every hour is oogh hour

[millenianthemums]

sometimes plushies make me cry because it’s like. they’re little guys made to be loved. their only purpose is to be held and hugged and loved. we made them because we love making things and we love loving things. and they’re so cute

[morriganwarrior]

Years back, I was working at a specialty store, and we got this HUGE crate of plushy toys. They were all insanely cute and squishy. I knew kids would go nuts for them, as it was the first week of December, so parents and grandparents often had kids with them while shopping for furniture, lamps, cooking equipment, lights, etc.

One night, I was working my last hour of my shift covering the Customer Service desk, which meant when I wasn't busy, I was supposed to help clean up around the cash registers, including taking back items people changed their minds about at the checkout. Earlier, I had witnessed a kid carrying thos cute plushy toy. It was a brown and white hedgehog. The kid, at the checkout, saw a remote control car and he told his dad he qanted it. The dad told him, "The plushy or the car- you can't have both" (by the way, I respect boundaries with kids and parents sticking to their guns about it), and the kid picked the car.

So, I'm cleaning up, have less than an hour left of my shift, and I see the little plushy hedgehog. Somehow, he never got put back nor had anyone else seen him and decided to buy him. He was just sitting there, slumped to the side, unattended.

It's Christmas and I'm a sentimental old sap at heart. My brain starts replaying the scene from RUDOLPH where he's on the Island of Misfot Toys, and is told a toy is never truly happy until it is loved. I picked him up and quickly took him back to the bin with the plushies but... It was empty. He was literally the last plushy toy and my boss was about to wheel the bin out. We weren't getting any more toys till November, so that meant any toys left at this point needed to sell or they'd be sent to the dump.

I brought the little hedgehog to the front, figuring someone would see him with the candy, candles, & Christmas brick-a-brack, and fall in love with him. When I finished my shift, I went to ask my manager a question and as I passed the Christmas candle display - there he sat, the sad little slumped over hedgehog plushy. No one had bought him, or even moved him.

My manager, Phillip, saw me and the hedgehog. He asked how the hedgehog got there. I told him how I'd put him there when the bin got sent back, and he was the only plushy left. Philip had kids, I figured he'd probably get sentimental and buy it for his kids. Nope. He shrugged and said he'd send it back to be disposed of.

That night, I came home with a plushy hedgehog in my passenger seat. My mom saw him and just thought he was the cutest little hedgehog and asked what I wanted to do with him. I told her the story, then added I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with him.

My mom is a child psychiatrist, specializing in children with PTSD and brain damage that results in learning problems/issues with processing their emotions. She asked if she could have the plushy hedgehog (even offered to pay me for him, she didn't expect me to just give him over), so kids could hug him when they were upset in session.

Murphy, the plushy hedgehog that still slumps a little to the left when seated, has been hugged by hundreds of kids. Little girls have held him tight while explaining about bullies, little boys have held him tight while crying over their panic attacks, younger siblings have held him to whisper secrets while elder siblings and parents talk about self-soothing techniques, teenagers have hugged Murphy while talking about the worst day of their lives. Murphy has also been hugged by kids excitedly chatting about a new friend at school, a teen girl excited to be called by her name instead of her dead-name, little kids proudly saying they've mastered their ABCs, and even staff members who just need to come chat over a case they are having trouble with.

Every now and then, my mom brings Murphy home for a weekend. He gets washed (she calls it a Spa Weekend, to her coworkers, all of them laughing), dried, and sits outside with my mom in the sunshine to get aired out, then on Monday, they are back to work. Some kids even just ask to hold Murphy while they talk, no matter their mood or what they want to talk about. They just want to hug Murphy.

So yes. Plushies are made for one purpose. To be hugged and loved. To be a comfort.

[theharlotofferelden]

[kazz-brekker]

my actual favorite scene in wake up dead man is the one where jud is on the phone with the woman from the construction company and she asks him to pray for her, the sudden turn from humor to complete seriousness without it feeling like a tonal whiplash is really really good

[shadeslayer]

loved this scene, but i loved it even more too when i read some of the interviews rian johnson did about the writing (one, two)

