Unexpected Bioluminescence

my apologies if this has already been posted here but im sharing this. here is what someone said on twitter along w this image:

the central image text reads: “@everyone I HAVE BEEN RELIABLY INFORMED GUARDIAN JOURNALISTS ARE SNOOPING AROUND ASKING FOR TRANS PEOPLE TO TALK TO THEM ABOUT DIY HRT. THEY ARE PARTICULARLY LOOKING FOR UNDER-18S DOING DIY. SHOULDN'T NEED TO BE SAID, BUT DO. NOT. ENGAGE. SPREAD WIDELY. DO NOT ENGAGE. WE NEED THIS NOTICE SPREAD OUT VIA EVERY GRASSROOTS SUPPORT GROUP AND SOCIAL CIRCLE IN THE COUNTRY.

URGENT. IF THEY GET EVEN ONE TO TAKE PART IT BECOMES A NATIONAL CONVERSATION. TOP ALERT.

- https://x.com/TownTattle/status/1781045092049928551

reblogging to add the Trans Safety Network guidelines for media engagement

do not engage with the Guardian if you’re trans and a minor. do not speak with the Guardian on DIY HRT.

heck, unless the journalist is reputable and has a track record of good reporting on trans issues, do not speak with them about DIY HRT. seek out your local organisation if you are approached by a journalist.

the new Taylor Swift album is THIRTY ONE SONGS LONG

Indigenous Horror Films

@cipheramnesia

Oh some interesting new recommendations. Though Nightingale is noted as having content warnings for sexual assault, so be aware of that. I’ve seen Slash Back and Edge of the Knife which are both pretty excellent.

I also did a dive into what they’re calling Indigenous Horror here.

However be aware - if you just search for “indigenous horror” you will also get a large swathe of exploitation movies which, while of interest in terms of the history of horror movies, are probably not what you’re looking for. Many of these movies feature “redface” or otherwise handle various native peoples as “savage cannibals” and the like. You may need to include more nation specific search terminology if you’re looking for movies explicitly made by indigenous people.

Here are titles I located in the above link: Blood Quantum, Don’t Say Its Name, Rhymes For Young Ghouls, The Dead Lands, Violet (2015 by Mark D. Williams, NOT the short film), Hunting for Shadows (2016), BeDevil, Night Raiders, Dead Can Dance (a short film, but in every search result), basically everything by Rodrick Pocowatchit (apparently), The Smudging, and Dark Place.

These are all in addition to the films from the video, so happy viewing!

Idk man it’s so easy to get bogged down in all the bullshit online but when my then-6 year old cousin found out I was trans he said “ok” then corrected my grandma when she misgendered me. I was once the third between a gay man and a lesbian. Two lesbians once invited me back to their place when I presented as a man. I met an AMAB nb butch who looked strikingly to outsiders like a cis man and it was one of the more sapphic experiences I’ve had. I nervously wore a boydyke shirt to pride and got 3 different cis-looking femme folks tell me they loved my shirt. I once told a trans group at a protest that any pronouns were fine for me and one person said “wow, I’m impressed and intimidated by people like that. I don’t know that I could be that chill with pronouns.” I once told a GNC friend I wished I could wear a type of “opposite” gender clothing after I had already transitioned and so it would be associated with my AGAB and he said “You could just do it.” I’ve had cishet men fight cops for me before. The first time I had a doctor ask me if my name was different than what was on my forms I had to try not to cry. Last week, a phone call with a doctor’s office where I am generally cis passing asked unprompted if my name listed is what I want to be called. It touched me then too. I told a lesbian friend once I felt like my attraction to men AND women both felt gay. She said “makes sense.” And we moved on. I go by different pronouns in different circles. I’ve had gay women love my facial hair. I’ve had gay men like my tits. It’s all out there, I promise. It can be hard to find it but I promise there is community like you and community who likes you. And it’s more messy and beautiful than tumblr discourse makes it out to be.

i think im having a stroke

middle class america is forever in fear of the seal team 6 of rapist drug dealers murderers breaking into their house to get them specifically. what makes you so special?

addiction to true crime podcasts

Obsessed with them showing all of their security measures that could never be used against them ever at all

I hope someone who sees this video gets through every single one of her security measures to do nothing but put an elf on the shelf somewhere and then never return

I have so many questions.

In all seriousness this is a symptom of one of the most toxic elements of American culture, which is the belief that isolation is more likely to protect you from the danger of other people, than other people are to protect you from the danger of isolation.

