#be the blue hellsite you want to see in the world

[inkskinned]

one of the things that's so frustrating is how often the arguments against us are actually happening to us. we said - you need to watch out, this will evolve into allowing fascism into legal statute. and we were told: you're a sensitive snowflake. you're annoying and stupid and have no concept of reality. nobody really believes that stuff.

but it's indoctrination for kids to even see queer people. it's grooming for kids to even be around queer people. it's disgusting to even put rainbows on kids clothes. it's inappropriate, shameful, still-an-argument. like any of this is new - we know already. for you, even seeing someone unashamed is the same thing as "forcing" it onto you. because god-forbid you confront any internal thought you have. because god-forbid you practice empathy. rage is better, i guess. it keeps you pretty.

this has always been the way of some people - a while ago, it would have been "sinful" for my white mom to marry my hispanic dad. once, in the year of our lord 2015, someone told me that "mutts" deserve a woodchipper. that one particular insult stayed with me - not because it was the first or last, but because there was something so unbelievably violent about it that i couldn't figure out how to hold it. the idea that someone is so assured of their bigotry and rage that they would paint this kind of a picture. even jokingly, even with the anonymity of the internet, it kind of centered things for me. a sense that, for some people, their rage burned so unimaginably large that it blocked even the basic fact of my humanity.

at one point, while i still had enough fire in me to get into long arguments, one of the bigots i was "debating" (being harassed by) said: to be honest, it's about the sex, not the love. between you, me, and the four walls of this blue hellsite, i actually didn't really care for "love is love" as the slogan of our community. it seemed so placid, so gentle, so ally-focused. where was the vitriol? where was the hours i spent agonizing over myself? where was the quiet moments of my life, filled with the sound of other people's hatred? this static that settles over everything; even for the action of holding her hand.

the world is unfair. i am an adult, and without the veneer and small-pond syndrome of my teenage years, the slogan has started sounding more desperate. the more places i went, the more people i met. love is love. love is defending him on a rooftop bar. the drink she throws at me goes down into my shoes while i stand there, wishing i had a better retort than what the fuck. love is both of us, keeping our heads down, the black SUV full of frat boys (?) pulled up next to us, howling, for five whole blocks, until we both gave up and had to stick our bare legs into the thicket by the side of the road, giving over into tick country rather than let it go on any longer. love is a lazy spring afternoon, my hand on her belly, the fan spinning overhead. did you hear the whole thing about target?

did you hear about being the target? that's a fun little parallel, isn't it. it almost feels like the game that-is-about-me is being played without-my-participation. someone wants to set fire to my life, and i have to wait for a response from a capitalist institution. i am watching a tiktok where a white woman under white lights complains about adult swimsuits, even though i think a lot of people would benefit from having swimming options that are not "instagram-inspired bikini" or "impossible to move in but otherwise pretty".

sometimes it just seems so fucking stupid. like, just to check, the rage you feel and the hatred - you could really just avoid all of that by minding your fucking business. sometimes (and this is true): it's not about you, and people don't need your permission. like, i don't understand any obsession with sports, but it seems to make other people happy. american football literally results in grievous bodily injury - and yet there are onesies for babies that say future quarterback. i personally don't love it, so i just don't buy that stuff. i walk by it, and don't let it bother me. there have been so, so, so many times that i was told - "so what if he's a little bit homophobic, if you don't like him, don't watch his movies." "so what if they fired her. don't buy their product." "so what if they wouldn't make a rainbow cake. just don't support them."

sometimes i feel the meaning of it scud against my body, an orca whale inside of me, threatening the boat. it is too large to see from my place; this shadow of a thing that dwarfs my petty other-concerns. i need to find a dress for an event, and florida is passing more anti-gay legislation. i need to text my friend back and confirm our plans, and someone is throwing beer bottles to the floor in a walmart because a different case had rainbows on them. it is a long fall, if i look down into it; this sense like the bottom doesn't exist. like i have only ever dipped my toes in.

sometimes i am unbelievably tired of talking about it. it feels like it has become too trite in my own poetry - queer writer complains about the state of the world! how original! - and then something else happens, and i am here again. i remember that it isn't a moment. i remember it isn't a scattered population of cartoon evil-doers, intent on world domination from behind handlebar mustaches. it is a concerted effort of real people with real power who really-do want to see my end. it is a lifetime of dodging the beercan as it sails out of the back of the van. it is a lifetime of not-kissing once we leave the apartment. it is a lifetime of watching someone protest our existence and then, very slowly, giving them the finger. it is a lifetime of holding my friends' hands and hearing the same agony in their life that i lived through. it is us, together, our faces turned upwards, the night sky so vast, milky way overhead like a lacework zipper.

it is a lifetime of staring down woodchippers.

[yelow-heart]

Welcome twt immigrants or just newcomers o///

Every week a new wave of twt refugees arrive and so I decided to put together a tumblr 101 to keep ur experience the most stress free and safe as possible

So here it goes:

You can delete comments or plain out disable comments from your posts! So much control.

You can also edit your posts. It even was a meme back on the olden days where a post would go viral and then the op (original poster) would change the post to something silly and the reblogers would look like wierdos or dumdums lol

You can disable your asks or make a rule so people can't ask as anonymous

Report spams!! You can even get rewarded for it. But, even so, report it, they get immediately taken down temporarily

The report system work and the tumblr team is very responsible when investigating an account/post. It's not nuance and easy to make. No one will judge you for it, in fact, it's common culture to do so. It's how we battle pornbots, spams, hate blogs etc.

You have full control of your blog! What people can see, what it can show, block hashtags and the whole shbang.

The algorithm works! Only the things that YOU search for and like will be recommended to you. And if something u no longer has interest in shows up? Just click that u don't want anymore and immediately everything u don't want goes away.

There are many famous blogs that are fun to follow, specifically as newcomer, to really get u on the tumblr experience such as: heritageposts, thebootydiaries, hotboyproblems, showerthoughtsofficial, fartgallery, haikubotofficial and many others. These are just the ones I followed when first arrived back in 2016;

Yes, there are celebrities among us but they're just... here. Vibing, chilling. The most famous ones being Neil Gaiman and Taylor Swift. Here they are just people;

You might have noticed a lot of blogs with blue verification badges. Some with 20 of them. Some are rainbow! That's because Tumblr made a parody of the verification mark from twt and it was fcking hilarius. We loved it so much that it's a thing now. U too can feel very important if u want!

It's worth going the trending tags. Sometimes they are broken, but it's mostly memes or important world news stuff that are actually relevant and helpful. It's safe and you'll have a fun time lurking on other people's fandoms. That's actually how I got into some of my fandoms to begin with;

Crabs.

And there we have it! I might have forgotten something, but I not too worried as I know that people might add it later on. 😉

Welcome welcome!! You'll be safe here. No matter who you are you find a community for you here

It's a hellsite, but it's our hellsite

Remembered something:

It's important to have a profile picture and header image. An reblog a few things before following anyone. Or you will be reported because people will think you're a spam bot kkkkkkkkk so do nurture your blog a little bit before venturing into the unknown.

[katyspersonal]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year friends and moots!

@val-of-the-north @heraldofcrow @fantomette22 @fareehaandspaniards @jarognieva @gilveciy @bimbomcgee @swallowtail-ageha @scarycuboid @brainhyperfixed @synthwayve @catcas22 @nostressjusteyes @alma-amentet @lobolicious @kourumi @lizteaart @gamchawizzy @greenblueyulum @tangerinethecat @sweet-sirin @the-last-choir @yezix @bri-the-nautilus @autism-purgatory @the-cat-atonic @bobbyzombiegg @cosmichorrorsarestillnicerthanme @karpachev @oddsonly

I will be brief: this year was horrendous and convinced me that as 2024th rolls in, I should make a bingo of bad things to happen in the next one. Both personal and political/world. But it is thanks to you guys that I've had at least some happiness this year! Some of you talk to me regularly and others never talked to me more than once and just interact with the posts, but I appreciate all the connections I can feel! Big or small! Not gonna lie, over this year it became harder for me to express my love or appreciation due to some trust-scattering events. But sometimes even one of you as much as liking a headcanon from me or DMing me a thing I might like would pull me from a bad mood, and I am thankful that I have you all around on this blue hellsite! Some of you supported me through a hard crisis and trust me this is a core memory now even if it was our only interaction, others trusted me with your stories and I am thankful for that trust, some scream with me about cursed memes of wretching headcanons x) Some are just nice to see on my dashboard. I am just trying to say that I feel warmth in my heart from as much as realizing that we are interacting! Having people that I could tag in a Christmas post is really important for me. And if you guys are glad to see me around too, that's just MORE reasons to think this year wasn't wasted.

