Thoughts of a conservative college Student

[whitepeopletwitter]

[ghostlyinaudible]

Snakes are returning to work. Nature is healing. 

[nisaexploresadhd]

adhd is: telling yourself “ alright time to get started” every 30 minutes and continuing to not move

[spectraspecs-writes]

Me: well time to get started

Goblin brain: it is isn’t it? Good on you for recognizing that!

Me: well thank you

Me: *stays seated*

[dihydrogenmonoxideawareness]

Why would anyone want to consume it!?

[etherealastraea]

I teach my 7th graders about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.

I bring in a graduated cylinder of it and we talk about how it’s used in nuclear power plants and gmo crops. How inhaling even the small amount I’m holding can lead to suffocation or even death. It’s found in vaccines and cancer cells, but also in infant formula and pet food. It is a huge component of acid rain, can cause severe burns, and has been found in places that were thought to be the most pristine and unpolluted locations on earth.

We talk about how there are little to no regulations on this chemical. No bans, no warning labels, and most manufacturers don’t even have to disclose their use of it in their products.

My students are outraged. We talk about what we can do. Create posters and flyers to spread awareness. Contact our senators with petitions to ban DHMO. Spread this information all over social media.

Then I explain that the real problem with dihydrogen monoxide is that….when I am thirsty…there is just nothing else as refreshing, and then I watch their looks of absolute shock and horror as I drink the entire vial down.

[bluegone]

I. Fucking. Love. This.

This is how misinformation works. How propaganda works. How manipulation works.

[nerdy-pharmacy-daydreams-deacti]

may our education be stronger than fake news

[darthlenaplant]

Amen.

[chubby-aphrodite]

To those who don’t get it:

“Dihydrogen monoxide” is the chemical name for water, AKA H2O.

[mod2amaryllis]

another important element of understanding the joke is understanding how pH levels work

yup.  that’s a higher number alright.

[youngalientype]

“Everyone who has ever touched or consumed this chemical has died”

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[writeswrongs]

If you’re not following the Swann Street siege story this morning, it’s incredible.

Yesterday evening, D.C. police forced a large group of peaceful protesters and demonstrators into a residential neighborhood in a tactic known as “kettling.”

Kettling is a military technique to encircle people, to box them in on all sides, into a smaller and smaller and smaller space where they can’t retreat or escape from. In American protests, it’s often accompanied by police forces taking advantage of the fact that protesters can’t retreat to inflict maximum harm with teargas, batons, and other weapons for an extended period before doing mass arrests.

It’s not a dispersement technique, it’s the complete opposite – it’s a technique of intense aggression, and it’s controversial because it’s seldom used in good faith and often results in intense prolonged violence, with the intention of also cutting everyone caught in the kettle off from medics, aid, food, water, the ability to leave, etc.

Last night, D.C. police pushed demonstrators into a residential neighborhood in an attempt to kettle them. But residents of the neighborhood had been watching, and threw open their front doors to protesters, including a first-generation Indian-American man named Rahul Dubey.

Rahul and his neighbors sheltered a hundred people or more, between them, for eight hours last night, including having teargas fired at their homes and having the police try to enter their private property several times through various methods. They were rebuked and dispelled every time.

Rahul and his neighbors orchestrated food, medical aid, and lawyers during the siege, including ensuring protesters had safe escorts this morning.

You can read the first-person accounts from the people who were trapped there:

Allison Lane: https://twitter.com/allieblablah

Meka from the 307: https://twitter.com/MekaFromThe703

And you can read Marcella Robertson’s coverage on her timeline here, including Rahul’s speech to media this morning: https://twitter.com/Marcella_Rob

[thewheeloftimeconfessions]

Looks like Rand’s cursing the heavens.

[insatiablytaken]

This is true. Horribly horribly true. Blood and bloody ashes.

