for those who don’t remember, “mole interest” was an experiment I did 2 years ago because I wanted to test what causes tags to go trending on tumblr. My hypothesis was that all it takes is one (1) post blowing up in an established tag to make the entire tag trend.
I had randomly generated 2 words, which is where “mole interest” came from. I failed to consider that by generating a new tag, it wouldn’t have had enough posts already in it to prove what I now call “the mole interest effect”.
But now it does.
In 2023, we said “fuck it” a la mythbusters and ended up doing whatever it took to get #mole interest to trend. And it did. And it happened to be September 11th that day, and we managed to get #mole interest to trend ABOVE #9/11.
So, in the name of science, I ask you to reblog just this post. Let’s put the mole interest effect to the test.
Okay, let's dive right in! This is not an simple answer, but I'll do my best!
Schooling is slightly different in each of the UK countries, so I'll break it down. (And put it behind a Read More link!) I hope it helps and answers some of your questions!
England:
Primary schools teach children aged 4/5 to 10/11.
The school year runs from September to July, with about 6-7 weeks off during the summer. Children who turn 5 in the school year start school that year. For example, for this coming school year, children whose 5th birthday is between September 2025 and August 2026 will be starting the first year of primary school. This is called Reception. (If the child's birthday is in the summer - July or August - their parents can defer a year, so that they are then the eldest in the year rather than the youngest, but that doesn't happen that often.)
After that, they go through year 1 to year 6 in the primary school. There are exams at the end of year 6.
Then secondary schools. The school years carry on, year 7 is the first year of secondary school, going on up until year 11 (age 16). (Some schools start the numbering again, so Year 1 of secondary school, going up to Year 5.) The first lot of big exams are taken then: the GCSEs (hence GCSE Drama), which are typically studied over two years.
After this, a lot of schools have years 12 and 13 (or Year 6 & 7), where you take the second lot of big exams, AS and A-levels (an AS level is basically half an A-level, which are two year courses) but otherwise there are Sixth Form Colleges which allow more vocational courses to be taken.
Education is compulsory until the age of 18.
Secondary schools are much more complicated than primary schools. Most primary schools are state-funded, so receive funding from local government, and are non-demoninational, although there are some faith primary schools.
Secondary schools are split into state-funded and independent schools, which are fee-paying, so the parents have to pay. There are grammar schools, which are selective and you have to pass an exam to get in. These can be either funded by the government, or be fee-paying.
State-funded secondary schools are generally either called secondary or comprehensive (so you might hear someone talk about the "local comp" meaning the local comprehensive school, where anyone can go to be educated).
The fee-paying schools can be confusingly called either public or private. I'm not sure why, probably something historic! These can range from reasonably cheap, to incredibly elite, such as Eton. Also, faith secondary schools would tend to be some form of independent, although might not need parents to pay fees.
(It's a lot more complicated than that, but I've written enough, and you're probably all bored!)
What they study: in primary school, the class has a teacher and a teaching assistant that teach all the subjects, and they're often linked together (so what book they're reading might link to something they're doing in science) to keep the children's interest. There are before and after-school clubs, and the children do PE a couple of times a week, plus often getting to go on a few day trips out to local attractions.
In secondary school. subjects are broken down and taught by separate teachers. You have to study English, Maths, and often at least one Science subject up to GCSE level. If you're going to go to university, then the easiest route is to take A-levels in the subjects that are relevant to your degree course. (You can take different courses at specialist Sixth Form Colleges.)
Houses: this is not something that was invented for Hogwarts, but something that happens at most schools, both primary and secondary. There are generally four Houses, designated colours: red, yellow, green, and blue. This allows pupils to compete for their Houses in a variety of competitions. The names of the Houses usually has some logic to it. The schools I went to had Houses named after the different towns that our town was twinned with, for instance. And my daughter's school has Houses named after local areas. There might also be Prefects, the eldest students in the school having some specific jobs to do such as helping out in the library.
Most schools have a school uniform, which generally has a lot of options (trousers, shorts, skirts, dresses etc). Primary schools tend to be laxer with school uniform than secondary schools. And fee-paying schools tend to have more ridiculous outfits and be stricter.
There are a lot of primary schools around, they are often reasonably small, and secondary schools are much larger. Often both primary schools and secondary schools have sports competitions with other local schools. There is often a Sports Day at the end of the school year, where the Houses compete against each other in all manner of sports.
The differences between England and Wales is minimal and with Scotland and Northern Ireland is mainly timing of when people go to school.
