WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE HEAD NUBS ON A GIRAFFE?
THE ANCESTORS OF GIRAFFES LIKELY HAD ANTLERS FOR COMBAT PURPOSES, LIKE DEERS AND MOOSES. AS THEY GOT COMICALLY TALL, THE WEIGHT OF ANTLERS GOT TOO HEAVY FOR THEIR HILARIOUS NECKS, AND ANTLER FIGHTING BECAME OBSOLETE AND RIDICULOUS, SO THEY EVOLVED PAST ANTLERS. THE NUBS, OR “OSSICONES,” ARE VESTIGIAL STRUCTURES IN THE GIRAFFE’S SKULL. THEY’RE LEFTOVER SUPPORT STRUCTURES FOR THE ANTLERS GIRAFFES USED TO HAVE BEFORE THEY BECAME THE BIOLOGICAL JOKE WE KNOW AND LOVE TODAY.
“College kids are the absolute last people you want to mug. They’re in peak physical condition, they have no money, and most of them have such a twisted view on the value of life they would rather you shoot them than give you the $4.37 in change at the bottom of their book bag.”—ztejas (via bl-ossomed)
please consider the fact that steven grant rogers a.k.a captain america probably got the bulk of his sex education from a pack of chorus girls
and like obviously you could jump to the conclusion that he had a bunch of educational sex romps with a harem of hot young ladies but if you have ever hung out with a pack of women for any significant length of time you will probably have observed them discuss every single facet of every single sexual encounter with every single romantic partner with one another, while cackling.
steven grant rogers a.k.a captain america sitting at the very end of the makeup trailer, meekly brushing a chorus girl’s hair, as six other girls share a bottle of gin and compare the median dick length of hook-ups in the west coast vs the east and how that might correlate with willingness to give head and a seventh girl keeps making lesbian jokes
steven grant rogers a.k.a captain america realizing all of bucky’s romantic ‘conquests’ probably went straight back to their friends and reported on his performance and suddenly being really glad he’s a virgin
steven grant rogers a.k.a captain america on one of his sadness errands goes to visit the last chorus girl in her nursing home and she’s like ninety and hooked up to a wheely oxygen tank and knitting some baby booties for her great-grandkid and she asks him right there in front of all the cameras, ‘you found a nice young man to pop that cherry of yours yet, rogers?’ and he goes ‘i’m waiting till you die, ethel, the last thing i need is another lecture on the clap’
the morning after sam and steve do it, steve resignedly answers his cellphone to the dulcet tones of a cackling ninety year old woman with a lecture for him on the clap.
okay not shanghai and derail your shippy post but i need to shanghai and derail your shippy post for a minute bc i’m so in love with the original concept here of steve rogers spending a fair amount of time being surrounded by thirty gossiping women and he hears all about the times their asses have been pinched, and the cat calls they’ve gotten on the streets, and that one creep in the bar that just wouldn’t leave the one of them alone and so steve rogers learns the difference between a woman flirting and a woman politely saying no and this is how he learns to respectfully take rejection
and steve rogers listening to 30 women talk about menstruation like it’s the weather and he finds himself learning about the symptoms and exactly how bad they can be and steve rogers starts getting hot water bottles for the women who are cramping so bad they’re having trouble getting out of the chair and he does it without being asked or told he just knows now
and steve rogers learning about the intricacies involved in the world of the female experience and learns that women are people in way there’s no going back from and so he no longer has the capacity to see them as things like sex objects or super spies and that’s why nat can let her guard down around him and be a bestie because for once someone sees her as a fucking person
Hey there! It’s been one week, almost to the hour, since I found out my chair was stolen. In that time, the Internet has been pouring support on me. The YouCaring fundraiser has hit $4,087 dollars, over a thousand dollars past the original goal. I’ve got over three hundred messages of support sitting in my inbox from all over the world.
And on Friday, I was measured for a new chair.
This has all been amazing, and I’m incredibly grateful for the kind of charity and love I’ve experienced. I am incredibly fortunate to have received it.
Let’s see if we can make it happen again.
