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i-eat-mass-blog · 1 month

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everytime someone says "mcr isn't emo" an angel loses its wings

#mcr #my chemical romance #emo #emo pop #they're literally emo pop omfg #emo pop is still emo #its literally just a fusion genre of emo and pop punk is it that hard to understand #they literally only denied being emo due to emo being labeled as “dangerous” by news headlines and associating their music as dangerous #you can literally find this info on wikipedia

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skaldish · 1 year

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If I may, I must make the gentle request that people consult Wikipedia for basic information about anything.

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but more and more people coming to me saying they can’t find info about [noun], when googling it yields its Wikipedia entry on the first page.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll gladly say it again: You can trust Wikipedia for general information. The reason why it’s unreliable for academic citations is because it’s a living, changing document. It’s also written by anonymous authors, and author reputation is critical for research paper integrity.

But for learning the basics of what something is? Wikipedia is your friend. I love Wikipedia. I use it all the time for literally anything and everything, and it’s a huge reason why I know so much about things and stuff.

Please try going there first, and then come to me with questions it doesn’t answer for you.

#zan speaks #/nm #mostly just anxious about life and trying to make things easier for myself

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

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qqueenofhades · 6 months

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Hello! This is kind of a weird ask, I'm sorry to bother you, but seeing as you're a very intelligent studied historian that I deeply respect, I was hoping you could offer some advice? Or like, things i could read? Lately, i feel like my critical thinking skills are emaciated and its scaring the shit out of me. I feel very slow and like I'm constantly missing important info in relation to news/history/social activism stuff. Thats so vague, sorry, but like any tips on how i can do better?

Aha, thank you. There was recently a good critical-thinking infograph on my dash, so obviously I thought I remembered who reblogged it and checked their blog, it wasn't them, thought it was someone else, checked their blog, it also wasn't them, and now I can't find it to link to. Alas. But I will try to sum up its main points and add a few of my own. I'm glad you're taking the initiative to work on this for yourself, and I will add that while it can seem difficult and overwhelming to sort through the mass of information, especially often-false, deliberately misleading, or otherwise bad information, there are a few tips to help you make some headway, and it's a skill that like any other skill, gets easier with practice. So yes.

The first and most general rule of thumb I would advise is the same thing that IT/computer people tell you about scam emails. If something is written in a way that induces urgency, panic, the feeling that you need to do something RIGHT NOW, or other guilt-tripping or anxiety-inducing language, it is -- to say the least -- questionable. This goes double if it's from anonymous unsourced accounts on social media, is topically or thematically related to a major crisis, or anything else. The intent is to create a panic response in you that overrides your critical faculties, your desire to do some basic Googling or double-checking or independent verification of its claims, and makes you think that you have to SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE NOW or you are personally and morally a bad person. Unfortunately, the world is complicated, issues and responses are complicated, and anyone insisting that there is Only One Solution and it's conveniently the one they're peddling should not be trusted. We used to laugh at parents and grandparents for naively forwarding or responding to obviously scam emails, but now young people are doing the exact same thing by blasting people with completely sourceless social media tweets, clips, and other manipulative BS that is intended to appeal to an emotional gut rather than an intellectual response. When you panic or feel negative emotions (anger, fear, grief, etc) you're more likely to act on something or share questionable information without thinking.

Likewise, you do have basic Internet literacy tools at your disposal. You can just throw a few keywords into Google or Wikipedia and see what comes up. Is any major news organization reporting on this? Is it obviously verifiable as a fake (see the disaster pictures of sharks swimming on highways that get shared after every hurricane)? Can you right-click, perform a reverse image search, and see if this is, for example, a picture from an unrelated war ten years ago instead of an up-to-date image of the current conflict? Especially with the ongoing Israel/Palestine imbroglio, we have people sharing propaganda (particularly Hamas propaganda) BY THE BUCKETLOAD and masquerading it as legitimate news organizations (tip: Quds News Network is literally the Hamas channel). This includes other scuzzy dirtbag-left websites like Grayzone and The Intercept, which often have implicit or explicit links to Russian-funded disinformation campaigns and other demoralizing or disrupting fake news that is deliberately designed to turn young left-leaning Westerners against the Democrats and other liberal political parties, which enables the electoral victory of the fascist far-right and feeds Putin's geopolitical and military aims. Likewise, half of our problems would be solved if tankies weren't so eager to gulp down and propagate anything "anti-Western" and thus amplify the Russian disinformation machine in a way even the Russians themselves sometimes struggle to do, but yeah. That relates to both Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine.

Basically: TikTok, Twitter/X, Tumblr itself, and other platforms are absolutely RIFE with misinformation, and this is due partly to ownership (the Chinese government and Elon Fucking Musk have literally no goddamn reason whatsoever to build an unbiased algorithm, and have been repeatedly proven to be boosting bullshit that supports their particular worldviews) and partly due to the way in which the young Western left has paralyzed itself into hypocritical moral absolutes and pseudo-revolutionary ideology (which is only against the West itself and doesn't think that the rest of the world has agency to act or think for itself outside the West's influence, They Are Very Smart and Anti-Colonialist!) A lot of "information" in left-leaning social media spaces is therefore tainted by this perspective and often relies on flat-out, brazen, easily disprovable lies (like the popular Twitter account insisting that Biden could literally just overturn the Supreme Court if he really wanted to). Not all misinformation is that easy to spot, but with a severe lack of political, historical, civic, or social education (since it's become so polarized and school districts generally steer away from it or teach the watered-down version for fear of being attacked by Moms for Liberty or similar), it is quickly and easily passed along by people wanting trite and simplistic solutions for complex problems or who think the extent of social justice is posting the Right Opinions on social media.

