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When I moved, I’m certain they understood I was leaving because I had all my stuff and gave them lots of food and compliments.

But, they chased down my friend who lived in the next burrough over. They had recognised that friend with me several times and followed them to their house when they couldn’t find me.

They adopted my friend and it was now my friend’s job to bring them snacks and receive the presents.

This was maybe 6-7 years ago.

I visited London last year. Went to see my friend. The crows all not only recognised me, they tracked me down. We got into my friend’s flat and not twenty minutes later there was chaos on the balcony.

We open the curtains, the entire fucking murder is there shouting because they wanted to see me.

(via bsky)

In case anyone hasn't heard, the cyclospora outbreak affecting tons of people in the US right now is coming from Taylor Farms produce. Best to stay away from bagged lettuce and prepared salads completely right now, but especially the ones mentioned in the screenshot:

Taylor Farms Earthbound Farms Little Salad Bar (Aldi) Marketside (Walmart) Kroger House Brand Target private label greens Costco salads and greens etc Trader Joe's chopped salad kits and fresh produce Fast food: McDonalds, Taco Bell, (Yum! Brands), Chipotle, Subway, Pizza Hut, KFC, Olive Garden, Top Golf, Red Lobster, Burger King, etc.

This is not the first time I've heard about a Taylor Farms foodborne illness outbreak. I stopped eating their salads after reading a description of the conditions in their facilities. Doesn't sound like they've improved anything.

Great dialogue can come from radical emotional honesty. But in most real conversations, people

dodge questions

answer indirectly

lie (badly)

change the subject

crack jokes to avoid serious answers

lie (convincingly)

say half of what they mean

tell the truth but get so anxious/angry/defensive others now think they're lying

If your dialogue feels unnatural, it might be because everyone is saying exactly what they think, or articulating their thoughts too well. Try letting characters hide things instead.

ID: A screenshot from the Reddit post linked, with text reading:

"So I'm going to refute some of the more popular myths about trans women's vaginas by directly describing my own fully healed experience. (I had surgery several years ago using a fairly standard penile inversion technique that used some spare internal mucosa to supplement the vaginal lining. Recovery sucked, but it wasn't that bad.)

Yes, all the normal parts of vaginal anatomy are present. I have a vulva with clitoris and labia, a vagina, I can pee normally, etc etc etc.

No, I don't have visible scars. Some of us do, but they're usually not prominent, especially after a few years. Internally, thing must look quite normal too, since I've passed as cis during a pelvic exam with a speculum.

No, it's not an open wound and it won't heal shut if I don't dilate. It's not a piercing, it's a vagina. I don't dilate at all, and not only do I not lose depth, but I can take a fist if I want

No, I don't have to wash my vagina out. It has its own flora, so douching would generally be a great way to get an infection; luckily, it cleans itself. Yes, it smells and tastes normal.

Yes, I have totally normal sensation in my vagina, clitoris, g spot, etc. Yes, I can orgasm. Yes, I can self-lubricate. Yes, I have totally normal vaginal muscles (the vaginal canal transects the pelvic floor muscles, that's why you can grip and do kegels, though my pelvic floor is stronger than most through a lifetime of kegels).

No, I'm neither immune nor unusually prone to STIs, BV, yeast infections, or UTIs.

Yes, I can cis pass while having sex. No, I don't pre-disclose before casual sex, though I also tend to meet partners in trans-positive environments.

Yes, everything feels like it "should"; nothing feels out of place or misaligned, unlike before surgery, and really the only surprise was how unsurprising everything feels.

dude.

if you've ever watched a movie with your film buff friend and chatted about it afterwards, that friend might have pulled hours more of conversation out of the same 90 minutes of screentime, and wondered how the fuck they did that - it's not raw intelligence, it's a skill that's been honed. And I learned a lot about film from talking to friends who knew about film, and reading critique by film scholars

literature works exactly the same. so if you want to get more out of your reading, there are things you can do to train that. Find a book or short story you think you've got a pretty good grasp on, preferably from a widely read & respected author like Ursula K Le Guin or Ray Bradbury (if you're new at this don't swing for the Toni Morrison or the Samuel Beckett yet unless you feel very comfortable with the complexity of the text - the point is to develop a complicated new skill on good foundations). Then go to JSTOR, create a free account, and look up criticism on the story you've chosen. Find something that looks readable to you and at least somewhat interesting. Read that article, and look at what that writer got out of the same story you've read that you didn't get. Do you see the critic's points? Did they teach you something about the text? Go reread that story and see if the criticism has changed how you read it. Are you seeing more? Are you thinking about the implications of a line that you hadn't noticed before? Does the story feel richer now?