Mackenzie McCullough is a teenager from Washington, and she’s got a huge list of diagnoses, the only one of which I can even spell is Ehler-Danlos Syndrome. The current chair she has is an absolute clunker, and she can’t make it move at all, rendering her immobile. She needs a new one, badly, but insurance can’t help.
Maybe we can. A family friend of hers reached out to me with the link to her GoFundMe, asking if I could help. I figure that this is maybe what part of this blog can become- a place to help direct all the goodwill I’ve received towards other people who need it.
Please, if you can help, do so, and if not, signal boost. Let’s give a kid back her life. #wheelsformackenzie
Do you think seventh years at Hogwarts have a muck-up day? On the last day of school, half the students have swapped uniforms, timetables and common room passwords with friends from other houses and are steadfastly insisting to the teachers that “of course I’m in Slytherin, what do you mean I’m a Ravenclaw, you insult me”. Meanwhile, someone’s enchanted suits of armour to act as bodyguards for random first years, who can’t even enter a classroom without a vaguely panicked pile of metal clattering along behind them and leaping on potential attackers. Sir Cadogan has been convinced to battle the Fat Lady for possession of the Gryffindor common room (the Fat Lady is a surprisingly vicious fighter) and nobody can get through the portrait hole. In the spontaneous sleepover that ensues in the Great Hall, a group of over-emotional seventh years huddle together, clutching Butterbeers they’ve smuggled in from Hogsmeade as they sing “Hogwarts Hogwarts Hoggy Warty Hogwarts” one last time.
When you are hurting, there will always be people who find a way to make it about themselves. If you break your wrist, they’ll complain about a sprained ankle. If you are sad, they’re sadder. If you’re asking for help, they’ll demand more attention.
Here is a fact: I was in a hospital and sobbing into my palms when a woman approached me and asked why I was making so much noise and I managed to stutter that my best friend shot himself in the head and now he was 100% certified dead and she made this little grunt and had the nerve to tell me, “Well now you made me sad.”
When you get angry, there are going to be people who ask you to shut up and sit down, and they’re not going to do it nicely. Theirs are the faces that turn bright red before you have a chance to finish your sentence. They won’t ask you to explain yourself. They’ll be mad that you’re mad and that will be their whole reason alone.
Here is a fact: I was in an alleyway a few weeks ago, stroking my friend’s back as she vomited fourteen tequila shots. “I hate men,” she wheezed as her sides heaved, “I hate all of them.”
I braided her hair so it wouldn’t get caught in the mess. I didn’t correct her and reply that she does in fact love her father and her little brother too, that there are strangers she has yet to meet that will be better for her than any of her shitty ex-boyfriends, that half of our group of friends identifies as male - I could hear each of her bruises in those words and I didn’t ask her to soften the blow when she was trying to buff them out of her skin. She doesn’t hate all men. She never did.
She had the misfortune to be overheard by a drunk guy in an ill-fitting suit, a boy trying to look like a man and leering down my dress as he stormed towards us. “Fuck you, lady,” he said, “Fuck you. Not all men are evil, you know.”
“Thanks,” I told him dryly, pulling on her hand, trying to get her inside again, “See you.”
He followed us. Wouldn’t stop shouting. How dare she get mad. How dare she was hurting. “It’s hard for me too!” he yowled after us. “With fuckers like you, how’s a guy supposed to live?”
Here’s a fact: my father is Cuban and my genes repeat his. Once one of my teachers looked at my heritage and said, “Your skin doesn’t look dirty enough to be a Mexican.”
When my cheeks grew pink and my tongue dried up, someone else in the classroom stood up. “You can’t say that,” he said, “That’s fucking racist. We could report you for that.”
Our teacher turned vicious. “You wanna fail this class? Go ahead. Report me. I was joking. It’s my word against yours. I hate kids like you. You think you’ve got all the power - you don’t. I do.”
Later that kid and I became close friends and we skipped class to do anything else and the two of us were lying on our backs staring up at the sky and as we talked about that moment, he sighed, “I hate white people.” His girlfriend is white and so is his mom. I reached out until my fingers were resting in the warmth of his palm.