In Northern Ireland, it is the child's age on July 1st rather than September that determines when they start school.
In Scotland, the age range is from March to the following February. The school year is also slightly different. They start in August and finish in June. So children born between March and August start school in August at between 5 and 5½ years old, and those born between September and February start school in the previous August at between age 4½ and 4 years 11 months years old.
They finish secondary school a year earlier than children in the rest of the UK, which is why undergraduate university degrees in Scotland are typically four years long rather than three like those in the rest of the UK. They take different exams too, rather than GCSE and A-levels, they take exams called Standard Grades, and then Highers.
This is great, but as a Scot, can I add a little bit of info?
Primary school in Scotland is seven years, and they're named P1 to P7 (sometimes called Primary 1 to Primary 7). Secondary school starts immediately after P7, and is six years, called S1 to S6 (confusingly, no-one calls them Secondary 1 etcetera). You can leave school entirely as soon as you turn 16, usually after you've taken the first level of exams in S4 (age 15/16).
Exams in Scotland are three levels: National 5 awards in S4 (age 15/16), Highers in S5 (age 16/17), and Advanced Highers in S6 (last year of secondary school, age 17/18). You MUST take a National 5 in Maths, English, and a foreign language but beyond that you can choose yourself. The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA - essentially a body of government in charge of schooling) changed the curriculum in 2013 and replaced the old Standard Grades with National 5s.
Advanced Highers are considered difficult enough that you can choose to skip the first year of Uni if you have an Advanced Higher in the subject you want to study. You typically take eight National 5s, five Highers, and three Advanced Highers, though you can sometimes study for additional Highers instead of taking AHs as not all schools offer AHs in every subject!
Your character remembers something tiny. Maybe their partner always peels oranges but hates the stringy bits. So they do it for them, meticulously. No grand speech. Just peeled oranges on a napkin, handed over like, I got you. It’s not flowers. It’s better.
❥ The “You Matter More Than My Ego” Move
Apologies. Vulnerable, awkward, ugly ones. Not performative, not flowers-as-a-bandage. Just a raw, honest “I screwed up. And you didn’t deserve that.” That’s romance with guts.
❥ The “I Made This With My Clumsy, Lovesick Hands” Attempt
It’s not a five-star meal. It might be an overcooked mess. But they tried. They Googled recipes, burnt a pan, and still showed up with a crooked smile and a smoke-scented apology. Intimacy lives in the effort, not the execution.
❥ The “I’m Thinking of You Even When You’re Not Around” Habit
A voice memo left in the middle of the day. A text that says, “I saw this book and thought of you.” A saved pastry because “you love those stupid lemon ones.” It’s in the thought, the noticing. The I-carry-you-with-me-even-here of it.
❥ The “You’re Safe With Me” Moment
Middle of a panic attack. They don’t run, they don’t fix. They sit. Hold a hand. Count breaths. They become a lighthouse in the fog. That’s not just romance, it’s sanctuary.
❥ The “Make You Laugh When You Want to Cry” Trick
Silly voices. Bad dad jokes. A spontaneous dance in the kitchen just to make them smile. Love doesn’t always whisper—it cackles, snorts, belly-laughs until you can’t remember what the fight was about.
❥ The “I See the You Nobody Else Gets to See” Love
Noticing the nervous tic they try to hide. The quiet resilience. The softness behind the sarcasm. Your character sees it all and chooses to love them there. Not despite their mess, but because of it.
❥ The “I’ll Go to the Boring Thing Because You Care” Sacrifice
They hate art galleries. Or jazz. Or your character’s weird book club full of PhD students. But they show up. They try. They listen and maybe even ask a thoughtful question. Not because they suddenly love postmodern fiction, but because they love you.
❥ The “Let Me Take Care of You, Just This Once” Flip
Especially powerful when it comes from your fiercely independent character. When they finally let someone in. Accept help. Rest their head on a lap and let themselves be held. Or be the one doing the holding for someone who never asks.
❥ The “I Want to Remember This” Gesture
No, not just a scrapbook. Maybe it's saving movie stubs, or voice recording a partner’s laugh because it's perfect and might not last. Maybe it's writing a poem they'll never read. Romance often lives in what we keep sacred, quietly.
