what are some of your most favorite of hagfish images
so thank you for this ask for 3 reasons. one, i have now spent over two hours looking at pictures of hagfish and selecting my favorites, which is one of the best uses for my time i've yet experienced. two, in the course of looking up pictures of hagfish i have found several detailed marine biology websites which were finally able to provide sources and details on hagfish sexual function (answer: there are at minimum reports of some sort of bipotential gonad situation in some immature hagfish of several species but the actual details of their adult reproduction are fairly mysterious and the claim that they're bidirectional serial sex-changers has not been proven to current standards such that many researchers are unwilling to count them among known species that do that). three, i have now learned that there are over 70 known species of hagfish, which is information that somehow escaped me until now. and quite probably more species than that, given as they live at depth and mostly aren't that visually distinct from each other, because they are the perfect animal.
anyway let's go. content label: i am going to describe the basic mechanics of how they eat but i promise i am holding back.
(source)
i like this one because it shows the way they tie themselves in knots. it's specifically an overhand knot from the tail to the head, though i don't know if this behavior has been observed in every species (probably not) so it would be interesting to know if they all do overhands.
(source)
this is objectively adorable.
(source)
another hagfish in a sponge but this time you can see their tooth plates. smiling at us. often people assume the 'o' in their face is their mouth but that's actually their nostril. they have a unique and powerful chemoreceptor system that majorly incorporates their nostril but also takes in information from all over the body. (x) and they have a mouth but no jaw. the two tooth plates pinch together when retracted, which grips onto their prey. for larger prey that they can't swallow whole they grip onto the flesh with their tooth plates and then tie themselves in that overhand knot which they move down their body from their tail to their head, pushing against their prey and pulling a mouthful of flesh free.
(source)
i like that they seem to just kind of hang out together. i don't think anyone's specifically studied how social they are? they seem to show up in high density and pacific hagfish at least seem to share burrows a fair amount. can i please have infinite budget to study every single detail of hagfish forever. what are they doing down there.
honorable mention to the museum of new zealand footage of their bait trap and multiple animals failing to predate on hagfish and an instance of successful predation by a hagfish
the pictures are just pacific hagfish because it's difficult to find pictures of the other species, particularly pictures where they're alive. but you get to see different species of hagfish in the video! and i don't have a favorite species currently but possibly i will in the future.
also someday in the future you may see someone peddling an image of a 'hagfish' that is obviously just a lamprey or an eel. hagfish don't have fins and they don't have jaws and they don't have complex eyes. they are carnivorous deep-sea tubes without a bony skeleton. you will love them this way. it is mandatory.
Just learned about Bull Press, a tabletop publisher that focuses on games that are prison compliant (no hardcover, no dice, no maps), and their catalogue seems sick as hell. Def gonna pick smth up when I get paid next. They do a lot of donation work with books for prisoners programs!
As mentioned, Bull Press donate playbooks to prisons out of their own pocket. If you know somebody in prison you'd like to refer to receive books, you can email them with requests.
Here's some of the notes, starting with the things multiple people brought up:
SHRIMP COCKTAIL:
banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol
generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is
#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro
And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!
POMEGRANATES:
zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple
thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute
sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.
FRUIT TREES:
zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''
salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE
baander: #cranberry trees
DOUGH/BATTER:
maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre
livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles
lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY
Some other topics:
ANIMALS:
catenarwhal: #mandatory 'how cows produce milk' mention#i'll never recover from that one I fear
piromantic: #one time i saw someone fake their way through describing how spiders behave
pluto-lichen: horses
misskittypotter: #stardew valley faking its way through what fresh fish smell like
pa-pa-plasma: #saw someone faking their way through knowing what a seal is once #i still am fucked up over that one to this day. they just straight up did not know #& they were NOT good at guessing it either like it was clear they had never googled that animal ever #& was only just now realizing via answering questions from anons that seals are not!! what they assumed. initially
SEX:
dykevandyke: #what a prostate is #and where it is located #as in. external.
dreamyeyedrose: #I remember back in the ff.net days reading an Ichigo/Renji fic where the writer assumed the penises go inside each other #and I was like “I mean I don't know how it works for sure I don't have one but idk if that's how it works”
SOME OTHER FOOD STUFF:
thetrekkiehasthephonebox: #add another one to the list bloggers#this character is cooking a salad
shosta: #still baffled about the published work that didn't know food could freeze
sun-dari: #once i read a fic where the author didn't understand cinnamon
alto-tenure: #read something recently where the author was just. blatantly wrong about spices
dramatic-dolphin: #i saw someone try to fake their way through what ramen is once. like 14 years ago.#but i remember.#i was very confused about ramen for a few months. they were writing it so authoritatively.
the-celery-stalks-at-midnight: #i will never ever forget someone putting leftover fries in the microwave to reheat them and setting the timer for five minutes
typeghost: #this sparked a memory of a hannibal fic where the author had to fake their way through writing about gravy
draculin: #the one fanfic where the author knows about coffee only as a concept wrote a character as a coffee drinker#was very interesting#I don't remember the fandom or the plot but I was mesmerized by the coffee actions and choices
11235811235811: #there's a lot of faking their way thru congee in the svsss fandom i'll also note
fishali3n: #read one where the person clearly didnt know what tofu is
emmy-everafter: #in the aftermath of shadow and bone s2 i saw a lot of people pretending to know what stroopwafels are #babes they are more like cookies than breakfast waffles #like yes there is a waffle pattern but you're not gonna cut into a stack of them with syrup and sugar#🤣🤣🤣
NON-FOOD STUFF:
red-umbrella-811: Shoutout to Dame Agatha Christie for faking her way through what a wrench is in a very popular published work.
