Knock knock, Lan Xichen how did gou get in my head? I'm sorry I see you've got a lil something going on there, but can you please be less depressing while you're here?? You're really bringing the mood down for everyone else.
Spring comic. Spring is when I miss living in the woods in Wisconsin the most, cool plants, morel mushrooms, my mom pulling wood ticks off my head… just wonderful.
If you like my comic and want to toss some money in my hat here’s a link.
Do not ever be rude or condescending to someone who asks "obvious" questions, no matter how obvious or silly you think the question is.
For one, in some cultures asking an obvious question is just a polite way of acknowledging the situation. So for example, if you just put your jacket on and start clocking out, a co-worker asking "oh, you done for the day and heading out now?" doesn't deserve you sneering at them like an idiot, scoffing, and saying "uh duh, just like I do every day at this time" when it's likely they knew the answer, but were just asking as a polite way of acknowledging the situation.
But even if they were genuinely unsure that you're leaving even though it seems obvious to you from context clues, so what? What does being rude and condescending to them achieve? Maybe they couldn't sleep last night so they're really out of it today, maybe they're dissociating, maybe they're about to pass out from low blood sugar, maybe some other employees sometimes put on their jacket and only clock out briefly but come back.
There's all sorts of reasons they could be confused about whether or not you're leaving, but intentionally making them feel bad achieves nothing except, well, making them feel bad. Either way, they're not hurting you or anyone by asking a "stupid" question, so there's no point in being rude about it. If you still want to make them feel bad about themselves for looking "stupid" when they weren't hurting anyone, that is the mindset of bullies and abusers.
Thank you everyone who is pointing out in the notes that this is usually an attempt to connect with someone and/or strike up a conversation. Because honestly in my experience 9 times out of 10 when someone asks an "obvious" question that's what they're trying to do. If someone walks into the kitchen and asks "oh are you cooking?" while you're standing over the stove holding a spatula, they probably already know the answer, but they're just trying to start a conversation with you and connect to you.
All the more reason it's sad and hurtful when these attempts are met with sneering and being treated like an idiot.
There are no stupid questions, only assholes providing snarky non-answers. Because aside from the bid for connection or genuine confusion, sometimes there are REASONS why you might get an obvious question.
“Oh, are you cooking?” asks person who thought you were going out tonight.
“Are you leaving?” asks time-blind person who’s surprised it’s 5:00.
“Are you going to lunch?” asks person who remembers there’s a meeting in 30 minutes.
This is where I make my occasional reminder that Emily Post said the reason for manners is to make others comfortable and foster kind, thoughtful human interactions.
As someone who works with kids (and grew up multicultural), I am often mindboggled at how narrow minded adults can be when someone doesn't act the way they themselves would, or they dont know why someone does/says something so they automatically assume incompetence.
How can ppl move through the world without giving others the benefit of the doubt? Hasn't everyone experienced a dumb misunderstanding before? Its such a common media trope too, and yet that and the golden rule seem to go flying out the window when its happening to them. Aiya its so exhausting!
Worldcat is my bestie and my one true love!! Not only does it tell you what library a book is at, but it also price compares different used book sites against each other for easy view! It's how I got Tarot For the Master for $10!!
Oh, and since I have your attention: z-library (books and textbooks) and sci-hub (gatekept scientific journal articles.) I just ripped a textbook for class off z-library and snatched a required reading from sci-hub. Life is good and education should be accessible at every stage and station of life.
academic dishonesty is not something you can spin as moral lol i do not want to share a career field let alone a social sphere with a bunch of chatgpt using ass bitches
When I say I miss being around fellow asians its bc I also default to 89 flavors of 'mmm's to convey literally every feeling. Non asians keep wanting me to use actual words and its clearly not necessary (see yunho's perfect example here).
Why english why!! Why cant I just mmm and aahh my way through every other interaction?!?!
Summary: Lan Wangji feels his heart break. He wishes he could scoop the children up and hide them somewhere, where nothing will ever hurt them again. “Please, all of you eat,” he pleads. “There will always be enough from now on. It is my promise.”
“You’re too good, Hanguang-jun,” Wei Wuxian sighs. “You’ll make a wonderful father someday.”
