it took me a long time to realize that when Harrow said “death first to vultures and scavengers” in Gideon the Ninth she was referring to, like, vile opportunists. bc i read that line and was like :/ why do the vultures and scavengers need to die :/ they’re just little guys :// important to the ecosystem :/ not hurting anyone!! you’re gonna kill the helpful little guys first?? what is Harrow trying to say here, idgi

but i forgot that not everyone might have such positive associations with. vultures

dream from several days ago

Various ways in which I have underestimated my chickens (callout post to myself):

cognitive abilities (memory): I dropped some pasta while making a salad earlier and Louise was nearby so I opened the door and invited her into the kitchen to come clean up. At first she just meandered round the room glaring suspiciously at furniture because she's unfamiliar with the inside of my house, then I helped her locate the pasta and she pounced, but before she could eat all of them Morille came zooming across the room with Pandolf zooming behind her, which freaked out the hen who noisily flew-ran out of the room. She stayed away long enough that when I called her inside again I expected her to have forgotten all about the pasta, and that I would have to show it to her again, but instead she went straight for it, resolutely, having clearly kept this important goal in a corner of her teeny tiny mind this whole time.

hunting abilities: before getting chickens I didn't realise they actually hunted? (sometimes.) I pictured their search for food as quiet foraging, busily scratching the dirt for worms, but a) hens are never quiet they're always chattering to each other so already that part was wrong; b) when they find a worthy prey they hunt it with the fierce determination of a mountain lion. I once saw Dru chasing a grasshopper across half the pasture, running at full chicken speed and sometimes boosting herself with her wings Mario kart-style while the grasshopper desperately hopped for its life, until eventually she pounced with her beak wide open and managed to catch it mid-jump. With an action movie soundtrack this scene would have been every bit as intense and gripping as a cheetah hunting a gazelle in a wildlife documentary.

social abilities (empathy): one time Cordélia had a little bit of grass stuck in her eye and she kept rubbing her head with her claw to try and dislodge it unsuccessfully, and then she seemingly asked Dru for help, placing her face very close to the other hen's face like "see that stupid twig?" and Dru removed it with her beak. Again that's not something I would have expected from a hen... they're very disloyal creatures, so it was fascinating to see. They would stab their grandma for a dusty rigatoni but leaving a friend with something stuck in her eye is apparently a level of antisocial even chickens won't cross.

social abilities pt.2 (romantic sensibility): sometimes when the night sky is clear and you can see the Milky Way, instead of tucking themselves in at sundown like they usually do, they'll fly to the roof of their coop and sit there for a little while to watch the stars together. Okay this one may be a tiny bit less scientific an observation than the others but I don't have an explanation for this behaviour; I've never noticed anything wrong with their coop on these particular nights, the door is open, they can go in—and the girls don't seem stressed at all, if anything they look like they're having a nice peaceful moment and I feel bad for bothering them.

If you super jump next to me, I’d rather die than allow you to receive an onslaught of ink by the enemy team

I literally dont know how to continue explaining to people that part of the reason Goku decided to stay dead was because Gohan hated fighting.

He didnt know this until cell. He literally had no idea. Gohan NEVER gave any indication whatsoever. Couple that with the fact Bulma pointed out most of people threatening the Earth during that point in time were all people wanting Goku. The saiyans. Frieza. The androids. Doctor Gero. Cell.

All because of Goku. Its not his fault but his very existence consistently put the Earth in danger. He truly believed Earth would be safer without him and therefore, gohan wouldnt be consistently placed into battle.

Because Goku didnt know gohan hated fighting. But once he knew came the very interwoven nature of these threats he brought making his own son fight because gohan felt he HAD to. Not because he wanted to. For goku, protecting the earth always aligned with his own love for fighting. But gohan fought out of necessity, out of the very idea that they couldnt afford to do it without him. He has this power he didnt ask for so he must use it right? Because it would be selfish if he didnt.

But goku... goku thought gohan was like him. Gohan WANTED to return to help fight vegeta. He WANTED to go to namek. He WANTED to stay and fight after piccolo almost died to frieza. Goku didnt see gohan train that first year. Didnt witness what it took to make gohan a fighter. All he saw was his son who now was strong and wanted to join the fight like his dad. And he knows gohan is more powerful than them, knows he can stop cell, FELT IT. Gohan has to defeat cell because no one else can. So he thinks if gohan gets angry enough fighting cell, itll be the answer. Because thats how its always been for goku. And in thirty seconds piccolo makes him realize he's wrong. He doesnt argue back, he listens and concedes and realizes that piccolo is right. And suddenly goku wants to abandon his plan and stop the fight. He made a mistake. He intends to get gohan out. And in the end, he still ended up being right, but it doesnt change what goku now knows. Gohan isnt like him and he doesnt enjoy fighting.