The filmmaker turned to Catholic family members to facilitate a discussion with a few clergymen. "I'm very close to my aunt and uncle that live in Denver," he says. "They invited their priest and five other local Denver priests over. So I got to sit down with them and have an ask-me-anything dinner. It was pretty amazing, and a lot came out of that." Johnson recalls one particular takeaway from his sit-down with the priests. "It led to one of the most critical scenes in the movie, actually," he says. "I remember the priests telling me how when they go out during the day, they're always wearing the clerical collar, even when just getting groceries. And that means that when they're just trying to get their grapefruit at the store, a woman will come up to them and start sobbing that her husband is dying, or somebody will come up to them and start getting in their face and screaming at them." The filmmaker says that those revelations shaped a key scene in which Jud pauses his involvement in the investigation to attend to a parishioner in need. "The idea that they are on stage and of service to the world at all times as a priest, and there's no time off from that — that led directly to a pivotal scene halfway through the movie," Johnson says. "Jud is swept up in the gamified version of the murder mystery, and has kind of been led down Blanc's version of the us-against-them game. And he has a hard reset when something like that happens to him."

that the scenes only real whiplash feeling is one you would get in reality. that hes torn out of this chase hes got swept up into and been reminded of his position, his responsibility, and his own ethos. and that this is also grounded in the reality of living as a priest

as well one bit that struck me when watching it, which may not be fully true on a rewatch paying close attention, but it felt like the first time in the movie since he moved there that hes actually been able to act as a priest for someone. which is vital for him. not only is it bringing him back into the reality of reminding him of his position and his own morals and priorities but that hes reminded that the service he gives to others is actually wanted, needed. that even though the flock here hates him, theres still a world out there that appreciates and wants him and that he can serve in the way that aligns with what hes called to do. not only a wake up call but also a reminder and a promise of that, if he just hangs in there, he can be the priest hes worked to be. even if its just on the phone to strangers, he can still be of service and its worth sticking it out to be able to do that

[dogpuppy]

[redstonedust]

i understand why people are like "when are we ever gonna use this" about highschool classes, but personally i always kinda assumed it was more like. a taste test for the kids who do wanna use it? like maybe i dont need to reference atomic structure and the periodic table often in my daily life, but i assume there has to be at least one kid in my grade who was like "oh fuck this chemistry shit is awesome" and went on to be a chemist, yknow?

like i understand wanting more life skills to be taught in school and i agree, but i also think some people act as if the ONLY life skills are taxes and housework. do you want school to be a multi-year retail training course with a side of "how to fold bedsheets". that sounds lame as hell. i'll take the algebra thanks.

[ncutis-special-human-being]

I even had a teacher tell us that once. We were in math and someone asked him when we were going to need what we were learning (it was something advanced like differentials or something) and he just turned to us and said “most of you won’t, unless you go into architecture or engineering you’ll never use this again but we’re teaching it to you because we don’t know which of you that will be and we want to give you all the option.” And honestly we appreciated the honesty and all tried harder knowing why

[meandtheyeehaws]

what do u do when u cant fucking see and all ur babies are green: color code them

[sadoeuphemist]

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.” 

“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”

___

…But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the frog felt a subtle motion on its back, and in a panic dived deep beneath the rushing waters, leaving the scorpion to drown.

“It was going to sting me anyway,” muttered the frog, emerging on the other side of the river. “It was inevitable. You all knew it. Everyone knows what those scorpions are like. It was self-defense.”

___

…But no sooner had they cast off from the bank, the frog felt the tip of a stinger pressed lightly against the back of its neck. “What do you think you’re doing?” said the frog.

“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

They swam in silence to the other end of the river, where the scorpion climbed off, leaving the frog fuming.

“After the kindness I showed you!” said the frog. “And you threatened to kill me in return?”

“Kindness?” said the scorpion. “To only invite me on your back after you knew I was defenseless, unable to use my tail without killing myself? My dear frog, I only treated you as I was treated. Your kindness was as poisoned as a scorpion’s sting.”

___

…“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

“You have a point,” the frog acknowledged. “But once we get to dry land, couldn’t you sting me then without repercussion?”

“All I want is to cross the river safely,” said the scorpion. “Once I’m on the other side I would gladly let you be.”

“But I would have to trust you on that,” said the frog. “While you’re pressing a stinger to my neck. By ferrying you to land I’d be be giving up the one deterrent I hold over you.”

“But by the same logic, I can’t possibly withdraw my stinger while we’re still over water,” the scorpion protested.

The frog paused in the middle of the river, treading water. “So, I suppose we’re at an impasse.”

The river rushed around them. The scorpion’s stinger twitched against the frog’s unbroken skin. “I suppose so,” the scorpion said.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Absolutely not!” said the frog, and dived beneath the waters, and so none of them learned anything.

