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💞💞💞

Like a new friend!

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#OTD in 2008:

Bill: “Missed you.”

Laura: “Me too. I love you.”

Bill: “About time.”

#BSG #BattlestarGalactica #TheHub

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Which one is closest to yours? Mine is like 6ish-7ish.

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"All it takes to get people to behave this way is to tell them that their group is special, they deserve good things, but the good things aren't there because those other people are taking them from you."

Louder for those in the back.

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Polar bear: DAMMIT, the vending machine is busted AGAIN

if not friend why friend sha—

never mind

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it only “sounds fake” if you’re not ready to accept that good things and good people exist

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☝️☝️☝️

When you’ve been through trauma, forgiving yourself can be one of the hardest steps. For some people, they realize they didn't need their forgiveness. But some of us do need to forgive ourselves. It helps us move on. You might replay the past and think, “I should have left. I should have known better. I should have done more.”

But the thing is that you didn’t have the knowledge or safety you have now. You were surviving with the tools and awareness you had. Hindsight makes everything look clearer than it ever felt in the moment.

Many of us hold ourselves to impossible standards. We think, “I should have seen the red flags” but trauma clouds your judgment. Survival mode doesn’t leave space for perfect decisions. And if you were a child or deeply isolated, expecting yourself to “just know” is especially unfair. I will also say that even if you did know and stayed, you still deserve to forgive yourself. 

Forgiveness isn’t about saying the trauma didn’t matter or excusing what happened. It’s about offering compassion to your past self. The one who got you here, who endured what they should never have had to endure.

Try the Double Standard Method: imagine a friend in your exact position. If they blamed themselves for not leaving, for freezing, or for trusting someone who hurt them, would you blame them or would you hold them with care? You deserve that same kindness.

Your past self didn’t fail. They survived. And you are allowed to forgive them for not knowing, for not leaving, for simply doing what they had to do.

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"New Yorkers bite more people than sharks annually" is an excellent example of how statistics can be misleading. Like yeah no shit, do you have any idea how rare it is to even encounter a shark in the wild? They're not exactly urban animals. I'm pretty damn sure that if sharks were living in big cities like pigeons, just strolling down the streets looking for food scraps, you'd see a lot more news stories about New Yorkers biting them.

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Potentially hot take but one of the reasons we need art and music in schools is that, taught correctly, they are ideal avenues for teaching kids how to do something, kinda suck at it, keep going anyways and improve over time.

And THAT is one of the most valuable skill sets a human being can have. THAT is the skill set that unlocks soooooo many others.

A LOT of people I see with anxiety and depression do not have this skill set. To suck at something is a threat. Proof that they are doomed to suck at it forever. And then, often, that either THEY suck forever or the task must be stupid/useless/pointless (whence we get AI art fans who have decided actually making art is pointless and degrading the labor and skills of others is fine because these are useless skills).

Or you get the freeze- the inability to try things in case you fail. The sudden lancing shame and humiliation or hopelessness. The sense that anything you haven't learned by now you can't learn. Which is so heartbreaking and so untrue.

I just hate it.

"What if I write it and it's bad" "what if I draw it and it's bad" "what if I play it and it sounds bad" DOING IT BAD IS HOW YOU LEARN TO DO IT GOOD! You can't skip the process of leaning and the process is FUN if you let it be what it needs to be!

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Nature is only ever at work. Take stock of the world around you: Constantly in movement, each action suited to its end.

Fire, with its ferocity and voracity, devours, ignites, it roars its presence, and illumines the front. From it, people recoil. It singes and scars, but it also clears space. Some of us must act like fire.

Water, with its elegant, erosive powers; Steady is the flow of its work. With direction, sustainability, A river is what nourishes and carves; Some of us must act like water.

Earth, with its food to eat, and generative soil; Its many forms of living companions to comfort us in times of solitude, of loss. Earth rejuvenates, and holds us. Some of us must act like earth.

Air, so integral to all of us we must remind ourselves to notice our breath. Not one of us lives without it. Not one of us is untouched by it. It cannot help but give, and forgive. Single-minded, it knows everything as one. Some of us must act like air.

May we each model in our natures, the best in Nature. Eternally changing; Knowing movement. And an urge to create life. Amen.

