Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
On April 13, 1985, Danuta Danielsson - a Jewish-Polish woman whose mother was taken to a concentration camp in WWII - hit a local neonazi with her handbag in Växjö, Sweden.
Update: The neonazis were subsequently expelled from the city, and a statue was erected in her honor.
This week 34 years ago, Danuta Danielsson demonstrated how much respect fascists deserve.
not all heroes wear capes
I’ve seen the photo many times but never knew her name and I definitely didn’t know there was a statue in her honor!
this is a good analogy, I’ve been explaining cis people for awhile that someone’s pronouns are how you refer to them when you don’t use their name, and you wouldn’t refer to someone by another name just because of how they look, so names and pronouns are related in my head anyway
This is such a clear and concise way of explaining this.
Okay, remember a couple months back when I asked y’all how you mentally categorized dinosaurs? Well, the results of all the fantastic feedback you gave me have come to fruition, and I wanted to share the results.
I asked the question because my day job is making museum grade replica dinosaur (and other assorted critters) fossils. I have also officially taken over all the social media for the division that focuses on teeth, claw, and miniature skull replicas for individual purchase, and I’ve been rebuilding the website as part of that. One of the big things we wanted to address with the website was the category system for our store. We wanted it to be easy to understand not just for professional paleontologists, but for hobbyists as well, which was where your feedback came into play. We came to two conclusions from that feedback:
1. People primarily categorize dinosaurs visually without knowing their official names, or if they do know their names they only know their names in association with a visual of the whole dinosaur. If they just hear the name on its own they may not fully know what dinosaur is being talked about.
2. People also heavily categorize dinosaurs based on broad famous categories such as carnivore/herbivore, horned, armored, etc. as well as having a few major favorites they always recognize like T. rex.
So! We decided to do two things. Firstly, each product we offer now features a silhouette of the dinosaur it belonged to, like so:
Here’s all the silhouettes together, just because I spent the last two months on them and I want to show them off:
These silhouettes should hopefully help people understand what they’re looking at and who the fossil belonged to much better than they previously could with just an image of the fossil.
The second thing was redoing the overall category system to hit the major categories people recognize, rather than relying on more scientific names as the previous category system did. Here’s that new category system:
The site should be much more user friendly now, and much easier to navigate so you can find all the cool dino goodies you could ever want! Thank you so much to every person who gave me feedback on that post. There’s a link to our site at the bottom of this post, and if you want to keep up with new products we’re developing and other stuff we’re up to be sure to join our newsletter! The signup is at the bottom of the website.
Also! As part of this new website we are, as of 10/13/2020, officially offering international shipping!
The ultimate power move in a vampire/fairy rivalry would be the fairy inviting the vampire over for tea. The vampire has natural dominion over anyone who invites them into their home, the fairy has natural dominion over anyone who violates the laws of hospitality, and neither can refuse the appointment without showing weakness, so it’d just be a constant headgame of the vampire trying to manoueuvre the fairy into a position where the obligations of hospitality allow the vampire to eat them, and the fairy trying to trick the vampire into doing something that would allow the fairy to declare them a poor guest.
You know EVENTUALLY they’re going to get hit with the magical equivalent of being snowed in together, right?
is
is that not the point
next paradox
-faeries have power over those who eat fey food
-vampires have power over those they feed on
even should the vampire successfully bite the faerie theyre still at square one
So y’all keep blowing up my notes with the various Family Lore stories I’ve been telling, so I guess I should tell one on my parents now.
My Mother’s Father was part of the United Auto Worker’s Union, and during the 50′s and 60′s, was on strike a lot. My point is, grandpa got himself an entirely deserved reputation for being a sucker who loved animals, so people would dump thier pets on him. Hence, my mother grew up in a house with pets such as Picket the one-eyed tomcat, Tweety the Bald canary, Dummy the cat, Stupid Son of Dummy, Spooky Garbage Dog and Chiquita the Tarantula. Eventually Grandma put her foot down when Grandpa brought home Gerta the Saint Bernard.
