I cant believe this tweet is how I find out

now all the things you guys have told me about american high schools are starting to make sense

holy shit.

It's 100% because of abusers parents and guardians who want to deprive their children of a secular upbringing and indoctrinate them into whatever nonsense they believe in, as well as discipline them however they see fit and exploit them for money.

Specifically, Articles 13 and 14 are concerned with the freedom of expression, the freedom to seek out, receive, and impart information, and the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Article 17 concerns access to mass media of both national and international origin. Article 19 concerns protecting children from abuse and neglect. Article 24 concerns access to healthcare. Article 28 concerns access to education, and Article 29 further stipulates that education should promote tolerance and respect of other people and cultures. Article 32 protects children from economic exploitation.

In the USA, the land of the free, we can't have any of that! If a parent believes the outside world is evil and wants to keep their kids from reading books that aren't about how God will send them to Hell for speaking out of turn, they have that freedom! If a parent believes that medicine is evil and wants to keep their kid from being vaccinated or put their kid on a raw meat diet or use homeopathy to treat an inflamed appendix, they have that freedom! If a parent wants to teach their kid that white people are the master race and that it is their duty to massacre everyone else, they have that freedom! And if a parent wants to take their kids out of school to work on the farm or get into the acting business, they have that freedom!

Sure, a horrific amount of children might be subject to abuse that will scar them forever and potentially lead to their untimely deaths, but that's just the price we pay for freedom! Freedom for parents to treat their kids like property, that is. The kids don't get any freedom.

Pay attention to specific educational scenarios conservatives deem inappropriate and you notice a lot of them are actually tied to prevention of child abuse (such as teaching about consent and identifying inappropriate touch)...

In theory I know rainbow shiners (Notropis chrosomus) exist and yes, they are very pretty. Especially in breeding colours.

But every now and again I’ll come across a video or picture and just catch my breath. I mean, look at them. That’s hardly fair that they look like that and exist on this planet.

I mean… just look at them!

Holy shit!

They’re like little gem-encrusted neon blips of pure whimsy.

Anyway, North American native fish species are criminally unrepresented in the aquarium world and these bad boys are pretty close to the top on my long, long, very long fish wish list.

Original is Gustave Dore’s ‘ Ruggiero rescuing Angelica’

researching parrying daggers as a fun little treat and i'm delighted by how much every single one of these things looks like it's designed to be as annoying as possible

this one is my favourite. it's called a swordbreaker. it looks like a weaponised version of snagging your clothes on a door handle. if you caught my blade in one of these things there isn't a force on earth that could deliver you from my fury.

deliver your fury with what? your sword?

If you write down the results and properly format the paper, it even counts as science!

When I was in college, there was a solid year where our lgbt group did this with two bathrooms at the end of a hall that were used by like, maybe 20 people. They would put up gendered signs and we kept stealing them. And then we started writing random things on the walls INCLUDING full word for word copies of personal ads from the back of 1980′s advocate magazines.

It got to the point where the building management was on a hunt trying to find who was doing this and we had to start hiding our faces so as to not get caught on the security cameras. Our faculty advisor came down to the office one day and was like “do you guys know anything about this” essentially as we’re trying to close a comically full drawer of stolen bathroom signs, and we’re like “no” and they were like “great.”

They never caught us. 

Achievement Unlocked:

The Gay Science

Perform gender perception experiments without getting caught.

I feel like if God didn't want us messing with His creation He wouldn't have made the code open-source

You can't just hide this poetry in the tags, man.

Nobody throws shade like a biologist with burning hatred for invasive plants

fully thought that car was a gun for a second. like. uhh

Please help the National Museum Of Wales

Please sign the petition!!!!

You don't need to be living in Wales or the uk to sign.

We're so close to 10,000!!! Keep sharing.

“oh no, my audience has begun to guess the big twists of my story and are accurately predicting what will happen!”

incorrect response: write the rest of the story to be as twisty, shocking and counter to expectations as possible, regardless of whether this is a logical or satisfying way for the plot to go

correct response:

can someone elaborate on the “make hoax” and “post angry tweet about “leak”“ part. i’m stupid and don’t understand things

sure!

(you’re not stupid. I posted this thinking it would amuse a handful of mutuals who all knew the context and that would be about it, so I didn’t think about providing any other explanation. I had no idea it would spread this far.)

I’ll start from the very beginning just to be thorough. so this is Alex Hirsch, creator and head writer of Gravity Falls, a show which had a big focus on mystery, conspiracies, codes and ciphers, etc. the whole plot is kicked off by one of the main characters finding a mysterious old journal in the woods, which detailed all kinds of weird and supernatural things, but then ended abruptly with the author saying they had to hide the journal because they were being watched. the central driving mystery of the show, therefore, was the question of who wrote the journal and what happened to them.

