Never understood the collective vehement resentment of small talk lol i hate the painful grind of small talk as much as the next person but i think id rather shrivel up and die than be denied nuggets of joy found in standing in an elevator and having a middle aged woman compliment my nails or bonding fleetingly with a cafegoer over the city's temperamental weather it's so integral to nurturing & cultivating the soul i think
devotional moodboard for Hestia, goddess of the hearth
In thee the Gods have fixed their dwelling place; strong, stable basis of the mortal race. Eternal, much formed, ever florid queen, laughing and blessed, and of lovely mien.
It *is* a problem that charismatic species are often focused on for conservation at the expense of less charismatic but important species, but threatened species that are the subject of a lot of public outreach and education are also typically strategically selected.
I suspect that monarch butterflies are an example of this. Milkweed is a highly valuable plant for pollinators and a host plant for like. 400+ insect species. Getting people to plant it to save monarchs is funny because you're essentially finessing people into saving a ton of other insects that they wouldn't ordinarily care about
If people were too mean to you when you were growing up, a newborn animal will materialize inside your brain and it’s so so scared and shivering and it will stay there for years. Decades, even. And whenever you say something kind of weird but true to your heart the animal will tell you “Noo! You can’t say that! If you say that, everyone will hate you!”. The animal means well. It’s so so small and everything is so scary for them and it’s just trying to protect you. But listen to me. Listen to me. Whenever this happens, you can’t do what the animal says. You can’t. If you do, you’ll become as scared as the animal. You have to keep saying weird shit. You have to keep doing things the animal wouldn’t approve of. If you do enough things that scare the animal, maybe one day it’ll go to sleep.
Since the OP made their post unrebloggable (and blocked me. Both actions they are well in with their right to do)
I'm going to make my response it's own post because I think the point is important
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As someone who is autistic and has BPD and CPTSD and loads of trauma yes you sometimes need to change how you interact with others to keep people around
When I was 13 I hit the few friends I had when I was angry
I had to change that in order to keep those friendships
When I was in my early 20s if I was losing an disagreement with my husband I would threaten to kill myself. My husband told me it hurt him and was cruel and manipulative behaviour, because it was.
So I worked hard to change that to keep my relationship
It's easy to say "I shouldn't have to change for others" and that's true to an extent. You shouldn't change your interests or passions or dim your light. And you should have space to be imperfect and flawed and not have to pretend your ugly bits aren't real. But if something you are doing it causing other people harm you kinda need to change that.
That's called "living in a society"
People adapt to each other and make space for each other in their lives. You adapt to them and they adapt to you
You start being more diligent about throwing away the empty toilet roll because it really bothers them. They start warning you before they run the blender because you hate loud noises
I stopped threatening to kill myself because I was mad I was losing an argument and my husband stopped being so vocally judgemental amount media he personally dislikes
There is a certain type of person who heard the phrase "your emotions are valid" and took that to mean "my emotional reactions and my behaviour are always objectively correct because my emotions are valid and if you have an emotional response or react to what I'm doing negatively then you are wrong and you can't be hurt because my emotions are valid"
And that's a recipe for disaster
Your emotions are valid to feel. They are how you feel and there are reasons you feel the way you do
However, your reactions and behaviour are something you can learn to control and can be irrational
We live in a society and we as people change each other as we interact and that isn't necessarily a bad thing
A kestrel seeks revenge on a European Starling after it kills and eats her chicks. In the U.S, European starlings have a devastating impact on our native ecosystems in the entire United States. This species is known for their aggression towards other cavity nesting birds, outcompeting native species for nesting spots and food sources. They’ve been known to kill many native species from bluebirds, to woodpeckers, to kestrels. They are violent towards competing species, destroying their nests, and pecking holes in eggs laid by other birds. Not to mention, they also destroy crops and devour multitudes of grain each year.
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I wanted to portray something intense to kind of grab people’s attention to this problem. Most people don’t know how horribly invasive they are. While they’re pretty birds, they’re not meant to live in the United States. I wanted to use colors like red (to represent anger, sadness, revenge, betrayal) to portray what native species have to endure every year towards a bird that was never supposed to even come in contact with them. And colors like yellow (to represent wrongfully perceived innocence and guilt).
The spills of blood can be represented as the successful revenge the kestrel has, or, the multitudes of blood spilled from native species by European Starlings.
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Did you know? All the European Starlings in North America descended from 100 birds set loose in New York’s Central Park in the early 1890s. The birds were intentionally released by a group who wanted America to have all the birds that Shakespeare ever mentioned. It took several tries, but eventually the population took off. Today, more than 200 million European Starlings range from Alaska to Mexico.
Spent the last week or so finding the perfect gradient of sharpies to color the edges of one of my tarot decks in a rainbow. I think it came out pretty damn good if I do say so myself lol