Name's Tali. He/they. Polyamorous, bisexual, genderqueer, nerdy, cat-loving, LARPing bookworm. Ex-pagan witchy-flavored Jewish conversion student. Very pro-choice. Reviving this tumblr after a very long hiatus and several pretty major life shifts. Witchy sideblog is raptormagic.
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"Isn't it weird that [thing humans commonly eat] is poisonous to literally every domesticated animal" I mean, there's a pretty good chance that [thing humans commonly eat] is at least mildly poisonous to humans, too. One of our quirks as a species is that we think our food is bland if it doesn't have enough poison in it.
Humans have a really weird mix of mundane superpowers.
We're not fast and don't have a lot of natural weaponry but we're bizarrely tolerant to a broad range of toxins to the point that one toxin is considered a morning necessity for some to perform at work. Gotta love us.
Yesterday I saw a mother with a baby carriage, being followed by a girl of about 4-6 years old on a bicycle. The kid started ringing her bike bell like RING RING RING RING RING RING RING, and the mother turned to look behind them to see whether they were being followed by a cyclist who desperately needs to pass them for the sake of everyone's safety.
And the little girl - who just rang the goddamn bell herself 5 seconds ago - also turned to look.
Kids are confused by everything at all times. They don't know jack shit. About anything.
i remember being like 8 or 9 and being told that my dad’s ex-wife was no longer diane and we were to address her as daniel now. my reaction: “ok.”
me and my brother later had a small discussion about whether that could happen randomly (conclusion: no, he probably had to file papers or something) and whether daniel should now be referred to as dad’s ex-husband (conclusion: yes but only to see the face he’ll make) but at no point did we find it like... alarming? the world is big and weird. we were used to it.
finding out a sorta-relative could just change genders off camera, as it were, was a whole lot less head-splodey than finding out there were no squirrels in australia!
"Won't they be confused by all the--" So what if they are? Life is often confusing. That's part of how we learn. Part of the job of an adult is to help confused kids learn and understand things. There's no obligation to protect the kids from the confusing things. Quite the reverse.
In my experience anyone using this BS excuse isn't worried about a child's potential confusion, but their own, which they don't want to admit to having.
Aussie here, I DIDN'T KNOW SQUIRRELS WERE ACTUALLY REAL FOR THE FIRST EIGHT YEARS OF MY LIFE NO JOKE I THOUGHT THEY WERE A MYTHICAL ANIMAL LIKE UNICORNS
Also kids are far less likely to be confused by something the younger they learn about it. Kiddo had queer people in his life and casual references to queerness before he could even talk. It was never confusing for him. It was normal.
Everyone's talking about Artemis II, the first humans to travel to the moon in 50 years
Historic, right? BUT nobody's talking about the Deaf people who made it possible.
In the late 1950's, NASA had a problem.
They needed to understand what weightlessness did to the human body but every test subject kept getting violently motion sick
NASA needed to figure out FAST during the space race!
So, they went to Gallaudet University. They recruited 11 Deaf people.
Because a number of Deaf people had lost their hearing to spinal meningitis as children which also damaged their vestibular system.
Their inner ears couldn't be overwhelmed. They were immune to motion sickness.
NASA put them in centrifuges. Put them on zero gravity flights. A room for 12 straight days.
(All caps) It rotated the entire time.
One experiment on a ferry in choppy Nova Scotia waters, the researchers got so seasick they had to cancel it. The Gallaudet Eleven? They were playing cards.
Their bodies gave NASA the data and research it needed to send humans into space.
No Gallaudet Eleven? No Mercury. No Apollo. No Artemis II.
They stood on the shoulders of 11 Deaf people most people have never heard of.
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Drug arrives years after pandemic’s peak, but could still offer protection to vulnerable populations.
An antiviral pill has, for the first time, been shown to prevent COVID-19 in people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus at home, according to trial results published today in the New England Journal of Medicine1.
The drug could be a lifeline for those who still face real danger from the virus, such as care-home residents or transplant recipients on immune-suppressing medication.