you don't have to read more deeply if you don't want to (but i'd recommend it, i genuinely think it makes you a better person)

if you want to learn to read more deeply, the resources are out there. try to find critical literature (that is, academic writing that analyzes the text) on works your familiar with so you can get a sense for how to do that analysis too

learning to deep read literature can help you deep read many areas of your life

@queenlua Happily! This is going to be long, so here's some set dressing first:

Eton College, for anyone unfamiliar, is a prestigious boys' school in England that has famously educated MANY MANY politicians, royals, nobility, and other assorted famous people. All you really need to know about it is that's it's incredibly posh and expensive and exclusive

The Eton Society (called “Pop” internally) is a self-selecting body of senior students at Eton that have historically held a decent amount of power at the school. If you’ve ever attended a school with a prefect system/house system etc you probably know a little bit about how obnoxious this kind of group can get. Now imagine they're all called Lord Godfrey Pickerington or something. Are you getting it? Is the set being dressed? Good.

Now that the scene is set, here’s our tale!!

I stumbled into Eton’s archives while doing research for a fanfiction and we’ll just leave that admission where it is!! It was in reading old issues of their student-run paper, The Chronicle, from 1883 that myself and @carebewear started becoming fixated on one guy in particular.

Cecil B. Gedge (from this point on known as Gedge) was a member of the Eton Society in 1883/84. He won a few Science awards during his time there (Biology!!) and seemed to like rowing during school sports events. He went on to become a barrister, which will make sense once you know more about him.

The best part of Gedge, though, is his appearances in the minutes for the Eton Society meetings. At least at Gedge’s time, the Eton Society seemed really fond of staging debates (more like loosely organised discussions) on a wide variety of topics.

Here are some of the riveting questions they discussed!

And my personal favourite: "Are Ghosts Real?"

(They were very divided)

Gedge first came to our attention in debate about the annexation of New Guinea, in which he apparently started an "abusive attack on the British army and missionaries":

Wow! Based Gedge!? He continues to spit period-typical truths about things like how we shouldn't tax bicycles actually because it would disproportionately affect poor people. YIMBY Gedge?? He would've loved light rail.

The final nail in our Gedge obsession was a debate on women's suffrage, in which Gedge vehemently advocates for women's right to vote and then gets no supporters at the end of the meeting. But I appreciate that he said it anyway and kept saying it. He is more persecuted that Christ, to me.

Here are some more, from anti-conscription sentiment to indirectly calling his classmates stupid to weirding everyone out by saying he wants to donate his body to science (his friend dissecting him for fun):

We started getting the feeling people might not have liked Gedge that much, mainly since one of the Society members wrote a poem about all his friends and Gedge isn't in it.

In 1884, there was some extended drama in the Chronicle where someone whom I groundlessly suspect was Gedge under a pseudonym ("A Socialist"), wrote to the editor complaining that the "debates" published by the Eton Society were "bad" (genuine quote) and that they should make a REAL debate society at the school that ALL boys, not just the self-selected seniors, could participate in:

To make a long story short most of the vocal members of the Eton Society threw up their hands at this and refused to do anything, basically boiling down to "Just because we're the prefects of the school doesn't mean we should have to actually DO anything!! Unfair!!" and also this quote which reads exactly like at least a thousand real tweets I've seen in my life

Liberal. Gedge, of course, was there giving practical suggestions, but the discussion was ultimately cut short because their principal died and they had to push a memorial issue of the paper. We have a working theory that the staff might've used that interruption as an opportunity to get the boys to cut it the fuck out.

Anyway it's a little unclear what happens to Gedge after that. He isn't credited as being in the 1884 Eton Society in the larger school register but it's unclear if that's because he wasn't re-elected or if he just graduated. Either way, he went on to become a barrister in London, which makes a lot of sense. Sadly though, he passed away in WW1, which we were really normal about

Thank you Lt. Gedge, for truly embodying the eternal spirit of an outspoken debate-kid, a friend to the lefties, a proto-yimby, a terminal back-talker, and the kid in a biology class that's a little too excited for the dissections. I hope your life, however short, was a rich and bright one. Thanks for the incredibly entertaining afternoon, brother 🫡

This is a pretty major letdown, ngl.

an airplane stuck on a toyota minivan

this miata built by rocket scientists

the mr2 boat

the nyan cat bmw that i think actually played the song at all times

the homer simpson car built by uranium workers

this limo whose brakes caught on fire

the dumbest corolla and supra wearing funny hats

I know I've literally got another au in the works already but i don't care man I love mythology and now they're gods >:)))))

Some info!