As I said above, everything in the world is complicated and has multiple factors, different influences, possible solutions, involved actors, and external and internal causes. For the most part, if you're encountering anything that insists there's only one shiningly righteous answer (which conveniently is the one All Good and Moral People support!) and the other side is utterly and even demonically in the wrong, that is something that immediately needs a closer look and healthy skepticism. How was this situation created? Who has an interest in either maintaining the status quo, discouraging any change, or insisting that there's only one way to engage with/think about this issue? Who is being harmed and who is being helped by this rhetoric, including and especially when you yourself are encouraged to immediately spread it without criticism or cross-checking? Does it rely on obvious lies, ideological misinformation, or something designed to make you feel the aforementioned negative emotions? Is it independently corroborated? Where is it sourced from? When you put the author's name into Google, what comes up?

Also, I think it's important to add that as a result, it's simply not possible to distill complicated information into a few bite-sized and easily digestible social media chunks. If something is difficult to understand, that means you probably need to spend more time reading about it and encountering diverse perspectives, and that is research and work that has to take place primarily not on social media. You can ask for help and resources (such as you're doing right now, which I think is great!), but you can't use it as your chief or only source of information. You can and should obviously be aware of the limitations and biases of traditional media, but often that has turned into the conspiracy-theory "they never report on what's REALLY GOING ON, the only information you can trust is random anonymous social media accounts managed by God knows who." Traditional media, for better or worse, does have certain evidentiary standards, photographing, sourcing, and verifying requirements, and other ways to confirm that what they're writing about actually has some correspondence with reality. Yes, you need to be skeptical, but you can also trust that some of the initial legwork of verification has been done for you, and you can then move to more nuanced review, such as wording, presentation of perspective, who they're interviewing, any journalistic assumptions, any organizational shortcomings, etc.

Once again: there is a shit-ton of stuff out there, it is hard to instinctively know or understand how to engage with it, and it's okay if you don't automatically "get" everything you read. That's where the principle of actually taking the time to be informed comes in, and why you have to firmly divorce yourself from the notion that being socially aware or informed means just instantly posting or sharing on social media about the crisis of the week, especially if you didn't know anything about it beforehand and are just relying on the Leftist Groupthink to tell you how you should be reacting. Because things are complicated and dangerous, they take more effort to unpick than just instantly sharing a meme or random Twitter video or whatever. If you do in fact want to talk about these things constructively, and not just because you feel like you're peer-pressured into doing so and performing the Correct Opinions, then you will in fact need to spend non-social-media time and effort in learning about them.

If you're at a university, there are often subject catalogues, reference librarians, and other built-in tools that are there for you to use and which you SHOULD use (that's your tuition money, after all). That can help you identify trustworthy information sources and research best practices, and as you do that more often, it will help you have more of a feel for things when you encounter them in the wild. It's not easy at first, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes more so, and will make you more confident in your own judgments, beliefs, and values. That way when you encounter something that you KNOW is wrong, you won't be automatically pressured to share it just to fit in, because you will be able to tell yourself what the problems are.

Good luck!

#coffeeandcoyotes #ask #school stuff #critical thinking

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foone · 29 days

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weird thought: I think if I was a teenager now (or anytime in the last decade or so) I think I would have written (and read!) a lot more fanfic than I did in reality, where I was a teenager in the 90s.

See, I've never been hugely into fanfic. Never had anything against it exactly, but it just wasn't something I was into. But I think that has to do with an interesting combination of how my brain works and what time I was first really getting into being a fan.

I've got a "librarian" brain (I'm literally typing this from within a library, WHERE I WORK). It wants to know things like "what are all the works in this series/by this creator?" and "are they all accessible?" and "what info is available about how it was made?"

I'm the kind of person who will watch a show then go look it up on wikipedia to see how many seasons it has, who made it, if they're still making it, check tvtropes for any more info, etc. Or I hear a song I like by a band I've never heard of, so I go listen to their entire discography while researching them. I just focus on things I'm into that way, you know? I don't half-ass my interest. (this is probably related to my autism, of course)

So what does this have to do with fanfic? like, do I go read some fanfics as part of this process? No, and I think the reason for it is when I specifically first got into fandom, as a teen.

See, this sort of fandom-librarian was harder to do in 1997, you know? You couldn't just pull up the wikipedia for that new show and see how many episodes it had. You also couldn't just listen to the whole discography of that band! Forget Spotify or Google Music, even Napster didn't exist yet.

So my interest in fandom focused a lot more on very basic questions: How many episodes/albums/books/whatever are there? Where can I see/hear them all? Like, I remember getting excited because I found some fan magazine that had a list of all the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. Just a list! Not even descriptions or anything. I finally could take that list and see how many I'd seen, so I'd know when I saw them all in late-night reruns.

So I'm focusing on these very basic parts of being a fandom-librarian and I stumble across some fanfic. I'm like "oh, is this a transcript of an episode I haven't seen yet?" and I realize it's not, it's a story written by a fan, and I get a knee-jerk reaction of "that's not helpful to my quest to know and find all the episodes". It's like I am on a quest for the holy grail and I found a fake cup. It's not helpful to me, and at worst it's a distraction from my goal.

And the thing is, I think the fact I had that reaction is entirely due to the time and situation in which I first encountered fanfic. It was in that environment of "I can't even find a list of the episodes, let alone a way to watch them all!" and that anxiety that colored my response to finding fanfic.

I think if I instead was first introduced to fanfic NOW, where those fandom-librarian drives aren't so difficult to fulfill, I'd be way more positive about fanfic. If I could get a list of episodes with a quick google search, and watch them easily on netflix/prime/whatever, I'd be less "THIS DOESN'T HELP! I AM STRUGGLING WITH THE BASICS HERE!" and more "yay, more content for the fandom I'm obsessed with!"

