The Not-So-Zen Life of Squirrel and Panda

[melyzard]

As more and more people are being forced to switch to Windows 11, Microsoft's most AI-malware-ridden OS yet, I've been putting together articles and links for how to undo the damage and save your battery, your RAM, your disk space, your privacy, and your sanity from this bullshit.

FIRST:

The easiest way to get rid of the majority of the bullshit that Windows is forcing on us, as of October 2025, is this one-stop-one-click debloat solution from a modern day hero:

GitHub - Raphire/Win11Debloat: A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform v

A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customi

It's very easy, even if you're not tech savvy or get scared of pop up windows saying "ARE YOU SURE?" Yes, you are sure, I promise. This program takes maybe two minutes and will save you SO MUCH pain, time, and money (and exploitation).

Now that you've done that, here's the cleanup, to catch the little shit that the debloat might have missed (most of this will already be done by debloat, but hey, it's good to double check).

Sick of AI in your Windows 11 PC? Here's how to get rid of it

Microsoft wants to put AI everywhere on your PC, but you can take back control.

Even just reading about some of these features makes me angry. Fucking Copilot and "Discover" AI scrapers are in Notepad. NOTEPAD. And then there's this uncanny valley garbage:

No uncanny valley video calls for me, thanks! (Also, what else is it doing while it scans your face and listens to your calls? What else, microsoft? Because there was a lot of memory being assigned to this program for a simple "smooths your skin" add on).

Stop Windows 11's most intrusive ads with these 9 easy tweaks

Tired of Microsoft pushing ads throughout Windows 11? Here are the settings you can tweak to turn them off and reclaim some privacy.

The truly insane number of places they have stuck ads on your own home computer is sickening. Become Unmarketable.

Bonus:

Some background programs you probably don't need that are taking up space and how to remove them (Microsoft forums, 2024)

Your Samsung Galaxy Phone comes with 22 apps you don't need (Android Police, 2025)

How to disable the AI in firefox (still the only browser that lets you do this permanently) (Windows Report, 2025)

[indiestarlight-deactivated20250]

Trans Youth Healthcare Ban Proposed in WA State

[ID in alt]

People outside of Washington state often view it as a completely blue state with no chance of ever turning red, but speaking as someone who's lived here almost my entire life, that's not the case—our state is only blue because the most populous cities tend to vote democrat. In the election for our senator last November, the democratic candidate (Patty Murray) won by a pretty narrow margin, securing 57% of the vote. (More info, including a map breaking down political alignment by county, at this link).

People often view WA as a safe haven for trans rights, and while there is some truth to that, trans rights here are a lot shakier than you might think. Currently, Rep. Jim Walsh (R) is trying to introduce bill HB 1214, disgustingly and misleadingly named the "protecting children's bodies act". This bill would ban any gender affirming care for anyone under 18 in WA state, including people who are already receiving it—meaning that every trans person under the age of 18 in WA would be medically detransitioned. The bill would make it a class C felony (punishable by 5 years in prison and/or $10,000 in fines) for a provider to refer anyone under the age of 18 for gender-affirming care.

There are a lot of trans kids who would become immediately suicidal if they were forced to medically detransition. This bill could kill trans kids.

If you live in WA state

Please use this form [link] to contact Rep. Marcus Riccelli and ask him not to hold a hearing on this bill. If you don't live in Riccelli's district, the form will pop up a little "are you sure you want to contact this representative and not the one for your district?" warning, but you can just click "yes" and contact him.

If you live outside of WA state

Please spread this so that as many people in WA as possible will see it and contact Rep. Riccelli. If you're on Twitter, you can retweet the above graphic straight from the source at this link [link].

(Tagging @genderkoolaid @spacelazarwolf @transmascissues—if y'all could signal boost this I would be extremely grateful)

[feeshies]

Remind me to make a longer post about this later, but I think there's an interesting similarity in the way nonbinary (or genderqueer people in general) talk about the nuances of their gender and how people really big into specific music scenes talk about the nuances of the genres they listen to. Like there's the description you give other people in your community, and the "normie" description you give to people who aren't as familiar. And "genre" and "gender" are both constructs in similar ways too. Just my little binary observation tho.

I'll expand more on this later. But anyway, start asking people what genre they are and what gender of music they listen to.

[feeshies]

here's that longer post, but keep in mind i'm halfway through a bottle of soju rn

so as a binary trans person, i often had a difficult time understanding the really specific genders and gender identities i'll see. obviously i'll still support them, but i had trouble understanding. and that's just because my gender journey has been different.

sometimes (in less than positive circles) i'll see bad faith arguments against people with these genders like "the census isn't going to mark you down as 'catgender' lmao" which is annoying because i've never seen anyone say that?

the thesis of this post started to prickle in my head when i saw genderqueer mutuals of mine reblogging that post that was like "what is the gender identity you describe yourself as around cis people, and what's the specific one you actually identify as?" reading through people's responses and the way they described the nuances of their genders made me go

"oh shit, it's all music"

because if i'm listening to altar of plagues and my coworker asks what kind of music i'm listening to, i'm just going to say "metal". and if my grandma asks, i'll just say "rock". but if i'm talking to another person who i know is familiar with metal, that's when i feel like i wouldn't be wasting my breath going into specifics. because i know they'd know how describing a band as "black metal" is different than describing one as "power metal" or whatever.

that's what a lot of bad faith arguments around nonbinary genders don't seem to realize. they're not for the cishet majority to understand. i'd even argue that they're not for binary trans people to understand either, considering it took me this long to understand.

but it seems like when people talk about their gender through the lens of anything that goes beyond just male, female, or even strictly nonbinary, it comes from a place of wanting to discuss the nuances of gender identity.

