stars, in your multitudes, scarce to be counted

Mozart (Currently shredding Violin Concerto No. 1 on the guitar, having figured it out within 30 seconds): What other music can be made from harnessed lightning?

I spent several minutes just staring at them (and trying to convince them to bite my fingers.) When my sister’s violin lesson ended, her teacher came out to the yard and explained that these goldfish were the same small creatures that were often unfortunately sold in plastic bags at state fairs. They were only about two inches long apiece, when she bought them and put them in the new, empty pond. In essence, they were like every goldfish I had seen before, but they had been given a much larger, much richer environment in which to flourish. As a result, they had grown into some of the most remarkable, vibrant creatures my twelve-year-old self had ever met with. All because of a pond. 

So I look up a pretty prominent Star Wars guild and message one of their council and ask them to poll the same question and get back to me in a week. They do, and naturally the fuckin geeks said "Death Star".

I cannot, sadly, teleport to Idaho this week. But if you’re in Idaho and have Thursdays or Fridays off, please go see this fluffball on my behalf.

So many people showed up they had to split the session into 2 groups so we didn't overwhelm the birb

This lil guy is Nox! They aren't 100% sure what sex it is, but they're pretty sure he's male.

He's a brancher, so he can't fly yet but is real good at jumping. In the wild he'd be jumping from branch to branch to build up his flight muscles, but he'll be flying soon

Nox is 5 weeks old, weighs 190g, and has reached his adult size, but his flight and tail feathers haven't grown in yet. He'll be a full adult next week!

The Northern White Faced Owl is from Africa, usually between the Sahara and the equator (according to Wikipedia, staff just said Africa). It used to be believed that this and another species, the southern white faced owl, were the same species but are now recognized as separate birds

His lil whiskers are called bristles, and they function like cat whiskers! He's just learned to tear meat, the trainer had big tweezers to give him lil bits of rabbit (some were placed on her glove and some were put right in front of his beak!)

He kept bobbing his head around, which is called triangulating and helps him figure out how far away things are.

*checks notes* these are also known as transformer owls! Like screech owls, they can stretch themselves real tall and thin to try and camouflage itself as a branch (search for transformer owl and you'll see what I mean)

After today he'll spend time with a foster parent to teach him how to Bird, then he'll join the legion of ambassador birds they have out here!

(PS his feathers are so fluffy my phone had a hard time taking clear pictures of them)

If you're near Boise this is absolutely worth a trip, they have so many other birds to see, and there's a walking trail just outside as well as a huge ampitheatre they use when it's not too hot out

ask-omnipony:

I don’t really believe this mumbo jumbo

I mean it’s a goddamn hat.

Right..?

The white rose, it symbolizes the unique beauty of all the women who wish not to be with a nice guy such as myse-

I wonder if this works with other kinds of hat…

Nothing ventured, nothing gained…

WHEEEN THE MOON HITS YOUR EYE LIKE A BIG PIZZA PIE THAT’S AMORREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

oh boy…….

Luckily, this nonsense doesn’t work on girls.

Observe…

And it can’t possibly work on motorcycle helmets.

I must test it.

Nothing happening so far…

What in the world?

Oh why not? This should be interesting.

Here we go!

Were all mad here in Underland!

What the hell! Never Again!

… Actually …

Alright, I gotta try this!

Can’t be that bad!

….

LOL

i wonder if it works for flower crowns?

here goes nothin-

w HAT THE

DID I JUST-

Okay Clearly something is up.

Hmm… I wonder

I’m sure nothing could possibly…

I wonder what happens when you wear 8 of these at once…

what could possibly go wrong?

eww, it smells like fuckboi

welp, down this rabbit hole we go…

nothing’s happeni-

WTF-

I wonder if this would work with a wolf hat.

May as well try it.

Please don’t be awful, please don’t be awful, please don’t b-

get wet 4 furry

This is obviously fake

Look, I’ll prove it

Y’all are just acting

Watch and learn

Whelp guess I gotta put on the hat now

Can’t be that bad, I mean what’s the worst a squid hat can do to m-

I̖̝̪̤̠̋͞ ̛̹̱̮̳̭̓̂͑ͫ͐̎ͯ͗͝͡H͇̠͊́̚A̛̓̓҉͙̠V͍̌̏͂ͣͨͭͧ̉́E̸͙̭̣͓̓ͨͥ̿ ̽͗͗ͮ͊ͬͩͥ̚҉̪̗̝̘̟́̕A̴̴̙̝̬̪̞͂ͤͩ̍W͚̣͆ͬỎ̫̝̟͖̝͇ͥ͛ͮ͋K̨̖͓͉̺̫͉̀͗ͪ̊͌̉E͚̲̩̪̘̠͋̈͞N͉͓͕̗̱͒̔ͨͤ͛̓̂ͧ

I do it too, I’m not going to pretend I don’t make jokes about the hets, or the down with cis bus, or whatever

But I recently befriended a cis, straight dude and I have watched him be dismissed, degraded, and unambiguously insulted for the perceived “crime” of being straight — all in queer environments where he is allegedly “completely welcome” and surrounded by “friends”

This guy is not a toxic person! But I have seen him be made to feel so small and like his comfort and safety in those spaces are conditional on his silence and acceptance of being treated like a human dunk zone, and I think that some of y’all have had so much shit from straight/cis people that the second you feel like you’ve got an inch, you want to luxuriate in the perceived catharsis of bullying someone who— actually —doesn’t deserve it

And until he very, very carefully mentioned to me in private that it makes him feel bad, I didn’t even clock that I was involved in doing that, that it had become so instinctive for me to make casual jokes like that, and that— well meaning or otherwise —I had been contributing to an environment that made someone I really really like feel like shit

I’m gonna say this point blank— you’re a tar pit if you think this way

Your suffering does not make you special, you are not granted brand new permissions to be belligerent and cruel because you have been treated poorly, straight people aren’t an oppressed class, no, but they’re people who are entitled to the same amount of basic decency that you, yourself, are entitled to

Characters must make choices.

Characters should often make bad choices before they make good choices.

Character choices should drive the vast majority of the plot. Characters reacting to having random stuff thrown at them is far less interesting than characters reacting to the stuff they've thrown after it's ricocheted around and comes bouncing back toward them.

If a character refuses to make a choice, there better be consequences for that too, and you better have a damn clear way of showing those consequences to the reader and the character.