the primordial serpent

One in a million shot of lightning striking a tree.

Credit: Debbie Parker

TIL when Nickelodeon was brand new a central part of its marketing was that it would have no commercials at all because people were already beginning to grow concerned with the idea of advertising to children. Wow we sure as fuck went backwards didn't we.

YES YES I NEED THIS SIGN IN EVERY SINGLE PARK PLEASE

This is my daily struggle, I had so many arguments with people with off-leash dogs (in a mandatory leash area!!!). Thanks to this behavior I'm struggling with Kim being anxious/aggressive with other females as she often gets involved in unpleased interactions with free females while on leash. And every single time that I ask for the dog to be at least recalled, I'm being called names and insulted of course.

Also 9 out of 10 their dog isn't really that friendly at all.

Also 9 out of

10 their dog isn’t really

that friendly at all.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

ID: the text on a sign reads:

“ “IT’S OKAY MY DOG IS FRIENDLY!”

NO! NO! IT’S NOT OKAY!

Just because your dog is friendly doesn’t mean other dogs are, some may be nervous, reactive, fearful, in training, or owned by people who want to be left alone.

NEVER LET YOUR DOG RUN UP TO ANOTHER DOG

RESPECT OTHERS AND THEIR NEED FOR SPACE

IF YOU HAVE NO VOICE CONTROL OVER YOUR DOG KEEP THEM ON A LEASH.”

/End ID

Foggy’s gotten pretty decent at naming which red-themed vigilante is coming through his window in the middle of the night without even opening his eyes: Matt tries to be quiet so he doesn’t wake him up, Deadpool is talking before he even gets the window open and Peter knocks like a goddamn decent human being.

“Come in!” he yells, deciding that he won’t get out of bed until he knows if there’s an emergency or Peter just wants to raid his first aid kit and fridge.

“Sorry, Mr. Nelson,” Peter says, climbing inside and dropping lightly to the floor. “I know it’s late but I had a question.”

“Shoot, Spiderboy,” Foggy says, sitting up to see Peter lingering awkwardly close by in full Spiderman gear and oversized hoodie, backpack slung over one shoulder.

“It’s just that Mr. Murdock said that you might be willing to look over one of my essays,” Peter says, “but I kind of got distracted doing, y’know--” Peter makes a vague punching motion with a soft pow sound. “--and it’s kind of due tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my god,” Foggy says, sighing and pushing aside his sheets to get out of bed. “This is actually the least stressful thing one of you weirdos has ever asked me to do. What’s your essay about?”

“Macbeth.”

“Y’know, Matt was an English major,” Foggy says, huffing out a laugh and finding a sweatshirt to pull on before he turns on the lights. “You should probably be offended that he passed you off on me.”

“What was your major?” Peter asks.

“Business,” Foggy says. “Did I ever tell you about how my mom wanted me to be a butcher?”

“You have,” Peter says, dutifully, sitting his backpack on the floor and digging through it, “but you can tell me again, if you want.”

“You’re a good kid,” Foggy says, taking the essay when Peter finds it and hands it to him. “There’s leftovers in the fridge. Go eat while I check this bad boy out.”

"You're my hero," Peter says, fervently.

Foggy's never been called that before.

He doesn't hate it.

I've met him in person btw and he's a fucking sweetheart

[ID: Text-intensive Twitter thread from the Shapeshifters chest binders Twitter account in reply to a post by artist and author Ursula Vernon. Vernon says, A non-zero number of you apparently did not know that The Last Unicorn was a book before it was a movie. It is by Peter S. Beagle. It is made of spun glass and fairytales and iron knives and there are individual lines that I would give my lungs to have written. Shapechangers replies, I saw him every year at NYCC for several years straight, bought something at his table, asked him to sign it, and we spoke. He remembered me from year to year, no small feat at that con. He remembered which stories he'd told me. One year I came back with a different gender on. He squinted at me a bit and said thoughtfully, "I've seen you before in this place." All I had to say was, "last year you told me the story about the inoshishi." And his face cleared, and he leaned in with a grin and told me about a German guitarist who he traveled with, twice. Who transitioned between the first and second time, so he'd gotten to meet this person all over again on the second round. It was a wonderfully kind way to let me know that everything was fine. I was fresh out of the closet and I needed that, and maybe he could see it. The Last Unicorn is the best book in the world and I will defend it and its author til I die. the end. /end ID]

I don't usually talk about celebrities; artists, when I do, and I'm keenly aware that one needn't be a good person to be a hell of a heartwrenching artist. But Peter S. Beagle has written a few of my favorite things in the world, he's an excellent singer and filker, and this Twitter thread was dreadfully important to me. I don't want it going away as Twitter becomes Shitter, because it's so often bad news, isn't it? It's important to me to share trans joy.