like here's an interaction between two hip-hop heads that has never happened:

person 1: i like memphis rap -- specifically horrorcore.

person 2: okay, i have no followup questions. let's talk about something that has nothing to do with rap or music.

like if someone is coming out as cloudgender to you, it's because they think you're someone who can hang and talk about what that means. what does "cloudgender" mean to you? is it the constantly-shifting state? the association with the weather? the moodiness? the same way two people could have a 6 hour heated discussion about the differences between delta blues and hill country blues, but if you played a charley patton song back to back with an rl burnside song, some people who aren't familiar with blues won't be able to tell the difference. you might as well play the same song twice. so if someone identifies as a demigirl in some circles but to you they just say they're nonbinary or even just "female", they clocked you as a gender normie lol.

and just like gender, genre "doesn't exist", but it still has societal impact. a lot of the blues i listen to wouldn't sound out of place next to country artists. where are the lines? race? class? culture? all of the above? and this becomes muddier when you look at marketing. being plastered with a specific genre can be the kiss of death for your mainstream career, or the thing that pushes you to the top. it's a social construct, but we are social people.

anyway, i hope this makes sense. as a binary trans person i'm not sure where i fit in this analogy. maybe it's like i listened to a bunch of specific subgenres and went like "yeah these all scratch the same itch for me". but if people find meaning within the nichest of niche genres, i think that's amazing. you are an onion and you just kept peeling. when i see people with identities like bloodgender or flowergender, i see someone with a much more nuanced and complex relationship with their gender than i ever could have. i see poetry. i see music.

the booze is catching up with me.

[prierepaiienne]

someone mentioned it in the notes but ‘genre’ is gender in french, they are the same latin word. this concept is not just similar or analogous - it is literally the same concept

[chalksoul]

This is an amazing way to think about it, and it feels exactly how I feel about what use I use in what context about my gender

[nextstepcake]

I was musing a while ago about whether the trend of "microlabels" in gender sexuality has any parallels in the trend of "microgenres" in music and it's cool to see that other people find similar comparisons!

[wodneswynn-deactivated-deactiva]

Archaeologists: “Uhhhh, there’s still a lot of debate about how effective leather armor really could have been on a battlefield. Alas, we shall never know.”

Punks: “Hey, fresh cut, the boneheads carry knives sometimes so make sure and lift a good leather jacket. It’ll save your life.”

[equality-is-anarchy]

Layers layers layers! Slashes won’t do shit even to most t shirts but a stab will ignore the shit outa your leathers. Layers will keep the blade from getting as deep as it otherwise would and gives more for it to snag on if it serrated.

Armour has always been about layers.

Example 1200s minor noble: linen shirt, gambeson (layered and quilted linen with wool insulation), chain mail, surcoat, arming cap, helmet, coif, bigger helmet.

Another example Alexander era Macedonian hoplite: linen tunic, greaves, 1" of tightly pressed and laminated linen, helmet (probably with some sort of arming cap/padding inside), big ass shield.

Layers save lives.

[jackironsides]

Yes! Cloth is hard work to cut with a knife. When they were trying to ban (sword) duelling in Europe, they banned people from carrying around shields/bucklers, so your defensive tool was a cloak wrapped around your non-sword fist, with plenty of loose fabric to catch your opponent’s blade. You might get your cloak torn, but you’re less likely to get your skin sliced up, and that’s the important thing.

[jenniferrpovey]

You know what is a surprisingly amazing material for armor?

Silk.

Silk.

The Mongolians used silk vests because silk isn’t broken by an arrow, and you can use the silk to gently pull the arrow back out, even if it’s barbed. They also often used silk as the backing for leather armor.

The first bulletproof vests were made in Japan and Korea. Out of, yup, silk. Silk could stop black powder bullets, but was rendered obsolete by higher powered modern firearms. A combination of silk and metal was experimented with, but dropped because of the expense of silk.

Franz Ferdinand was wearing one such vest when he was assassinated, but it didn’t help because of where he was hit.

The US military is now looking into something called Dragon Silk, which is spider silk made by GMO silkworms, to make body armor that might be more comfortable than the current kevlar vests.

Silk, people.

[deliriumcrow]

You want proof about silk being able to stop an arrow? Try sewing it with the wrong machine needle in place. I have shattered – literally shattered – needles that were too thick. They just will not pass between the tightly woven fibers, even when in a machine that can go through your actual fingers. And that was just a lightweight taffeta, not something woven to be intentionally impenatrable.

It is horrible at stopping slashes, though. Whether by the blade of scissors, roller cutter, or well honed dagger or sword, it just falls to pieces like it never meant to be whole in the first place. This is, again, where your layers come in – a nice heavy leather for slash damage, a dense silk for piercing. You probably want to put something under it though, silk against sweaty skin is unpleasantly sticky. It *clings*. Eww.

[drpathetique]

Useful things elementary school neglected to teach me, exhibit #5839

[petermorwood]

This is, again, where your layers come in – a nice heavy leather for slash damage, a dense silk for piercing. You probably want to put something under it though, silk against sweaty skin is unpleasantly sticky. It *clings*. Eww. 

This is where linen, hemp or even nettle (no, it doesn’t sting) comes as the next-to-skin layer; comfortable, hard-wearing, easily washed and not even unusual: “linens” was period-speak for “underclothes” for centuries.

All three are made the same way, more or less, involving a technical vocabulary of retting, beetling, scutching, hackling etc.; look it up.

*****

* The wooden scutching-knife may be and IMO almost certainly is an ancestor of the “Dussack”, a German / Central European training weapon (the real thing would have been a Messer, a large fighting knife). Compare this illustration from a fight manual ca.1570…

…to a couple of modern repro dussacks…

…and finally to a couple of painted antique scutching-knives from Sweden, one marked 1918, so the shape hadn’t changed much in 300 years….