I hope you all had a good Christmas (or just had a good day if you do not celebrate, I for sure know some of you don't x)). We all figured that every next year is worse than the previous one, but let's make it through 2024 together and "meet" in congratulation posts like this one again! Or not. Maybe some of you will be in another place in life completely in a year, but even then I hope it will be exactly when you want to be.

[oliverferrie]

It's Trans Day of Rememberance, time to support your local trans author while they are still alive

I originally put this thread up on blue birb hellsite, but I wanted to make a longer, more nuanced post for Tumblr. TDOR is a heavy day for me, and every time I see the list of names it makes me want to squirrel away and cry. So instead I want to spread around some books by trans authors, to uplift our voices. The books themselves are not necessarily about trans characters (mine is not) but my experience as a trans guy does inform the text, and when I read these other works, I feel a kinship to the author in that regard, however imagined that is.

I'll start, it's me, buy my horrific (seriously, read the content warning) fantasy book about young queers surviving atrocities: SUGAR PEOPLE

Next up: Δάιος, by Andromeda Ruins (@andromedaexists). A heavy anti-establishment retelling of the fall of Icarus that leans heavily into the reality of queer folk as outcast and put at risk by the powers that be. I have yet to finish it but the prose really slaps you with its urgency.

Next up: FEMININ GANGE (Feminine gait), by Molly Øxnevad, a contemporary novel about the trans healthcare system in Norway. It's written in Norwegian (bokmål) but I really hope to see it translated in English one day because it's such an important piece of literature on the state of our centralised transmedical health system here in norway.

Next up, MAO SIN RAUDE KJOLE (Mao's Red Dress), by Jan Elisabeth Lindvik, (also norwegian, nynorsk) a coming of age novel set in the backdrop of the sixties. It's only really available in Norway, and it's another one I hope to see translated someday, but it's worth knowing about, as it's a seminal novel by a trans activist with so many decades of lived experience, as the country slowly changed its views around trans folk.

Next, we have JACK OF THORNS, Book 1 of INHERITANCE by AK Faulkner, a dark urban fantasy featuring messy queers and LOTS of trauma. I had the pleasure of meeting Faulkner at a con earlier this year, and they have got an awesome thing going with the Inheritance universe. I've been enjoying Jack of Thorns a lot, it does not hold back.

Next, it's the astounding FRESHWATER by Akwaeke Emezi, a magical contemporary novel about dissociative experiences and trauma, and how they interplay with culture and growing up. A very intense and beautifully written book that isn't afraid to tackle dissociative identities AND gender identity (something those of us who have both often have to mask for fear of being denied treatment).

AND THEY LIVED... by Stephen Salvatore, a very contemporary YA romance that deals with societal issues around being gay and nonbinary. It's written from the POV of a cringey, hopeful teen, and dances between happily-ever-after romance and a pointed exhumation of incredibly dark things.

Finally, LARK & KASIM START A REVOLUTION by Kacen Callender, a contemporary YA written in a comfortably snappy rhythm, about love, friendship and a social media mishap that spirals out of control.

If you are an author listed here and you want off this list, just let me know! If you are an author and you want ON this list, feel free to reblog and add your stuff.

Otherwise, go forth and support a trans author today! Connect with our stories, real and imagined. Increase empathy and understanding around the world. Maybe TDOR will be a memorial of the past one day, instead of a memorial of the present day.

[cookies-super-secret-blog]

something something grow a pair and state thoughts on ai?

So, funny story, I made a post about this before, whenever the topic tag for it was trending. And like, I still stand by that, sans the part where I call the AI itself a form of art under my definition. A little bit after that, I saw a post, while definitely not in response to my own post, made the point that while we should hate AI art for the rampant theft of jobs and content, that its somehow bad to dislike it as Bad Art or Not Art because "gatekeeping art is baddd". Which like, in the context of someone drawing stick figures or painting giant blocks of color, is valid; we shouldn't gatekeep art from people. I still think AI doesn't deserve that privilege. Like, not to try and define art again, but, like hold on ket me grab something.

This is an ai generated adoptable from deiantart. Now, I have to ask, what's being expressed here- besides "cute girl in big hoodie (despite the one on the left not having a hoodie)"? Like it's easy to take these apart mechanically, but conceptually? It's somehow easier. Like, part of character design is visually communicating stuff about the character. There's nothing here besides anime girl in big outfit with minor armor details maybe? Like nothing else here is coherent! Like she looks sampled off of genshin and honkai characters but that's it. Like the cutains are just blue, and its dull and boring because of it. Why is the jacket neon green? The prompter wanted it that way. Why does she have the shoulder pieces and the case she's holding? Because the prompter likely put "battle girl" and/or "solarpunk" into the prompt. And it's not bad to have design elements for the sake of it, but the ai can't do anything but that, and the content it generates suffers because of it. There's no artistic value there, imo.

Now, not to toot my own horn, but here's my take on this design:

This is still a "cute girl in a big lime green jacket", but there's more to it. It's a high visibility jacket, with stripes reminiscent of construction vests. In the other doodles on the page, this high visibility theme is expanded to a theme of her being some kind of rescue personnel, and/or an angel (see; the halo in the bottom right). While it's fairly easy for me to point these themes out- it is what I intended- I'd still argue an obersever would be able to point out similar, or other themes and motifs that bring this character together.

No ammount of prompts and generation models can recreate that. Even if the prompter had the exact same intent I had when making the og ai content, that intent doesn't come across whatsoever. Because AI cannot replicate human intent and artistic processes.

These image generators register to me as the miserable end point of the sad, art-illiterate belief that art only is, and is only meant to "look pretty". Every time modern art is decried as "ugly and pointless", another prompter gets validated in their shameless attempts to assert their narrow-as-fuck vosion of what art is.

Art is human. Art is messy, art is intricate, art is sloppy, art is beautiful and art is ugly.

No machine on earth can comprehend or replicate that. And the ceasless attempts to commodify and capitalize on art have made some people forget that fact. The kinds of people who prompt really only see art as a gimmick product, pretty knickknacks that will make them rich quick.

For lack of better terms, the dehumanization of art itself is disgusting, and so like hell am I going to consider AI's mass-produced, slot machine-esque, drivel as art.

And I will not be guilted by other people on this hellsite who think its a moral failure to call mindless content what it is because its dressed up in distorted frills and anime girl boobs.

Art is human, and AI is not human. And what a sad world it is, that we're automating and strangling human creation, instead of letting it thrive.

Thank you for reminding me to share my thoughts.

[cookinguptales]

wwdits tarot: the hanged man

Okay, this is the last card that I’ve spoken about much previously, so I guess from here on out things will be more of a surprise.

This is actually one of my favorite cards in this whole deck, so I’m excited to ramble about it!

XII. The Hanged Man!

So I do owe a debt to… someone… for this card. I saw someone mention Jackie Daytona as The Hanged Man once on this blue hellsite, but it was a year or two ago and I can’t for the life of me remember who said it where.

So uh. If you know who you are, please let me know so I can give you a shoutout! Also, IIRC you didn’t post much about your reasoning for choosing him, so hopefully you won’t disagree with everything I’m about to say. lmao

Anyway, here’s my reasoning for choosing Jackie Daytona as The Hanged Man.

The Hanged Man is a somewhat complicated card. There are a lot of readings for it, and some are more popular than others.

(Please keep in mind that some readings are more standardized than others, but there is no one “right” reading for a tarot card! It’s an old and messy tradition, tbh. lmao)

Like… when I say some people say this card is a traitor at the gallows and some say it’s self-sacrifice and some people say it’s an allusion to Odin on Yggdrasil and and and and

For me, I see this card as a pause, a suspension, a breath held in one’s throat. There is this sense to it of liminality, neither quite here nor there but somewhere in the process of becoming. And in that state there is infinite potential for new perspectives and understanding.

(These are fairly standard readings, btw!)

Common advice when The Hanged Man comes up is that there will be a break in your life whether you like it or not. It’s like that saying, y’know? Schedule maintenance or it will be scheduled for you. Sometimes this pause is one that you’ve chosen, and sometimes it's one that simply cannot be put off any longer.

