Gah, Skittens EVERYWHERE

Triple-A battery Australian blogging about whatever catches my eye. May also contain nuts. Feel free to send me an ask or message! :D

[tcustodisart]

Happy Pride Month!

Faust is back for the 5th time! If you want to use the flag of your choice as an avatar, they're under the cut. They're free to use as long as it's for personal use only.

[blignick]

[jabberding0]

it's just a little bit of wind

[ailithnight]

Walking tents are always fun, but the pants are what killed me. Then, fresh off that death, GIRAFFE.

[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.

[headspace-hotel]

cops r Some Guy with a Gun

do we want Some Guy with a Gun in this situation? answer is usually "NO"

[uncivilliberties]

This is legitimately useful reframing. A while ago I started replacing the word "cop" in my vocabulary with "a man with a gun." It really puts things into perspective.

This homeless person is making me uncomfortable. Should I call [a man with a gun]?

My neighbor is having a loud party. Should I get [a man with a gun] involved?

There are some teenagers skateboarding. Do you think [a man with a gun] would get rid of them for me?

It makes it very clear what you're saying. I can call a man with a gun to threaten or hurt someone mildly inconveniencing me. You're not calling the cops, you're calling A MAN WITH A GUN into a situation that does not warrant a firearm handled by a volatile lunatic who will not be held accountable for his actions.

[headspace-hotel]

^ ^ ^

[not-freyja]

Can everyone who makes video content do a Deaf bitch a favor? Watch your shit with the captions on and the sound off, and then do another round of editing to fix things including but not limited to:

Captions cover the spot on the screen you put the information I need

The dialogue is captioned but not the song you have playing that the dialogue is responding to

You only captioned the person on the screen, not the person off screen who is also talking

No captioning of critical sound effects (alarms, bells, dogs barking, etc)

Speakers are not labelled at moments where it is not clear on the screen who is talking.

Captions cover the spot on the screen that you put the information I need!

Other d/Deaf people welcome to add.

This post brought to you by the fifth video tutorial I could not follow because the bad, auto-generated captions covered what I was trying to watch today.

[muttsandmustelidae]

From the Nashville Zoo’s fb page! Here’s the petition, please please please take a moment to add your name (even if you’re not from Nashville!). If you are from Tennessee, contact your representatives and make it clear that the people do not want this data center. This is an AZA accredited zoo which is home to several species of critically endangered animals, we NEED to protect it. Make your voice heard!

[muttsandmustelidae]

Because people will pay attention to cute animals, here are some of the critically endangered/endangered species housed at the Nashville Zoo!

The Amur Leopard and Clouded Leopard (which recently celebrated its 50th cub born at the zoo!)

The Sumatran Tiger

The Red Ruffed Lemur and Ring-Tailed Lemur

The Cotton-Top Tamarin and White-Cheeked Gibbon

The Colobus Monkey and De Brazza’s Monkey

And the Mexican Spider Monkey!

Look at them!!!! Look at them and fight like hell to save them!!!!

[wizardarchetypes]

anyway every time i post about ocd people start tagging the post like "wait this isn't normal?" and i always like to remind people that intrusive thoughts are normal. pretty much everyone experiences them. "what if i jumped off this balcony?" "what if i crashed my car right now for no reason?" "what if i yelled a curse word in the middle of this wedding?" everyone thinks these things from time to time. it's disordered thinking when the distress starts becoming intolerable.

"am i normal" is not as helpful question to ask as "are intrusive thoughts causing me frequent distress?" and "would my life be better if i could find a way to feel less distress/learn to tolerate the distress?"

millions and millions of people have ocd. having ocd is normal. you're normal. but what if you could feel better? what if living everyday in your own mind and body could be tolerable? is that something you want? need? these are questions to ask.

[elbiotipo]

More than "here in the Southern Hemisphere we have inverted seasons :)" thing, which is TECHNICALLY true, I would go a step further and encourage to think about that "much of the world does not exactly has a spring-summer-fall-winter season sequence as they show in cartoons"

[paperdragonsong]

I will scream about this to anyone who listens forever. AUSTRALIA DOES NOT HAVE "ENGLISH SEASONS BUT BACKWARDS" and the insistence that it does creates a massive layer of alienation from the natural world.

I never really realised how much difference it makes until I went to England and realised that here the change of seasons is an obvious, visible, physical change in the world. Like, everything REALLY IS orange and foggy in autumn! In spring there are flowers EVERYWHERE, so much more than any other season, and the trees really do have all blossom and no leaves. Even if it doesn't snow, in winter there's frost all the time and the trees are bare and the sky is visibly greyer all the time. You don't need to be told "this date is the first day of spring", you can SEE IT (although this is getting way messier and less precise due to climate change).

By contrast, most places in Australia the seasons we're taught feel like arbitrary categories - and is it any surprise considering they're colonial constructs? Orange-leaved autumn and blossom-covered spring is a cartoon stereotype with no relevance on a continent where ALL NATIVE TREES ARE EVERGREEN!! Snowy winters are a joke in the desert, and even sunny summers don't ring particularly true considering that much of the country is in the tropics, where summer means monsoons - not that I've ever seen the concept that WE HAVE A MONSOON SEASON taught at an Australian school.

