xkcd2020 (the worst year ever)

So I found this caterpillar on my way to class

i made him a tube room

im going to sleep, chicken nugget is snoozin and ill check up on him as soon as i wake up

hope he doesnt party too hard 

there he goes he’s free and im so proud and a little sad

this was an incredible experience

Pros: I’ll have access to them later because they’re fucking hilarious

space furries with a grandma kink

pussy eating vegans

gay cowboy stripper on a mechanical bull

yoga class

stairs

personal parabolic antennas for great wifi

folklore and rock ‘n roll

magical portals

steampunk circus

hand washing cult

and last but not least, the jury

ALSO, I don’t want people feeling confident about petting stray/wild animals because there’s a vaccine available, either. I’ll explain why from my own experience (I’m not a doctor).

I got bitten by a wild tamarin once, on the pulp of my index finger. It drew blood, there are many wild animals in the area (tamarins, possums, bats, foxes) and it isn’t that uncommon to hear about 1 or 2 rabies cases every now and again (a puppy we gave to a friend got it, for instance), so I went to an ambulatory immediately.

Because I was bitten in an ultrasensitive area, I needed fast treatment. But it was also a small area, so the usual thing they do - inject the vaccine in the place - wasn’t a choice. They told me they’d divide the shot in 5 small ones, and inject me all over my body, so the antidote would get to my entire system fast.

Please stop for a moment and think that the disease is so worrysome that they’d rather needle me all over than to give me one shot and wait until it spread through my system.

Then they said that, okay, but there was a catch first. I needed to take an antiallergic shot. “Why?” “Because the virus is devastating, and as the vaccine is made from it, but weakened (like almost every vaccine) it will still create a reaction, and it’s a strong one, and it’s veru common for people to have strong allergic reactions to it.” YOU HAVE TO TAKE AN ANTIALLERGIC SHOT IN ORDER TO TAKE THE VACCINE COZ THE VACCINE COULD POTENTIALLY MAKE YOU REALLY SICK

ALSO IT WASN’T JUST “A LITTLE ANTIALLERGIC SHOT”

IT WAS ONE OF THESE FUCKERS HERE.

It was OBVIOUSLY dripped in my body and not injected because HAHAHAHA. Truth be told I was an adult already and I’m tall so I have a lot of mass but STILL.

So after I had taken the antiallegic and was starting to feel drowsy (as a side effect of it) the doctor came with the 5 shots.

- One in each buttock

- One in each thigh

- One in my left arm

They all stung like a bitch and I usually don’t care about shots.

“Okay so can I go home now?”

“No, we have to keep you under observation for 2h so we’re SURE the vaccine won’t give you any reaction.”

BINCH I WAS GIVEN A BUTTLOAD OF MEDICINE BUT THERE WAS STILL A RISK.

I slept through the two hours and then was liberated to go home. My legs, butt, and left arm hurt all over, like I had been punched there, for a few days. I also had a fever (not feverish, a fever)

BUT DID YOU THINK IT WAS OVER?

WRONG!!!

I had to take four reinforcement shots in the next month, one a week, so I could be positively be considered immunized. Every time I took a shot, my arm would swell and hurt like it’d been hit, and when night came I’d have a fever. Because that’s how fucking strong the vaccine is, BECAUSE THAT’S HOW VICIOUS THE VIRUS IS.

So yeah. DO NOT PUT YOURSELF IN RISK, GODDAMNIT. Rabies is a rare condition all over, THANK GOD, and 1 confirmed case can be already considered a surge and a reason for mass campaigning, AND FOR A REASON.

If you like messing with stray/wild animals, don’t go picking them up and be extra careful. Or just, like, DON’T - call a vet or an authority that can handle them safely.

I must add that I live in a country with universal healthcare, so I didn’t pay a single penny for my treatment. Is this your reality? If not, ONE MORE REASON TO NOT FUCKING PLAY WITH THIS SHIT.

Rabies is 100% lethal. Period. If you are scratched or bitten by an animal you’re not positive is vaccinated, you need to find treatment NOW. And probably go through all that shit I’ve been through (also if you are immunosupressed? I DON’T KNOW WHAT’D HAPPEN)

Finally, you don’t need to be bitten. All you need is to come into contact with an infected animal’s bodily fluids through a cut that maybe you didn’t notice when you were handling it when it drooled on you.