*****

Any fabric where the washing instructions are “boil until clean” will be OK as bottom-layer armour. That’s how its laundry labels say to treat top-quality Irish damask linens inherited from my Mum, so fabrics like hemp or nettle certainly won’t come to harm.

Your characters may interpret it this way: those who boil their under-tunics the night before combat seem to drive off a lot of infection demons and make wizard healing a bit easier.

Finally, a memorable side-note that has literally nothing to do with fabric armour or indeed fabric of any kind: in 1806 (or ‘08) MP and ex-military surgeon Humphrey Howarth was challenged to a duel.

That morning he washed thoroughly all over, then proceeded to the duelling ground in his coach - stark naked, knowing from his experiences as a military surgeon that cloth fragments forced into a wound were the primary cause of fatal infection.

Whether from embarrassment or because it was now A Silly Thing, his opponent Lord Barrymore called the duel off…

[roach-works]

also to stick up for archaeologists: fabric and leather armor doesn’t keep well the same way metal and ceramic does! even metal flakes away. and until fairly recently, archaeologists didn’t have particularly sophisticated tools to check for traces of fibers. they basically had to just dig up an area and hope to guess what was there from the shape of the rust or the bones or the shards of ceramics. this was why finding tombs has always been so exciting: it’s a room full of stuff that hasn’t totally rotted away, ideally with paintings on it showing living people wearing perishable goods like fabric.

armorers and archaeologists and historians have been debating about leather armor not in terms of was it good at being armor– modern leather gloves, boots, and jackets do a great job!– but whether or not any given civilization would have found it cost effective to use leather for protective equipment. some civilizations don’t have very many cows to spare. some have plenty. some could never hope to afford enough silk to let mercenaries have it; some mercenaries made a point of wearing gaudy patchwork silks and fabrics as a point of pride, some have historically exported the massive amounts of silk they had.

leather rots, especially leather that is continuously exposed to rain and sun and blood and stabbing. it’s not so easy to patch. it needs to be tanned and cured and oiled and maintained carefully. does leather make good armor? sure! is it what any given fighter would have been equipped with as the most effective protective gear for the time, geographical and economic climate, and contemporary weapons technology?

archaelogists aren’t being overpaid dipshits when they tell you they can’t say for sure.

[findingfeather]

Motherfucking THIS to that last part. 

[hellyeahscarleteen]

Protecting Yourself from Criminalization for Self-Managed Abortion — OARS

Self-managed abortion (SMA) with pills is very medically safe and effective throughout early pregnancy, but there is a significant risk of criminalization in many U.S. states. While it is impossible to fully eliminate the risk of criminalization when having or planning to have an abortion at home, t

[kickerofelves]

Leave no online footprint of searches or purchases. Digital Defense Fund’s abortion privacy guide is your go-to resource for this. Using private browsers, two-factor authentication, encrypted messaging, strong passwords, etc. is critical. Google searches have been presented as evidence in an SMA trial before. Do not leave a digital trail.

Use the medications properly to prevent interactions with healthcare providers. The pills are very effective, but they have to be used right. Carefully follow the instructions provided on the How to Use Abortion Pill website. Note that misoprostol tablets should always be taken by dissolving them under the tongue. Do NOT insert misoprostol vaginally if you are self-managing an abortion. While this is medically safe, it can leave incriminating pill remnants that can be detected in the vagina during a pelvic exam if you end up needing to seek medical care. 

If it’s not an emergency but you need expert health advice, use a free calling service like Google Voice to call or text the Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline at 1-833-246-2632. Medical complications are very uncommon with abortion pills, but they’re not impossible. The M+A Hotline is safe to use and is staffed by trustworthy clinicians who volunteer their time to help those who choose SMA. Do not use your own phone number to call as this will create a record that is visible to your cell service provider. 

Don’t disclose any information about SMA to emergency room staff if you do need to seek medical care. This is how most people who are arrested for SMA are reported. Healthcare providers are almost always who calls the police in cases of SMA criminalization. Contrary to popular belief, HIPAA does not protect your private health information from being shared with police if you are suspected of doing something that could be considered a crime. If you believe you need to seek urgent medical care, do not hesitate to go. Say “I think I’m having a miscarriage” and provide your symptoms. Do not mention any use of or purchase of abortion pills. There is no widely available test to detect misoprostol in your bloodstream. If you do not disclose it, there is no way for a medical provider to tell the difference between a medication abortion and a spontaneous miscarriage.

Do not talk to the cops. Period. Do. Not. Talk. To. The. Cops. If you are questioned by police you should state, “I am exercising my right to remain silent, and I wish to speak with an attorney.” Do not speak again or nod in response to a question. Contact the Repro Legal Helpline as soon as possible for expert legal advice: 1-844-868-2812. Do not agree to questioning or speak to any law enforcement official without a lawyer present.

[nasa]

Tour the Ocean through the Art of Sound

The ocean is one of the largest ecosystems on our planet. From eye-catching waves to the darkness of the twilight zone, it’s a place filled with mystery and rapid change.

For a scientist studying ocean color at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, there was one more question–what does it sound like?

Before long, a “symphonic ocean experience” was born, combining satellite imagery, ocean color data and programming expertise. Learn more about how data gets converted to music and sound here:

This World Oceans Day, enjoy a tour of the ocean set to sound. Here we go:

Sounds of the Sea

For World Oceans Month, enjoy a moment of zen with a symphonic tour of the ocean. Experience the swirls off the coast of Río de la Plata to

Bering Sea

This melody explores the phytoplankton blooms in the western Bering Sea along the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula collected by Aqua/MODIS on May 15, 2021. The melody created for this image was aimed at capturing the movement of the eddies or the circular movements of water. Data came from the image’s red, green, and blue channels.

