The Mindelan Menagerie

AO3: GoldfishForHire This blog is a mess of fandom and politics. Intersectional feminist from Canada. My profile icon is from  www.tamora-pierce.net/series/the-tortall-universe/

[astraldemise]

looks at you

[astraldemise]

looks at you

[syn4k]

@bettsplendens i'd just like you to know that this is my favorite comment on this post and i'd like it to be memorialized

[joy-and-whimsy-official]

Joy and whimsy detected! This sneaky (?) bittern is joyful and whimsical!

[weedass]

woke up and turned over and there was a roach next to me.... wtf did we do last night....?

[mr-freezo-42069-inactive]

how dare you make me read this

[allgremlinyaps]

The Earth Queen is such a good secondary villain because she perfectly encapsulates an impotent reactionary ruler of a failing state. Big on blaming other's for her kingdom's problems, but privately only ever shoring up power to protect herself and her interests (and her luxury.)

Her grievances with The United Republic were later co-opted into Kuvira's nationalism, but she was more offended by the affront The United Republic committed against her personal dignity, than out of any kind of desire for collective justice for her people.

[allgremlinyaps]

Actually... on Kuvira's nationalism and her motivations being different than the Earth Queen's, (despite their goals being more or less the same...)

I know everyone interprets Kuvira's arc in the finale as being sympathetic to her, but I think that's not the ONLY thing the audience is supposed to get out of it.

Yes, Korra verbally sympathizes with her. But never to the point of justification. Korra is picking out the pieces of Kuvira that she understands, because she knows that by doing so, she will render Kuvira's struggle IMPOTENT. And she DOES.

She RIGHTLY identifies that Kuvira is a childish, lonely woman. She RIGHTLY identifies that Kuvira is terrified. She knows now, that Kuvira is desperate for safety and belonging and is willing to go to any lengths in order to achieve this deeply personal, selfish, pathetic nirvana. Kuvira's actual political convictions weigh far less in her mind than her petty, emotional reaction to Su "abandoning" her. No glorious empire. No justice for the Earth Kingdom. Kuvira is scared. Scared and pathetic. And after Korra makes her confront this truth, it's impossible for her to go back to the lie. (And Ruins Of The Empire kind of continues with this struggle - whether she goes back to the lie or not.)

I think it may be a little sloppy, and definitely allows for people to think Kuvira is supposed to be the most sympathetic out of all the villains, which I agree can be a flaw, but I also think people forget that this is children's programming. (I know, I'm one to say that, lol.) The finale was, essentially, trying to unmask fascism in a very simplistic way. And yes, it is simplistic. But I think it's effective at doing what it tries to do.

[allgremlinyaps]

Ok and one last thing.

When Korra and Kuvira are in the spirit portal, and Korra recognizes Kuvira as a literal dark reflection of herself...

Do you not think it's important to be able to identify that you are also capable of evil? To be able to identify the parts of yourself that are WEAK to evil? To know that you are not infallible, that you're not immune to propaganda, that nothing really separates you from becoming what you hate besides your own willpower?

Do you not think it's important for children to learn that?

[whaile]

late summer / early fall thoughts

[kaylmao]

idk i would personally rather give up access to certain products seasonally or locally than have people enslaved to give me the ability to have any product any place any time. i think i can go without tomatoes in january.

[sewickedthread]

Think how much tastier the tomato will be, when you can only get it in season (in part because then you don't breed for 'does it travel well' instead of taste).

[mjrtaurus]

So in honor of One Piece officially overtaking Superman as the most sold graphic novel series under one author worldwide, Oda wrote what the One Piece is on paper, put that paper in a chest, put that chest in a pressurized container, then sunk that container to the bottom of the sea at an undisclosed location.

So if anyone out there wants to know what the One Piece is before it’s revealed in the story, they just have to set sail for themselves and find it.