[maxknightley]

okay, so, I love all the posts that run off the assumption that humans are the most ridiculous sapient species in the galaxy

but what if it’s just the other way around

what if humans are notoriously straitlaced and obsessed with protocol. the bureaucrats of the stars.

which is obviously something we would constantly try to complain about and disprove only for some Alpha Centaurian to be like “Captain, your species formalized spirituality, repeatedly, and a recurring theme therein is that the heavens themselves are run as a bureaucracy. Even your rebellions and revolutions are meticulously planned.”

it’s not a bad thing, per se, to have a human on your team — analytical minds, good diplomats (if only because one human etiquette system can be more complex and even contradictory than the vastly varied customs of an entire species) — but be prepared for them to call attention to moral quandaries and loopholes that never would have occurred to you.

and speaking of loopholes, do be careful, because the only thing worse than a human armed with an ironclad system of rules is a human who’s found a gaping hole in them.

[maxknightley]

“You’re telling me there was a mass movement to name a boat something dumb as a joke?”

“First of all, it wasn’t a mass movement, and second of all, the boat was by no means the first time nor the last.”

“…Exactly how much of Earth comedy is based on incongruous branding?”

[why-zerd-deactivated20171012]

“Even some of your ideas of ANARCHY have VOTING in a syndicate or commune. HOW did you even THINK you weren’t bureaucrats before first contact?”

[evilkillerpoptarts]

We still live on Space Australia, though.

[dancing-coyote]

Honestly, our innate bureaucracy is probably the primary reason we’ve survived so long ON Space Australia.

[kurowrites]

No but imagine aliens landing on Space Australia and being like “wtf is this hellhole??” and before they have even had time to recover from the fact that they found life on this murderous planet that’s not only surviving but actually thriving, the first thing that happens is that a bunch of bureaucrats™ pops up and is like “please follow us for immigration proceedings” and the aliens are just looking at each other, completely floored because what the fuck did just happen? Did they just take their photos and sizes?? Are they giving them identification cards???

Yep, they sure do.

The aliens are distressed because they really don’t want to stay here on this hellish planet. Why are these people so utterly calm about everything? Nature is out trying to kill them, and they are filling out forms??

“Can’t you just… bring us to your leader? Now??”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“One should think this is a matter of global importance.”

“Sure. Do you have an appointment?” 

[incoherent screaming]

[vbartilucci]

Men less likely to wear masks because they’re ‘not cool,’ study finds — sociologists say Trump, toxic masculinity and racism also play a role

A new study suggests that may be more resistant to wearing masks because they view them as a sign of weakness. Sociologists weigh in on what else may be driving the disparity.

You know how when someone flies past you at 90 in the slow lane on the highway, and you can’t help wishing that they hit a patch of oil and spin into a ditch?

Can’t imagine why that crossed my mind just now.

[durkin63]

“White men less likely to be mindless sheep”

[theidledrifter]

Your paper or cloth mask is useless against a 2 micron virus that can ALSO be absorbed through your eyeballs, OP.

[sindri42]

1: The virus is smaller than the holes in the mask, but the virus does not fly by itself. It moves on water droplets pushed out on the breath of infected people. Those droplets are significantly larger than the holes in the mask.

2: A single protein will not lead to infection, because your passive immune system deals with that shit. Infection happens when the amount of the virus in your system overwhelms the defenses, which means the more exposure you get the more likely you are to get the disease. That’s why the rule is ‘stay more than 6ft away from people’ rather than ‘never breathe unfiltered air within 30 miles of an outbreak’. It also means that if you are not rubbing it directly into your eyeballs, you’re not going to get infected by the air touching your eyes.

3: The primary purpose of the mask is not to protect you. It does reduce your chances of infection (quite significantly when used right) but that’s secondary. The goal is to prevent you from spreading it to other people. There’s two weeks between when you become contagious and when you develop symptoms, and that’s if you do develop symptoms instead of being one of the 50-75% of infected who never notice it themselves but spread the disease to people who will die from it. But if you’re not smearing your hands over every available surface, or if the people around you are washing their hands properly, then the only way you can transfer it to anybody else is on your breath… and even a simple bandanna will cut the lethal range of your breath down from ‘about six feet’ to ‘maybe a couple inches’ by absorbing most of the moisture you breathe out and preventing the rest from getting any momentum from your exhalation.

tl;dr? You’re an idiot, wear your damn mask.

[leupagus]

The men trying to argue the science that they just pulled out of their asses are what truly makes this art

[taken-for-pomegranted]

EVERY FUCKING TIME!

