wardenchampion

jackthebard

keuhkopussirotta

I love how both corvids and parrots are in general highly intelligent, but where corvids generally have strict hierarchies, solve disagreements in the pecking order by fighting, and have a strong dislike for anything new or foreign until they figure out how to make use of it, parrots are just here to party.

The New Caledonian crow, who knows how to specifically build a tool in order to build another tool, never engages in play. These motherfuckers are smarter than some people with the right to vote, and they are Extremely Serious Birds. They don't have time to play, they got work to do and kids to raise.

And then there's the kea, straight-up titled "clown of the mountains", that has a specific vocalization for "playtime!". Scientists decided to try what happens if they play the Play Call for two fully-grown adult keas that are together in an area and can clearly see there is no other, third kea to make the call, and they just go "great idea, disembodied voice! it's TIME TO FUCKING PARTY!" and start wrestling.

Imagine working really hard in order to make it into a top university to study astrophysics, making it to your first Very Serious Class, sitting down full of serious determination, and the dude next to you is taking notes without using his hands, with a glitter pen he's shoved up his nose. And his notes are good.

keuhkopussirotta

It's your first day of Bird University and you already fucking hate this guy.

trixree

So there's this gene in humans called PLXNC1 or "Plexin", right? So Plexin is associated with increased neuron function and is generally thought to be correlated to human's increased cognitive ability for the use of language, i.e., "language learning". Super cool, right?

Humans aren't the only animals with advanced language learning that have Plexin in their genome. We can actually find homologous plexin between humans and PARROTS!

Using genomic alignment search tools, we can actually break down the sequence of human Plexin and directly compare it to the Plexin found in parrots. (This was actually a project I ran for an upper division genomics class, and running the program literally takes like... ten minutes.) I wanted to see how similar the plexin gene was between humans and parrots, so I queued up the human sequence against all of the available records from parrot genomes and sorted by greatest percent identity (i.e., which bird species had the closest plexin to ours?)

It was this funky dude right here:

THAT'S RIGHT BABY! The kea, notorious for being a straight up motherfucking prank god, carries Plexin with a 79.42% identity comapred to humans'.

THIS LITTLE ASSHOLE HAS A HOMOLOGOUS LANGUAGE LEARNING GENE WITH US!!!! A GENE THAT IS THOUGHT TO BE CORRELATED TO HIGHER LEVEL LEARNING AND INTELLIGENCE!!!!! AND THEY USE THEIR INTELLIGENCE TO WREAK HAVOC ON TOURISTS

Also these guys have been found to literally have predictive reasoning skills, which we consider REALLY FUCKING ADVANCED for a lot of animal species. They pass the Aesop's fable test with flying colors. They're so goddamn cool, I love them so much.

The kea really said: "I will use my superior intelligence to have a good fucking time" and that's so powerful honestly

ettawritesnstudies

I have never felt so validated in making my avian pirate queen a kea parrot. I love these funky little birds so much and learning this just made my night. I’m going to give her a crow-type no nonsense second in command now, I cannot WAIT to write this pair.

Source: keuhkopussirotta

rhea113123

iguanodonot

so can we start hunting down white liberals now or what

adamtheredbeard

The full picture is even more heart breaking after you open the uncropped version. Just a heads-up, it's rough

Bucky with the Good Arm on Twitter

“The Roman Catholic Parish in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was just grafitted.”

Twitter

afronerdism

Nah let’s post it. Let’s feel it. Don’t look away.

2ndbirthday

butch-bakugo

I notice alot of my followers on here skipping these posts just to mess with my lgbt ones, suspiciously the white popular ones.

Heres a not so friendly reminder, as an lgbt metis person, i dont give a single fuck what your blog is themed or if this is too painful for you to look at. Reblog this post. Reblog this post with the sources of the 751 children who were found.

Your compliance and silence as well as the compliance and silence of your ancestors is what allowed these schools to open and kill first nations children. The children of MY people.