It’s a messy, frustrating place to be, usually, but it’s also an opportunity. The Hanged Man speaks of a chance to breathe and think things through. It’s a chance to change course or become who you need to be. You will be upside-down, which is uncomfortable — but does allow you to see another perspective of the world.

That’s the upside. The downside is that you’re not going to be allowed to leave this no man’s land until this process is complete. You’re stuck, babe.

(Side note: this is why one of my favorite images of The Hanged Man I’ve ever seen is in The Insect Tarot, where the scene is changed to a caterpillar hanging in its chrysalis! Gorgeous and perfect!)

I think this reading of the card lends itself so, so well to Jackie Daytona. He is a character that literally only exists in an impermanent liminal state. He only exists as a temporary escape from the life and responsibility that Laszlo doesn’t want to deal with, and he can only exist so long as Laszlo refuses to accept these things.

Everyone comes to a crossroads at some point in their life, and you’re really supposed to choose one road or the other. But some of us, like Laszlo, set up camp right there at the intersection — and become a Jackie Daytona.

It’s not exactly a sustainable form of existence, but it can be very emotionally fulfilling as long as it lasts.

I bring up the crossroads for a reason; The Hanged Man is an intrinsically liminal card about being suspended between two states, and one major topic that comes up in anthropology when people talk about liminality is trickster figures. And boy does Jackie Daytona fit the bill.

I could honestly talk about Jackie Daytona as a liminal trickster figure for like an hour. That could easily be its own post. But for now, I’ll try to stay on topic. The important part here is that, anthropologically speaking, trickster figures have power because they are liminal. They can move from world to world seamlessly and are able to transgress the social rules that everyone else has to follow, the societal roles that everyone else has to fit themselves into; this is what gives them a sort of power that everyone else does not possess.

Jackie’s odd hovering between the vampiric world and the human world is largely what gives him his power, and it’s what helps him slither out of both his human and vampiric quandaries.

Laszlo has slipped out of his role as Laszlo and into this brand-new persona that allows him to access parts of himself that he’d walled off earlier, some of which resurface later while he’s caring for the creature that crawled out of the stomach of our dear friend Colin Robinson. He uses his brief foray into the human world to reestablish his own values system and what he wants out of the world. And, once he realizes that all this running and fighting and shirking isn’t really going to give him what he truly needs, he’s able to reassume his old vampiric role as Laszlo Cravensworth.

It’s kind of fascinating, because we know that Laszlo has so many alter egos in this show, which kind of give the vibes of incarnations like — no, I’m not gonna talk about Laszlo as trickster figure!! But just know that I really want to!!

(I’m so sorry, the nerdy academic part of me is stamping at the ground like a fucking horse right now.)

Anyway, yes, Laszlo becomes Jackie Daytona because he’s On The Run, as the episode title says, both from Jim the Vampire and from himself. He ends up stuck like The Hanged Man, except instead of being suspended in the air, the poor man is stuck in Pennsylvania.

(I can say that. I live here.)

But as he hangs there spinning his wheels, Laszlo really is coming to some important conclusions as Jackie Daytona. He never asked for this weird foray into a false life, but he does end up using it as an avenue for growth and self-understanding.

Jackie Daytona makes a great Hanged Man because he does have this sense of being stuck, of being suspended. He does have a vibe of a criminal staring down the gallows. He does have a vibe of Odin on that tree coming to understand things he never did before. He does, through his love of the girls’ volleyball team (Go Bucks!) learn about self-sacrifice.

And in the end, after he finally comes to term with everything he’s been running from, he is no longer suspended. He's seen the world from a new perspective and has come to a new understanding — and he’s finally able to cut himself free from this self-imposed imprisonment and go home.

There are lots of characters who deal with being stuck or a sense of stagnancy they can’t free themselves from, both very typical readings for this card. Guillermo and Nandor both immediately come to mind. But I think for them, The Hanged Man is a temporary state, just like it was for Laszlo.

Jackie Daytona, on the other hand, is the only character in the show whose entire identity is The Hanged Man. He only exists as a brief departure, a suspension, a sorely needed break in Laszlo’s day-to-day life. When Laszlo finally leaves the crossroads, Jackie Daytona, to some degree, ceases to exist.

Pour one out for a real one. Mostly because he is not real at all and cannot drink regular human alcohol.

RIP.

Anyway. Onto some imagery.

The Hanged Man depicts a man hanging upside down from a sort of living cross. He is hanging from one leg and the other is crossed over it. It should be noted that the wood he’s hanging from is sprouting leaves, indicating life and potential, and the halo around his head indicates some sort of enlightenment.

The Hanged Man is one of those cards that has really, really iconic imagery on it. Even decks that depart fairly radically from traditional Rider-Smith-Waite imagery seem to love themselves one thing hanging upside down from another thing.

So I don’t want to mess with that too much here. That said, I would like his hanging to be more one of perspective than something literal. Jackie is actually standing with one foot flat on the floor, the other propped back up against the regular human bar he’s leaning against, but this pose gives him the familiar cross-legged appearance of The Hanged Man.

This entire scene will be turned upside-down, so he looks quite normal when the card is reversed, but when upright he appears to be hanging. A nod to the reversed perspective will be made clear with a hooded figure in the background, upside down to Jackie but right-side up to us. This figure is Jim the Vampire, the spectral (and hilarious) figure trying to track him down in his current liminal state.

Also, I would like two small bats hanging at either side of the card — like Laszlo, they are hanging upside down, but they are doing it in a real-world sense. This is Nadja and Nandor, both sort of out-of-step with reality themselves but still living their normal lives.

From his perspective, though, they are the ones who are right-side up.

(Upside down? It’s complicated.)

wwdits tarot masterpost

[jmdbjk]

Twitter

Yes, I paid this hellsite (Tumblr) $8 as a joke to acquire two meaningless blue check marks that are apparently only visible on the Tumblr website, but not the app... anyway... I laughed and appreciated Tumblr’s humorous poke at Twitter’s troubles, so here is $8, thank you, Tumblr.

All jokes aside... if you didn’t know Twitter was a hell hole since a long time ago NOWWWW we are seeing in real-time the depths of struggle over there. 

My bird app timeline is in shambles. Trending is broken. Paid blue check marks have been taken away? Restored? Discarded again? Whew the whiplash. 

News of Twitter staff/executives getting laid off/fired/resigning in the thousands... what a rough time. 

BTS Twitter users are panicking trying to decide where to go if Twitter disappears. They are afraid of losing all their ARMY friends. The anxiety is real. I don’t blame them.

What are their choices? Instagram: primarily for images, not so much for words but I think the algorithm is wrong... Facebook: (puh-leez) is the closest thing but for real? nah... Reddit: very wordy, but hard to follow format that is nothing like Twitter... Youtube: duh, made for video not words... Tumblr: definitely made for words but not really made for back and forth banter even though we make it work... 

The Twitter environment, though very dynamic, is inherently very fleeting. It is excellent for “in the moment” moments. 

I use Twitter to stay informed. But without the aid of a curated timeline and trending topics, it’s not a very good fandom experience at all. It takes some strong curating/blocking accounts/muting words and topics to wade through the shit. And it takes diligence because if you are like me and you are clicky, you click on shit and then the bullshit starts creeping back onto your timeline. 

Compromises were made but I have cleared out 613 tons of toxicity and Twitter has been very useful and mostly enjoyable for the last six months. Until now. There is a lot of upheaval. The security of our privacy info is in question. 

And even more seriously is the ripple effect. Wall Street Journal reports that the paid for Twitter verified blue check mark has indeed been halted due to accounts impersonating corporations and celebrities. Word is going around that pharmaceutical companies have lost billions in stock market value because imposter accounts are making false statements. 

Major takeaways from this is that nothing is permanent. Even $44 billion investments.  And Twitter, social media in general, yields a lot of influence in the world whether we like it or not.

I would never pay Twitter for a blue check mark. I talk too much to use Twitter effectively. So I am staying here. With my check marks that mean nothing except that I appreciate when someone seizes the opportunity to take a jab at someone else who is too big for their britches (and who apparently does not have the ability to think through their actions). 

Welcome to those of you defecting from Twitter to Tumblr. We might not be light on our feet over here but at least we can write as many words as we want at one time, emphasized with a lot of images, and these posts are easily accessible. 