[bi-aviendha]

*Talmanes & Birgitte lose Mat in the Rahad*

Talmanes: oh my god, where is Mat?

Birgitte: hang on, I’ve got this. *shouts* MAT CAUTHON IS A HERO!

Mat *running out of an alley with the gholam chasing him*: I am NO BLOODY HERO!!!

Birgitte: found him.

[talking-fox-actual-deactivated2]

Me: If a girl sleeps with ten boys in one night, what does that make her?

My father, a gentleman: probably a tortured soul looking for fulfillment in Earthly ways she will never find.

Me: Nevermind, the joke won't work on you.

[talking-fox-actual-deactivated2]

My father, a gentleman: Would you betray your homosexuality and marry a man for a billion dollars?

Me: A billion? Sure, I'll bite.

Father: Okay how about for one dollar?

Me: I'm not a one-dollar kind of girl.

Father: Sure you are. You already admitted you would do it for money. Everything else is just negotiating.

[honor-is-all-we-know]

Your father a gentleman, a scholar, an absolute assassin.

[jazzy-kandra-deactivated2026011]

Since Skyward is probably going to be 4 books, BS is now Brandon “This is a Trilogy, right?” Sanderson.

[madeinthecosmere]

Brandon: so I have this new idea and its going to be a trilogy about…

Us: Mmmmm… Lies…

[braized-and-confused]

And so the saga of Brandon “Oops I Accidentally Wrote A Novel” Sanderson continues

[criticalrole-incorrectquotes]

(pike): i want a baby.

(scanlan): no.

(pike): oh ok.

(scanlan): wait don’t ask another guy i’ll do it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(vex): i want a baby.

(percy): you already have a bear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(keyleth): i want a baby.

(vax): give me a week.

(vax): what color. 

[weaver-z]

Every DnD game that starts out with a serious “Lord of the Rings” type of tone turns into a Monty Python sketch and every DnD game that starts out like a Monty Python sketch turns into Lord of the Rings

[weaver-z]

DnD game with characters named Kua the Brave, Enoch Bluehelm, and Hallow Greaves: Our current mission is to save the kingdom from the Dark Queen Ravenbone but we fucked up a charisma roll and now Kua and Ravenbone are dating and the king of Fendale was turned into a frog

DnD game with characters named Bunny Wabbit, Ford Trukk, and Dildo Baggins: Our current mission is to find a birthday present for a spoiled prince but in the process we found a lich planning to devour the life force of everyone in the land and Dildo gave his life to stop him in a scene so moving it won the Newberry Medal

[theaustinstollhaus]

If you give your players room to do whatever they want, including be silly, they will most often choose to express themselves. And you'd be amazed how much you'll start to care about characters once people have attached little pieces if their soul to them.

If you try to enforce a "serious" tone, it just makes the gags funnier, and your players will treat you with the same casual blasphemy orangutans show to God.

[a-humble-waffle]

"the same casual blasphemy orangutans show to God" WHAT THE FUCK I'M DECEASED

[programmerhumour]

Big ram big scary

[highladyluck]

Do you ever think about how many of Randland’s movers and shakers spent time hiding in a traveling circus? And not just A traveling circus, but ONE SPECIFIC traveling circus?

I still don’t think Luca knows that a good chunk of the Westland rulers have first-hand opinions about his fashion choices.

[highladyluck]

Also I don’t think anyone in the first circus group knows that there was a second circus group and vice versa! TWO SEPARATE GROUPS WITH SEVERAL MUTUAL FRIENDS are out there thinking ‘wow my time with Valan Luca’s Traveling Show of Marvels and Wonders sure was a unique and unparalleled interlude’.

[highladyluck]

Never mind, Thom and Juilin Sandar were in both groups. But I would bet that Nyneave and Elayne still don’t know Mat and Tuon also joined the circus!

