Hidden Waterways

I write meta and fanfic. I block bots and anyone who looks like a bot. (If you have no reblogs, you look like a bot.)

[validblogname]

one fight at a time

[lizardlicks]

Black Hills drilling project canceled after backlash from tribes

A South Dakota mining company has canceled a drilling project in the Black Hills after opposition from Native American tribes and local grou

[wizxrdpendrxgon]

The backlash was a major lawsuit from 9 tribes alongside other lawsuits from advocacy groups like NDN Collective. You can support NDN Collective by donating to them here.

[thejewellerybox]

Gannet Diving necklace by Rie Taniguchi

[varsityhearts]

no matter how bad it gets it cannot possibly be as bad as it was this time last year when i was using all my free time to replace the music in captain america the winter soldier with 2000s pop hits

[kat]

i had a dream last night that the entire world used a currency (?) called angrypennies which as the name implies are obtained by experiencing anger. the stronger and more intense your anger was, the more angrypennies you'd gain. an all-consuming rage would earn you more than a slight irritation, etc. so people were always searching for ways to fuel their anger and purposefully keeping themselves angry all the time because they wanted to earn angrypennies. unclear if angrypennies could be exchanged for goods and services, or if they were just a collectible.

anyway, as if this wasn't heavy-handed enough, at one point british comedian greg davies appeared and explained that angrypennies couldn't be worth feeling angry all the time. this was a real revelation to dream-me and i was finally able to break free of the angrypenny grind and allow myself to experience emotions other than anger.

[kat]

it goes without saying that i will be using the word angrypenny as if it was part of the common vernacular instead of a term that my dreaming brain conjured up i.e. "he's all about the angrypennies" (derogatory way to refer to a guy who searches for reasons to be angry and possibly lacks introspection)

[holy-leapin-splits-batman]

[boardohmind]

I sometimes hate making ANGR fanart because I always think of the potential it could’ve had if they just let bro cook. How the hell do I explain to people that the orange haired girl from his high school is just a background character now with no development and that the buff muscle woman is just nothing now with just theories that blue ghost rider Miku, Fantasma, is her sister. Marvel Rivals, please do something Im begging you.

[quasar-crew]

@polarspaz woe, noodles be upon ye! Okay but seriously Noodle Leon is way too fun to me, I already love dragons and half of my various notebooks are full of noodle dragon doodles. And I also have no self control so tada~

...

Frankly, the only reason Leon picks up the amulet is because of the Merchant. The man had already proven he was willing to pay well for any shiny baubles Leon found, which he occasionally came across while searching the village—and now the castle—for ammunition, herbs or whatever stupid puzzle piece he needed. 

Speaking of stupid puzzle pieces…

Leon pries the replica sword from the statue’s grasp, wrinkling his nose as he notices the long-dried blood staining its tip. Salazar really wanted to go for realism, huh? 

“What’s that for?” Ashley asks behind him, and he turns to look at her, bloodied sword in hand.

Leon shrugs. “It’s just a replica. Only a couple uses for it.” Like to finish a wall mural with three other swords. Once the last sword is in place and the door clicks open, Leon glances around the little treasury, eyeing the various gems and trinkets. He considers for only a moment, then gives a mental shrug and starts stuffing some smaller items in his extra pockets. 

“…What are you doing?” Ashley asks as he loots the place. 

Leon nods his head toward the opulence around them, golden framed paintings and countless other signs of wealth. “I think he’s got enough, don’t you?” Ashley blinks but then nods hesitantly, and Leon chuckles. “Don’t worry, it’s not for me. The Merchant that’s been around pays well for this stuff.” 

The blue jade pendant he snags is nothing special. It’s just another shiny necklace Leon shoves in his pocket to barter with the Merchant later.

Once Leon’s filled his pockets, he and Ashley make their way back to the atrium where Salazar first showed his ugly face. The bodies of the zealots are conspicuously absent. Once back on the main floor, Leon looks around, assessing their route. Luis said to meet in the courtyard so if they keep heading straight through, they should— 

“Uh, Leon?”