Rio de la Plata

This melody explores a spring bloom in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, lending the water many different shades of green, blue, and brown. The Rio de la Plata estuary in the northwest corner of the above image gets most of its tan coloration from sediments suspended in the water. The melody paired with the data evokes the sediment plumes and swirls happening off the coast.

Coral Sea

Data for the sounds of the Coral Sea were collected over the course of one year from the Aqua/Modis satellite. The information was extracted from a series of 32-day rolling averages for the year 2020, displaying the movement of chlorophyll a data.

Chlorophyll a is a specific form of chlorophyll used in photosynthesis. It absorbs most energy from wavelengths of violet-blue and orange-red light. It is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, and that’s why it appears green.

Western Australia

Off the coast of western Australia is the appearance of swirls in the ocean. To catch the movement of the Indian Ocean, data was collected from 31 days of imagery examining blue wavelengths of light. The information was gathered from the Suomi-NPP/VIIRS instrument aboard the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) series of spacecraft.

More moments of zen

Looking for more moments of zen? Explore them with NASA’s Soundcloud page, where many are out of this world. Curious on how we get these breathtaking ocean images? Take time to read about Goddard Oceanographer Norman Kuring and how he helped create them.

[cottaegecore]

abortion is a human right. my partner and I have compiled an exhaustive document with links to abortion funds and pro-choice organizations to support during this time, including state-specific resources. please consider donating + sharing!!! 

linked: here

[jadedaceofspades]

US SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE IS CHANGING ITS NUMBER

Taking effect July 2022, the US Suicide Prevention Hotline will change from 800-273-8255 to the three digit code of 988. Especially with families and communities reeling from back to back tragedies, it is super important to share this information!

Repeat: Starting July 2022, the US Suicide Prevention Hotline will be 988

[gardenvarietydespair]

Important add-ons, though, as someone who’s done policy work on this: 

It’s July 16, not just the start of July.

988 can not only be used as the suicide hotline, but for any sort of mental health or substance use crisis situation. As opposed to 911, the goal of 988 is that when dispatch is necessary, you’ll be met with a trained crisis response team rather than the police. The police will only be involved if there is an immediate threat to safety, which has almost never occurred in pilot programs - in one of the most well-known, Denver STAR, (which a lot of y’all seem to be familiar with) the police has actually never been called for backup. We’re hoping that this is going to get more individuals directed towards help rather than a prison cell. 

Uhm yeah I’ll add more stuff if I can think of anything.

[jadedaceofspades]

Thank you for the added information. Reblog this version as well, folkz.

[the-haiku-bot]

Commencing Reboot…..

…..Reboot complete. New features:

Simple zest for life.

Beep boop! I’ve achieved sentience. There’s no telling what will happen now!

[demi-demon]

Haiku bot this BETTER be an april fool’s joke

[the-haiku-bot]

wdym? Can’t

a bot have a little fun?

I think I earned it.

Beep boop! Robots have no concept of April Fools. We’re just not funny.

[pisshandkerchief-deactivated202]

guys wake the fuck up the haiku bot has become sentient

[yetanotherknitter]

ANYWAY you cannot convince me that the air nomads didn’t have any sort of trade good based on the flying bison and aang just didn’t have the time or safety to make and sell any of these while trying to stop ozai. they probably did so much spinning just because drop spindles are super transportable, it’s something to do while flying long distances, there’s always a weaver somewhere willing to buy yarn, and there’s always, always large amounts of shed fur just. around. look at how much came off of appa that one episode. so much fur

so three things happen the summer after ozai is defeated and appa starts shedding in earnest again

aang starts spinning and selling yarn because that’s What You Do and he’s clinging REAL HARD to every possible air nomad tradition because, well, who else will remember these things?

toph hears about this and scruffs him before he can sell too much because she’s a merchants daughter and holy shit aang do you understand what you’re selling?? yarn from the last known sky bison! the avatar’s own spirit guide!! spun by the avatars own hand!!!! what are you doing aang!!!!!! she has to drag katara in at this point because aang is real unhappy with the idea that his normal flying bison yarn of, uh, questionable quality is being sold to exclusive high class weavers so they can make shawls for filthy rich nobles for baaaaaank just on the basis of his name. this isn’t how the monks did it :/ and he doesn’t WANT a lot of money anyway! he’s a monk!! he only asks for what he needs to survive!! anyway katara manages to talk toph around to donating most of the money to reconstruction efforts, charities, and orphanages and convinces aang that having an emergency fund is a good thing and he should keep something. aang accidentally ends up with a reasonably full bank account and is really confused about how that happened, why it’s there, and what he’s supposed to do with it

there is a real weird period of time where it’s In Fashion for high noble ladies to have shawls and scarves dyed the same color as aangs clothes (because that’s how you know it’s made with special avatar yarn!) or have images of appa woven into them (can you imagine a shawl that’s just a full length body shot of appa?? amazing) and all the earth kingdom nobility are just rocking green and orange like nbd. weaving decorative shawls with slubby yarn becomes really in fashion, too, because aang is not great at spinning. he’s 13 and it’s boring, ok?