Prodromal: Stage One. Marked by altered behavioral patterns. “Docility” and “likes to be pet” are very common in the prodromal stage. Usually lasts 1-3 days. An animal in this stage carries virus bodies in its saliva and is infectious.

Excitative: Stage Two. Also called “furious” rabies. This is what everyone thinks rabies is–hyperreacting to stimuli and biting everything. Excessive salivation occurs. Animals in this stage also exhibit hydrophobia or the fear of water; they cannot drink (swallowing causes painful spasms of the throat muscles), and will panic if shown water. Usually lasts 3-4 days before rapidly progressing into the next stage.

Paralytic: Stage Three. Also called “dumb” rabies. As the infection runs its course, the virus starts degrading the nervous system. Limbs begin to fail; animals in this stage will often limp or drag their haunches behind them. If the animal has survived all this way, death will usually come through respiratory arrest: Their diaphragm becomes paralyzed and they stop breathing.

And to add onto the above, saliva isn’t the only infectious fluid. Brain matter is, too. If, somehow, you find yourself in possession of a firearm and faced with a rabid animal, do not go for a head shot. If you do, you will aerosolize the brain matter and effectively create a cloud of infectious material. Breathe it in, and you’ll give yourself an infection.

When I worked in wildlife rehabilitation, I actually did see a rabid animal in person, and it remains one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, because I was literally looking death in the eyes.

A pair of well-intentioned women brought us a raccoon that they thought had been hit by a car. They had found it on the side of the road, dragging its hind legs. They managed–somehow–to get it into a cat carrier and brought it to us. 

As they brought it in, I remember how eerily silent it was. Normal raccoons chatter almost constantly. They fidget. They bump around. They purr and mumble and make little grabby-hands at everything. Even when they’re in pain, and especially when they’re stressed. But this one wasn’t moving around inside the carrier, and it wasn’t making a sound.

The clinic director also noticed this, and he asked in a calm but urgent voice for the women to hand the carrier to him. He took it to the exam room and set it on the table while they filled out some forms in the next room. I took a step towards the carrier, to look at our new patient, and without turning around, he told me, “Go to the other side of the room, and stay there.”

He took a small penlight out of the drawer and shone it briefly into the carrier, then sighed. “Bear, if you want to come look at this, you can put on a mask,” he said. “It’s really pretty neat, but I know you’re not vaccinated and I don’t want to take any chances.” 

And at that point, I knew exactly what we were dealing with, and I knew that this would be the closest I had ever been to certain death. So I grabbed a respirator from the table and put it on, and held my breath for good measure as I approached the table. The clinic director pointed where I should stand, well back from the carrier door. He shone the light inside again, and I saw two brilliant flashes of emerald green–the most vivid, unnatural eyeshine I had ever seen. 

“I don’t know why it does it,” the director murmured, “but it turns their eyes green.”

“What does?” one of the women asked, with uncanny, unintentionally dramatic timing, as she poked her head around the corner.

“Rabies,” the director said. “The raccoon is rabid. Did it bite either of you, or even lick you?” They told us no, said they had even used leather garden gloves when they herded it into the carrier. He told them to throw away the gloves as soon as possible, and steam-clean the upholstery in their car. They asked how they should clean the cat carrier; they wanted it back and couldn’t be convinced otherwise, so he told them to soak it in just barely diluted bleach.

But before we could give them the carrier back, we had to remove the raccoon. The rabid raccoon.

The clinic director readied a syringe with tranquilizers and attached it to the end of a short pole. I don’t remember how it was rigged exactly–whether he had a way to push down the plunger or if the needle would inject with pressure–but all he would have to do was stick the animal to inject it. And so, after sending me and the women back to the other side of the room, he made his fist jab.

He missed the raccoon.

The sound that that animal made on being brushed by the pole can only be described as a roar. It was throaty and ragged and ungodly loud. It was not a sound that a raccoon should ever make. I’m convinced it was a sound that a raccoon physically could not make. 

It thrashed inside the carrier, sending it tipping from side to side. Its claws clattered against the walls. It bellowed that throaty, rasping sound again. It was absolutely frenzied, and I was genuinely scared that it would break loose from inside those plastic walls. 

Somehow, the clinic director kept his calm, and as the raccoon jolted around inside the cat carrier, he moved in with the syringe again, and this time, he hit it. He emptied the syringe into its body and withdrew the pole.

And then we waited.