Dont follow me if you cant reblog this post or the one with sources to your political blog or your most popular blog. Add trigger warnings if you must but if your political blog is only focused on the harms you personally face like being lgbt then you need to see some bigger pictures and stop being afraid of angering your racist mutural or actually saying some shit about racism. If you can reblog some antifa graphics or add blm to your bio to be a surface level ally, you can reblog some sources on the genocide first nations people faced and still face today.

They were CHILDREN.

They were murdered in cold blood.

Source: iguanodonot

rhea113123

grimeclown

Damn that’s crazy. It’s a good thing America doesnt do anything like th—

grimeclown

Like they literally just described an extremely well known pastime that hundreds of thousands of Americans take part in every year— except it’s evil propaganda because the Chinese are doing it. Arlington National Cemetery is where our president goes every Memorial Day to wax poetic about how every American soldier ever died for perfectly just and heroic reasons. Civil War re-enactments are huge deals in the south especially. All across New England there are whole historic towns full of museums to remind us how the founding of our country was the greatest thing ever done. There are gold rush towns in California that celebrate the great westward expansion with little to no mention of the native tribes that were massacred in the process.

If you don’t think the American government has a vested interest in demonizing China, you need to pay more attention to what exactly they’re saying.

Source: grimeclown

ineffable-writer

pruemania

something that’s super super funny to me, like genuinely funny, is when ex-christians say something like, “fuck i hate christians/christianity bc of how it’s traumatised me” and christians respond with, “well it wouldn’t be nice if we said we hated you!”

like babe ???? u good???? wdym by if??? we know y’all hate us, that’s why we fucking left. it’s really just what if the roles were reversed? [christian edition]

g-o-d-l-e-s-s-h-e-a-t-h-e-n

Also, we were on the other side of that bullshit, we know exact how you talk about us when you think it's just your in group

ineffable-writer

Not an ex-Christian but it’s so fucking funny when they say this to the rest of us and it’s like

Guys

I have literally never seen the kind side of Christianity.

My first cognizant awareness of Christianity was when my Girl Scout leader started a pre-meeting Bible study and I, as the only non-Christian kid, was actively excluded.

I mean, she openly encouraged my mother to send me. Because of course I was Excluding Myself, at six years old, not wanting to deal with proselytizing assholes in a position of power. Of course my parents were the ones being mean to my innocent unsaved soul. Yep. Of course that was it.

Christians hate everyone. For a lot of people it’s low-key, we-are-better-than-you hate, but it’s there. And we know.

And surprise—we don’t like it much.

(And if you are Christian, and you see this, please don’t take it to mean your faith is being tested. Take a moment for some introspection. Think about who benefits from you feeling ostracized from the rest of the world. It’s not us.)

Source: pruemania

chotomy

Anonymous asked:

but menelaus killed helen's lover and wouldn't let her leave him

miraculan-draws answered:

I assume you are referring to Paris because I am having trouble thinking of anyone who came before him.

Paris wasn’t Helen’s lover. Paris won Helen as a prize for choosing Aphrodite over Athena or Hera. Aphrodite enchanted her away in some versions, and in a couple just straight up kidnapped her. It is only Aphrodite’s threats in the Iliad that convince Helen to be in the same room as Paris.

If someone used me as a prize for a bet against my will and took me away from my family and friends and child and husband to go to a place full of strangers where a goddess tells me she’ll make everyone I know hate me if I don’t have sex with her favorite milksop who is indeed my kidnapper? I’d want my husband to come get me.

neoptolemid

Hey anon this Helen, This is all from the Iliad

This is from before the battle of Paris and Helen, she is moved to not stay in her room and instead witness the battle, she isn't moved by Aphrodite or anyone else, she is moved by her own heart. Right there it says she, herself, yearns for Menelaus

This is from when Helen is sitting next to Priam and he asks who the various Greek warriors are. She speaks openly on that she has been brought by Aphrodite and she would prefer DEATH than come to troy. She says it straight to Paris's fathers face that she doesn't want to be here.

This is after Paris loses to Menelaus, it is Aphrodite who saves him from being killed by Menelaus and takes Paris to his bedchamber to be with Helen. She bits him out.