___

A scorpion, being unable to swim, asked a turtle (as in the original Persian version of the fable) to carry it across the river. The turtle readily agreed, and allowed the scorpion aboard its shell. Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell. The turtle, swimming placidly, failed to notice.

They reached the other side of the river, and parted ways as friends.

___

…Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell.

The turtle, hearing the tap of the scorpion’s sting, was offended at the scorpion’s ungratefulness. Thankfully, having been granted the powers to both defend itself and to punish evil, the turtle sank beneath the waters and drowned the scorpion out of principle.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” sneered the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back.”

The scorpion pleaded earnestly. “Do you think so little of me? Please, I must cross the river. What would I gain from stinging you? I would only end up drowning myself!”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Even a scorpion knows to look out for its own skin. Climb aboard, then!”

But as they forged through the rushing waters, the scorpion grew worried. This frog thinks me a ruthless killer, it thought. Would it not be justified in throwing me off now and ridding the world of me? Why else would it agree to this? Every jostle made the scorpion more and more anxious, until the frog surged forward with a particularly large splash, and in panic the scorpion lashed out with its stinger.

“I knew it,” snarled the frog, as they both thrashed and drowned. “A scorpion cannot change its nature.”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. The frog agreed, but no sooner than they were halfway across the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown.

“I’ve only myself to blame,” sighed the frog, as they both sank beneath the waters. “You, you’re a scorpion, I couldn’t have expected anything better. But I knew better, and yet I went against my judgement! And now I’ve doomed us both!”

“You couldn’t help it,” said the scorpion mildly. “It’s your nature.” 

___

…“Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”

“Alas, I was of two natures,” said the scorpion. “One said to gratefully ride your back across the river, and the other said to sting you where you stood. And so both fought, and neither won.” It smiled wistfully. “Ah, it would be nice to be just one thing, wouldn’t it? Unadulterated in nature. Without the capacity for conflict or regret.”

___

“By the way,” said the frog, as they swam, “I’ve been meaning to ask: What’s on the other side of the river?”

“It’s the journey,” said the scorpion. “Not the destination.”

___

…“What’s on the other side of anything?” said the scorpion. “A new beginning.”

___

…”Another scorpion to mate with,” said the scorpion. “And more prey to kill, and more living bodies to poison, and a forthcoming lineage of cruelties that you will be culpable in.”

___

…”Nothing we will live to see, I fear,” said the scorpion. “Already the currents are growing stronger, and the river seems like it shall swallow us both. We surge forward, and the shoreline recedes. But does that mean our striving was in vain?”

___

“I love you,” said the scorpion.

The frog glanced upward. “Do you?”

“Absolutely. Can you imagine the fear of drowning? Of course not. You’re a frog. Might as well be scared of breathing air. And yet here I am, clinging to your back, as the waters rage around us. Isn’t that love? Isn’t that trust? Isn’t that necessity? I could not kill you without killing myself. Are we not inseparable in this?”

The frog swam on, the both of them silent.

___

“I’m so tired,” murmured the frog eventually. “How much further to the other side? I don’t know how long we’ve been swimming. I’ve been treading water. And it’s getting so very dark.”

“Shh,” the scorpion said. “Don’t be afraid.”

The frog’s legs kicked out weakly. “How long has it been? We’re lost. We’re lost! We’re doomed to be cast about the waters forever. There is no land. There’s nothing on the other side, don’t you see!”

“Shh, shh,” said the scorpion. “My venom is a hallucinogenic. Beneath its surface, the river is endlessly deep, its currents carrying many things.” 

“You - You’ve killed us both,” said the frog, and began to laugh deliriously. “Is this - is this what it’s like to drown?” 

“We’ve killed each other,” said the scorpion soothingly. “My venom in my glands now pulsing through your veins, the waters of your birthing pool suffusing my lungs. We are engulfing each other now, drowning in each other. I am breathless. Do you feel it? Do you feel my sting pierced through your heart?”

“What a foolish thing to do,” murmured the frog. “No logic. No logic to it at all.”

“We couldn’t help it,” whispered the scorpion. “It’s our natures. Why else does anything in the world happen? Because we were made for this from birth, darling, every moment inexplicable and inevitable. What a crazy thing it is to fall in love, and yet - It’s all our fault! We are both blameless. We’re together now, darling. It couldn’t have happened any other way.”

___

“It’s funny,” said the frog. “I can’t say that I trust you, really. Or that I even think very much of you and that nasty little stinger of yours to begin with. But I’m doing this for you regardless. It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. Why would I do this? I want to help you, want to go out of my way to help you. I let you climb right onto my back! Now, whyever would I go and do a foolish thing like that?”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”  

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Come aboard, then!” But no sooner had the scorpion mounted the frog’s back than it began to sting, repeatedly, while still safely on the river’s bank.