Households exposed to COVID-19 now have an oral drug specifically cleared to prevent infection after contact with a sick person. The FDA listed Xocova, the brand name for ensitrelvir, as a 2026 novel drug approval for post-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 following contact with an infected individual. The decision fills a gap that has persisted since the pandemic’s early years: until now, no oral antiviral carried an FDA-approved indication for prevention rather than treatment.
The way all the 2020s have done so far have been making me categorically against every new generation of tech that comes out is insane. Like I'm from a technological boom generation, saw the first portable phones, nokias & blackberries & flipphones etc, and the first smartphones, and the first ipods & ipads & tablets in general while still having cassettes & DVD & MP3 players around so I know how all of it work, I had computer classes in high school, I did the transition between home desktop computers to laptops and back to gaming computers. But then they started to put internet in your printer & microwave, everything has ads & AI now and every update is worst than the last. I literally loved technology and they ruined it
I still believe that the harbingers of the tech decline were MP3 players prioritizing streaming instead of making it easy to upload music to a library, and Apple removing the headphone jack. Those things led directly to the whole idea of not owning the media you bought.
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Okay, I was just going to reblog this without commentary, but I can't keep this to myself. I'm a PhD student in environmental science and this is my fucking highway.
The first published study about climate change (that I am aware of-- feel free to point out if there's an older one) is an 1896 paper by Svante Arrhenius. He pointed out the link between the greenhouse effect and changes in atmospheric CO2.
Plate tectonics, which the geoscience community now recognizes as near indisputable, was a fringe theory until about the 1960s.
Just in case anyone thought that climate change was a "recent fad" in research.
The practice of fossil fuel companies knowing about and actively covering up scientific data about climate change and running disinformation campaigns to protect their bottom line is older than any existing fossil fuel company.
-the first baseman had no reason to chase Baéz, if he just stepped on the bag he was automatically out
-theres two outs, so if hes out, the inning is over. even if the runner on second base gets home, the run doesnt count. its not until hes safe at first that the run scores
-theres no specific rule in baseball about running backwards from first, just that you “cannot retreat to home base” meaning so long as if you dont touch the plate, its fine
-Baéz ran backwards to kill enough to get the run to score, and then stole and extra base on the base on the bad throw
-HE TOOK THE TIME TO UMPIRE HIS OWN PLAY AND CALL SAFE
Let me see if I can break this down a little more.
Javier Báez (the batter, a Chicago Cub, wearing blue) has just hit the ball. His job is now to run around the bases - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, back to where he started (“home”), at which point he will have scored a point. In practice, he will probably stop partway, wait for the next batter to get a hit, and try to make it home from there.
The Pittsburgh Pirates (in white) are fielding. Their job is to stop the Cubs from scoring by getting them out, by various combinations of catching the ball and tagging people or bases with it.
The scoreboard (top left) shows that one Cub has already made it to second base, so he will resume running now that Javy has a hit. It also shows that two Cubs are out. If a third Cub gets out, their turn to bat will be over, it will be the Pirates’ turn to bat, and the Cubs can’t score anymore (for now, but that’s not relevant).
The Pirate at first base (the first baseman) has the ball. All he needs to do is step on first base while holding it before Javy gets there, and Javy is out. This is probably the number one most common thing a first baseman has to do.
He does not do it.
For some reason he starts chasing Javy, presumably trying to tag him with the ball directly. This is a perfectly legitimate way of getting him out, but also completely unnecessary.
This has never happened to Javy before. Unsure what else to do, he just kind of… jogs backwards away from him.
Meanwhile, the Cub who was at second base (Contreras) has made it all the way back to home. Because the Pirates’ first baseman has helpfully walked the ball back home, he can easily toss it to the Pirate at home (the catcher) who will tag Contreras out.
The catcher doesn’t tag him in time.
The umpire signals that Contreras is safe (not out).
Javy also signals that Contreras is safe, just for fun. He’s never been nearby when a teammate makes it home before, and he’s enjoying himself.
Notice that the score has not changed, even though Contreras made it home. That’s because Javy is still technically running to first base. If he gets out before he reaches it, the Cubs’ turn to bat is over, and nothing else that’s happened since he hit the ball matters.
