sixteen years that face has been in my memory, it was high goddamn time.
do you know how much fic there is NOT for this fandom??? WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME.
SOMEONE ELSE HAS TO SUFFER WITH ME.
honestly, i was hoping that it would have picked up at least a few more given the popularity of things like yuletide etc for smaller fandoms … but fuck, man, there needs to be so many ‘another chapter’ sequels to put in our eyeballs as well as twice that many fics of everything in between.
gdi for a miniseries set in what’s basically the answer to the question what happens after happily ever after, you’d think there’d be more of that around.
You’ve probably watched the video for Beyoncé’s “Hold Up” — the stunning masterpiece in which Our Lady Bey runs elegantly amok, wielding a baseball bat. But now you can watch it on YouTube without any hassle whatsoever.
“…last
year this photograph of children looking at their smartphones by Rembrandt’s ‘The
Night Watch’ in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
[went viral.] It was often accompanied by outraged, dispirited comments such as
“a perfect metaphor for our age,” “the end of civilization” or “a sad picture of
our society”.
…It turns out that the
Rijksmuseum has an app that, among other
things, contains guided tours and further information about the works on display.
As part of their visit to the museum, the children, who minutes earlier had admired
the art and listened attentively to explanations by expert adults, had been instructed
to complete an assignment by their school teachers, using, among other things, the
museum’s excellent smartphone app….
The tragic thing is that this — the truth — will
never go viral. So, I wonder, what is more likely to bring about the death of civilization,
children using smartphones to learn about art or the willful ignorance of adults
who are too quick to make assumptions?” José Picardo, Medium
Friday, I had a middlin' day at work, but then I took the bus home. I was halfway home when I realized that there was a tiny little puppy in one the wheelie carts that the people in front of me had. That was nearly the best day ever.
Jupiter Ascending was one of those movies that seemed to come out of nowhere. Its plot was thin on logic at times, and its scenery chewing was a marvel to behold. The film was pure space opera in an era that doesn’t often do space operas unless they are known quantities. It was a genre film with no franchise to back up or reboot. It confused and annoyed a lot of people.
But for some, it was the Holy Grail of everything they ever wanted in a movie and hadn’t known to ask for.
Jupiter Ascending only suffers from one true problem in my humble opinion: it should have been created as a trilogy, or at least two films, to cover all the material in it. While watching, you get the sense that the Wachowskis understand the logic of this universe, that they’ve got the backstories and details to pull the whole thing together, but the audience only ever glimpses that narrative. Sometimes that works in genre film–there are plenty of movies that do the bare minimum on the world building front and still work out, often because the story being told is simple enough to ignore the bigger questions provoked by its premise. Even Star Wars got away with that at its inception.
Jupiter Ascending is not that movie.
The film has an intricate backlog of intrigue and politics that the audience is only getting base level access to. There is an entire universe of commerce and class systems that we have no context for, and while the shorthand is interesting, it opens up far too many questions to satisfy. Human being can be spliced with animals? Any kind of animal? How many animals? Are they all ones that we’d know? What about the people spliced with cyborgs? Where do they fit in class-wise, and were they always cyborg-y? Are they actually androids with no real human parts? How did the turn-people-to-serum-for-youth business start and/or get discovered in the first place? The Abrasax family appears to have power, but not to be directly in charge, so what kind of government body is? Are there citizens of this universe who take exception to human splicing with animals genes for the purpose of labor and military use? Where are they?
These are only a small fraction of the questions I had the first time I watched. And to be fair, the fact that the film prompted so any questions still means that the Wachowskis developed a wonderfully complex world that I’d be happy to spend more time in–and many fans of the film clearly felt the same. It’s just a shame that it rendered the film too muddy to prompt more advocates to its cause.
Of course, some of the questions I had were less flattering to the premise, like, what the heck happens to Stinger’s daughter after he rockets away, and who the heck is Jupiter’s buddy Katharine Dunlevy exactly and did they literally become friends because Jupiter cleans her house because that seems relevant, also, why does looking identical to the Abrasax matriarch make Jupiter owner of the Earth, but not anything else the woman had control over before her death? These are things that it would be extremely helpful to know.
