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Just pause a minute and imagine that you live here

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I am 52. In many ways I don't feel much different than I did at 15. BUT if you can impersonate an adult on paper you don't have to actually be one.

I think mostly what young fandom types (and I guess younger people in general) who are very very invested in the idea that “20 is still basically a minor” need to understand is that the feeling of “I’m just a child pretending to be an adult, and everyone else around me is a REAL adult” is DEEPLY universal (and won’t stop, ever, by the way, sorry!) and also is not, like, praxis.

Believe me, I get it, but the self-infantilization needs to stop, especially when you’re trying to engage in conversations about actual children and the harms they can face. Yes, it is scary to wake up and realize you’re 22 and you still feel like you’re 15, but it happens to all of us. You’re an adult. You have to deal with it.

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I made a Tumblr friend because I heard them say "my beloved" irl.

the most disorienting thing thats ever happened to me was when a linguistics major stopped in the middle of our conversation, looked me in the eye, and said, "you have a very interesting vernacular. were you on tumblr in 2014?" and i had to just stand there and process that one for a good ten seconds

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Behold the sea angel:

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Why do they look like planets and orbits? The pattern has a fractal quality

does anyone wanna hold hands until we feel a little braver

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#artichoke left to open into full bloom

today's warm up: reblog to add to the transplanar being's bouquet, tag what you'd give them! 💐

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Tarantulas…. friends.

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People in the middle class and people before the poverty level DO have the same interests, if only because anyone middle class is one layoff and maybe 6 months (if you're lucky) from poverty at any given time. Making sure everyone has enough to meet basic needs is something that also benefits anyone in the middle class because it makes everyone safer in multiple ways. We all live in the same society. We share space. You know who doesn't, though? Super rich people whose money buys layers of insulation from the rest of the world. Don't be crabs in a bucket, pulling down anyone who might be escaping abject poverty and wage slavery; be ants that support each other to make a bridge and then pull everyone else up.

trying to explain to tumblr that the Middle Class in not their enemy

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And also? Federal employees who aren't members of Congress are barred from owning stock in any area that the agency they work for has any decision making responsibility. Even if they, personally, don't have access to that information (e.g. those of us that work for USGS in the ecosystems mission area are still barred from owning stock in oil or mining companies).

The stock portfolios of more than two dozen members of Congress outperformed the market in 2024. This isn't due to luck or skill. Lawmakers can use privileged information to trade stocks while they’re supposed to be working for you.

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The ecosystems mission area that is being defunded is also the source for my coral reef diagnostic work. Word on the street is that we will be losing 1000 positions out of a total of approximately 1200, which means that even the people left won't have the technical support to do anything. Like, we're trying to make contingency plans for how to appropriately wind down wetlabs if everyone is suddenly fired (spoiler; it isn't possible to do that).

The Republicans have decided we no longer need bees and are defunding the USGS Bee Lab. Please tell your friends, your representatives, local beekeepers, crafting clubs, your classmates, and everyone who has ever seen a bee that this is happening and that the Republicans are behind it. Scream about this. We in the professional bug world make fun of the bee people for having some of the only consistent funding and support in the whole field, but now even that is going away. Write it on your car. Tell someone at the store. Email your professor. Make a tiktok. Draw it on the sidewalk. Do NOT let them sneak this by.

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Possibly about having a functional economy, too.

you know that phenomenon where vaccines are so effective that people forget how scary the original disease was? I think Americans are like this about government

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"The FFT analysis found that the superior academic performance of England’s 352 state single-sex schools could largely be explained by the high proportion of selective grammar schools, including 54 out of 147 boys’ schools.

But even non-selective single-sex schools had fewer pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds or with special educational needs compared with mixed state schools. Single-sex schools also tend to be concentrated in wealthier parts of the country: nearly a quarter of pupils in London attended a single-sex school, while only 3% in the north-east of England did so."

Looks like girls in selective schools in wealthy areas perform better. Shocking. How do they do afterwards, in careers? What happens over the long term in a society where we segregate more things by sex? If you look around at societies that are more segregated, do women fare better there? (Spoiler; they don't).

Why are groups that are openly against women's rights, like evangelicals, so very fond of sex segregated spaces and activities?

To answer your question, women are allowed to have their own leagues and have their own competitions. For a long time, sports were almost exclusively for men. Women have far more opportunities to play and compete when they have their own leagues and competitions, and the opportunity to highlight their own excellence. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If males want to compete against women, they can simply compete in a coed competition where their presence is welcome and appropriate.

The insistence that women need segregated competitions is predicted on and perpetuates the belief that women are inferior and/or that men are permitted and expected to harass women in mixed spaces. This is anti feminist. It's about as anti feminist as it's possible to be.

Look up stereotype threat. Read about it and think about the context of the performance of women in literally any context. Making [x] thing into a gendered "woman's version of [x] thing" is proven to result in worse performance by women. You're hobbling yourself. We can do better.

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To answer your question, women are allowed to have their own leagues and have their own competitions. For a long time, sports were almost exclusively for men. Women have far more opportunities to play and compete when they have their own leagues and competitions, and the opportunity to highlight their own excellence. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If males want to compete against women, they can simply compete in a coed competition where their presence is welcome and appropriate.

The insistence that women need segregated competitions is predicted on and perpetuates the belief that women are inferior and/or that men are permitted and expected to harass women in mixed spaces. This is anti feminist. It's about as anti feminist as it's possible to be.

Look up stereotype threat. Read about it and think about the context of the performance of women in literally any context. Making [x] thing into a gendered "woman's version of [x] thing" is proven to result in worse performance by women. You're hobbling yourself. We can do better.

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So cute, but also he looks like a creaky old man and I bet his spine has enough arthritis that it's far more comfortable to drink from a raised surface like this than to bend down to a bowl.

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Those are true bards in the spirit of the Irish bards whose praise inspires heroism and whose satire can raise boils on a king.

May 1, 2025 - As police fired water cannons, Indonesian punk band The Jansen played in the middle of the May Day protest in Jakarta.

Banners reading “May Day is not a holiday. This is the day to fight back” were held high as riot squads advanced on the crowd fighting back outside parliament. [video]

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Reblogging to point out that the comment about social safety nets, public health, and vaccines was made approximately 5 years ago.

We (and by we I mean USAmericans) are in fact, collectively, really stupid.

I started using Head and Shoulders ten years ago for itchy scalp and dandruff, and then for ten years I have not had itchy scalp and dandruff, so I thought “why do I still buy shampoo to combat itchy scalp and dandruff when I do not have itchy scalp and dandruff,” so I stopped buying the shampoo for itchy scalp and dandruff and can you guess I have now? Can you predict what currently afflicts me? It’s alright if you can’t because apparently I fuckin couldn’t either

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And all are smarter than the General American Public. At least even the conservatives in Germany won't play ball with the hard core fascists. Here they enshrine them and everyone else just rolls over.

rare w