He spoke up each time our teacher said something shitty. He failed the class. I stayed silent. I got the A but I wish that I didn’t.
Here is a fact: I think gender is a social construct and people that want to tell others what defines it just haven’t done their homework. I personally happen to have the luck of the draw and am the same gender as my sex, which basically just means society leaves me alone about this one particular thing.
Until I met Alex, who said he hated cis people. My throat closed up. I’m not good at confrontation. I avoided him because I didn’t want to bother him.
One day I was going on a walk and I found him behind our school, bleeding out of the side of his mouth. The only thing I really know is how to patch people up. He winced when the antibacterial cream went across his new wounds. “I hate cis people,” he said weakly.
I looked at him and pushed his hair back from his head. “I understand why you do.”
Here is a fact: anger is a secondary emotion. Anger is how people stop themselves from hurting. Anger is how people stop themselves by empathizing.
It is easy for the drunken man to be mad at my friend. If he says “Hey, fuck you, lady,” he doesn’t have to worry about what’s so wrong about men.
It’s easy for my teacher to fail the kids who speak up. If we’re just smart-ass students, it’s not his fault we fuck up.
It’s easy for me to hate Alex for labeling me as dangerous when I’ve never hurt someone a day in my life. But I’m safe in my skin and his life is at risk just by going to the bathroom. I understand why he says things like that. I finally do.
There’s a difference between the spread of hatred and the frustration of people who are hurting. The thing is, when you are broken, there will always be someone who says “I’m worse, stop talking.” There will always be people who are mad you’re trying to steal the attention. There will always be people who get mad at the same time as you do - they hate being challenged. It changes the rules.
I say I hate all Mondays but my sister was born on one and she’s the greatest joy I have ever known. I say I hate brown but it’s really just the word and how it turns your mouth down - the colour is my hair and my eyes and my favorite sweater. I say I hate pineapple but I still try it again every Easter, just to see if it stings less this year. It’s okay to be sad when you hear someone generalize a group you’re in. But instead of assuming they’re evil and filled with hatred, maybe ask them why they think that way - who knows, you might just end up with a new and kind friend.
”—
By telling the oppressed that their anger is unjustified, you allow the oppression to continue. I know it’s hard to stay calm. I know it’s scary. But you’re coming from the safe place and they aren’t. Just please … Try to be more understanding. /// r.i.d (via inkskinned)
also that whole tale of aragorn and arwen thing where he saw her in the woods at twenty and fell instantly in love and it’s very beren and luthien? lies.
aragorn decided he was going to marry arwen when he was like, six.
and everyone thought it was just the cutest thing, baby estel with his little crush on the great immortal evenstar, and everyone would tease him about it relentlessly and he would get so mad, and pout, because how dare they doubt his word.
(arwen spent a lot of time biting back smiles and nodding very seriously when aragorn brings this up with her. no, estel, I do not know why they are laughing perhaps they have remembered a particularly funny joke.)
and then aragorn grows into this gangly teen and oh my god can you imagine being a pimply greasy teenager around fucking elves it’s a wonder he has any self-image left. His voice breaks every other word and the laundresses are beginning to wonder if something is wrong with the sheets because estel keeps washing them himself and aragorn wants to die, god, arwen is never going to marry him if he stays all elbows and skinny knees and he can’t even look her in the eye anymore without blushing, eye contact is probably something to look for in a husband–
(arwen, who never had to go through puberty because elves don’t do anything so undignified, tries to comfort him by saying she likes his blemishes. aragorn gives her a look of such utter, miserable despair that she starts laughing.)
(this is a mistake. he spends the next three weeks nursing his wounded ego and refusing to see her.)
estel is twenty when he asks for her hand. he is lean, slender and fair as a new tree, and so arwen does not feel guilt in kissing his cheek and gently refusing. he is still green, he will weather greater storms than this–and he takes it as he should, clasping her hand and swearing to ever be her loyal friend.
they write to each other–when she is in lorien, when he wanders with the rangers of the north, fights alongside gondor, travels to distant lands. it is an inconstant tie–he is rarely afforded time enough to put pen to paper; she is reserved so as not to encourage what may not be. (she signs her letters always, your friend. She likes him too well to be cruel in this.)
the years pass. his weariness and strife creeps onto the page, and she sends him tokens to fend off the darkness–leaves from lothlorien, the ribbon from her hair, snippets of poems. it is not enough it is never enough I am sorry, she writes.
his reply is gentle: you are enough. do not stop writing.