Javy remembers this, and heads back to first base. The catcher throws the ball to another Pirates fielder, who is frantically running to do the first baseman’s job.
He doesn’t catch it.
Javy is safe at first. Contreras scores (although the scoreboard won’t change for a second).
Javy notices how far away that ball landed, and decides he can make it to second base before anyone picks it up and tags him out.
An offscreen Pirate throws the ball to second base, where another Pirate is ready and waiting to catch it, tag Javy out, and end the Cubs’ turn to bat.
He doesn’t catch it.
Javy is safe at second. The video doesn’t show it, but he will go on to score as well.
This should have been a very easy out for the Pirates, but through two dropped catches and one truly bizarre decision from the first baseman, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and turned it into two points for the Cubs.
Reblogging with the breakdown of what happened for anyone who isn’t familiar with the rules of baseball and wants to understand why we can’t stop talking about this play.
When you meet Edward Elric he gives off the impression that he's the short-tempered hot-headed "violence is the answer to all life's questions" kind of protagonist, and it's in fact incredible character craft that he's actually the character who ends the series with a negative-3 kill count.
God's worst soldier Edward Elric. Showed up as the youngest member of the Amestrian army, took millions of dollars from them, never followed a single order, helped dismantle their fascist regime, left with a lower kill count than he arrived with, then fucked off to go be a house-husband. Character of all time.
You know, when you said "negative-3 kill count," I, who haven't seen the anime, thought, "He resurrected 3 people?????" But I'm seeing here on the wiki that apparently resurrection in this anime is a terrible idea.
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Rewatching Truman Show for the first time in a long time, and the detail that’s stuck with me this time is the set design.
The characters drive modern cars and hock modern products, but it’s all presented with a veneer of 1950s wholesome applecheeked Americana. Truman’s life is presented as an escape for the audience from the drudgery of the modern day, and the aesthetic they’ve chosen for this is the post-war economic boom. This is the simple time, the movie says. This is the good time. Doesn’t the modern day suck? Let’s go back and see our friends from the days when life was good.
And it’s a lie. Truman’s life is a lie, and the image of white picket fenced suburbia they’ve presented is a lie. It’s an elaborate construction to recreate a false memory that’s comfortable for advertisers. The movie is a satire, but it’s also a very blatant statement against the nostalgia for a golden age which never existed. It’s a lie. It doesn’t exist.
I don’t know. I’m spitballing. I’m biased because I despise mid-20th century Americana and I naturally treat it with hostility, but it’s very gratifying to see a movie kind of agree with me.
Earlier in the summer, I went to Florida with my friend. We decided to visit a town nearish to where we were staying called Seaside, as we had heard it was a cute place. What I did not know at the time was that Seaside is the place where they filmed The Truman Show. It was a "master-planned community," constructed in the 80s to be the perfect beach town.
Seaside, FL
Seahaven
And yes, it really does look Like That. Not just in their tourist-agency photos, in real life it looks like that. Arguably the irl Seaside is even prettier than movie Seahaven, because the the office buildings where Truman works don't exist; the town is 100% cutesy homes and little shops.
Every single house is pastel with white trim and a white picket fence with the family's name on it in a handwritten font. The streets are paved with red bricks and lined with palmettos, and families bicycle past. The streets are clean, the lawns manicured, the sidewalks pristine.
Soon after we arrive my friend says as we walk, "God I wish I could live in a place like this. Imagine having the money to live in a place like this." I reply, "I don't actually know for me...it's gorgeous don't get me wrong, but there's no grime, you know? Where's the grime? I'd feel uncomfortable. It feels like there's not a dive bar for a hundred miles."
We reach the town center, which is a wide square lined with shops on one side, food trucks on the other. We have a lovely time looking through the shops, though I start feeling kinda weird, and I'm not sure why. Probably the extreme cleanliness of the area is making me feel off-kilter. And the surreal feeling of walking through areas I recognize from The Truman Show only adds to the weirdness.