The two main inspirations for the story were the Odyssey and The Wizard of Oz, with Odyssey being more of the spiritual predecessor and Oz being the practical one; the Wachowskis liked the idea of bringing the typical portal fantasy heroine, like Alice or Dorothy Gale, into a space opera setting. (Yes, that does mean that Caine was patterned after Toto. No, I’m not kidding–the Wachowskis said so. Let that one settle in your brain for a minute.) The idea was to flip the trope of the “stock space hero” who is stoic and tough with a woman who negotiates her way through trouble with empathy and smarts. To be fair, Jupiter doesn’t always manage this–her near-marriage to Titus Abrasax Smarmy McShirtless Artful-Poutface, Lord of Orgy Grove, is by far her dimmest move in the narrative, especially seeing as there is no way to look at Titus without every single creep meter going off in your brain, unless you actually think guys like, oh, Dorian Gray are just misunderstood woobies in need of a helping hand. (Seriously, has Douglas Booth ever played Gray? He should.)
But while moves like that don’t really work in a narrative sense, they do work to make Jupiter a more endearing hero. The tale sets her up as a perpetual doormat in a manner that is deeply distressing–to the point where she is willing to sell her eggs to make cash (to buy a telescope like the one that belonged to her dead father), but give her cousin two-thirds of the money… presumably because the whole thing was his idea? He makes some comment about capitalism when she asks why he should get such a large cut, but it doesn’t really play, so we have to assume that Jupiter is just letting him walk all over her because that’s how she is. Throughout the story, Jupiter gains more and more determination and will to fight back–a consequence of her choices now determining the future of humanity rather than just her own. It provides more motivation for her transformation into a heroic figure than your average origin story, and is more interesting for how Jupiter tries (and sometimes fails) to navigate the impossibility of the situation. It makes her story feel more real.
There is an element of wish fulfillment to the film that many female critics latched onto–a hero’s story, but with specific touches that make it clear who the target audience is meant to be. Jupiter lives a life that seems inconsequential to her, then has a universe of possibilities open up in front of her. Her journey requires an acceptance of nobility, changing in and out of incredible outfits, proposals of marriage, harrowing chase sequences, and a hunky guy who attaches himself to her side from the moment they lock eyes. It’s better than a princess narrative because it’s not about being whisked away to a castle, never to toil or worry again–in fact, the narrative is basically the opposite of that in every way–and hits beats for its female audience that are often looked down upon by action films. And because Jupiter has her beginnings as a character who is accustomed to getting steamrollered, she retains a certain level of awkwardness that your average viewer can empathize with; when Caine tells her that he basically has more in common with a dog than a human, and Jupiter blurts out “I love dogs, I’ve always loved dogs,” it’s impossible not to wince and laugh at the same time. Even she knows it was a ridiculous thing to say.
I read reviews of the film before I saw it the first time, and wondered whether this approach was going to work for me, only to have it confirmed by the character of Caine Wise. Suffice it to say, Channing Tatum is really not my usual type when it comes to men. Yet in this film? He totally works for me. Cannot explain it. (They said that he had to wear some kind mouthpiece to give his jaw a more canine-type shape? Maybe that’s part of it? Apparently it was really irritating for the poor guy to wear.) It might be the near-werewolf thing they’ve got going on? Then again, it might just be how successfully he broods and growls and stalks around through the whole ordeal, only to make sad, sad puppy eyes every time he looks at Jupiter. It just does the job.
Also, can all villains be Balem Abraxas? Eddie Redmayne won a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor in a Supporting Role for this part, and I can only guess that it’s because people don’t understand true mastery when they see it. Eddie Redmayne won an Oscar for playing Stephen Hawking the very same year, which is great, I guess, but Hawking is a real life person, someone that Redmayne had the ability to research and study and engage with. (I have specific opinions on actors usually getting awards for playing real people in biopics anyhow, but that’s a discussion for another time.) Balem Abraxas came out of his brain, everyone. No one told him he had to do what he did–though I presume that he worked with the Wachowskis on building the character to a certain degree–he just did it. Of course the character is over the top, because how could a character like Balem Abraxas not be an aggrandizing mess muppet? If we had gotten a performance any less overwrought than this, I promise you that the entire movie would have fallen apart.