“I will have learnt from the best,” he nods at Wei Wuxian. The man’s cheeks fill with colour so pretty, Lan Wangji has to turn away entirely in order to breathe again.
———
A storm thunders violently, the forest howls in pain, and children are disappearing into the night. Amongst it all, Lan Wangji encounters a strange, beautiful man. And his five children.
Mojo's comments: Someone is whisking away marginalized children - orphans and street kids - from many towns and villages. Wwx, working in the orphanage where he grew up (after his street years), gets wind of it in time to grab the five remaining kids and run. He stumbles into an inn after staggering his way through a tremendous storm and a haunted forest, right into an unsuspecting lwj's life.
The pacing for much of the story feels tranquil and domestic, yet it's really, really NOT, because all kinds of stuff is happening in the background, while lwj falls helplessly in love with wwx AND all five of the children, and realizes how much his life has been missing. He's pretty much instantly committed to their lifelong protection and happiness, although, of course, he can't come right out and SAY it, it would be disrespectful to put wwx in such a position.
case fic, no sunshot campaign, canon-divergence, kid fic, strangers to lovers, dadxian, found family, pov lan wangji, pining, sharing a bed, fake/pretend relationship, first time, different first meeting, non-cultivator wei wuxian, accidental baby acquisition, good father wei wuxian, good father lan wangji, getting together, parent-child relationship, first kiss, shameless smut, top lan wangji, top wei wuxian, happy ending
~*~
(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)
Lovely case fic AU where our boys meet as adults where wwx never got adopted by anyone and instead adopted a bunch of kiddos himself. LWJ takes one look and says mine, as usual.
My favorite form of radish consumption 🥹 tiny baby radish and his doting farmer brother-father-mother figure
Seriously how do I manifest more baby a-yuan and xian-gege in my life? Tumblr gods are you listening? I need more baby a-yuan - modern day aus, burial mounds fluff, tiny dragon noodle bb, littlest ray of lan sunshine, I need more a-yuan!!
Planet's Fucked: What Can You Do To Help? (Long Post)
Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.
In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.
We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.
There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).
So what can you, my fellow Americans, do to help mitigate and minimize the inevitable damage that lay ahead?
I'm not going to tell you to recycle more or take shorter showers. I'll be honest, that stuff is a drop in the bucket. What does matter on the individual level is restoring and protecting habitat, reducing threats to at-risk species, reducing pesticide use, improving agricultural practices, and pushing for policy changes. Restoring CONNECTIVITY to our landscape - corridors of contiguous habitat - will make all the difference for wildlife to be able to survive a changing climate and continued human population expansion.
**Caveat that I work in the northeast with pollinators and birds so I cannot provide specific organizations for some topics, including climate change focused NGOs. Scientists on tumblr who specialize in other fields, please add your own recommended resources. **
We need two things: FUNDING and MANPOWER.
You may surprised to find that an insane amount of conservation work is carried out by volunteers. We don't ever have the funds to pay most of the people who want to help. If you really really care, consider going into a conservation-related field as a career. It's rewarding, passionate work.
At the national level, please support:
The Nature Conservancy
Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
Cornell Lab of Ornithology (including eBird)
National Audubon Society
Federal Duck Stamps (you don't need to be a hunter to buy one!)
These first four work to acquire and restore critical habitat, change environmental policy, and educate the public. There is almost certainly a Nature Conservancy-owned property within driving distance of you. Xerces plays a very large role in pollinator conservation, including sustainable agriculture, native bee monitoring programs, and the Bee City/Bee Campus USA programs. The Lab of O is one of the world's leaders in bird research and conservation. Audubon focuses on bird conservation. You can get annual memberships to these organizations and receive cool swag and/or a subscription to their publications which are well worth it. You can also volunteer your time; we need thousands of volunteers to do everything from conducting wildlife surveys, invasive species removal, providing outreach programming, managing habitat/clearing trails, planting trees, you name it. Federal Duck Stamps are the major revenue for wetland conservation; hunters need to buy them to hunt waterfowl but anyone can get them to collect!
THERE ARE DEFINITELY MORE, but these are a start.
Additionally, any federal or local organizations that seek to provide support and relief to those affected by hurricanes, sea level rise, any form of coastal climate change...
