shoutout to international students who didn’t grow up speaking english but are now doing complex readings and writing essays in their second/third language and being held to the same standards as native english speakers, i never hear anyone talking about it but that’s hard as fuck
tim drake’s snapchat is 90% him making bruce wayne do normal middle-class american things and filming the results. popular youtube compilations include the one where they’re at denny’s at two in the morning and tim keeps trying to get bruce to order a moon over my hammy just so he’ll have to say it, the one where they’re at disneyworld and bruce gets increasingly frazzled culminating in him actually physically picking up gaston for reasons no one can entirely recall, and everyone’s favorite series “bruce wayne doesn’t understand walmart”
having thought about it the best part is probably when a pranking fails because bruce has such a bizarre patchwork of knowledge/skills and it does not occur to him to hide most of it. tim puts a ghost pepper in bruce’s food but bruce just eats it like nothing is wrong. the same thing happens with the chocolate-covered crickets. it turns out bruce can lick his own elbow. bruce can lasso a runaway robot lawnmower like it’s a calf at a rodeo. whenever tim expresses shock that bruce knows how to do something he says “i did go to college, tim” as if that explains anything and it becomes a meme. whenever anyone does something fucking absurd it just gets tagged “i did go to college, tim”.
The camera came uncomfortably close to the face of a man ignoring it. He was very good at it. He was reading a book about, of all things, the history of denim. It was not the sort of book that made it easy to ignore cameras, but he remained stoic.
The caption said helpfully: [been doing this for 30 mins]
“Bruce. Bruce. Bruce. We need to go Walmart. Bruce. I need it.”
“Ask Alfred.”
→→→
“It’s a surprise for Alfred.”
“You can’t surprise Alfred.”
“Bruce, please.”
→→→
“It’s not a matter of permission, I’m saying you literally can’t surprise Alfred.”
→→→
[he hates when i say that]
“Bruuuuce.”
“No.”
“This is bullroar.”
Bruce finally set down his book with an expression of the most profound disgust.
→→→
[oh no now we’ll be here all day]
“—either curse or don’t, just commit one way or the other instead of—”
→→→
The camera took its time panning over a black BMW.
“Can I drive?”
“No.”
→→→
[after this he took away my music privileges]
Bruce was driving, looking stoic again. His face lent itself well to stoicism. The radio played, at high volume, “Sandstorm” by Darude.
→→→
“I’ll play something different this time.”
“You had your chance and you blew it on a meme.”
→→→
[SJGJDH;FUKC 😂😂😂]
“I’m boooored.”
“Hi, bored,” Bruce said, eyes still on the road, and Tim groaned loudly. “I don’t give a shit.”
The view shifted and audio clattered as Tim dropped the phone, barking a laugh.
→→→
The phone was wobbly as Tim followed Bruce into the store. “Can I get a trampoline?” he asked, camera pointed to one outside the store.
“We have three trampolines.”
“But I want that one.”
→→→
They were in the chip aisle. “Have you ever had a Dorito? One Dorito? In your whole life?”
“I am a person. I eat food for people.”
→→→
The camera followed a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos into the cart.
“We’re not getting those.”
“We need to get sour cream, too.”
“No.”
“You’ll love it.”
“No.”
→→→
Tim had put the seatbelt of the cart’s seat, intended for toddlers, around a giant plastic jar of orange cheese puffs.
“I thought you were getting something for Alfred.”
“I’m getting groceries while we’re here.”
“None of this is food.”
→→→
[$3 pickles blowing his mind rn]
Bruce was holding a gallon jar of pickles with an expression of incredulity.
“—costs extra to not waste food?”
“It’s Walmart.”
“Even taking into account the economies of scale—”
→→→
[putting his degree to use in the pickle aisle]
“—it just makes no sense even as a loss leader, unless the goal is to drive the competition out of business and hope they don’t go bankrupt in the—”
→→→
[i think he’s buying a pickle company??]
Bruce had every appearance of furiously texting on his phone, or possibly composing emails.
