Seeby

Probably a blog with LARP photos, photos of kittens, and general geekery. There may also be LARP event reviews, rants, and whatever else I feel like posting... They/Them

[shamebats]

[kabretoss]

It does matter. It matters exactly like this.

Last month I was in the ER, the most vulnerable emotionally that I've ever been while putting myself in the hands of a stranger. That the intake doctor had a lanyard heavy with Pride pins mattered. It's such a tiny gesture, but the amount of safety I felt because of it, during an agonizing moment in my life, was huge.

[wheelie-sick]

sometimes people experiencing psychosis and/or mania will come up to you on the street and talk in confusing or upsetting ways. your job is to either have a regular human-to-human conversation with that person or politely leave. your job is not to call 911. do not call 911. you might kill that person if you call 911.

[wheelie-sick]

I don't even have the energy to screenshot and respond to your tags- what the actual fuck is wrong with you? "the cops are scared and rightfully so" "mental health calls are the scariest for cops" OH so this isn't about the safety of psychotic & manic people this is about piggy feelings?

and no, actually, this is not USA specific and no, actually, people from other countries should not ignore this post. police violence and sanism weren't invented in the US and they are certainly not unique to here. if you (or anyone) thinks that this bullshit doesn't happen elsewhere then you are not listening.

[ivytea]

local scrumptious cake population reduced by one

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

The most fascinating cat phenomenon I've seen moderating a cat breed forum is undeniably Indian Persian cats. It's such a complicated mix of cat genetics, geography, colonialism, and Victorian race science. I don't fully understand it all. And it's not like I have the cultural background or language skills to have delicate conversations with cat breeders in India about where their cats really come from.

But here are the facts Wikipedia can tell you:

From the 1600s to the 1800s, Europeans saw and sometimes obtained cats with very long and silky hair that were said to come from somewhere in the Levant/Middle East/Central Asia. Possibly Persia or Khorasan

Khorasan is a region divided by Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. It seems to have some relationship with cats with long silky hair.

As the British colonized India, reports of these cats and how they were even imported into northern India from Afghanistan became more and more frequent.

In London in 1871, the Crystal Palace hosted the first known cat show.

Cats, I hasten to point out, didn't really have "breeds" the way we see them in dogs, horses, or cows. Humans didn't play a huge role in choosing which cats would breed with which in their history. It is, in fact, significantly harder to prevent cats from fucking whoever they damn well want to. Most major differences between cats before the late 19th century were caused by geographic barriers that placed natural limitations on the pool of available feline fuckbuddies. But this was a time when humans had cracked evolution and Mendelian genetics and we were breeding cows and pigs and tea roses of gargantuan size, and apparently we looked at cats and thought, "Why not them too?"

So, 1871. Cats of unparalleled regal fluffiness and an exotic origin story. This was also when Siamese cats made their public début, but the colourpoint/acromelanism gene of Southeast Asia was genuinely unique and rare in Europe. You really did need imported breeding stock for Siamese cats.

But these days we have DNA and can compare relatedness between breeds and feral cat populations, and modern pedigreed Persian cats do not show much genetic interrelatedness with cats from Central Asia, but they are very interrelated with... the British Shorthair. And feral cats of Western Europe.

So I'm not saying everyone in 1871 was out in rural Shropshire hunting farmyards and barns for the fluffiest kitten known to man to win the next year's cat show with, but like... look me in the eye and say that isn't what happened. I dare you.

Persians in the West, being one of the oldest cat breeds, have had a lot of time to develop some really stellar inbred traits like the smashed-in face beloved of the 1950s that makes it hard for them to groom themselves, breathe easily, or make their teeth match without a massive underbite. Breeders are now trying to breed away to a healthier "doll-faced" standard, but they're not winning huge popularity prizes.

Meanwhile, in India... you still have a ton of completely majestic cats descended from the ones that kicked off the Persian craze in the first place. Perhaps actually from Persia, or at least Khorasan. None of whom count as "real Persians" because they didn't get named Wiggles McSnugglebutt III by a woman in Berkshire before being exported to India.

Except you actually do have a fair number of purebred western-style Persians, except hold the Persian part of their ancestry, brought to India and sold for huge amounts of money to win Western-style cat shows.

All of which to say: What the fuck???

So every couple weeks someone from India posts their beautiful fluffy "Persian" cat to the cat breeds forum and gets completely dogpiled because they don't have a documented pedigree and a fucked-up face for their pains, and I'm left struggling in an attempt to communicate that their cat (like every cat) is special and wonderful and also cat breeds are incredibly weird.

(God, how did I end up with this gig? "You hate modern cat breeds and aren't afraid to back it up with research? Come tell people what breed their cat is multiple times a day!")

[beetroot-merchant]

im not a girl Unless ☝️ im being told to go piss

[hcnnibal]

just got back into gardening so i’ve forgotten. are basil leaves supposed to be this big

[hcnnibal]

am i the problem

[mousegirlheart]

op are you a hobbit

[the-merry-otter]

In honour of Pride Month, I present: me (a Queer ™) with swords

How it started (2022) vs how it’s going (2026)

[reformedpeasant]

me too!!

how it started (2022) vs how it's going (2026)

[the-merry-otter]

omg SLAY

[targetedknowledge]

[goetic-justice]

The name's Loudly. Meows Loudly. And you're not gonna believe what I have to say next.

[whollyunnecessary]

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[haystarlight]

People from this country are always so beautiful

(the flag is super pretty, too)

[lalulutres]

worried that squirrels were eating all the birdseed, so we set up a camera

[felthief]

i do not think that is a squirrel

[camwyn]

Goddamn raccoons

[trochaic-mutant-ninja-tetrameter]

🎶We set up a camera! Goddamn raccoons!🎵

[digitaldiscipline]

@raccoonmilf

[the-quasar-hero]

Wait, the dog days are over? The dog days are done? And no one told me 😰?!

[the-quasar-hero]

S-should I run @saintemry 😨?

[saintemry]

i think you’d better 😰 ohhh shit here they come

🐎🐎🐎

[the-quasar-hero]

Oh no 😨 I havta get to my mother, my father, my children, my sisters and brothers quickly 🏃🏿‍♂️

[bread-making-vikings]

Dude you left all your love and your longing behind, tidy up after yourself please

[the-quasar-hero]

Can I carry it with me? I want to survive 🥺

[parttimehealer]

Happy Pride!! 🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[uss-edsall]

At 1 PM on a Friday I get an email from my boss. I'm busy as hell so I don't check it immediately. Then I get a phone call from my boss, which has almost never happened before. I'm a white collar worker, a historian. There's never a 'historical emergency' requiring a phone call to kick me in the ass and get to work.

The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.

It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.

The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.

This map required:

North and South Vietnam in it

All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated

Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)

Has Laos and Cambodia in it

Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it

So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'

I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.

Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.

The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.

The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc

At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"

My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond

good fucking god, jesus tap dancing goddamn christ, I'm glad I was asked to look at it and then find a real map

[the-murmuration-project]

My fear has never been that AI would replace human intelligence. My fear has been that the people who Know Things and the people who Make The Decisions are almost never the same people.

We’re throwing real intelligence out on the street to starve while worshipping the shambling Frankenstein-ed corpse of knowledge puppeteered by those who see us as disposable assets.

[theowlburrow]

Video games 🎮

[scoobydoodean]

I’m dead serious when I say my favorite salmon dean moment is when Sam finds that horrible taxidermy animal with the costume on and holds it up for Dean to look at.

[scoobydoodean]

Forget dying in your brother's arms or whatever THIS is peak siblingism.