We waited for those awful screams, that horrible thrashing, to die down. As we did, the director loaded up another syringe with even more tranquilizer, and as the raccoon dropped off into unconsciousness, he stuck it a second time with the heavier dose. Even then, it growled at him and flailed a paw against the wall.

More waiting, this time to make sure the animal was truly down for the count.

Then, while wearing welder’s gloves, the director opened the door of the carrier and removed the raccoon. She was limp, bedraggled, and utterly emaciated, but she was still alive. We bagged up the cat carrier and gave it to the women again, advising them that now was a good time to leave. They heeded our warning.

I asked if I could come closer to see, and the clinic director pointed where I could stand. I pushed the mask up against my face and tried to breathe as little as possible.

He and his co-director–who I think he was grooming to be his successor, but the clinic actually went under later that year–examined the raccoon together. Donning a pair of nitrile gloves, he reached down and pulled up a handful, a literal fistful, of the raccoon’s skin and released it. It stayed pulled up.

Severe dehydration causes a phenomenon called “skin tenting”. The skin loses its elasticity somewhat, and will be slow to return to its “normal” shape when manipulated. The clinic director estimated that it had been at least four or five days since the raccoon had had anything to eat or drink. 

She was already on death’s doorstep, but her rabies infection had driven her exhausted body to scream and lunge and bite. 

Because, the scariest thing about rabies (if you ask me) is the way that it alters the behavior of those it infects to increase chances of spreading. 

The prodromal stage? Nocturnal animals become diurnal–allowing them to potentially infect most hosts than if they remained nocturnal. 

The excitative stage? The infected animal bites at the slightest provocation. Swallowing causes painful spasms, so they drool, coating their bodies in infectious matter. A drink could wash away the virus-charged saliva from their mouth and bodies, so the virus drives them to panic at the sight of water.

(The paralytic stage? By that point, the animal has probably spread its infection to new hosts, so the virus has no need for it any longer.)

Rabies is deadly. Rabies is dangerous. In all of recorded history, one person survived an infection after she became symptomatic, and so far we haven’t been able to replicate that success. The Milwaukee Protocol hasn’t saved anyone else. Just one person. And even then, she still had to struggle to gain back control of her body after all that nerve damage.

Please, please, take rabies seriously.

I am not exaggerating when I say that is literally terrifying.

Y'all please read this. That is absolutely hideous. That’s literally like something from a horror movie.

Dogs are dumb, friendly fucks who will investigate anything; everything else in the animal kingdom knows better than to mess with a porcupine, unless their brain is being ravaged by something beyond their control.

Also I heard that in the USA, human rabies pre-exposure vaccines are not widely available and cost something like $900

Get your pets rabies vaccine every year, folks. Aside from everything else - and that’s a lot of everything - the test for rabies involves the brain, so the animal will be killed first.

Do you know why “dog catcher” was such a serious occupation? Because in the late 1800s rabies ran rampant in urban street dogs. Because people who got bitten by street dogs… had probably just gotten a death sentence.

As a child, Louis Pasteur watched a man from his hometown die slowly, painfully, and unstoppably from rabies from a rabid wolf bite and it stuck with him so hard that when he grew up he put his own life on the line studying and working with rabid animals to develop a treatment. (Louis Pasteur’s wife, Marie Pasteur, was also a talented, passionate scientist who worked uncredited by his side. Many of their daughters also took up research.)

When Louis Pasteur did his first human test of his rabies vaccine, it was because a mother came to him desperate. Her 8 year old son had been bitten 14 times by a street dog. Doctors were certain he was going to die. She’d heard what Pasteur was working on and begged him to try to save her son.

He tried.

It worked.

This made national news. This made GLOBAL news.

And in the small Russian town of Beloi, locals read about this miracle cure. Their town had been attacked by a rabid wolf and twenty two people had been bitten. They knew these people were going to die. So the bitten people set off walking, carrying the most injured. They walked for weeks to get to France, where Pasteur was based.

When they arrived, the only French word they knew was “Pasteur.” Their cases were dangerously far along, possibly too far. Pasteur began treatment anyway, pushing with the most aggressive dosages he dared.

This also caught global attention. The world waited on tenterhooks.

Pasteur’s vaccine saved 19 out of 22.

The world was awed.