Both of these come from 'Helen' by Euripides, when the first two of them reunite they do not recognize each other, but look look when they recognize each other.

Granted Euripides had some real weird headcanons about Helen with troy and everything, He wrote that Helen was in Egypt the entire time and that hera fashioned a version of her out of cloud.

Sweet little Helen, yup yup, never did a bad thing lol she certainly wanted to stay in troy

Lastly a bit from Book 4 of the Odyssey

These are bits from book 4 where Telemachus goes and sees Menelaus and Helen, look and read how the two of the interact. Just see of they call each other, how Menelaus calls Helen 'my dear wife'

miraculan-draws

you heard it here folks

Source: miraculan-draws

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses

Alternate ending to the minotaur legend where thesues braves the deadly labyrinth to rescue the queen's enchanted child who was cruelly locked away from the world by his evil stepfather

caffeinatedalpacanut

I love everything about this except the implication that Theseus is an actual hero and not the same person who abandoned Ariadne on an island (whose help is the only reason he survived the labyrinth) and also kidnapped twelve year old Helen with the intent to marry her

ineffable-writer

sorekbekarmi

Missionaries are inherently xenophobic.

Missionaries to Jews are inherently antisemitic.

There is no debate here - the above statements are inescapable true. Intentions do not matter. It LITERALLY DOES NOT MATTER that Christian missionaries BELIEVE they are doing something good by saving other people from hell. IT. DOES. NOT. MATTER.

Because the people you're missionizing ALSO have beliefs, that are part of their own religions and cultures and histories and ethnicities. And your assumption that only YOUR beliefs are correct and must be spread is the LITERAL definition of xenophobia.

Missionaries and bigotry are not seperable.

If you proselytize in your personal life (congratulations, you are also a model of xenophobia and bigotry), or if you support missionaries or missionary activity (ideologically or financially), you are now being instructed to unfollow me, because I don't like you as a person, and I can't respect you while you willfully disrespect others. In either case, you are also now being instructed to cut that shit the fuck out. No one wants to hear about the love of Jesus from you, and if they do, they will ask you DIRECTLY and EXPLICITLY. Literally no one else gives a fuck.

I will be accepting apologies in writing and reparations via venmo.

61below

While we’re on this subject:

**SEARCH EVERY RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL. NOW.**

orang3lover

Source: sorekbekarmi

ineffable-writer

birdthenerd

peetamellarkeys

I have never reblogged something so fast in my life

hypotheticalyiff

it’s exactly what you think it is

cassandrajp

it’s exactly what I thought it was.

thebritishdeer

worddevourer

It has been, 500 years.

ineffable-writer

Found footage of me and my elementary school friend group around 11 pm on a sleepover after discovering this song. Except instead of hobbits and a wizard we were eight ten-year-olds wielding red solo cups full of Fanta.

ineffable-writer

direhuman

me explaining to the other trainers that apricorns are unknown outside of Johto because of deliberate suppression by the Silph and Devon corporations to present artificial pokeballs as the only means of capturing pokemon and establish regional monopolies after they eliminate renewable sources

nonanalogue

(via @itsbenedict)

itsbenedict

eternalfarnham replied to your post

you’re in the pocket of Big Ball, I see

there’s no pocket for me to BE in, there’s no LOBBYING involved, there’s no SUPPRESSION campaign because you don’t need one! traditional methods suppress themselves when you make modern pokéballs available. you might as well start accusing AT&T of deliberately suppressing the noble traditional art form of the goddamn semaphore.

not to mention OP demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the market realities of the pokéball industry- Silph and Devon are not monopolies, if they weren’t in constant competition their magic monster domination spheres wouldn’t cost two bucks a pop. the ball spec is a public standard, and Bill Masaki’s storage system based on that standard is an open-source project. they’re only the two largest players because they’re able to leverage economies of scale. you still get smaller operations like the Laverre City Poké Ball Factory, with better regional supply chains and local brand recognition, making room for themselves in the market.

sm FUCKING h at y’all granola-crunching conspiracy theorists. you probably also believe Super Potions cause autism.

justisdevan

Ok, but it is a shame that artisanal balls are basically off the market now. Like, you have to ride the monorail and hike through a half dozen routes just to find someone willing to sell you a Fast Ball. Believe me, when your boss at the power plant needs five Electrodes by Tuesday you are not going to want to make the trip to Alola; you’re going to head on down to the Mart and get some Ultra Balls, which will do the trick but aren’t well tailored to the job.