[imwiremother]

it is pretty annoying how the fandom erases shaggys flaws to make him into a uwu precious scoobie snack babie…like hes a coward that when push comes to shove isnt there to help out his friends lmao

[bopdawoo]

alright, lemme school your dumbass because obviously you’ve never watched scooby doo before

shaggy rogers is a hero

yes, he canonically has anxiety issues, but when it comes down to it, he is there for his friends no matter how scared he is. he cares very deeply for his friends and he would absolutely not hesitate to put himself in danger to keep them safe

in ‘music of the vampire’ when the vampire threatens his friends, shaggy’s first response is to grab a bunch of wooden stakes to attack the vampire with

later in this same movie when he (albeit falsely) believes he’s fallen victim to the vampire curse, he runs away and gets as far away from his friends as possible so there would be no chance of him harming them or inflicting the curse on them as well

and in ‘camp scare’ when the fish monster they’re dealing with hurts scooby, shaggy’s first response was to shatter a two-by-four across its face. watch it go down here, skip to about 1:30

during the climax of ‘legend of the phantosaur’ after struggling with his anxiety for the whole movie, shaggy overcomes it for the sake of saving the lives of his friends and the villains who put them in danger in the first place

in ‘ghoul school’, without any help from fred, daphne, or velma, shaggy saves the lives of several monster kids, and in ‘reluctant werewolf’ when he’s cursed to become a werewolf, he wins back his humanity in just under two days, again without help from fred, daphne, or velma

hell, the whole plot of ‘goblin king’ was about shaggy and scooby travelling into the realm of monsters, the very things he’s afraid of mos, so he can save his friends from being turned into monsters themselves. and he does save them

and those are just the examples i could think of off the top of my head!

shaggy is as essential to the gang as everyone else is. he’s the one who repeatedly throws himself headfirst into the path of the monster of the week to lead it into fred’s traps, despite his anxiety issues, because he’s the only one fast enough not to get caught. fun fact! he’s won multiple awards in high school for gymnastics and athletics. he isn’t just all about fear and food. he’s a friendly, caring person who would do anything for his friends, and on top of all this?

he’s only seventeen. of course he’s scared, he’s just a kid.

tl;dr, shaggy rogers is more than his anxiety

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

canonically, shaggy and scoob have dealt with more real monsters than the entire gang.

the mystery gang tends to unmask humans. The exceptions (authentic monsters, zombies, witches, ghosts, etc) are in certain movies. some of which (Zombie Island, the Witch’s Ghost) involve the full gang. Others (Ghoul School, Reluctant Werewolf, the Boo Brothers) have Shaggy and Scoob (and Scrappy) on their own adventures. 

oh hey and in ghoul school, looking for some peace and quiet, they get hired as gym teachers at a school for girls, that turns out to be a school for ghouls. Despite being terrified,  

they stay, become fantastic teachers, inspire their students and lead them to victory in the volleyball champion, and then risk their lives saving the students from an evil witch and spider minions. 

oh and they befriend an adult mummy, vampire, wolfman, and phantom along the way

not to mention whenever they hang with the rest of the gang, they invariably get used trap bait against their expressed wishes. but still they stick around

oh, and despite their reluctance, scoob and shaggy regularly play some of the most vital roles in the gang’s adventures, to the point the movie posters regularly feature them as the most prominent members. the rest of the gang may provide the motivation, but shaggy and scooby are the lifeblood of the show:

conclusion: Shaggy Rogers and Scoobert Doo have enormous hearts that lead them to face their greatest fears on an almost daily basis for the sake of protecting those they care about.

PROTECT AND APPRECIATE SHAGGY ROGERS

[littlegoddesshestia]

Also, THEY ARE ALWAYS RUNNING AROUND LIKE CRAZY AND DOING SUPER DANGEROUS STUFF. THEY ARE BURNING MORE CALORIES THAN THEY HAVE IN THEIR BODIES. OF COURSE THEY’RE GONNA EAT LIKE CRAZY. IF THEY DON’T EAT CONSTANTLY THEY’LL DIE.

[imwiremother]

im currently kinning jared 19 

[de-la-tierre-a-la-lune]

Also the mystery machine was originally Shaggy’s but he gave it to Fred because he’s too anxious to drive more often than not. Miss me with this fake as shit about my favorite guy.

[mageknight14]

In this house, we stan Norville “Shaggy” Rogers.