(she carries that letter tucked inside her sleeve for a long while, like a talisman–though against what evil, she does not know.)
she is in the house of her grandmother when a familiar voice calls out to her: my lady luthien!
this is when arwen looks up, sees aragorn–broad of chest and rugged, still wearing his battered mail, with one hand balanced lazily on the pommel of his sword. All the trees of caras galadhon are gold but he is shadow and silver, kingliness resting lightly on his shoulders–
Reminder that when Harry James Potter was given more accurate instructions and a competent potions professor he made a perfect batch of an extremely complicated potion on the first try
Which makes sense since his mother was great at potions and the Potters were literally potioneers
But hey Snape did all he could and had to keep up appearances right?
there are people who think bi people don’t have a place at lgbt+pride events
there are people who hate bi people so much that they won’t even reblog a post that says “bi girls and lesbians” without getting rid of the “bi girls” part
there are people who will fight to cut bi people off from support that we need, and who dismiss us if we try and talk about why we need that support
there are people who argue that being forced into the closet is a privilege when it’s a bisexual person being forced, and that we should accept this “privilege” and be happy that people assume our sexuality incorrectly
there are people who think that biphobia isn’t real and that we’re just complaining about characters being mislabeled as gay or straight
there are people who define bi people by the relationships they have and decide our worth as people by our partner
biphobia is a real issue. it isolates bi people, it separates us from the support of communities that we desperately need, and it makes people scared to be themselves in spaces that are supposed to be safe spaces, and it needs to be addressed and dealt with.
Steve Rogers becoming a famous artist in the modern world, but not in the way anyone expected:
Sketching Bucky and Sam and Natasha on the placemat at a restaurant; the waitress figures out who they are from Sam’s credit card and sells the drawing on ebay
Drawing little monsters on kid’s casts at the Children’s Hospital, until Natasha finds a ‘Florida Man’ article about some idiot who tried to break his arm on purpose
Getting really hammered with Thor and tagging the side of Tony’s newest building with a DayGlo yellow caricature of the team – fifty stories up
Doing commissions for charity once and then never again, after someone seriously offers to pay him $200 for a six-stroke cat doodle
(He does a nice watercolor of their childhood pet for free, and donates $1000 of his own money back to the charity)
Sending dumb doodles to his fans on Twitter; someone actually has one tattooed (insp. x)
+1
Secretly starting a Tumblr and posting whatever he wants, when he wants, as ‘fanart’
at eleven, was described by his teachers as ‘bright’
at the same age, according to the Sorting Hat: “Not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes” and “You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head”
mastered the challenging Patronus Charm at thirteen and proceeded to teach it at fifteen
resisted the Imperius Curse at fourteen and soon learned to throw it off completely, even when cast by the incredibly powerful Voldemort
also at fourteen, learned to cast a powerful Accio Charm
at fifteen, was training other students
at the same age, under extreme stress, tested as ‘exceeds expectations’ or ‘outstanding’ in every subject that required actual magic (including the dreaded Potions)
same age, cast a briefly effective Cruciatus Curse
at sixteen, became a star Potions student simply by following superior instructions
at seventeen, successfully cast the Imperius Curse on his first try, and used it repeatedly
at the same age, cast a successful Cruciatus Curse
He was able to immediately connect the dots between the package that Hagrid retrieved from Gringotts to the break in based on a news article and Hagrid’s reactions.
He was the one who figured out the motive of Quirrell when he played cards with Hagrid betting a dragon’s egg.
He figured out that it was Myrtle who died when the Chamber of Secrets was opened before and seemed to be the only one who was smart enough to actually ask her about her death.