The frog groaned, thrashing weakly as the venom coursed through its veins, beginning to liquefy its flesh. “Ah,” it muttered. “For some reason I never considered this possibility.”

“Because you were never scared of me,” the scorpion whispered in its ear. “You were never scared of dying. In a past life you wore a shell and sat in judgement. And then you were reborn: soft-skinned, swift, unburdened, as new and vulnerable as a child, moving anew through a world of children. How could anyone ever be cruel, you thought, seeing the precariousness of it all?” The scorpion bowed its head and drank. “How could anyone kill you without killing themselves?”

[bloominflowers]

a little camping break 🍄🍂☁️

[astearisms]

when i first heard Link hum to familiar tunes while cooking…happiness

[bonus-links]

they’re friends I swear

[thepromiscuousfinger]

[only-tiktoks]

[fieldbears]

Sharing the secrets of your hearth with strangers who will never be able to meet or thank you. Honoring the dead through learning their traditions of the home; emulation and exaltation. A good carrot cake.

[docholligay]

Doc, what are the top five items food banks LOVE to receive? I'm doing a collection soon and want to ask for specifics.

MONEY. WE WANT MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY. WE CAN DO SO MUCH WITH IT. WE HAVE ACCESS TO DEALS YOU COULD NEVER. MONEY

That aside.

 I’m only going to talk about food items but if your food bank takes personal items, a lot of times diapers, feminine hygiene products, etc, are very very welcome. 

1) Canned chicken and beef 

looooooove this stuff. It’s expensive, it lasts forever, it tastes good and it can be used a variety of ways. This stuff is fucking catnip to food banks, it’s so hard for us to provide proteins. 

2) Fancy nut butters

Peanut butter is a standby for food banks as a shelf-stable inexpensive protein, but if we have a family with a kid with a peanut allergy that’s not going to work. Non-peanut butters are expensive and it’s something we hardly ever see donated. (we also like peanut butter, but that’s easier for us to buy ourselves than non-peanut butters)

3) Canned or packaged tuna

You may notice a trend here in shelf-stable proteins. And yeah. That’s basically it, so I’m not going to keep harping on it. But this stuff is a godsend. 

4) Easy breakfast things for kids (Granola bars, instant oatmeal, and the like) 

Whatever Donald Trump tells you, most people who get food from food banks are actually working their asses off and so they have to leave Obama to raise their baby or whatever, and they don’t have a lot of time in the morning. Things like this that kids can make for themselves are expensive. (Another trend you may be noticing–donate shit that costs a lot of money. That helps us more than all the shitty green bean cans in the world) But they are so helpful for busy working families where the parents may not have a set schedule and sometimes little Amanda is making her own breakfast before she runs off to school. Don’t let kids go to school hungry. 

5) Shelf-stable juice

This is one people never think of! But if you show up with a bunch of (preferably reduced sugar stuff) bottles of juice at my door, oh man, you are gonna get so many check mark and okay hand emoticons. This stuff is great for kids, and it doesn’t require refrigeration until it’s opened, so it works great for food drives. 

[kesonafyren]

But seriously, give money

And it’s way better food, too, anything you get prepackaged has A TON of sugar and/or salt in it…collecting cans may be more exciting than writing a check, but if the point is to help people, the check is going to get a lot more done

[pennie-dreadful]

Yoooooo heads up for those of you with kids, I know this time of year schools start holding canned food drives so keep this in mind if you’re able to give.

[kyraneko]

collecting cans may be more exciting than writing a check, but if the point is to help people, the check is going to get a lot more done .

hint: the point should be to help people.

[ovenroastedtwerkey]

Also, please consider setting this as a scheduled post for June/July. A lot of food insecure families with children rely on school lunch to make ends meet, and that’s obviously not an option during summer vacation. Lots of people give during November and December, but summer is a lean time for food banks. Which is a shame, cuz fresh produce is at a boom during that time of year, so not only would summer donations boost how many people the food banks can help, it would boost the quality of the help they provide.

[prismatic-bell]

If you want to do a cash drive but also exploit the dopamine hit people get from dropping their can of garbanzo beans into the box, my middle school did something that was SHOCKINGLY effective:

A penny drive.

(DuckDuckGo tells me a penny in 1999 would be worth two cents in 2023, but given how much food prices have gone up, I’d make this a dime drive in the modern day.)

