#i could write a paper on this

[sparksandstarsandstories]

Having a crisis over whether Gideon Nav counts as a literary Christ figure

[sunflowergirl522]

“Maybe I’ll invent a robot who’ll take your bins out for you”

“I hope not”

[markscherz]

Bad Newts: Amphibians are in Serious Trouble

My colleagues and I have just had a paper published in Nature, based on our efforts to assess almost all amphibian species for the IUCN Red Lists. The major takeaway messages:

It is a bad time to be an amphibian

Two fifths of all amphibians are threatened with extinction.

Salamanders are the most threatened group; three fifths of all salamanders are threatened with extinction!

Climate change is a major driver of amphibian declines globally

Habitat loss, especially due to agriculture, is a problem for the vast majority of amphibians

Chytrid pandemics have caused and continue to cause catastrophic declines of both salamanders and frogs

Protected areas and careful management are working as strategies! They are actively improving the outlook of some species

As many as 222 amphibian species may have gone extinct in recent times; of those, 185 are suspected extinct but not yet confirmed.

Our paper is Open Access, you can read it here!

Photo of Atelopus hoogmoedi by Jaime Culebras, used with permission

[art-thropologist]

20/6/23

With all the news about the sub going missing around the Titanic and OceanGate, I would like to state very clearly that the Titanic is considered an active graveyard/burial. There are likely still remains in the wreck (science side of Tumblr can explain). This is one of the reasons why pulling up artifacts is such a big deal and so rarely done. Engagement is carried out with so much respect and consideration for the victims and their descendants.

You don’t just decide I’ll pop over to this location of massive trauma and tragedy because it’s a popular culture icon I can brag about. This is not the frame of mind one should have when visiting a grave. Please recognize that for 1500 souls this was not where they wanted to rest, and is thus very different from visiting other famous graves (Oscar Wilde, Van Gogh, etc). And sure, maybe the Titanic seems like it would be more digestible as opposed to other thanotourist sites of human violence (ie Gettysburg, Auschwitz, Borden House). The fact that it was a natural disaster lessens the cognitive dissonance of it being of equal solemnity.

What OceanGate is doing with these tours is extremely offensive if not ethically unsound from my archaeological and anthropological position.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

bugs. episode of all time. has a 6.8 star IMDB rating when every other s1 episode averages around 8-9. the opening shot of sam lying sluttily on the hood of the impala. sam and dean being mistaken for a gay couple looking to buy property. sam and dean pretending to be a gay couple looking to buy property. "okay honey". dean slapping sam on the ass? the only time in the show i've seen sam and dean use umbrellas (finding out that kripke never wanted them to use umbrellas bc they weren't manly enough??) sam and dean breaking and entering and squatting :") a kid with a bug fixation, ostracised by his dad, who sam has an immediate connection with. winchester family dynamics. bugs as the ghost of settler colonial violence haunting American suburban gentrification. bugs as a metaphor for how fragile the facade of white picket fence suburbia really is. sam and dean aren't able to kill their way out of this week's monster. all they're able to do is save people, temporarily. they don't get to break the curse, and that's the point. it's bigger than either of them. hunting as a cycle of frontier violence perpetuating itself, and for once there are no black-or-white solutions. supernatural will never deal with this theme again! anyways, they put cast and crew in a room with 65000 bees but the damned bees didn't show up properly on camera so they ended up using CGI bees. they look horrible.

[fudgecake-charlie]

shh i'm posting no one tell my professors or the projects im involved in

[courtrecord]

honestly i hate how that “maybe the curtains are just blue” post has become shorthand for anti-intellectualism and shit bc as someone who has an utter passion for media analysis now, I WAS THAT PERSON IN HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASS.

english class never taught me how to analyze stories, it taught me how to remember what things the teacher said were “symbolism” and how to take quizzes where we had to match a quote to the character who said it. i didn’t give a shit about any of it, bc literally why should i. it was bullshit.

there’s this idea online that people are forgetting or rejecting what they learned in english class when they’re bad at media analysis, and maybe that’s a little bit true, but i think the much bigger problem is they never learned it in the first place. cinemasins & “maybe the curtains are just blue” aren’t convincing people to abandon an intellectualism they already had, they’re filling a void.

when all you learn in high school is to write on the test “blue = depression”, why is it surprising that so many people don’t give a shit about the curtains.