He figured out that it was Lucius Malfoy who gave Ginny Tom Riddle’s diary (with subtle clues from Dobby) and used it to outsmart Malfoy into freeing Dobby.
He knew that Draco Malfoy was up to something (even though Ron and Hermione didn’t believe it) their 6th year. He also figured out Malfoy succeeded when Trelawney told him she heard a male voice whooping in the RoR.
He was the one who figured out that there was a horcrux inside Bellatrix’s vault judging only by her reactions to their possession of the Gryffindor’s Sword.
He figured out the connections of the Peverells, the cloak, the ring (and the snitch by extension) and the elder wand to the Deathly Hallows. He even figured out that it was Dumbledore who owned it and that ownership was passed on the Draco Malfoy and, eventually, to Harry himself.
These are only the ones I could remember right now but I’m pretty sure there were more instances that showed how perceptive he really is.
how is it possible to love fictional characters this much and also have people always been this way?
like, did queen elizabeth lie in bed late sometimes thinking ‘VERILY I CANNOT EVEN FOR MERCUTIO HATH SLAIN ME WITH FEELS’
was caesar like ‘ET TU ODYSSEUS’
sometimes i wonder
oh my GOD
the answer is yes they did. there’s a lot of research about the highly emotional reactions to the first novels widely available in print.
here’s a thing; the printing press was invented in 1450 and whilst it was revolutionary it wasn’t very good. but then it got better over time and by the 16th century there were publications, novels, scientific journals, folios, pamphlets and newspapers all over Europe. at first most were educational or theological, or reprints of classical works.
however, novels gained in popularity, as basically what most people wanted was to read for pleasure. they became salacious, extremely dramatic, with tragic heroines and doomed love and flawed heroes (see classical literature, only more extreme.) books in the form of letters were common. sensationalism was par the course and apparently used to teach moral lessons. there was also a lot of erotica floating around.
but here’s the thing: due to the greater availability of literature and the rise of comfy furniture (i shit you not this is an actual historical fact, the 16th and 17th century was when beds and chairs got comfy) people started reading novels for pleasure, women especially. as these novels were highly emotional, they too became…highly emotional. there are loads of contemporary reports of young women especially fainting, having hysterics, or crying fits lasting for days due to the death of a character or their otp’s doomed love. they became insensible over books and characters, and were very vocal about it. men weren’t immune-there’s a long letter a middle-aged man wrote to the author of his favourite work basically saying that the novel is too sad, he can’t handle all his feels, if they don’t get together he won’t be able to go on, and his heart is already broken at the heroine’s tragic state (IIRC ehh).
conservatives at the time were seriously worried about the effects of literature on people’s mental health, and thought it damaging to both morals and society. so basically yes it is exactly like what happens on tumblr when we cry over attractive British men, only my historical theory (get me) is that their emotions were even more intense, as they hadn’t had a life of sensationalist media to numb the pain for them beforehand in the same way we do, nor did they have the giant group therapy session that is tumblr.
(don’t even get me started on the classical/early medieval dudes and their boners for the Iliad i will be here all week. suffice to say, the members of the Byzantine court used Homeric puns instead of talking normally to each other if someone who hand’t studied the classics was in the room. they had dickish fandom in-jokes. boom.)
I needed to know this.
See, we’re all just the current steps in a time-honored tradition! (And this post is good to read along with Affectingly’s post this week about old-school-fandom-and-history-and-stuff.
Ancient Iliad fandom is intense
Alexander the Great and and his boyfriend totally RPed Achilles and Patroclus. Alexander shipped that hard. (It’s possible that this story is apocryphal, but that would just mean that ancient historians were writing RPS about Alexander and Hephaestion RPing Iliad slash and honestly that’s just as good).
And then there’s this gem from Plato:
“Very different was the reward of the true love of Achilles towards his lover Patroclus - his lover and not his love (the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was still beardless, and younger far)” - Symposium
That’s right: 4th Century BCE arguments about who topped. Nihil novi sub sole my friends.
More on this glorious subject from people who know way more than I do
Man I love this post.
