i feel like every activist should read about fruitlands.

fruitlands was a transcendentalist utopian commune founded in the 1840s. the founders (including louisa may alcott's dad) thought that the existing capitalist economy was evil: alcott described it as a tree “whose root is selfishness, whose trunk is property, whose fruit is gold." so they decided to create a commune that was completely divorced from the economy. like, their response to the "you say you're against capitalism but still participate in it! checkmate socialists!" people was literally "you're right, let's not!"

they refused to consume any materials or foods that couldn't be locally grown, like tea or sugar. they were also highkey vegan: not only was it immoral to eat animal products and use animals for leather and wool, but using animal labor or even using manure as fertilizer was forbidden. and they refused to trade for anything they didn't have within the commune because participation in an oppressive economy was bad, especially if it supported slave labor (ex: wearing cotton fabric).

it fell apart in less than a year because they didn't have enough food to survive the winter.

why?

well, part of it was circumstantial: the site they picked had little arable land and they arrived a month behind in the planting schedule. part of it was the impracticality of living in the 1840s and being so vegan that they couldn't even use oxen to plough their fields or wear clothes that were warm in cold weather.

but the main reason was that the men of the commune (and they were almost all men, except for alcott's wife and another woman, ann page) didn't actually, like, do anything. they left all the household chores and childcare to the women, plus most of the farm work, while they sat around and philosophized about how cool their utopia was. even before it fell apart, most people there had began taking "vacations" away from fruitlands so that they could take hot baths and avoid trying to till the soil with their bare hands.

there are a lot of good lessons here.

1. it's very easy to talk about your great ideas for society but putting them into practice is much harder. you have to actually do the work to achieve the goal: you can't shunt it off onto other people based on the same oppressive systems you're trying to subvert.

2. you need to consider the practical implications of what you're arguing for, including potential downsides. banning wool for ethical reasons is all well and good until you're stuck wearing linen clothes and canvas shoes in the middle of a massachusetts winter.

3. you can't expect that a utopia is going to be all the things you like about society staying the same and everything you dislike being changed. that is at best naïve and at worst intensely selfish.

tl;dr: talk is cheap, praxis is hard.

to be clear, since a lot of responses seem to be confusing this point: the principles on which fruitlands was established weren't the problem. there's no inherent flaw with their being vegan or refusing to participate in an economy that ran on slave labor. and they could have established a commune based on totally different principles and the outcome would likely have been the same.

like, the problem isn't "it's impossible to farm without any animal labor, lololol the transcendentalists were stupid." plenty of people, native americans in particular, managed to do so just fine before them. the problem is "bronson alcott and charles lane said that animal labor was immoral, but found out that digging with your bare hands is hard, and instead of just doing it, they weaseled out of it (taking vacations, making the women do it, and, when it got close to winter, compromising their morals and buying an ox and a cow), and that meant they didn't have any food when december rolled around."

like, you can brainstorm more practical methods of maintaining your values, knowing that sticking to a pure ideal is extremely difficult if not impossible in real life. or you can suck it up and till the soil with your bare hands, because sticking to those pure ideals is more important to you. what you can't do is say you're adhering entirely to your purest beliefs and then be all surprised_pickachu.jpg when it turns out that doesn't result in everything being happy rainbows.

this is a thing that happens in essentially all political circles to some degree: it's not just a thing I see from leftists, but it's also what bothers me the most about libertarians. you need to actually think through your political ideas and consider possible ways that it could fail: because of bad actors, or unexpected issues like a natural disaster, or simply "not everyone is going to just accept that this is a good idea." if you do think that through and go, "yeah, this thing would suck, but that's something I'm willing to do because the alternative is worse," that's fine! but then you need to actually do that! you can't sit on your ass and talk about how wonderful your political ideals are while other people do the work for you!

She also said “ I’ll kill you and know where you live.”, and came back to the children (ages 8, 7, and 2) to spit directly in the older one’s face when he responded that he would protect his little sisters.

The petition mentioned in the article to get her, an education major, expelled for hate crimes against Jewish children:

notice how shes 21…..now check ur rhetoric about how violent bigots are dying out

this is exactly like how religious extremists will go into fields like healthcare or public administration (county clerks *cough*) where they can harm others with their beliefs

this happened the DAY before the synagogue hostage situation in Texas

17 Essays I will eventually write (or not) that will get me kicked out of Star Wars fandom

1-Antisemitism and the attitude towards the Jedi. Genocide is bad and while you’re at it stop with the “well if they changed the way their religion works they’d have been fine” and also for the love of EVERYTHING stop changing the meaning of Hebrew names for your conlang. Also, yelling that the Jedi “secretly control the republic” leans into a bunch of dogwhistles, please stop.