There is an attention to the female body and female roles in this film that cannot be understated, and I can’t help but wonder if this awareness or focus comes as a result of the Wachowskis’s transitions. Jupiter agrees to sell her eggs in a deal where her cousin gets the primary benefits and undergoes none of the risks. He continually tells her that this operation is no big deal, though he isn’t the one who has to go through it–and ends up spending his share on a video game system and large television. In that respect, the film does an excellent job of showing the ways in which women’s bodies are used and commodified without resorting to a rape or sex work narrative (a tack that is obviously far more common). Cousin Vladie has no way of making this money on his own, or would simply rather not do that work in the first place–as cousin Moltka later bemoans, he has treated his cousin “like chicken.” Like an asset and object rather than a person.
There are other cues as well–for example, when Jupiter finds that Caine has been injured in their escape from Balem Abrasax’s agents, she ends up trying to staunch the blood with a maxi-pad. (Though she seems to do this by pressing down on the wound with the adhesive side, a goof that is patently hilarious to witness.) Caine shows brief discomfort over the idea, but Jupiter insists, refusing to let an acknowledgement of the fact that women menstruate get in the way of administering first aid.
And of course, there is the oddness of Jupiter looking exactly like the deceased Abrasax matriarch, then encountering all three of the woman’s children, who proceed to handle her with various levels of attraction and disdain. Kalique is the first, who tries to tempt Jupiter with the allure of everlasting life through their serum, in a show that is decidedly sensual in nature. Titus offers to help Jupiter through marriage, though the kind that he pegs as more of a business transaction, and is later revealed to be a liar. But though the first Abrasax siblings show little care for boundaries when faced with someone who looks just like the woman who raised them, it is the Jupiter’s encounter with Balem that strikes the most disturbing note. She divines that Balem was the one to kill his mother, and though he continually insists that he knows the different, it is clear that Balem is projecting his mother onto Jupiter. The final fight turns personal, with Jupiter trying to protect her own family as Balem comes after her, and in the end, she dispatches him with the words “I am not your mother.” In effect, she rejects the maternal mantle that Balem desperately wants to place on her; though he is revealed to have killed his mother, he says at the beginning of the film that he misses her because she was the only person who “truly understood” him.
This is more fascinating for the fact that Jupiter, as a female protagonist, is allowed to be and feel explicitly sexual without being maligned for it. Her attraction toward Caine is romantic and sexual in nature, and that desire is addressed and played up for the benefit of the viewer, without making her out to be overly promiscuous or “bad.” Addressing female desire within a narrative is something that Hollywood films often still struggle with–they’ve come to realize that woman will sit in the audience to watch an attractive man, but they often won’t allow a woman on screen to show that same desire candidly if she’s meant to be a hero. Desire and sexuality is still mostly the purview of “evil” women in fiction.
One point in the story where many fans have cited a play on trans issues comes when Jupiter arrives on Ores, the capital planet, in order to claim her inheritance as owner of Earth. While it can be read as an indictment of government bureaucracy, it seems more to be a particularly sharp commentary on the difficulty that trans people often have in changing their IDs and paperwork to reflect their chosen name. (After all, Jupiter is obtaining “a title.”) Pointedly, it might be the funniest section in the entire film. Jupiter is assigned a helper named “Intergalactic Advocate Bob,” and proceeds to pass through countless different offices, fills out a myriad of confusing forms, and gets told time and again that she doesn’t have the information needed to continue. The whole thing is eventually revealed to be a giant catch-22 that can only be solved with the application of bribery, and then, finally, they arrive at an office run by Terry Gilliam. Gilliam, as Seal and Signet Minister, proceeds to homage his own film Brazil in a brilliant little scene that finally ends with Jupiter receiving her title, and says “Well, congratulations, your Majesty. And my deepest condolences.” As a commentary on the real life struggles of trans people, it doesn’t get more entertainingly on the nose than that.