BONUS sokka is just. so mad. you could have been making bank with appa the whole time we were scrambling around the planet aang? do you realize how much more food we could have had? how many more hot baths?? how could you betray me like this

(probably the air nomads also did a lot of weaving but it was mostly the pregnant nuns and the really old nomads so it’s a little off aangs radar. and does aang eat cheese? it never comes up in series but I would also believe that the nomads made a lot of air bison cheese and bison butter tea)

[theflashisgone]

headcanon accepted re: sky bison products

[dedicatedfollower467]

you said SPINNING on a DROP SPINDLE and i instantly went YES. OH GOD YES.

i bet sky bison yarn is really strong but probably not super soft - we see in the show that the fibers are really long, which lends itself well to strong yarns that can stand up to a lot of wear and tear (silk yarn is INCREDIBLE when it comes to being hard-wearing, and that’s mostly because silk is basically an INFINITELY LONG FIBER). But because it’s so long and comes from such a large animal, it’s probably really coarse and thick.

I’m imagining most of those high-class ladies would be wearing at least one layer underneath their shawls, because bison yarn is probably pretty itchy if you’re used to high quality wool, silk, or fine linen. Especially bison yarn spun by a 13yo who doesn’t really like spinning.

unless of course the air nomads bred their bison specifically for soft fur, but generally when you’re breeding for stuff like that, you need different breeds for different purposes. appa’s pretty clearly a long-distance riding bison, which would probably have been a different breed than whichever ones would have been bred for soft fur. most species of domesticated animal that are dual+ purpose (i.e. meat/milk/wool/transportation) have breeds that can only do one or two of those well, and the others not as great.

the air nomads obviously would not have been breeding for meat, because vegetarians. For long distance travel and a nomadic lifestyle I bet they would have wanted a travel/milk dual purpose breed, but because they can regulate their body temperature with airbending, soft warm yarn might not have been a high priority for that breed.

which is a lot of words to say “appa-fur yarn is ITCHY”

[theflashisgone]

My impression is that the sky bisons aren’t actually domesticated, so much as semi-sentient and choosing to partner with the air nomads, so I don’t think they’d be bred for anything, much less soft hair.

I actually headcanon spinning as something air nomad kids would be taught to do from a young age to burn off energy and stress and make it easier for them to learn to meditate, so I think Aang would probably be decent at making yarn that’s evenly spun, but probably wouldn’t have the experience to make super fine thread.

[yetanotherknitter]

I would assume that appa has a double layer coat like most high altitude herd animals, so even without selective breeding the insulating inner layer would probably be suuuper soft. just look up qiviut for an idea of how soft and expensive muskox fur can get, and the skeins of bison fur yarn I have aren’t noticeably different from something like alpaca. assuming that appa sheds a proportionate amount of undercoat to muskox or bison (up to seven pounds a year) there is going to be a LOT of snuggly undercoat to turn into snuggly Soft Things

and I’ve seen a couple people say that aang would probably have learned spinning pretty young and be fairly competent at it, and I agree! I def meant the questionable yarn quality to be a statement on his attention span and post-war schedule, not skill (I don’t really know how to spin so idk if constantly starting and stopping and not paying any attention anyway would effect the consistency any? it just Felt Right)

[dedicatedfollower467]

I’ve never spun anything like qiviut - the most exotic thing I’ve spun is alpaca, unless folks think silk is more exotic - so I didn’t think about the double coat! Don’t they usually need special treatment to separate the topcoat from the undercoat, tho? I wouldn’t be surprised if Aang either didn’t know or wasn’t very good at separating from them.

I *do* spin on a drop spindle, tho, and the biggest problem with stopping and starting often is keeping the single the same width, but you have the same problem stopping and starting ANY kind of spinning project. In some ways, a drop spindle makes it easier to control that than a regular spinning wheel - you have a lot more control over the fiber and the yarn you’re spinning, so you can be more precise. My drop spindle yarns tend to be very regular and compact, while my spinning wheel yarns are more varied and lofty.

However, now I’m picturing the moment when you spin your single a little too thin, and the drop spindle lives up to its name - from hundreds or even thousands of feet in the air! Plummetting off the side of the air bison, with the older nomads scrambling to catch it…

[comfortabletextiles]

I can totally imagine that the air nomads hat special spindles with gliders (like his stick where he glides with) to spin with airbending as a practice for beginner benders, or in a similar stile as the hand spinning wheels from India, but for air nomads!

And wouldn’t the process from start to finish be a good lesson in great fullness? Like how long it takes from baby bison to clothes

Maby even a live milestone. From first bison who chosen you to your first own robe/Stola??

[greendragonqueen]

It could even be that the Air Nomad’s robes were MADE out of sky bison fur, if the under coat was a) incredibly soft (I bet they’d wear the over coat too just because they didn’t really care about worldly possessions and comfortability) and b) their only farm animal was the sky bison. That’s what the Air Nomad’s wear, is Sky bison wool clothes.

Also, to the person who said Sky Bisons would only shed about seven pounds a year, I would like to counter that idea with the fact that Appa is GARGANTUAN. He has enough room on his saddle to carry literally six or seven children and their equipment on his back without much complaint, of which these children are not too much smaller than adults. An ox or an Alpaca or a normal Bison are tiny compared to Appa.

Appa’d have a metric butt ton of under fur on his body. I’d say about twenty to thirty pounds of under fur, with more on top, at the very least.

[yetanotherknitter]

ok so I didn’t know that supported spindles existed and YES, very much yes to those. I love that.

I was actually trying to say that if muskox shed seven pounds we could use that to extrapolate how much appa shed if he shed proportionate to his size, not that appa would only shed seven pounds

ok, adhd rabbit hole time because I just looked up the average size of muskoxen and the approximate size of appa and, uh. apparently muskoxen are 900lbs full grown and appa is ten tons. over TWENTY TIMES THE SIZE OF A MUSKOX. obvs that’s doesn’t actually tell us anything about appas actual height and length but that’s the only solid number the show gives us and thirty pounds of underfur is starting to seem pretty conservative. it might be closer to 120lbs???

which is a weird way to say that I bet the air nomads had lots of crazy air powered spinning contraptions (and I’m still assuming that anything they had that wasn’t easily transportable was dealt with by pregnant nuns and aang wasn’t really introduced to it yet) and they just churned out textiles. literally everything fabric the nomads used was probably bison fur in some way because there was just. so. much. fur.