Seguir leyendo

Some y’all need to touch some grass like Jesus Christ (all respects to my mans) y’all have y’all entire self worth wrapped up with the Jedi order to the point where you think mfs saying anything about them equates to serious shit.

You. Are. Not. In. The. Jedi. Order. This. Series. Is. Fake.

I could easily say that hating the sith means you’re an pro American imperialism because the sith are obviously ussr/communist coded. Y’all see how that dumb all this shit is? Hell, I could get away with it too because my whole family is from the Former USSR

This shit is fictional, stop watering down something as serious as antisemitism because your feelings are hurt that bitches ain’t riding the Jedi all day.

Y’all equating mfs having an issue with Jedi with mfs who hate Jewish people is something else.

The real truth is y’all are mad because people say “the Jedi are dusty and crusty and don’t help mfs” so now you feel the need to bring real world serious shit in so you can guilt trip bitches. Sad.

Worst part is, this ain’t even a real belief y’all have. This is y’all picking these super sensitive subject matters then throwing them in people face because you know the average person won’t speak against it. I dunno who the fuck normalized this mentality in y’all but it’s not normal.

Why can’t y’all give shit like antisemitism the respect it deserves instead of using it as a talking point on some unrelated, stupid shit?

Y’all need to get offline and realize you got some issues

Hi dude, I’m Jewish, so kindly stfu, thanks! And if you can’t see parallels with people who say things like “well maybe if the Jedi had just changed their religion they wouldn’t have deserved to be killed” and the accusations of Jedi kidnapping children from other cultures, and the fact that there is a serious portion of fandom who actively promotes the idea that the Jedi are “the secret power behind the republic who control the military and political might” with some antisemitic beliefs, then I don’t know what to tell you! I’m well aware the series is fictional - I am just very very tired of reading fic or meta and getting hit with a bunch of dog whistles.

I also feel like the second blogger completely missed the point. The point of saying “hey this rhetoric has harmful parallels” is not to say “if you hate X you’re a bad person.” Nobody benefits from that. It is “thinking this sort of way and bringing these kind of arguments is harmful, and how you treat fiction can condition how you treat reality.”

I think we can all agree that the star wars fandom is one of the most toxic places to be, so taking even ONE bit of it serious is a huge commitment and finding people who agree with you, within, is something that can be extremely stressful.

That said:

I think interpreting politics of Star Wars and paralleling them to real life events is nothing bad. Not even if you find parallels to something morally wrong. In my opinion, fiction has to be problematic in some way, otherwise it’s a boring glorification of self inserts.

While I see the main problem, this post is concentrating on, are fans who claim certain things, I also feel like that not everything is as simple as that?!

It literally depends on what media you consume (old Republic, high Republic,.. legends/canon) and how you see the politics in this franchise - it all happens from a literal certain point of view.

Concerning the Jedi Order: yes, I also do think that the Jedi are heavily included in the Republic and wasn’t it for them, it would’ve fallen a long time ago (pun not intended) so saying that they have a major role and practically influence - if not lead - the Republic and its people, is just all pretend. I mean, the jedi inspire hope - which is a positiv and motivating feeling but if you can inspire people and they look up to you, it’s a way of building their morals, their way of life. - Which indicates that the Jedi are more than just their Order.

So saying that they “secretly influence and lead the Republic” might be a little exaggerated, but certainly isn’t out of spite/ a form of antisemitism (that said, it all depends on the person involved in discussions like that, but like I said this fandom is an overall toxic one) and if someone makes actual points and argues with in-universe examples, I don’t see an issue.

–

Just generally speaking: “arguments” like “this is a form of antisemitism” or even implications of such allegations are the things that are hurtful.

I feel like a lot of people, who conveniently prefer the morally right side of fiction bash on fans of the morally wrong side of it, with allegations that those fans automatically live with the same morals as their favourite characters. Which is just?!?!@?

(You will rarely find people who actually defend mass murderers and torture in real life. Like.. we know the empire and the Sith are bad and if someone doesn’t- I’m concerned)

You can’t even argue with those people, because once someone throws the racist/antisemitism/homophobic/transphobic card, people will flock towards those “discussions” and will bully you regardless of if they’re in the fandom and know what they’re talking about, or not.

–

This whole discussion seems so useless and harmful for all people involved. Like.. its just fiction. I could Interpret the whole franchise with a lot of different political views and might even argue that a lot of Leitmotive are actually propaganda.

And it’s okay if you do, just… don’t take it to extremes/ out on other people.

I genuinely don’t know how to say this, but with all due respect, I think you’re letting your personal feelings cloud your judgement here.

