kids remind me, often, of the things i’ve taught myself out of.
i have a big dog. he looks like a deer. he is taller than most young children. while we were on a trail the other day, a boy coming our direction saw us and froze. he took a step back and said: “i’m feeling nervous. your - your dog is kind of big.”
goblin and i both stopped walking immediately. “he is kind of a big dog,” i admitted. “he’s called a greyhound. they are gentle but they are pretty tall, which is kind of scary, you’re right. their legs are so long because they are made for running fast. i am sorry we scared you. would you like us to stand still while you move past us, or would you feel more safe in your body if we move and you stay still?’
"oh. i didn’t know that about - greyhounds. i think i … i want to stay still,” he said. at this point, his adult had caught up to us. “i’m nervous about the dog,” he told her, “so i’m - i’m gonna stay still.” she didn’t argue. she didn’t make fun of him. she just smiled at him and at me and held his hand while goblin and i, with as wide of a berth as we could make, crept our way through.
behind us, i heard him exhale a deep breath and kind of laugh - “he was really big, huh? she said it’s because greyhounds have to go fast.”
“he was big,” she said. “i understand why that could have made you a little scared.”
“yeah. next time i - next time do you think i could maybe ask to touch him? when - i mean, next time, maybe, if i’m not nervous.”
later, going to a work event, in the big city, i stood outside, trembling. my social anxiety as a caught bird in my chest. i took a deep breath and turned to my coworker. she’s not even really my friend yet. i told her: “i feel nervous about this. i am not used to meeting new people, ever since covid.”
she laughed, but not in a mean way. she said she was nervous too. she reached her hand out and held mine, and we both took another deep breath and walked in like that, interlinked. a few people asked us - together? - and i told the truth: i feel nervous, and she’s helping. over and over i watched people relax too, admitting i feel really kind of shy lately actually, thank you for saying that.
the next time i go to an event, and i feel a little scared, i ask right away: wanna hold hands? this feels a little dangerous. i hesitate less. i don’t hide it as much. i watch for other people who are also nervous and say - it’s kinda hard, huh?
i know, logically, i’m not good at asking for help. but i am also not good at noticing when i need help. i’ve trained myself out of asking completely, but i’ve also trained myself to never accept my own fears or excuses. i have trained myself to tamp down every anxiety and just-push-through. i don’t know what i’m protecting myself from - just that i never think to admit it to anyone.
but every person on earth occasionally needs comfort. every person on earth occasionally needs connection. many of us were taught independence is the same thing as never needing anything.
each of us should have had an adult who heard - i feel nervous and held our hand and asked us how we could be helped to feel safe. no judgement, and no chiding. many of us did not. many of us were punished for the ways that we seemed “weak”.
but here is something: i am an adult now. and i get nervous a lot, actually. and if you are an adult and you are feeling a little nervous - come talk to me. we can hold hands and figure out what will help us feel safe in our bodies. and maybe, next time, if we’re brave, we can pet the dog that’s passing.
I have been a sheep caretaker for like two days and already I’m like. Wow. I get it.
I get why these were some of the earliest mammals to ever be domesticated. They look up to humans with this sort of dumb but all at once innocent and pure and trusting expression. They’re happy to see you. They follow you around. They like to be rubbed under their chins. Maybe its just some latent Scottish highland shepherd DNA I still have in me but I look at my sheep charges and suddenly I see why the love of God for humanity is so often described as a shepherd and his sheep. I’d fight a wolf for these guys. I’d go way the Hell out of my way for them. I’d carry their young for miles on my own back.
nearly 80k reblogs and how many of you eat lamb
The ancient shepherds I’m referencing also ate lamb lol
And? Ancient people also did a lot of other morally questionable things that we shouldn’t continue to do.
But to my point, it’s just a bummer to see so many people agreeing that sheep are trusting animals, that they are individuals with personalities, that they have the capacity to feel love and affection, and so many people seem to agree that they would “go way the hell out of our way” for them… but that compassion and empathy ends when we decide to order lamb chops off a menu. They trust us and we betray them by killing them.