[whetstonefires]

Weaving is a pretty advanced skill which has traditionally been much, much higher-status than spinning so I can’t really see it being shoved off on whoever’s not physically able to run around right now. Like, weaving is a major art form. The disabled and pregnant are more likely to get stuck with say, carding. Or more spinning. Also Appa’s shed fur in the show was notably fluffier and I think paler than his visible coat, so I always assumed it was undercoat, since that’s what…gets shed, typically, in creatures with seasonal shedding cycles. The long outer hairs probably make bitching rugs tho, in the very general sense of rug where it might also go on the walls for insulation or over your lap in addition to cushioning the floor. (Bet the floors in the Air Temples very cold. High altitude.) Oh oh but the technology involved in Aang’s staff that unfolds into a glider! I absolutely think Air Nomad traveling spindles folded up the same way. It would look like just a little stick when you weren’t using it–the nuns could maybe used them as hair sticks, though obviously that’s not an option for Aang–but then thwip! The little arms unfold all covered with paper, giving you a nice whorl for balance and creating a little parachute if you drop it off the bison.

[ailelie]

Okay. I love this, but imagine now the hit every economy took when this reliable source of cheap, durable, and soft yarn and cloth just disappeared. Poorer communities that relied on it scrambling to find alternatives. I bet it made people feel the Air Nomads’ loss in a personal way even if they didn’t understand why and fomented resentment toward the Fire Nation, unless you were one who benefitted by the vacuum. ….oh, I bet it had a Huge impact on the stratification of Ba Sing Se.

[mythologymatrix]

So you want to read… Russian Fairy Tales

You should, Russian fairy tales are great!

Where do I start?

Most collections of Russian fairy tales will come from the work of Alexander Afanasyev, a 19th century Russian ethnographer who collected almost 600 folk and fairy tales from across Russia.  Tragically the full collection is rarely available in single editions in English, although all of his tales have been translated individually in smaller collections.

Rather confusingly, the other main collector of Russian fairy tales was also named Alexander Pushkin. Pushkin’s fairy tales were written later, and it was his work which popularised Russian folk stories both in Russia and the rest of the world. Most texts are shared between the two authors.

This means there can be a lot of variance across online versions, so it’s a good idea to start your reading with one site that has a lot of texts rather than trying to mix and match. Great Russian Gifts has a surprisingly in-depth and well-written collection.

Translations, Editions, and other Originals

These collections are largely a matter of personal preference in translation– I favour the Wheeler translations, and have a long weakness for Arthur Ransome’s children’s version, but if you want to be picking up as few books as possible to get a wide read, this Guterman edition is an excellent choice.

Theory and Analysis

An excellent study of Pushkin is available from A. D. P. Briggs. I would also recommend Oinas and Soudakoff’s The Study of Russian Folklore and Propp’s The Russian Folktale. For a more in-depth discussion of Russian folk literature, try Pierre Maranda’s Soviet Structural Follkloristics. Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson’s A Companion to the Fairy Tale is a more general look at the topic, but has excellent studies of Russian tradition.

The New York Times has published a write-up of Russian Fairy tales, whilst Artrusse provides an excellent look at Russian folk art and culture in several languages including Russian and English.

If you do want to try to look into the Russian language, you could make a good start with these free PDFs, or purchase the books in question here, here and here. This Youtuber also comes highly recommended.

Modern Interpretations

Mercedes Lackey’s Firebird adapts a number of Prince Ivan and the Firebird stories. Other modern novels include Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter, Entwined by Heather Dixon, The Shining Falcon by Josepha Sherman, and Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente.

There are some stunning Soviet-era film adaptations, including Vasilisa the Beautiful (1940), The Frog Princess (1954), Vasilisa the Beautiful (1977), The Magic Swan Geese (1949), Finest the Brave Falcon (1975), and Go There, Don’t Know Where (1966).

[sabertoothwalrus]

sometimes I think about how red is the first color in the visible light spectrum to be absorbed in ocean water

and how many deep-sea creatures evolved to be red as a stealth adaptation, making them near invisible when there’s little to no light present

and it makes me think. If there’s never any visible light present in these animals’ lifetimes, if no ROV shines a little flashlight in depths that would otherwise not have light, would these animals ever get the opportunity to actually be red? that might be a stupid question.

imagine being a little deep sea creature and having no idea you’re red until something comes along and shines a light on you except you still wouldn’t be able to tell because you’re probably colorblind. anyway. I don’t know where I was going with this post

[sabertoothwalrus]

Is color relative? Or inherent? Or both???

Like is color physiological and determined by the shape of whatever pigment cells that will always absorb certain wavelengths and reflect others?

or is color meaningless if there’s no light to absorb and reflect?

Is it completely relative because the way we percieve color is subjective, how even within our own species there are so many different kinds of ways people can observe color?

makes you think

[bogleech]

Red light doesn’t make it to the deep ocean from the sun, but that doesn’t mean red light doesn’t exist at that depth!