And to add my personal favourite story: after reading Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa in the 18th century, Elizabeth Echlin decided that she was NOT HAPPY with the ending and basically wrote her own fix-it fic. No-one dies and Lovelace (the villain) was totally reformed and became a super nice guy. It’s completely OOC and incredibly poorly written and it’s beautiful.
Also, so many women fell in love with the villain, Lovelace, and wrote to Richardson about it, that he kept adding new bits with each edition to highlight what a hideous person Lovelace was. So it’s almost unsurprising that reading novels in this period was actually considered dangerous because it gave women unrealistic ideas about men and made them easier prey for rakes.
Basically, “I want my own Christian Grey” has been a thing for hundreds of years.
Also a thing with fix-it/everyone lives AUs: at various points in time but especially in the mid 1800s-early 1900s (aka roughly Victorian though there were periods of this earlier as well) a huge thing was to “fix” Shakespeare (as well as most theater/novels) to be in line with current morality. Good characters live, bad characters are terribly punished – but not, you know, grusomely, because what would the ladies think? So you have like, productions of King Lear where Cordelia lives and so do Regan and Goneril, but they’re VERY SORRY.
Aka all your problematic faves are redeemed and Everyone Lives! AUs for every protag.
Slightly tangential but I wanted to add my own favorite account of Chinese fandom to this~ I don’t know how many people here have heard of the Chinese novel A Dream of Red Mansions (红楼梦), but it is, arguably, the most famous Chinese novel ever written (There are four Chinese novel classics and A Dream of Red Mansions is considered the top of that list). It was written during the Qing dynasty by 曹雪芹, but became a banned book due to its critique of societal institutions and pro-democracy themes. As a result, the original ending of the book was lost and only the first 80 chapters remained. There are quite a few versions of how the current ending of the book came to be, but one of them is basically about how He Shen, one of Emperor Qian Long’s most powerful advisers, was such a super-fan of the book, he hired two writers to archive and reform the novel from the few remaining manuscripts there were. In order to convince the Emperor to remove the ban on the book, he had the writers essentially write a fanfiction ending to the book that would mitigate the anti-establishment themes. However, He Shen thought that the first version of the ending was too tragic (even though the whole book is basically a tragedy) so he had the writers go back and write a happier ending for him (the current final 40 chapters). He then presented the book to the Emperor and successfully convinced him to remove the ban on the book.
According to incomplete estimates, A Dream of Red Mansions spawned over 20 spin offs, retellings, and alternate versions (in the form of operas, plays, etc.) during the Qing Dynasty alone.
In 1979, fans (albeit academic ones) started publishing a bi-monthly journal dedicated to analysis (read: meta) on A Dream of Red Mansions. In fact, the novel’s fandom is so vast and qualified and rooted in academics of Chinese literature that there is an entire field of study (beginning in the Qing dynasty) of just this one novel, called 红学. Think of it as Shakespearean studies, but only on one play. This field of study has schools of thought and specific specializations (as in: Psych analyses, Economics analyses, Historical analyses, etc.) that span pretty much every academic field anyone can think of.
(That being said, I’ve read A Dream of Red Mansions and can honestly say that I’ve never read its peer in either English or Chinese. If for nothing else, read it because you would never otherwise believe that a man from the Qing dynasty could write such a heart-breakingly feminist novel with such a diverse cast of female characters given all the bitching and moaning we hear from male content-creators nowadays)
I am the ’70s child of a health nut. I wasn’t vaccinated. I was brought up on an incredibly healthy diet: no sugar till I was 1, breastfed for over a year, organic homegrown vegetables, raw milk, no MSG, no additives, no aspartame. My mother used homeopathy, aromatherapy, osteopathy; we took daily supplements of vitamin C, echinacea, cod liver oil.I had an outdoor lifestyle; I grew up next to a farm in England’s Lake District, walked everywhere, did sports and danced twice a week, drank plenty of water. I wasn’t even allowed pop; even my fresh juice was watered down to protect my teeth, and I would’ve killed for white, shop-bought bread in my lunchbox once in a while and biscuits instead of fruit, like all the other kids.We ate (organic local) meat maybe once or twice a week, and my mother and father cooked everything from scratch—I have yet to taste a Findus crispy pancake, and oven chips (“fries,” to Americans) were reserved for those nights when Mum and Dad had friends over and we got a “treat.”As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox. In my 20s I got precancerous HPV and spent six months of my life wondering how I was going to tell my two children under the age of 7 that Mummy might have cancer before it was safely removed.So the anti-vaccine advocates’ fears of having the “natural immunity sterilized out of us” just doesn’t cut it for me. How could I, with my idyllic childhood and my amazing health food, get so freaking ill all the time? … My two vaccinated children, on the other hand, have rarely been ill, have had antibiotics maybe twice in their lives, if that. Not like their mum. I got many illnesses requiring treatment with antibiotics. I developed penicillin-resistant quinsy at age 21—you know, that old-fashioned disease that supposedly killed Queen Elizabeth I and that was almost wiped out through use of antibiotics.*
“If you think your child’s immune system is strong enough to fight off vaccine-preventable diseases, then it’s strong enough to fight off the tiny amounts of dead or weakened pathogens present in any of the vaccines.”