But the thing that really makes this film work for me is the use of “time economy.” (It’s another indictment of capitalism, really, much like Speed Racer was.) The story reveals to us that the only true currency in the universe is time. People will murder countless beings on faraway planets and drink whatever’s left over of them in order to gain more time in the universe. It’s a common trope in science fiction that often zeroes in on the aspect of beauty–people want everlasting life because they want the ability to stay hot forever. But while that idea is briefly entertained in Jupiter Ascending, this economy has far more to do with the ability to stick around indefinitely, to have freedom to do as one pleases always and infinite days to enjoy that freedom. The first time I watched the film, that idea hit hard–because while this has always been true after a fashion, we are heading further down that road now in ways that we barely quantify on a day-to-day basis.
I’m not talking about plastic surgery or the potential to cryogenically freeze our heads until we can survive in the future. I am talking about the ways in which we are constantly paying out to free up more of our time: Should I put up these shelves myself and learn a new skill, or should I pay someone to do it for me? More often than not, it’s all about whether or not you have the time.
Do I have the ability to pick up that birthday gift today, or should I pay through an app to have someone grab it for me so I can get all my other errands done? Time.
Trek though the shopping mall for hours, or have that thing delivered in two days via Amazon Prime? Time.
Think up my own ideas for meals and plan out what food I have to buy, or let a service pick out the exact items I need, and deliver it in a kit complete with recipe. Time. It’s all time. People who have more wealth can afford to spend less time on draining activities, and more on what they love because we live in a world where, more than ever before, money buys you time.
The fact that this is at the heart of Jupiter Ascending speaks to everything that the Wachowskis do brilliantly. This movie is silly and strange and incredibly shot and oddly innovative, and the core of the narrative revolves around something very real and very frightening that we all need to pay more attention to in the future.
And then it ends with the owner of the Earth (happily returned to her family and newly pleased with her lot in life, after having a frightening wealth of responsibility dumped into her lap) hanging out with her humanoid boyfriend on hover blades, on the very best date ever. Because whatever our future holds, the connections built on love and trust are the only ones that will keep us afloat. This theme every single time, in every single tale the tell. Because however dark their stories get, the Wachowskis clearly have hope, and they hold that above all. Against the backdrop that is the constant destruction wrecked by blockbuster films, that is perhaps the most gratifying thing to see.
Emily Asher-Perrin plans to speak like Balem Abrasax for the rest of the day, and no one can stop her. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
She is so sharp and so funny that her tweets convinced NBC to let her commentate at the Olympics!
She worked to get where she is, she failed a few times before she succeeded. And she related this sentiment on SNL & told people, “You can achieve your dreams at any age.” Which may not seem like a lot, but in a world full of 20 somethings being super successful it means a lot!
She is honest! She speaks her mind & doesn’t take bullshit!
Did I mention she’s fucking hysterical?
She continually blows away people’s expectations…
And does not deserve all the haters who hack her personal website, who compare her to apes on the internet, and who tear her down for no other reason than existing. NO ONE DOES!
When you mix blue and red it makes purple.
Purple isn’t referred to as half blue and half red,
Purple is it’s own color in and of itself.
And sometimes it turns out more red or more blue, but it is still referred to as purple.
Bisexuality isn’t half gay and half straight.
So, if a dark-skinned alien with Kryptonian-on-Earth levels of power landed in the Deep South in 1839 and found himself a slave, he’d just break the chains binding him and others, right? Not necessarily.
The coyote is our classic totem animal in America. It’s the animal that produced the oldest body of literature in North America in the form of Indian coyote deity stories from 10,000 years ago. To me, the howl of the coyote is our original national anthem.
@copperbadge, seen any coyotes or coywolves lately?
Lately only in documentaries, alas. They generally don’t come downtown (with a few notable and newsworthy exceptions) and while I do run in parks, they’re super urban parks, so the coyotes are either well out of sight or in larger and less people-filled areas. I used to catch glimpses once in a while when I lived on the north side. Notably once I saw two babies tumbling around the graveyard, and I took a few photos and then walked away very fast because Mama was somewhere nearby.
