#and god bless us every one

[delcat177]

As a legal adult, I just realized something

I have volunteered off and on at this interactive kids' science museum, which is a consistent blast as a volunteer--seriously, if you have the opportunity to try it, do it, no other volunteer work I know of involves as many lizards and setting things on fire. Not the lizards. RIP Euclid, you are still my sunshine, precious crestie boye <3

The point is, I learned something very early on. We were having some recurrent, non-urgent but mildly headachey issue with patrons...something something, I cannot for the life of me remember what it was--the nature of a museum being interactive, being made of hands-on science exhibits that are meant to be explored organically, especially by kids, means that a lot of time is spent just circling the place picking up things that have ended in the wrong place and putting them back. It's not at all a big deal, it's actually pretty zen, and it shows what exhibits are the most popular, which in turn helps staff develop what kids want to learn about.

However, some exhibits are naturally more prone to this. It varied a lot when I was there, we did our best to keep new stuff coming in, and some attempts at having something in a space worked better than others. Anything with paper had to be regularly patrolled for scraps, for example, and every time we had slime it was expected we'd be Windexing the lizard enclosures a lot. Simple, sensical stuff.

So I can't remember what it was, maybe someone putting coats on the lightning ball, or leaving lunches in the wrong area, or, most likely, that some vital parts of a traveling exhibit kept winding up in the wrong area. It might have been a safety issue, I do recall being scared to death when kids would take a running leap off the stairs onto concrete, "WALKING FEET TALKING VOICES" was a Mantra.

But I was thinking about it, and I brought it up to my supervisor (or whatever his official title was, we were basically all just nerds in green t-shirts)--what if we put up a sign? What if we put up a sign reading "Please don't X in Y", just plain simple text to inform people we didn't want the X in the Y?

He smiled and he laughed, not in a mean way, but in an experienced way, like the one teacher I liked from the fundie school did, and like my favorite college teachers did (everyone there was rad, we were as aforementioned nerds in green t-shirts). And he told me something that I have physically, clinically observed to be scientific fact in multiple locations over multiple years in multiple permutations:

"As soon as you put a sign up, something amazing happens. The writing becomes invisible."

He was right. I've seen this everywhere from museums to McDonald's. I'm *guilty* of this. I'm like everyone, I have stood within Target, searched fruitlessly for minutes on end for something, finally asked an employee, and been pointed thirty degrees and two inches to my left. I've had so many bathrooms pointed out to me, and pointed out so many bathrooms, and for some reason, despite this being so universal, *we're always embarrassed when we ask*. This is because we don't know the scientific law:

As soon as you put a sign up, something amazing happens. The writing becomes invisible.

And it's because we aren't as good at reading them as any of us want to think. Not because people are bad or lazy or morally wrong, but because we forget how amazing it is at all that we managed to turn from a pack of apes scratching BANANA HERE on a wall into a billion-billion people, all of us with our own unique banana hieroglyphics, because to paraphrase Pratchett, if we didn't have the capability to turn this off, we would just stand around with an expression of awe, muttering "wow" to ourselves, and nothing would ever get done.

We aren't *good* at signs. We aren't *good* at legal contracts, that's why we have lawyers.

So the problem becomes an either-or:

Either we need to get better at how to keep X out of Y, or we need to get better at signs becoming amazingly cosmetic.

The more innate problem is that no one has any ideas how to solve either.

Or at least

*I* sure as hell don't, or I'd be way too busy for yelling into hellsite void

I just saw post saying that Ao3 has """""no age checks""""" and all I want to say is THE BUTTON THAT YOU CLICK TO SAY THAT YOU ARE OKAY WITH VIEWING ADULT CONTENT IS THE AGE CHECK.

by clicking that button you are consenting to view adult content and saying that you are of the age where you can legally view it.

IT'S NOT SOME COSMETIC THING

IT IS A LEGAL DISCLAIMER

[hinamie]

playing around w slightly different hair renders

[surreal-duck]

some business to take care of

[smolgreybunny]

"You're butch and love your grandma so much." 🥺

Shout out to all the queers attending a candlelight evangelical church service of some kind against their will and good luck to all the ones that came willingly because grandma would love it but can't get through it sober and the edible just hit and they're making you stand for 30 minutes and suddenly the kids are singing Silent Night in sign language and somehow you're the first person to clap despite only ever coming into that building once a year. Why was I the first to clap? Wow they really streamlined the comuninion wafer juice thing into a convenient yet environmentally wasteful packidge. Look at candle and zone out for 10 minutes. Dig fingernail into wax. People are moaning Jesus's name right there next to you in the audience and the lights are up. Dig fingernail into wax. You're butch and love your grandma so much.