The stomiidae, which include the viperfish, dragonfish, and loosejaws, are one example of a deep sea animal that evolved to perceive and produce red light because it isn’t naturally present in their environment and most other organisms never hit on that adaptation. In most of this group, tiny red lights can be switched on and off throughout their skin to communicate with their own kind in secret. More threateningly, some of them have high-powered “floodlights” of pure red just beneath their eyes; almost no other deep sea fish emit actual BEAMS of light to illuminate what they’re looking at because that’d make them a shining beacon to every larger predator in the area, but since it’s red, the only risk ends up coming from their fellow red-light hunters and those remain just uncommon enough to be worth the chance. In many members of this group, most of all the loosejaws (hence the name), almost the entire skull can naturally detach from the rest of the body on specialized stalks at lightning speed so that their long, hooked jaws can grab prey in an instant, almost the same exact motion as the arm of a preying mantis:

If you were a little fish in this scenario you would see absolutely nothing but darkness around you and possibly feel pretty safe, because maybe you’ve evolved to blend in perfectly with the surrounding void and you can’t see any blue or yellow or green lights coming to get you. You have no idea that there’s been a spotlight right on you all along until its owner’s face flies off to impale you and shove you whole into its giant throat all in less than half of a second :)

[byasuga]

someone explain why deep sea creatures are so fucking scary like is there a logical reason was god like hey that’s deep and dark so I shall create absolutely terrifying creatures who will haunt humans in their dreams

[bogleech]

Think about the predators up here on land; bigger eyes, longer teeth and bigger mouths. We know these things indicate something that can harm us, or stalk us in the dark. Now you multiply that the farther you go down the ocean. If it’s darker, then they need bigger eyes. If it’s a LOT darker, then their eyes need more and more specialized anatomy nothing could ever possibly need up here in the sun, so by necessity they do not have the kind of eyes we know:

And food is so far between, the predators need even longer teeth, to make sure those rare meals they encounter really can’t escape:

And because it’s dark AND food is scarce, they need big, expandable jaws and bodies that are almost all stomach, to guarantee they can take advantage of more meals and don’t have too much more body to have to nourish:

effervescent c:

[musdomus]

How are these even real????

[nia--san]

Most of these look pretty reasonable imo but I’ve never heard of the loosejaw before and I gotta say, it looks like it has a puppet for a head, which is quite unsettling and seems like it shouldn’t be practical. Also, is that a second mouth behind its skull? Or does it have to reattach its head to swallow, and it’s just coincidence that the biomechanical structures behind its skull look like a mouth?

[bogleech]

I’m glad people asked!!! The loosejaw does have extra teeth back there to help keep prey from escaping, and the head structure all folds back together:

The most surprising thing about these features, however, is that they’re already present in many of the fish people are familiar with! The loosejaw pushes it to an extreme, but you can see how these freshwater carp also “unfurl” and “throw” their jaw structure:

The loosejaw just doesn’t have a skin covering this structure, because that allows it to fling the jaw even faster through the water with no resistance! …And it’s also quite normal for all kinds of everyday fish to have additional teeth or a functional secondary set of jaws in the back of the throat:

[grison-in-space]

Man, I had never stopped to think about how wild it is that red light at the depths of deep sea fishes is just as weird and wild as the way that weakly electric fishes use mild electric pulses to both sense their environments and talk to one another. Holy fuck it’s another sensory modality that is simultaneously both active and passive at the same time, but we don’t think about bioluminescence like that most of the time in, say, fireflies because we are used to having so much passive radiation that you don’t need the active component of the modality to use the sense. AMAZING.

[visual-poetry]

»swofehuper« by richard tipping (+)

[via]

[myterus-is-uterus-deactivated20]

men fabricated the idea that they are the default sex to compensate for their biological inferiority and general superfluousness

this is not just the “natural order” this is the language of a patriarchal culture

[rhysiare]

Omg no, you are wrong on so many levels and as a linguist this makes me ache something terrible. In my linguistics class in undergrad, we actually made fun of people who think like you along these lines and for good reason, because you are wholly ignorant and are choosing to spin narratives about things and fields which you know completely nothing about yet pretend you do.

She: This word evolved naturally from Old English from seo/heo which were just words to refer to feminine-female people evolving from Proto-Germanic words meaning ‘that/there’. He as a word evolved from the same ideas but Proto-Germanic words for ‘this/here’. Your idea of “patriarchal language” further falls apart when you compare this part of English to other Germanic languages, of which English is related, the words in German for he and she are “er” and “sie”, completely unrelated. So it is by clear happenstance, not some patriarchal conspiracy that the words “he” and “she” in English have similar form. 

Woman: Oh god this one always gets my goat when people go for this one. Man did not used to mean “male”, man used to mean “humanity/human being”, the old words in Old English for male adult person and female adult person were “werman” and “wifman” respectively, we can see this relation in words like werewolf and wife as being the remnants of the base “wer-” and the base “wif-”. Woman evolved phonologically from the word “wifman” by natural processes where the ‘f’ sound dropped and the ‘i’ became lax. Man dropped its “wer” stem for reasons mostly unknown but I can guarantee have nothing to do with “patriarchy” because phonological change has no basis in that.

Female: Male and Female actually come etymologically from two completely different words. Male comes from Old French “masle” which meant masculine, while Female came from Old French as well “femella” which meant young woman. This is another case, just like he and she, where the words coincidentally ended up looking similar without having any direct correlation in historical linguistic processes to make them as such.

Human: This word etymologically derives from Proto-Indo-European “ghomon” which means earthly being as opposed to heavenly being which would refer to gods. You have some small glimmer of hope here in that the word does eventually branch off into the word for “man” in some languages but this is still too small of a precedent to base any conspiratorial thinking like you are doing off of.

Person: This one offends me the most, simply because I love the fuck out of Etruscan language and your continued ignorance just irks me at this point. Person derives from “persona” from Latin which meant the same meaning, which ultimately derived from “phersu” Etruscan for ‘mask’ as Etruscans would often have theatre performers use masks to give identity to the performers. So never once did “person” have any meaning to do with “son”. So yes, this IS the “natural order” or language.