Like I said, I'm not anti-fanfic, I never have been, I just never got into it. From the beginning I had this reaction that was "this is not useful" and I never developed any real interest in it. Which is a shame, honestly. Fanfic is great. It just never became one of my interests, and while I've written it and read it from time to time, I imagine I'd be way more into it if I didn't have the weird reaction to it due to the worries of the time in which I first encountered it.

I don't know how many other people have brains that work anything like mine, but if they exist, I'm glad they're now growing up in a world where they won't have these problems. They can get into fanfic without this weird baggage caused by a lack of information.

#fanfic meta

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wynought · 6 months

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since i haven't seen it being pointed out before

all of the first stoats' names essentially mean "light"

kiran is of sanskrit origin meaning "ray of light" (and, according to wikipedia, an explicitly unisex name), uri is a hebrew name meaning "my light", hester is a variant of the name esther (of biblical/jewish origin) which comes from the same old persian root as the word "star", and, while i didn't find any particularly reliable source, various babyname websites at least seem to agree that jomei is a japanese name meaning "spread light"

additionally, their names seem to correlate with their purpose/position in last bast:

jomei is the speaker, they are in charge of propaganda - quite literally spreading the belief system and worldview of the first stoats aka the Light. it feels like this name is extremely straightforward in its meaning, but i was also unable to find much else on it, so there may be some additional hidden truth that i'm missing so far.

hester is the silence (the one with the gas mask missing their lower jaw and tongue) and their sphere of influence is secrets. now, i'm no religious scholar, and i have all of my information from quite literally the introductory paragraphs of the wikipedia article on the name esther. however, it seems that queen esther only took this name after ascending to the throne of persia to hide her true identity. this is reflected in the hebrew root of the name esther translating into "hide"/"conceal". (i am unable to provide more info on this, but anybody with a working understanding of how hebrew works and/or with more insight on the book of esther, feel free to interject/correct/add on to this)

uri is our beloved stoat pope. apparently, the name uri comes from the verb for "to shine" (to either be or to give light) and the mark of possession, resulting in the first connotation i mentioned earlier - "my light". this possessive marker, however, can also be interpreted as the name Yah which would be an abbreviation of YHWH - a marker of the divine, if you will. Therefore, Uri can also mean "Yah is my light", a very fitting name for the stoat whose department we only see called "faith".

i was unable to find a deeper meaning behind kiran's name, although to me "beam of light" feels very much like a name befitting the first stoats' leader. considering the way they commanded the wolf of theseus, it also seems to reflect the way their magic/their brand of control worked (their line of sight was part of how they controlled the wolf, indicating that was a key part of either their magic or the conditioning inflicted on the wolf - i'm partial towards the latter, considering how the wolf reacted to tula after she healed it). if anybody has anything more concrete to offer, though, i am all ears!

anyways, the first stoats' names are really cool, and we as a fandom don't talk enough about them because they died so fast. huge props to aabria for this fun bit of world building!

(disclaimer: as mentioned above, i have no background in theology or judaism, nor do i have any deeper knowledge of sanskrit, hindi, and indian mythology/folklore, nor japanese, and japanese mythology which would give me a deeper understanding of these names. my information comes from google and while i did try my best to verify the claims, i am fallible and happen to currently be very tired, so please correct me, if i made any mistakes!)

#burrow's end #d20 #burrow's end spoilers #d20 spoilers #f: d20 #f: burrow's end #c: kiran (be)#c: stoat pope uri (be)#c: the silence hester (be)#c: the speaker jomei (be)

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mrpsychokiller · 1 month

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i am actually so suspicious of this god damn moth post but i cant find any concrete evidence to prove theres something wrong with it other than my gut feeling and i feel insane

like of course first of all this post is from 2013 and im not really willing to believe any given post from 2013 is true specially when the post is this amazing coincidence of this person coincidentally finding those two coincidentally aesthetically pleasing moths and managing to get them coincidentally snuggling together for a picture. yknow. it does feel too weirdly good to be true

BUT SECONDLY im so weirded out by these two moths specifically.

ok bear with me. the little one is very obviously a rosy maple moth. (which is also coincidentally one of the most famous moths specifically for being pretty)

but im willing to believe any given english speaking tumblrgirl at the time could find one considering they live seemingly accross the united states and canada. fair enough

BUT my problem is the big one. of course everybody even in the notes seems to be classifying it as a luna moth (ALSO a famous moth species for being pretty) you can also feasibly find them in north america, ok.

theres also the point of their lifespans

luna moths as adults live only for about 7-10 days, and i had a harder time finding info for adult rosy maple moths but it seems its about the same

the source of this is an old article from someone actively breeding maple moths x but i believe its the same with moths in general, since they literally dont have mouths and cant eat so they just mate and die.

SO youre gonna have a small time span to find one. both moths are also mainly nocturnal, which makes even weirder that op found both of them during the day.

theres also the point of WHEN are they adults. aka maply moths seem to show from from may through the summer

luna moths though, seem to vary in when they show up depending on place. some do include late may or early june on northern regions, ans a generation in july in central states.

which means you could, feasibly, have a span of about a week or so in may, june or july where both maple moths and luna moths are adults and alive at the same time.

BUT THE POST IN QUESTION IS FROM APRIL 16

thats NOT when adult rosy maple moths show up, much less both of them.

though maybe im just being too pedandic with specific dates and theres margin for variation, but its, again, some real big coincidences

BUT FINALLY theres the fact im suspicious about this luna moth IN THE FIRST PLACE.

i might just be going actually crazy here, but for this we've been assuming the luna moth is the species that exists in north america (otherwise these two wouldnt be in the same place at all)

and like this is what the luna moth looks like

(pictures from wikipedia)

and you see how theyre kinda weird compared to the one in the pic.

the luna moths are mostly green, with much less of this pretty pastel pink of the one on the tumblr post. you could argue they have pink markings but in most pictures i see they seem more like a dark red/brown with a remarkable very thick marking on the wings

you see how the moth in the pic just looks kinda weird. but that can also be from filters or editing to make the photo prettier making the colors different.