I love Chicago’s urban coyotes. And they’re quite retiring most of the time; they know humans are motherfuckers so they don’t mess with us if it’s avoidable. Every year around February there’s a rash of articles about suburban assholes who think they should be exterminated because a coyote ate their dog, but February is mating season for coyotes, and they’re naturally more aggressive about other furry quadrupeds being in their home territory. (An analysis of coyote stomach contents and spoor in Chicago showed that even urban coyotes live on a diet consisting primarily of rodents and rabbits, which is why the city likes them, they keep the pests down and don’t rummage in the trash. Coyotes don’t as a rule unprovokedly attack or eat dogs or cats.) The solution is not “wipe out the coyotes” but “better civic education about coyotes” so that people know not to let their dogs off-leash in unfenced areas in February.
I do love that most nature documentaries about Chicago coyotes are like “This is amazing, look at our secret neighbors” rather than “man the vermin’s getting big in this city.”
The north side is neck-deep in rabbits, so this does NOT surprise me. Not even a little.
The Green Bush Viper or Variable Bush Viper (Atheris squamigera) The coloration of this snake is the same in some populations, but variable in others. The dorsal color varies from sage green or light green to green, dark green, bluish, olive, or dark olive brown. Rare specimens may be found that are yellow, reddish or slate gray.
star wars equivalent of like the Geek Squad or something though
you’re an employee on like, the Nar Shaddaa Best Buy
people bringing their holocommunicators in for repairs, going “I don’t know, it just started acting really sluggish and scrambling all my calls!” and some poor worker is sitting there in the back looking for the problem and oh, there it is, like a quadrillion yottabytes (thanks wikipedia) of hutt fetish porn and some weird addons that add special effects to incoming holocalls like flowers and fireworks and shit. of course the person who brought it in has absolutely no idea how any of that got there. you begrudgingly “fix” it, knowing you’ll see that person in two weeks with the same problem
someone nervously brings in their datapad because “it’s acting weird, I don’t know.” you tell them to come pick it up in 24 standard hours and get to work diagnosing the vague-ass fucking problem because people are terrible. as you’re looking for signs of anything, you can’t help but notice their holonet history which would make even the scariest Inquisitor blush. you accidentally see some messages you’re not supposed to and you’re pretty sure the person who brought in this datapad is Imperial Intelligence and boy you sure hope they don’t have you disappeared now that you’ve seen their secret horrible illegal-on-like-100-planets porn. they also have like, so many viruses. so many.
in fact, every problem is probably porn. like, 95%. you begin to wonder how the Empire and the Republic manage to maintain a war when everyone is fucking up their holonet-capable equipment with so much goddamn porn
Ever needed to hear about mad dad birds with enormous feet? Try THESE on for size:
What’s that you say? These are clearly the feet of a dinosaur, not a bird? WHY NOT BOTH?
This is Australia’s very own dinosaur, the second-largest bird in the world, the emu. Say hi!
They roam around Australia making ‘wonk-wonk’ noises under their breath and glaring at everything. And the dads take care of the babies! They sit on the eggs…
They look after the tiny stripey adorable things….
They look after the less tiny less adorable things…
And they even look after the great big menacing things that are almost as big as they are.
But here’s the catch. All emus look pretty much alike. Especially when you are a tiny stripey adorable thing. All you can see of your dad is is great big dinosaur feet (see picture #1). So there is one very unrealistic thing about all the adorable terrifying dinosaur family photos above:
I have never seen an emu family in the wild where all the babies are the same size.
Here is the reason!
Emu dad and his emu babies are roaming about wonking and glaring at everyone. Suddenly emu dad sees another emu dad! A threat!
Emu dads do some display threats with dancing and bouncing and fluffing and… look, it’s very serious business, okay?
If this does not work to see off one emu they might progress to actual fighting.
Oops, sorry, you wanted the dignified version. Here, have some ART:
MAGNIFICENT.
Either way, this encounter will end up with one or both adult emus zooming away as fast as he can run. This is very fast.
This is the other thing they do besides wonking and glaring, by the way. They run. Fear the running emu.
Anyway, this leaves all the tiny and medium-sized and semi-large stripey things milling around making confused tiny “cheep? wonk?” noises and basically just following whichever pair of large feet they can find.
HI DAD
And so mostly when you see a male emu with a gaggle of youngsters at heel, they are all different sizes. Who knows whose they are? Not him! But he’s going to look after them anyway.