A former hedge fund manager turned pharmaceutical businessman has purchased the rights to a 62-year-old drug used for treating life-threatening parasitic infections and raised the price overnight from $13.50 per tablet to $750.
According to the New York Times, Martin Shkreli, 32, the founder and chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, purchased the rights to Daraprim for $55 million on the same day that Turing announced it had raised $90 million from Shkreli and other investors in its first round of financing.
Daraprim is used for treating toxoplasmosis — an opportunistic parasitic infection that can cause serious or even life-threatening problems in babies and for people with compromised immune systems like AIDS patients and certain cancer patients — that sold for slightly over $1 a tablet several years ago. Prices have increased as the rights to the drug have been passed from one pharmaceutical company to the next, but nothing like the almost 5,500 percent increase since Shkreli acquired it.
This is absolutely monstrous. He’s like a parody of a capitalist from a Marxist propaganda film. Jesus H. Christ what a piece of trash.
Spread his face around. Don’t let him be anonymous. Let everyone know his name and what he looks like so that he’ll never, ever be able to go about in public again without being utterly terrified.
dear god
Smdh
No. please tell me this is not real. No.
I googled it…it’s real.
People are fucking sick. How dare he play God with people’s lives. Do you know how many lost souls he would be responsible for. Fucking idiot, he doesn’t even know what he’s doing! That level of bad karma isn’t fixable..
Yesterday this was on 2k notes. I have no doubt it can get to 500k uno.. Let’s drag this man
pleeeeeaaaaase don’t make fun of people for being overenthusiastic about their interests. if you see someone getting really excited about something and you think it’s a good idea to ruin their fun (and don’t think people don’t notice your eye rolls and side glances) you’re an asshole
12th Century Wizard Linfred of Stinchcombe (also known as “The Potterer”) created magical remedies for his unsuspecting muggle neighbors.
He’s credited with creating remedies that would one day evolve into such potions as Skele-Gro and Pepperup Potion.
The Potters are related to the Peverells through marriage.
Most, if not all, of the Potter line lived in the West of England.
The Potter fortune was made by hard work throughout the generations.
Harry was a FAMILY NAME.
James’ parents were named Fleamont and Euphemia.
FLEAMONT.
Fleamont credited his dueling skills to having to fight people who made fun of his name in school.
If you’ve any doubt that James is Fleamont’s (FLEAMONT’S) son, the above bullet point is all the proof you need.
Fleamont invented Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion and sold the company for a huge profit.
It is likely that Fleamont and Euphemia did not have James until after Fleamont’s retirement.
Fleamont and Euphemia lived to see their son marry Lily Evans.
They were ALIVE for the WEDDING.
But they succumbed to Dragon Pox before Harry was born, dying within days of each other.