Discussions about bigotry are never comfortable. Discussions where you feel you are being told you hold bigoted views are never comfortable. That does not mean those conversations don’t need to happen. Similarly, the fact that some people will throw around terms like antisemitism as virtue signaling does not change that conversations about antisemitism (or any other form of bigotry) need to happen. Having those conversations is not extreme, nor lashing out at anyone. They are most certainly not useless either. And quite frankly, NOT having those conversations is far more hurtful than having them will ever be; that’s how bigotry festers. It never goes away if you never address it.

For all that it might seem like a positive space if people never get upset, all that’s happening is maintaining the status quo. The people affected by systemic oppression continue to suffer - and trust me, while it isnt fun to be called a racist, it is far worse to be on the receiving end of racism. Ultimately, you can decide someone who has called you a racist is wrong and ignore them. You cannot escape living in a racist society. And in that vein, I cannot force you to listen to what I am saying. I do, however, hope you will listen.

(Furthermore, there is deeper conversation about something called tone policing to be had here, but that’ll have to be for another time)

Which brings me to my next point: every single one of us has internalized bigotry in some way or another. It’s a result of growing up in bigoted societies. Fortunately for us, to fight bigotry does not require us to have only had perfect thoughts for our entire lives - only to acknowledge the ways our thinking has been wrong, and seek to do better. Over and over again. It’s lifelong work, and it’s hard work, but it’s worthwhile.

With that out of the way, lets get started on fandom. I’m not here to say people can’t like fucked up things in fiction - but there comes a problem when people cannot acknowledge to themselves that those things are fucked up. Fiction may not be reality, but it doesn’t exist in isolation of it either. It’s made and interacted with by real people, and therefore it can, in fact, be reflective of people’s real world personal biases. (Also, as an aside? There unfortunately are people who will defend real-life mass murderers. It’s remarkably common, actually.)

Fiction, as you mentioned, is often used allegorically to real life issues and events. In drawing those comparisons, we bridge the gap of fiction and reality (drawing elements of the real into the unreal). Because those elements of the real are based off of the struggles of and therefore affect real life people, we have a responsibility to treat those subjects with respect. Once again, I'm not saying people shouldn't explore complex thought in fiction - in fact, I think people should do exactly that - but rather that doing so requires us to move delicately.

It is for exactly that reason that the common fandom trend of claiming the Jedi secretly control the republic is so concerning. That alone falls into mimicking a longstanding pattern of antisemitic rhetoric beat for beat. The fact that this rhetoric is being used in conjunction with a number of other antisemitic talking points (such as, to use one of OP’s examples, the theft of children) things really only get worse. It adds up to a pattern of antisemitic behavior in a wider trend. Furthermore, people are not using this rhetoric to be metaphorical about how the Jedi can inspire people - they are using this to claim that it was, in fact, moral within the narrative for the Jedi to be victims of genocide. I think it's pretty clear why this might make a Jewish fan nervous; especially given that these are views of real life fans, and not just fictional characters intentionally written as evil.

(As another aside, I think it is important to remember that there are plenty of groups of people who are inspiring and are important members of the community (from doctors to teachers to janitors) who aren't regularly described as "secretly controlling society." The fact that this is the rhetoric used here is very specifically an antisemitic red flag. As I said before, these things are very much about patterns of behavior and how they fit into larger trends. Furthermore, people can unknowingly or unthinkingly play into these trends, and while there may be no malicious intent behind that lack of awareness the hurt that it causes exists regardless.)

Ultimately, this renders trying to claim that "saying that [the Jedi] 'secretly influence and lead the Republic”' might be a little exaggerated, but certainly isn’t out of spite/ a form of antisemitism" unacceptably disrespectful. OP is Jewish, and it is never appropriate to try to tell a Jewish person what is or isn't antisemitic. Doing that in itself is an antisemitic act. I don't bring this up as an attack on your person - merely to highlight the reality and the gravity of the situation, so that in the future we can all do better and correct our behavior (see above re: internalized bigotry). If no one will ever teach us when a change of behavior or an apology is necessary, none of us will ever learn.

Again, I can't force you to listen to me. I certainly can't force you to read all of this either - though if you've made it here to the end I thank you for your time, and ask only that you give what I've said some thought.

ik “blorbo from my shows” is a meme, but the heart of it (tagging a post with a character/fandom thing) has been an issue since for so long. I remember seeing people tag shit about religious discrimination with like voltron characters, seeing people use real life tragedies as prompts for fandom things, tagging posts about activism or struggles as a minority by bringing up your favourite fandom character. in that same wheelhouse there’s been people who write OTP prompts who come up with shit like “imagine character A sees someones hijab ripped off and–” or “imagine character A (a PoC) is pulled over by police and character B–”. like. can we just acknowledge how massively fucked up it all is? how someone’s post about activism or their experience with racism will get tagged with “omg this is JUST like [fictional character]”? how people will see someone’s traumatic experience being assulted because of their religion and turn it into some fun fandom thing? can we step back and realize this is fucked up and not normal behavior?