Goku would have NEVER made gohan fight if he thought he didnt want to. You know this whenever adult gohan gets involved in a fight and goku apologizes that he had to. Or when someone suggests gohan for a battle and goku is like nah he's "out of practice," even when they have time FOR PRACTICE. He never wants to force gohan into a situation like cell again. Because cell was a mistake and goku has learned from it. So he never asks Gohan to fight anymore. If Gohan wants in then of course he's in. But he wants his son to be able to choose that. He wants gohan to be HAPPY and if thats not fighting then thats perfectly alright with goku.

So it wasnt just about keeping the earth safe. Or his friends. It was knowing that in the safety of gokus absence, gohan wouldnt have to fight either. There would be less threats, less chances of his son being forced into battle. And sure he also trusted that gohan and the others could keep the earth safe if they had to, but he was banking on the threat level significantly decreasing instead.

And decrease it did. They had seven whole years of peace. Not a single threat. Meanwhile from the moment Raditz shows up to gokus death to cell, it all takes place within the span of FIVE YEARS. The longest they went without a threat was the three year gap spent training for the androids. And they spent every waking moment knowing they were coming.

And then if you look at trunks future... majority of the human population being wiped out by the androids. Majority of gokus friends. His son. All dead. Because of him. Because he defeated the red ribbon army when he was a child. And that very easily could have been their future as well. So Goku does his job in preventing that. He saves all of them. And if hes the only one who ends up dead, well... it doesnt matter. Because they aren't. And he intends to keep it that way. So he stays in otherworld, to keep them safe and to give his son a future that he can choose. If Gohan has to fight, then he can. But at least his father wouldnt be the one bringing the threats to his door.

Just saw someone say that Geo is "annoyingly clingy" and that Cole's character is completely different???? They said/implied Cole should've just abandoned the Finders to go look for the Ninja???????? Bitch are we talking about the same Cole????

I miss people using non-medicalized terms for other people's passions

like. well and good to talk about "hyperfixations," "special interests [in the context of an autistic person's favorite subject]," or "infodumping" if you have ADD/ADHD or autism, or are talking about someone who is, but...that's not everyone who feels strongly about something, obsesses, or loves talking about their interests. those words mean specific things, associated with specific forms of neurodivergence

don't assume everyone is comfortable with that language

"rambling" is a word; so is "ranting." "obsession" is a word. "passion" is a word. learn them and use them

People are so boring about classic literature sometimes. Like I know it’s cool to be critical of men in books from the 19th century or whatever but it just leads to ripping out all of the nuance in favor of “Uh all of the Brontë men were evil and abusive and that’s all there is to those characters.” Say something interesting. I’m begging you

I went onto the Lestappen tag and it’s filled with someone having to explain that these two aren’t PR. I don’t get how people think Charles and Max ARE PR? In no way-shape-or form would Redbull and Ferrari willingly force their number 1 drivers to talk to each other, let alone be friends.

The two have a karting history together, just like the rest of the grid. It doesn’t take a fucking army to realize they can be friends, they are allowed to be human beings.

Those two are far from PR.

walks in the woods

the power of friendship wins!

When other people I knew in grad school read Kathy Acker’s books they were shocked. Appalled. Particularly most of the budding young feminists. I actually began weeding out women friends by their reactions to her books. The ones that smiled and lowered their eyes with sly understanding and touched themselves, I kept. The ones that freaked out, well, they were idiots. Once I read a paragraph from Empire of the Senseless in my theory of gender class and one of the women began to cry and ran out and barfed. No shit. Pussy, I thought.

—Lidia Yuknavitch, from The Chronology of Water

A lot of people assume that almost all superheroes fit a standard of having masked (literally or metaphorically) hero identities and separate civilian identities they keep stringently secret. In reality, the identity management across the DCU is wide and varied and includes:

The classic: people who grew up as regular civilians, and later took on masked identities, hiding the connection between the two (e.g. most Bats)

As above, except minus the mask, with such seeming forthrightness heroes that no one realizes they even have a secret identity too (e.g. Clark/Superman)

Characters who once had secret identities, until those identities got revealed and they could no longer have any secrecy (e.g. Cassie/Wonder Girl)

Characters who have civilian identities and hero identities, but make no effort to hide that they’re the same person (e.g. Dinah/Black Canary)

Heroes who have fully abandoned any pretense of duel identity at all and literally just use their own name for heroing (e.g. Donna Troy)

Characters who can’t have secret identities, because their identity is blatantly obvious on first sight (e.g. Vic/Cyborg, Kory/Starfire)

Characters whose “hero name” is actually their real name--often because they’re not from earth--and for whom the dichotomy of “adopted hero identity and real civilian identity” just wouldn’t make sense (e.g. og Raven)

As above, but they later create a secret civilian alias to live as, which may or may not become more than an alias (e.g. Raven as “Rachel Roth”, Diana/Wonder Woman as “Diana Prince”, Kon-el/Superboy as “Conner Kent”)

Characters who are just really, really bad about keeping their secret identity secret and might not even care (e.g. just. all of the Arrows)

I hate to be the one to break this to some of you, but the most perfectly passing trans man you know, still has to go to the doctor.

coroner voice the short stories got her

(I have received... several invitations. I do not think they're seriously expecting us, but it would be rude not to attend, right?)

granby + iskierka + keynes