The mildly alarmed tone in Ashley’s voice has Leon snapping his head around, grip tightening on his handgun. But there’s no hostiles he can see, and instead Ashley’s gaze is fixed on… him? Leon frowns at her, opening his mouth to ask what’s wrong, but Ashley beats him to it.

“Leon, your bag, it’s glowing?!”

Leon blinks, confused and a little alarmed as he drops his gaze to his belt, half expecting to see a grenade or flashbang about to detonate. Instead, he sees a pale glow spilling from one of his bags. Frowning, Leon holsters his gun and digs a hand into the pouch in question, withdrawing it. One of the baubles he picked up earlier from the treasury, a small blue jade pendant, is flickering softly. 

“What…?” Leon mutters quietly. Some kind of chemical reaction? (He hopes, anyway. Otherwise, a blue glow probably means radiation, in which case Leon is fucked.) But before Leon can figure out what’s wrong with the odd pendant, he realizes he has much bigger problems. That being, his hand.  

Before his eyes, Leon’s fingernails blacken and harden, lengthening into something resembling talons. And from his now-clawed fingertips, something dark ripples over Leon’s skin, climbing his hands.

“Fuck–!” Leon chokes out. He’s lost control of the muscles of his hand already, joints locked around the pendant. Shit, shit, shit! Fucking hell, Luis’ plaga is taking him over already?! Leon snaps his eyes up to Ashley, unable to contain the panic he knows is creeping into his voice. “Ashley, RUN!”

The young woman stumbles back as Leon turns and races as far from her as he can while he can still control his limbs. He doesn’t get very far, his legs buckling under him as something in his back snaps. Leon hisses, curling on his side as his blood burns. There’s a writhing along his spine, what can only be the plaga twisting along his vertebrae. Fuck, he can’t let himself attack Ashley, he can’t—

Leon tries to claw himself forward a little further, but instead of moving, his body slides out of place. Suddenly Leon is aware that there is more of him than there was a few moments ago. Something is worming its way from his lower back. Something is taking both sides of his spine and pulling, stretching him like taffy. Leon writhes, pain and alien sensation filling his brain, but distantly aware there is so much more of him.

There is something thrashing past his feet, his stomach is too far from his shoulders, his neck is twisted like a corkscrew. 

When he slams his head against the stone floor, he feels the impact rattle through a face that is too long to be human. When his jaw splits open, unable to hold back an agonized cry, a thick tongue runs past razor sharp fangs.

Finally, it stops, leaving Leon panting on the floor, fear clogging his throat. He’s all too aware of his alien body, far far too much of him sprawled over stone. Ashley’s still here. He’s a danger to her. He has to either take care of himself or get away or something—

“Leon?”

Leon flinches at the sound of Ashley’s voice, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to shuffle away. “Nnnno, ssssstay away, Assshhley—” His warning is mixed with hisses and growls, his movements jerking and uncoordinated. Leon tries to shove himself backward, but there is too much between his limbs. He can’t do much more than wriggle in place. Shit, shit, shit—

Beneath his labored breathing, Leon’s aware that Ashley hasn’t said anything more, and he can’t hear her footsteps approaching. Good. But, he still needs to put more space between himself and her before he loses all lucidity.

Leon risks cracking an eye open. He’s not sure what he expects to see—perhaps grotesque twisted flesh, insectoid carapace, or even something millipede-esque considering how much spine he seems to have. What he’s definitely not expecting however, is scales. Blue scales, specifically, and thick blond fur.

And past that, Ashley’s mildly frightened but mostly awed—not horrified, awed—expression. 

Leon blinks and tries to leverage himself onto his hands and knees. (Because if Ashley’s not going to run, Leon’s just going to have to do it himself.) And while Leon can successfully control his limbs, he’s not sure what’s going on… between them. Leon blinks as he watches the blue mass shift and cranes his neck up to try and see and oh shit—

His head lurches upward, neck far far far too long. Suddenly, Leon’s… well, he’s not standing, that’s for sure, but his head is at standing height. Leon swallows back a sudden wave of nausea and vertigo, blinking as he traces the serpentine blue and gold shape sprawled over the stone floor. It resembles a snake, with smooth blue dorsal scales, but the illusion is swiftly broken by the blonde fur that lines the spine all the way to the tail tip. Tracing it back up… Leon’s pants and belts are caught around one set of legs, his shirt around the other set, and then he traces the blue all the way back up until he can’t look down any further.