[lovely-v]

As foretold

[idiomagic]

Just a life update, for anyone who cares. Two years ago, my husband had a great job, with insurance and everything. My health improved. We scrimped and saved and bought a house...old, not in great shape, but ours. And then everything went to hell. My husband was replaced with AI. When he lost his job, we lost our insurance. Immediately thereafter, SpyBoy got sick and we maxed out our credit cards trying to save him. Jonathan got a job unloading trucks at a grocery store. We lost SpyBoy. My health got steadily worse. J's job has kept him at 39 1/2 hours a week so they wouldn't have to give him insurance. And now they've cut him back to 2 days a week. We don't have a car, so he walks over a mile to work. There are no buses here, so he's limited to work within walking distance. We lost our food stamps. I was denied for disability, again. We divided our house in half and turned the other half into a rental apartment. We are drowning in credit card debt. We have no assistance. J makes less than a thousand dollars a month. I started my Etsy business back in February. I make funny little creatures, sparkly pride merch, magnets, and more! It's doing well, for a new business with no advertising budget. But not well enough. We are desperately trying to refinance the house, but it's a 50/50 proposition at this point, because of our low income. I've been trying to keep things together, but we're going under. It is 98 degrees here, feels like 117. And we're going to have our electricity cut off next week if I can't somehow find $389. Part of my disability is poor temperature regulation. If we lose the a/c, I'm going to end up in the hospital, which we can't afford. We're only a few months from losing the house at this point and ending up homeless. If anyone can help, I still have my entire library for sale: https://www.ebay.com/usr/featherinyourcapnola Here's my Etsy store: https://mardigoth.etsy.com

We have a gofundme: https://gofund.me/145eb9d3f

I have a kofi: https://ko-fi.com/idiomagic

I have a wishlist for cat stuff: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/BK56PZUL2A76/ref=nav_wishlist_lists_2 If anyone can help at all, we would be so very grateful. Reblogs help so much! The past two years have been an unrelenting hell, one blow after another. Please, please help us.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

My garden, with the innumerable herbs and alliums I let flower instead of pulling out, has suddenly acquired a myriad of wasps. They’re mostly solitary species and fairly chill so of course I had to stick a camera in their faces.

So far I’m really happy with these!

These will eventually make their way to the @animalphotorefs repository, once I sort the uh…. Six thousand and seven hundred something bug photos I just took.

[mslanna]

wait a minute

Termina is broken in a box (but she shares some kind of headspace with Bolaire)

Azune casts mending on Bolaire and "the spell energy goes into something"

we never find out where the spell energy went

it certainly is never mentioned what/ if it has an effect on Bolaire

Termina jumps out of her box all kintsugied

lemme get a tinfoil hat real quick here

[startedwellthatsentence]

… You fucking genius *kisses you on the lips*

[an0neemouse]

It's okay to want people to engage with your art. People act like it's shameful to want engagement, but it really isn't. We are social creatures who crave connection. It makes sense that we would want that with the things we create as well.

Our world is no longer built for community. We are isolated and lonely and tired. Make art anyway. Find a community. Engage and be engaged with. Find your people.

[yorkshirearthurdent]

They should block chatgpt on uni WiFi the way they used to block coolmathgames

[beyond-a-name]

they should make chatgpt automatically redirect to coolmathgames so you can actually fucking learn something

[tvguts]

something about Toy Story toys is so strange to me. versions of animated characters based on real world toys, turned back into toys that are slightly different than the actual toys. slinky dog with a rubber spiral instead of a classic metal slinky. the porcelain bo peep and cloth woody turned into jointed plastic action figures. when toy story 4 came out and i saw a $30 talking action figure of forky, a character made out of a spork and a pipe cleaner, i stood in the walmart toy aisle staring at it like cameron from ferris bueller's day off staring at that painting in the art museum

[mclennonyaoi]

reading this deposition that just got dropped where someone sued musk and ohhhh my god it is this funniest thing ever . i can see why his lawyer tried to keep this confidential . they’re both maybe the biggest idiots . this is like ace attorney

[mclennonyaoi]

Elon Musk Didn’t Want His Latest Deposition Released. Here It Is.

Musk is being sued for falsely suggesting a 22-year-old Jewish man was part of a neo-Nazi brawl.

Elon Musk Deposed In Lawsuit For Falsely Linking Jewish Man To Neo-Nazi Brawl

Elon Musk was deposed in a recent lawsuit for falsely linking a 22-year-old Jewish man to a neo-Nazi brawl. Musk, who attempted to keep the

PLEASE read this

[mclennonyaoi]

[mclennonyaoi]

[mclennonyaoi]

[mclennonyaoi]

bankston is my HERO he’s tearing these people apart

[mclennonyaoi]

damn

[mclennonyaoi]

HE LEFT

[mclennonyaoi]

????

[mclennonyaoi]

oh my god

[mclennonyaoi]

KILL HIM

[mclennonyaoi]

he is DONE.

[mclennonyaoi]

HELP ME .

[mclennonyaoi]

wow. ok.