[megarabane]

JUST SAW YOUR ASK ON HELLSITE-GENETICS AND NEEDED TO SEND YOU AN ASK!! /POS

you are like literally the person i want to be with the bird stuff i absolutely LOVE belted kingfishers they are so pretty. they are also one of my favorite birds (i have too many favorites i cant just pick one) but birds are so smart and their feathers are so cool like omg i love birds

im currently a small senior in highschool/sophomore in college and want more people who like birds in my life :))

anyway whats your favorite thing to study about birds? mine is how smart they are but also like how bluejays have the feathers that reflect the sun to show the blue :))

[id: screenshot of two text messages that say "oh good i get to get [sic] explain this to you" / "you will regret this" followed by the ellipses of someone typing. end id]

FELLOW BIRD ENJOYER SPOTTED

(sad my ask to hellsite-genetics didn't get me a bird tho but i did get the added satisfaction of knowing the goofy goober song is a member of the genus i exalted in my ask so all in all it's a solid win)

let me preface all of this with saying that while a lot of my experience with birds and learning about birds has been in a classroom setting i've also spent *checks watch* three summers now (including this upcoming one) doing field work working almost exclusively with birds in the midwest united states, so honestly a lot of the things i've learned have been incidental knowledge i've obtained working in the field. i'm not an *expert*, i just have a BS in environmental science and a lot of birding experience.

full slapshod essay rant of me going on about birds (edit: i just reread it and good GOD i went on for a while) of me talking about birds below the cut bc i already know this is gonna be far too long but you asked about my favorite thing in the world so this is on you my friend (affectionate)

i'm definitely ENRAPTURED with how smart birds are. They're so fucking intelligent it's almost scary.

since you brought em up imma talk about bluejays first!! i did part of a project my last year of college on bluejays!!

blue jays will often mimic the calls of other birds, esp predators like red-tailed hawks, with such accuracy that even bird id apps like Merlin (shameless plug) will mistake a mimicking bluejay for a real red-tailed. when i was doing audio surveys for northern bobwhites we had to have a separate training day where the only thing we focused on was how to tell if a mockingbird / thrasher / blue jay was mimicking the distinct bobwhite call and how that wasn't to be counted as a sighting.

(in my experience a lot of it has to do with pitch, repetition, and completion of what's considered the 'full song' of the NOBO, since a lot of mimids won't do the 'full song' and will just handpick bits to weave into the rest of their noises. bluejays especially will do this. mockingbirds will sometimes do the full song, but NOBOs have a pretty measurable repetition gap between their songs, at least in the areas we were doing surveys).

i remembered learning in a class that some bluejays will find bird feeders and spy on them, then mimic red-tailed and red-shouldered hawk calls to get the other birds to scatter, so they can then fly down and eat without having to fight for the tastiest bits.

when i was working with birds over the summer, one of the things we did was setting ground traps for mourning doves so they could be banded and then tracked for hunter take (they're a game species in my state). there were always blue jays in those traps. they're so fascinating to see up close, with their heavy bills and tough little feet and they're so full of rage. and they're loud.

also the thing about their FEATHERS - YES. it fucked me up to learn blue jays are naturally brown. iirc it has to do with the way the barbs on their feathers are put together with modified cells, which scatter the light in a special way to make them appear blue. If you get a bluejay feather in your hand it's only blue at certain angles and the undersides are almost usually completely brown unless you hold them in the light just so.

blue jays are part of the family Corvidae so it makes sense why they're so smart, in the family with other birds like ravens and crows.

well i didn't mean to go on for so long about blue jays. they are wonderful tho aren't they?? <3

my favorite thing to study about birds??? hoooooo boy what a question. everything?? is everything an option??

habitat effects on population size and habitat selection at the individual level is fascinating. i've done a lot of work with population studies, basically doing audio-visual surveys (point counts) of how many of x and y and z target species live in this area at a given point in time, then using that data to extrapolate potential population numbers in an area as narrow as a few square miles and as wide as the whole state (i worked for the state department of natural resources so we were focused only on our state obv).

in that effort, using that information to both directly and indirectly learn what environmental factors affect which bird species and how was so so interesting to me, and some of them are things so small we don't even think about them sometimes!! if there's as few as a handful of pine/cedar/evergreen trees in a field or grassland, you're far more likely to find cedar waxwings and indigo buntings, and you rarely see them in areas dominated by deciduous trees. red-winged blackbirds love wetlands, and while they aren't (iirc) specifically wetland-dependent, something as small as a single pond is enough to attract them in droves.

behavior is also such a cool topic to me, which i've learned more and more about just by birdwatching and attending bird-related conferences and working with wildlife biologists.

birds like the brown creeper are bark foragers that almost exclusively move upwards along a tree. they'll start at the bottom and move up, and once they reach a point they deem 'too high', they'll fly to the bottom of the next tree and move up. conversely, birds like nuthatches, still bark foragers, almost exclusively move down trees in the same way - they'll start at the top, forage downwards, and when they reach the bottom, they'll fly back to the top and do it again.

the yellow-bellied sapsucker (woodpecker family), as the name implies, eats a lot of sap, so they drill holes into a tree, like woodpeckers do, but they lay them down in 'bands' that run horizontally around the tree, often with multiple rows on top of each other, leading to a grid-like pattern of shallow holes only an inch or two apart from each other. that's often the best way to figure out where to look for sapsuckers when you're birding!! (apart from actually seeing or hearing the little guy, obv.)

incidentally, i learned that it's really really hard to put backpack trackers on henslow's sparrows, not bc they're so small and hard to catch, but because they're smart enough to realize there's a thing on their back and will, somehow, pull the backpack around to their front and completely mangle it beyond repair, and that's before they chew it off.

god i could go on forever. kestrels. ospreys. owls. nightjars. songbirds. fisherbirds. albatrosses. puffins. kinglets. sparrows. starlings. they're all so good and perfect and wonderful and fascinating and if i could learn everything about all of them forever i would.

in an extremely roundabout way of answering your question, if you're still reading and haven't run for the hills yet, i can't pick just one thing to call my favorite to learn about birds. everything about them is so interesting and makes me so excited to learn and see and talk about.

belted kingfisher lovers unite!

edit: I DIDN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT TURKEYS EITHER I'M DOING TURKEY RESEARCH TOO -

[bitter-sweet-farmgirl]

The Wormhole, Part 1

Long time no see, Tumblr friends!  To put it simply, college and real life have been my focus for these past few months and now that things are (hopefully) slowing down a bit for the summer, I hope to maybe scroll this hellsite more often than once a month.  

Writer’s block has also been defeated (for the moment) and I’ve got a fun new story in the works.  This one here is just one I’ve been sitting on for awhile.  Enjoy!  

Character Relationships:  Thorin Oakenshield x Modern!Female OC

Content Warning(s):  Mentions of manipulative behavior from an ex-boyfriend and his appearance.

Summary:  Reverse of the “Girl falls into Middle Earth” trope.  Thorin finds himself mysteriously transported to the modern world after surviving BOTFA and winds up in the care of a New York Academy of Arts teacher, Estel Cavanah.  She has no idea why this man is so incompetent with the day’s technology.  

“…And as you can see, the honey shade matches up pretty well with Nashville blue.  The darker tones cool the orange.”  I paused to glance at the clock on the other side of the room.  The neon red numbers signaled the looming end of my class period.

Or, by the way my students were shuffling in their seats and surreptitiously packing away pen and paper, perhaps it was more of a couldn’t-come-soon-enough.  

“Seeing as we are almost out of time, I’ll let you all go. See you on Friday!”  I smiled as the room immediately erupted into a flurry of movement.  The students, all eager to head home to relax at the end of a long day, feverishly packed up the last of their things and filed out of the room.  It was almost insulting how quickly they wanted to leave my class.  But I could understand their hurry; I had been a student once, and no matter how much I loved art, sometimes I couldn’t wait to get out of the classroom.

I turned to my own desk to pack up my stuff for the day, only to pause when a knock broke the silence.  Annoyance sprung to life at the thought of having to spend more time here when I could be at home.

Slowly, I turned around, wondering what student had dropped by.  But it wasn’t a student.  The person wasn’t even a resident of the state!

“Zach, what are you doing here?!”  I asked incredulously, unable to believe that the man was even standing in my doorway.  “You live in North Carolina!”  