He’s… a giant snake. If a snake was nearly forty feet long, had a body the diameter of a human torso, a mane of hair running along its body, and legs. 

“What the fuck—” Leon mutters quietly, and distantly notes: Oh hey! He can still talk. Small victories. With his head up like this, Leon can watch as he tries to move, only for his very very very long body to respond with all the grace of a wet, limp noodle.

“Leon, you okay?”

Leon’s head snaps over to look at Ashley, who is slowly approaching. Leon snarls, only to feel his lips feel back from too-long teeth and promptly flinch. Leon shakes his head, nausea climbing his throat as his neck sways side-to-side. “Ashley, you need to get out of here, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll stay sane.”

Instead of running, Ashley squints at him. There’s something sparkling in her eyes. “Leon… you’re a dragon.”

Leon blinks. “I’m a what.”

“Dragon.”

Leon looks down at himself. “…I thought dragons were supposed to have wings?”

“Eh, only some of them,” Ashley says, and Leon jumps slightly. Somehow she’s managed to sneak right up to him. He cranes his head back to look down at her, and she grins. “Need help?”

“You should run,” Leon repeats.

Ashley shakes her head, eyes gleaming with excitement. “Heck no, I am not missing my one chance to experience a dragon.” Internally, Leon despairs, now becoming increasingly convinced his charge has the self preservation instincts of a lemming. Or at least, she does when faced with something ‘cool’. 

“Now, let’s get you up.” Before Leon can protest otherwise, Ashley has latched her arms behind his head and starts pulling him forward. Leon can do little more than bear it, his neck stretching out as he follows her. Then, it gets to its limit and he has to push himself onto his hands, then his elongated back, then his feet…

Finally, Leon stands on four shaky limbs, stretched out impossibly long across the atrium. Carefully, he curls in on himself, spine folding and curving over until he’s sat back on his new tail—fuck, he has a tail—and haunches. His back curves like an S, and then his neck completes its own curve.

Leon stares at his taloned hands and then beyond them to Ashley who, for a girl who has been kidnapped, is looking like Christmas came early. Leon groans, attempting to rub his face only to be reminded he now has a snout instead. Goddamnit. “Ashley, I’m literally a giant noodle, can you please stop looking so excited?”

“No,” Ashley says. “Now, if the plaga is what turned you into a dragon, I take back what I said. I wanna be a dragon.”

[pigeon-butch]

your muscles being pleasantly sore after exercise is such a nice incentive I can see why they patched that in. the forced regular logins to avoid losing progress however are a predatory practice and deserve nothing but scorn.

[iamthelowercase]

Hello, tumblr! I saw something on here the other day that worried me, so I decided to Do Science about it. But I can't do it alone: I need your help to build the dataset!

Here's what I need you to do:

If you see a post with a "mature content" label, and it's 2026, DM me a link to the post.

Yes, that's really it.

I am hoping to collect several thousand such posts, so that I have a decent sized dataset. I do not care what the post is about; if it's labeled as "mature content", I want to add it to my dataset.

If I get 10,000 posts in my dataset before August 31st 2026, I will post my preliminary findings then. I won't feel comfortable calling my findings "settled" before 2027, unless I get over 50,000 posts.

[max1461]

Disgust has absolutely no ethical weight. If you are basing your ethical positions on the emotion of disgust you should stop, it is entirely unjustified and leads to a huge amount of harm.