(i also think the tail looks weirdly long, but there seems to be variation in the tail length in various luna moth pics ive seen, so i cant speak for sure about that)

(i also cant tell you whether the sizes in comparison to each other are right cause i suck at visualizing size comparisons and its not like theres any other pic on earth of the two together so.)

CONCLUSION: i dont fucking know. i spent an hour looking moths up online and didnt get any reasonable answer to my doubts. i guess in the end THERE is, even if small, a chance of you finding both these boths alive at the same time in the same place so i can fully discredit the op. i give up im going to have breakfast

#🧃

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

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The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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wanderingmind867 · 4 months

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Well, here's the start of my series on the family tree of the Greek Gods. Most of my info will be coming from whatever I find on wikipedia or through google, although I might throw in some of my own personal opinions and interpretations too (but feel free to reblog and add things if you feel I missed something):

The first three deities to come into existence were Chaos, Gaia and Tartarus. Or as Wikipedia calls them: The Void, The Earth and The Abyss.

Chaos then had two children, Erebus and Nyx. Erebus and Nyx are also husband and wife, so that's weird. But I suppose they were some of the only people in existence at that time, so they kind of had to rely on each other. From them, Erebus and Nyx would have many children of their own.

Together with Erebus, Nyx gives birth to Aether and Hemera. I wonder how mother and daughter got along, since Nyx and Hemera were literally the personifications of Night and Day. Maybe they're the reason we have that saying, huh?

Anyway, Nyx also gave birth on her own. Without any father, Nyx gives birth to many children. According to Wikipedia, her children included Thanatos and his twin brother Hypnos, Nemesis, Eris, Momus, Moros, Philotes, Geras, Oizys, Apate, Charon and The Fates. All of these were her children, which technically means Charon is older than his boss. Strange how things work out like that, huh? I guess seniority isn't really a concept amongst the gods.

Anyways, this is getting a bit long. So stay tuned for part 2, when I can hopefully turn away from Nyx and turn towards Gaia.

#percy jackson #rick riordan #greek mythology #pjo #pjo hoo toa #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo series #percy jackson series #my thoughts #riordan universe #riordan verse #riordanverse #heroes of olympus #hoo #greek gods #primordial gods #greek family tree

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best-element-poll · 4 months

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(the 2 most voted elements will continue onto round 2!)

More info about each element (and propaganda for the ones I like) under the cut. pleeeeeeeeease read some of them at least the one about francium

(disclaimer: these are based off short wikipedia reads and my crumbling high school chemistry knowledge. correct me if I'm wrong about anything.)

HYDROGEN: Hydrogen is the lightest element (consisting of only one proton and one electron). It is also the most abundant element in the universe, it's a gas (at room temperature) and it can explode. It's also quite representative of acids, having the (Arrhenius) definition of an acid straight up saying that it has to dissociate in water to form H+ ions. It's also quite an efficient fuel. Hydrogen is anywhere and Hydrogen is everywhere. If you like explosions, sour beverages, or acid in general, consider voting Hydrogen!

LITHIUM: Lithium, under standard conditions, is by far the least dense metal and the least dense solid element! You may primarily know him from your phone's Lithium-ion batteries. There are Lithium-based drugs used to treat mental illnesses. You can throw a block of lithium in water and it will make a really big explosion. The metal is soft and silvery. I'm running out of things to say about him. If you like batteries vote Lithium? (edit: just realised lithium is used for batteries, and batteries are connected to robotics and engineering. if you like robots and cool mechanical stuff vote lithium!)

SODIUM: You must know him from table salt. That's actually NaCl, his best known involvement. There are many more very important and very commonplace compounds that involve sodium, such as baking soda (NaHCO3) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) (that's probably the most famous base?). It's also very important to the human body (you shouldn't eat more than 2300mg a day). If you've ever used table salt or baking soda while cooking, consider voting Sodium!

POTASSIUM: Their name was based on the word potash, which was based on an early and easy way of obtaining potassium, from putting ash in a pot, adding water, heating, and evaporating the solution. It's used in a lot of fertilisers because it's an essential plant nutrient. It's also involved in a ton of important compounds: KOH (a strong base), KNO3 (often used as salt bridges in electrochemical cells), K2CrO7 (an oxidising agent often used in organic synthesis), and K2CrO4 (I don't know what this one does). If you have ever eaten food from fertilisers consider voting Potassium!

RUBIDIUM: Rubidium compounds are sometimes used in fireworks to give them a purple color. They've also got a cool name, based on the latin rubidius, for deep red (the color of its emission spectrum). I'll be real, I don't really know much about them beyond that, but that is one cool name. Vote for Rubidium if you like cool names.

CAESIUM: Caesium is used in the definition for a second, meaning that an entire SI unit is based on it! A second can be defined as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of microwave light absorbed or emitted by the hyperfine transition of caesium-133 atoms in their ground state undisturbed by external fields". It was also discovered from mineral water. Did you know that they had to use 44000 liters of water to find her? If you've ever experienced time or had a conception of it in terms of units, consider voting Caesium!!!