now, the thing about Gravity Falls is that, while it must be said that the writers weren’t always quite as sure of their plans as we tend to like to think they are, it is very much a fair play mystery, with legitimate clues to what was going on. but the writers were caught off guard by how quickly the show attracted a dedicated audience, including a lot of people outside the primary presumed demographic, who started solving the clues faster than expected. so some of the fans were able to correctly guess who the author was before it was revealed in the show, and the theory started spreading. this put the writers in something of a panic, because this was THE mystery that the whole story revolved around, with ¾ of the show building up to the dramatic reveal in the middle of season 2. they wanted it to be a mystery that could be figured out, sure, but they weren’t prepared for people to solve it so far in advance of when it was planned to be revealed, which would have really taken away from the big moment. they weren’t going to change the main story itself, but having been caught unaware by how much attention the fans were paying, they wanted to up the ante and make the mystery more complex to solve going forward–but first they needed to buy some time and throw the fandom off the scent for a little longer.

hence, Alex’s plan as described above. they whipped up a fake shot that appears to give away the identity of the author as being another character in the show, put it on a screen in the studio as if it was a real animation frame, took a picture of it, and ‘leaked’ it online. it was initially decided to be a hoax (albeit, I think, presumed to be a hoax originating from outside the production team), until Alex posted this tweet:

…before quickly deleting it (though not so quickly that it didn’t get seen, of course).

it worked well enough to distract most people for a while, and wasn’t revealed as a hoax until a year later, when an episode aired that definitively proved that the supposed screenshot could never have happened, at which point Alex owned up to the whole thing as seen in the tweet above. by then the episode with the real reveal wasn’t far off, and while people did still work it out ahead of time, it was more of an “OH MY GOD I KNEW IT!” moment than a “booooooring, we’ve known that for ages” moment, which of course was what the writers wanted all along.

personally I find this a fascinating approach to dealing with the problem of spoilers, because it doesn’t affect the story itself at all; if you watch Gravity Falls today–or if you were watching it when it aired without any significant contact with the fandom–you’d never know about it. ultimately, the problem the writers were facing wasn’t that some people might guess the answer to the mystery–they never wanted to make it completely impossible to predict–so much as it was that they hadn’t designed the story to stand up to so many people working on the puzzle together, which resulted in a sort of total output of puzzle-solving ability that far outstripped the capability of any one solo human being. so their solution is something that’s very much targeted toward delaying that group problem-solving, without actually affecting the experience of any individual person watching the show.

plus, it’s very in keeping with the overall tone of the show.

and now you know!

if your audience guesses the ending of your story

don’t:

do:

Then there is the Paizo method of replying to every single theory with “interesting”

johnny english really destroyed all movie logic

the funniest part is that he’s not even running

Mr Bean as a Persistence Predator

Fairy Grypus

"Most commonly referred to as 'Pidgegriff', the Fairy Grypus is a family of small monotremes that mainly live in the northern hemisphere. These animals vary in shape, size and form depending on the environment which they're in. No matter where I find these little critters I find that they have an uncanny ability to nest in any location; from sheer cliff faces to exposed pipes. Nature's embodiment of sheer audacity." -Eitr Veingar, Naturalist

It's a rat pigeon. I wanted to make a rat pigeon in my world.

"What would an ice age unicorn look like?"

Little concept sketch I made of a proto-unicorn. Put some bits of yak elements, smaller horse stature, and overall fluffier fur. Would you risk petting this boi?

There is no force on this or any world that could stop me from petting this boi

its really cool that we discovered glass which is the material that doesnt have any chemical reactions with anything in the universe very useful for doing chemistry due to being able to put things in it to contain chemical reactions and never having it react with the things that are in it due to it being completely and entirely unreactive to every chemical

Posts from a 17th century chymist who's about to have their bones dissolved by hydrofluoric acid.

HYDROFLUORIC ACID MENTION‼️

DICKS OUT FOR HYDROFLUORIC ACID!!!

NOT A GOOD IDEA!!!!!

Pair of Endangered Corpse Flowers Defy Odds to Bloom at Same Time–Now Bearing 700 Seeds https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/pair-of-endangered-corpse-flowers-defy-odds-to-bloom-at-same-time-now-bearing-700-seeds/

If you guys dont understand WHY this is so important - corpse flowers bloom every 7-10 years. Once. For one day. And then their bloom dies and they go back to doing their plant thing. These plants are extremely rare, and endangered, obviously their method of mystical breeding is not efficient in times of humans causing mass destruction.

So for them to bloom at the same time BY CHANCE and pollinate each other, the Japanese botanical garden they are in now has 700 chances to make more and assist in saving the species.

sick of hearing about "healing crystals" that "cleanse your mind and body of negative energy" i want to know which rocks can hurt you and fuck up your vibe so bad

everyone suggesting uranium isn't wrong but anyone who said "literally any rock if you're willing to resort to violence" are the only people who can get on my level. you're hired.

caincore

okay which fandom that sprung up out of nowhere overnight like mushrooms after rain is this a reference to i can't keep up anymore

oh you meant like. that guy from the bible who invented murder. right.

It’s a cool place, and they say it gets harder

You’re bundled up now, wait ‘til you get better

this is the best smash up yet

Great news, Smash Mouth posted a link to this on their facebook and twitter.

this is now eggfficially a Smash Mouth sanctioned remix

mentally can’t distinguish it from the original

It’s by Neil Cicierega, by the way.

you can tell because it was posted by tumblr user neilcicierega, who’s probably a big fan

HAPPY TENTH BIRTHDAY DAFT MOUTH

I forgot i had this qeued. happy tenth birthday daft mouth