[word-for-today]

Word for today: wisdom of repugnance

The logical fallacy that because something disgusts you it must be bad

[obscenicon-deactivated20231123]

this is probably the funniest example of a tumblr user simply not reading the post theyre reblogging at all

[steelblue8]

Reblog if you are a freak who is justifying their gross actions

[enki2]

[mongeese]

The Murderbot Diaries are a power fantasy about being aromantic and still developing extremely important dedicated emotionally intimate partnerships where you are a top priority in a person's life, equal to their other family or romantic attachments despite your own emotional difficulties. And having guns in your arms

[animentality]

[achievement-hunter]

[textandimageenjoyer]

[prokopetz]

You know, when I've remarked that a lot of the responses to my posts feel like people are just plucking out keywords they think they recognise based on the shape of them and replying to what they imagine the post says based on that, the possibility never occurred to me that this is actually how many American schools are currently teaching kids to read.

[prokopetz]

Like, my assumption this whole time has been that when folks go "I misunderstood this post that says [thing] as saying [unrelated thing] because I mistook [word] for [completely different word that happens to start with the same letter]", that was a bit. What do you mean they're teaching kids a reading method that's tailored to produce this exact error?

[buggyhuman]

Three cueing. Once you learn about it, a whole lot of very frustrating online discourse with US Americans makes so much sense 😭

How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers

For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have

[woodsfae]

If you were taught to read with the three cueing method, and now struggle to read fluently, you can still learn to read properly!

-> Phonics For Adults <-

If you're a teenager, you can still use this resource.

[velvetys]

How is bnha anime of the decade...... they aren’t even anime of the hour of the minute of the second

[grimeclown]

The notes on this post were so toxic that staff just axed em

[abraxasrinbalt]

1969.........

[harperhug]

Yes, when the original post is deleted from the server (not just the blog, but the Tumblr servers), there is no root post for notes to be added onto, and also no root post for time to be counted from, so it starts from zero. Most computer operating systems use Unix, which was launched in 1971 with t.he epoch date of midnight on January 1, 1970 as 1. Therefore zero is one second behind that date: December 31, 1969. Also, very unfortunately, this also means nobody except you and anyone you reblog it to will see this explanation, as you cannot open the notes to see comments when there are no notes.

[ti0mumu]

[nick-nonya]

Tumblr is truly one of the webbed sites ever

[solnight99]

ohmg

[aroace-ryland-grace]

[thegreatlazule]

post's haunted.

[natequarter]

imagine if after 9/11 americans got into the habit of ritually blowing up an effigy of osama bin laden and did it for so long that eventually the effigies just became known as osamas and then osama became a way to say "man you look like you just got blown up, you look rough" and then it just became a way to generically refer to any person and now in the year 2607 it's standard to refer to any group of people as osamas and also, due to 9/11, every eleventh of september americans got together to set off fireworks and eat hot dogs in cold damp fields

because this is what happened in england with november 5

[magnetothemagnificent]

Yeah except 9/11 was actually successful. A better example would be if after January 6th, 2021, Americans started blowing up effigies of Donald Trump for so long that eventually the effigies became known as trumps and then "trump" became a way to say "man you look like you just got blown up, you look rough" and then it just became a way to generically refer to any person and then centuries later it was standard to refer to a group of people as trumps and also, due to January 6th, every 6th of January Americans get together to set off fireworks and eat hot dogs in cold, damp fields.

....and I just got a glimpse of a beautiful alternate reality where justice was actually meted out in this world. Sob

[notaplaceofhonour]

computa, reality shift to this timeline immediately

[notaplaceofhonour]

V for Vendetta but V wears one of those rubber Trump masks

[anexperimentallife]

[tricky-pockets]

seems like there's a whole genre of:

society: autistic people fundamentally don't comprehend [x]

autistic people: no, I get it, I'm just Not Gonna Do It

[thebestworstidea]

just because I understand doesn't mean that I agree

[redskyeatnight]

At some point in my childhood someone quoted, "You've gotta know the rules to break them," at me and I took it to heart

[silver-tongues-blog]

[hasufin]

It's not "doesn't understand X" but rather "doesn't understand why people believe I should adhere to a social construct which is obviously artificially imposed, does not serve anyone well, and to which I definitely did not agree."

[quixylvre]

[diploglottis]

Sometimes I feel it's not that I don't understand it, it's that I don't have the social bandwidth to apply the knowledge to the social situation while I am in said social situation. Other times I probably don't give a toss.