They trust us because people selectively bred them to eat them. If nobody ever ate them they wouldn’t trust you at all lol.
One fallacy, I think, of anti piracy arguments is that a lot of them seem to assume that if I’m unable to pirate something I’m going to pay for it instead rather than going “oh! that’s a terrible shame” and then quickly forgetting about it
“If you were not pirating [media] you’d be paying for it and therefore piracy is evil 😡” actually if I were not pirating that media I would be thinking about something else. I have made the decision to not spend any money on this and even god himself could not shake it
the research on this was already done decades ago and then quickly squashed because the record labels did not like the finding that people who pirated music were spending way more money on actually buying music legally than people who did not pirate music. it turns out people who care enough to pirate media are generally big fans of that media and willing to spend money on it if they have the money to spend
article is from 2009 so we have known this for a LONG time.
The Norwegian study looked at almost 2,000 online music users, all over the age of 15. Researchers found that those who downloaded “free” music – whether from lawful or seedy sources – were also 10 times more likely to pay for music. This would make music pirates the industry’s largest audience for digital sales.
Wisely, the study did not rely on music pirates’ honesty. Researchers asked music buyers to prove that they had proof of purchase.
every time theres a new bad tv show or movie people act like its the end of the world you guys need to learn about the not watching shit method i’ve been successfully employing the not watching shit method for years
A Star Trek idea: A comedy sitcom where instead of a Vulcan on a mostly human ship it is a human on a mostly Vulcan ship
All the Vulcans are fiercely protective of the ‘fragile, illogical, prone-to-danger, smart, reckless little human’.
To make the human feel more accepted (as it is only logical) the Vulcans try to include aspects of terran culture in the ship’s day-to-day life, failing spectacularly at it.
The human loves them even more for it.
They’ll get better at celebrating the human’s birthday next year. It’s the thought that counts.
@jvlianbashir THAT’S A GOOD END TO THAT EPISODE THOUGH…
the vulcans put together awful, bland decorations. they make a cake because it’s of “significant importance”. they go through the process of putting together this party and Studying this Human Ritual and the entire episode is setting up to what you KNOW will be a horrible result. they do a bad job!!
then when the human’s birthday comes, and they reveal the off-the-mark, underwhelming looking birthday bash, the human just. starts crying. because they had no idea their crew would go through all this trouble to celebrate their birthday, and even put up DECORATIONS, or make a CAKE, and there’s a birthday card with extremely polite impersonal messages written and a hundred perfectly tidy signatures.
and the vulcans are just standing around like “you appear upset. the Birthday Party was unsatisfactory”.
I would watch the fuck out of that
“Humans require regular physical contact to remain healthy. We have a weekly rotation for The Daily Shoulder Pat. Please inform us if this is insufficient contact, either in frequency, magnitude, or duration.”
Okay, I reblogged this because of how adorable it is, but then I started picturing McCoy as the sole human.
Oh my fucking God.
honestly this is why when a series spans multiple works some of those works should be different genres, because come the fuck on this would make a great comedy
[Image description: an image posted by southerndrawlinmypants showing a plain green wall with a strip of tape going vertically down one side with a grey balloon attached at the bottom, a strip of tape going horizontally across the room, a small grey balloon below the tape, and a plain white banner near the top of the wall that says, “it is your birthday” in black letters.
The next image is a screenshot of tumblr tags, it says, “#I would honestly tear up if I were on a vulcan ship and they put in the effort to throw me a ‘it is your birthday’ party.”
i love when fic writers who have clearly never tried any kind of alcohol in their lives try to write someone drinking bc they’re always like
“he ordered a tall glass of hard liquor. after three large glasses he was feeling tipsy” like babygirl i can’t be sure but i think u just sent this man to the hospital
“the amber liquid tasted sweet” bestie i can assure you it did not
“The liquor went down their throat easily” like hell it did
