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loving dimension 20

@mybelovedintrepidheroes

here for a fun time, not a long time! i like a variety of things and i refuse to dilute my interests for any social media! you can call me vik or carrot (they're interchangeable) pronouns: all of them, go wild! I'm in my early 20s
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When I have the time one of these days, I have to write a post about everything that has been going on in the past couple of weeks with the web version of Tumblr's keyboard shortcuts.

It's a comedy of dumb decisions (most of them of my own doing) that may not only be a funny insight about how things work, but also a cautionary tale for any young developer that may be thinking of adding shortcuts to their own site.

Don't do it, young friend. Actually, retire from programming while you still can. Leave for the forests. Build a cabin. Raise chickens. Be happy.

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies i need to buy more plushies

I apologize if you've already answered this a few times, but since Snakes aren't domesticated what makes some okay to have as pets?

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You're fine, this is a good question!

So, yes, snakes (and all other reptiles) are not domesticated. They will always be wild animals. It's very important to remember that they, unlike domesticated mammals such as cats and dogs, have not evolved to live with humans, and they have care and body language that is sometimes unintuitive to people.

That said, though, domestication really isn't the only criteria for what makes a good pet! I believe that some snakes are okay to have as pets because their needs are relatively easy to meet in captivity, it's possible to find captive-bred snakes so there's no need to remove them from the wild, and there's no evidence that common pet species suffer as a result of being kept as pets. When we look at common pet snake species, such as ball pythons and cornsnakes, we see longer lifespans in captivity, and that's a good indicator that they adapt well to captivity.

When wild animals make bad pets, there are reasons why. Some are dangerous to humans - like big cats. Some, like primates, have complex social structures that are impossible to replicate. Some, like parrots, have needs for space and enrichment that are nearly impossible to meet in captivity. Some, like foxes, are very destructive in private homes. Many wild animals have all of these issues! And I'm not saying every reptile makes a good pet - there are many that have no business being in a private home - but common pet snake species don't have any of these problems.

I'm not saying snakes are good pets for everyone - they're not. Pet snakes are wild animals with very specific needs, and you should only get a snake if you're prepared to set up an appropriately-sized enclosure with a proper temperature and humidity gradient, and if you're prepared to feed your snake an appropriate diet. But I do think that some snakes make good pets for those committed to providing what they need because it is possible to meet their needs and for them to thrive in captivity.

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i keep thinking about the number of parrots and mimicking birds that say love you! as part of their vocabulary. how often they must hear that in order to learn it as a song.

when i was a child and learning how to train dogs, we were warned against using puppy too much around the dog - it might get confused and think the word puppy was a name. we were supposed to use mostly command words - keep it simple and clear.

but when my dog is in the middle of a nightmare, i say i love you to him, and he calms down. i say i love you! and he starts wiggling, delighted. when i first rescued him, i love you got no reaction. he understood i love you! before he understood what stairs are. the first thing i ever trained him to understand, maybe, before even his name: i love you.

my sister used to say i love you! and her cat would come running. he knew his name, too, but her voice saying i love you was enough.

there's some debate about how many words our pets understand. maybe they understand the tone more than the actual word. science almost always seems to be coming out with new exciting information about just how much animals can learn and understand language. it often more seems that the only true barrier is that we don't understand them when they answer back.

goblin doesn't know it yet, but for the last 3 days, i've been telling him about the new bed i bought him. i had to save for a while in order to afford it - but it's specifically for big dogs like him, and (supposedly) won't flatten out after 6 months. it was twice as expensive as my own mattress, and i'm way-too-excited to give it to him. i keep reading him the stats - it says it'll help any joint pain! and one more sleep until it comes! he wiggles in joy at the tone in my voice, this thing i know i'm not really communicating, but something he seems to understand-anyway.

as of 7:30 AM today, the new bed is on the way. goblin is asleep on my couch, happily snoring. the truck is two towns over. i keep refreshing the delivery updates.

something about telling these creatures in our lives i love you, even knowing they can't understand exactly. even knowing each word in that phrase holds a concept maybe-outside of real communication's possibilities - to understand "i/you", to understand love, to understand holding love and passing it through you into something else. knowing, really, we've probably trained them with this phrase comes petting. and then saying it, over and over and over through the little lonely hours of our day.

hoping, with repetition and action and practice: we'll find a way to tell them anyway.

