Montreuil-sur-Mer, août 2019 by Marine Beccarelli on Flickr.

@scotlandmagic | Instagram

To those of you feeling like all of your internet friends are screaming at you, you are not alone. It’s a bit of a clusterfuck right now, and the future looks very bleak considering the Supreme Court. It can be very easy to slip into despair. Don’t. While some people are trying to offer help, it can feel like your dashboard/feed/whatever is one huge trauma conga line. And it is. There’s a lot of people who don’t know what to do, so they’re reblogging everything that they feel is helpful all at once, while others are venting very legitimate frustrations and fears. But it can all be so very overwhelming being on the receiving end of it.

So do your best not to get overwhelmed. Step away. Take a break. Skip posts. I’m here to tell you, you can mute or unfollow people. You can set up filters. Do what you need to do in order to preserve your mental health so that you can function for the long haul.

Because it will be a long haul. A lot of posts are going to play up urgency. But take a minute, an hour, even a few days to shore up your mental health shields. You don’t have to do everything now. And it’s important to not get so overwhelmed that you end up doing nothing. Because doing nothing is what got us here.

Remember that some people have different responses to trauma. Some fight, some freeze, and some flee. All are valid and all need to do different things.

There are lots of resources if you are looking to fight... you don’t need a list from me. Your dash/feed is probably full of helpful lists. And there’s always googling if for some miraculous reason it isn’t.

If you are frozen, step away for today. The problem will still exist tomorrow. If you feel stuck tomorrow and don’t know what to do, make a list of 3-10 options suggested by all of the reblogs/retweets/etc. and assign them a number. Then go to Random.org and randomize what ONE thing you will do. If you really hate it, you know that isn’t a viable option for you. Keep doing that until you find ONE thing that you can do.

If you need to flee, flee. Take the time you need to get your bearings. Then, when you feel safer, find ONE thing to do that you feel safe doing.

This is a battle that is going to be won in inches. And I’m going to tell you that if all of your troops are suffering from mental burnout/despair, then the other side will continue to win.

And that’s the last thing we want or need.

Okay... TL:DR over

Have a picture of Goose looking cute:

a wizard and her paramour

Slimecicle: Hey, do you know what- do you know what the mask does, dude? It keeps the toxicity out, man, and it keeps the clean air in. So we put those masks on, we take a deep breath. Bolas bolas. I'm going to give you guys a new contract too. You know what it is? It's gonna be at the top of your list. It says, "HAVE FUN." It says "Have fun."

For anyone feeling Strong Negative Opinions about Purgatory or any particular character, please remember these wise words from Charlie Slimecicle.

Listen, I often don't follow people back for a lot of reasons, from stuff that squicks me out, to being overwhelmed, just forgetting, or anything in between. And there's a lot of importance placed on moots on this site, but if I see you regularly in my notifs, if you chat with me, leave comments in reblogs, you're a Tumblr friend To Me. Even if you just like a bunch of stuff I reblog now and then, seeing your icon makes me smile. Just giving everyone who hangs around and puts up with my insanity a big, giant hug

Guys, I’ve read the Wild Robot

And let me tell you, if I hadn’t recently taken a Children’s Literature class in college, I would’ve said this was the best middle-grade book I’ve read since elementary/middle school. I almost read this book in one night (I was sleepy 😴) like I couldn’t put it down.

The heart behind this book is astounding and it never shies away from showing complex and difficult concepts. You will fall in love with Roz and her gosling son along with all of the other animal on the island.

If you’ve got younger ones, I highly recommend reading this to them or having a little book club moment with them. However, be prepared for whatever hard questions may come your way (i.e. circle of life and climate issues). You know your child and how much they can handle/understand. If you’re like me and much older, it’s a quick read and a great way to finish off a long day. It’s a part of a trilogy and you bet I’m patiently waiting for my hold on a copy at the library.

If the movie is anything like the book (which, given a rewatch of the trailer, it’s looking like so), we are in for a special treat.

Luckily the "what if the SHARK impregnated our ray???" seems to be dying down and bigger news organizations have the corrected information in their articles, but I wanted to share this great blog post by marine conservation biologist David Shiffman that covers both the cool actual science that got overshadowed while actually calling out the facility for how unscientifically they handled it and for the fact that they doubled down (esp since newer media they've put out is softly backtracking and it looks like they're attempting to play it off as a joke that the news misreported. Nope. They put the idea out there like it was as possible as parthenogenesis while calling themselves scientists at a "shark lab")

From the conclusion:

Unfortunately, poor handling of this story has made it likely that we are on track for another year where the most-shared news story about a shark or ray is pseudoscientific nonsense, rather than about their dire conservation needs, their importance to marine and coastal ecosystems, or amazing new discoveries about them. As a longtime supporter of zoos and aquariums and the roles they play in public science education, I am especially troubled by some of the public-facing communications here. If your goal is sharing knowledge with the public, there’s value in gaining accurate knowledge about the subject yourself first. Sharing wrong facts is not “raising awareness” or educating the public, and falsely claiming “anything is possible, don’t trust the experts” is, to put it mildly, not helping the ocean.

It's a great article to drop in if the "omg shark/ray babies???" keeps spreading. Or if you just enjoy niche science drama. The aquarium world doesn't get much of that

The scent of pine trees by Helena Burgerhout on Flickr.

Everyday I think about Penelope Everpetal and feel like ripping my hair out

I know what this probably means is that whatever race/species Valax is, it's taller than humans. However. I choose to believe they just canonized Mal as a short king

Mark Peter Drolet

SORRY ABOUT THE SPAM I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY DASH

ok genuinely i did not even notice a spam because i get notes with enough regularity that even after you've sent this and i went to look you're still broken up by other things on the activity page and it does not look like a spam

i love blocking people over trivial and petty shit i love blocking people who are even slightly annoying on my posts i love not giving people a second chance and blocking them immediately without a care in the world <3 <3 <3 10/10 would totally recommend