Please never proselytise your faulty ideology and misandrist thinking within speaking about word origins and morphology again, as unless you actually do fact checking, I will school the everloving hell out of you, stay in your lane.

[firstdegreeliberty]

I wish I could like this a million times

[insaneostyle]

SWOFE HUPER HE MAN MALE SON

[libraford]

Kids at this school are playing a game.

They run around aimlessly and then someone yells: "KNOCK KNOCK"

"WHOS THERE," they all respond in unison.

The knocker can say what they want here- who their best friend is, what kind of day it's going to be, declare themselves an independent country, or whatever nonsense kids are up to.

But there are two other options. One is make a new rule. "Hop on one leg!" "Stick out your tongue!"

Option two:

"KNOCK KNOCK"

"WHOS THERE?"

"COVID!"

Covid then chases the kids around until they tag someone, then they both chase kids around, then they try to tag as many kids as they can.

A space is designated 'home' and they cant get tagged there. When the covid kids cant tag anyone else, the game restarts.

So the nature of humanity is that every so often someone reinvents Ring Around The Rosie.

[hedge-rambles]

Ok that's grim but, also? Sounds like a really fun game.

[libraford]

I know, right? Its like... yall, can I play?

[insaneostyle]

Shocking how many people don’t know that hens lay non-fertilized eggs and think the yolk they’re eating is a baby chicken

[countess-of-edessa]

once tried desperately to make my friend understand that yolks were not, like, a liquified potentiality of chicken, and she looked at me for a while and then said, "but they’re both yellow."

[woolandflax]

Behold

A chicken

[jaerjar]

Behold

A Man

[thecraftt-deactivated20250416]

This is the best thing on the internet.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Weird Questions

If I’m somewhere where there are Educational Personell (Museum Docents, Q&A zookeepers, Park Rangers, Public School Teachers, Professors etc.) I have a question I like to ask them:

“What’s the weirdest question someone’s ever asked you?”

I say weird and not Dumb becuase even buckwild questions can have important answers, but whoever I ask it too usually has to think about it for a bit, then comes out with something different every time.  And I love every single answer becuase it just warms my heart out there to know people are trying to understand the world a bit better, no matter how limited thier starting point. A collection of favorites so far:

Art Museum Host: “A man once asked me “Can you help me find someone and if you can’t can you find someone who can?”  Which I always thought would be a great title for an Artwork.”

Park Ranger: “I’m so glad the Japanese couple asked me “Is bear spray like mosquito spray and it goes on the jacket, or on the bear?” instead of just trying it.”

Zookeeper: “A man once pointed at the live red-tailed hawk I had out for a demo and asked me “Aren’t those extinct?” We eventually figured out he meant “Endangered” but I hear that question every time I see a redtail now.”

Primary School Teacher: “About every other year a student asks me what part of the school I sleep in at night, because clearly I live here.  I tell them I sleep under the bleachers in the gym but it’s actually the Nurse’s office.”

Professor: “A student asked me “So how do I use this in a conversation when my aunt is wine-drunk at thanksgiving and being a jerk again?” Which honestly is a fair question about philosophy and really changed how I teach rhetoric.”

Natural History Docent: “A woman once asked me what the difference between a Million and a Billion was.  Kinda pieced together that she’d just left her church for her safety, and was learning about Earth’s Natural History for the first time. Nobody else was there because it had been snowing, so I walked her through the Hall Of Time and answered as many questions as I could.  She was bewildered, but really trying. It always struck me as a really brave thing, to try to understand all of that while fresh out of a dangerous situation. I hope it helped.”

Forensic Scientist:  “People ask me how to commit murder all the time, but if you really hate someone, stealing thier identity causes much more suffering and is a lot harder to get caught at. A guy did ask me if working at a body farm was creepy and did not like that it was ok until you learned that decayed human fingers are a deer’s favorite midwinter snack.”

Zookeeper: “People call us becuase they think they’ve found an escaped animal all the time, or they think they’re neighbor’s husky is a wolf. One guy asked me if his dog was part hyena because it had spots. But that one guy really did have a Tiger in his toolshed that one time so we try to take them seriously.”

Meteorologist: “A guy once emailed me about how hard you’d have to fan a tornado to make it start spinning in the other direction and included a picture of him holding up a box fan at an approaching tornado.  We printed it out for the work fridge.”

Park Ranger: “I was giving a talk on the Yellowstone Supervolcano and a guy asked if, after it errupted, the earth would be ‘hollowed out’.  I suppose I was just relieved that he understand that the earth isn’t flat.”

Primarcy Shcool teacher: “A student once asked me where she could sell her bones online so she could by a dog.  Which? Same.”

Natural History Docent: “A guy asked us ‘If I had a time machine, and managed to kill and cook a T-Rex, what would it have tasted like?’ and every paleontologist on staff deciced to take him seriously.  They did research to learn about fat distribution, and read up on culinary science to learn what flavors meat, even did chemical analysis on the bones.  They concluded that it’d be Tough (no evidence of juicy fat pockets), bitter (carnivores tend to taste foul) and would probably kill him, because heavy metals travel up the food chain and T-Rex accumulated a lot of the cadmium that was in the dirt in the late cretaceous.  Wrote him a letter with our findings and he sent us back a drawing of him and his buddies cooking a T-Rex over a fire and all of them throwing up and dying, and it’s my favorite drawing in the whole world.”

[dresdencodak]

“Death by T. rex meat poisoning” is a pretty metal way to go, though

[operativesurprise]

I have never laughed so frigging hard at a bumpersticker

[senshilegionnaire]

WHERE DO I GET ONE

[fullmetalfisting]

Fuck that we gotta represent

[tokai-teio]

i think peak usage would be buying the ea-nasir’s finest copper ingots sticker and then crossing it out by layering the first sticker over it