Steam Powered Monster

Ladies and Gentleman And All,

The way some folks react to being cautioned against anthropomorphising animal behaviour, I think there’s often a misunderstanding about precisely what sort of anthropomorphism we’re talking about.

assuming a dog or a horse is being spiteful for refusing to perform on command, or a snake wants to cuddle when it’s trying to seek warmth, or a lizard is bored when it’s basking, is dangerous anthropomorphism. it’s not a bad thing to understand that animals are complex and deserve respect and consideration and empathy. it’s a good thing to try and figure out what animals want and try to give it to them! but it’s a bad thing to ever assume that they want what a human would want.

I have live examples of this from just the other day:  The barn where I volunteer sometimes has some teen girls that also help out (more often than I do). One of the horses, who is known for being a bit of a feather-wit, started freaking out suddenly. Teen girl, assuming incorrectly that he was just being stubborn, told the little girl riding him to just give him a kick to get him moving again. It was only *after* he threw the paying customer that they realized he had a horsefly biting him. Teen girl was anthropomorphizing. She was attributing malicious intent to a horse who was reacting out of fear of pain. (customer kid was fine, btw)

did anyone else get a weird thrill as a kid from correctly imitating Normal Kid Things

8 year old me: [eats a slice of pizza]

I hate wearing patterned shirts, or anything visually loud. Any time I wear something like that, I feel super self-conscious, like it is such a surprising thing to be wearing a Shirt With Flowers On It. Everyone should notice! I am Dressed Noticeably!

When I was little, my mom read the Vorkosigan Saga (slightly edited) to my older sister as bed time stories. When they got to the dream sequence with Lt.(?) Merka’s head, my sister and I developed a game called “Merka Bowling”

Idk, playing phone tag with who you're meeting up with via third person you both know is home was annoying as shit, though. Had to bring quarters and find a payphone (luckily there were a lot, not like today) and call their mom and say 'hey, if they call you we said we would meet by the oak tree in the park but the whole park is closed, tell them to meet me outside of the Circle K a block away' and then you had to hope they called their mom to check if you had called.

I remember being a teenager and my mom and I had a system to use the payphone without coins. I would call home doing the Collect Call thing, and when would say a quick phrase instead of my name, so the phone would ring on her end, and she when she answered, she would hear “{Ding} ‘HiMomPlansChangedI’mGoingTo A’sHouseInstead’ is calling Collect. Press # to accept charges and complete the call.” If she declined the call, it was fine and I could go. If she actually accepted the charge, it was because the answer was no, and she wanted to tell me why.

If anyone ever tells me again that I'm not concentrating hard enough or I'm not focusing hard enough on doing my tasks or work or whatever, here watch this. No brain is the same and our ADHD brain looks different when focusing/concentrating!!!

Transcript

If you are having a bad day, please unmute.

I know I make fun of Pliny the Elder a lot, but I genuinely can’t stop thinking about this approach to taxonomy:

okay so apparently the word “Tursio” is what people in Pliny’s time called the porpoise. for reference, here is a dolphin:

We also never ever have places like animal rescues and wildlife rehabilitation centers, where a hurt, disabled, or sick bear would be taken in, provided with food and shelter, and then released upon healing. Don’t even think about the situations where, if a bear is unable to be released in the wild, but otherwise has a decent quality of life, it is usually provided with shelter and food for the rest of its natural life, with no expectation that it will pay rent.

I don’t know what young or new LGBTQIA++ person needs to see this, but queer is a wonderful word. It’s not a bad word, it’s not a slur, and you don’t need to be afraid to use it or scared of it.

Things Above Wen Zhuliu’s Paygrade