I should be grown up, but nah!

the columbian lesserblack tarantula is a fuckoff huge arachnid about 8 inches wide that feeds on a wide variety of both invertebrates and small vertebrates unlucky enough to have a giant fucking spider get the drop on them!

the lesserblack tarantulas spend most of their non-murder time constructing and hanging around in a set of underground burrows, where the female tarantulas hide and tend to their eggs. but what's really interesting is just who's sharing these burrows with them!

that's right! IT'S TIME FOR FROGGE.

the dotted humming frog is a teeny weeny amphibian that spends most of its life scuttling around in the dirt looking for bugs to eat, and a surprising number of them take up residence in occupied lesserblack territory!

this arrangement is by mutual consent- the tiny frog keeps the tunnels clear of any roaming ants or other insects that might like to snack on some giant spider eggs, and the lesserblack tarantula:

a) does not eat the dotted humming frog

b) provides shelter and safety from non-tarantula frog predators (a surprising amount of animals that would cheerfully eat a tiny inch-long frog become a LOT less cheerful at the prospect of confronting an 8-inch wide tarantula. who knew, right?!)

and c) provides free frog food in the form of unwary egg-hungry tiny insects!

the frog thanks the tarantula by keeping the place clean and also not snacking on any baby tarantulas that happen to be present, so this arrangement seems to work just fine for both animals.

no word on if the spiders pet the frogs when the scientists aren't looking, though.

One thing I never really understood was Sleipnir (meaning “slippery one” fyi) in depictions of Norse mythology. Sleipnir is an eight-legged horse, the steed of Odin and the son of Loki, and he is commonly depicted like this:

(image not mine)

But why would you depict an eight-legged horse like this? Horses gallop the same way most other mammals run, with all feet leaving the ground at one point, so having extra feet here doesn’t seem like it could make the horse any faster. I’m also not sure it would give it any more stable footing, since it doesn’t have a wider base.

If you want a stable eight-legged form that can reach great speeds for its size, wouldn’t you want to start with what nature has already provided? Wouldn’t you want something more like… this?

(my drawing)

“But wait!” you might say, “Sleipnir was conceived when Loki, in horse-form, seduced another horse! That’s why it looks all horsey, just with extra bits!”

Well, that’s a good point, but consider that Loki as a deity was originally based off the spider, and his name even derives from the old Swedish word for spider (source). Therefore, it’s not too hard to believe Sleipnir inherited his horse half from his mother and the more spidery half from his father. In conclusion:

As far as Sleipnir having eight legs, it’s probably a reference to Icelandic horses. Icelandic horses are one of the few horse breeds with five gaits. They can do a walk, trot and canter/gallop, like most horses. But they have also evolved to have a tolt,

[ gif of a man riding a brown Icelandic horse doing a tolt. The back legs of the horse move rather stiffly back and forth, while the front legs are lifted up almost to the horse’s chest. While the horse bounces slightly, the man riding the horse could probably hold a glass of water without spilling. ] 

which is fast, smooth and noted for its explosive speed and ability to cover long distances.

The second unique gait is called flugskeið, or flying pace.

[ a light brown Icelandic horse demonstrating the flugskeið. With the exception of the wind in the horses’ mane, the upper part of the horse and the rider seem to almost be still, with the background simply zipping by them. The horse’s legs, however, move fast enough to blur. Unlike with a full gallop, the horse does not fully extend its legs away from its body. This is particularly obvious in the front legs of the horse, which lift up to the chest of the horse and land under its chin the same way as in the tolt]

It is both smooth and fast, some horses being able to reach speeds of 30 mph. Not all Icelandic horses can do a flugskeið, but you’ll notice that when done properly the legs move in unison and so fast they can blur, giving the illusion of the horse having eight legs.

Anyways, here is a video to further emphasize how cool the flugskeið is;

The thing is, until the late 1800s we didn’t know how horses moved. 

In old paintings you typically see horses with their legs stretched wide as they thought that gave the appearance of great speed. 

But it really just looks like Timmy’s big brother was being an evil bastard and bent the legs of his tin horses out . 

It’s completely unnatural looking, but horses moved too fast for us to be able to see how they moved, until Edward MAuybridge captured their motion in a series of consecutive photographs in 1878.