At the regional level:
These are a list of topics that affect major regions of the United States. Since I do not work in most of these areas I don't feel confident recommending specific organizations, but please seek resources relating to these as they are likely major conservation issues near you.
PRAIRIE CONSERVATION & PRAIRIE POTHOLE WETLANDS
DRYING OF THE COLORADO RIVER (good overview video linked)
PROTECTION OF ESTUARIES AND SALTMARSH, ESPECIALLY IN THE DELAWARE BAY AND LONG ISLAND (and mangroves further south, everglades etc; this includes restoring LIVING SHORELINES instead of concrete storm walls; also check out the likely-soon extinction of saltmarsh sparrows)
UNDAMMING MAJOR RIVERS (not just the Colorado; restoring salmon runs, restoring historic floodplains)
NATIVE POLLINATOR DECLINES (NOT honeybees. for fuck's sake. honeybees are non-native domesticated animals. don't you DARE get honeybee hives to 'save the bees')
WILDLIFE ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER (support the Mission Butterfly Center!)
INVASIVE PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES (this is everywhere but the specifics will differ regionally, dear lord please help Hawaii)
LOSS OF WETLANDS NATIONWIDE (some states have lost over 90% of their wetlands, I'm looking at you California, Ohio, Illinois)
INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, esp in the CORN BELT and CALIFORNIA - this is an issue much bigger than each of us, but we can work incrementally to promote sustainable practices and create habitat in farmland-dominated areas. Support small, local farms, especially those that use soil regenerative practices, no-till agriculture, no pesticides/Integrated Pest Management/no neonicotinoids/at least non-persistent pesticides. We need more farmers enrolling in NRCS programs to put farmland in temporary or permanent wetland easements, or to rent the land for a 30-year solar farm cycle. We've lost over 99% of our prairies to corn and soybeans. Let's not make it 100%.
INDIGENOUS LAND-BACK EFFORTS/INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT/TEK (adding this because there have been increasing efforts not just for reparations but to also allow indigenous communities to steward and manage lands either fully independently or alongside western science, and it would have great benefits for both people and the land; I know others on here could speak much more on this. Please platform indigenous voices)
HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS (get your neighbors to stop dumping fertilizers on their lawn next to lakes, reduce agricultural runoff)
OCEAN PLASTIC (it's not straws, it's mostly commercial fishing line/trawling equipment and microplastics)
A lot of these are interconnected. And of course not a complete list.
At the state and local level:
You probably have the most power to make change at the local level!
Support or volunteer at your local nature centers, local/state land conservancy non-profits (find out who owns&manages the preserves you like to hike at!), state fish & game dept/non-game program, local Audubon chapters (they do a LOT). Participate in a Christmas Bird Count!
Join local garden clubs, which install and maintain town plantings - encourage them to use NATIVE plants. Join a community garden!
Get your college campus or city/town certified in the Bee Campus USA/Bee City USA programs from the Xerces Society
Check out your state's official plant nursery, forest society, natural heritage program, anything that you could become a member of, get plants from, or volunteer at.
Volunteer to be part of your town's conservation commission, which makes decisions about land management and funding
Attend classes or volunteer with your land grant university's cooperative extension (including master gardener programs)
Literally any volunteer effort aimed at improving the local environment, whether that's picking up litter, pulling invasive plants, installing a local garden, planting trees in a city park, ANYTHING. make a positive change in your own sphere. learn the local issues affecting your nearby ecosystems. I guarantee some lake or river nearby is polluted
MAKE HABITAT IN YOUR COMMUNITY. Biggest thing you can do. Use plants native to your area in your yard or garden. Ditch your lawn. Don't use pesticides (including mosquito spraying, tick spraying, Roundup, etc). Don't use fertilizers that will run off into drinking water. Leave the leaves in your yard. Get your school/college to plant native gardens. Plant native trees (most trees planted in yards are not native). Remove invasive plants in your yard.
