Fannish things, writing, other stuff. Often NSFW. My pronouns are they/them.
275 posts
Latest Posts by applesforthis - Page 5
Humans are so pretty. I love seeing how we change over time.
Man Tracks Down People He Photographed in the Street 40 Years Ago to Recreate Their Pictures
Fields under Snow - Paul Evans , 2024-25
British , b. 1954 -
Ink and acrylic, 61 x 57 cm.
The amount of shitty news coming out this week made me feel like this needed to be said, so.
For all the boys and young men currently afraid that being male means some kind of moral death sentence: the same world that produced Neil Gaiman and Donald Trump also produced Levar Burton, Steve from Blues Clues, and my (step)dad, who isn't famous but did look at a deeply traumatized child with a bunch of mental health issues and said "is anybody going to support that?" and then didn't wait for an answer. There are good men out there doing good work in ways both big and small. Choose to use your strength to help rather than hurt, your voice to speak for those who must be silent, and you can be one of them.
Be the man Mister Rogers knew you could be. He wasn't wrong very often, and he believed you could do wonderful things. I do too.
(Anyone clowning on here will summarily get their ass kicked and their blog blocked. Pain is pain and I know there are a lot of scared teenagers right now.)
There's something about this that just warms my heart. There are bacteria who are EATING RUST.
I love that. That's beautiful. There are so many things out there that I would never have thought could be food, but then it turns out that actually yes, there is someone who can eat that thing. It's so sweet to me, to live in a world where life is so adaptable -- where really, very little is poisoned forever. Because there is usually someone who can figure out how to eat it anyway.
This one, specifically, is waiting for you. Her name is Jennifer. The other arapaima are not waiting for you, they have other stuff they need to be doing today.
^ for the unaware
Happy Lunar New Year!
Tonight is the first new moon of the lunisolar calendar, a time for new beginnings. The moon plays an important role in our world’s ocean—from controlling the tides, to playing conductor in the orchestra of marine life cycles.
Moon jellies—named simply for their lunar satel-likeness—are delightfully drifting reminders of our nearest sea-lestial body. We hope that tonight you can find time to reflect in the shadow of the new moon and shellebrate new beginnings.
Wishing you a year of prosperity! ♥️ 🌑 🧧
[Image description: a tweet from user @thefurrow reading, Witnesses said a bus driver told an ICE agent to "gargle [his] balls" when the latter requested to enter the bus. This is a reply to a tweet from Associated Press Seattle, which reads BREAKING: Greyhound says it will stop letting Border Patrol agents conduct routine immigration checks on its buses. End image description.]
[Image description: text reading, When the sunfish began looking unwell days after the aquarium closed on Dec. 1 for a six-month renovation, its keepers suspected digestive problems, gave it less food and visited the fish tank to comfort the sunfish when there was construction noise, but to no avail.
Then at a staff meeting, one person suggested that the sunfish might have been affected by the sudden absence of an audience.
"We were skeptical but decided to do anything we could," Miyazawa said. They hung their uniforms and placed human-shaped cutouts with photos of smiling faces outside the tank to cheer on the fish, Miyazawa said.
"I knew [the sunfish] was looking at us when we were placing them, but I never thought it would start eating the next day," Miyazawa said, beaming. The staff now visit more often and wave at the sunfish.
The aquarium keepers say they hope many fans will return to see the sunfish when the aquarium reopens in the summer. End image description.]
An aquarium in Japan was closed for renovations, and their resident sunfish got depressed not seeing visitors. So the staff put some uniforms with printed faces against the tank, and it immediately recovered.
[Image description: text reading, #this is literally it. this has psychological support. #time as we perceive it "slows down" during new and/or challenging experiences #because our brains are encoding more details about the experience. more data = larger file size = a "longer" memory #hence time "slowing down" during highly stressful events. in fight/flight/freeze we take in A LOT of detail that we otherwise wouldn't # and one of the reasons childhood and adolescence feel so long in retrospect is because we were having novel experiences all the time! #the older we get the less "new" everything is #UNLESS we make an effort to continue learning and growing and trying new things whenever we can. #it's not only good for you but your life will literally feel longer. time will literally feel slower. #anyway i just think it's neat. :^) #psych #tags /End image description.]
literally though if you feel like your life is slipping through your fingers and every day goes too fast… try doing hard things, not just taking the easy route, like reading and making art and exercising and cooking a meal from scratch and journaling, doing these things without distraction, without being absorbed on a screen… the time will stretch and you’ll be reminded that life is long and beautiful if you make it so.
Painted rolling waves by Daniel Abel.
Okay so I got Rednote because I heard about the whole migration thing and I never bothered to sign up before, and the cultural exchange has just been really fascinating
Keita Morimoto.
Downright astonishing paintings from Tokyo-based artist Keita Morimoto.
BUY PRINTS | FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM
i will say this as a person who is not white: i think being called racist as a white person is like way lower stakes than anyone makes it out to be. and like, the reality is that white people have an inflated sense of anxiety about what being called Racist Means when like. let's be fucking real for a second. it does not meaningfully often result in Material Violence to a person for being "called racist." and I think being racist is just a thing that happens. and like if we are going to say that being accidentally racist from time to time is something that like, is relatively low stakes, that has to go hand in hand with being like. ok well I guess i should take some time to think about why someone might think I'm racist and like Do something about that.
like I think the paranoia and anxiety about how Being Called Racist is something that Does Violence to People is rooted in a white guilt racialized anxiety and if I am going to be real with you I do not think it is based in material reality. you can be a little uncomfortable it's not the end of the world. i think it's frustrating as a racialized person to see so many white people more frantically hand-wringing over the prospect of being called "racist" than over the prospect of Being Racist. it's annoying to say the least.
[Image description: text reading, #file under reasons I don't reblog activism posts with guilt trips attached /End image description.]
Not that anybody asked, but I think it's important to understand how shame and guilt actually work before you try to use it for good.
It's a necessary emotion. There are reasons we have it. It makes everything so. much. worse. when you use it wrong.
Shame and guilt are DE-motivators. They are meant to stop behavior, not promote it. You cannot, ever, in any meaningful way, guilt someone into doing good. You can only shame them into not doing bad.
Let's say you're a parent and your kid is having issues.
Swearing in class? Shame could work. You want them to stop it. Keep it in proportion*, and it might help. *(KEEP IT IN PROPORTION!!!)
Not doing their homework? NO! STOP! NO NOT DO THAT! EVER! EVER! EVER! You want them to start to do their homework. Shaming them will have to opposite effect! You have demotivated them! They will double down on NOT doing it. Not because they are being oppositional, but because that's what shame does!
You can't guilt people into building better habits, being more successful, or getting more involved. That requires encouragement. You need to motivate for that stuff!
If you want it in a simple phrase:
You can shame someone out of being a bad person, but you can't shame them into being a good person.
i have an ancient box camera from the late 40s. takes 120 film. Absolutely unfair good images out of this thing.
This is the 1940s equivalent of a disposable Kodak, it’s terrible but because modern film stock is so fucking good it just rips absolute ass. No I don’t have any pictures they’re scanning shut up.
Something that I love so much about New Zealanders and Australians is the way they sometimes say "nunnight" for "good night." It's not "night night" like I've heard in other places, it's very distinctly "nunnight." Absolutely top-notch thing to say. So snuggly, hearing it feels like a hug