bluebeetle: #once saw someone have a character put an entire phone book in their pocket
nonametis: #- sex talk in languages other than english #<- or just the petnames in a different language other than English
sadisticpony: #the fanfiction i saw this week where op DIDNT KNOW HOW AUTOMATIC DOORS WORKED #and that they arent in peoples homes!!! of course. also opening the automatic door for someone is unironically very funny but its not #its not like. grabbing the door handle to let someone in. helpppp
danmeichael: #reminds me of the fic with the figure drawing class where the character started with the feet. #i love you feet first figure drawing author
meowmix1100blr: #me watching this one fic absolutely obliterate what the board of directors does
vexedhexes: #one time i read an architect character making a doorway bigger by building a bigger door #what a beautiful world. #OH. also gravity falls fic where they go 'oh piedmont is in california so its warm all year round'
leveragehunters: #characters going to a beer garden #And it's literally a garden outside the pub#It was a very cute mistake
fitofpique: #yes! #grown men do not get blind drunk off two beers #but i am possibly guilty of the hypothermia one #assuming it does not make you very horny?
dadvans-likes: #always thinking abt the soup kitchen fic #the entire setting of the fic was 'soup kitchen' #and i very quickly realized #the author did not know what a soup kitchen was #and they thought that soup kitchens only served soup #fic
msmargaretmurry: #i love fanfiction #once read a fic where the characters played 20 questions #but the author seemed to not know how to play 20 questions and was just kind of winging it........ #immaculate
shakespeareaddict: #Look I know not all of us are hockey experts #But it takes about ten seconds of research or any attention paid to the show to realize #That the Stanley cup playoffs are not in fucking September
baejax-the-great: #the funniest one i saw #was someone faking what church is like #like 1. they really didn't have to write an entire church experience for their fic #and 2. they had clearly never even watched a show where people went to church #it was bonkers weird
twosunson: #things ive seen authors faking #knowing how to unclog a drain #knowing. literally any history #knowing what ketamine looks like (apparently- oregano) #(you know who you are)
waterhorseyblues-ao3: #beltane being celebrated in winter #wales being portrayed as a completely separated land from england (i wish) #characters getting up after weeks of bedrest like that dosnt completely fuck you up
violetfairydust: #i once read a fic where the flight time from london to seattle was 3 hours
purekesseltrash: One time, in a fic set specifically in Des Moines, IA, two of the characters casually drove 20 minutes to the ocean. The memory continues to delight me. I want to know where that author thought that Iowa was.
As the Internet enshittifies and censorship mounts, we're going to need to go back to relying on weird, marginal outcasts with shockingly detailed knowledge of very specific fields, and i'm doing my part
So tired of the American culture around oral hygiene. You see it most in toothpaste or other similar dental products commercials. It's not "buy our toothpaste because it prevents painful infections", it's "be dentist ready" and ads showing people doing the "tissue test" to see how white their teeth are, as if the only reason you should practice good oral hygiene is because you're worried about the approval of others.
It's just...so harmful.
Oral hygiene is important, not because your teeth have to be perfectly white or because your dentist will judge you (they most likely won't), but because your mouth is part of your body and your health is important. The state of your mouth can impact the rest of your body, oral infections can become life-threating or impact your ability to properly eat or speak without pain. That's why you should care about oral hygiene- because it's your body and you deserve to live with as minimal pain and discomfort as possible- not because of some shallow beauty ideals.
I'm just so tired of the mainstream message of oral hygiene as being purely aesthetic. It's not. It's healthcare.
Marmaduke has been dead for nearly a decade, but I still meow like him when I want to call the other cats over, because it was his meow that I learned to imitate as a little kid
Saving this post to show my boss who I told the AI flier makes us look lazy and ignorant, and offered to hand draw one. She still printed tons of ai fliers and I'm tempted to make a better one just because it annoys me so much.
"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit
I want to share some wisdom from my high school art teacher.
In my AP Art class, there was a girl who was just starting to experiment with mixed media. At this point she was still playing around, trying to decide what direction she wanted to go with her portfolio. So one critique day, she brought in an abstract canvas with some rhinestone highlights and painted and real peacock feathers. She loved sparkles and peacock feathers so she thought she’d try introducing them a *little*. And after everyone had given some input, the teacher gave her his advice, VERY roughly paraphrased here:
“So here’s the thing… I do not like this style. These are just elements that do not speak to me personally, but I see that you like them, and you’re doing interesting things with them.
“My biggest critique is, I only merely *dislike* this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.”
Her portfolio was chock full of neon colors and glitter and rhinestones and splashes of peacock feathers and it was a delight. Our teacher despised every piece lol, but she got great marks and I think even won some awards. And more importantly, she was happy and proud of the results. Because she didn’t limit herself by trying to appeal to people who were never going to enjoy what she enjoyed.
Takeaway here: be as cringe as you want. Don’t limit yourself based on other ppl’s tastes. They’re not you, and you are incredible 💕
What the hell happened to the energy around gender neutral bathrooms. Remember when we were fighting for all bathrooms to be gender neutral. But now we can barely argue that people can use the gendered bathroom of their choice. Maybe there's some single stall bathroom tucked away in a basement somewhere.
"With genetic test results back from U.C. Davis Laboratories of toe-hair samples from each side of his body, I am excited to share that this sheep
🌟 IS INDEED a CHIMERA 🌟
His black mouflon side is a genetically different individual from his black gray side. The lab ran the test twice just to be sure!
Oh but wait, THERE IS MORE!
He is ALSO a she!
The black mouflon side is male.
The black gray side is female!
What I can tell you beyond these test results, is that this beautiful creature successfully bred four solid patterned ewes this winter that produced a total of 9 lambs, of which all were either solid pattern or mouflon pattern; 5 rams and 4 ewes. "
theartofmadeline
dededos
origamiaround
kaledo-art
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
ellievsbear