James inherited the invisibility cloak after his father’s death but we can probably all collectively ignore this point because the marauders need that cloak at school they need it
one thing I find hilarious is when Shakespeare quotes are used out of context
like, people are always saying “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” as if it’s all deep and meaningful when actually it comes from a prank letter in Twelfth Night
and “This above all: to thine own self be true” comes from Polonius in Hamlet wherein the joke is that he’s an old pompous dude giving a long and rambling speech full of contradictory pointless advice to his son
“Brevity is the soul of wit” is another joke, because again, it’s made by Polonius who will just not shut up
it’s “we are such stuff as dreams are made on” not “of “, as in, “such stuff as dreams are built on”
“wherefore art thou, Romeo” doesn’t mean “where are you, Romeo” it means “why the fuck are you called Romeo, shit, I wanted to bang you but I can’t because you’re a goddamn Montague”
all these lines have acquired a kind of dignity in text that they never had in performance or are constantly misinterpreted
It’s not necessarily bad but it is kind of funny, sometimes.
“
Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp, To guard a title that was rich before, To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
“
And the one the that ALWAYS pisses me off
Why, then the world’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open. I will retort the sum in equipage.
Oysters are not easy to open. You open them violently and with force. The world is not your oyster easily. It is your oyster with force and brutality.
“it was a dick joke” EVERYTHING he wrote was a dick joke
Re the last comment: UNTRUE. Sometimes he wrote cunt jokes.
psa “here’s a #suicide hotline with zero context” is so unhelpful and upsetting
i need to know at a minimum if they’re 1. religious-based 2. lgbT-competent 3. risk-reduction or total abstinence 4. going to inform any authorities, call ambulances, that shit
jfc shoving a string of numbers at ppl with “this’ll fix it!!!” is so insulting and unrealistic, you have no idea how many folks have been failed by this shit already
moreover: tag your fucking suicide hotlines
ok this is the single most relevant, important thing ive seen on tumblr in fucking months i want to throw OP a fucking party
a good majority of these numbers you’re flinging at people have the most INSULTING approach imaginable, they basically will just repeat everything that you’re saying back to you (“it sounds like you’re really sad! :\”) and if you mention you are actively suicidal/in severe distress they either call an ambulance against your will or tell you they “can’t help you in this severe state” and hang up on you
literally, i am not joking.
i have yet to hear of a single hotline that does not have religious/cult motivations, is respectful of the caller’s wishes not to be contacted by EMT’s/police if they so choose, and is fully equipped to actually have a fucking functional conversation beyond repeating sentences back verbatim and spoon-feeding DISGUSTING and insulting advice/platitudes (“too many people love you, you have to think of them”, “look for the positives!” “be strong!!!!”)
After being let down by the mental health system so many times I’m practically fucking underground I am EXTREMELY passionate about this, PLEASE reblog the fuck out of this so people can gain a better understanding of what suicide hotlines actually are and will stop offering them to distressed people reaching out for help and then frolicking away thinking they were a super special helpful snowflake
Like seriously I wish we had a more comprehensive sex education program in the U.S. You know how many guys I know who had no idea an unaroused vagina is only 2-3 inches deep? Or that the cervix raises up when aroused to accommodate dick? Or that if a girl is “tight” that generally means she’s not turned on and you’re shitty in bed? Or that the cervix has an entire cycle it goes through throughout the month where is changes hardness, placement in the vagina, wetness? Like, when you’re ovulating your cervix gets soft and raises high up into the vagina and your hormones get you really horny. It’s like natures way of moving the furniture around and fluffing the pillow for dick because it wants to get pregnant. And before menstruation, it gets really hard and low in the vagina. It’s basically inactivating it’s Facebook and saying “I just need some alone time for a few days”
Ladies and gentlemen, take a moment to learn about vaginas. Men, take an interest into your woman’s menstrual cycle!
U.S. Needs better sex Ed because I’m a 23 year old woman and didn’t even know all of this
“you call me child,
you call me weak,
you call me naive,
oh, but sweetheart, i am a goddess,
my blood is made of stardust,
and my heart of burning flames,
i have the strength of a warrior,
and the mind of a wise man,
you thought you could lock me in your grasp,
but my sword is sharp,
and your grip loose,
and this is how i become the queen.”—my blade is red, and i have come to take your crown // k.s. (via worthystevie)