Some clarification.

The meme “blorbo from my shows”, yes, that’s fine, its a funny meme. plenty of people tag relatable jokes or meme posts with fictional characters or ocs.

However, as I stated, the concept of tagging a serious or personal post with “#[fictional character]” is not a funny thing. Nor is turning real world issues into fandom prompts. I cannot put into words how weird and disrespectful it feels to have people tag me talking about serious struggles in my life (facing racism, islamaphobia, ableism) as fandoms or ships. Nor can I put into words how gross it feels seeing people make cutesy otp prompts out of traumatic events I’ve been through, or make light of times I’ve been in serious physical danger.

I have not forgotten how during the height of the George Floyd protests people would make BLM headcanons about their fandom characters. Or people writing how they thing fictional characters would respond to horrific tragedies or political events. I’ve seen people turn mass shootings, war, and genocide into fandom prompts. This is not a new issue either, I remember people turning the issue of gay marriage legalization in the United States into a fandom thing.

None of that is normal. None of that is okay. I don’t know how to tell some of you guys that you need to realize how fucked up that behavior is. You need to stop treating people, activism, and tradegies like fandom prompts or otp inspiration.

yep, "children driving forklifts" is definitely the radical, forward thinking kind of action that might just turn this whole thing around!

[image id: @gays-of-the-lost-cities asks "I'm sorry can I have some context?" end id]

you know, I was going to just be lazy and snarky and link to a news article about the announcement... but... fuck it. i need to vent.

for the last two years, australia has had what was generally accepted to be one of the best pandemic responses worldwide, using lockdowns, health advised mandates, and income support, to very successfully contain and limited outbreaks, keeping infection, deaths, and disability from the virus low. we were no NZ, and there were still issues, mostly with the federal government refusing its responsibilities regarding quarantine facilities and under sourcing pfizer vaccines because government MPs had investment in astra zenica, and they cut unemployment payments in half at the end of 2020.... but overall, we did a good job as a country, especially compared to the two big empires that usually set our policy.

well, late last year, that changed. scott morrison, the prime minister, decided we were going the american route of "fuck you all, actually" and declared there would be no more lockdowns, no more mask mandates, no more income support, everyone get back to work. he told us it's time to "live with the virus."

so everyone went back to work, and because the government said it was safe, also went back to partying and socialising and holidaying and travelling all over. just in time for omicron to come along and infect everyone at christmas and nye, all while the federal government refused to even suggest people should be careful or limit holiday gatherings. the PM assured us it was "mild". state governments seemed to have their hands tied by the federal, and health experts' pleas for everyone to be careful were barely heard in the face of federal encouragement to enjoy the holidays. "live with the virus," and enjoy a big christmas lunch.

what happened next was entirely predictable; we went from hundreds of cases, to thousands, to ten thousand... the case numbers rocketed up so fast that they stopped being counted. not that it mattered, our PCR testing capacity was quickly overwhelmed so we have no idea how many cases there are truly; although the reliable estimate put us in the top ten most infected countries per capita, ahead of the usa and uk.

with so many people infected and forced to isolate, workplaces started becoming understaffed very quickly, so scott morrison quickly called a national cabinet to shorten isolation periods and allow negative at home rapid antigen tests (RATs) to be an acceptable benchmark for returning to work. no attempt to contain or limit the spread was made. "live with the virus." the economy demands it.

this resulted in two outcomes: RATs quickly sold out absolutely everywhere, because it turns out the federal government ignored health/logistics advice given to them in september past year about the need to stockpile rats if they were refusing to lock down, meaning there literally aren't enough physically in the country to meet demand. so nobody could really know if they were infected, and asymptomatic carriers were back at work... which is the other outcome. more people back at work while contagious, infecting more and more people. even if you're sick, there's no income support, so if you have to pay for luxuries like avacado toast, or rent, or medicine... back to work, it's the american way, which means it's the australian way now. "live with the virus."

now every system is crumbling as a result of the PM's decisions. supermarket shelves are bare, not because of panic buying but because the supply chains that stock them simply don't have enough workers. perishables are rotting in warehouses, deliveries are backing up, palettes remain unloaded, shelves unstacked, because too many people are dangerously sick to work, and the mildly sick aren't allowed to isolate long enough to protect the as yet uninfected workers.