We go into a clothing store, and it's crowded with people who appear to have stepped out of a Land's End catalog. It sells boring tshirts, shorts, and sundresses in whites and blues, all needlessly expensive. Employees walk through, refolding already-pristine shirts. So perfect. "Anyone buying from here is so rich they can probably smell the poor on us," my friend jokes, "that's why they have so many employees refolding things, it's to fix anything we brush against." "Or even breathe on!" I add.
We continue on to the grocery store where, in the movie, Truman finds Marlon stocking the vending machine and first tells him he suspects his world is wrong. I buy some pasta salad there to eat for lunch (all the cafes are quite expensive), and we find a place to sit and eat. As my friend finishes up her food, I write a postcard to my sister, telling her about my trip overall and my day in Seaside, describing the town as 'vomit-inducingly picturesque.' (It has been weeks since my visit and she still has not received that postcard)
Lunch done, we decide to walk down to the beach and have a swim. And I realize something about the surreal feeling. "Weird question," I say to my friend, "have you seen any non-white people here? Am I imagining that?"
She pauses. "The lady cleaning the bathrooms?" she asks.
"No I mean vacationers. Guests, customers. Other than you, I haven't seen a single one who wasn't white."
"...No. I haven't either."
And now that we see it, we can't unsee it. It's a wealthy area, so I had been expecting it to be pretty white, but the fact that there is not a single nonwhite person who isn't working a service job feels so gross. It's as though the place is somehow still segregated, like we have stepped back in time, but not to the fun, fake, rock-n-roll-and-soda-parlor-nostalgia version of the fifties, but to the real racism-and-repression fifties.
It is so fucking weird and sinister. I feel I have stumbled into another realm. All these people giving us sideeye, riding around on their golf carts in their pristine $45 seaside-branded tshirts, taking pictures of the perfect houses all lined up in perfect rows. A whole town of Meryls wearing lulu lemon.
We walk on. It's hot, and a swim is exactly what we need. Surely they can't ruin the ocean. I myself am extremely excited to swim, because now that we've spent a few hours among the pompous populace, I want to piss in their perfect ocean more than anything in the world.
We walk along behind the beachfront bar patios that line the beach toward the access point, and the ocean looks so blue and inviting. Although the hedge growing between us and the dunes is strangely tall. "Huh," I think. "It's weird that they'd grow it like this, it blocks the view for everyone sitting on the patios."
We arrive at the boardwalk, and there is a man standing there. He says "Hold on! Do you two have a beach access pass?" I look at him in disbelief. It's a public beach, but the sign behind the man says you have to rent a beach chair to use the beach, and it's $35 per person. We glance at each other, turn wordlessly, and head back to town.
I seriously consider trying to sneak onto the beach somehow, because at this point I am very invested in the idea of pissing in their ocean, but I realize that with the tall hedge it would be nigh-impossible.
We went home after that.
So many reviews for Seaside on travel websites mention how they love to visit Seaside because they feel transported, they feel it reflects a "simpler time" or a "peaceful life." It's been weeks and I can't stop thinking about my experience. It really drove home how...complicit people can be in their own ignorance. A lot of people want to live in that perfect bubble, and especially if they have the money, they can maintain that barrier. It reminds me that part of the reason I often have trouble persuading these types of people is because they simply do not want to be persuaded. They're so proud to be the place where The Truman Show was filmed, but I rather doubt they really think about what it means that they live on a movie set, in a surreal dream.
Honestly visiting Seaside was a 10/10 unique experience. I would highly recommend it as a place to go for a couple hours if you're gonna be nearby and want to feel like you've been kidnapped into The Truman Show and/or your brain has been put in an easy bake oven. It's like a zoo for superrich WASPS. We had a really good time loudly making fun of how insane it all was, invading their little paradise with our riffraff energy. Treat it like an excursion into the jungle; you're gonna have to park a half mile away minimum, and bring all your food and water with you so you don't have to buy anything. You don't want to give them any money. They have enough.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, next time I go to the panhandle, I will be going to the nearest free public beach access to Seaside, and I will walk to the Seaside area of the beach, and I will piss in their ocean.
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