[hangsawoman]

it is so clear in yellowjackets that the women never had the chance to grow and develop, that they’re all still girls, and it’s so incredibly clear in their body movements it drives me insane. natalie moves like when you’re growing and your limbs start getting bigger and the rest of your body can’t keep up yet so now you’re just.. slinging yourself, walking and carrying your limbs behind you. and shauna slumps and saunters like a tired teenager, dragging her feet like a girl with a body too big to carry. misty never got rid of her ‘tic’, pushing her glasses back up and trying to make herself smaller while doing so. taissa still runs through life, losing herself because her feet move too fast for her to keep up with, almost like she is still sleepwalking while awake. it’s something the actresses do so incredibly well at

[rawrsatthetree]

I’ve seen people compare Julian Devorak to Astarion, and honestly I think you’re all embarrassing wrong.

Gale Dekarios is Julian Devorak.

Astarion is Count Lucio

[starcurtain]

Imagine trying to be General Mahamatra Cyno when your three closest friends are just:

- Forest Watcher "I don't know what you're talking about; Karkata is a dog" Tighnari

- Scribe "No, I didn't find this canned knowledge on my unauthorized research trip to the desert... I bought it on the black market like a reasonable person, duh" Alhaitham

- and Kshashrewar's "How I was I supposed to know seeking inspiration in King Deshret's ruins apparently qualifies as 'trespassing on forbidden territory' and creating a sentient suitcase to wield weapons for me is 'illicit research into mechanical lifeforms' all the sudden?!" Kaveh

Cyno: I see why none of you ever laugh at my puns. It's because I'm the joke to you, isn't it?

[autistickhunsam]

actually heres the whole scene i know its on the long side but its a great scene for multiple reasons

[tiarnanabhfainni]

i loved the part of the book where piranesi resolves to take better care of himself while he's rediscovering his own history. he just has so much compassion for himself! the journal upsets him so he takes a week off and does things he enjoys and then he settles into a safe place when he wants to tackle the subject again. and he doesn't believe The Other when he's told about his amnesia! he values his own insights and his own knowledge of the House even when fucking ketterley is actively trying to undermine his sense of self. piranesi's gentle treatment of himself and the person he used to be is genuinely so moving.

[captain-kermit]

THE COUNT IS DONE. WE HAVE THE FINAL TOTALS AND YALL. I AM SPEECHLESS

the spreadsheet has all the data by episode then by person, along with each of their totals BUT! what yall have been waiting for:

SERIES (including movies) TOTAL: 1015 SERIES AVERAGE PER EPISOODE: 11.94

SPOCK TOTAL: 575 SPOCK AVERAGE PER EPISODE: 7.01

JIM TOTAL: 440 JIM AVERAGE PER EPISODE: 5.71

[medusdeeznuts]

I love Tigris so much, yes in TBOSBAS but also how that then translates into the Hunger Games

She’s one of the last living people (if not the only other living person) who knew Lucy Gray well other than Snow himself. And we see how lonely and outcast her life has become, imagine the wonder she must have felt to hear the Mockingjay sing again, how she must have looked at Katniss and saw the ghost of her old friend

I think Snow forgot even an old cat can be pushed to bare her claws when she’s needed most. She sheltered the rebellion, she fed them at her table (cooking an act we see so closely intertwined with love in her character). She spits in the face of everything Snow dismisses her as her entire life, and I love her so dearly

[kalpalatas]

(slowly unhinging) it wasn't the earrings and the touching that made hirano realise the entire actual depth of kagi's feelings for him. it was basketball.

[eldritch-vibe]

one of these days I'm going to write a hypnos fic about how people are seen as worthless if they are unable to work and how a culture and society that perpetrates the valuing of people exclusively based on how much they can produce can make such people who are unable to work and hold steady jobs isolated from even the most well meaning friends, family, acquaintances because as they are unable to work they are seen as lesser and pitiable. I'll make him cry. he's going to have a bad time. I might make him go into a coma and nothing changes without him. will it have a happy ending? who knows! not me....