#this is more of a vent

[haikyuuxx-xxheadcanons]

This, quite honestly, made me cry.

I'm gonna go on a bit of a personal rant.

I have this memory, that was buried deep in the back of my mind until the Ougiminami match, but it was this panel that really made me feel it.

Now I'm really not a sports person. I cannot emphasize this enough. I'm not now, and have never been. Like Kenma, I hated running and sweating.

I was ten years old. I was playing rounders, in PE, one of the only sports I liked, because I was pretty decent at it, and didn't drag the team down. It was fun.

And I remember that day, for once, I was trying really, really hard, cheering as loud as I could for my friends.

This was very out of character for me. I was a classic nerd, who'd rather sit in the library than play outside.

I don't think I've shouted that loud since. But that day it felt incredibly good and was happy.

I was waiting to bat, calling out my friend's name so hard my cheeks went red, cheering for her to get to the last base without being caught. I was very excited because we were winning.

But then my other friend who was sitting next to me said something along the line of, "Wow, you're really taking this game seriously."

It sounded mocking.

It probably wasn't, but after that it felt like there was cotton stuck in my throat.

I felt like I was being told that I was acting abnormally. That it wasn't in my nature to this, and that I was embarrassing myself for trying my best. This was more than ten years ago, but I still remember the shame making me want to hide away.

I didn't cheer for the rest of the game, and when it was my turn to bat, I only jogged to the first base, even though I could have ran to second.

This followed me everywhere after that. I put less effort into sports. I became a little more withdrawn, showing less outward excitement about the things I loved. It wasn't to the the degree that it was a very noticeable change, and I did have other stuff going on at the time.

There were times after that where I did really try, but in those cases, it wasn't about enjoying the sport, but more about not embarrassing myself too badly.

Even when I did enjoy the sports we did, I did out of obligation, and spent most of it slacking on the sidelines.

(I actually really regret this, because one of those sports was volleyball, and it was fun. Unfortunately this was before I got into Haikyuu, and we only did it for a week. I was very good at serving and absolutely nothing else, but I liked it a lot.)

It was the Ougiminami game that unlocked that memory.

That's not to say that this one thing was the reason I'm the way I am - there were other things that happened, but that was the start of it.

But somehow, it wasn't like that when I read this panel today.

The way Daichi told Tsukishima, "Hey, I saw you working hard, and you were pretty serious," was similar to what my friend said to me.

He noticed the effort Tsukishima was putting in, and he followed it up with "That's great."

It was then that I started crying.

I wish those words had been said to me too.

Why did I feel so terrible when I knew I was doing something good? Why did I let someone else's words affect me so much, when I knew they were thoughtless.

I guess I was a very self-conscious and sensitive preteen.

Now I'm just a young adult who is getting better at managing my social anxiety.

I'd laughed off that that experience remembering it as an adult, but I don't think I got over it until today.

It was great that I was serious.

And now I think I'll start getting serious again.

I've mostly been going with the flow when it came to my life and interests, and doing the bare minimum to get by. I'm coasting by studying for a degree in a field I'm mildly interested in, but not very passionate about, which I only chose because I like the work life balance. I wasn't really engaging in my hobbies, and only started this blog because I wanted to write stuff down instead of daydreaming all the time.

(This blog is honestly the most commitment I've given to anything, and it's only been two weeks!)

I'm going to start working out. Maybe I'll even buy a volleyball. Start talking more to people, and take my studying more seriously. I'll try the things I've always wanted to do, but was scared to, or told that it was a waste of time. When I draw and write, I'll be less ashamed to share them, and take pride in the things I love instead of hiding them away.

Haikyuu has made me laugh, and cry, and feel many emotions I haven't experienced in real life. It comforted me when I felt down, It made me want to try, but I was still too scared to.

I don't know why it was this small panel that changed that.

There was the Ougiminami match, with Captain Akki-kun, and the ever iconic, "What more do you need than pride?"

There had been times where I did try and no one noticed, and the people around me would tell me to try harder.

Hearing a "You were serious, that's great" back then would have changed the course of my life.

But I guess hearing that now isn't too late. It gave me courage.

I'm still a little embarrassed writing this, but I'm going to anyway.

I can take control of my life today.

[rafeandonlyrafe]

well 🧍‍♀️ as a reminder this blog is NOT a safe space for trump supporters but it IS a safe place for women, queers, trans ppl, people of color, undocumented people, and any marginalized group.

[thewanderingshadow1-1]

Unpopular opinion: I can't read Character x Reader fanfics. Well, at least not normally.

Usually, I imagine that the narrator is me and that the "Reader" is an oc. It's probably because I can't see myself I'm such situation, since I know that is not me in any given circumstances (first reason being: that character would never like or even love me that way. Maybe we can be friends, but romantic relationship? Pffft, I'm not delusional, I know I'll never be loved)

[gayvampyr]

no offense but you guys need to learn the difference between someone implying their experience is universal and a post simply just not being about you

[honeypleasejustkillme]

i thought i was at my lowest but holy shit it gets lower

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted

I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.

For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).

I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?

97.

Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.

And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.

Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.

Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.

Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.

This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.

But thing that really gets me?

Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.

"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”

"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"

I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.

No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.

So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)

Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.

But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.

I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.

[friedri-ce]

NEURAL PATTERNS OF SELF-HATE || comic

[teaboot]

Can we please see a drawing of your uniform?

I have a stab vest that I wear to some locations but it’s mostly for show because it doesn’t actually have plates in it

[ohnolars]

:)

[ddwhaleshark]

Days where she doesn’t want to be found...

[infamouslydorky]

What a day to be a tf2 fan after what nonsense valve pulled. Ngl, I'm tired

[trioxidewastaken]

pssst. the movie’s available on dvd for $14 and the entire collection’s for $47. buy physical media, support the wga/sag-aftra strikes & fuck david zaslav & company

[beif0ngs]

You raised a troublesome foe. You’re expelled, my stupid pupil.

[lembowe]

It's put Loop through the ringer time :)

[magiertama]

*Jazz voice*: "Guys, I think Drift has a crush on our Doctor."