#is this..a lecture-

[shrubsparrow]

It's in the eye of the beholder

[professorsparklepants]

I'm gonna be real I don't think anyone is ever gonna figure out Danny Phantom is living teenager Danny Fenton unless they see him transform. Because like. What the fuck is a half-ghost. Makes no fucking sense. If Danny Fenton is dead surely someone would have noticed by now.

What I think is more likely is that someone notices Danny Fenton bears a striking resemblance to Danny Phantom and delicately (or not so delicately) asks if he has an uncle or something who died young and that's why his parents are super into ghosts.

[great-and-small]

Turdus aficionados of Costa Rica please know I love your national bird but this is objectively hilarious

[t00thpasteface]

here's something stupid: the catcatfish

some quick facts:

they're nocturnal and tend to roam around while awake.

they have keen senses of smell and hearing, but terrible eyesight. despite this, they also have a tapetum lucidum, making their pupils "glow" in the dark.

their fur is short, dense, and oily to waterproof them.

they prefer a diet of mostly meat and are attracted to strong-smelling food like fish, cheese, and anything fermented.

the elongated dewclaw on each front paw is sharp, flexible, and nonretractable. it injects a venom that causes respiratory failure and cardiac arrest in prey and, in extreme doses, humans. veterenarians typically remove the dewclaw venom glands during the neuter/spay procedure.

they grow to an average of 1m and 23kg (3ft and 50lb) but can reach up to double that length and triple the weight!

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

historical drama/sitcom where two gay best friends (woman and man) get lavender married--and proceed to spend the Fancy European Honeymoon their parents paid for acting as each other's wingman

[egophiliac]

(this one's been getting stolen a lot, so please be aware that if you see this anywhere else (even with credit), it's been reposted against my wishes! please do not use my art in your videos/reupload to pinterest/etc., thanks!)

--

gargoyle Mal is everything I've ever dreamed of and more. his little raincoat! his umbrella! I hope he really does have big ol' stompy rainboots to splash around in puddles in. I hope they have little faces on them.

(Twst please give me Malleus having a rainy day adventure, this is everything I need right now)

[sadagios]

no pain no grain

short timelapse under the cut

[salsakiyoomi]

“do you think we're soulmates in every universe?” 

you ask, snuggling up to sukuna, on your king sized bed — you had been served dinner and sukuna bas gone through his reports and duties as king, and now it was his sacred time with you.

“we aren't in this one.” he scoffs, wrapping his arm around you.

you pout at him, mildly offended but you expected nothing less from the ‘heartless’ king of curses, “what makes you say so?”

“i don't believes in such foolish nonesense.” he says simply, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

“it's not foolish nonesense.” you argue, tracing lines on his chest absentmindedly, admiring his sculpted form.

“and what makes you say that?” he asks, mocking your earlier question.

you smile at him, “i mean, do you not feel a connection between us? a binding of souls? i know you love me and i’m sure you know that we are meant to be in every universe.”

“don't put words in my mouth, woman.” he huffs, caressing your shoulder.

you laugh — you know that while he might have not said it before, he most definitely thinks and feels it.

and it's true, sukuna had first fallen for you for your otherworldly beauty, and had chosen you for marriage, and that was that for a while until he started falling for you.

you, your laugh, the way your eyes sparkle when you talk about something that you love, the way you always showered him with loving words and affection that was always so foreign to him.

but he slowly started getting used to it, even reciprocating it in his own way.

“whatever you say, ryo.” you finally say, smiling sheepishly at him before blowing out the candle and rolling on your side, “goodnight.”

“hm.” he huffs, wrapping all four arms around you before slowly drifting into sleep, his mind swarmed with thoughts about how your souls could possibly be tied.

foolish thoughts, for him maybe, but maybe it was also true

because, sometime, centuries later, in the middle of tokyo in a small business coffeeshop, sukuna meets you — the all time business ceo, falls for the loving and bubbly batista who always left him notes on his morning coffee.

and he falls for you all over again.