→→→
[lmao he did]
Bruce was now on his phone, looking impassive as ever as he contemplated the giant jar of pickles.
“—the business itself is perfectly sound. Yes. Obviously. Dead serious. Look, if you—”
→→→
Tim put a gallon jug of ranch dressing into the cart.
“Absolutely not.”
→→→
Tim was in the frozen section, his reflection visible in the glass.
“I bet Alfred would love some pizza rolls.”
“Your lies demean us both, Tim.”
→→→
Bruce was standing in the toy aisle, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I understand the concept of blind boxes perfectly well, thank you.”
“Then why are you acting confused?”
“Why does Thomas the Tank Engine—”
→→→
[🌈🌈🌈]
Bruce was making a face of disgruntled bafflement at a display of baby clothes.
“—disturbed by the amount of aggressive heterosexuality being foisted on these babies.”
“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “What about the gay babies?”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking but I’m unironically concerned.”
→→→
[gotham pride]
The camera panned over a display of hero-themed hats. Most of the Batman hats had sold out, while the Superman display was nearly full. It panned back to Bruce, who was taking a picture with his own phone.
“Who you texting it to?”
“Friend in Metropolis.”
“Metropolis sucks.”
“Yes. Yes it does.”
→→→
[no escape]
The camera peered out slowly from behind a clothing display. Bruce was surrounded by enthusiastic and friendly women. It was impossible to tell what they were talking about.
→→→
[???]
Bruce was holding a dress up against himself. The women around him seemed delighted and were nodding their approval.
→→→
[i’ll strike while he’s distracted]
Tim dropped another two four-movie collections of Shrek on top of the considerable pile he’d already amassed. He panned up to check that Bruce had not caught him before grabbing another.
→→→
[busted]
While Bruce put DVDs back on the shelf, Tim surreptitiously grabbed a Shrek coloring book.
→→→
[he’s gonna get a fish]
Bruce was frowning at the wall of fishtanks in silence. Finally he said, “These fish are very unhealthy.”
→→→
[HE’S BUYING ALL THE FISH]
The man attempting to help Bruce looked baffled. Bruce gestured to the entire display of fish with a nod. The man shook his head. Tim brought his phone close to a betta, blue and red with a tattered and graying tail.
“We’re here to save you,” Tim stage-whispered to it.
→→→
Bruce was now engrossed in conversation with multiple employees.
“—if I bought some tanks — they’re much too small but as a temporary measure — we could transfer them directly and it might be less distressing for the fish.”
“Maybe I could get one of the big dolly carts from the back?” one young man suggested.
→→→
The low camera angle suggested Tim was trying to be surreptitious.
“—for trying to unionize is completely against the law,” Bruce was saying, his voice low. He was helping three other employees transfer fish into large plastic tanks.
“At-will employment,” one woman said.
“We’d have to prove that was why they fired us,” someone clarified. “Otherwise they can say it was for no reason.”
“You’re shitting me.”
→→→
“—fucking with my hours hoping I’ll quit.”
“What? Why?”
“If they fired me, they’d have to pay unemployment.”
“That’s why they won’t let me work full-time.”
“What the fuck.”
→→→
[omg he’s stealing the employees now]
“—in Gotham, but there’s more opportunities outside of manufacturing if you’re willing to move.”
“Wait, so do you mean like for management?”
“No, no, that’s the starting wage for someone working assembly, quality control, that kind of thing. We’re all unionized, none of this at-will bullshit.”
“So if I—”
→→→
The woman from earlier was showing Bruce her phone while the others continued moving fish.
“You painted this?” Bruce asked. She nodded. “That’s fantastic. Are you showing it anywhere? I know a guy with a gallery — actually I know pretty much everyone with an art gallery in Gotham. I think I have a friend who’d really love this, if you don’t mind me making some calls for you.”
→→→
Four more employees had joined the menagerie.
“—almost always hiring in Gotham. People are always moving to cities with fewer evil clowns.” Everyone laughed. Tim snorted. “Employee insurance totally covers acts of supervillainy, though.”
