the 2023 essence S tiers everybody (and. star seeker)

Even since Michael's heavenly ascend, not just the music industry but, quite frankly, the entertainment industry as a whole has been left with a massive void that I don't believe will be fulfilled in the near future or ever again. That man had a star power equivalent to three Galactuses at their most powerful. You will never witness someone like that ever again, not in this lifetime nor the next one. He was and still is one of a kind.

fffffff

staring at my last dose of my prescription atm and internally screaming over how stupidly difficult my family doctor is currently making it for me to just. get this scrip refilled. so i can go back to my life.

literally started calling them last week to try to get this squared away back when i still had a week of my meds left, now i’m just like /sweats bullets, could someone :) return my calls :) and please not place me on 20 min holds, only to tell me that i need to call the pharmacy, which just told me i needed to call my family doctor :) :) :)

Modern AU Kylo gets this scarf from his cousin Rey for his birthday. He hates it but one day it’s really cold and it’s all he can find, so he grudgingly puts it on. His coworker Armitage, who has always been cold and terse with him, is suddenly weirdly shy and friendly.

(Image source)

I have to say if I worked in the Magnus Institute in season 1 I would *mildly* dislike Jon. I wouldn't actively hate him, like I know he's not genuinely evil or heartless, but I would mercilessly take the piss out of him behind his back, and I'll own that. He was a sour prick with no sense of humour and oh I would make him the butt of every joke at office parties.

see I just feel like if game!Hades/Persephone was more popular there would come someone deranged enough to write a threesome between them and that admin shade who's always in their room

Like I personally don't see Hades being comfortable with threesomes to begin with, but the point is, said fic will exist and I will look on with amusement.

i think we should get Joseph a razor scooter

Had a fantastic time last night! Went and got a drink with someone from work about starting a union and now we have a group chat some next steps planned and uhhhh he knows a lot more about my trauma than he did at the start of the night bc Some Alcohol Was Partaken.

anyway a) building workplace solidarity one pint at a time and b) thinking about how. when we were walking up to the pub we had the following exchange:

"Never thought I'd be building a union with the woman from Marketing"

"HOW ABOUT SIDE BY SIDE WITH A FRIEND?"

Literally was THIS CLOSE to crying at the doctors office but like only in the best way 😭💛

so my apartment complex has some of the rudest, most poorly raised, unsupervised children i have ever met. they're awful. and because the common spaces are treated with even less regard than the playground at school (both by the children and the parents that should be—but aren't—watching them), toys are constantly left where they fall. usually this is in narrow walkways, and often at the foot of a set of stairs that i know leads up to the apartment of an elderly woman. someone could seriously get hurt.

one of their toys (which was broken within days of being placed out there) was in front of the stairs on the narrow walkway again, and i'm just so fucking done. i took it out to the dumpster. this used to be such a calm and quiet complex, and the kids used to be respectful. it's so damn frustrating

Rule of Law Trailblazers Ceremony.

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I would so love to have one monday (spiritual Monday since yesterday was a bank holiday) when I do not yearn ardently for the sweet kiss of death as preferable to being employed

There's a viral video circulating from the Fort Worth Zoo, of two keepers who ended up in a habitat at the same time as a silverback gorilla. Spoiler for good news: neither the humans nor the gorilla got hurt. It's a bad situation that ended extremely well, and that's why I want to talk about it.

The audio for this video is mostly someone praying loudly, so if you need to turn the audio off to watch it, you won't miss anything relevant. If you don't want to watch it, here's the summary: it starts with a keeper running around the corner into the main exhibit, pursued by a large male gorilla. She is quickly able to get into a doorway at the back of the exhibit, but does not completely close the door because the gorilla is standing across from her, watching. He eventually moves off to the right hand side of the exhibit, where we can see a keeper is trapped in the corner at the front. She was trying to move towards the exit as he moved to the right, and she stops, standing very still behind a tree, while he stays along the far right wall. They stay like that for a minute, and then the gorilla runs to the front right corner, and the keeper is able to run to the door in the back of the exhibit and get to safety.

Let's start with basic information. Even though it's just going viral now, this video is from October of 2023. It was taken not by a guest, but by the zoo security officer responding to the situation. Hmmm, seems like he maybe should have been doing something else during that situation, instead of than taking a phone video. It's going viral now because the guy (who is no longer employed at the zoo) decided to post it on TikTok for his five minutes of fame. This guy immediately started giving all sorts of media interviews, answering questions like "why no tranquilizers" inappropriately, making memes out of his own video, generally distasteful shit.

Zoo spokesperson Avery Elander gave a public statement that "thankfully, there was no physical contact between keepers and gorilla, and all staff and animals are safe." A comment from the zoo has also indicated that the incident was due to keeper error. (As opposed to, for instance, something in the fencing breaking.) According to the guy who posted the video, a lock was left unsecured and the gorilla was able to open the door to the habitat. I don't know if I buy it, and again, this just... is probably why he doesn't have a job anymore. By sharing that detail - real or not - he places a ton of public scrutiny and blame on that keeper team. (If that's what happened, I can promise you it will have been dealt with internally.) He also was nice enough to say he wouldn't name the women in the video... but verified they're still staffers at the zoo... which means they're eminently identifiable! Excuse me while I ragequit for a second.

So there's two reasons I wanted to talk about this. The first is to make sure it is well known that this guy is purposefully and intentionally exploiting the worst day of someone's life for media attention. Their lives were in danger, and he's using it for fame. His name is in the media articles - I'm not going to share it because he doesn't deserve that attention. The second reason, though, is because this video is a masterclass on how to survive if you end up sharing space with a gorilla. Every zoo person I've spoken to or seen comment on the video is so, so impressed with how the keepers handled themselves.

The gorilla in this video is 34-year-old Elmo. All apes in AZA zoos are managed in protected contact, so keepers are supposed to be separated from them by a barrier at all times. The zookeepers were in the habitat putting out a mid-day meal when he got out. Watching the video, you can see he's not actively being aggressive towards them - he's not making threat displays or trying to approach them. Mostly, Elmo seems like he doesn't know what is going on and he's kinda freaked out about it. (This is confirmed in the zoo's press statement, too). The staff stayed calm, and importantly, watched and waited to see how he'd move and act.

The zoo did say one thing, though, that's a bit misleading. In one article, their press person I quote as saying “In general, gorillas are considered the “gentle giants” of the great ape species.” Just because this may be true in comparison to other great ape species doesn't meant gorilla aren't still incredibly dangerous. This type of messaging always worries me, because I think it leads people to misunderstand the risks of being close to megafauna. Gorilla are extremely strong animals, and their social norms/behaviors are very different from that of humans. That's why it's such a big deal any time people end up in gorilla habitats, and why sometimes in those circumstances lethal measures have to be taken to protect human life.

These keepers are incredibly lucky to be unharmed. These women stayed safe specifically because they're trained professionals who knew how to act around gorilla, they knew this particular animal well, and they'd learned the escapes from the exhibit just in case this ever happened. We should applaud them for their cool heads and quick thinking.

As for the guy who posted the video? As a colleague put it, may he always step on a Lego.

every time i reread my own stuff i just want to rewrite it