I had to stop eating wheat in 2018, so I genuinely stopped for a minute and thought "this can't be true."

But I found sources verifying the numbers and now I'm going through a bunch of common items and their comparative prices.

Eggs in 2018: $1.76 ($2.26 when adjusted for inflation)

Eggs in 2024: $2.99 on average

Boneless chicken breast per pound in 2018: $3.14/pound

Boneless chicken breast per pound in 2024: $4.10/pound

Childcare in 2018: up to $10,408/year on average

Childcare in 2024: up to $14,760/year on average

Rent for 2bd housing in 2018: about $1250/month on average

Rent for 2bd housing in 2024: about $2000/month on average

Many of these are BIG jumps for just six years, and inflation really doesn't account for all of it. Even as aware as I am that things cost more now than they used to, it was jarring to see how MUCH more.

For an extra headfuck, this happened just after my salary doubled when I got my postdoc job. It was, uh, enraging.

The longer you've been alive, and the further back you can remember the cost of things, the more enraging it is to see price tags right now in 2024.

Cereal Eggs Chicken Thighs Soda Cat Food Rent Insurance Oil Changes Gas Car Washes Movie Tickets Concert Tickets Bras

EVERYTHING has skyrocketed up in price in the last 4 years to be sure, but they were steadily creeping up and up and up even before that. Less quality, less quantity, more money.... for the CEO and the shareholders.

It recently hit me (like a brick) how I've lived through multiple decades of our economy having never actually being good for people trying to live affordable lives.

My mother is doing her best to maintain her sense of humor. She was a child in the 1950s. My father was a child in the 1940s. My husband was a toddler in the 1970s. The four of us have had really really interesting conversations about living in and through the world.

When I was a kid a loaf of GOOD bread was 89 cents.

That was in 2000, by the way. Not that long ago.

Anyways, calling shoplifting “urban foraging” is very funny, a useful euphemism, should be done more often.

“its like dumpster diving but you take it before they throw it out”

A+ contribution.

actually no one is allowed to make fun of transmasc names anymore. i dont care if it's a 13 year old trans boy named after his favorite cartoon or whatever you're not allowed to make fun of trans guys' names

"not enough people are buying video games because of piracy" perhaps it has to due with the "unfinished game that you have to buy DLC to get basic features for" business model

The way you change your immediate reactions to things is that you catch yourself having an uncharitable/bigoted/overly judgmental thought and you catch it and replace it and then you do that a hundred times a day for your whole life and eventually one day like five years later you realize that you think differently now and you’ll always be working on something but that’s how life goes and that’s fine.

Say you have a bad habit of thinking all other people are stupider than you and want to respect other people’s intelligence more.

So you start paying attention to your immediate first reactions to things. You notice that when other people around you are struggling with a math problem and ask you for help you default to seeing them as annoying and stupid.

Instead of chastising yourself for having that thought, interrogate it. Replace it. Think, why do I assume people with different strengths are dumber than I am? I need help sometimes too. I’m glad they’re comfortable enough with me to ask me for help. I’m glad I’ve got a reputation of being the math guy and can help people with that.

And the first time, perhaps the first few dozen times, it’ll feel disingenuous. The cynicism in your brain will fight it. But in time it’ll become as easy as breathing. First thought, replace thought.

And then one day you don’t need to replace that thought. That might be a month from now or twenty years from now. And it’s annoying to get there. But you do get there.

this is the funniest piece of graffiti i’ve ever seen. thank you mr two pens

okay.

“Put it all in his pussy” I love it. He just wadded it all up and shoved it right in there. Crammed it all in. That expression should be commonplace too.

Official Pussy Post

crazy that in the 1970s they were like, "fine, women can play sports. but because they're innately less athletic than men, only in a special ghettoized League For The Frail And Delicate where they get paid less 😊". And not only is that still the system in 2023, but viciously lashing out at the smallest challenges to that system gets framed as Feminist Praxis

even setting aside the fact that gendered bodytype averages aren't universals, and plenty of individual (cis) women and (cis) men could easily go to toe to toe. have we considered that the fact that all the most prominent and well-paid sports are ones that require things like Being Tall and Having Muscle Mass, as opposed to, ex, gymnastics...is itself an artifact of sexism

also to people who are like "well do you think WOMEN should be playing AMERICAN FOOTBALL against MEN" actually I don't think anyone should be playing american football on account of, you know, the irreversible brain damage.

please remember that I am a Canadian illustrator and it is fucking bizarre to come to me with medical questions

Why would you limit yourself to drawing Canadians?

everyone else unfollow me I want to be alone with arsnof

“Blue Footed Booby” tee hee hee!

MothyAndTheSquid.com