menotthatkindoforc

[menotthatkindoforc]

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; one day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hallow mockery; your prayers and hyms [sic], your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”

— Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), from a speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852.

[menotthatkindoforc]

translation: “My sheep! [bah! bah!] You are my life. [bah! bah!] Walk behind me…[bah! bah!] Sing (after me).”

[menotthatkindoforc]

[menotthatkindoforc]

Browsing horror on Tubi is also fun because once in awhile you come across a combination of words like "Psycho Santa 2" which forces you to recognize that whatever Psycho Santa is, it was worth making two of them. Also, every Amityville movie ever. You will never watch every Amityville.

[menotthatkindoforc]

Excerpt from this story from Audubon:

“I can’t tell you how many people come that are like, ‘I grew up seeing fireflies, and I don’t see as many now,’ ” says Matt Johnson, the center’s director.

Candace Fallon, a conservation biologist at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, had long heard similar concerns. But when she checked the literature in 2018, she found little to no information on firefly trends. In fact, there was no comprehensive population data for any of the 179 known firefly species in the United States.

Fallon and a team at the International Union for Conservation of Nature set out to determine how American fireflies are faring. In 2021 they published their findings, the first list of conservation statuses for U.S. fireflies. Of the 132 species they reviewed, more than half lacked enough data to conclude anything for certain. But among the species whose status was clear, the scientists found 20 to be threatened or near threatened.

Fireflies, which are actually bioluminescent beetles, face many of the same threats as birds. Habitat loss—especially of wetlands, given the insects' preference for moist areas—is a major issue. (Indeed, the most threatened fireflies are the species that depend on only one type of landscape, such as the critically endangered Bethany Beach firefly, which primarily occupies freshwater wetlands between sand dunes along a 20-mile stretch of the Delaware coast.) Rising seas and extreme weather events drown coastal birds' nests as well as firefly habitat, while pesticides kill insect prey that both fireflies and birds rely on—and likely fireflies themselves. Light pollution, which can disorient nocturnal migratory birds and contribute to fatal building collisions, also disrupts lightning bugs’ ability to communicate: Flashing in a brightly lit environment is like trying to yell across a crowd.

To help fill critical knowledge gaps, researchers are turning to community science. The Fireflyers International Network collects data on iNaturalist from all over the world, and in 2022 Fallon and the Xerces Society launched the Firefly Atlas, where U.S. participants can share incidental observations and even conduct field surveys. These crowdsourced records can illuminate how species are trending in the face of threats.

In some parts of the country, community scientists are logging the first records of fireflies. In the West, the flashing beetles are such a rare sight that some people believe they are imaginary. “It’s like: unicorns, dragons, fireflies,” says Christy Bills, an entomologist at the Natural History Museum of Utah. Western fireflies have always been harder to find: They appear late at night, in small numbers, and in marshy areas where people don’t often hang out. So Bills and her partners at Brigham Young University started the Western Firefly Project to focus attention on them. Today its participants have spotted fireflies in 27 of 29 counties in Utah, where previously there had been only a few documented sightings—and in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, so exciting to Bills that she likens the discoveries to finding gold.

[menotthatkindoforc]

Fluffyrags Shiver

🐱 Cherubim [Cherubim Ragdoll LCWW]

📸 Anthony Di Pasqua

🎨 Blue Mink Bicolor

[menotthatkindoforc]

This NPR interview with with Angela Saini about how race science never really left the global scientific consciousness is super interesting! I’m gonna read her book!

[menotthatkindoforc]

[menotthatkindoforc]

I did level an evoker during the MoP remix event! I should've noted I got a character to cap during Dragonflight but I hadn't done anything endgame since Legion, at cap in Dragonflight I just did some quests here and there and didn't even finish all the zones. I didn't get super familiar with the double talent trees across every class but it was fun to have talent trees again in retail, glad it stuck around.

I didn't know about the cross faction parties, that's really neat! I wasn't expecting them to stay committed to the end of the faction war.

The delves sound fun, I'm a mainly solo focused player in MMOs these days because I'm bad at finding guilds that don't dissolve shortly after I join. I like the raid story mode! I didn't like missing out on lore because I couldn't raid (never got geared enough for even lfr post legion and even if I did, lfr is always such a race you don't get to watch cutscenes unless you wanna miss the next boss in my experience). Is the gear you get by doing dungeons with npcs worse than what you'd get from grouping with players for a normal dungeon?

Thank you for the time to write this out, I might get a one month sub when it doesn't feel financially irresponsible and try to level before the next xpac drops. The player housing is a very alluring concept, teenage me that was a huge role player is overjoyed

I haven't put many hours into retail WoW since Legion, and I've been on the fence about coming back for a while (I played 2019 Classic and then SoD until late 2024) but every time I go back to retail I get kinda overwhelmed by all the changes. Your tags about TWW make me interested though. If I go back, what are the biggest changes to expect? I main a resto/enhance shaman

Under cut because I infodumped <3 heart

Uhhh big changes since legion lets see

Level squish and leveling. Your level 110 characters are now level 45. Max level is 80. From level 10-70 everything prior to the current expansion can scale to your level and you can level in any expansion you want. You talk to Chromie in SW or Org to choose somewhere to level, otherwise it will push you into Dragonflight leveling

In BFA the faction war ended. You can now group and guild cross-faction. Also pvp servers are gone and world pvp can be toggled on and off. If you toggle "war mode" you enter a different phase of the world where pvp is enabled.

