lgbt+ spaces where someone’s personal despair about dysphoria, homophobia they face, not being able to find a partner or being judged by family or strangers, or even fear of violence, enters a feedback loop with other people they don’t actually know and don’t have any interests but their own consumption in mind amplifying it, forming these insular enclaves where fear is truth and everyone else is wrong because they don’t feel as terrible about being attracted to the same sex or for being trans as they should. Meanwhile no one struggling within this structure is actually getting the support or help they need, they’re just arguing about it and building cases for, when the mythical support does fall from the sky, why they should get it first.

There’s mounds of discourse where people argue over how because that group couldn’t possibly live as terrible a reality as this group, their lived experience isn’t the order of the universe and therefore doesn’t deserve validity or attention at all. And to argue, inexperienced people fall into the trap of trying to artificially match the despair levels of their critics, or try to counter one black pill with their own black pill which will never be credible to outsiders, resulting in cringy disaster at all vectors. In the red-hot radioactive mess troll accounts prosper.

Which is not to say that all these situations are full of people as baseless as incels– some of them are living very difficult lives, but are using “masochistic epistemology“ as the internal logic of their world. And the effect of such an internal logic is extremely dark self-confirming biases in excess of what is necessary to communicate the dangers of their lives, or cope with hardship. And any similar person who goes off seeking friends who acknowledge their pain is going to find a black hole of people who’d otherwise be peers escalating that very pain in themselves and others in order to confirm it’s all real.

Natalie Wynn herself, a trans woman, struggled with the urge to go to 4chan’s /lgbt/ and wait for the most toxic and hopeless crowds there rip her appearance apart even though it made very little logical sense. The people there shared the same insecurities as her, that they don’t pass, that people will despise them, and in some way hearing those insecurities confirmed rather than denied to her felt more like ‘the real truth’ or ‘what people really think’ than it did to hear praise and encouragement. Even if what they had to say wasn’t anywhere near an objective truth.

The “pain is real” mindset is that hard to shake! It doesn’t matter if you’re smart, prepared to identify the phenomenon with philosophy education, intellectually aware that it’s bad for you. There is a self-harm impulse to ‘face reality’, but a very specific reality that confirms the bias of your pain or insecurity. The comfort zone of discomfort, in a way! It just wants you to not feel crazy for feeling those things and is willing to hurt you even more to prove you’re right about your environment or your life.

lobbamattos

#masochistic epistemology#the root of I think a lot of parasocial hells on the internet#where the worst discourse often comes from

@betterbemeta tags are relevant, here

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