school goes back in a few weeks, even though vaccinations for under 12yos has only just been authorised. there is not enough time for the kids (and by extension their families) to be protected, even if there were enough vaccines available. it appears that the federal government didn't actually do anything to increase our supplies of vaccines before expanding the age range. keeping kids back at home has been ruled out, because that would require keeping parents home with income support, and they have decided there will be no more spending on helping people, only back to work and back to school. "live with the virus."

as for hospitals... it's grim. ICUs are over capacity, outpatient wards are converted to covid wards, ambulances are taking over 12 hours to reach critical cases, all elective medical procedures are cancelled because every available staff member and then some are being put on full shifts at covid wards without time for bathroom breaks, and even vital surgeries for terminal illnesses are being cancelled because there are no beds to care for them if there are complications. the death rate is chilling. the hospital staff that dare speak out paint a shockingly dark pictures of the mental and physical health of themselves and their coworkers, to the point that many are quitting despite the overwhelming guilt and shame of leaving even less staff, because resignation is better than suicide. they all speak anonymously, and if you believe what i hear from my ex nurse friends, it's because they've been threatened with criminal and/or civil legal action if they blow the whistle. because we wouldn't want the public's morale to drop, it's an election year.

the country is in a state of despair, everything we worked so hard for and sacrificed throughout 2020 and 2021 had been lost in less than four weeks. the most vulnerable are sick and dying, the systems designed to support them beyond limit. people are terrified, and angry, and desperate for leadership. nurses and doctors are working themselves to the brink of suicide to desperately try and prevent as many people as they can from dying, and they are failing.

and it is against this backdrop that the prime minister, scott morrison, announced his grand plan to ease our pain, that he would take to the national cabinet and beg the premiers et al to support:

he asked the states to allow under 18's to operate forklifts in factories, to speed up supply chain operations.

scott morrison's solution to the disastrous human suffering born of his own callousness and reverence for profit over life and health.... is weakening child labour laws.

scott morrison is a fundamentalist pentecostal christian that admits he lets his faith and belief guide his policy. he believes in wealth prosperity gospel and the rapture, and that illness and suffering are punishment for sin.

"live with the virus."

he means die with the virus.

and hey, get some kids to work in the warehouse while you're at it.

There are many days roy wishes Heathcliff had actually shot him through the heart. 

DO NOT SUPPORT SALVATION ARMY 

I can back this up. It isn’t only their shelters.

I have a family friend who worked at our local Salvation Army headquarters as a a secretary. This particular office took all the Christmas donations for children in need, put them in a warehouse, and on a designated day the staff and their friends picked through them all, taking whatever they wanted. She saw people hauling away bikes donated for specific families. Some local children had hundreds of dollars of gifts donated in their name, and on Christmas they received three cheap things, items likely not even from the person who sponsored them.

My friend quit, and I’ve not given them a dime of my money since then.

Do not give to the Salvation Army.

Do Not. Give. To. Salvation. Army

My turn.

I’m a wildfire and disaster logistics specialist.

I deal with a lot of agencies who provide disaster relief.

I used to say the Salvation Army’s disaster services were the one (literally the ONE) good thing they did.

They would come in, set up a canteen trailer, make and pass out hot coffee and donated food in a disaster, usually being one of the first agencies to get there and the last to leave.

Then I found out.

Every time they did this, regardless of if they were actually invited or deployed by the agency in charge (usually FEMA, sometimes others) they would SELF-DEPLOY. Meanjng they would just show up. Ok. That’s not TOO bad, sometimes agencies have to take initiative and get there before the red tape is sorted out. BUT. They, after they left at the end of the incident, they would send FEMA or the host agency a BILL. They used one or two paid employees (usually the driver of the truck and a supervisor); and many VOLUNTEERS, but they would bill for EVERYONE’s Labor at standard federal rates. They would bill for the food they distributed even though it was all donated by another agency or private parties. They would bill for the coffee they made and the supplies. Except they would use electricity from the shelter location, water from donations or from the shelter, and in many cases, they would get the coffee and industrial filters DONATED, but bill for them at retail prices.

Don’t FUCKING give to the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army is also ass to the workers. A good number of people join it, naively thinking that it’s doing good, and end up leaving cynical and beaten down. The management is hostile, if not outright abusive, and demand some ridiculous hours of it lower to mid-level staff. Don’t support these people.

Unsettling update

Find better local charities and shelters and give to them instead!

Also just for even more horrific context on the original twitter thread?

Salvation Army reached out to Milknmuffins and asked what shelter she’s at with the promise to address the abuse in it. She…ended up saying where she was. She was thrown out onto the street. It’s also all on Twitter.

They invited her to a personal talk so she could explain the situation in person.