Lots of stuff is now account wide, including reputations for more recent expansions. You have an account bank where you can store stuff and withdraw from any character, and certain currencies can be transferred to alts. Sometimes gear drops that binds to your account and you can send it to your alts to gear them a little faster. Theres a new login screen where you can set up "camps" of your favorite characters which is cute.

Skyriding. Very fast dynamic flight. You unlock it by questing through the campaign in Dragonflight and then you can use it on ANY character from level 10 up. It's available in every zone where you could fly previously. If you don't like it you can activate old flying (now called steady flight) but it's really fun like REALLLYYYY fun imo

A lot of stuff has been added for solo players. Delves are soloable instances that are good for gear and there's achievements you can hunt in them. There's "story mode" for raids where you can see the raid story without having to raid. You can group with npcs for normal dungeons. And theres some kind of crazy damage modifier for old content so you can solo old raids for cosmetics.

New talent system. You have two talent trees, one for your class and one for your spec. You get a class talent every even level from 10-70 and a spec talent every odd level from 11-69. The tree system makes it so certain talents activate others, and theres like three parts of the talent tree where you have to spend a certain amount of points to get to the next third. The next tier is typically more powerful. It's a bit confusing at first but it's easier to get a hang of if you level a new character. You can play around with it in wowhead's talent calculator.

No "borrowed power" systems. I know you only experienced the legion version of this but they did it in bfa and shadowlands too and people got tired of it lol. They introduced Hero Talents to spice up each class - basically each spec has two hero talent trees to choose from that change up your gameplay - but they said that's going to be a permanent feature that's going to be built upon going forward

Dracthyr evokers. Dragonflight style class. Mail wearing caster. You play as a dragon guy with magic from all of the main dragonflights. They have these empower spells with variable cast times where if you cast them for longer they get "empowered" including a fire breath spell. Try them out, I really liked them

In terms of shaman. They now have a raid buff (like mark of the wild or arcane intellect). Enhance kind of went back to the pre-legion idea of stacking maelstrom weapon and dumping it on instant lightning bolts but like with a lot of extra stuff now too. Resto I dont play much but they still play a lot with healing rain and chain heal I think. Also ele is really fun like REALLYYY fun you should try it lol

For stuff that should seem Familiar from legion...

World quests are still around and have been expanded upon. They aren't connected to huge rewards, just a way to explore the world, get reputation, and a bit of gold

Mythic+ has been expanded upon a lot. In retrospect it was super janky in legion. Affixes have been toned down and the dungeons themselves are harder. You now have an in-game score and there are achievements for getting score.

We still have 4 raid difficulties: LFR, normal, heroic, and mythic. The race to world first mythic is a livestreamed esports event now if you care about that at all (it literally doesnt affect you if you dont lol).

The main villain is the shadow priest artifact from legion. She is an elf now.

Fast paced combat with flashy effects. Really different from classic. A lot of specs got hugely reworked in legion and most of them are still using the bones of the legion reworks. Some artifact weapon abilities are now core spec mechanics, like DKs have all 3 active artifact abilities in their spec trees

DEMON HUNTERS STILL DONT HAVE A THIRD SPEC. (although we have gotten a teaser for a void themed DH spec in 11.2. still probably not gonna be added until the next expansion.)

Theres probably a lot more but ive talked a lot already. But i think the main takeaway is that Legion was kind of the start of the "modern wow" era and at its core the game will probably feel similar to legion if you liked it.

Also they are going to add player housing in the next expansion. It seems to be copying FFXIV housing but also trying to fix its flaws (as someone who personally knows the pain of FFXIV housing).

Also the undermine soundtrack is the best music they ever added to the game.

[menotthatkindoforc]

Please ignore the fact I posted then deleted to make quick edits. (mostly fixing head/body proportions on a couple)

Anyways, I'm still struggling with consistency as usual but hey, more doodles I guess.

[menotthatkindoforc]

Playing around with Connor's hood/cowl/scarf thing.

If anyone is getting tired of this guy, sorry I guess? My brain won't shut up about him every time I go to draw.

[menotthatkindoforc]

it’s wild how tech literacy lasted like one generation barely before it fell off

[menotthatkindoforc]

@jarghablootymine submitted: Lil grub that I found while gardening in St. Paul, Minnesota. I gently set it back into the earth after taking some photos. As a side note, I'm working on planting a pollinator garden with native plants this summer and I'm really excited! I hope our native bees love it.

I hope all the local bugs love it :) This fat caterpillar child included

[menotthatkindoforc]

rb to make a biological essentialist mad <3

[menotthatkindoforc]

please look at this graffiti my sister saw in paris

[menotthatkindoforc]

[menotthatkindoforc]