DM: “The enemy castle looms large out of the woods. You can’t see inside.”
Druid: “…I cast speak with animals and start asking the squirrels if they’ve seen anyone coming and going.”
(30 acorn-bribes later, she’d established that there were “lots” of undead and found out about a hidden entrance)
-
Druid: …So flying squirrels are Tiny, right? I can use them for Animal Messenger?
-
Druid: “So how many acorns would it take me to build up a squirrel spy network?”
DM: “You can’t. The squirrels aren’t intelligent. They’ll just forget what you wanted them to do and wander off.”
-
(Much later)
Druid: “During our downtime, I wander into the woods and start casting Awaken on friendly squirrels. I offer them a competitive rate of pay to join my spy network.“
DM: ”…This is the entire reason you maxed out your diplomacy and took Leadership, isn’t it.“
TUMBLR! Tomorrow, September 3 2016, is once again INTERNATIONAL VULTURE AWARENESS DAY!
If you are already a vulture PRO, it’s all good, keep scrollin’, baby. NOT A VULTURE PRO? THEN READ ON, FRIEND.
VULTURES: SOME ARE LIKELY GOING EXTINCT, RAPIDLY: As you are aware, vultures exist. But did you know that many species of vultures are so critically endangered, that researchers are worried that some might be extinct before the turn of the decade? It’s 2016, bud, so that’s in only four years. Horrifyingly, a handful of vulture species have dropped by a staggering 90% since the 1980s. The White-Rumped Vulture alone has lost 99.9% of its population since the 1990s. You know all those “You were a child of the 80s/90s if you remember ____” memes floating around? Slap some vultures in there with the words “the most abundant raptor in the world during your childhood is now one of the most endangered”. That’s right folks, in the span of your lifetime, this bird has gone from several million, to less than 9,000. Other species have seen similar declines. SO WHO CARES, THEY ARE GROSS/UGLY: First of all, how dare. Vultures are my beautiful children. But seriously, vultures are very important no matter how beautiful (or.. ugly…) you think they are. Vultures are wicked good at eating carrion, and unlike most other scavengers, vultures are a dead-end for many diseases. What this means is that when a vulture eats a carcass that has botulism, rabies, tetanus, anthrax, fusobacteria
(linked to colon cancer), clostridium, (and many more), the vulture’s digestive system KILLS these diseases/bacteria, and does not pass them in its feces. One article suggests that vulture digestive systems can kill in excess of 12,000 species of bacteria that are found in rotting carrion. Not only do vultures provide this “service”, but scientists are hopeful that by studying how vultures digest these notoriously hard to kill nasties, that it will benefit humanity directly.
I DON’T EAT CARRION, SO I WON’T GET THOSE DISEASES ANYWAY: Well no, m… most of us don’t eat carrion, but guess what? We all drink water and share the same planet. Several types of these bacteria can filter down into the water table if not “cleaned up” by vultures. And while I’m sure some of you drink chemically treated municipal water, many people still rely on wells, especially in rural areas where there is more likely to be wild animal and farm animal carrion. Plus, rabies: It’s a thing. Ever since most of the vulture population in India has been wiped out, there has been a rabies breakout. Rabies is scary, do you really want to play around with that nonsense? Not me. Eat all the carrion, PLEASE, vultures. Even if vultures were not so valuable to humans and the environment (though they totally ARE), they are worth saving anyhow. We screwed this up, let’s dang well fix it.
OKAY, I’M DOWN WITH SAVING VULTURES. HOW DO WE DO THIS? Like many conservation issues, this is tricky and the answers are not always easy. Migratory or “wandering” birds in particular are tough to help because they can fly hundreds of miles in a day, and in doing so, cross international boundaries. If you have listened to world politics at all lately, you’ll know getting two countries to agree on something (especially something as “lowly” as helping vultures) is.. well, it’s tough. Vultures may have a lot of protection in one country, then fly across the invisible boundary, only to be poisoned in the next. In Africa, habitat loss, poisoning, poaching (kill the vultures so that their circling won’t lead authorities to rotting, poached animals), power lines, and illegal trade are wiping vultures out at an alarming rate. In India and other regions, much of the same, but also mixed with the devastating use of antibiotics in cattle which is extremely fatal to vultures.