And then they threatened her with a screenshot of a rape-threat made supposedly by her:

And then threw her out into the street while claiming she broke house rules that

So yeah, the Salvation Army is a bunch of entitled assholes that will treat the most vulnerable like shit if they dare try to do anything that makes them look bad

I can’t stop thinking about crocodiles for some reason so here’s some cool pictures I found of probably the second largest one in captivity, his name is Utan:

isn’t he beautiful

listen to the SOUND when he bites

and that’s not even a real power bite, that’s mostly just heavy bone falling on heavy bone from his jaws and the air rushing out from between them

2000 pounds of Good Boy

you get me

I honestly expected like 5 notes, what HAPPENED here

More tags on this ridiculous post:

Wait, thats the 2nd biggest crocodile? Then what does the biggest one look like?

That would be Cassius, a very old Saltwater crocodile who is estimated to be around 114 years old and lives at Marineland Melanesia in Green Island, Australia.  His official measurement is 5.48 meters, which makes him the largest in captivity currently.  Because Utan is only slightly smaller and much younger, (only in his 50s), he will likely break Cassius’ record eventually.  But for now, Cassius holds the title:

He is NOT, however, either the largest crocodile ever captured in Australia OR the largest ever in captivity.

A slightly larger crocodile has been reported (though not yet comfirmed) to have been captured at 5.58 meters.

And while the famous Brutus of the Adelaide River was estimated to be just slightly larger than Cassius at 5.5m, he was driven out of his territory by a younger and even larger crocodile, who as a result has been given the name, The Dominator.  He is estimated to be just over 6m.

This is Brutus, with an appropriate caption:

It is believed that he lost that arm in a fight with a Bull Shark.  

The Bull Shark lost.

THIS is the crocodile who kicked him out.  The Dominator:

And that’s STILL not the biggest.  

The largest living crocodile ever reliably measured was Lolong, who for the 1.5 years between his capture and his death was the largest crocodile ever held in captivity, at a whopping 6.17 meters (20 feet 3 inches) and 1075 kg (2,370 lbs).  He had been feeding on both humans and very large livestock in the Bunawan creek in Agusan del Sur in the Philippines.  It took 100 people all night to drag him to shore during his capture.

And here’s why:

Also, to prevent credit from getting buried on a separate reblog, I have been informed that the above image of the crocodile with the cartoon eyes and halo was made by @rashkah!  (And it is wonderful and I would like to thank him for its existence, because it perfectly captures my feelings about terrifying giant primordial reptiles.)

@theonewhocheeps

Holy fuck

As far as Brutus is concerned I was led to believe that he lost that arm when relatively young.

Since then Brutus developed a habit of hunting and eating Bull Sharks.

Here’s him with a prey.

And if you thought that you’ll be safe if you just stay out of Australia then think again!

Meet Gustave the Nile Croc.

This crocodile became almost legendary for both it’s size and the habit of hunting both livestock AND humans.

So how big is Gustave?

No one is sure. Since he was NEVER captured.

His estimated size is of at least 5,5m  but some give him over 6m.

The terrifying parts are:

1) He is still growing having only about 60 years.

2) Adult crocodiles often perform a gesture of submission to him - something usually done by young crocodiles toward adults - Gustave is just THAT BIG.

3) His sheer size makes it difficult for him to catch agile prey Nile crocs tend to feed on - hence why he developed a habit of hunting either larger prey like Hippopotamus or creatures which are not good at spotting danger in the first place like livestock and humans.

And this is NOT ALL.

Gustave actually has a noticeable scars on his body - he was shot at east 3 times and stabbed with a spear or something similar at one occasion.

He lived to tell the tale - my question is:

What happened to that one dude who attacked Gustave with a spear?

*Crocodile Dundee voice*  Mate, that’s not Gustave:

THIS is Gustave:

And he is the PERFECT CROCODILE.  He is the perfect example of what I mean when I talk about (as I do) how the morphology of extremely large crocodiles adapts to the changing physics of their bite.

This is a typical adult Nile Crocodile:

And THIS is a god among his kind:

This is it, folks.  The Final Form.  THIS is what peak performance looks like.

Crocodiles and physics have an interesting relationship.  Crocodiles have, by a CONSIDERABLE MARGIN, the strongest bite of any animal on Earth.  EVER.  Scaled up estimates (based on Nile and Saltwater crocodiles) give the extinct Deinosuchus an estimated bite force MORE THAN DOUBLE the recently updated Tyrannosaurus bite estimates.  Living crocodiles have bite forces measured in the range of 5000 pounds per square inch, for an individual around 15-16 feet.  It is estimated that modern crocodiles in the range of 18-20 feet would have bit forces around 7-8000 psi or more.

That’s a problem.

Because a crocodile’s skull is only designed to handle so much pressure.  Go beyond that limit and the force of impact when those jaws snap shut could literally shatter their own skulls.