—A Prayer Against Apathy by Nicholas D’Agosto

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Reblog to give prev the power to write their fanfiction

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#OTD in 2008:

We witnessed the grandest romantic gesture of them all 😍

Bill: “Galactica, this is Husker. I'm in position.”

Saul: “Affirmative, Husker. All Fleet ships, this is Galactica Actual. Commence jump.”

#BSG #BattlestarGalactica #SineQuaNon

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"As climate change continues to rear its destructive, uncertain head, canine companions are playing a vital role.

There are conservation dogs sniffing out invasive species in nature preserves, helping to clean contaminated waterways, and even avalanche rescue dogs that save people in the great outdoors.

Most of these dogs are bred for greatness and train their whole puppyhood to work in these roles.

But a recent study from Virginia Tech wondered: Can everyday dogs do the same?

In the study, Virginia Tech conducted a first-of-its-kind experiment to see if citizen dog-handler teams can achieve species detection rates comparable to those of professional conservation dogs.

Over 1,000 dog owners expressed interest in the study, with more than 40% of them having prior experience in sport scent detection or other related activities.

Sport scent detection is a recreational activity in which dogs find hidden scents in training classes, and sometimes, competitions.

Ultimately, the researchers selected 182 canine-citizen teams across the U.S. to participate in their trial to see if everyday people and pets could effectively detect the “elusive” egg masses of the spotted lanternfly.

To eradicate the threat, it’s important to catch the egg masses early, but according to the study’s co-author, Mizuho Nita, “finding them is like searching for a needle in a haystack.”

With their keen sense of smell, dogs can be trained to sniff out the egg masses without disturbing the environment. Professional detection dogs do this with high accuracy, but there are not nearly enough of them to tackle the mounting concern of the invasive species, an article for the university explained.

“What if we tapped into the tens of thousands of dog owners already doing scent detection as a hobby around the country?” the researchers asked. 

So, with 182 citizen scientists and their furry friends on board, researchers provided them with “devitalized” or non-hatching egg masses as a training aid. The participants trained their dogs at home or in small groups with the help of a local trainer to learn how to identify the invasive species.

“Anytime you can stimulate your dog, it’s good for them,” participant Bill Wellborn said, of his 7-year-old Tibetan terrier, Pepe.

“Pepe obviously enjoys it. And it’s a way we can take dog skills and training to help our community.”

Wellborn and Pepe — and the other participating teams — worked in sessions multiple days a week for several months, with dogs eventually tested in two environments. 

In a controlled indoor environment, the dogs had to complete an odor recognition test, in which they identified the box with the spotted lanternfly egg masses from multiple boxes with other items and scents.

The dogs that passed this test then advanced to a field test outdoors, where they were required to find the same scent outside, with other competing smells.

They correctly identified the egg masses 82% of the time in the controlled tests and 61% of the time in field trials. Although the field test number dropped, it’s still a better score than human-only searches.

“These teams demonstrated that citizen scientists and their dogs can play a meaningful role in protecting agriculture and the environment from invasive species,” Sally Dickinson, the study’s lead author, said in a statement.

“With proper training, dog owners can turn their pets into powerful partners for conservation.” 

For the dogs that passed both tests, 92% were successful in finding live egg masses with minimal extra training, according to the researchers.

“There are thousands of people out there doing scent work with their dogs just for fun,” Erica Feuerbacher, an animal behaviorist and a co-author on the study, said. 

“What Sally’s study shows is that this can be more than a hobby — these citizen-scientists and their dogs can be a valuable resource for fighting the spread of an invasive pest.”

The dog handlers agree.

“Being able to do the same thing for the greater good — for citizen science — adds another layer we didn’t have before,” Katie Thomas, a participant, shared about her pit bull mix, Finch.

And now, with a proven concept, the future is bright for dog owners who want to bond with their pets and do a little more good.

“This research is about more than detection,” Dickinson concluded. “It’s about empowering people to work alongside their dogs to protect the places and communities they care about.”

-Article via GoodGoodGood, July 18, 2025. Video via Virginia Tech, July 16, 2025.

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writer’s block isn’t real, it’s just your characters deciding to go on strike because they’re mad about how you’ve been treating them

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For sale at Michaels where I work. I am planning a T-shirt.