And for the first time we could see that all four legs did leave the ground. (and are never stretched uncomfortably wide!). 

He also created the first motion picture as the individual photographs could be put together as a series of film frames (below).  

you soaked up 10,985 minutes of sunshine, rain, and other weather

you walked past 4,073 individuals you would describe as the most beautiful person in the world

you bore witness to 23% more of your local area than last year—good job!

you saw 3 of the weirdest dogs you will ever see in your life

you noticed 18 people visibly, tenderly in love with each other

you smelled 243 flowering plants & shrubs

you drank 267 delicious beverages

you were kissed invisibly and imperceptibly by 117 bumble bees and butterflies

It gets so bad he's always being woken up by adverts that offer insomnia cures and better bedding that play when he tries to sleep.

So he buys the ad-free tier, and it's great... for a few months. And then he starts getting adverts from 'premium partners'. So he goes up a level... and the same thing happens.

So he jailbreaks his wallpaper and sends all the ad servers to 0.0.0.0 and voila... he can sleep.

Until this SWAT team blows his door off and drag him off to jail. The Ad companies are suing him for loss of revenue for the products he' notionally have bought if he'd watched their adverts, based on some weird 'The average consumer buys X products with an average value of Y' calculation.

The judge is like 'well I dun wanna annoy the sponsors' so he RICO's this guy's house and possessions and sends him to jail.

... which is a nice relaxed non-volent offender jail for the corporately disenfranchised. But because these people have no money... there's no ads and now he's happy because the only place he's free... is in prison.

Which at the time was a bit much and now it's like: Called it.

Elon's suing companies for not advertising because he's losing revenue. He's also cranking the price of Ad Free Twitter. Disney and Amazon play adverts on their paid service when services used to be free because of the adverts... and now you have to pay to watch the adverts or go up a couple of tiers.

But it can also be with things like Usopp finally getting a wanted poster and the incriminating picture is of him freeing a bunch of slaves. Things like Nami's treasure stash being legally taken by the same marines who let Arlong terrorize her village for years. Things like Luffy's bounty going up after doing the government's work for them taking out Crocodile and saving a whole country from years of drought. And of course, things like the very first plot point, where Zoro is criminalized not for his ruthless kills (those were legal) but for protecting a child from a petty marine's untrained dog.

And that John is easily the brightest thing in the picture, he is part of a god that isn't supposed to be here and he Sticks Out

I also love the marks on the wall behind them, with the black tendrils behind John, the glowing eyes and crown by Jon, and the muted fog behind Martin

And imagine being Jon in this situation: he almost looks like he's stuck here on this makeshift altar playing at apocalypse google; he's got short sleeves and long hair and no shoes and Martin can leave all he wants, can come and go freely but chooses over and over to come back to him, to sit at his back as both a facade of protection, pointlessly watching the back of a man who sees all, and a supportive strength, lending warmth as his boyfriend converses with the scraggly man with a strange glint of gold in his eyes.

He Knows when Arthur is brought here, of course he does, this is his job now, his purpose is to Know and See everything that goes on in this world. He Watches them walk up, and when the scraggly man reaches about twice as far away as a normal human could see, Jon Sees a nauseating shimmer of yellow around him and eyes that are taken over by gold and black.

By the time they reach the door, Jon has been looking upon the visage of a foreign god for quite a while now.

He closes his eyes. More blink open across his skin. He is Argus, hundred-eyed, ever-watchful, bound in service to a god.

Arthur Lester enters, muttering to hi- well. Muttering to the god in his head and wrapped around his bones. The yellow-cloaked figure dogging his steps responds in a voice that tugs at Jon's mind.

He catches his own name in the whispers, and the Eye informs him the piece of the King has named himself John Doe. What irony.

He curls up, reaching a hand back to Martin's leg as if for reassurance, and Arthur leans on the altar before him. He is scarred, heavily so, but the Eye will not look between the shifting robes to tell him whether his marks number more than Jon's. Even the little bit he can see of the figure beneath the swirling yellow twists at him.

Martin sips his tea. Jon Knows he can't see just how strange the man before them really is.

Drew The Magnus Archives season 4 finale, this is the first piece in a while thag actually took me days to complete. Also made a funny shitty little poster thing because why not

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