FRANCIUM!!!: Caesium... TWO! It's sad that no one will probably read this far but this is my favourite element in this poll. This element is characterised by instability. Her longest half-life is 22 minutes. Her entire existence was conjoint with Caesium before they discovered that she was her own element. She has never been seen. They literally never confirmed what color she is. She was born in a wet cardboard box all alone. Through the hands of different scientists, she was going to be named after Russia, Virginia, or Moldavia at different points in time. At one point the name catium was proposed (for "cation", since she was believed to be the most electropositive cation), but was rejected because it sounded like a cat element. Which is so fucking sad. We could've had cat element but we ended up with France element. That's right she's also named after France. Just tragic fascinating existence overall. Also isn't it just insane that her half-life is only 22 minutes? Dude, you don't get it, the most of her that's ever existed in one place is a mere 300000 atoms. She's here and she's gone. What the hell.

The charm of Francium can be summarised by the wise words of my good friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

#element poll #poll #round 1

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visualtaehyun · 6 months

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Hey, I just wanna know from where did you start learning thai? Also, what advice do you give to those who wanna start learning it

Hiya anon ✨

I'm not sure how much help I can be, considering I'm not doing a course or following an app or anything people usually do for language learning 🥴 I've been learning mostly by immersion tbh - I've been almost exclusively watching Thai series for over a year now, plus interviews, variety shows, youtube content, songs, so many songs lol, tweets, etc.

My personal learning approach is pretty loose and chaotic lmao but here goes:

1) The biggest hurdle for me was the script. Apart from already having started to notice recurring words being said in the Thai BLs I was watching at the time, I also wanted to be able to read people's tweets! In the end, it was a combination of 1) an app I happened to find (Pocket Thai Master for Android, it's free on the Play store!) and 2) the Wikipedia article on the Thai script that both helped me to understand and start reading and writing. Coming from a non-tonal mother tongue, learning the script early on really helps to understand the tones in Thai so it's something I would for sure recommend!

2) I started keeping a lil vocabulary notebook (you know those two-column ones?) shortly before my Bangkok vacation earlier this year. It not only helped with new vocabulary but also kept me practicing writing! Anytime I encounter a new word, I look it up on either or all of the following online dictionaries: thai-language.com, thai2english, Longdo Dictionary (which I literally just now realized can be set to English in the upper right corner, I've just been using it in Thai ever since I found it djsjdh), Wiktionary in Thai, or if all else fails I google it and might find an old forum entry or maybe an article if it's a slang word or idiom. I recall having dinner in a Bonchon in Bangkok and brokenly asking the waitress for chopsticks so, while waiting, I looked up and took down the word's spelling and pronunciation and when she came back and saw me copying all the info into my little notebook liKE A NERD she laughed and complimented me for the effort haha

3) If I hear a Thai word I'm unfamiliar with that I can't look up because I don't know the spelling, there's a few approaches. If I have context for its meaning, for example subtitles, then I look up the translation instead and hope I find it. If I don't, then there's the option of using thai-language.com's Reverse Phonemic Transcription function (this site in general is my holy grail tbh, it's why I mostly stick to its romanization style for any of my #local woman harps on about linguistics posts). Another option is using the papago app's speech-to-text function. Yes, you read that right. A Korean translation app, that I previously used when I was learning Korean and thus still had on my phone, proved to be useful for me to make sense of the spelling or pronunciation of Thai words. At the beginning, I only used it to read me homonyms out loud so I could parse the difference in tones lol but then I realized it wasn't half bad at rendering an accurate transcription! Sometimes I use that feature to check my own pronunciation or remind myself of the spelling of a word.

4) I always like to recommend @lurkingteapot's comprehensive Thai language learning resources post (it's far more coherent than my post here lol). And shoutout to @recentadultburnout for posting about Thai language and culture as a native speaker (both on tumblr and on ao3)! 🙏

5) This might be minor or self-evident but ya know- install the Thai keyboard for your devices! You're gonna need it sooner or later anyway if you wanna actually use the language. And if you're a keycap and keyboard nerd like me and happen to fall in love with a keyboard in a Siam Discovery store ehem then I do recommend getting a Thai layout keyboard (or keyboard stickers!) because that has proven to help me a lot in terms of ease of learning on desktop and familiarizing myself with letters I don't often encounter. Throwback to that one time I was on the train, revising consonants and their tone classes, and indignantly texted a very confused yet amused family member a photo of my hand-written copy of the Thai consonant table, asking how I'm ever supposed to differentiate between ฎ and ฏ!! Even now, I have to lean in and squint like an old lady to see the difference on desktop. 😭

I hope at least some of this proves to be helpful in your quest to learn Thai! In any case, you're not alone on tumblr or in our little BL/GL/QL fandom bubble - I know of several users who are learning Thai, like @airenyah and @philologique and the aforementioned @lurkingteapot, just to name a few I personally follow and who I'm sure all have their own advice to give if you shoot them an ask~

สู้ ๆ นะ :) /suu suu na/

#inquiring minds.txt #local woman harps on about linguistics #thai

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darcyolsson · 15 days

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i unfortunately can’t find the post about it, but the two wolves meme is racist — it’s appropriation of native american folklore or something like that, i think. not calling you out or anything i promise, this is just smth i would’ve liked to know when i used the meme but i don’t see it widely spoken about on here even though the meme is kinda popular here. the site that provides info on how memes started has more info i think, if you’d like to know more (i am sorry — i’m aware i haven’t given a great explanation, i just can’t remember the exact context of the post i saw abt this😭)

hi! i went and googled it myself, and you're a little bit wrong, this is what wikipedia has to say:

The story of the Two Wolves is a memetic legend of unknown origin, commonly attributed to Cherokee or other indigenous American peoples in popular retelling. (...) As its origins cannot be credibly traced to authentic indigenous sources, the “Two Wolves” story is considered an example of fakelore.

the meme, in turn, is based on this fake story, and the issue with it is that fake stories like these are fabricated by white people based on false perceptions of Native folklore.