If you can’t donate (I feel ya– I know that all ages and demographics love vultures! And not all can spare money) then that’s okay. Do something for International Vulture Awareness Day. Tell someone how cool vultures are, or draw a little vulture doodle. There are a lot of really neat species to choose from. Do a vulture interpretive dance at the mall, and tell people about vultures. Yell from the rooftop, from your twitter, facebook, or tumblr, about vultures. Wear some vultures on your BODY (by which I mean a shirt. Not actual vultures. Actually, I really need to get this. Look at their faces
❤
). Tag stuff with hashtags like #IVAD and #internationalvultureawarenessday and #lovevultures and make it trend, or whatever social media magic is these days.
Down with rabies, hug a vulture! (d.. don’t, don’t actually hug a vulture. Unless it’s a plush vulture. Oh snap- that’s right, you can totally buy a plush vulture and help vultures with your vulture.)
Also.
❤
Not Ugly
❤
:
(Cinerous Vulture)
* - I’m not affiliated with any of these organizations, I just want vultures to stay on this planet
look I know the show won’t go there but I’m honestly 100% here for asexual bi-romantic Kara and her little crime fighting gaggle of dorks who are hopelessly in love with her.
Seriously, it’s already canon that Kara has more attention/enthusiasm for food than for any of the stupid boys in her life.
when people casually mention something you’re completely obsessed with and it takes every fuckin ounce of your self control not to propel yourself into the stars and scream for the rest of eternity about how much you love the thing
Again, this is even funnier if you know what a fucking production nightmare, with a possible curse attached to it no less, this robot prop was for the Doctor Who crew…
I want to know about the cursed robot
So the robot isn’t a guy in a suit, it’s an animatronic/puppet thing, and it wasn’t built for the show. In fact, no one knows who built it, one of the producers just FOUND IT ONE DAY in a building near the studio. It had apparently been built for another production that was cancelled and then just left to gather dust. So they thought “oh cool, let’s make this dumb robot the Doctor’s new companion, it’ll look neat and weird, everyone will have a gas with it.” NOPE.
Kamelion was incredibly complicated to operate, so they assigned a guy named Mike Powers to figure out the best way to go about it. Apparently he did a great job streamlining Kamelion’s operation, and then he promptly died in a boating accident (which is where the “curse” idea comes from.) He didn’t leave any notes or instructions, and the show was already behind schedule, so they had to rush Kamelion’s scenes into production with no idea how it worked. It was a gigantic pain in the ass to use, took forever to set up, and needed constant upkeep and repairs. Everyone hated working with the prop, to the point that before Kamelion’s first episode even aired, they had already decided to kill him off later in the same season.
Peter Davison, who played the Fifth Doctor, had the most scenes with Kamelion, and absolutely hated it. When Kamelion dies, the Doctor is really sad, but Davison said later that it was one of the best acting jobs of his career, because in reality, he was absolutely giddy with joy at being rid of the thing.
tl,dr: In the 80′s a Mystery robot prop built by unknown hands caused chaos on the Doctor Who set.
Thanks, Ray.
honestly that real life story is more like Doctor Who than Moffat’s entire run on the show
In other news, water is wet, squirrels run both ways before crossing the street, and cats are mostly psychotic love bundles.
A recent study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that “improvements in contraceptive use” have accounted for a notable dip in teen birth and pregnancy rates over the past decade.
“Almost all states charge parents for the care and support of youth involved with the juvenile justice system,” the report adds. Those include fees for room and board, clothing, and mental and physical healthcare, among many other charges, and “[i]nability to pay […] can result in youth being deprived of treatment, held in violation of probation, or even facing extended periods of incarceration.” (Juvenile prisons also charge their own, often higher, prices for children’s prescription medications, the report says, which frequently results in high charges that poor families cannot afford to pay and interrupts necessary healthcare for their children.)
In all 50 states, a statute exists which deems that if a child and their family can’t afford restitution charges—that is, payment to the victim(s) of the child’s crime, which is a popular sentence in juvenile court—the child is incarcerated.