Here’s how it works.

Every classroom got a gallon water jug. You brought in your pennies from home and put them in the jug. Every penny equaled one point, and at the end of a set time period, the classroom with the most points won a pizza party. All the funds were then donated.

BUT.

You will notice I didn’t say the class with the most pennies. I said the class with the most POINTS.

And that is because you could sabotage other classrooms by putting other denominations in their jugs. The number of pennies equal to the cent amount of those denominations would then be deducted from the penny total (so for example a nickel would lose you five points). I saw one kid absolutely TANK some of the eighth-graders by dropping a five-dollar bill in their jug, which they then had to make up in pennies before they could make any further progress.

(If you’re wondering who rolled all those pennies: it was me. Literally it was me, I volunteered because I’m an autistic weirdo who thinks counting change is fun and it got me out of class. The office ladies helped too.)

To modify this for adults, consider having it be one work shift versus another. Or there are multiple jars split between options for a vote and you get to vote by putting your change in a jar. And you MUST include the sabotage—for one it makes it more like a game, which humans love. And for another, if you’re asking for quarter donations but someone really wants to tank another group, they’re gonna whip out a twenty dollar bill. It generates higher donations because people want to win by nature.

You can ABSOLUTELY make cash drives sexy. You’ve just got to know how.

[opal-owl-flight]

Oh haha theyre like a group of silly ghost guys with a leader!!!

OH.

[someguyiguess-deactivated202511]

i love you USPS I love you NASA i love you taxpayer funded services that actually contribute positively to society i love you libraries i love you public transport

[someguyiguess-deactivated202511]

[writing-prompt-s]

A mark on your forehead identifies the god you must worship to stay alive, usually by joining its local church or temple. Your mark is unknown, meaning an old, forgotten god sponsored you. To survive, you must either find an old temple to worship at, or do the arduous task of building a new one

[halcyonhue]

Nobody in your small coastal village has ever seen the Godmark that you were born with. It’s a dark russet sequence of criss-crossing lines, with a vertical arrowhead on the left and a circle on the right, just over where your brow meets your temple. Some of the traders who come down from the mountain say it looks like one of the scripts used in the hinterlands, but not a language that any of them recognize.

“If she’s got the temperament for it, she should try her luck inland,” they advise. “No point her starting a temple here if she’d find her people elsewhere, with a little searching.”

At first, your parents are reluctant to send you away. Though you’re well-behaved and diligent in your chores, you’re a sickly child with no God to worship. And besides, you’ve always been the dreamy type–inclined to lose track of time watching the path of rain droplets chasing down the window, or the fronds of an anemone as it sways in a rock pool.

Instead, they send you to the temple of the Storm to learn all you’ll need for your own God. You are happy there, for a time: making up beds and serving food to the castaways who pass through, keeping vigil at the lighthouse, burning incense and praying with the loyal widows and orphans of the drowned.

One such widow, an old, old lady, touches the mark on your forehead. “I recognise those letters. We wrote this way in the town where I grew up, way off past the mountains.”

Your heartbeat quickens. “What does it say!?”

She squints, eyes engulfed by wrinkles and hidden behind smudged glass. “A… Ar… Oh, I can’t remember how to speak it. I left before I learnt my letters properly. There was a war, you know. But I remember,” she says, mistily, “the most beautiful pink and white flowers used to grow, on the borders of the wheat fields…”

You try to ask more questions, but remembering the war distresses her, and so you speak of other things. When she’s drifted off to sleep, you get to your feet, go home and tell your parents: you are leaving in search of your God.

Keep reading

[electronicgallery]

Museum Asks People To Recreate Paintings At Home, Gets 30 New Impressive Photos

It appears that boredom lies behind the most creative ideas. That's why quarantine has produced some of the most entertaining activities. One of them is the Getty Museum challenge, that so many of you have already seen in our previous article here.

[delphinidin4]

Narcissus taking a selfie is the ACTUAL best.

[simplyclockwork]

These are REALLY cool

[notallfay]

These are art in themselves, in a some of them point out what lockdown was like for us, they’re expressed themselves in a really cool way. But I think these are going to be talked about in the future.

[maddierussell04]

This minecraft short comic called "A strange Coast" made by Ian Flynn I believe, I found in a book from my library I work has to be one of the most beautiful and respectful takes on the game.

It understands minecradf so perfectly and doesn't treat it as childishly as the other stories in it did.

And all that within 10 pages and no word spoken.

[white-cishet-snail]

Beautiful