You’ve heard of Earth is space australia now get ready for: Earth is the space Amazon Rainforest. Aliens land on Earth and they are losing their goddamn minds because every square inch of the ground is absolutely PACKED with life like there are hundreds of species just in this one site, there are winged animals flying through the sky and multiple colonies of sophisticated social insects just in the shadow of their ship, this ONE ROCK is covered in MULTIPLE SPECIES OF ORGANISMS that are themselves MULTIPLE ORGANISMS LIVING SYMBIOTICALLY, the tall, woody autotrophs look so different from each other because they’re…holy shit that’s like 5, 6, 7???? different species on this one site???
they start talking to a human and the human is like “haha yeah that’s a crow!” and the alien researcher is like “you called it a ‘bird’ earlier, is that a different name?” and the human is like “oh a crow is just one species of bird, there’s like, 10 others out there”
“On this planet?”
“No, in the back yard right now.”
imagine aliens that come from a tidally locked planet where only a thin band of the planet is habitable, or a planet life was only able to develop in small areas at the poles, or in the few pools of liquid water on the planet’s surface, or just in isolated areas where geologic activity causes geysers and springs, visiting Earth. They seem completely unprepared for the shock of realizing that Earth’s continents appear green because the continents are absolutely covered with green organisms.
The alien biologists are so uncomfortable because there are certain protocols for maintaining certain distances from life signatures to avoid harming unfamiliar organisms, and groves of plant like autotrophs and pools where aquatic life dwells are carefully protected and respected, with very important rules for approach
On Earth, the inhabitants are just. Playing and walking LITERALLY STEPPING ON CARPETS OF ORGANISMS the whole time. the aliens are like “it doesn’t hurt them??? Can’t you just…move them to a place where you don’t have to step on them?” and the humans are like “no of course not, grasses evolved to tolerate being stepped on, and besides, more plants would grow there if we tried to move the existing ones”
It then must be explained that humans would need to regularly spray poisons on the ground to prevent any given area of bare soil from filling up with plant life, and that “regularly” means “multiple times within a single solar cycle.” And that the poisons stop working within a few decades because the plants evolve to resist them that fast.
love when fanfic writers are like “I love this character” & proceed to put them through shit even God has blacklisted, baby the middle ages called they want to hear your ideas
the reason there are no actual phone alerts for the air quality in Canada and parts of the US right now is because the government doesn’t want to freak people out. This is what I’ve taken to calling New Normal Syndrome — when people don’t want to acknowledge that the worst air quality on record, or an ongoing global pandemic is cause for alarm and appropriate protective measures.
New Normal Syndrome has also affected the folks pretending it’s “Normal” (or not a form of child abuse??) to take their kids out in a level 11 air quality warning without any respiratory protection before kids can comprehend the damage that will do to their lungs.
People with New Normal Syndrome can wear blinders as much as they want, they can cling to “Normal” with their fingertips, but it’s not going to make it true. We’re living in a global pandemic, in a climate crisis, and this is not sustainable.
We don’t need to adjust to “the New Normal,” we need to take appropriate steps to fix it and mitigate the damage that it’s causing, at least within our own families and communities to start.
tumblr is gently cradling reddit in its arms after patching up its wounds and saying Who did this to you. we’re by a fireplace and there’s a spark between us we can’t quite name. tumblr lets out a breath it didnt know it was holding
tumblr meets his eyes by accident and hesitantly looks away again. reddit reaches up and cups tumblr’s head in his hand as though he doesn’t realize how intimate it is. tumblr can feel his breath on its neck.
“thank you,” he says. “for saving me.”
he drops his hand quickly, as if he realizes their position. tumblr wonders if the blush rising on his cheeks has anything to do with the fire at all
tumblr’s a warrior. it’s been fighting ever since it learned how. it’s not gotten through a single battle unscathed, but it’s come out on top every time. its face and body are littered with scars. it’s survived before. it’ll survive again.
reddit, however, was raised rich. normally, tumblr would have kicked him to the curb for this alone. but he’d run away from home, had tried to build a life for himself, only to be caught in the middle of a war he never meant on fighting. tumblr can’t help but feel bad for him.
they’d fought before. not physically, just shot glares and snide comments at each other in passing. but the dislike they’d had for each other was nothing compared to the fire in tumblr’s chest. it was going to destroy whoever hurt him.
not now, though. not while reddit was asleep on its shoulder, bandaged up as carefully as tumblr could. not while he was recovering from pain he should never have had to feel. the moon and the fire were the only source of light by which tumblr could see the peace on reddit’s face as he slept. a sort of comfort and safety that tumblr wouldn’t ruin. it couldn’t.
tumblr being all adults nowadays is so funny because my mutuals are either unemployed chainsmokers or Ezra, Bioengineering PHD Candidate at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
one of the important lessons to learn about adult life is that the gap between an unemployed chainsmoker and a bioengineering phd candidate is actually not that large
The writer of your favorite novel-length angsty smut fics is also a circuit court judge in the state of Maryland and you, the loser reading it, have to suffer that knowledge.
Alternatively, they’re a high school junior and that’s worse.