i genuinely had not made the connection to native american folklore, i literally just thought the meme was about. wolves. lol. but it's good to have this context, i can def see how it comes off a little icky regardless! i can't find any native americans talking about this particular meme online but in cases like this it's best to play things safe i think

also, i mean this genuinely and kindly: the next time you come across something like this, google it yourself. it's more important to genuinely understand why something is offensive than to completely try to avoid everything that may be problematic. especially if you're passing on knowledge to someone else, try to make sure that the information you're spreading is correct. otherwise, you might end up in a situation like this, where the problematic aspect of the meme is that this is a fake story attributed to native americans by white people, and you've accidentally contributed to that. again, i'm not trying to berate you, but try and keep that in mind next time you come across a post like that :)

#educational day on tumblr dot com for both me and this anon methinks #answered asks #anonymous

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aprillikesthings · 17 days

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At work I was thinking about how in non-fantasy au’s Catra is often Latina, and I know it’s because someone on the crew (Nate?) mentioned it

But Adora is often just generic white, which is fine, but the part of me that’s a little obsessed with Iceland* was like. She's tall and blond. She should be Icelandic, duh.

But then I thought of the horror that would be trying to figure out her name ahahah

Because Iceland has a list of first names. You legally have to name your kid something off the list. You can apply to have new names added to the list, but they have to work with Icelandic spelling and grammar rules.

Yes I looked, Adora is not on the list, lol

Her last name would be even worse, it’s literally just your dad’s (or less often your mom’s) first name followed by -son, -dóttir, or (if you're non-binary) -bur.

For instance: my dad’s name was David, so I’d be Apríl Davíðsdóttir. Unless I wanted to use my mom’s name and then I’d be Kathleensdóttir, except there's not really any version of Kathleen on the name list.

(Yes this means sometimes a family of four people can all have different last names.)

(Tons of info on Wikipedia obv)

In au’s Adora’s last name is often Gray, and I did try google translating it and then looking it up on the name lists. Nope.

Anyway your choices would be: intentionally butchering Icelandic naming rules and apologizing in your author’s notes, finding someone Icelandic to see if they have any ideas, or deciding she was born in the USA or Canada or whatever and is just of Icelandic descent and ignoring all of that, which seems the likeliest option

(*I lived in Iceland as a kid for a couple of years thanks to the US military—there used to be an American military base there and my dad was in the Navy. I went back as a tourist in 2021, which is when I installed the Icelandic keyboard on my phone to make it easier to look up place names.)

#spop #adora #someone draw her wearing a lopapeysa and riding an Icelandic horse

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rosaacicularis · 1 year

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Celebrity AU: do you think Grian, being an avid prankster, leaves the public in total confusion about his gender because he's...well, Ariana Griande?

Like they wouldn't even be able to recognize him if he was out of costume on the streets. He's a guy. He's a gal. He can rock high heels. He can make you swoon in a suit. Transphobes hate him. They especially hate his other persona, "Mother Spore." (Which unfortunately has not made an appearance for a while despite popular demand.) His wiki page is locked down because people keep changing the info. He's an icon. As he should be. His closet is the bane of Pearl's existence because there's everything from ballgowns to futuristic techwear. It would be funny

he, just for funsies, has said he’s a triplet but also has said he’s an only child… and literally just compulsively lies about his childhood and family tree just because he finds it a little bit quirky of himself. nobody knows the actual truth of whether or not ariana griande and his one halloween costume of a mushroom are actually him, his doppelgängers or his triplets <3<3 he likes the chaos of nobody ever knowing <3<3

scar had to get a second closet built in their house for all of their little outfits, it’s almost like going into a party city, they even installed disco lighting in there <3 pearl breaks into their house (not actually, they gave her a key) while they’re out being famous to organise it, pro-bono for the most part except she can eat all of their food and steal their toiletries <3

grian and scar’s wikipedia pages are both locked from the time they got into an argument and vandalised each other’s pages. they started communicating through the hyperlinks and eventually, after a good run both of them got banned from editing any wikipedia articles.

#grian also has pronoun sets for each of his alter ego’s just to keep them separate #like they/she/shroom mother spore #she/he ariana griande #he’s just a quirked up little guy #scarian #hermitshipping #wedding au #aezureus ask

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mtdthoughts · 11 days

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Possible References to The Carpenters (Migi & Dali Analysis)

Before I begin, I'd like to credit and dedicate this post to the wonderful @moscasines for messaging me and pointing out the series of observations that will be discussed below. This post would not be possible without your help, so thank you very much! 🫶

As always, spoilers for Migi & Dali are discussed!

This post is also a bit on the longer side...

To begin, the subject of this post is The Carpenters, an American vocal and instrumental duo consisting of Karen Carpenter and her older brother Richard Carpenter. You can find more info on Wikipedia here.

The Carpenter siblings started their career in 1965 and achieved major success in the soft rock, easy listening, and adult contemporary music genres with hit singles such as "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun".

They've also toured continually in the 1970s, including in Japan where they performed at the famous Budokan in 1974.

This article gives some interesting insights into The Carpenter's influence in Japan, and I'd recommend checking it out! Namely, the Carpenters were known for their melody-oriented sound production that fits Japanese sensibilities, excellent vocals and English pronunciation, and their songs that give off the image of a good old American family.

In fact, the 1972 song "Top of the World" by The Carpenters was used as the theme song in the 1995 hit Japanese TV Drama "Miseinen" ("Under Age"), showing how The Carpenters' influence persisted in Japan even after their joint career abruptly ended in 1983 with Karen's tragic death from heart failure brought on by complications of anorexia.