Realistically, a medical emergency or house fire is far more likely to occur than being randomly murdered in your own house by a stranger, but this woman "protects" herself from the safety of living in community, thereby exposing herself to the danger of living in isolation.

I'm like, morbidly fascinated to observe how normal American women think it is to fear the entire world. I am American but it's still weird to me how every other woman has a deeply ingrained fear of going for a walk alone and expects me to as well.

I'm also really caught off guard when people say things like "Oh, there might be someone on drugs" about a poor or dilapidated area, as a reason it's dangerous. In my experience, the average American seems to have no idea what "drugs" are or do, only a vague impression that they are somewhat like rabies and cause people to become indiscriminately violent and dangerous towards everyone around them.

At my first college there was a restaurant downtown that everyone said was "a front for human trafficking." Even professors would say this. Despite the widespread nature of this rumor, it never seemed to occur to anyone that this information could be actionable or that any authority could be informed about the presence of a human trafficking ring. It was just a fact; human trafficking networks were an assumed part of the everyday world, something that had to be avoided like potholes in the road.

I think about these things a lot.

It is extremely beneficial for a number of industries, as well as certain politicians, for white people — and this is specific to white people — to believe that they are in life threatening danger at any given minute and it matters. It is critical to understand that this issue is extraordinarily racialized, and that the industries and politicians benefiting from making white people afraid are relying upon existing and worsening racial stratification in the US to fill their coffers, or provide them with power or both, and enjoying the knock on harms this does to the BIPOC, immigrant, unhoused and SUD communities adjacent to these needlessly terrified white folks.

77% of Americans believe that crime is increasing. While we don’t have a race breakdown of the numbers, we do have a political breakdown of the numbers, which is just as good, honestly. 92% of Republicans believe that crime is going up but only 58% of Democrats do.

In reality, every kind of crime has been decreasing for the last several years except auto theft. The murder rate fell between 2022 and 2023 at the steepest rate ever in history, and property crime is at its lowest rate since 1961. 

The most dangerous thing in the world to that woman in the video is the husband she locks herself in with every night.



Closing all your blinds and turning your lights off 24/7 like this is going to increase your chance of break-ins because there are a thousand times more people out there who want to break into your empty house and steal your TV, than people who want to assault a random stranger in their house

But to be fair those same people would probably be deterred by the door locks so it all evens out to a very expensive nothing I guess

Don't forget that in sites like tiktok, interaction with content is the kingmaker, so there's a moderate chance that a lot of these tiktokers (especially white women) purposefully act dumb or sometimes outright rage-bait so thousands of people mock them in the comments, and therefore they get pushed to the top. If you look at a profile like this, I'm almost sure 50% of the videos will be dropshipping ads.

Like the commentary about white paranoia isn't even bad or wrong but this shit is grim in a few other ways, like wanting to profit from the average viewer's misogyny by inviting them to make fun of a stupid woman.

Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch

Posts that remind me to nerd out about the intricacies of historical fiction writing

This isn't historical fiction, but period fiction, but I remember having a jarring OH reaction when discovering something that's just a standard part of English now was less than a hundred years old by reading a book. the book was Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers, published in 1930, and in the first chapter a judge is speaking:

hot items

American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus)

really love these two replies in particular

[Begin ID: "Gif of a red and white tabby rolling onto his back and stretching" End ID]

my roll!!!

Simon Roy (@simon-roy) asked me to invent a guy (alien organism) for his newest book, Refugium, which comes with a guy emporium (alien life guidebook). There’s a kind of radially symmetrical bug called pinwheels on the planet that will split into wedges as a defensive mechanism, so I Junji Ito'ed them into a eusocial spiral that workers snap off of once “ripe.”

Refugium is out on Kickstarter right now and if you like alien ecology, failed utopias, and frontier stories I can highly recommend it. I’ve greatly enjoyed the previous books from the same universe.

Simon Roy (@simon-roy) asked me to invent a guy (alien organism) for his newest book, Refugium, which comes with a guy emporium (alien life guidebook). There’s a kind of radially symmetrical bug called pinwheels on the planet that will split into wedges as a defensive mechanism, so I Junji Ito'ed them into a eusocial spiral that workers snap off of once “ripe.”

Refugium is out on Kickstarter right now and if you like alien ecology, failed utopias, and frontier stories I can highly recommend it. I’ve greatly enjoyed the previous books from the same universe.