autumndragons

[autumndragons]

A Rare Sight

An Ethiopian wolf sits among purple flowers in Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains National Park.

by Axel Gomille

Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award

#pics #canine #wolf #ethiopian wolf #beautiful

[autumndragons]

#pics #comic #yeah

[autumndragons]

Having to chant “let them pray” while building a wall around people who are praying is truly terrifying for 2024

#vids #current events #yeah why not violate the ENTIRE damn first amendment all at once #bless the people who had the courage to pray and bless the people who had the courage to protect them

[autumndragons]

a post-doc was doing a guest seminar at my institute and at the beginning of his presentation he was explaining why he chose birds for his evolutionary analysis - so he said "well first of all, because birds are the best and most interesting animals and it's fun to study them" and a few professors in the room gave him a very serious nod

#txts #ME #MEEEEE !!

[autumndragons]

my brain produced the phrase “can’t get a moment of homoerotic peace” the other day and now i can’t stop saying it

#txts #ME

[autumndragons]

#pics #i love tumblr

[autumndragons]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

#txts #dungeon meshi #dunmeta #long post #extremely good post. no notes #ive kinda stopped looking at replies on kabru posts on twitter :') #i swear to god can people learn to be normal (also kinda looking at ffxiv here tbh.)

[autumndragons]

Sometimes people demand you justify being an atheist with a 200 page well-sourced thesis on biblical scholarship but one of the reasons I am not a Christian anymore is so fucking simple. It made my life worse. It made me unhealthy mentally. I’ve grown one thousand times more as a person without it. If it were really the one true wisdom from an all knowing infinite god, it would make my life better. And that’s enough proof for me. And it’s a valid reason.

#txts #religion #if it sucks hit da bricks

[autumndragons]

#vids #bird #european robin #very roundie.......... #this is my favourite video on planet earth

[autumndragons]

Algonquin Provincial Park, Canada by Marian Dragiev

#pics #nature #lake #fog

[autumndragons]

"A real loser is someone who's so afraid of not winning he doesn't even try." Little Miss Sunshine (2006) Dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris Movies watched in 2024

#pics #little miss sunshine #gooooood i need to rewatch this.. #flashing gif

[autumndragons]

what is your holy trinity of fruits

#txts #reblog and tag #apple blueberry pear

[autumndragons]

2007

#pics #nature #abandoned

[autumndragons]

ok so like. imagine. you're a high-ranking government official and one of your colleagues has announced his decision to step down and retire, and named his successor, so you and your coworker-bestie-husband(™️) go on an official administrative business trip to go meet said guy. and then you arrive and you find A Cat in the bushes outside the office. it's in poor shape but its microchip says it actually belongs to your other colleague-and-friend. you are bullied into taking the cat to the vet AND letting it tag along despite your protests. and you finally find the guy you were supposed to meet and the cat is like. staying in the room. where you are supposed to conduct aforementioned highly confidential job interview. and you try to shoo it away but the guy you're trying to interview is like No i want the cat to be there. Because i'm nervous. About the job interview. Let the cat stay. I trust him because my pet bird loves him :). so the cat gets to stay. and then you keep going and you bump into yet another old acquaintance of yours (now retired and living her best hippie life) (which is highly frowned upon) and she goes Oooooh! Is that my cat you've found? :) and you're like, what the fuck is the deal with this goddamn cat, but you can't say that outright because you are a government official on a very important mission, so you go "i wasn't aware you even had a cat? also the microchip says it belongs to our other colleague" and she goes "oh well no i don't but clearly this cat is wearing the collar i give to all my pets so it must mean he's come from the future :) where i will own this specific cat :) hi little kitty! pspspsp!" and you're like, what the fuck is wrong with everyone today? and then the cat looks at you and says "she's right. i come from the future. where everyone has been turned into cats since the world ended. also i will kill you in about twelve thousand years from now. fucker."

#txts #ffxiv #and its one of the most heartwrenching parts of the story #i love finaled fantasy fourteen

[autumndragons]

I don't want to put this person on blast or make them publicly defensive, but dropping in someone's ask a request to provide "lgbt verification" is certainly a hell of an entitled thing to do - not to mention, what form of ID would A) you accept, and B) not be creepy as fuck especially in today's social context?

Maybe sit with why you feel the need to be the one to say "Papers, please?" Maybe I'm not going to hand over personal details, thoughts, feelings to a rando in my inbox whose motivations I can't trust or verify?

Politely, firmly, no - and no one should ask that.

#txts #extremely good post #but also thank you for reminding me to renew my regular id so i can vote soon

[autumndragons]

IMO you can't say anything coherent about most US-based right wing conspiracy theories without understanding how seriously the diehards in these movements believe in The Devil

the obvious question, "who benefits from maintaining this elaborate lie," does not stop people like Flat Earthers because many of them are young earth creationists who believe in powerful spiritual forces whose only goals are

1. convincing people that Christianity isn't true

2. the proliferation of largely symbolic Evil, which they enjoy tricking you into supporting

"tricking" people into believing the earth is round is enough of a goal for The Devil to go to all that trouble. if people don't believe in God's perfect little flat earth then they're also free to believe in things like evolution and the big bang

practicality and material concerns are usually irrelevant. the lie is worth maintaining because The Devil has near unlimited time, resources, and human servants, and his top priority is Getting You

#txts #christianity hate blog

[autumndragons]

I have … a tip.

If you’re writing something that involves an aspect of life that you have not experienced, you obviously have to do research on it. You have to find other examples of it in order to accurately incorporate it into your story realistically.

But don’t just look at professional write ups. Don’t stop at wikepedia or webMD. Look up first person accounts.

I wrote a fic once where a character has frequent seizures. Naturally, I was all over the wikipedia page for seizures, the related pages, other medical websites, etc.

But I also looked at Yahoo asks where people where asking more obscure questions, sometimes asked by people who were experiencing seizures, sometimes answered by people who have had seizures.

I looked to YouTube. Found a few individual videos of people detailing how their seizures usually played out. So found a few channels that were mostly dedicated to displaying the daily habits of someone who was epileptic.

I looked at blogs and articles written by people who have had seizures regularly for as long as they can remember. But I also read the frantic posts from people who were newly diagnosed or had only had one and were worried about another.

When I wrote that fic, I got a comment from someone saying that I had touched upon aspects of movement disorders that they had never seen portrayed in media and that they had found representation in my art that they just never had before. And I think it’s because of the details. The little things.

The wiki page for seizures tells you the technicalities of it all, the terminology. It tells you what can cause them and what the symptoms are. It tells you how to deal with them, how to prevent them.

But it doesn’t tell you how some people with seizures are wary of holding sharp objects or hot liquids. It doesn’t tell you how epileptics feel when they’ve just found out that they’re prone to fits. It doesn’t tell you how their friends and family react to the news.

This applies to any and all writing. And any and all subjects. Disabilities. Sexualities. Ethnicities. Cultures. Professions. Hobbies. Traumas. If you haven’t experienced something first hand, talk to people that have. Listen to people that have. Don’t stop at the scholarly sources. They don’t always have all that you need.

#txts #this is extremely real #been writing a new oc that experienced total vision loss as a child #finding specific accounts for TOTAL loss and after birth has been hard #but very informative