Anyway, because of The Carpenters' influence in Japan, it is possible that Sano may have taken inspiration from them and their songs when creating Migi & Dali, and here are some possible references:

One of the characters is literally named Karen, who also possesses musical talent but specifically with the piano. As it turns out, Karen Carpenter is four years younger than her piano prodigy brother Richard, which seems to around the same age gap between Karen and Eiji. Furthermore, some have claimed that the root cause of Karen's anorexia was her overbearing, perfectionist mother who clearly favored her 'musical genius' brother Richard; this idea seems to parallel Reiko's obvious favoritism for Eiji and her relative disdain for Karen, someone who "never resembled Akira or Reiko" ---

One of the most iconic foods in the story other than cherry pie and omelet is jambalaya, which was featured in the first chapter and Episode of Migi & Dali. Interestingly, The Carpenters featured Hank William's song "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" on their album 1973 album Now & Then, which sold well in the US, UK, and Japan. The song is about lost love, life, parties, and Cajun cuisine. ---

The fact that the Carpenters are American, plus the remark about the songs giving off the the image of a good old American family could somewhat explain why the setting of Migi & Dali resembles a (relatively affluent) American suburb. ---

"(They Long to Be) Close to You" is song expressing the yearning to be close to someone you love, emphasizing how special and unique that person is. Some of the lyrics are particularly interesting, such as "Why do birds suddenly appear / Every time you are near?" and "So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold / And starlight in your eyes of blue", with birds being Akiyama's fascination and "hair of gold" and "eyes of blue" describing the twins' appearance. Perhaps this song references the Sonoyamas' and Akiyama's longing to be close to the twins. ---

"Rainy Days and Mondays" is a melancholic song that describes one's feeling of melancholy and loneliness and being unable to fit in, but finding comfort in knowing that another person loves them. Some notable lyrics are "What I've got they used to call the blues / Nothin' is really wrong / Feelin' like I don't belong" and "Funny, but it seems that I always wind up here with you / Nice to know somebody loves me". This could be a reference to the loneliness that Dali suffers, though he does find comfort in Migi's love for him. ---

"Top of the World" is an upbeat and joyful song about the feeling of being on top of the world due to being in love. It could be a reference to Migi's infatuation with Sali. ---

"Superstar" expresses longing and heartache, telling the story of someone yearning for a lost love using the example of a fan and a rock star. Some lyrics that stand out are "Don't you remember, you told me you loved me, baby? / You said you'd be coming back this way again, baby". This song could be a reference to Migi's feelings towards Sali, especially after Migi was rejected for Eiji. ---

"Ticket to Ride", a song by The Beatles that the Carpenters covered, is about someone leaving a relationship with a metaphorical ticket to ride, claiming that her partner was holding her down and that she would never be free, as her partner is left upset singing that "my baby don't care". This song could be a reference to Migi's separation from Dali as Migi literally rides away with his new freedom. ---

"Goodbye to Love" explores the sadness of lost love and the realization that one might not find love again, and one notable lyric is "I'll say goodbye to love / No one ever cared if I should live or die". It could be a reference to Dali when he believed that Migi would never love him again (especially when he was about to die), or to Eiji after he killed Reiko, believing he had no one left. ---

"Hurting Each Other" is a ballad that addresses the pain and difficulty of a troubled relationship where both parties are emotionally harming each other despite their love for each other. It could be a reference to some aspects of the twins' relationship, including their fight where they literally hurt each other despite their love for each other. ---

"We've Only Just Begun" explores the optimism of a couple beginning their new life together while mixing cautious introspection for the future. Some notable lyrics are "Before the risin' sun, we fly / So many roads to choose" and "And when the evening comes, we smile / So much of life ahead". It could be a reference to the twins' reconciliation after their fight, heading towards their happiness despite the danger ahead. ---

"Merry Christmas, Darling" is about the longing and fervent desire to spend Christmas together with a loved one that is apart. Some lyrics that stand out are "Merry Christmas, darling / We're apart, that's true / But I can dream and in my dreams / I'm Christmasing with you". This could be a reference to Migi's desire to live together with Dali while Dali was isolating himself in the shadows. ---

"Please Mr. Postman", a song by the Marvelettes that The Carpenters covered, is about the excitement, impatience, and eagerness of waiting for news of a loved one far away. It could be a reference to the twins in the short sequel manga. ---

In general, many songs that were covered and sung by The Carpenters share themes of love, lost love, longing, and loneliness, which also happen to be important themes in Migi & Dali.

I encourage the reader (including myself) to check out all of the songs I listed and more, as it's very fascinating to notice all the different connections to Migi & Dali and perhaps understand the characters better. There may be more songs that deserve to go on this list, so I may decide to update this post later (and of course the reader is very welcome to let me know if I missed any 😊)

Given these potential connections, The Carpenters might be another cultural reference that had a significant impact on Migi & Dali that helped Sano shape the characters and the direction of the story. Of course, I can't discount the possibility that all of this is just a big coincidence and that this post is just a big load of crap, but this wouldn't nearly be as interesting 😜

With all this in mind, I think that Migi & Dali would make a great musical, and it's interesting to imagine the characters singing songs like these in the anime. However, I've never seen a musical before, so I know nothing about them, but I have a good feeling that a Migi & Dali musical would be good. I'd probably see it.