❥ Bonus — The Non-Obvious Public Gesture
Holding hands in public when your character usually doesn’t. Or kissing their partner’s temple in front of their disapproving parents. Or calling them “baby” when it makes their partner smile like a fool. Public affection isn’t about performance, it’s about pride. Claiming someone. Softly, fiercely.
what the fuck. theres not even a fucking joke here. its just the fucking alphabet. i was expecting some kind of fucking meme like “gun” or “john cena” or something like that but no its just the fucking alphabet. here. on tumblr.com. 26 users just fucking banded together to write the alphabet. what the fuck, man.
do you know just how bonkers it is that debut and reputation, albums that are 18 and 7 years old respectively, earned their biggest (debut) and second biggest (rep) streaming days on spotify yesterday? like, that’s such an impressive feat. no one, and i truly mean no one, is doing it like taylor.
I am convinced that she didn't announce rep in London because of Vienna, she wouldn't want any attention drawn to her so close to a literal terrorist threat. That also explains why she didn't do a viewing of the ICDIWABH music video the same way she did for ICSY. Here's a new prediction!
Taylor announces rep TV: 24th Nov 2024 (Toronto N6)
Why? It's classically American country, and Taylor Swift is her most country-esque album. (I haven't listened to Taylor Swift since 2019, thus the very simple description!)
Fearless: Bubblegum Ice Cream
Why? It evokes a nostalgia for childhood, and Fearless is very focused on teenagerhood. Despite the simplicity of the 'bubblegum' name, it's actually a very delicate balance between different fruity flavours, much like teenagerhood is a mess of things that you need to learn to balance.
Speak Now: Madagascan Vanilla Ice Cream
Why? It's simple enough to be well-liked. Speak Now wants to be a little older than it is, so doesn't want a flavour percieved as 'childish', but isn't quite ready to leave the simplicity of childhood behind.
RED: Rum and Raisin Ice Cream
Why? Rum and Raisin is a very mature flavour to a young person, and RED is a more intense continuation of Speak Now's 'wanting to be older than it is' theme, to the extent that it would force itself to enjoy a flavour like rum and raisin purely so other people will percieve it as grown-up.
1989: Neapolitan Ice Cream
Why? It embraces the basic flavours while still providing complexity, and 1989's whole theme is "happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time". The album is mature enough to not care about outside perspectives of its childishness.
reputation: Strawberry and Dark Chocolate Ice Cream
Why? The dark chocolate makes it seem like an intense flavour, but once you actually taste it the sweet strawberry is the flavour that sticks with you. reputation is an album that seems dark at first glance, but is actually full of hope.
Lover: Raspberry Ice Cream
Why? It seems sweet and unassuming until you find the unexpected sharpness of real raspberry chunks. Lover seems bright and basic until you find the sharpness of the anxiety under the cheery pop sound.
folklore: Oreo Ice Cream
Why? It matches the black and white aesthetic while also suggesting nostalgic memories. It's a classic, timeless flavour, much like how folklore is all about stories that have been passed down.
evermore: Mint and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (specifically NOT dyed green)
Why? Without the green colouring, it seems like vanilla until you try it, and evermore seems like folklore's twin until you really listen to it. The sharp freshness of the mint echoes the realisation across evermore's songs that something needs to change, and the sweet chocolate echoes the relief once the change has occurred.
Midnights: Coffee Ice Cream (basic, I know)
Why? It's grown-up without being loud about it like rum and raisin, and the bitterness and complexity mimicks the realisation as an adult that adulthood can be incredibly stressful and depressing while also having moments of joy, much like Midnights does.
TTPD: Lemon Ice Cream
Why? It's sour and sweet at the same time: two extremes in one ice cream. TTPD is focused on the sour misery of grief and the sweetness of acceptance and coming out the other side, while also discussing the way you can take a strange sort of glee in the anger stage (thus the two extremes).
All the agents at O.W.C.A were gods once, before they were confined to the shapes of animals. Their memories are foggy now, they don't quite remember what they were, but they all know intrinsically that they were MORE than they are now. A pantheon, confined.
And then Perry the Platypus is fighting Heinz Doofenshmirtz yet again, and something goes wrong.
Something indescribable, teal and slick and soft, chattering-creaking sounds he knows with depths he doesn't, was NOT what Heinz expected when that -inator went off.
Alternatively:
Perry the Platypus is fighting Heinz Doofenshmirtz yet again, and something, at last, goes perfectly right.
They'd missed a couple, the people who bound this pantheon. Not for lack of trying, but finding gods, much less trapping them, isn't exactly easy.
Heniz has spent years hunting for a way to free the rest of his people, and it looks like he finally found it.
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