“I came here to talk with you,” he said.  I shot him a look.  

“Zach, there is a reason phones were invented. Besides, what is so important that you come up to New York without calling me?”  I asked, propping my hands on my hips.  Then another thought occurred to me.  A much darker and more disturbing thought.  “How did you even know where I was?  We haven’t talked since high school!”

Zach just shrugged, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he walked further into my classroom.  “That’s not really important, Estel—”  

“Oh, I really think it is…”

“…I just wanted to see if you wanted to get back together.  I think we made a mistake when we broke up.”  Zach kept walking, and I began to feel the cold chills of anxiety trickle down my spine.  I stepped behind my desk, putting it between me and him.

I really didn’t think he would do anything, but at the same time, it felt like a very real possibility.

“Zach, we dated in high school.  We’re adults now.  If it didn’t work out then, I don’t think it will work out now.  Now, get out of here before I call security.”  I made a show of picking up my cell phone and unlocking it.  

He stopped walking, finally taking his hands out of his pockets to raise them in the air.  “Woah, slow down girl.  Let’s just talk, okay?  Just because we didn’t work out in high school doesn’t mean we won’t work out now.”

“I really don’t think it does…  And don’t tell me what to do, Zach.  You’re the one who’s shown up out of the blue after stalking me!” My finger hovered over the keypad on my phone, waiting to dial the campus police.  

“I’m not stalking you!”  The words burst out of Zach like an avalanche.  Immediately, his face became apologetic, and he took another step towards me.  “I’m sorry, that was rude of me, Estel…”

Instantly, I was brought back to my days as a high schooler trying to figure out both my life and manage a boyfriend at the same time. Everything pointed towards us becoming high school sweethearts.  Then one day the daydream shattered.  I was introduced to just who my boyfriend really was, and he wasn’t the man I had thought he was.  

Early on in our relationship, he’d stood behind me in my goals and dreams.  When I said that I wanted to be a teacher, he told me to follow my heart.  But when the topic came up again a few months later, he wasn’t as supportive.  

To put a long story short, he wanted to get married young and start a family.  My going away to college in a different state would put a damper on his goals.  That made me the selfish one in the relationship.

And he didn’t want that.  He did his best to hold on to our relationship and convince me to stay with him, but in the end I had to be true to myself and follow the path my heart was leading me on.  

I wasn’t sad when it ended; I felt freer than I had felt in what seemed like forever.  And the saying about hindsight being 20/20 was a constant presence in my mind as I went over our relationship.  I noticed manipulative behaviors that I hadn’t picked up on before. I realized how lucky I was to get out of it early.  To be true enough to myself not to give up my dreams for a guy.

Gathering my courage, I slipped my laptop into my bag. “No, I don’t want to hear anything from you.  We aren’t ever getting back together, Zach.  I don’t even know why you would think that.  Now, I have to go.”  Grabbing my bag, I slung it over my shoulder.  Holding my phone—keypad at the ready—I marched past Zach.

I left him behind just like I had all those years ago.  No glances over my shoulder for one last glimpse.  I just wanted to go home where I felt safe.  

The walk to my car had never felt longer, even in the broad daylight.  Clicking the button on my fob to unlock it, I pulled open the door and threw my bag in before climbing into the driver seat.  As I sat and collected my bearings, a niggling thought rose in my brain.

If Zach knew where I was teaching, chances were he knew exactly where I lived.  Right down to the apartment number.  

All of a sudden, home no longer felt as comforting. It felt dangerous to go back to, despite how much I wanted to.  And I had no choice.