But evolution has spent hundreds of millions of years perfecting crocodiles, so PHYSICS ISN’T GOING TO STOP THEM.  What ends up happening in the skulls of these extremely large crocodiles is they will increase dramatically in mass to compensate for the increased forces.  A crocodile’s skull is almost exclusively solid bone, with only minimal space for nasal passages, a surprisingly advanced brain, and some slightly porous looking framework that helps the bone distribute the force over a larger area.  The effect is by far the most pronounced in Nile crocodiles, which most regularly feed on larger prey and need to make use of all that power.

Compare, 26 inch skull:

vs 29 inch skull:

Both of those are Nile crocodile skulls (or rather, replicas thereof).

And just for fun, here are the skulls of completely different (and very extinct species), Deinosuchus:

and Purussaurus:

The bigger the crocodile (within a given species), the more massive the skull needs to be to compensate for that UNBELIEVABLE bit pressure.  This is one way to see from a distance whether you are looking at a normal sized crocodile:

and a truly extraordinary individual:

One of the things about Gustave that’s so impressive is how healthy his teeth look.  A lot of large crocodiles, in their old age, have very worn down and often missing teeth.  They do replace them many times over a lifetime, but when they get very old this slows down.  Gustave, at least in every picture taken of him, had teeth that were in very good condition.

Even crocodiles much smaller than Gustave’s reported size (probably similar in size to Dominator or Lolong) tend to have smaller or more worn teeth:

than the pinnacle of his kind:

Lolong! It means Gramps or Grandpa, because he’s a relic of an ancient world where crocs more massive than he was walked the earth. His body is on display somewhere right now though I forgot where.

Every time I see this post there’s more crocodiles.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

@laurangeblossom

I want what that endangered crane has with the human who has to be married to her because she keeps killing other cranes. I specifically want to be the crane. I want an alien to tolerate me for the rest of us our lives for the good of my species.

and this is important. I never want to realize there's anything weird about our relationship.

I recently learned that one of Europe’s top parks “Alton Towers” apparently has this fucked up flesh ride that looks like those Atlantian levels in Tomb Raider.

Not only that but it has it’s own themed hotel room…?

This is so fucking strange, I wish it was in America so I could check it out.

[Image ID: screenshot of a reddit thread - namely the original post and the top comment. The original post, on r/AskReddit by u/Awkward Jeweler reads: What fan theory do you 100% accept as true?

The top comment, by u/JesusDiedForBaron, reads: Kermit caused 9/11, not really much of a fan theory though since it's unintentionally canon

Edit: Realized this should be explained, in the 2002 TV film "It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie", there;s a part where an angel shows Kermit an alternate reality where he was never born. For whatever reason, the editors didn't really think about it, and continued to use footage with the twin towers still standing for this scene, however they aren't there in his original universe. Therefore, something that Kermit did in his life, did in fact cause 9/11 in Muppet lore. /End ID]

Someone replied to one of our recent posts:

“Agree with most of this but would like to point out that a part of the push to make Pride less sexual is to make it a safe space for queer children and to help straights realize being queer isn’t just about fetishes.“

(The person is not tagged because I don’t want to send any hate to them, and the reply isn’t being responded to directly because Tumblr has made that near impossible)

When I came out, my mom told me I couldn’t tell my little sister because it was too sexual.

Later, I moved to the “Big City”, what I hoped to be a haven for queer people. I was with one of the first queer friends my wife and I had made in the city, we had just watched their wrestling debut, and had gone to their apartment afterwards with a group of strangers. Some this group our friend had told us behind the scenes were much more right wing causing our friend to keep parts of their queer identity under wraps.

Our friend suddenly turned to us and began scolding us, telling me and my wife that one of their coworkers at the city Pride Centre had approached them and told them that she had seen me and my wife kiss, and we needed to cut it out with the PDA.

I nodded in front of this group of strangers and when I could no longer hold my tears back I excused myself to the bathroom, cried and waited there until it was no longer obvious I had been crying. We hurried out.

The kiss in question was a goodbye kiss, as my wife went back to campus, and I don’t remember it. I have always been rather shy with PDA and don’t think it could have been much more than a peck. The coworker later told our friend that she was going through a bad breakup and our friend later explained that this was actually the reason for the complaint.

I have never felt safe in queer spaces since. Talking to the same friend later, they asked me and my wife to chaperone the Queer Prom and without thinking I assured them we would make sure not to hold hands or dance while we were there so it would stay “a safe space for children”.

When I was a child, I stumbled into a pride parade and was shocked and upset by the men in gold short shorts. My uncle apologized for letting me see something so sexual and awful.

Every single thing queer people do is “about fetishes” to people who hate queerness. Being less sexual is not going to change that.