Katara and Sokka's face markings are based on the Painted Lady and Warrior makeup (respectively)-- on top of giving Sokka some winged eyeliner to resemble a wolf's markings (as the master of wolves), and a semi-circle on Katara's forehead as a symbol of equality (as the goddess of justice).

Gods don't technically "die" in this AU-- it doesn't happen often, but when it does, they usually become one with their domain. When Gyatso died, as the god of the wind, he turned into the wind and could only communicate through wind chimes (small signs/yes/no-- he can't communicate complex thoughts).

When Kya died, she turned into the starry sky. Hakoda, grieving his wife, would often study her form in the sky and learned to use the patterns of her stars to navigate, which made him become god of navigators.

When Kya died, people started praying to Sokka and Katara for matters of family and home-- it's not actually their domain, but they gratefully accept the duties that come with taking over for their mother.

Katara's necklace has sharp points in this to relate to her mother's star domain.

Katara's cloak is a sealskin (as the matron of sealife)

Yes, Sokka's leg is still hurt in this (still trying to figure out the story behind that, but I love when characters get permanent injuries in media and I'm KEEPING IT) he has a cane-- doesn't always need to use it but he has it!

Sokka's cloak is a polar bear dog's hide (as the god of hunting)

Obviously, the goal of this experiment is to grow the lobsters until they’re big enough to settle to the seabed and then release them, because they have a much higher likelihood of surviving to adulthood when they’re able to hide. Ideally, captive lobster hatcheries can boost the wild population and keep things stable, so we don’t have a major crash in a decade or two.

The first year we tried this was pretty bad. We had a lot of eggs, but very few babies. It turned out that the CO2 levels in the building spiked as more guests visited throughout the summer, and that settled into the water and threw off the pH and caused a chemical reaction that prevented a lot of the eggs from hatching. I think we ended up releasing three baby lobsters (which is still better than their wild survival rate but not great).

The second year was a little better. We added a de-gasser to the aquarium and got a ton of larval lobsters, but right as they were settling to the bottom we had a disease outbreak that killed most of them. We ended up releasing four babies at the end of the season.

But this year? Oh boy. We have so many lobsters that we had to release the first round early (usually we wait till September or October so guests can see them). We just released a total of FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE baby lobsters, and we still have over a hundred who haven’t settled to the bottom yet. I genuinely don’t even have words to explain how cool this is. OVER FIVE HUNDRED. We just added hundreds of lobsters to the wild population that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

All of the names are names of TMNT characters. They’re all dressed like their TMNT counterparts too, to the point where it feels like actually I’m looking at human designs for all the turtles. (The exception to this is Raph, or ‘Ralph’, but that makes sense considering that little reveal about him at the end). “Wait... this guy knows school” is a reference to the fact they’re all mutant turtles that never went to public school. But that’s not the only thing, because it so painfully obvious that the creator of this TikTok watched the 2012 cartoon specifically.

It’s completely insane. They all act like and interact with each other exactly like how they do in the ‘12 cartoon. It’s every little detail. Casey being a teenage delinquent. Donnie’s skepticism of Casey. The way everyone ELSE operates around Casey. It’s everything. I keep noticing new things every time I watch this video. Mikey’s the most obvious example of this, but I think the creator might be changing the way he talks to reflect Leo’s voice actor(s) too.

This entire video is a Spy AU fanfiction of TMNT 2012 with ridiculously high production quality. It fits so perfectly that it literally shouldn’t be able to be anything else. And YET - it’s so expertly crafted so as to make it indiscernible from any other stock Disney spy movie. This is so impressive it borders on manic.

empathy:

is responding to a person’s emotions by experiencing the same emotion as them (i.e. feeling sad when something sad happens to that person, or happy when something happy happens to that person.)

is an automatic response that cannot be controlled

cannot be learned

sympathy:

is recognizing that another person is in pain, even if you do not experience that pain, and offering comfort to that person

is something a person must actively choose to do

can be learned

compassion:

is showcasing care and support via words and actions

is something a person must actively choose to do

can be learned

if you need an example of a person with no empathy who practices sympathy and compassion, look no further than data from star trek: the next generation. he doesn’t have emotions at all, but he’s still kind to people and wants to help them.

Produce = Fresh. Tasty. Nutritious. Contains some ppm of Love.