patience!

Oh, this gave me chills. Art can be such a powerful way to make a point in ways to people that otherwise might not be reached.

Yeah, so this was posted by “Change the Ref” which means this was created by the parents of Joaquin Oliver, who died during the Parkland shooting. Since then, they have done many powerful, heart wrenching pieces like this. They tricked NRA members into giving a graduation speech in front of empty chairs, each chair representing a child lost to gun violence. They used AI to make a video of their own dead son talking about how he died of gun violence. Joaquin once wrote an essay for school regarding gun violence and they hand delivered that essay to an NRA endorsed politician. They made 3D printed statues of Joaquin as well.

I have a lot of respect for what they do, but their raw grief and anger is clear in every single piece. I can’t imagine what they’re going through, but I hope they are able to find peace someday…

all energy healing is a scam except for when a kitty lays on your chest and purrs and purrs and sends restorative rays of magic into your bones and nerves. fellas that one’s real.

spiders ?

That lip movement, soft mouth puppets are so wonderful.

“frogs like this, dont eatthatsortathing, you see they-like-uh, flies,. worrmms,,”

“flies.., -worms?”

“spiders, !”

“spiders     ?“

“yes, spi-”

they should make straps that can get erectile dysfunction. they should make a strap that lets you go "I'm sorry I swear this never happens"

for those who are (rightfully!) concerned about animal welfare in tik toks: Wildcat Ridge Sanctuary is a true sanctuary and this animal is safe and happy!

Wildcat Ridge is not only an accredited sanctuary, they have a policy of not displaying their residents to the public. It is a retirement home for cats that should never have been pets or attractions. There is no pressure on the animals to be in front of people, they interact as they choose with the sanctuary staff and vets and that’s it.

[Video ID: tiktok of a girl saying "have you ever gotten a snapchat from a girl" and is abruptly cut off by a second video of a guy saying "no" and playing geoguessr at a rapid pace, guessing the location correctly every time /End ID]

[Image ID: screenshot of a post by tumblr user nflstreet that reads "me: *showing vacation pics* and this is from where we went t-. Guy who plays geoguessr for 14 hours a day: I know. /End ID]

in retrospect, video rental stores *would* probably still exist today in some capacity had it not been for blockbuster. the nostalgia for the blockbuster browsing experience undermines the reality of how aggressively the chain snuffed out smaller video rental stores and would eventually become notorious for its abusive late fee collection policy once there were no significant competitors standing. the rise of streaming is often attributed to blockbusters demise, but what’s not often recognized is how netflix’ earliest (and most successful) marketing tactics were in fact advertising the absence of the aforementioned terrible late fees as opposed to the convenience of not having to go to the store. I was actually surprised to find out how much of blockbuster’s demise can be attributed to spiraling out of control as it attempted to manage viacom’s ever increasing debts than to the fact that people just naturally gravitated towards streaming (which is not to say that it wouldn’t have happened eventually, but).

see also: borders / barnes & noble with bookstores. amazon’s original pitch was probably more “look how convenient!” than it was “look, you can avoid the awful sterility of the inside of a barnes & noble!” but it’s interesting that with its aggressive tracking and tailoring of recommendations amazon is having machines do (in an impersonal and invasive way) what the staff at a local, non-chain bookstore would do, which is match their selection to your preferences

Barnes & nobles and Borders raced against each other, across the country, to oversaturate the bookstore market. This isn’t paranoia or conspiracy — it’s the same fucking model Starbucks used. Oh, your community supports three bookstores? We’re going to open five, until the little indies go under. Then we’ll close four of our own (sorry not sorry staff, enjoy competing with each other for a handful of positions!) and now you have no other choice. Movie rental chains did the same thing.