Scanning the parking lot, I pulled out of my space.

~~~

I showed up early at the stable I worked at part-time, not feeling safe at my apartment.  Coincidentally, it was also owned by my brother who was too busy managing the family estates down in Havana to spend much time managing it.  That job fell to me as his little sister.  

The black sheep of the family.

I could only hope that Zach didn’t know about it. Maybe I could buy a sleeping bag and camp out in one of the empty stalls for the night…  Or text Ash and see if I could crash at her apartment for the night. She wouldn’t refuse me.

At least, not if her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Mike, wasn’t around.  Then I really didn’t want to be in the same flat.

Pulling out my phone, I unlocked it and began typing out the message to her when the bugling of a stallion ripped through the air. I frowned, the noise out of place at the normally serene stable.  

Then I heard the screaming.  

Shoving my phone in my pocket and throwing open the door, I bolted out of my car and towards the one pasture that contained a stallion.  The most ill-tempered beast I’d ever had the displeasure of handling.  Although, given that I didn’t get involved too much with horses, wasn’t really saying much.

Quickly catching up to a teen who was also hurrying towards the commotion, I grabbed their arm to stop them.  “Grab a lead rope!”  I gasped before taking off again.  I could only wonder which cocky new teenage boy had decided that he would be the one guy Ferrari—the stallion—liked.  

And exactly how much legal trouble I was about to get into.

Turning the corner to the gate of the paddock, I stopped and did a double take.  The man currently dangling from the mouth of the bay stud definitely was not one of the kids employed here.  Nor did he look like the sort that frequented prestigious stables like this one.  He looked more like a well-kept hobo than anything.

“GET THIS BLOODY HORSE OFF ME!”  The man bellowed, catching sight of me standing like an idiot on the outside of the paddock.  

I snapped out of the daze I’d gone into and looked around wildly for the stable hand I’d stopped earlier.  “Where’s a lead rope!?”

I was answered only by a stream of curses from the man as Ferrari shook him like a ragdoll.  Then pounding footsteps heralded the arrival of the kid with a lead rope.  

Snatching it out of his hand, I jumped the fence and sprinted towards the grappling pair.  “Ferrari!”  I screamed, trying to get his attention on me and away from the unknown man.  “Ferrari!”  

But the stallion paid no attention to me and continued to grind his teeth into the shoulder of the man he had cornered.  

As Ferrari tightened his grip, the man swung at him, calling him a variety of colourful names as he tried to pull away from the stallion.  

I darted in, clipping the lead rope onto Ferrari’s halter.  Then I swatted his rump with the end of the rope to get his attention.  Instantly, Ferrari dropped the man and went after me. Jumping out of the way of his teeth, I waved my hands at the man now crumpled on the ground.

“Get out of the pasture!  Go!”  I yelled at him, dodging Ferrari again.  “He hates men!”  

The man didn’t move, and I began to worry about what it would mean if he was dead.  Probably more legal troubles than if he was injured, that was for sure.  Beckett was going to be absolutely thrilled.  

“Estel, I’ll take him!”  A feminine voice called, and I shot a quick glance over my shoulder towards the stable.  Chelsea—one of the most experienced horsewomen employed here—was jogging towards me.  

As she approached, Ferrari began to calm down.  Chelsea had a way with him that none of the other female employees had.  His ears were stilled pinned tightly back and he danced in place, but he wasn’t trying to bite me anymore.

“Hey, Ferrari…”  She cooed, taking the lead rope from me, and stroking his nose.  Ferrari snorted suspiciously.  “Come here, boy.  Let’s get you inside, huh?”  She pulled gently on the rope and led Ferrari away.

That left me with the unfortunate man who had found himself in Ferrari’s pasture.  As I ran over to him, he suddenly pushed himself up off the ground, clutching his shoulder and grimacing in pain.

“Sir, are you alright?”  I asked, dropping onto my knees beside him.  From a distance, he’d looked like one of the bums that littered the streets of New York, but up close was a different story.

He obviously had some concept of hygiene—he certainly smelled nice—and his beard was neatly trimmed.  And as he raised his head to look at me, he revealed startling blue eyes that pierced me with a distrusting gaze.  

“I’m fine.”  He spat in a voice that carried the thickness of an unfamiliar accent.  “Where am I?”

“Blacktop Stables in New York.  Now, I think I should take a look at your shoulder. Ferrari is a man-hater, and it looked like he had you good.”  I reached out to gently pull his hand away from his shoulder.

He let out a short laugh.  “Horses have never liked me.  You have healer training then?”  He asked, resisting my attempts to pull his hand away so I could look at Ferrari’s handiwork.

“If by healer training, you mean medical training, then yes, I know a little.”  He dropped his hand, revealing a slobber-soaked fur vest.  “Umm…  I think I’ll need you to remove your shirt…”  

He grunted, unbuckling the belt that held the vest closed before shrugging it off.  A dark blue, velvet looking coat followed directly after.  The movement of his arm caused him to grimace and let out a hiss of pain.  Beneath it was a metallic sort of shirt that looked like some sort of armor.  He pulled the armor shirt over his head, leaving him in only a blue shirt that reached almost to his knees.  

“Blast…”  He hissed through clenched teeth.  Gingerly, he lowered his injured arm back to his side.

By this point, I felt like I was watching the clothing version of a clown car.  I couldn’t help but wonder if he had another two shirts underneath this one.  

Unbuttoning what I guessed was called a ‘tunic’, his upper body was finally revealed.  And it made the artist in me want to weep tears of joy.

If ever there was a perfect body, he had to have it. Thick, muscled arms hung from broad shoulders.  There wasn’t a speck of fat on his torso to hide the chiseled abs this man possessed. And he was able to make it look like the most natural thing in the world, unlike some of those shirtless male models I had tried to use as inspiration in the past.  

“You said you have healer training?”  

The distinctly masculine voice broke me out of my…reverie.  Quickly, I focused my gaze on his face.  Away from the abs that I was itching to sketch.  

“Uh, yeah.  Let me take a look here…”  I peered at the bite mark on his shoulder.  Ferrari had left him deep indents of his teeth, but the skin hadn’t been broken.  Already I could see the purple bruising characteristic with horse bites forming in a wide circle around the bite marks.  His excessive layers of clothes had saved him from a much worse injury.

Not that he wouldn’t go through hell in the coming weeks.  Bites of this severity literally made you unable to move the arm without excruciating pain for weeks.  

“Will I live?”  The question was quiet, and I glanced up to see a whisper of a smile on his face.  Oddly, I got the sense that this wasn’t an unfamiliar question for him to ask.  

“I can almost guarantee you will,” I shot him a small smile.  “Just put some ice on it, take some ibuprofen, and try not to use that arm much for a few weeks.”

He frowned.  “Ibuprofen?  What is that?”

The fact that he was unaware of one of the most basic over-the-counter drugs was baffling.  Everybody knew what ibuprofen was!  

“It’s a medicine you can take if the bite hurts too much.  And from what I’ve heard, a bite like yours hurts like hell.”  I explained, leaning back on my heels.  “If you aren’t able to get any, I could give you some.”  

“No, I’ve had worse than a horse bite.”  He dismissed my offering.  “Now, you said we were in someplace called New York?  Is that on the Anduin?”

I stared at him.  “The Anduin?  I’ve never heard of that.  New York is a state in the United States.  East coast?”  

The look I got back told me he’d never heard of any of it.

This whole thing was weird.  First he showed up out of the blue in Ferrari’s pasture.  The same pasture that had seven-foot fencing supplemented with electric wire and was surrounded by private ground.  And somebody would have stopped him inside the stable.  

Second, there was the whole deal with his clothing.  It looked nothing like anything made today. That and he wore armor.  To be quite frank, it didn’t even look like it was from this world.

Third, he had never heard of the US before, and he was living in it.  

Or maybe I was turning into one of those off-the-grid hippies who believed in UFOs.  There had to be a logical explanation for all this.  It wasn’t like he actually had come from a different world.  That was preposterous.

He probably just hit his head or something when Ferrari was slinging him around.  I reasoned with myself.  He’s probably just a little confused right now.

Standing up, I motioned for the man to join me. “Follow me and I can get you a bandage for your shoulder…”  I paused, waiting for him to introduce himself.

“Thorin,” the man supplied with a nod of his head.  “At your service.”

“Estel, uh, at yours.”  I fumbled, hoping I hadn’t just entered into some deal with the man.  Turning around, I took one look at the stables and felt my heart stop beating in my chest.

Zach was standing at the gate of the paddock.

“Oh, no….”  I whispered, frozen in place.  I’d felt so sure that he’d had no idea that I worked here.  Beckett certainly didn’t advertise by using me.  “He followed me…”  

“Is something wrong?”  Thorin asked from behind me.  I looked back over my shoulder at him, taking in his broad frame. He had his clothes bundled up in his arms, hiding his torso from the world.  Dark brown hair sprawled across his shoulders, untamed by any sort of hair tie.

“Um,” I looked back over at Zach.  He was staring at Thorin; a small frown on his face as he took him in.  Automatically, I began formulating my “it’s not what you think” speech in my head.  I knew what it looked like.  A man and a woman out in a field, alone.

Except…That was exactly what would get him off my back. If I was a taken woman, he couldn’t come after me.  

“Thorin, I know this is asking a lot, given that we don’t know each other, but I really need you to pretend you’re my boyfriend. He,” I nodded over in Zach’s direction, “is my ex from a long time ago and he’s been stalking me, trying to get back together.  I just need you to pretend for like a day and then we can part ways.”  I pleaded, looking up into light blue eyes.  

Thorin stared back at me, then glanced up to look at Zach.  “You don’t want his attentions?”  He asked, and I nodded.

“Yeah, I just want him to leave me alone,” I sighed. The defeat I felt over my helplessness must have carried into my voice, because the iciness began to fade from his eyes.  

“You’ve told him this?”  His voice took on a gentler tone.

“I made it very clear, and he obviously didn’t listen.”

“Then I will pretend to be your…boyfriend.”  He agreed, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth.  Instantly, his tough, rough-hewn aura faded to be replaced with a sense of security. “He will not lay a finger on you, Miss Estel.”

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[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 357

The Power of the Doctor

“The Power of the Doctor”

