I have a ton! I mostly talk about them on discord servers I’m active in, and used to talk about them more on my art blog (fallingfeatherart), but never really got any traction for my OC stuff so I stopped. I’m working on a website where I’ll stick all my big worldbuilding projects, but who knows when that’ll be done.
You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that’s happened gradually, and which I’ve seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.
By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.
I’m not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it’s due to the homogenization of social media sites? There’s a lot more of this divide between “content creator” and “consumer” instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. “Asks” aren’t really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an “ask” on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?
Seeing people shoot raptors in other countries is fucking wild to me because we have a whole system of super strict laws governing how you can handle an individual FEATHER off of an eagle, and it doesn’t have to even be a dead eagle. One can molt and you can find it on the ground and if you’re caught with it the warden will fuck your entire life. What do you mean people are out there shooting them to protect a fucking pheasant. A pheasant??? That thing I have to avoid running over approximately 459 times any time I leave a major highway???
My good friend @prismaticate has asked a very good question here, and while I’m not entirely sure I’m qualified to explain it and would love some input from more qualified sources, my SUPER simplified understanding of why the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and its numerous modern revisions and addendums have clauses about this included is this:
-It’s basically impossible to tell a feather that’s been picked up off the ground from one that’s been taken from a poached bird
-This used to be a MAJOR problem when bird-feather hats and the like were in high demand back in the day, because several bird species on the edge of extinction kept getting poached in spite of the new laws protecting them since people would just say they “found” any feathers from protected species used in the stuff they were selling, and you couldn’t prove otherwise unless you literally caught them in the act of poaching
-This eventually got SO bad that they had to just make it illegal to have the feathers at all, with certain exceptions made for members of different indigenous groups, or authorized organizations that display them as part of efforts to educate the public about the species they belong to
@zooophagous is this a reasonable rundown? Was there anything I missed/any better sources you might recommend to learn more about this? I know it’s probably far more nuanced than that, but this was kind of the explanation I’d always seen floating around. 😅
That’s pretty much the gist of it! Eagles and eagle feathers have more laws on top of that because of their sacred uses in certain indigenous practices, how they relate to legal falconry, and because eagles at one time were highly endangered while at the same time being a national symbol. Where a cop or a game warden may shrug and look the other way if you, say, illegally picked up a chickadee feather from your bird feeder, if they see a real eagle feather they will notice and will be VERY interested in where it came from.
Not long ago here someone was arrested and charged for violating these laws because they tried to sell a plains feather bonnet at a pawn shop, claiming they had “found it while exploring an abandoned house.”
The clerk suspected it was real eagle, the warden confirmed it was, and because those feathers are so tightly tracked they were able to locate the family of the previous owners who said the item had been stolen some time ago.
If nobody knows you have it, obviously you can get away with it. But if they see it, or God forbid you try to SELL it, the hammer will fall.
Im surprised every time people think it’s a crazy sounding law, it is genuinely one of the only things preventing a lot of native birds from extinction or any asshole could kill as many as they want and just say they found them on the ground
Chinese sellers on Aliexpress are trying to sell giant land snail eggs as “Little Hatch Toys” which is adorable and hilarious except of course that this is the most illegal animal in the United States and even a zoo or scientific institution would get in trouble for having any
The fact that snails are top tier invasive species threats is such common knowledge in all the nature hobbies and sciences I constantly forget that I need to explain it. Why wouldn’t they be? They’re just non-stop eating machines that breed exponentially and the bigger they are the fewer predators they have. In Hawaii these have driven at least dozens, possibly hundreds of plants and animals extinct over the past few decades.
i know yall love sharing items from small shops and supporting small businesses and small creators is great, but yall really need to stop sharing items from resin shops that make resin dishware and cutlery until you do further research.
there is a food safe resin, HOWEVER, the vast majority of shops will not be using it. its extremely fucking expensive, and to remain food safe, any dyes or additives used must also be food safe, and the piece will have to have been mixed and cured correctly. anything wrong in that process, and it’s no longer food safe.
the vast majority of resins, especially those cheap enough for artists and small creators to regularly use, is poisonous. its a carcinogen. it will leech chemicals, even if given a clear coat or varnish, and you can get very sick very fucking quickly from eating or drinking anything that came into contact with it, and long term exposure could very well kill you- this isn’t taking into account any additives to the resin, dyes, or colorants either, the vast majority of those are not regulated for food use.
an absolute boom in resin crafters from over quarantine hasn’t helped this situation either. many simply do not know or do not care and will sell items that are suspect at best. partially cured pieces, bad molds, just plain inappropriate items used in resin crafting have gotten very common over the past few years, and still are.
TL;DR: Most resins are NOT food safe, and are incredibly toxic. Do not buy or share anything made of it for food use. Shops selling appropriate food safe resin items will be flat out about it, and are going to be extremely expensive.
And remember “food safe” or something safe for food contact does NOT mean it is safe to eat off! Different resins release their chemicals at different rates, so just because food can briefly touch something, it does not mean its safe for the food to sit there for prolonged periods and then be eaten. It needs to be food GRADE. Let me stress this again: FOOD SAFE IS NOT SAFE TO EAT OFF.
Tbh just perhaps avoid resin food related products.
(This is covered in the first link but I know people won’t click)
i hate seeing people now making fun of those who care about privacy online. i’ve seen people saying things like “well they already have your data. what are companies going to do with it” and it’s like, that’s not the point. it’s that companies /shouldn’t/ be able to have my data and sell it. am i aware they probably already have my data? yes, absolutely. but i’m still going to try and keep them from monetizing it any further, why are we defending companies selling data they shouldn’t have to begin with though?
adding this to the post because, 100%, just there’s a fire doesn’t mean you should pour gasoline on it
I have like ten different ad and/or tracking blockers on my PC and phone… just out of pure spite
Is there any benefit to using multiple ad blockers at once? I honestly don’t know, but I haven’t seen a single ad on the internet in ages and I get to use this image:
We really gotta start giving classical music nicknames. Every time i listen to some youtube study music compilation i’m like “Wow that song was nice, what was it called so I can find it again later??” and it’s like Andante spianato et Grande polonaise brillante, Op. 22: Grande Polonaise in E-flat Major, Molto allegro. Like ok. Thanks. I’ll remember that
Lord help me, there are classical musicians in the tags arguing that this is actually the correct and most intuitive way of doing things because ‘modern songs often end up having the same names’; you’re right, let me just get back to reading my favorite book Moderately-fast-paced historical upmarket fantasy with elegant but accessible prose told in first person (with close third person interludes)No. 17