And then all these huge chain retailers have the fucking gall to weep and whine as amazon proceeds to wipe them out, and now I live in a small city where you just… can’t get stuff. If you don’t want to use amazon, if you don’t have a car to drive out to the big box on the highway, you literally can’t buy a pair of socks or an ice pack. No more pharmacies, no more bookstores, no more video or music stores… if this was plants and not retailers you’d call it monoculture, and you’d raise an alarm about how prone to catastrophic collapse monocultures are.

Ohhh that last line.

i learned that the Twilight Zone was created after Rod Serling’s teleplay inspired by Emmett Till’s murder was heavily censored by networks and advertisers. The censorship led Serling to rethink his approach and delve into the era’s social issues through a filter of science fiction and fantasy (x)

“The writer’s role is to be a menacer of the public’s conscience,” Serling later said. “He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus the issues of his time.”

I’m printing this out for my wall.

It’s funny how often horror, fantasy, and sci-fi have been sanctuaries for progressive ideas despite (and because of) the world at larger considering them lesser genres.

They’re more deserving of the uniform than most generals.

Heroes

Society couldn’t function without them.

Society really couldn’t function without them. Anthropologist Robin Nagel did this fabulous ethnography of NYC sanitation workers called Picking Up where she actually became a sanitation worker herself. In NYC alone, there’s fewer than 10,000 sanitation workers dealing with a daily load of about 11,000 tons of garbage and 2,000 tons of recycling. It’s a more dangerous profession than firefighting or police work (cops and fire aren’t even in the top ten most dangerous jobs in the US), and if the sanitation workers aren’t able to do their jobs, cities become unlivable overnight.

(Also you should read that Robin Nagel book, it’s really fascinating. Even if you don’t live in a city, it’s a great read.)

goddd please just hire voice actors again. like actual voice actors. no more celebrity voice actors please just hire people who know what they’re doing the or voice acting industry will cannibalize itself more than it already is. let jack black do whatever he wants though

In 2002, a flood in Prague caused some streets to collapse into a series of unknown underground tunnels. And just like that, a legit 16th cent. alchemist laboratory was discovered.

10 years of discovery, repair, and restoration later, it’s now open for tours.

On the outside, only a house was visible and it was used as a pharmacy in its time. Alchemists were notoriously secretive, so none but those on the inside knew about the tunnel system below where potions were made.

A room dedicated to herb storage. Many of the herbs in the potions came from China and India. The house was conveniently located by major trade routes.

Notice an alligator (or croc/caiman) above the left side. There were lots of stuffed animals, bottles, and books. Since few people in Europe had ever seen alligators/crocodiles, they were said to be the bodies of dragons, and were thought to guard the alchemists.

The alchemists were so secretive, they did everything themselves, down to making the glassware for their elixirs.

A stone in the wall that covered a hidden vault in the underground tunnels. Historians uncovered that it held a single bottle of ‘The Elixir of Life’ and the recipes for it, and the elixirs of love and memory.

This bookcase is an exact replica of the original, which was too damaged to restore. A statue on the right side (in the dark area on the third shelf from the top) is the door knob/switch to a secret sliding door.

Monks now recreate the elixirs exactly as detailed in the instructions and each of the elixirs (and blends!) are for sale in their shop. The only change is that the Elixir of Life does not contain opium as is instructed, since it’s now illegal.

http://asthecroweflies.co/

Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, vol. 11, Mammals II. 1972.

Italian Navy, destroyer Luigi Durand de la Penne and tall ship Amerigo Vespucci.

Some one add the post about the USS Independence having a crush on the Vespucci

the problem with "sex worker" replacing "prostitute" is that "sex worker" is actually an umbrella term which also refers to cam girls, porn actors, strippers, escorts, phone sex operators, and any one with an only fans. this obscures prostitution as a practice and lets pimps control the conversation around the sex industry. a pimp-run lobbying group can market itself as "run by sex workers and those in the sex industry" and then send a cam girl who identifies herself as a "sex worker" to give an interview about how new legislation "harms sex workers" and readers will assume she's a prostituted woman. prostituted women's voices are never heard at all. of course all of this is intentional

I have a few ideas