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Story time:

In middle school biology, we did an experiment. We were given yams, which we would sprout in cups of water. We then had to make hypotheses about how the yams would grow, based on descriptions of yam plants in our books, and make notes of our observations as they grew.

Here’s what was supposed to happen: we were supposed to see that the actual growth of the plant did not resemble our hypotheses. We were then supposed to figure out that these were, in fact, sweet potatoes.

What actually happened was that every single student in every single class lied in their notes so that their observations perfectly matched their hypotheses. See, everyone assumed the mismatch meant they had done something wrong in the process of growing the plant or that they had misunderstood the dichotomous key or the plant identification terminology. And, thanks to the wonders of a public school education, everyone assumed the wrong results would get us a failing grade. We were trying to pass. We didn’t want to get bitched out by the teacher. Curiosity, learning, science - that had nothing to do with why we were sitting in that classroom. So we all lied.

The teacher was furious. She tried to fail every student, but the administration stepped in and told her she wasn’t allowed to because a 100% fail rate is recognized as a failure of the teacher, not the class. It wasn’t even her fault, really, though her being a notorious hard-ass didn’t help. It was a failure of the entire educational system.

So whenever I see crap like Elizabeth Holmes’s blood test scam or pharmaceutical trials which are unable to be replicated or industry-funded research that reaches wildly unscientific conclusions, I just remember those fucking sweet potatoes. I remember that curiosity dies when people are just trying to give their superiors the “right” answers, so they can get the grade, get the job, get the paycheck. It’s not about truth when it’s about paying rent. There’s no scientific integrity if you can’t control for human desperation.

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Please sign the petition. Also email your councillors and MSPs if you are in Edinburgh and the Lothians. These cuts will affect many third sector organisations and completely gut Collective Advocacy, a statutory service, in the region. Redhall Walled Garden is one service at risk as is CAPS Independent Advocacy's Collective Advocacy. I'm involved with five of the nine Collective Advocacy projects at risk. This includes the Out Of Sight Out Of Mind exhibition which is in its 13th year and is Scotland's largest mental health art exhibition. It had around 2000 in person visitors last year and has produced such delights as a working scale model of a guillotine as an artwork.

[Video description: A video of the guillotine in action chopping off the teal mannequin's magnetically attached head with a very satisfying clunk. The guillotine has a Revolutionary Barbie leaning against it. The plinth is covered entirely in pink crushed velvet. The guillotine is twice the height of Barbie and painted mostly black with lots of metal colours in an almost nebula like design. It sits on a canvas board painted in a similar fashion. The table has a teal mannequin on it with its head sticking out over a fake wicker basket made out of a recycled Easter egg box. Below the blade is a painting of a Dandie Dinmont Terrier. End description]

[ID: A photo of the teal mannequin perched on a very messy table covered in art supplies. He's posed like a smarmy, rich, White dude leaning on a bar with a drink in one hand and in need of a cigar and trying to chat you up or mansplain something if that makes sense. His attitude says, "fuck you" so much that the only option is, "Off with his head!" End ID]

[ID: a photo of the underneath of the guillotine that few people actually noticed. It has several quotes on it.

I'm a Barbie Girl in a Barbie world.

It never goes smooth, how come it never goes smooth?

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition

Viva la revolution

Never gonna give you up

End ID]

When I was looking back over these photos last week I managed to Rickroll myself. Now that's special.

Please sign the petition at the top of the post.

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I am exceptionally lucky in that my parents never hit me, grounded me, confiscated my things, banned me from my hobbies or threatened any of these actions to make me behave as a kid. as an adult it has made me realise how very very long a road most people have to traverse before they can take a statement like 'no rule that must be enforced by threat is legitimate' seriously.

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clownfish be like "i know a spot" and take you to a fucking deadly sea organism

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[ID: a 10 panel black and white comic.

1. An older man with a black cloud over his head is buying something from an employee behind a counter who is wearing a t-shirt labelled work uniform. The worker pushes a small piece of paper towards the customer and says, "I'll have you sign this receipt and you're good to go..."

2. The customer shouts angrily, "With what pen?" The startled worker says, "Woah! The ones right here!" And points at the pot of pens that have been there on the counter top the whole time.

3. The customer grumbles to himself as he signs the receipt. The worker thinks, "I'm having a good day. I will choose peace."

4. 15 minutes later. The customer returns holding a box. He shouts, "Hey!" The worker thinks, "Oh no..."