[thebesthuntingdog]

Shaggy would be a great Green lantern

[spiffylindster]

He actively supports his friends interests even if they are outside of his own and when presented with opportunities to call out one of his friends on their occasional b.s. he typically keeps his personal knowledge to himself because he cares about them and doesn’t want to cause them embarrassment. Per the comics his support is why the rest of the gang managed to be comfortable with themselves enough to follow their various quirky interests which is why Mystery Inc is able to exist in the first place. There’s also the fact that while the show makes his fears comedic, they are in reality completely legitimate. Shaggy knows real dangerous monsters exist, he knows the supernatural is real, and he knows that people with or without masks can be dangerous. It is canon that he has been dealing with this stuff since he was at least a toddler. Not only do villains constantly chase him and try to capture him, occasionally succeeding, they have also tried to shoot him, stab him, drown him, push him off of ledges, blow him up, run him over, suffocate him, freeze him to death, smash his skull in with blunt objects, burn him alive, seal him into a wall, run him off the road while driving, toss him out of planes while in flight, trapped him with large, hungry, predatory animals in hopes that the animal would kill and eat him, etc. and that’s just off the top of my head. 

He has watched friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers be nearly killed and often was the one who jumped into the fray to keep that from happening. Despite Daphne often being referred to as a damsel in distress character and her alliterative Danger Prone Daphne nickname, if you watch the various series and movies, Shaggy is actually the most danger prone, most frequently captured, and also most often injured character in the series. Yes, he often jumps at things that end up being innocuous, but ptsd and anxiety are real things, and let’s be honest, if all of the above was my every day life, I’d be pretty darn jumpy too. Shaggy is the voice of reason in the group. When the gang is inevitably informed that some giant beast in the area has been rampaging about causing destruction, and kidnapping and/or trying to murder people, he has every right to voice concern over intentionally going out to search for the thing, especially when he himself attracts that danger and the supernatural more than anyone else in the gang, including Scooby. If a pathway looks dangerous and he points it out, everyone else will roll their eyes and keep going and he’ll inevitably follow them and its his feet it ends up crumbling under. His completely valid concerns are constantly dismissed and he’s usually the one who ends up suffering the consequences for it. And while I agree he would make a great green lantern, he was in canon a pretty awesome yellow lantern.

There have been many hints throughout the series that Shaggy actually obliviously wields magic and Scooby is his familiar, which was basically made canon in Goblin King and there was a gag about it in a Be Cool Scooby Doo episode. Read more about this 

here and here also here and lastly here

In the above comic, Shaggy manipulated the ring without even trying while Sinestro was both wearing it and actively trying to wield it, and then it flew off of Sinestro’s finger and onto Shaggy’s.  As his familiar, Scooby is affected by the ring too. Sinestro freaks out about them having the ability to both cause and instill the greatest fear of all. There’s another team-up comic with Green Arrow and Green Lantern where Psycho Pirate shows up and uses his ability to cause the rest of the gang to feel sheer terror and flee, this has seemingly no affect on Shaggy and Scooby because that’s just their normal state.

The big takeaway here is that despite all of the perfectly legitimate reasons to be scared listed above, the yellow lantern comic suggests that the primary reason Shaggy is actually afraid is that he’s been taking his ability to cause and instill the greatest fear of all and subconsciously inflicting all of it on himself (and unwittingly on Scooby as well due to their connection). He has stated that his greatest dislike is being afraid, so he’s basically wielding the feeling he dislikes most in the world at epic proportions onto himself because he would never want anyone else to have to feel that way, all the while still managing to investigate spooky places, find clues, solve mysteries, be a good friend, act as bait, and throw himself into danger for the sake of others. So yeah, Shaggy is a hero and his friends should give him all the hugs because he sure as heck deserves them.

[the-human-sharpie]

I really want to contribute to this thread but all I can think of is Shaggy saving the wax voodoo dolls of Fred, Daphne, and Velma (although he and Scooby didn’t exactly recognize what they were at first) from being melted and/or used to injure or kill anyone and throwing the wax figures of the werecat trio into a fire to save the gang in ‘Scooby Doo on Zombie Island’

(just for some context bc it’s been a while since I watched zombie island)

Like, yes, Shaggy is controlling Daphne’s actions with the doll, but look at how gently he holds the figure. He treats it like his friend (and yes, it technically is) because he cares about the rest of the gang. This bit was mainly for comedic relief, but it also shows how serious this situation and the voodoo dolls actually were in the film.