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It’s unreal how much worse and worse of a political and social warzone twitter consistently becomes, how much it’s visibly poisoned the rest of modern culture in the process, and how that’s all just for the sake of maximizing their fucking ad impressions and data collection. It’s designed to show you the most “popular” things it thinks are “relevant” to you which in practice means all the ugliest controversies surrounding anything you conceivably care about. It’s like those youtube videos where someone drops different animals in a box just to see which one dies, manufacturing unnatural encounters to increase clicks and views by any means necessary. It’s not *the* thing tearing society apart but it is one of the most pestilent things fermenting the wounds all so the cold inhuman capitalists at the top can watch their favorite numbers get bigger.

@ every parent in the world: yes your kid is special because every child is special but they are not specialer than every other child so please be normal about them

Some parents have done what I can only describe as fandomize their child where they’ve taken the child and altered it in their mind to make a cooler version that fits their specific interests, and now sometimes I have to remind them of the canon material.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a youth theater director and teacher. Every audition season is a personal ordeal.

Target audience reached

EXACTLY

I try to stay away from a lot of fandom discourse, but since I’ve been seeing this on my dash again and in tags, I feel the need to make a statement on this, particularly for any young fans who follow me that might get drawn into this mindset.

Stay away from purity culture. Warn your friends away from it too, if you see them starting to fall for it. It’s very easy to get drawn into it

Almost always, it starts with one of three roots, pedophilia, incest and/or abuse. Usually it’s pedophilia. Funnily enough, that’s also what congress usually uses to try to justify passing bills that undermine online privacy & security. Because it’s an easy, extreme target, and when people attempt to argue against it, it’s nice and easy to say “Oh so you like pedophilia” rather then actually engaging with their argument.

The logic goes like this, although there’s many forms of it.

  1. “Pedophilia is bad.” -> Obviously, you agree with this. You’re a reasonable person, and the idea that anyone would do something like that to a child is horrible. This is a normal human reaction.
  2. “Because pedophilia is bad, all fictional explorations of it must be equally bad.” -> Here you might hesitate, but it adds up, doesn’t it? The thought of pedophilia in any context probably gives you a bad feeling, that makes you inclined to go along with this logic. 
  3. “Anyone who creates content with a fictional exploration of pedophilia is also bad.” -> Maybe you pause here, or maybe you don’t. But still, it adds up, it’s a very easy flow. After all, we’ve decided that that is Bad, so why would anyone Good want to create something like that?
  4. “Since people who create content with a fictional exploration of pedophilia are just as bad as people who engage in pedophilia in real life, it’s okay to harm them.” -> Here’s where you might pause again. The argument might not win you over entirely, you might not be willing to do harm yourself, but you may be a lot more willing to turn a blind eye to harm being done to someone. Or to consider it ‘justified’.
  5. The pattern now repeats for anything else that’s considered “morally impure”, and “pedophilia” is expanded and expanded, often to ridiculous points, such as merely shipping two underage characters. “Abuse” becomes any ship that the person pushing doesn’t like, for any reason. And so on and so forth.

This is the foundation of “anti” culture, and it’s important to be aware of it so you can catch this false equivocation. Fictional explorations of something, are not the same as the thing itself. Fictional explorations are fiction. The characters are not real people. There is no actual harm being done. Equating fake harm and real harm is a dangerous, slippery slope, which leads us to fundamentally flawed ideas of moral purity. It’s a form of controlling people & making them feel guilty for their very thoughts, rather than holding people accountable for their actions. 

A very handy trick for when you encounter this sort of argument, is to replace whatever the selected purity term is with murder. After all, we can all agree that murder is bad, but at the same time, we understand that a murder in a book =/= a murder in real life.

Let’s see that argument again, shall we?