Plot Description: the Thirteenth Doctor must fight for her very existence against her deadliest enemies: the Daleks, the Cybermen, and her arch-nemesis, the Master

These cybermen aren’t nearly as cunty as the other ones the Master created but they have flair

Ok at least ONE of them is serving

No but seriously the detailed metalwork on these cybermen is so good. I highly suggest looking it up…they’re apparently going by cybermasters now. Did a 16 year old boy in 2007 come up with that?

You know, after the whole flux thing, I thought they had abandoned this

How was the cargo a CHILD???

I have been WAITING for this, the whole the Master made up Rasputin…but i apparently will have to wait a little longer as we return to, you guessed it, modern day London

I know this woman is a former companion, but I do not know who she is. Ok we have Ace and Tegan. I love that we have older women who were companions coming back for this. I wish I knew more about classic Who to know exactly what the deal was with the cybermen and Tegan. Obviously, no companion has a GOOD experience with them but was there something more??

Anyway she got sent the miniaturized one with the death thingy in it

Dan’s leaving NOW? Like 15 minutes into the episode?? What a weird time to leave

She does NOT want me to watch this episode. Apparently, I had all the time she spent napping on me to watch and now….I don’t even know

I’m not sad at Dan’s departure.

A Dalek wants to meet the Doctor? To destroy the Daleks?! I don’t believe it

There’s a defect on the plunger eye part that keeps getting attention drawn to it…that HAS to be something

I’m usually a proponent of the dark hair/blue eyes combo but omg take those contacts out RIGHT NOW

(I went to look up what Sacha Dhawan’s eyes normally look like and potentially got really spoiled for this episode…unless they’re using archived footage)

“I feel like I’m being taunted” was the HAHAHAHAs all over the sign on the front of this TARDIS not enough evidence of that?

I hope Tegan and Ace stick around UNIT. I think that would just be cool, as long as the actresses want to

Omg, the Master has inserted himself into some of the most famous paintings in the world. He does not rock Girl With a Pearl Earring like my Megumi does…NOR The Scream

STOP BEING ATTRACTED ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY TO FICTIONAL EVIL MEN, SARAH

But like………he’s adorable

I can’t tell if that’s a warning or a threat but…ok, he SAYS warning, but I’m not convinced it’s not him threatening to erase the Doctor from existence himself—and NOW he says it’s a threat! Those are different things

Oh shit, Vinder’s back?! Genuinely happy to see him return

The Master looks so respectable but he’s literally so awful and spiteful. Hold up, Ace just said last time she saw him, he was half cat?!?! I will need to look that up. Catboy!Master was not on my 2023 revelations bingo card

He’s WAY too excited to be here. And he ACTS half cat

Wtf wtf wtf wtf…how’d he do that?? It wasn’t JUST that cyberman, it was a whole Russian doll of cybermen

So, the defect on the traitorous Dalek was just that it was in disrepair. That Dalek was for real but it was a trap all the same…but I NEVER thought I’d see the Doctor trapped in a Dalek casing

On one hand, why was forced regeneration like the ultimate punishment for time lords? UNLESS you used them ALL up? But of COURSE he has the technology to do it, he had so much time on Gallifrey on his own

The Cybermen and Daleks are way too robotic for the Master’s penchant for performing. They’re blunt instruments and he likes to drag out whatever he’s doing to make it hurt the most…but he’ll also play some bops while carrying out his plans

Excuse me?? Ok so…how does this get undone? Man…you can’t just expect Yaz to “get used to” you being the Doctor, not when she was in love with 13. I knew you were a lot of things, the Master, but homophobic??? Ick

This forced regeneration isn’t taking well, oh the outfit slaps though. He’s taken a lot of the most eccentric bits of past Doctors’ outfits (4’s scarf, the question mark sweater vest, the celery lapel pin, it’s a thing of beauty)

They really do just an excellent job making David Bradley look like the First Doctor

Oh…NOT ARCHIVED FOOTAGE!! Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann came back to do this too!! That’s SO COOL

(I swear if my cat learns how to use a door knob while I’m watching Doctor Who…)

…MORE WOMEN IN THEIR SIXTIES AS ACTION HEROES NOW!!!

I don’t even know that much Classic Who but it’s very easy to get choked up from Tegan seeing Five again. But partly because did those actors think they’d ever be playing those roles again? After 40 years?? I don’t know how Tegan and Five ended but it doesn’t sound like they got to have closure til now

Now Ace and…Seven??

Graham!!! He’s not as good at coming up with fake names as the Winchesters. Though, to be fair, the fact that the Winchesters got away with as many classic rock last names from the same band at the same time…

Noooooo, don’t convert Kate into a cyberman!

No because the outfits in this episode are so great

Save her, Tegan!!

Oh poor Kate (she’s alive and well and not a cyberman, but that was an all new facility for UNIT)

It’s not often we get a full set of pilots for the TARDIS

So is this gonna be another spare TARDIS for the Doctor??

I…feel like turning active volcanoes into steel will eventually be an ecological disaster

I know this whole Yaz running out to the Doctor thing is supposed to be impactful, but honestly the Master (in a failing body) telling Thirteen if he can’t be the Doctor neither can she and then making it so she’s injured enough to kickstart regeneration is almost always going to be WAY worse. There’s just so much history between them

How on earth did Dan and Graham meet?? Graham just randomly runs onto—oh. Apparently there was some kind of invitation…oh, a support group for past companions! That’s actually really nice!

David!!

[supernaturallyginger]

I watched like 40 episodes in 3 days. Wow. And hellsite now has a luffy tab. Wow. This anime watches itself, the next thing i know is that i clicked on the next episode button.

I can kinda see why my friend said it's like jojo, some of the characters and fights are weird, but more in a unique quirky way than in a bizarre way.

I like this zoro guy a lot. With the navigation skills he has, it's a miracle he even found pirates, yet everyone recognizes him as pirate hunter zoro. Impressive. Guy has one brain cell and it revolves around swords and his friends. Also will i be seeing johny and yosaku again? Those were funny guys.

Usopp's friend's butler turning out to be a catboy pirate is one hell of a story. I liked how he adjusts his glasses that way because of the claws that he fight with. And the other guy who also hypnotized himself!

Very sexy of that pirate cook that he saved little sanji because they have the same dream. Kind of a dilf.

And he made food for those pirates because he knows what it's liketo starve...bro...

I do not want to question how those starved out pirates became ready to fight two minutes after consuming food so... yeah. How? Lol

And there are pirates who work for the government. But like which government? Is there only one?

Nami: im quitting and stealing your ship

Luffy: no you're not :) you're our navigator, our friend!!:D

Racist shark merman pirate. Smh this anime

All these bitches have sad backstories, but nami's got to me specially. And when she asks luffy to help her and he gives her his hat, his treasure i almost started crying. I also liked the Ost very much when the crew marches to kick arlong's ass. I'm glad luffy destroyed the room she slaved away drawing all those maps.

First i saw pinwheel hat guy i thought his design is funny, but ot turns out he wore the pinwheel to not scare little nami🥺

Every time Luffy says he will be the pirate king im like i sure hope so bestie :) <3

Baby's first wanted poster!!! Love happy they are about it and then nami is like you guys do realize it means people will come after us???haha. And even shanks got to see the poster!!! Amazing.

I like it so far!!!

Have a good night/day!!!

omg anon!! I never saw the tumblr notification for this and then an entire month passed....???? literally how is september almost over??

I AM SO GLAD YOU ENJOYED WHAT YOU SAW SO FAR!! THE EAST BLUE SAGA IS SO NOSTALGIC TO ME <333

a few notes:

no Zoro's two bounty hunting pals don't come back :( they are in like one filler episode pretty early on but that's it for them. I miss them <3

Zeff is 100% a dilf. he can feed me any day!

do not apply too much logic into food = instant healing because it will happen time and time again

government and politics become a big part of the overarching story as one piece goes on. but yeah. there is one world government overseeing most islands. each island also has its own leadership. but the world government pulls the strings in the bigger picture and have control over the marines

this will not be the last time you see racism and fish

Luffy's first wanted postered omg <333 <- now deeply considering rewatching all of east blue

anon, I am so glad you are having fun with one piece!! it's a great series to binge!!!

have an awesome night/or morning/or whatever <333

[remindingpersephone]

Returning With Randomness

Good morning, my darlings. My Tumblr mini-break has resulted in me changing the way I utilize the blue hellsite. I'm putting all this babbling under a jump to keep your scrolling aesthetically pleasing.

14 days isn't much of a break, but I was testing out a theory. I felt like I was checking social media, or at least the 4 Biggies: Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, too frequently and in too automated a fashion. Got five minutes between tasks? Check Insta! Need a breather from spreadsheet madness? Log in to Twitter! And on and on. While it is always nice to check in with my mutuals, I would then get sidetracked and the next things I know I've lost 20 minutes to somebody's thread about SCOTUS or lunar eclipse or whatever. Not terrible, in and of itself, but when added to all the other noise and distraction in the world, it has become detrimental.

Life offline these days is busy and stressful. My job is good but hectic, so I have to stay focused and disciplined with my time and attention. Home life is difficult and I'll leave it at that because it involves other people who don't want their shit aired out online. So even if I wanted to read about the latest Kardashian drama (keep your mitts of Marilyn's dress, Kim!) I just don't have the time or the mental bandwidth.

Moreover, reading gossip and useless opinions just isn't good for my mental health. I'd argue it's not good for anyone's mental health, but I believe everyone has to the right to live their life any way they see fit, including but not limited to social media brainrot. You do you, baby.

Which brings me to my point (I have one, I swear): social media may have been an unfortunate mistake. Or at least, 75% of it. The 25% that allows us to meet each other, learn new things, talk to people around the world, share, connect, inspire, is awesome. A truly wonderful gift. But the other 75%: rampant disinformation, bullying, repeated ugliness, echo chamber effect - is an awfully high price to pay. Is it too high? I don't know. I think we need to recognize it now, acknowledge the problem it has become, and find a way to preserve the good and eliminate the bad. There has to be a way. Our society has done some amazing things. We have to find a way to keep trolls from ruining the world.