On this last point, HERE ARE EASY ONLINE RESOURCES TO FIND NATIVE PLANTS and LEARN ABOUT NATIVE GARDENING:
Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center
Pollinator Pathway
Audubon Native Plant Finder
Homegrown National Park (and Doug Tallamy's other books)
National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder (clunky but somewhat helpful)
Heather Holm (for prairie/midwest/northeast)
MonarchGard w/ Benjamin Vogt (for prairie/midwest)
Native Plant Trust (northeast & mid-atlantic)
Grow Native Massachusetts (northeast)
Habitat Gardening in Central New York (northeast)
There are many more - I'm not familiar with resources for western states. Print books are your biggest friend. Happy to provide a list of those.
Lastly, you can help scientists monitor species using citizen science. Contribute to iNaturalist, eBird, Bumblebee Watch, or any number of more geographically or taxonomically targeted programs (for instance, our state has a butterfly census carried out by citizen volunteers).
In short? Get curious, get educated, get involved. Notice your local nature, find out how it's threatened, and find out who's working to protect it that you can help with. The health of the planet, including our resilience to climate change, is determined by small local efforts to maintain and restore habitat. That is how we survive this. When government funding won't come, when we're beat back at every turn trying to get policy changed, it comes down to each individual person creating a safe refuge for nature.
Thanks for reading this far. Please feel free to add your own credible resources and organizations.
there is no way jason and tim haven't gotten bored during patrol and decided to switch places for a bit. like the amount they must banter and joke about how tim stole robin so he's coming for red hood next, and that jason's gonna steal red robin as revenge for taking robin from him; there has to be an occasion where during a slow night they're both bored and in funny moods so they just switch costumes behind an air conditioning unit without telling anyone for a laugh.
jason shows up to red robin's rendezvous with nightwing, batman and robin clearly about to tear through tim's suit. dick and damian stare at him in the utmost bafflement until bruce opens his mouth to ask what the fuck and dick cuts him off with a 'hoooold on b, i kinda wanna see what happens when he tries to use those bo-staffs.'
they end up just quietly accepting it and jason spends the next three hours doing the MOST dramatic tim impressions he can, including answering literally everything with 'uhm, actually ☝️🤓' vibes and every five minutes going in a very high pitched voice 'man, jason todd sure was my hero back when he was robin. i wish i had been good enough to fill his shoes but alas, i am just a pathetic little rich boy with no skills other than being a potential peeping-tom'. damian laughs. every time. there also comes a point where they all get into a fight with some criminals and jason has to bust out the bo-staffs except he was never trained with them so he doesn't know the techniques, and it ends up with dick sat on top of a billboard calling out point scores as jason runs around holding one of the staffs like fuckin steve harrington with his nail-bat just whacking guys over the head with it as if he's playing fuckin' goon-golf.
meanwhile tim is over in crime alley surrounded by jason's subordinates who ABSOLUTELY fuckin' know this is red robin wearing their bosses suit because it is DROWNING him and they've seen the two hang out enough to catch onto tim's speech style, except they are absolutely NOT going to be interfering or asking why because red robin is wearing a bomb-helmet and is clearly ENTIERLY too happy to be in a situation where it is socially acceptable for him to be using guns and threatening to kill people and jason's goons do NOT want to get involved. the rest of the bats finally end up in crime alley and they find 'red hood' sat on a chair in the middle of a street he's blocked off via death threats overseeing a human version of chess that he's playing against black mask (who does not seem to realise this isn't jason) complete with a chalk chess board drawn on the road and all of jason's subordinates resignedly standing in separate squares with pieces of paper stuck to their heads declaring what kind of piece they're supposed to be. jason and dick walk onto the street just in time to watch tim declare 'knight to E5!' and the guy with 'knight' pinned to his forehead clocks his real boss entering the scene dressed as red robin, sighs bitterly at him, drags his feet over to where black mask's 'queen' goon is staring at the floor forlornly, says 'sorry matthew,' and then proceeds to sock him in the face so hard the guy goes down in one hit.
Human relationships are not transactional but they are reciprocal, which I think many of you with your ‘i don’t owe anyone anything’ shtick are too happy to forget
Transactional: everything has to be exactly 50/50 all the time, pay me back for the £5 sandwich or buy me something worth exactly £5, I refuse to make an effort for you if there’s nothing in it for me
Reciprocal: you were there for me when I needed help, and I’m going to do the same for you, it doesn’t matter if one of us needs more or is capable of less, because the point is not equivalent exchange but mutual care
ellievsbear
areudirty
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