For purposes of discussion.

most recent one was an absolutely enchanting warbler walk in Minneapolis with the Land of Lakes Bird Alliance and everyone was so nice, and the birds were SO small, and I would not have spotted even half of them or known how to tell them apart without the wonderful ladies that showed us around.

the problem of racism in tolkien fandom will not be resolved for as long as people believe that the mere act of critique is a violence in itself, and that therefore having made a critique, the person who has made a critique can either be unpersoned or that norms of politeness no longer apply. of course, this fandom is too "polite" to do slurs in askboxes for the most part, but there are other mechanisms of rude communications that fly in the name of "debate". do you think its polite to misread someone and then accuse them via that misreading, of not extending enough grace to a dead historical figure? personally, i think that's quite rude as a quibble, not least because of the total disengagement with the actual arguments being made. do you think its polite to send people snide asks for weeks on end, insisting on them defending their viewpoint, their specifically racial critique of the canon? personally, i think not! but you know, ymmv.

the problem of racism in tolkien fandom will not be resolved for as long as it takes (primarily) non-white fans doing the careful work of exposition and critique in order to uncover and engage with tolkien's racism and genealogies of his thinking for any non-apologetic engagement with tolkien and race to occur in fandom. and what do i mean by non-apologetic engagement? i mean that so far outside of a very small selection of tolkien academics (and a tiny handful of white fans) who i can all roughly count on my fingers, very few expositions of race in tolkien's work are not accompanied by a cringing apology that insists that a) tolkien was not racist himself personally and b) he was a man of his time and c) that there clearly were "exceptions" to his racial ideology in his works. this defensive pose allows the protective psychological mechanisms of political whiteness to continually step in and therefore absolve itself of engagement with race in tolkien's text. to put it plainly: i am claiming that the problem of racism in tolkien fandom, in specifically making tolkien fandom a hostile space for fans of colour, will not be resolved for as long as white fans cannot call tolkien a racist. if that sounds hardline, so be it.

the problem of racism in tolkien fandom will not be resolved for as long as it is largely only non-white fans investing the time and energy in expositing and critiquing race and tolkien specifically within a fandom space. it will not be resolved for so long as non-white fans are forced to rehearse and explain racist ideas, histories and thinking to white fans who refuse to do any amount of research themselves, or who settle on an anodyne "listen to non-white voices". believe me it is not very hard to do the research if you are actually interested in creating a non-hostile atmosphere and space for non-white fans. but that process has to be co-creative. i am inviting you to participate in actually doing this hard work of critique and conversation because you care about race and because, hopefully, you care about your non-white brethren within fandom spaces.

the problem of a hostile atmosphere towards non-white fans in tolkien fandom is not a problem that non-white fans can resolve, but one that i think falls to white fans to police, resolve and make socially unviable. if there is something i want to communicate persuasively, i think it would be this: what exactly do the norms of "politeness" in the fandom serve? how are you thinking about what is polite and what is not? what feelings are you prioritising when any attempt to engage with race is treated as "hurting" people's feelings or making things "less fun"? what feelings are being prioritised when discussions abt race in the texts are labelled "fandom discourse" or "fandom wank"? what feelings are being prioritised when a non-white fan is being asked to extend grace to a dead white historical figure? are you able and willing to police such communications even internally, even when you think non-white fans are absent from your conversations? when they aren't watching? or is it only something you become aware of when a non-white fan turns their eyes on you? these are questions i would like liberal white fans to ask themselves and to have a serious debate about.

There's not really a good way to give a size idea. I measured Bug once, as a yearling.

Here's Mantis in front of me with her wings spread, as a yearling. For reference, I'm 5'3".

and Mantis up on my arm, with her father's train beside me

she was around 6.5-7lbs in this photo, so obviously the males get bigger.

Stan was a fairly small male (around 8lbs), but not a small bird by any means. a small peacock, but not a small bird.

For comparison, here's Stan at around 7lbs beside a yearling male at around 9lbs

These are not remotely all the versions recorded by various artistsover the years, but I aimed for a nice selection.

Winner goes up against the Beatles:

The Beatles - Blackbird (1968)

The Contenders:

Mr. Mister - Broken Wings

Julie Fowlis Lon-dubh / Blackbird

Blackbird - Sarah McLachlan

Emma Stevens - Blackbird by The Beatles sung in Mi'kmaq

the things I say are only "negative" if your priority is protecting systems rather than people. its remarkable how well systems ensure that individuals feel connected to and defensive of them even when we are not being well served by them. standing up and saying "hey actually this hurt me. it hurt a lot of people. I can see exactly how and why it hurts people and I can't ignore or justify this" is a positive stance. a positive action. i love us the disposable people.

Tentacle pots and Spider pot

Porcelain

Available on www.roseschmits.com

looks to be a target sweater by the wild lable... label, as seen from this Instagram post and this mercari post.

Snake thoughts.

And who’s that coming out of the cheese shop now? It’s the lesbians whose role in the story is exclusively “holding the brain cell”! How wonderful to see… wait a moment. What’s that? I’m getting word that one of the lesbians is taking off a prosthetic mask she’s been wearing all this time… what is the lesbian’s true identity?!

It’s Vera Zasulich! RUN, GAY TSAREVICH!!! IT’S TOO LATE! HIS CARRIAGE HAS EXPLODED! I’M HEARING THE CONTROVERSIALLY LOWER CLASS LOVER SHIELDED HIM HEROICALLY WITH HIS OWN BODY AND THE TSAR WILL RECOVER! JEWS TO BE EXPELLED FROM MOSCOW IMMEDIATELY!

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

We rolled out a significant change to how notes work on reblogs, and the reaction has been strong. We're not going to pretend otherwise. 

First things first: We're reversing the change. Your feedback in comments, emails, and especially reblogs, made clear that the rollout created problems we need to address before moving forward. We also should have communicated this differently from the start, and we didn't.

We still believe there's a better version of how reblogs can work. One that gives every voice in a chain the credit it deserves. But we want to get there with you.

In the coming days we'll share more on how we plan to do that,  including ways to work directly with some of you on this and future changes before they ship.

like the specific choice of saying it's the ROLLOUT that created problems and not THE CHANGES that created problems heavily implies they think the issue is how the went about it and not what they actually did. I wouldn't trust this to stay 'fixed' one bit.