[anotherblblog]

Be On Cloud really is making a drugged up twink begging to get bred a minor plot point lmao

[shieldofiron]

Fics where Billy tells Steve his moles are from where his soulmate kissed him in a past life, and the follows up with saying “I couldn’t help myself” >>>> Everything else.

[budd-ie]

We as a fandom don’t do enough with how silly every single martial god is, so much so that they have “classic” behaviors like breaking stuff as their first solution to a lock, complimenting the opponent’s sick martial skills even if they’re in mortal danger, or the constant insatiable urge to prove their strength. Xie Lian is like, the worst offender of this too. I always think about that part during the black water arc when Pei Ming, iconic top martial god and Extremely Strong guy with a ton of spiritual power at his disposal, said the ship’s rudder won’t budge and Xie Lian’s first reaction was “oh, what?” and to go verify with his own strength that the rudder is, in fact, stuck. He had zero reason to distrust Pei Ming’s conclusion or strength but he just had to check himself.

Anyways kissing is cool or whatever but have you ever considered all the martial gods versus the pickle jar that’s cursed closed forever? Unstoppable force (martial god desire to conquer every test of strength) versus immovable object (jar that can’t be opened). What shatters first, their spirits or the jar? More shenanigans like this, please. Now go wild

[redwinterroses]

I still hold that the Mickey Mouse A Christmas Carol is the best one ever made.

I mean just look at these title cards:

The Cratchits are so cute!

The art style is still in that delightful semi-sketchy style that was so familiar in movies like 101 Dalmations, The Aristocats, and even The Rescuers. Look at those backgrounds!

It's got so many cameos of characters that been on screen in years--like Clarabelle Cow--and lesser-known favorites like Lady Kluck and Uncle Waldo and the Three Little Pigs' version of the Big Bad Wolf (voiced by the forever-lovely Will Ryan <3).

And when I tell you that small-child me was terrified of this version of the Ghost of Christmas Future (who breaks convention and speaks, a thing I didn't realize until rewatching it this year) portrayed by the delightfully-horrid Pete:

This is the adaptation where Scrooge doesn't just mourn his lonely end, but is led to believe he's tumbling into hell itself--

And then with such a happy ending...

Y'all, it's 20 minutes long. You can watch it on The Internet Archive here.

I love this movie so much, and it deserves more love. Hands down my favorite movie version of this story. <3

[stesichoreanpalinode]

Pop quiz advent calendar

It’s over! It has certainly cheered me up at this time of year and I hope it has you too!

Here is to the BBC camera crew doing the Lord’s work

Thank you to all the people who have screencapped, giffed, found recordings, and shared with the fandom the gift that keeps on giving that is Roger Taylor on Pop Quiz!

[giddlygoat]

“But Mario, I just don’t think now is the time for-a spaghetti and meatballs!”

[muzsmocsing]

✨TGCF characters as songs✨

[croik]

I have to ask because I'm terribly confused as someone who has not listened to the podcast: do you like Malevolent or not? I can't ever seem to tell ;;^w^

LOL that's extremely fair! I was absolutely in love with the show up through about Part 17, toward the end of season 2. It always had issues, but the the first two seasons were really compelling and I'm a sucker for Cthulhu Mythos and bodyshare. The bones of the premise are still extremely good.

But from 18 on (we're in part 47 now) the quality has been steadily declining, imo. It keeps repeating the same beats over and over, the plot drags through pointless sideplots and rushes through the important ones, and the treatment of female characters in the show (which was always not great) has gotten worse and more obvious. And there's been some drama around the creator, who is allergic to any feedback that isn't glowing praise. He does not know how to behave as a creator in their own fandom.

But even so, the FANDOM is one of the best I've ever been in. I've made a lot of friends and the monsterfuckery is on another level. The foundation of the main relationship is still unique and fun enough, and the greater mythos so easy to pull in, that I'm still having a blast writing fic, without having to touch any parts of the show I'm not thrilled with. There are so many kind and talented fans writing the nastiest and most character-driven tentacle porn I've ever seen, and that is enough to keep me firmly in the fandom <3

Thanks for the ask! :D;;;

[keeskiwi]

Cuckootober Day 1 - Striped cuckoo (Tapera naevia). You may know him from his funny little dance with his funny little hands.

[macbethz]

The 3 months after inside Bo burnham came out was probably our darkest period of media illiteracy as a nation I’m so serious. They need to do some kind of study on it

[retributory]

when you think about it clive and flora are actually perfect narrative foils on complete accident. like what's up with that. professor layton and the completely imagined literary devices

[hylianengineer]

When I was a teenager I felt like an outsider, isolated even surrounded by people. My chemistry teacher once described it as "being on the other side of a fishbowl" and I have never felt so seen and called out at the same time.