I’m with you that modern catching techniques are better, not to mention more humane, but there genuinely is a loss from more niche balls becoming harder to find. Maybe someday the long slowpoketail of consumer demand will be met, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for that Shellder.

cetaceanhandiwork

look y’all are missing the point. mass production of silph balls crowding out traditional apricorn craftsmanship is, if anything, more a side effect of the real problem: that capture artifacts are too easy to get your hands on these days. $2 basic balls are a problem. before modern ball tech you had to go to an artisan, yes, but part of their job was to care about who had the power to recruit pokémon from the wild, as a backstop against another Knight of Veilstone coming along. there was a time when you’d never lay a hand on a ball yourself until it was clear you respected pokémon, whether tame or in the wild. but now, a “pokémon journey” is open to practically every teenager, even if they’ve got not interest in treating their team with trust and love.

the worldwide rise in the last century of organized crime and apocalyptic cults who use pokémon as their muscle is a direct result of capture artifacts becoming a mass produced market commodity rather than a mechanism for preserving the sacred trust between humans and the wilderness. it’s a miracle that the powder keg hasn’t already gone off by now.

eternalfarnham

Oh that is rank historical revisionism - what, do you think artisans’ definitions of “respect” were constructed in a vacuum? We already had rhetoric as far back as the warring states period in Ransei about how only the soldierly classes, overwhelmingly descendants of nobility and taught from birth, had the intangible qualities necessary to “bond” with Pokémon. And when we start seeing apricorn balls develop in Johto, which borders Kanto - Kanto, where we know there’s been extensive cultural cross-contamination with Auroran and Dragnoran expeditions - surprise, suddenly only a small population has the intangible qualities necessary to use them, too.

That notion was, and remains, a tool to limit general access to Pokémon in the interest of maintaining class disparities. I mean, have we already forgotten the Aether Foundation’s pseudo-conservationist nonsense? Their attempt to manipulate natural resources and establish a power base in Alola, while they were modernizing and taking their place on the world stage, was founded on this exact rhetoric of “rescuing” Pokémon from local disenfranchised populations, as if taking Pokémon away from places like Po Town would improve things instead of increasing competition between trainers and decreasing safety.

Do you want more disillusioned kids joining gangs? Because that’s how you get Teams!

sindri42

Artisanal balls and anyone who supports them are tools of the aristocracy to suppress the common folk. In the days when a ball could only be made by hand by an expert, only the wealthiest could afford pokemon, and as a result anyone not born into the “elites” was forced to be subservient to their “betters” for protection.

The release of the $2 pokeball meant that the balance of power shifted to the common citizens. If any child can wield the power of a god, the military and the government and the wealthiest businessmen have no power over them.

More than that, instead of power being determined by the wealth to acquire pokemon, power comes exclusively from the dedication, effort, and empathy required to train them to high levels and to maintain their loyalty. If a person simply buys their pokemon, then those pokemon will either stay at low levels forever, or refuse to obey the human because there is no respect between them; the most powerful people in the world are those who caught a critter at level 2-5 and then devoted their life to raising it into a world power.

And as a beautiful side benefit of this, standard of living has increased across the board. Since every household has at least one minor pokemon in the family and there are increasing numbers of professional, working pokemon joining cities and other civilized areas and working to improve them, every aspect of economy and industry has been enhanced by their supernatural capabilities. Electricity is generated cleanly and in abundance for everybody. Pollution is cleaned up almost completely and instantly. The production of farms, mines, and workshops is multiplied, even as safety standards improve. Yes, every few years another potential apocalypse comes about and needs to be prevented by a couple of brave teenagers, but outside of those incidents the world is damn close to utopia.