I say all this because it provides some context for how the following occured.
Mom and Dad had just moved in together (my parents dated for six years and were engaged for 13 days, driving everyone on both sides insane), and unfortunately, My mother’s German Shepherd, Cops, has just passed away due to bone cancer. After mourning for a bit, Mom and Dad decided to get a dog together, as a couple.
For context, my father had never owned a dog in his life. His mother had ‘Pretty Bird” the budgie as a child but parrots are alien life forms, not pets.
So they go to the Palo Alto Animal shelter to adopt. The year was 1987, and at the time, Palo Alto was… not a great place. Lots of drugs, gangs and poor civic managment. Mom told me that she learned to identify different types of gunfire while living there. They get there, and mom explains that she’s always had a preference for Big Dogs, and the guy’s face lights up. Oh Yes, he says, We have a Big Dog. For expirienced owners, yep, adoptable today, here we’ll give you a discount even-
Somehow my parents were not suspicious about this.
They were shown to the Animal in question, a Gorgeous blue-sable beastie with pretty golden eyes who immediately pressed herself against the fence and gave them the best PUH-LEEEEEEASE TAKE ME HOME puppy eyes 100lbs of canine can do. Mom and Dad fall in love instantly. They sign all the paperwork and take her home for $10, and name her “Mazel” as in “Mazel Tov.”
Within the hour, it becomes clear that something is amiss.
Cops had lived with his kibble stored in a plastic garbage can in the garage for six years without incident. Mazel figured out how to open doors and got the locking lid off the can in six minutes, horking down about four pounds of the stuff before my mother notices that it’s been weirdly quiet. Most dogs bark at or chase squirrels. Mazel stalked and caught one the second day, presenting it to my mother like an offering. Mazel knew all her commands but would clearly stop to consider before obeying, and trained my dad to give her good treats within a week. The locks on the side-yard gate were undone, and she took a stroll around the neighborhood, but always retuned home for dinner.
After a week of gradually realizing that Mazel was smarter than most of the professors my mom worked with, they took her to the Vet for a routine checkup.
Dr. Hamada walked into the exam room, dropped the clip-board and said “Where the HELL did you get a Wolf?”
After a bit of prodding and a very-angry-dr.hamada-calling-the-pound, they determined Mazel was a high-content hybrid, probably with a husky, but was going to be a lil shit her entire life. OK, said Hamada, I don’t like destroying animals and you’ve got a lot of expirience with dogs, so I’m okay with letting you keep her, but you should keep her away from small children because her Prey Drive could kick in.
Two years later, mom got pregnant with me.
Mazel noticed instantly, and reacted by digging a large hole in the yard and catching even more squirrels for mom, because she needed the protein or something. That what you do when the Alpha Bitch is preggers, right? Dig a den and ply her with food? On the advice of my grandmother, my mom stayed overnight at the hospital once I was delivered, and dad went home with a shirt that had moms and my scent on it. Mazel spent the whole night puzzling over it.
The next morning, when mom came home with me, there was the sudden and instantaneous recognition of PUPPY!!!!!! :D:D:D!!!!! PUUUUUUUPPY!!!!!! and Mazel turned into the most aggressively maternal being I’ve ever met. Playing with me on the blanket, sitting under my chair at meals (I was a messy eater), sleeping under my crib, teaching me to walk by letting me hang onto her fur and shuffle around.
Dr. Hamada thought mom was a madwoman, until he saw me holding Mazel’s mouth open and sticking my face in so i could look at her teeth. He gave up when my mom announced she was pregnant with my sister.
I’m making living with a Wolfdog sound awesome, but it did come with some drawbacks:
Mazel did have to be muzzled at the vets, because she had Opinions about having things stuck up her butt.
