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From what I can see it's real, its someone from Canada who trains rescue rats 🐀 Source below

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

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Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??

Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??

gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"

I just moved for work from the city I’ve lived in all my life - I medically transitioned a few years ago and now pass as cis, but since all of my friends, family, colleagues, etc. were pretty much all aware that I was trans, I’ve never really been treated as a cis man by other cis men. I’m now in a new city where I know nobody and nobody knows me, and I am apparently passing not only as cis but also as straight (which I am not), and for the first time I’m encountering, like, generalised misogyny/homophobia/etc that I am expected to participate in, rather than it being either directly or indirectly pointed towards me.

Obviously I don’t want to participate, but it’s insanely difficult to find a way to disagree without potentially outing myself (I’m not deliberately stealth and don’t want to be, but I’m still cautious about who I tell). I don’t think I’d be exposed to violence, but I’m also not particularly interested in being either ostracised or a teaching tool for casual bigots.

Once again, PLEASE feel free to ignore this, but you seem like you might have some expertise.

I think about this a lot, and my advice is going to be colored by the fact that I actually physically intimidate a lot of cis men.

Something about my height, default frowning expression, how I carry myself, and yes, being white and dressing more formally, has conditioned a lot of cis men to defer to me out of reflex. Though sometimes, the occasional "alpha" asshole will want to start shit.

I like to combine my physicality with certain mannerisms to instill a type of cognitive dissonance in toxic men that short circuits them.

everyone in middle and high school here spends the last nine weeks of the school year reading one shakespeare play in english class. we read the entire play out loud, in class, pausing often to talk about it and puzzle out the lines and words and what the characters are doing and thinking. kids volunteer for parts at the beginning of each class period. they do weird accents. they put real emotion into it. I read nothing except the stage directions. it is, amazingly, nearly everyone’s favorite unit. at the end of it, they do projects and write papers and put on a filmed adaptation.

the seventh through twelfth graders start out excited, because they (for the most part) did this the year before and they know that shakespeare is fun. they love it. they ask for weeks beforehand when we’re going to start shakespeare.

the sixth graders, however, are new to the middle school and new to shakespeare. they are scared!!! they think shakespeare’s language is not their own. they think it’s too complex and/or boring and/or will go over their heads and/or very serious.

in the first two-ish days, something magical happens: the sixth graders lose their fear and fall in love with shakespeare. watching it in real time is a gift.

this year we’re doing macbeth. I ask the sixth graders on thursday, day 1, when and where shakespeare lived, what kind of writing he’s known for, etc., to get a sense of what they know (very little). I give them like a five-minute rundown of macbeth and shakespeare but nothing in-depth: I want them entering the play at the level of language.

for the first couple days I put the play on the smartboard as the kids get used to how to read the lines, then we switch to physical copies for everyone. this means there’s no glosses at first, nothing to check for meaning or context — only the lines themselves.

1.1 of macbeth is super short; we read it straight through, with three giggling girls reading as the witches and stumbling over their words, and then go back to parse out the lines. I ask something like, “what do you think hurly-burly means?” the sixth graders give a variety of replies: craziness, trouble, chaos, hullabaloo, and I get to show them a gloss that says basically exactly that. they laugh at weird-sounding lines, they get used to how it should be read. their confidence ticks up because they see now that the language of shakespeare is not some crazy inaccessible building to be scaled. it’s a playground!!! they can go right in and have fun. the learning curve isn’t even that steep. and mind you, we’re still in 1.1! we’ve only barely started.

on day 2, they’re cautiously excited. maybe the beginning was just like that? we were eased into this and it’ll get harder?? then they fully relax and get into it over the course of the class period. they argue over who’s going to read for what part. a kid who has not been doing great in class, rarely volunteers in discussions and even more rarely reads anything aloud, throws his hand in the air when I ask who wants to read for today. he asks to be the “bleeding captain” and proceeds to give an amazing and totally sincere performance of an injured man delivering news to a king. it’s the most he’s spoken in a given class period.

company running 'Spider-man tours' where they take you around places Spider-man often visits and also locations of famous Spider-man incidents advertised like 'come to New York and see the Amazing Spider-man!'* (*no refunds if Spider-man is not there.)