  1. “Murder is bad”
  2. “Because murder is bad, all fictional explorations of it must be equally bad.”
  3. “Anyone who creates content with a fictional exploration of murder is also bad.”
  4. “Since people who create fictional explorations of murder are just as bad as the people who commit murder in real life, it’s okay to harm them.”

Hopefully, it’s now easy to see why the above argument is fundamentally flawed.

Keep your eye out for purity culture in your fandom spaces, and when you see it, refuse to engage with it. Warn your friends if you see them falling into the same traps, although try to be kind about it; this is a very easy thought pattern to fall into. I don’t recommend trying to argue/debate anti’s. The attention only feeds them. Block them instead. Don’t let people control or shame you for what you create or consume, and don’t control or shame others for what they create or consume.

Also, as a note, let me be clear about something. If you are uncomfortable with any of the above discussed things, or anything in general in fiction (ie, underage ships, murder, incest, abuse, penguins, needles, etc), that’s perfectly fine (it’s also called a squick, for those that haven’t heard that term before). Absolutely control your fandom experience by blocking people, filtering tags, unfollowing, etc. However, just because you are uncomfortable with something, does not give you the right to control other people. Other people have no right to control what content you create or consume, and you have no right to do that to them either. 

Okay?

sunscreen / SPF is for EVERYONE

it’s true that gingers like myself are more likely to acquire skin cancer from sun exposure

it is ALSO true that people of color are more likely to DIE of skin cancer (a very survivable cancer) due to late diagnosis, medical racism, and lower levels of access to care

pls take care of your skin. it’s your biggest organ

Everyone talking about how much they wanted Emily vs Matt and then watching ep 1 I’m thinking-

Nah. The perfect counterpoint to Matt is Zac Oyama.

Every time things got too serious at the table or Matt started going deep into monologue/narration Zac is cutting in with the Perfect. Deadpan. One Liner.

Zac Oyama’s short and sweet humor is the essential contrast to Matt Mercer’s expansive dramatic storytelling.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.

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Fuck that post going around saying "you can have coffee in your story without justifying it :) you don't need to explain everything :)" I want, no, I DEMAND a fully researched ethnobotanical paper on every single food item in your work, if you don't explain to me where did potatoes come from in your fantasy setting or don't explain how the industry of coffee works over interstellar distances with full detail you are doing things wrong and I personally hate you and I hate your stupid story, fuck you

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Why are your stupid little wizards and knights eating potato stew in your dumb European middle ages fantasy world. Where did they get potatoes from. Where is the center of domestication of potatoes, do you have a fantasy Andean civilization? What are the social and economic consequences of having such a calorie rich crop in cold climates. I don't care about "themes" or "enemies to lovers with found family", I didn't ask about that. Where does your idiot space captain gets their shitty coffee from. Is it imported from Earth? Are there coffee growing worlds? Is it an alien species replacement with the same name? What are the social consequences of that? Don't try to change the subject, I'll stop pointing the gun when I want, I'm trying to have a conversation here,

I know this post is at least half a shitpost, but this is a bad take that keeps coming around and it's genuinely starting to piss me off.

tl;dr: unless you are worldbuilding for its own sake, the thing that matters is your theme. the worldbuilding elements you use exist in service to what you are trying to convey to your audience.

look. in SFF, Worldbuilding Elements (TM) are tools. you are Building A World for the sake of a story. the Worldbuilding exists to illuminate that story- to tell you things about the characters, the cultures they come from, the world they live in. worldbuilding tells you a lot about the things they value, the goals they're pursuing, and the reasons they're doing what they're doing.

you know... your themes? the reasons why people should give a damn about your story?

if you are worldbuilding for a story, food is shorthand. the stupid little wizards and knights eat potato stew because potatoes are hearty, simple, and comforting, and potato stew sets the correct mood in a way that cabbage stew does not. the stupid ship captain drinks shitty coffee because drinking shitty coffee is an easy way to convey that This Person Is Consuming Stimulants For Their Effects, Not The Taste.