[mclennonyaoi]

[mclennonyaoi]

genuinely first two pages he says that he thinks ben’s lawyer is the one who is actually suing him and admits he has no clue what the lawsuit is about .

[mclennonyaoi]

doing a reread now this is so cunty

[mclennonyaoi]

goddamn .

[cryptotheism]

fun fact: the Mr. Bankston here is Mark Bankston, the same lawyer who absolutely ruined Alex Jones during the Sandy Hook trial.

[ex-libris-craux]

how in the fuck did the muskrat's attorney pass the bar

[ruffboi-mags]

Mark Bankston is gonna make me fucking SWOON.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

I don't think Mark can ever top "INDEED, MR. JONES, INDEED" and "AND THAT IS HOW I KNOW YOU LIED TO ME" from the first Sandy Hook trial in Texas (not to be confused with Chris Mattei, the attorney in the Connecticut trial), but this part

MR. SPIRO: Do you give these lectures at all of your depositions? MR. BANKSTON: I do, and you can watch them.

is ESPECIALLY hilarious to me having listened to multiple depositions Mark has had to take in the Sandy Hook case, where he has needed to lecture EVERY. SINGLE. ATTORNEY. at some point in the case about how they're violating Texas Rule XYZ, because they all, to a one, did something seriously ethically questionable during the deposition.

like, YOU CAN WATCH/LISTEN TO HIS DEPOS. HE DOES HAVE TO GIVE THOSE LECTURES EVERY TIME. IT'S NOT EVEN A JOKE.

[nat-20s]

You can replace [ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY] with [SCROLLING] but watch out. This sucks bad 👍

[nat-20s]

Some things about this post since getting quite a few notes:

1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!

2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.

3. I think there are times where scrolling is fine. Right now, for example, I'm being connected to a machine for two hours to donate plasma and platelets. Yes this is a brag but it is also a time where scrolling is one of the few things I can do. (Though I will probably also read or watch something on phone lol)

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

hmmm, this seems to be some kind of curse breaking spell… be free ye reader

[setulose]

Whatttt is with the tendency of Tumblr users to seek absolution from every single person who offhandedly posts about disagreeing with something they do

[setulose]

I say this not unkindly, but firmly: to function as a member of a social species, you have to get comfortable with the idea that not everyone will like you

[killhitleragain]

PBS and NPR were never beholden to the US government.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created so that the US government could fund public media without public media being influenced by the government. It was a private non-profit funded by the government, not a part of the government itself. This is by design. This was a good thing. It meant that even small local TV and radio stations, could afford to create media for the public good, without government influence.

This meant TV and radio stations for poor communities. For non-english speaking communities. For rural communities. For minorities. It meant that free and accessible media could be created for everyone, even if the government didn't like it.

That's why conservatives defunded it.

Because if they couldn't control it, and if it helped the people they hated, then they would have to destroy it. Do you really think that a fascist government would defund their own propaganda machine?

Not only is the idea that PBS before being defunded was propaganda wrong, but ignores the fact that defunding it is going to have long-term negative effects on vulnerable communities.

OP of the post in the screenshot called me an idiot and blocked me for pointing this out. So I'm setting the record straight. The CPB was never our enemy.

[docholligay]

Possibly my spiciest take is that it's actually good to have people you respect and like that have some dogshit takes.

I think part of what is making young people lonelier, in discussing why they're increasingly isolated, is that they're so afraid of meeting someone who doesn't hold their same beliefs, and instead of being just core beliefs it is kinda ancillary shit.

It's actually okay to disagree even on social topics! Even on some political ones! But I mean, online you can start with "i love this mutual but they have a really bad/uninformed opinion about x media"

I know this is IMMEDIATELY going to be taken in bad faith, and yes babygirl, you are so right, I DO want you to go make best friends with both the KKK grand wizard AND your nearest nazi leader.

But seriously, as someone who has spent two decades doing community organization: finding ways to connect with different people is so so so important. There are people i follow here who ate 80% smart and their brain falls out of their head 20% of the time and that is GOOD FOR MY MENTAL ECOSYSTEM AND GOOD FOR LEARNING HOW TO BE A PERSON

LET'S ALL GO PISS ON THE POOR

[mikkeneko]

[notaplaceofhonour]

It’s also good to assume you probably are the friend whose brain falls out 20% of the time.

We all have blind spots, assumptions, and dogshit take from time to time. They can’t all be winners.