→→→
[trying to crush the revolution]
The employees had not dispersed. In the distance, someone managerial was talking to Bruce. He looked much less amused than Bruce did.
→→→
[THEY CALLED THE COPS]
Tim had switched to the selfie camera, his face pure glee. He turned bodily to show the employees wheeling out tanks of fish out of the store, police lights in the parking lot.
“The manager tried to make Bruce leave but he insisted on paying for his fish and he wouldn’t stop giving people better jobs so the guy said it was corporate espionage and threatened to call the cops and Bruce called his bluff so he did it.”
→→→
[WE’RE BANNED FROM WALMART FOREVER]
Bruce was laughing with the police officers about something. The manager from earlier had been joined by men in suits. None of them looked happy. Some of the employees from earlier were yelling and flipping them off. One man pulled off the shirt of his uniform and started setting it on fire.
→→→
Bruce was on the phone in the parking lot.
“They’re small, most of them are tropical. You can figure out what they are when you get here. How is that racist? I’m not suggesting you already know them, I’m well aware you don’t personally know every single fish—”
→→→
“Either you take these fish or I toss them in the sewer and Killer Croc can eat them. It will be a merciful death compared to what they were getting. It doesn’t matter where I found them.”
→→→
[i’m not allowed near toxic waste]
Tim held the betta from earlier in front of his phone, bringing it dangerously close to Bruce’s face. Bruce had hung up, but seemed to be dialing another number.
“I’m keeping this one,” Tim said.
“Fine.”
“If I drop him in toxic waste do you think he’ll get powers?”
“We’ve already had this discussion.”
→→→
[the pettiest man in gotham]
Bruce was on the phone again, looking out at the empty field beside the Walmart parking lot.
“Yeah, just buy the whole thing. Yeah. Absolutely sure. Green Market’s doing good, we’ll build another one of those. Can we put up a billboard while it’s under construction? A really big billboard.”
→→→
“First of all, if it’s in writing, it’s libel. Second, figures taken directly from their report to shareholders aren’t defamatory. What’s the most they could even sue me for? See, that’s nothing. Bad PR for them, good for us, it’s—”
→→→
Tim had switched to the selfie camera again, and was using a sparkling purple filter that made his eyes look huge. He backed into Bruce so that Bruce’s face would be in the shot. “Bruce, look! You’re a pretty pretty princess!”
Bruce raised an eyebrow as he looked at his face on the screen. “I’m always a pretty princess,” he said seriously.
→→→
[he picked the music this time]
Bruce was driving again. He was listening to 100 Little Curses without any apparent irony. This did not mean there wasn’t any irony.
→→→
[i named him wally]
The Walmart betta was now in a tank that held at least a hundred gallons. His underwater castle was resplendent. His tail had grown in, a shimmering gradient of red and blue. Bruce could be seen in the background through the tank, sitting on the couch and reading a book.
Content Warnings: Mental Illness, Attempted Murder, Sexual Content, Stalking, Abuse, Animal Abuse Mention, Emetophobia, US Public Education, Military Industrial Complex. I’ve been told this is my most disturbing story, even if it’s hilarious, so mind your health. All the names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent and Not-So-Innocent.
This is the story of Recruiting Sergeant Scott VS. The Lacrosse Jocks VS. Yours truly.
To understand this story, you must understand the dystopian hellscape that is US Public High School- I went to the NICE high school in town, with the AP curriculum and new building, where the the kids were generally too obsessed with getting into the ivy league to do anything worse than occasionally smoke on the roof. Not even weed, just regular cigs. During their off-periods, so they’d have time to febreeze their clothes and arrive to their next class early. You know, the most boring fucking kids ever.
AND STILL, we were subjected to the various scourges of US public ed, namely-
-on-campus police officers and regular “what to do in case of a columbine event” drill. We had Officer Munoz, who was a wonderful Latina Woman with the good sense to focus her efforts on getting kids away from abusive parents rather than persecuting brown kids, but we were VERY lucky on that front. Still, having someone walking around with a gun and technically the authority to kill you, and having to hide in the science cabinets three times a year fucks you up. Remember Officer Munoz though, She is Important.
