The important thing is that Marcille did not learn to blaspheme against the natural order to save her girlfriend. She just happened to have studied the art of spitting in God's eye for wholly unrelated reasons, and when the opportunity by chance arose to employ that skill in service of girlfriend-saving, she was ready.

The whole "the brain isn't fully mature until age 25" bit is actually a fairly impressive bit of psuedoscience for how incredibly stupid the way it misinterprets the data it's based on is.

Okay, so: there's a part of the human brain called the "prefrontal cortex" which is, among other things, responsible for executive function and impulse control. Like most parts of the brain, it undergoes active "rewiring" over time (i.e., pruning unused neural connections and establishing new ones), and in the case of the prefrontal cortex in particular, this rewiring sharply accelerates during puberty.

Because the pace of rewiring in the prefrontal cortex is linked to specific developmental milestones, it was hypothesised that it would slow down and eventually stop in adulthood. However, the process can't be directly observed; the only way to tell how much neural rewiring is taking place in a particular part of the brain is to compare multiple brain scans of the same individual performed over a period of time.

Thus, something called a "longitudinal study" was commissioned: the same individuals would undergo regular brain scans over a period of mayn years, beginning in early childhood, so that their prefrontal development could accurately be tracked.

The longitudinal study was originally planned to follow its subjects up to age 21. However, when the predicted cessation of prefrontal rewiring was not observed by age 21, additional funding was obtained, and the study period was extended to age 25. The predicted cessation of prefrontal development wasn't observed by age 25, either, at which point the study was terminated.

When the mainstream press got hold of these results, the conclusion that prefrontal rewiring continues at least until age 25 was reported as prefrontal development finishing at age 25. Critically, this is the exact opposite of what the study actually concluded. The study was unable to identify a stopping point for prefrontal development because no such stopping point was observed for any subject during the study period. The only significance of the age 25 is that no subjects were tracked beyond this age because the study ran out of funding!

I gets me when people try to argue against the neuroscience-proves-everybody-under-25-is-a-child talking point by claiming that it's merely an average, or that prefrontal development doesn't tell the whole story. Like, no, it's not an average – it's just bullshit. There's no evidence that the cited phenomenon exists at all; if there is an age where prefrontal rewiring levels off and stops (and it's not clear that there is), we don't know what age that is; we merely know that it must be older than 25.

Me & the other drivers were really impressed when you swerved around all of us at high speeds & got to the red light before anyone else

like every two months we have a new post saying 'actually [minority identity] men have it just as bad as [minority identity] women, saying otherwise is a radfem talking point' and like. idk when people are going to stop credulously reblogging them, without thinking about the fact that they're essentially arguing that there are segments of women who don't experience misogyny. but I hope it's the same day everyone actually learns what 'intersectionality' means beyond a progressive buzzword to label your YA romance lit as

a kinetic sculpture by Tim Lewis

I know it’s not pottery but it is sculptural and holy shit

it’s beautiful and disturbing and I feel like I could stumble across this creature in a forest and never be seen again???

In terms of conflict resolution gimmicks in tabletop RPGs, dice are always a classic, but I've also seen playing cards, tarot cards, party spinners, dominoes in both their matching-game and tip-them-to-make-other-dominoes-fall-over modes, coloured beads, coin flips, chess boards, dance-offs, stop-watches, Jenga towers, guessing games, public speaking, fire, knives, candy, baked goods, and in one notable case, a dildo covered in edible glitter which players compete to thwap with those little rubber sticky-hand things. I've played games which employ these devices in ways which emphasise random chance, games which employ them in ways which emphasise player skill, and a game whose method of resolving psychic powers was once criticised for affording unfair advantage to characters whose players are actually psychic. Though there's inevitably a sense of trepidation when pushing the boundaries of one's medium, I promise you, whatever goofy conflict resolution method you've come up with for your indie RPG probably isn't even the weirdest one to be published this week, let alone overall. The usual crowd is going to sniff and harrumph at anything that isn't "roll a single twenty-sided die plus modifiers versus a flat target number" anyway, so fuck 'em – do it for you.

this work of fiction is problematic because it was written without an understanding of the immortal science of marxism-leninism

eagle: so what do you think about stigmata

prometheus: you know we're in a pre-christian myth, right? like that word doesn't exist yet. your dumb joke is anachronistic.

eagle: stigma talons in your flesh

objects you would see in homestar runner

I think that the (often useful) broadness of the term "disabled" can serve to obscure certain realities if you let it. in response to conversations about disability and labour, people point out that disabled people do in fact work—including in highly marginalised and hyperexploited forms of labour, such as migrant farm work or migrant domestic work—and that, in fact, these forms of labour disable people.

however it is still true that there are disabled people who are, if you will, "too" disabled to do this kind of work, who are completely dependent on networks of support for the basic necessities of survival, and who, without these networks, will be left to die painfully of thirst. when people talk about disabled people who are shut out of, not only the wage contract, but of any form of labour at all—these are in fact real people who exist... & the fact that some disabled people are capable of (being exploited for) labor doesn't change that

#a rigorous regimen of self-punishment and stripping away everything that brings you pleasure comfort and safety never hurt anyone

oh this is nothing that chewing my leg off like an animal stuck in a trap cant solve

[Image ID: an instagram post from @/nationalsjp of six students at the McMurdo Station in Antartica, standing in snow and ice, holding a palestinian flag and signs that say "Antartic workers for Gaza", "Ceasefire", and "Fund science not genocide"]

protests have literally made it to antartica

Put a / in the year you were born, so we will have an average age

Before 1990: //////

1990:////

1991://////

1992:////////////

1993://///////////////

1994:////////////////////

1995: //////////////////////////////////////

1996: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

1997: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

1998: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

1999: ///////////////////

2000: //

After 2000: /

This is what Wreck-It Ralph was about

every bit you delete from your computer gets escorted out through the power cord and shot in the back of the head

FAQ

Q: Will the funeral be open casket?

A: Remains to be seen.