it is often wise to use this shorthand when writing SFF. if you deny yourself this shorthand for the sake of REALISM!!!!1!!!, you are making it harder to convey to your audience what your characters want and how they are trying to get it. you are denying yourself a lot of useful tools for characterization and illumination.

now, it's good to know what the shorthand means, and use it with intent. because, yes, potatoes imply the existence of a relatively free and independent farming class, and coffee in space implies the existence of a tropical region where it grows and supply chains to get it to your captain. if you contradict that, you are going to jolt readers who know How Food Works out of your story.

but like. unless you are worldbuilding for its own sake? the thing that matters is your theme. the shorthand you use should exist in service to what you are trying to convey to your audience.

you do not have to have a full 30-page ethnobotanical paper for every piece of shorthand you use in your story, actually, any more than you need to leave every honorific and pronoun in an anime untranslated. if you insist on this, a lot of people who would write damn compelling fiction will never get started because they feel the need to justify every small worldbuilding choice they make.

this is a shitty, stupid thing to ask of writers, and insisting on it actually makes stories worse. the thing you need to ask for is writers using their shorthand with intent, in service to their theme- not in service to some ideal of realism that doesn't even work for most of the stories it's applied to.

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Okay. I want your ethnobotany paper on my desk by monday morning.

June 22 2019 - A fascist trying to pick a fight at Bologna Pride gets more reaction than he bargained for. [video]

Exit, pursued by bear.

The description of the original video:

Translation:

“A neo-fascist, in all his Italian virility, begins to insult some women participating in Bologna Pride. This until, frightened by other protesters covered with glitter and by a bear far more virile than he, to devote himself to what the Fascists do best: escape.”

EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR. I’M SOBBING

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La fuga, pursued by bear in glitter 🤣🤣🤣

“to devote himself to what the Fascists do best: escape.” ROAST HIS ASS

the Strength, the Solidarity, and the Shade here is examplary

I’m in a pretty terrible mood. Tell me some funny stories, you guys!

Another story, same restaurant.  Most of the time, I wasn’t actually a server, I was the dishwasher (which for those of you who have never worked in a full service restaurant, means that I was the dishwasher, busboy, prep cook, fill-in line cook, bar back, janitor, and once, I shit you not, electrician).

My best friend at the time was working with me, and we were they type who could finish each other’s sentences, and we enjoyed messing with everyone’s heads by carrying on conversations while we were not in the same place.  Like, I’d be at the sink, he’d be bussing tables, and we’d just carry on our half of the conversation, pausing to fill in the gaps where the other would respond… and then turn around and reply to a response that we could not, in fact, hear, but knew what would be said.  One waitress actually hung by the kitchen door to verify that we were, in fact, having one conversation.  We were known as Thing 1 and Thing 2. 

This particular story takes place during a music festival where they blocked off a huge part of downtown and put literal concert stages in the street.  We were expecting a really busy night, and had a full staff… and of course, nobody showed up.  They start sending people home, including me.

I decide not to go straight home… I futz around for a bit, and realise that hey, I’m kinda hungry, and I don’t actually have much food at home, nor a whole lot of money. But if I go back to work, I can order something and charge it against my next cheque. 

Meanwhile, back at work, the entire city of Birmingham has showed up at the same time.  They’re slammed, and regretting sending people home.  The manager tried calling me, but I wasn’t home.  So he turns to Thing 2 and says “Hey, can’t reach Thing 1 at home.  Do you know how to get hold of him?”

Now, Thing 2 is kind of irritated at being asked how to contact a person who isn’t home in the days before cellphones, so in complete sarcasm, he puts his fingers to his temples, acts like he’s sending a telepathic transmission, and says “He’ll be here in five minutes.”  The manager takes it as the sarcasm it was intended to be… for exactly four minutes and forty-five seconds, when I walk in the door.  I could see from a block away that the place was slammed, and I don’t even need to be told that I’m going Back to Work.

The hostess just dropped her jaw and was like “HOLY SHIT HE REALLY DID IT.”  It’s not hard to guess reasonably close to what happened, so I just keep a straight face and say “Yep.” and walk back and get to work.