5. The customer looks sad as he says, "I'm sorry if I was mean earlier. I'm not having a good day."

6. The worker says, "Awe. It's ok! I hope your day gets better." They think, "I've never gotten an apology!"

7. The customer says, "It won't ever again. My son just died."

8. The worker looks shocked.

9. The customer says, "Here's a tip," as they push a five dollar note across the counter. It has a smiley face on it.

10. The stunned worker just stares down at the money on the counter.

End ID]

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[ID: an image of Shrek, a green ogre, standing on a bridge over a swamp like area with trees. Text reads, build a bridge and get ogre it". End ID]

I worked very hard on this

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[Video description: a Tiktok by ZacharySchofield9. It shows a laptop screen with the browser on the TimeAndDate.com website. Text superimposed on the video reads, "Ive been planning this all day im fucking lightheaded yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees." The camera pans up from the keyboard to show the date and time being 11.59pm and about 20 seconds away from midnight on the 30th April 2019. A song plays and builds in the background. At two seconds to midnight the song stops abruptly and at precisely midnight the singer sings what sounds like, "It's gonna be May!" as the date changes to the 1st May. The person filming laughs.

The song is actually, "It's Gonna Be Me," by NSync but it's a mondegreen and the me is often misheard as May. End description]

oh my god

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I have been waiting all year to post this.

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It’s sad how much of what is taught in school is useless to over 99% of the population.

There are literally math concepts taught in high school and middle school that are only used in extremely specialized fields or that are even so outdated they aren’t used anymore!

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ITS APRIL 13 YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

FETCH ME NEIL

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[ID: Image 1: tumblr comment by jaeebitch that reads, "can you please post a picture of the flute?"

Image 2: A gif of a rather old and beaten up Irish tin whistle.

Plain text of block capitals:

You absolutely met one of the gentry

The fact that that had the balls to actually approach the threshold of your home implies a fairly old or high ranking one as well

You handled the situation perfectly you did them their favor with no questions or impoliteness and with utter sincerity you didnt give them the chance to make it more complicated and thus they were left indebted to you

Dont let anything happen to the flute

Also a group of young children up past midnight in an isolated house in the woods is like fae catnip its honestly a miracle that youre alive

End description]

What's the real thing the 3am text/creepy grandma at your door prompt is based on!?!? Please, I need details!!! 💙

A friend got a text from an unknown number that said “do NOT answer the door” during a sleepover, which was instantly followed by someone knocking at the door and an elderly woman calling out, asking if any of us had any honey to spare. Given the fact they lived up a crazy long driveway, surrounded by forest, and it was 3 am, it was pretty sus.

Our small group kind of freaked out, and naturally I was delighted.

It was at this point that I remembered we had gone shopping for sleepover provisions earlier in the day, and had mistakenly bought honey instead of syrup, and no one liked honey (there was much complaining). So I did a dash for the kitchen and snatched the honey, then rather gleefully bounded over to the door, much to my friends horror.

Sure enough, very old lady is standing at the door, looking like every grandma stereotype you’ve ever heard of. I looked rather manic myself, with what my friends called, “That freaky unhinged grin you do.”, and handed her the whole thing of honey, and told her she could have it.

She looked genuinely surprised and kind of straightened a bit, then got this glint in her eyes and started fighting a grin. 

We stood there and bantered for a while as my friends freaked the fuck out inside, before she finally said goodbye, told me to “Keep making mischief” and then strode off down the drive with a walk that was very much at odds with her hunched “feeble” appearance from a few moments earlier.

None of my friends slept that night, and I took particular glee in making strange noises whenever they would start to calm down. I was always a little shit like that.

Never saw her again, but I was gifted a rather beaten looking metal (Brass maybe?) flute the next evening on the doorstep with a simple “Thank you” written on a leaf of all things. None of my friends wanted to go anywhere near it, and I still have it to this day.

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original theory: succubi are always women, incubi are always men 

facts: in fact succubus comes from the latin word “succubare” which means “to lie under” and incubus comes from the latin word “incubare” which means “to lie on”

new improved theory: incubi are always tops and succubi are always bottoms. gender doesn’t matter at all.

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to this day possibly one of my best ideas. someone get me a pitch meeting with the hallmark channel

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[ID: text that reads, "Do you love the colour of the sky?" followed by white that gradually becomes a very pale blue then sky blue and then there's a still from Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up video. End ID]

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for april fools we’re deleting this entire site sayonara you weeaboo shits

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There was a young man from Peru

Whose limericks stopped at line two