I had seen short shorts before. I would see them again, and no one would apologize for that. The thing I was being kept “safe” from was not overly sexual behaviour, and considering there are already laws against indecent exposure, the same is true for children now.

Keeping theoretical children safe has been the justification for the continuing genocide against queer people all around the globe, so this rhetoric is not harmless. It has been used to put queer people in labour camps and slaughter them. 

I have nothing to prove to “straights” and I was the “queer child” who was horrified by the pride parades. As an adult, the discomfort I felt at seeing queer people existing happily and authentically in short shorts, is not something I needed to be kept safe from.

This nonsense is nothing more or less than the same moral panic that has killed queer people throughout history.

queer community gets easier once you accept that society at large is simply not trying to turn us from one kind of queer into another. it will only accept us not being queer at all.

society does not want you to be ace instead of gay or gay instead of bi or nonbinary instead of a trans guy or a trans guy instead of nonbinary. society does not want trans people to medically transition but it also doesn’t want us to be trans without medically transitioning. society does not want nb people to be nb and masc or nb and fem but that does not mean it wants them to be androgynous. society does not want queer people to have kids but it also does not want queer ppl to be happily childless. society does not want marriage (ie monogamy) available to queer people but that does not mean it want us to be polyamorous or non-partnering.

they’re trying to force full conformity. not partial. a gay trans person is not more or less acceptable than a straight trans person. we can shout at each other about “blending in with cishets” or “still having relationships with the ~opposite sex~” as much as we want, but transphobes still hate us both. they do not want either of us to be the other. they only want us to be cishet.

WHAT THE ENTIRE FUCK

fuck what i said abt annoying choice feminism ads, this is the REAL evil of co-opting liberal feminist messages in advertising: using PRISON LABOR from impoverished foreign countries but slave labor is provided by women so it’s woke

This is the ‘completely out of fucks about hiding how we really do things’ stage of capitalism

This is fucking horrific

Prison labor has been used by corporations for… a hell of a long time. A good chunk of the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the devices we use, etc were made by underpaid or just unpaid prisoners, both in our home countries and overseas.

In many countries, prison (read: slave) labor is also used for firefighting and other emergency response work, which means that unpaid prisoners are forced to risk their lives for a government and country that has destroyed everything they have, often in hopes of reducing their sentences a tiny bit. Those same people are then locked out of doing paid emergency work once they’re released, because there’s usually laws against people with criminal records and previous felonies doing those jobs even though they have experience.

Just based on statistics, we can assume that the vast majority of this labor is done by people who are in prison for nonviolent crimes, usually relating to poverty. Bills and fines that couldn’t be paid, drug dealing charges, squatting, etc. But even if that wasn’t the case, even if the majority of prisoners were considered violent criminals, no one deserves this. No one deserves to be locked away from society and no one deserves to be treated like less than human and no one deserves to be exploited so horribly so that the rich can become richer.

Like I said, this is nothing new. This is something that activists, prison abolitionists, and prisoners themselves have been fighting against for decades with little to no attention from the public. The difference now is that companies are taking pride in it. Suddenly, this isn’t something that’s being hidden but instead waved around like a badge of honor, with claims that this literal slave labor is helping prisoners, “teaching them valuable skills”, “helping them get back on their feet”, etc. Something that should be leaving society as a whole outraged and horrified is being twisted around to be seen as progressive, to be seen as a kindness.

I expect to see a lot of this in the next few years, desperate attempts at making slave labor look appealing to the public using whatever language possible. We’ve already seen it with the firefighters in California. Now we’re seeing it with leisure and luxury product companies. We cannot let this become normalized.

I do feel obligated to point out that the op is two years old though. This is not to say that the information is inaccurate, but to point out that this company using slave labor has been public knowledge for at least two years and they’re still fucking doing it. Not only that, but this isn’t the only prison that they have “employees” at, as their website lists another women’s prison in Peru. They have been openly and proudly doing this for at least two years and, as far as I can tell, there have been absolutely no consequences. This shouldn’t have been the only post I saw about this. There shouldn’t be only one news story about this when I search for the company. This shouldn’t be how things are.

the cop who kidnapped, r*ped and murdered sarah everard in march, got her into his car by falsely arresting her. he showed her his police ID and handcuffed her. he probably accused her of breaching covid regulations. sarah was witnessed being compliant and not arguing, and this still didn’t stop her from being harmed. in fact, her compliancy enabled the cop to abduct her. the met police, the same police force this cop worked for, used violence against other women to shut down a peaceful vigil held for sarah less than two weeks later. prior to being hired by the met police, this cop was given the nickname “the rapist” by officers at another police force. this is not “one bad cop”, this an institution that is rooted in misogyny.