[sunlit-mess]

' Angsty rebellious disassembly drone '

[theorphicangel]

toji who only eats after making sure you've eaten. best believe he won't feel comfortable having dinner if you're skipping because he'll skip too. (maybe it comes from his childhood and being shunned by the zenin clan to the point where he had to eat alone constantly whilst his family ate together. ) but now with you, he enjoys eating at a dinner table with company. his safe place even.

either way you won't see him filling his plate before you do. on the days that you're too lazy to get up he'll bring a plate for you and won't eat until he sees that fork or spoon enter your mouth first. on days that you're extra busy and forget to feed yourself he'll say 'fuck it' and feed you himself.

whenever you delay your dinner he will too.

'not hungry at the moment, maybe later.' you mumble, scrolling on your phone.

'me too.'

you raise a brow. 'oh really...I could have sworn I heard your stomach rumble.'

'must have been the wind.'

[redvelvetwishtree]

[crystallized-cheese]

PAPYRUS! HE SMELLS LIKE THE MOON.

[professorsparklepants]

Honestly the funniest part of Conclave was every character whipping out their reading glasses whenever they needed to look at something because they're all old as fuck and can't see.

[nothing-impt]

How I imagined Hector reunited with his son.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I think the reader's response to this post is probably going to either be "That's incredibly minor" or "Holy shit YES I'M ALSO PROUD", depending on people's personal experiences with academia, but:

Today I am incredibly proud of one of my students.

In the interests of disguising identities, let's call them Ceri. Ceri is one of my third year undergrads (meaning their final year, for anyone unfamiliar with UK uni systems.) They transferred to us last year, and within two weeks I was giving them the contact info to get to Student Services and get themself screened for ADHD; they have some mental health struggles, but I clocked pretty quickly that they STRUGGLE with procrastination, and punctuality, and attending 9am lectures in particular. Naturally, as is the way of my people, it took them a further four months to remember to go to the screening. Lol. Lmao. Rofl, in fact.

But, they did it eventually! Their screening lit up like a Christmas tree at the ADHD section, and they got a free laptop and optional one week extensions and a study support worker named Claire. This has helped tremendously, and although mental health + until-then-unsupported ADHD meant their academic profile had slid sideways somewhat, with the new tools available and a couple of resits they passed the year and hit this year running.

Until, that is, the last fortnight.

Now, I take them for a Habitat Management module that has two assessments: an academic poster presentation before Christmas, and a site-specific management plan in May. Naturally this means we are at that happy point in the year for the poster presentations. I give out the briefs at the start of the year, so they've had them since October; I've also been periodically checking in with them all for weeks, to make sure they don't have any major burning questions. The poster presentation was to pick a species reintroduction project, pull the habitat feasibility study out of it, and then critique that study; Ceri chose to look at the hen harrier reintroductions proposed for the southern UK. All good.

Which brings us nicely to today! Ceri's presentation is scheduled for 2.30. At 11am-1pm, I am lecturing the first years on Biodiversity, while Ceri is learning about environmental impact assessment with a colleague I shall call Aeron. This means we are separately occupied during those same hours.

Nevertheless, Aeron messages me at about 12.

"I think Ceri needs to see you after your lecture," he writes. "They're panicking, I genuinely think they might cry. I'm worried. Are you free at 1?"

I say I am. At 1, I get lunch and sit in the common area; Ceri comes to see me. To my personal shame, imagine all of the following takes place while I stuff my face with potato.

Now: this part is going to be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has ever tried higher education with ADHD, especially unmedicated. It certainly was for me. All I can say is, I never had the courage to take the step here that Ceri did.

"I have to confess," they said quietly, and Aeron was right, they were fighting back tears. "My mental health has been so, so bad for the last fortnight. I've left it way, way too late. I don't have anything to present."

"Nothing at all?" I asked.

"I've been researching," they said helplessly. "I found loads on the decline of the hen harrier. But it wasn't until last night that I finally found a habitat feasibility study to critique. Generally... I've been burying my head about it, and it just got later and later. I thought I should come in for Aeron's lecture, and I should at least tell you."

This part is a minor thing, right? But honestly, I remember being in the grip of that particular shame spiral. I never did manage to tell my lecturers to their faces. I just avoided. I honestly can't imagine having the courage it took them to come in and tell me this, rather than just staying home and avoiding me.