Most Indigenous nations around Australia had six or more seasons, revolving around wet and dry times as much as hot and cold, and marked by the appearances of certain native animals and flowers. Schools need to start teaching the real seasons, and explaining that climate cycles are too complex to generalise globally, or else we will keep raising generations who view the natural world as hostile and unpredictable and climate predictions as generally irrelevent and frequently wrong - and I'm sure I don't need to spell out why that's a problem in the era of climate crisis.

[tiredtransgal]

i want to add that 40% of the world's population lives in the tropics, and the 4 season model just doesn't make much sense for a lot of places in there. usually it's just the wet season/monsoon season and the dry season. it's often hot year round.

the 4 season model as you and i know it is a european invention, though 4 season models aren't unique to europe! most notably china has the same type of season subdivision.

in general the way humans define seasons is largely subjective and varies across cultures. the one you were taught is not at all universal!

[ranni-thewitch]

divert all power to the funk engine

[iwilleatyourenglish]

i think it's actually really horrifying and detrimental that it's considered socially unacceptable to tell parents when they are making mistakes while raising their kids

[iwilleatyourenglish]

"don't tell me how to raise my kids" is seen as a good defense and it's so disturbing to me.

children are not your property that you can do whatever you like with.

giving birth or impregnating someone or adopting doesn't give you some inherent wisdom that means you can never fuck up.

and you shouldn't have the right to abuse or neglect or misinform a child just because you have legal guardianship of them.

they deserve to have others speak up on their behalf. i don't care if it hurts your ego.

[iwilleatyourenglish]

the vast majority of the time, it is all about ego and control btw.

a staggering amount of parents view their children as their property and see advice as someone trying to take away their "deserved" control.

a ton of them are more concerned with being perceived as a good parent over actually being one.

[gawki]

Pride or die 🌈🛼💗

[animentality]

[bobcatmoran]

I absolutely blame Facebook for this shift. Words cannot describe how freaking WEIRD it was in the mid-00s when there was suddenly this popular website where you were required to use your real, brickspace name and encouraged to post photos of yourself. Every single bit of Standard Internet Safety prior to then said that you should never ever ever do either of those.

[kvothes]

a good thread

[elumish]

I agree with all of this. But! I think it is also important to recognize that there are subgenres where it is significantly harder to find certain things, and it's actively unhelpful to readers to pretend that you can just find whatever type of book you want to read if you just know how to look for it, especially if you are sticking to trad publishing.

It is possible to find both sapphic SFF and M/M fantasy. It is significantly harder to find, say, aro urban fantasy. Or trans romantic suspense. Or intersex mystery.

A lot of the advice above only really works for trad published or popular books and for identities/subgenres/content that aren't too niche.

So here's some advice if the advice above isn't working for you (either because you can't find books with what you want or because the books you are finding don't end up being the vibe you want), from someone who reads a few hundred books a year:

Find websites or lists dedicated to the specific thing you are looking for. They will generally have more variety and will post you to examples that don't show up in regular rec lists. (ex: aro book recs, ace book recs, intersex #ownvoices database, sapphic books). Goodreads lists can (sometimes) also be your friend.

Get comfortable reading self-published and small press books. Trad publishing has its blind spots.

Check Reddit for recommendations

Start figuring out what it is specifically that you like and then start making your searches more specific. This can be subgenre (if you want urban fantasy, you're rarely going to find it just searching "fantasy"), tropes, plot devices, vibes, etc.

Look at the "readers also bought" on Goodreads/Amazon, similar books on Storygraph, etc. if you read a book you like. Even if you don't end up reading the one you click on, it can show you similar authors (similar to looking at the blurb on a cover), especially because far fewer books have blurbs now.

Check out the Literature Map for similar authors.

[skelotan]

I'm still Big Mad from the animation industry AI news, and I had some thoughts I needed to get out. There are lots of more important reasons why artists shouldn't use AI, but here is my philosophical take on it.

PATREON

[thejusticethatissocial]

flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh flesh flESH FLESH FLESH FLESHFLESHFLESH

[arowitharrows]

I feel like people struggle to understand that my life as an aorace person is not centered around an absence of relationships. There is no romance shaped void that I am trying to live with, or live around, or which my life's purpose is to fill somehow.

I go to university and I go to work and I volunteer in my community and in the in-between moments I drink tea with my friends and I plant tomatoes on my balcony and there is no need for anything else. There is no room for anything else anyway.

When I am asked how I deal with 'the hole in my life' or what I do with 'all my free time', I know these questions are not about me at all. They are a reflection of the person asking.

[thatsthebirds]

Its kind of asking how you cope with the lack of parking spaces when someone doesnt own a car

[ace-of-bass]

Ooh I love this analogy because not owning a car does come with problems (at least in the US typically), namely that US infrastructure is so reliant on cars that not owning one means that you deal with other problems, like lack of bike lanes, infrequent public transit, people always assuming you can drive places, etc. Aro/ace people do face problems due to amatonormativity in society, such as inaffordability of places to live alone (because it's assumed you'll live with a roommate until you're a "real adult" and live with a partner and also because of capitalism), lack of ways to meet new people that aren't specifically focused on dating, and people always asking when you'll settle down, aren't you lonely, don't you miss having a partner? as OP talked about.

Like, there are problems that one encounters as a carless person, and there are problems I've encountered as an aroace person. But the problem as a carless person isn't lack of parking spaces and the problem as an aroace person isn't lack of a relationship.

[liberalsarecool]

The bubble is nigh.