shap3shifter-witch - Tumblr blog

[shap3shifter-witch]

Throwback to when I took painkillers and woke up with Photoshop open on my computer to this image I had made

[shap3shifter-witch]

[shap3shifter-witch]

regular lobsters start out as just little lobsters but spiny lobsters start out as these beautiful weird larvae that also evolved to ride on top of jellyfish. This jellyfish is too small though!!!

[shap3shifter-witch]

why do people always only expect you to have one thing. one disorder one pet one gender one pronouns one name one favorite movie one crush one best friend. like why do I have an inventory limit

[shap3shifter-witch]

green

[shap3shifter-witch]

Scuttling into ur askbox like a little beetle

i think i recall you reblogging/posting things about geography and culture + human effect on it - I vaguely recall a piece of art where it showed a blurred out, cropped piece of people fighting, and focused instead on the flora in the scene.

ANYWAY! getting back on track. seeing that piece inspired me to take a course this semester called "people and the land: cultural geography". and the whole reason I came to your askbox was to ask if you had any suggested reading materials? We'll get stuff in class ofc, but I am curious to see if there's any bias of materials on the prof's side vs someone else.

Phew that was a long ask. thank you o/!

That sounds like Liz Anna Kozik’s piece : D So happy it stuck with you! I love her work!!

As for your ask, what an awesome class! Land-human relationships are my bullshit, and I really enjoyed my own cultural geography class.

Thinking back on my schooling, I would say about 70% of my classes fell in with the “everything is awful and humans are the worst” narrative, and the other 30% made time for land-human relationships other than the extractive hellscape that most people currently live under. So, full disclosure, when I think of “bias,” that’s what I think of. You grow up in the miasma, it’s hard to imagine that there’s any other way of living. It’s also hard to say without knowing the professor, but I think, in general, it’s good to be mindful of who is or isn’t telling the story.

ANYWAY. All that in mind, here’s some articles about people-land relations that I think are neat:

The Environment and Society portal - I like their digital exhibits especially. I remember enjoying Oceans in Three Paradoxes and The Northwest Passage. Great place to wander around and pick a random article that catches your eye.

Of Deserts and Decolonization: Dispelling Myths About Drylands – obligatory desert propaganda. An article looking at how colonial mindsets about deserts disrupt existing relationships and hurt both people and land, and also how those attitudes shape environmentalism/conservation/etc. still today.

The Miracle of the Commons – lovingly challenging the Tragedy of the Commons with a creative solution to poaching and human-animal conflict in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Great article to sit in discomfort about (productively!)

Biodiversity: The Variety of Life that Sustains Our Own – Contains one of my go-to examples when explaining how humans can be good for land and biodiversity, the story of Quitobaquito Springs (and its sister spring Ki:towak, though the author doesn’t mention it here.)

The Environmental History Timeline - just fun to look at, especially the further you go back. It’s funny to spot where a young branch of history is trying *really hard* to reframe how academia thinks about the past, by bringing the invisible landscape forward:

2700 BCE —  Epic of Gilgamesh describes vast tracts of cedar forests in what is now southern Iraq. Gilgamesh defies the gods and cuts down the forest, and in return the gods say they will curse Sumeria with fire (or possibly drought). By 2100 BCE, soil erosion and salt buildup have devastated agriculture. One Sumerian wrote that the “earth turned white.” Civilization moved north to Babylonia and Assyria. Again, deforestation becomes a factor in the rise and subsequent fall of these civilizations. (Perlin, 1991). 2700 BC — Some of the first laws protecting the remaining forests are decreed in Ur, Messopotamia. (Grove, 1995).

^^^ fucking around and finding out forever and ever and ever.

[shap3shifter-witch]

Unlearning How White People Ask Personal Questions

http://www.samefacts.com/2014/05/culture-and-civil-society/unlearning-how-white-people-ask-personal-questions/

[shap3shifter-witch]

Ok now we have a booping feature I propose to tumblr next ides of March we have a stabbing counter and the person with the most stabs gets crowned Caesar and the blog with the most stabbings gets crowned Brutus

[shap3shifter-witch]

in 2015 I needed a job really bad for reasons not worth getting into. i was living in ohio for like 6 months & i just applied at every place within a 30 minute drive from me and i got a call from the local Game Stop mere minutes after submitting the online app, which was obviously a red flag but I wasn’t in the position to be picky.

so they tell me when to show up for orientation & I get there the day-of but the store is closed & locked. i text the manager & he says back “oh yeah. i manage two Game Stops and open them alternate days.”

apparently the Game Stop I originally applied to is open Mondays Wednesdays Fridays and the other one is open Sundays Tuesdays Thursdays Saturdays.