And really, if you saw some Karen-Linda-intimidating-employer/CEO looking lady turn into this, wouldn’t you be at least a little unnerved?

[the-human-sharpie]

Also: Shaggy has to have a lot of physical strength and endurance or just have a higher adrenaline output than most (via anxiety and ptsd due to being used as bait and all) to be able to run away as fast as he does. And nearly everyone who’s ever seen or heard of Scooby Doo knows that thing that Shaggy and Scooby do(o) — hehe — where Shaggy ends up holding Scooby when they get spooked or chased. Scoobert Doo is a Great Dane. Male Great Danes can be up to seven (7) feet tall on their hind legs, and on average, they weigh about 120-200 lbs (54-90 kg). That’s a big dog.

(just for reference)

And Shaggy will sprint with Scooby in his back in most (if not every) episode.

[plush-anon]

just to add on to this thread of amazing physical feats one norville “shaggy” rogers has accomplished:

he’s pushed a boat filled with the gang + madelyn + scooby across a lake, RUNNING ON WATER WHILE HE DOES SO (Abracadabra-Doo!)

and, if we estimate the dinghy at roughly 150-175 lbs (usually the weight for a boat this size that can easily fit 6 people), and Scooby at 200 lbs even (given that when he rode on the back of a mule alone, he caused it to collapse under his weight in SD & the Monster of Mexico), Shaggy is not only propelling himself fast enough to RUN ON WATER, he is also pushing the rough equivalent of 1000 pounds of weight across the water, at fast enough speeds to rival a motorboat

in SD Camp Scare, he also shook the metal bars of a prison cell so hard, that they broke apart and collapsed entirely, even though they were embedded in stone

and to those saying ‘well, he can’t repeat those feat bc those are oneoff deals’, oh shit you thought???

here are TWO separate occasions of Shaggy running UP rocks and LEAPING UP to different ones to escape a pit.

the first in Legend of the Phantasaur

the second in Where’s My Mummy

WHILE CARRYING SCOOBY IN HIS ARMS

THE BOY IS AMAZING AND WONDERFUL I WILL TAKE NO FURTHER OPINIONS AT THIS TIME

[officialmacgyver2-deactivated20]

[jooshthepunished-deactivated202]

Theory: Shaggy is an anime protagonist that got stuck in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon universe.

[your-turn-to-role]

honestly going back and watching the feywild episodes knowing who artagan turns out to be is the most entertaining thing

like everyone brings up him strangling vax, but like... here are some other things that happened to jester's god:

was introduced to coffee, which he promptly hated, spat out, and accused vox machina of trying to poison him

would not be placated until they brought him apple juice

near instantly decided vax was his favourite because vax defended his pranking of syngorn with "they're elves, they're very civilised, they've all got sticks up their asses, they're fucking elves!"

(vax, conversely, did not like artagan, because he seemed too untrustworthy, which is really the entire difference in mentality of those two, they're so similar if not for the fact that vax has more of a moral compass than a good half of the rest of the world combined, whereas artagan has no moral compass at all)

charmed percy into making a deal with him that he'd guide them through the feywild in return for a) helping him escape the feywild, and b) stealing the leader of syngorn's hat

percy rules lawyered his way out of the first point

artagan kept the deal

he guided them through every dangerous part of the feywild because they helped him steal a hat

it wasn't a magic hat

he just liked it and thought it would be funny

speaking of dangerous parts of the feywild, some of the things he warned them against were genuinely dangerous

one of the things was artagan's ex he just didn't want to run into again

spent half the time playing really bad ocarina music. genuinely not clear if he actually knows how to play the ocarina and thought that was funnier, or he's just never learned and likes to make his presence everyone's problem

they reached a part of the feywild where they needed to cross 12 rivers. said rivers would try to possess and drown you if you walked through them or flew over them.

with no warning, just to see what would happen scanlan decided to use bigby's hand to fastball special chuck him across, and i quote, "as many rivers as possible"

he landed face down in the dirt five rivers away and didn't move for several moments, leading vox machina to think they accidentally killed him

at which point, still face down in the mud, he gave them all a thumbs up, which immediately transitioned into a middle finger

[your-turn-to-role]

@tanely you, might be right, and i love it