#migi and dali #migi to dali #karen carpenter #the carpenters #analysis

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souplups · 4 months

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in john wick: chapter 3 - parabellum, john wick stores his precious items inside a copy of a fake alexander afanasyev’s book called “the russian folktale”.

however, this is a stupid idea because afavasyev is one of the most notable russian folklorists and his very real books of russian fairytales would be one of the first places you would look if you went looking for literally any info on the baba yaga. not to mention, he has a book called “russian folk-tales”. oh, i hear you say, maybe they went with just a slightly different name but noooo, afavasyev doesn’t even have a book released in 1864. the real book wasn’t even translated till 1916 and you can find at the new york public library.

john should have at least gone with someone who can’t be found on the baba yaga wikipedia page, like come on, man. i think mr. jardani jovonovich could probably come up with a pytor polevoy’s skazki or maybe even take it out of a library context and it could be ivan snegiryov with a lubok?!?? hell, if he doesn't mind going a bit british with it then edith hodgett’s is credited with an early english translation of “vaselesa the beautiful” the very story which john wick hides his items behind.

anyway, it was cool when he killed that dude with that book in that one scene.

#this is very autism of me i know but also it was mildly infuriating during my watch through and ive been thinking about it for days #literally why would you go with an alexander afanasyev #both from a filmmaking perspective and from a in universe perspective #it feels like someone just googled a russian folklorist and afanasyev just came up and they were like cool good enough #it isnt particularly secure nor is it particularly difficult to find #anyway #john wick #john wick chapter 3 parabellum

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daisychainsandbowties · 8 months

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Actually, since it comes up pretty often in your fics, have you read any good books about space? Any recommendations? I'm always looking for something new to read 😅

my love of space is a wikipedia boyfriend activity so i haven’t read many books about it, at all - literally just carl sagan’s cosmos. i don’t tend to read books to learn about topics as broad as space, math, etc. i just read academic journals and ping-pong around the internet and stare at whatever seems most interesting.

so yeah, i subscribe to slightly-deranged face-tennis as a learning methodology (let’s be nice to me and call it autodidactic). mostly following vectors of curiosity aka “wikipedia” rabbit wormholes. (i was going to try make a chussy joke using knowledge but knussy was taking too long to explain, so have my deconstructed sandwich of a joke instead) i mostly just use wikis to find where topics are connected and then i hunt for other resources

i have some favourite places to seek general info (any deeper and i use library databases to find journals and specific articles) but i’ll share one or two of my accessible sources in case those are helpful!

nasa has an incredible archive of astronomy and astrophysics information and !!!! sexier 😳😳 photography. check out their archive here. each photo has some information accompanying it and i tend to just read one every day or sometimes revisit my favourites.

if you look on university websites they usually have some chapters/ articles/ resources (sometimes even class notes!) you can look at for free. here’s an example even with no logins/ institutional access you can read a lot of stuff if you dig around

this is a good site for short papers that are intended to be accessible to undergrad students

also i recommend that you explore astrobiology in general - fascinating topic!!

i won’t add any more since you were asking for books and yeah… basically i prefer documentaries for that style of dissemination, but i know there are lots of great ones out there… just not the way i learn about things - attention too scattershot to comfortably sit and learn in the shape/ at the rate an author wants me too - so i can’t think of any i can recommend from personal preference

#anon #sorry this is so unhelpful but i can’t really learn from books like that #don’t like cookie cutter kind of knowledge want it to be the shape i make it through associations #castronomy #i proofread this once but. head ouch so the mistakes are beautiful lets say

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iread-studies · 10 months

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Fashion Magazines in Kabhi Khushi Khabie Gham (2001)

Click here for more fashion magazine identifications.

Kabhi Khushi Khabie Gham (2001) is a cult Hindi movie (Hindi, not Indie, enunciate the H). If you haven't watched it yet, run!

One of the main characters, Pooja, is a university student who is really, really, really into fashion. It makes sense, then, that when she first appears on the screen, she is literally surrounded by fashion magazines.

Next to her lay 8 magazines! All from a variety of publications and not even a duplicate. I'm impressed! Tracking them all down took me a good 2 hours, tho...

Some parameters:

The movie was shot starting on 16 October 2000 and was released in India on 14 December 2001.

The movie is set in both India and the UK, with this scene, in particular, being set in London so I'm assuming most of the magazines will be UK edition.

Ok, now we are ready to start.

From the left:

Harpers & Queen - May 2001

Cover model: Yasmin Le Bon (source1, source2)

This is not, in fact, an Harper's Bazaar issue, because Harper's Bazaar UK didn't exist at the time! According to Wikipedia: "In November 1970, New York City-based Hearst Communications amalgamated it with Queen magazine (which dated from 1862) to form Harpers & Queen. [...] In March 2006, it was renamed Harper's Bazaar, bringing it in line with its international sister titles."

Cosmopolitan UK - June 2001

Cover Model: Alison Meisonne (source)

Harpers & Queen - March 2001

Cover model: Sarah Jessica Parker

Tatler - August 1998

Cover model: Jemima Khan

Elle US - June 2001

Cover model: Fernanda Tavares (source)

You can find more info on the features of this issue on The Fashion Spot. (I think I've found my people)

Vogue UK - June 1998

Cover model: Kate Moss (source)

Harpers & Queen - April 2001

Cover model: Rachel Weisz (source)

Vogue UK - April 2001

Cover Model: Gisele Bundchen (source)

.

In case you need a recap:

Harpers & Queen - May 2001

Cosmopolitan UK - June 2001

Harpers & Queen - March 2001

Tatler - August 1998

Elle US - June 2001

Vogue UK - June 1998

Harpers & Queen - April 2001

Vogue UK - April 2001

This tells us that this scene was shot during of after June 2001.

Most of the magazines are from around that time, but two of them are from 3 years before, 1998! I wonder how they found them? It's not like you can waltz in any store and get 3 years old fashion magazines!

And most importantly, a US edition of Elle?? Of the issue of that same month? How?? They didn't shoot in the US at all!

Click here for more fashion magazine identifications.

#fashion magazines #kabhi khushi kabhie gham #k3g #pooja #kareena kapoor #hindi #bollywood

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