"I think..." they said hesitantly, "I know I can submit up to a week late, for a capped mark. I think I need to do that, and apply for extenuating circumstances. But then I'll have both Aeron's assignment and yours due at the same time."

Which meant they would crumble under the pressure and likely struggle to pass both; so me, being as noble and heroic as I unarguably am, stopped eating potato and said, "Let's make that plan B."

(It was good potato. I am a hero.)

So, we made plan A: I moved their timeslot to 4.30, giving them three and a half hours. The shining piece of luck in this whole thing was that this was the crunch time assignment - if it had been Aeron's, they'd have had to try and write a 3000 report in that time. But for me, all they had to write was an academic poster, and those things are light on words by design. We found them a Canva template, and then we quickly sketched out a recommended structure based on the brief: if it's habitat feasibility, look at food availability, nesting site availability, and mortality risks in the target release site. Bullet point each. Bullet point how well the study assessed each. Write a quick intro and conclusion. Take notes as you go, and present the poster itself at 4.30.

"You think I should try?" they asked doubtfully, looking like I'd just asked them to go mano-a-mano with a feral badger.

"If you run out of time, so be it," I said. "But your brain is trying to protect you from a non-existent tiger. That's why you've procrastinated - it's been horrible, and you've been shame spiralling, and your brain is trying to shield you from the negative experience; but it's the wrong type of help for this situation! So while you're sitting there working on it, hating life, every time your brain goes 'This is hopeless, I can't do it', you think right back 'Yes I can, it just sucks.' And you carry on. Good?"

"Good," they said. "I'm going to mainline coffee and hole up in the library. Enjoy your potato."

And then, of course, I had to go and watch the other students' presentations, so that was the end of me being any help at all. I spent all afternoon wondering if they were going to manage it, or if I would be getting a message at 4.25 telling me they'd failed, and would have to submit late and hope for an EC.

And Tumblrs

Tumblrs

Let me FUCKING tell you

They turned up at 4.15, fifteen minutes early, wearing a mask of grim, harrowed determination and fuelled by spite and coffee, and they pulled up that poster and started presenting and yes, okay, I'll admit their actual delivery was dramatically unpolished and yes, they forgot to include the taxanomic name for the hen harrier on the poster and yes, fine, I admit that there were more than a few awkward moments where they lost their place in their hastily scribbled notebook but LET ME FUCKING TELL YOU -

They smashed it. It was well-critiqued, it had a map, it had full citations, it had a section on the hen harrier's specific ecology and role in the ecosystem, it had notes on their specific conservation measures. They described case studies they'd read about elsewhere. They answered the questions we threw at them with competence and depth. There was analysis. All that background research they'd done came right to the fore. They were even within the time limit by 15 seconds.

You would never have known they'd produced it in three hours, from a quivering and terrified mess fighting the bodily urge to dehydrate via tear ducts. After they left, the second marker and I looked at each other and went "So that was a 2:1, right?"

I caught up with Aeron downstairs and he was beaming. Apparently Ceri had seen him on their way out, and had gone over to talk to him. Aeron said the difference between the Ceri of this morning and the Ceri of then was like two different people; in four hours, they'd gone from their voice literally breaking as they admitted the problem, ashamed and broken, to being relaxed and happy and smiling.

"I reckon I've passed," they apparently told Aeron, pleased. "Maybe even a 2:2. There's things I wish I'd had the time to do better, but I'll be happy if I passed."

They won't know until late January what they got, because we're not allowed to release marks until 20 term days after hand-in, and the Christmas holidays are about to hit. But I'm really hoping I can be there when they're released.

But mostly, I'm just... insanely proud of them. I cannot tell you how happy I am. And I know, I know, obviously this is not a practice I would want to see them do regularly, or indeed ever again, and it only worked because they were fucking lucky with the assignment format, but like... when life is just punching you in the face, and you hit a breaking point... isn't it nice? That just this once, you pull off a miracle, and it's fixed? The disaster you thought was about to ruin you is gone? To get that relief?

Anyway. Super super proud today.