HAIR. One of my chores growing up was to brush her out every week and I’d frequently end up with more hair than animal.
the only way we could reliably get her to stay in the yard was with an overhead tether with a STEEL cable, which she chewed through anyway.
Do you like waking up by being hit in the face with half a dead animal? No? Wolfdogs may not be for you.
More than capable of opening the fridge and eating everything if you’re not watching
Will get into everything if not otherwise occupied. Including eating your tax forms.
Howls along with sirens at 4 AM.
PROS of growing up with a wolfdog, as a small child in the 90′s
I was afforded a degree of freedom normally associated with a pokemon trianer. It was no big deal for me and my sister to walk three miles through my not-really-good neighborhood to the Froyo if I took Mazel with us. People tended to leave us alone when we had 100lbs of overprotective Apex Predator following us around.
WINNING at Pet Day at school. There wasn’t actually a compettion but Billy’s hamster sucks in comparison to an animal that is perfectly willing to demonstrate how she can snap an oak branch in half on command.
PTA moms losing their shit because Mazel would walk down the block by herself to come pick ups up from school.
Grew up associating the word “Bitch” with teeth and the willingness to rip an asshole’s face off for being rude. Never changed the definition.
Learned the I-Own-This Strut and Murder-Stare from the absolute best.
When she was 17, Mom and Dad decided to add another room on to the house. They rigged up the overhead tether so she could be outside but not underfoot for the contruction guys. One morning, mom came out to notice them all milling in the side yard entrance, muttering worriedly. When mom asked what was wrong, one of them explained that Carlos forgot to bring the Hamburger. What do you need a hamburger for? Asked mom, and they pointed down the side yard to where Mazel was sitting, doing her best Viscious Alpha Bitch Stare.
Apparently they’d never realized that she was on the VERY end of her tether there and couldn’t actually get to them, and had been scamming them for a big mac a day for a month. Mom had my six-year-old sister pull her away to show she wasn’t dangerous and tired her best not to laugh but kind of failed.
Mazel ended up living to be 19 and a half, and except for some minor arthritis, remarkably hale until the day she passed away in her hole in the back yard while taking a nap. I maintain that Death had to wait until she was sleeping to get a crack at her, or she would’ve taken his scythe for a chew toy.
Peeps, there’s a reason I talk about my bad days. There’s a reason I talk about my struggles with the Brain Raccoons. Because when I was younger, people didn’t talk about mental health. If they did, it was in pitying or scared whispers. And if your brain didn’t work like “normal people’s”, you didn’t talk about it for fear of … a lot of things. Discrimination was the mildest of those things to fear.
You know what? Fuck all that. No one’s brains work like anyone else’s. If yours isn’t working the way you think it should be, if you’re dealing with emotions or thoughts that make you feel like you’re struggling, there’s help out there. You don’t have to be stuck in that horrible, dark place.
Please, please don’t feel like you’re alone, and don’t give up hope.
People talk about needlessly gendered items but one time I got diagnosed with female presenting autism and I’m still losing my mind over it
This is why Autism Speaks studies are invalid. it’s resulted in people thinking that only men can have autism. Thus resulting in stupid terms like female presenting autism.
FEMALE PRESENTING AUTISM???
I refused to give my adhd evaluator my gender/sex so she logged my traits and answers from the questionaires both for the “male” adhd and “female” adhd traits and the results varied so much that even my evaluator was shocked by it bc it was the first time she had done both “genders” for one person (and i think it opened her eyes on how wrong and inaccurate sexed tests/evals are). my hyperactivity, and impulsivity scored lower (aka downplayed) on the female page but had a HUGEEEEE spike for it on the male page, their were things like my emotional dysregulation that were also“less apparent” on my female results than my male ones.
Genuinely ask who ever is evaluating you to remove sex/gender from the evaluation process and if they refuse demand that they test you as a “male” and “female”
Lots of us esp black and brown autistics and adhders are getting duped out of a proper diagnosis bc white perisex cishet people are seen as the “standard” for literally everything in the medical field