And when those Russian villagers returned home, to their families, it would have been like seeing the dead return.

the concept that things evolved from other things was already an idea floating around for basically ever in any scientific circle not completely dominated by creationism. like, darwin didn’t come up with it and he never claimed to. you can find dozens of natural philosophers throughout history like “yo i’m pretty sure that there’s some evolution going on here.”

it was not like the scientists in the 1850s were finding fossils of transitional forms and being like “LOL well dragons i guess!” it was already getting pretty obvious to academics in the 19th century that the earth was really old, life had gone through some serious changes, and there were common ancestors and related species. once maps got good enough for people to go “fuck dude africa and south america fit together” young earth creationism was fucked.

the problem was that there was no mechanism they could devise that would explain how creatures changed from one form into another, which was really kind of the vital piece of the whole thing. they had evidence that there was an evolution of life, but no way to build a theory because they had no way of showing how it might happen. some people were playing with the idea that creatures picked up traits from the environment and passed those to their kids.. somehow, but they had no evidence. they had a chain with no links.

then darwin comes along with some sketches of birds and he’s like “hey so here’s what going on. gregor mendel has shown that traits can be passed along, i’m gonna propose that what’s happening is, creatures that are best suited for an environment to flourish, so this preserves and eventually exaggerates certain traits over time to cause divergences. you go back far enough, like billions of years, all life coulda started from just a few basic types, or maybe even just one ancestor.”

darwin didn’t discover evolution. he proposed evolution by natural selection and he was right.

i mean, mostly. we had to correct his theory a whole bunch as we learned more about things like genetics and dna. he was actually kinda wrong about a ton of shit but that’s to be expected.

secondly, what’s important about newton wasn’t his observations, it was his math. ibn al haytham made a lot of important discoveries and advanced a lot of ideas about physics, especially optics, the big science of the middle ages, but the principles he talked about weren’t quite there yet.

like, he did this whole essay talking about planetary motion which, while more accurate than his contemporaries, was fundamentally inaccurate clockwork universe stuff because he actually hadn’t discovered gravity as a useful theory and he wasn’t able to use it to make predictions about motion.

that doesn’t make him stupid or worthy of being forgotten or nothin’. thats not how science works. he made advances, he didn’t quite have the shape of things yet, his work was important.

newton, building on his successes, was like, yo dawg, orbital mechanics. its like falling, but you miss. here’s a form of math i fucking invented to show some proof. lets check that against the universe.

and we did. and when it turned out his predictions were slightly wrong, some other motherfucker named einstein fixed it. and when he was wrong, etc.

its almost like science is totally built in increments on people who came before and trying discrediting the people who made some of those increments for political reasons is basically just as fucked as forgetting the folks who did the foundation work.

–

 Maybe AlternateHistory.com, if “actual realworld history” counts as a fandom (I’m not sure, but the way AUs developed on their reminds me of similar behaviors in “fandom” spaces like tumblr and ao3). When I hung out on there it was old-school internet style where people didn’t really talk about gender but it was the default assupmtion that commenters were men. 

Power Rangers

Pokemon (note:has a GIGANTIC transformative fandom of all genders but it does hahe a lot of male fans writing for it as well)

Digimon (again has a fandom of all genders but still)

Bionicle (interestingly enough, while it has mostly AMAB fanbase, there has been a recent increase in the ppl in the fandom identifying as transfem or nonbinary. I wont say the amount of transfem fans is AS HUGE as memes make it out to be but I digress)

Warhammer 50k I THINK…theres a lot of fanworks for sure but not sute how many of them are fics and how many are just animations

1 - i exclusively use tumblr on mobile

2 - i mostly use tumblr on mobile, but sometimes desktop

3 - i use tumblr equally on both mobile and desktop

4 - i mostly use tumblr on desktop, but sometimes mobile

“Oh we are vegetarian vampires, we only drink blood from animals, so we go out into the incredibly unique temperate rainforest ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest and hunt their rare megafauna” what the fuck dude. Why? Just keep some cows, y’all have so much money! Just keep some goddamn goats! Order some live horses! Leave the local wildlife alone!

“I am a vampire with a soul and I am so tortured with guilt all I can eat are rats off the street” off the street!?! Dude what is wrong with you. Just start a rat rescue. I have friends in rat rescue. Do you have any idea how many rats they get all the time? Rats that aren’t covered in fleas and filled with diseases??? Rats that are pregnant and have baby rats? You’ll be eating for the rest of your life!