They’re 15 minutes apart. I don’t ask whether it would make sense to just have one store locally that is open daily, bc maybe the guy knows something I don’t.

So I get to the other Game Stop and walk in and it seems like there’s no one working there. There’s just a single woman in there wearing an ankle length leather trench coat. She didn’t greet me when I came in & she’s just browsing.

After ten minutes I ask her if she’s seen any employees and she’s like “oh I’m an employee.” She’s not wearing a name tag on the trench coat.

I tell her I’m here for training and she tells me the manager hasn’t come in yet. “he falls asleep playing xbox all the time but if he’s on live we can try pinging him to wake him up.”

I play Xbox and that absolutely doesn’t sound like a thing you can do in the way she’s describing it but once again maybe she knows something I don’t.

I ask if we have an Xbox that we can use to “ping” him and she says “yeah the one in the back we play on.”

She has an English accent by the way, a very specific & posh one which usually wouldn’t be relevant but we’ll get there.

So before she leads me to the Xbox-in-the-back she goes “oh damn. our internet has actually been down all morning, I forgot. We need to call the provider and have them come out and fix it. Can you do that?”

Can I call an unnamed internet provider and schedule them to come do service at a business where I don’t even technically work yet? Idk. She gives me their number and I call them and they put me on hold.

People are walking in and she’s not greeting them. She keeps browsing and people assume like I did that she’s another customer so they’re coming up to the counter where I’m on hold to ask me for help, and then I have to say I can’t help them and to ask the woman in the trenchcoat, and then she says “we can’t sell you anything. internet’s down.”

this goes on for 30 minutes and every time the store is empty she’s chatting at me and I’m on hold and then a man walks in the door and he says “sorry I fell asleep on live again haahaahaa” so this is the manager and the minute she starts speaking to him she no longer has an English accent which has me confused because it did not sound fake.

It was regionally specific and very natural.

the manager asks what I’m doing and I say I’m on hold with the internet provider and he gives me a thumbs up and walks to the back.

so I ask how long she’s lived in the U.S. and say I’m always interested in the way people can sometimes go in and out of accents and she says “oh I’m American. he asked me to stop doing the accent so I only do it when he’s not here.”

Suddenly I wonder what I’m doing here and I tell her I need to leave and I give no excuse but at this point I don’t feel like I need one? She said okay! See you later.

The manager didn’t contact me and that night I got offered some other retail job I jumped on.

Three months later the Game Stop manager texts me and asks if I can cover a shift in an hour and I say back “I don’t think I work there? I left an hour into my training. And we never spoke again.” And he texts back “hahahaha right on.”

And you may think wow, what a strange experience that all was but recently I have spoken to friends who did work at Game Stop and when I tell them this story they don’t even blink. Nothing I say surprises them. I was at the average Game Stop

[shap3shifter-witch]

sorry i cant hang out i forgot how to mimic human like behaviour

[shap3shifter-witch]

Two idiots decided that they weren't going anywhere in life and thought they should go to college to get ahead. The first goes in to see the counselor, who tells him to take Math, History, and Logic. 

"What's Logic?" the first idiot asks.

The professor answers by saying, "Let me give you an example."

"Do you own a weedeater?"

"I sure do."

"Then I can assume, using logic, that you have a yard," replied the professor.

"That's real good!"

The professor continues, "Logic will also tell me that since you have a yard, you also own a house."

Impressed, "Amazin!"

"And since you own a house, logic dictates that you have a wife."

"That's Betty Mae! This is incredible!" The idoit is obviously catching on.

"Finally, since you have a wife, logically I can assume that you are heterosexual," said the professor.

"You're absolutely right! Why that's the most fascinatin' thing I ever heard! I can't wait to take that logic class!!"

The idiot, proud of the new world opening up to him, walks back into the hallway, where his friend is still waiting.

"So what classes are ya takin'?" asks the friend.

"Math, History, and Logic!" he replies.

"What in tarnation is logic???" asked his friend.

"Let me give you an example. Do ya own a weedeater?" he asked.

"No," his friend replied.

"Gay."

[shap3shifter-witch]

[shap3shifter-witch]

[shap3shifter-witch]

you dont need to smell the camera

[shap3shifter-witch]

You need to look up red cornetfish

OUUGUGUGGUHHHHHH YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME

TRUMPET GUY

[shap3shifter-witch]

Things that work in fiction but not real life

torture getting reliable information out of people

knocking someone out to harmlessly incapacitate them for like an hour

jumping into water from staggering heights and surviving the fall completely intact

calling the police to deescalate a situation

rafting your way off a desert island

correctly profiling total strangers based on vibes

effectively operating every computer by typing and nothing else

ripping an IV out of your arm without consequences

heterosexual cowboy

[shap3shifter-witch]