I think it was @hopefulmisanthrope who said a while back "Do we really need everyone's opinion?" in regards to social media's negative effect. I found myself repeating this sentiment a few days ago. I told someone "We don't need everyone's opinion, all the time."

I must clarify that there is a difference between using Twitter or Tumblr, etc. to express yourself, and using it to spread maliciousness. Use it to write something silly or sad or moving or beautiful. To just put something out into the universe. I wholeheartedly support this for everyone. Remember, a thing isn't free unless it's free for everyone. So follow your bliss and post your heart out if it brings you joy. God knows, I've posted about meaningless shit before, because it made me happy. I just posted on Twitter about wind, for fuck's sake. I'm not contributing to the overall betterment of society with my 479th Instagram picture of orchids. But neither am I harming it buy doing this. It's the thousand mile long thread of echoed hatred and ignorance that worries me. That's the shit we've got to stop. It is not a case of, "Well, who's to say what's hate and what's not?" We are. We all know the difference between what is evil and vicious and what is harmless. I want the people that scream freedom as a way to absolve themselves of responsibility for the things they say and do to shut their mouths. Adults know when they are protecting true freedom and when they are using it to mask discrimination and acrimony.

So, to get back to my original thought when I started writing this post a hundred years ago, is to say that I want to use Tumblr differently. I want to check in on my mutuals by going to their individual blogs. I want to write my own posts when I either have something to capture so I can refer back to it later, or because I want to share something. I don't want to start scrolling mindlessly, miss all the good stuff, while zoning out. So if I don't appear for a while and then suddenly heart bomb the hell out of you, this is why. And if I miss you and you wonder why, drop me a line. I do check messages to see if anyone is trying to reach me directly.

Everything is tumultuous (to put it mildly) in the world these days. I'm looking for ways to maintain equilibrium with my energy, attention, and output. I am responsible for what I allow myself to absorb, and what I put out into the universe. I want both of those to be good, healthy and helpful. So the learning and the adjusting and the analyzing and the changing and the growing never stops. Neither does my rambling, apparently. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I love you, kittens. Take care of yourselves and be good to each other.

[benbraeden-a]

*EXPLODES THE DOOR* HEY!! I follow you because you are one of the most talented writers I’ve ever seen on this hellsite!! the absolute masterpieces you create with just words?? that make pretty pictures in my brain??? YEAH YOU DO THAT. The worlds you’ve built for your ocs, the magic in them, they make me wanna believe they’re real/canon!! WHERE THE HELL IS BENS TV SPIN OFF?? AND HALLIE’s MOVIE FRANCHISE?? NOT TO MENTION YOURE ONE OF THE SWEETEST PEOPLE ALIVE. talented and a kind human being?? DOUBLE WHAMMY. I believe your my tumblr soulmate honestly, this blue shithole wanted us to reconnect and I’m happy whatever tumblr gods shifted the timeline or something so we could reunite :(( I love you very much, you’re incredible. Please never stop writing.

you are literally so sweet and so kind for sending this in; and i will cherish it FOREVER BESTIE THANK YOU SO MUCH <3. i can't believe that we discovered together that we have written together YEARS AGO ON DIFFERENT BLOGS AND SOMEHOW found each other once again; it truly does just show how much we just belong together i don't make the rules thanks! but hands down your krissy is genuinely so phenomenal and unique and an amazing take on the character that we saw so limited of; and the fact that you have written her before and made an amazing impact then as you are doing now? just shows just how talented you are and how showstopping of a writer you are. not only is krissy beautiful as a character and YOUR own creation, but you as a writer always blow me away? you just understand characters that aren't your own, your writing has me re-reading it five times over before i can even come up with a semblance of a reply because i am just trapped in the storytelling that you create everytime i see you on my dash; so thank you for existing, thank you for being my friend, thank you for being so wonderfully kind, and know that i love you lots and i appreciate you and am so grateful to have you on my dash <3

[laughinglynx]

3 things 2,5,8,18 (not sure my first ask made it) :)

Thank you for the ask!! (And for sending it again, the first one did indeed get eaten I think, thanks hellsite XD )

2. 3 movies you have rewatched many times Ever After, which is hands down the best Cinderella movie ever, and I will happily fight people on that. (Yes, the musical movie is good. This one is better.) If I could get my hands on any of those costumes I would immediately start crying. I've watched this movie So Many Times.

An Unexpected Journey. By far the best of the Hobbit films, and I also used it for a lot of my research when I made my Thorin costume. I think I watched it like 15 times over the month I spent making the armor.

The Ritual, an absolutely gorgeous horror movie, and actually the first horror movie I ever watched! It's turned into a kind of comfort film for me.

5. 3 colors to paint your room

The room I grew up in is painted a mid-tone, dusty warm purple, which I think is a fantastic color for a room! You get all the coziness while also getting... purple.

...listen, I really really like purple XD

Other than that, I could see going for a really lovely green. I've also always wanted to paint a mural wall in a medieval style, with lots of reds and blues... But I think that would work better in an office or a living room!

8. 3 tv shows that you never get bored of

The West Wing my beloved. I love this show so much. There are very few political things that don't make me extremely sad and angry; while this show does have elements of that, it's mostly just so hopeful in a way I really appreciate.

Vikings, BUT ONLY seasons 1-4. Once the original main character leaves, it all goes seriously down hill.

I've watched Merlin the full way through.... oh, 5 or 6 times? Just a deeply goofy, fun show, I used to watch it any time I was sick! I'm so mad Netflix or whichever streaming service it was took it down.

18. 3 dream jobs you’ve had in your childhood

So originally I wanted to be a purple teenage dragon who would become president and rule the world. I had a Halloween costume. It was fantastic.

After that.... I didn't really have a dream job until I hit high school and discovered costume design, which is what I'm heading towards now? It wasn't that I didn't know what I wanted to do, I just didn't really care from like... 7 to 16 years old.

[leatherjacketmixtapes]

My 2022 in Books

This year I read 78 books which is a step down from the last few years (all 100+) but I'm trying to read in a more purposeful, slow way, trying to savor and absorb what I read, which is definitely a challenge since I've always been a very speedy reader.

There's a complete list below the cut of all the books, but here were my absolute favorites of this year:

Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo

The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton

Dracula - Bram Stoker (Dracula Daily was probably my favorite thing to ever happen on this beloved hellsite in the last 13 years)

The Storyteller - Dave Grohl (I'm not an audiobook person but it was such an experience listening to him read this)

Taste: My Life Through Food - Stanley Tucci

The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry

Book of Night - Holly Black

The Key to Deceit - Ashley Weaver

Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi

The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I loved so many of the others too, don't get me wrong, but those are the ones I know I'll be re-reading again before long (especially Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom, which I wanted to start reading again the very minute I finished them).

Off to start my 2023 reads now!

A Spindle Splintered - Alix E. Harrow

Ruin and Rising - Leigh Bardugo

Ruin and Rising - Leigh Bardugo

The Tea Dragon Society - Kay O’Neill

The Tea Dragon Tapestry - Kay O’Neill

The Tea Dragon Festival - Kay O’Neill

Flight, Vol. 7 - ed. Kazu Kibuishi

Boxers - Gene Luen Yang

Saints - Gene Luen Yang

The Fire Never Goes Out: A Memoir in Pictures - N.D. Stevenson

Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World - Jack Kelly

Cemetery Boys - Aidan Thomas

The Eye of the World - Robert Jordan

These Violent Delights - Chloe Gong

This Is How You Lose The Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Burning Down The Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Tim Mohr

The Puzzle Women - Anna Ellory

An Age Of License: A Travelogue - Lucy Knisley

True Love Bites - Joy Demorra

The Bear and The Nightingale - Katherine Arden

Shadow of Night - Deborah Harkness

Under The Whispering Door - T.J. Klune

Rivers of London: Body Work - Ben Aaronovitch

Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements - Sam Kean

Home and Exile - Chinua Achebe

Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other - Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish

Our Violent Ends - Chloe Gong

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V.E. Schwab

The Paris Apartment - Lucy Foley

The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton

Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead - Bert V. Royal

Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City - Kate Winkler Dawson

The Devil and the Dark Water - Stuart Turton

Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo

Portrait of a Thief - Grace D. Li

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music - Dave Grohl

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

The Key to Deceit - Ashley Weaver

The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry

Book of Night - Holly Black

Cryptid Club - Sarah Andersen

Taste: My Life Through Food - Stanley Tucci

Booty: Girl Pirates on the High Seas - Sara Lorimer

The House in the Cerulean Sea - T.J. Klune

hir - Taylor Mac

All Boys Aren’t Blue - George M. Johnson

The Wedding Date - Jasmine Guillory

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Y. Davis

Other Birds - Sarah Addison Allen

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Demon in the Wood - Leigh Bardugo

The 39 Steps - John Buchan

Wade in the Water: Poems - Tracy K. Smith

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books - Azar Nafisi

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Five Orange Pips - Arthur Conan Doyle

She Who Became The Sun - Shelley Parker-Chan

While Justice Sleeps - Stacey Abrams

Cinnamon - Neil Gaiman

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper - Hallie Rubenhold

Persuasion - Jane Austen

Illuminae - Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

No Bones - Anna Burns

Mercury - Hope Larson

Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (re-read)

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom - August Wilson

Year of the Reaper - Makiia Lucier

The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow

Paper Girls, Volumes 1-6 - Brian K. Vaughan

[mrsbeef]

Now THIS is the kind of inter-platform cultural transfer I can get behind