– A weird, cult-like, frankly masturbatory attitude regarding athletic achievement. The arts and sciences were stuck doing bake sales for supplies while the gym got re-done two years after the school opened. This was tempered in an odd way at my school in that literally all the sports teams unequivocally sucked, with the exception of
1.Marching Band, which went to nationals twice in the first two years the school was open
2.Knowledge Bowl, where kevin and I took the team to 3rd in state in our first year, and only lost because Kevin had an asthma attack so we decided to let the other teams fight over the ‘lesser’ medals
3.Lacrosse, which didn’t actually didn’t GO anywhere, but was a “real” sport and beat our ‘rival’ school, so the team got to be Big Men On Campus, and get away with all kinds of nonsense like eating in class when everyone else was forbidden or skipping tests for ‘practice’. The three worst offenders were Dustin, Jack and “Rattlesnake Pete”, all of whom were budding neo-nazis and thus signed up for German. With our Jewish teacher. Remember them too.
-On-campus military recruiters. As in, people who are legally allowed to exaggerate, manipulate and actually lie to minors to convince them to join the armed forces. Ours was Sergeant Scott, and as much of a skeevy rat as he was I honestly felt bad for him, because remember, academic magnet high school so he had three kinds of kids to work with:
Kids who made the physical standards for the armed forces and were all about honoring their country via physical labor, but were dumb as shit and couldn’t pass the written exam.
Kids who could pass the written exam and were totally ready to bully some people in the third world, but couldn’t do a pull up if you covered the gym floor in cobras.
Kids who passed the physical and mental portions but were uniformly rabidly anti-military industrial complex, to the point where 35 of them crammed into his cubicle in the office he shared with Officer Munoz and Janitor Wendy, so they could hold a sit-in protest of the Iraq war and chant “Impeach Bush” and “War is Murder” at him Someone chucked red paint on him, because they’re furious immature teenagers. It was his first day.
malachite is a poisonous mineral. please do not fuck the malachite stalactite
@lizaleigh do you know any rock people that can confirm/deny because I am very curious and really don’t feel like getting into a conversation with my geophysicist brother that MAY somehow get back to the fact I saw a malachite that looked like a weird dildo.
…sadly, I am not on good enough terms with any of our partner geologists to just attach this to an email with the subject line: “EXPLAIN.”
Although I think @mollisaurus is a mineral person. Thoughts?
oh geeze, i’m kinda rusty on minerals but malachite is just copper carbonate and is really common in both antique and modern jewelry so i think like if you were really gun-ho about it you could go ahead and put it wherever you want?
It’s really only a problem if you’re polishing or cutting it. The particles would be bad to breathe. It’s rather porous too, so I would worry about bacteria growing. Well, being literal anyway… Better to leave the poor thing alone. ._.
I mean it kinda depends on where you stick it because malachite does not like acidic environments very much and the malachite will degrade and also might dye your bits blue-green as the copper dissolves out.
So use a condom when fucking rocks is the takeaway here.
Oh my god guys it’s poisonous
It is super poisonous
There is a reason we do not use it in make up any more
Not even with a condom, do not fuck the rock
Try this one instead.
malachite literally explodes in water does it not?
I… no… I think you’re thinking of pure sodium?
Malachite is however water soluble, which really just means it will poison you quicker
This is both hilarious and cool as fuck because you’re getting all this information on minerals and rocks. You’re also watching people argue over wether or not you can fuck this rock
I go on hiatus for a week and come back to find tumblr molesting my post, but hey, at least we all learned something so yay tumblr, you just keep on being you.
I’m still not sure if I can fuck this rock.
I’m looking into it.
UPDATE:
Today in “I’m so sorry, coworkers, it’s for Tumblr,” I brought this post to the attention the science reporters at BuzzFeed. Dan Vergano did a some research and weighed in on the question “Can you use malachite as a dildo or is it toxic?”
The answer is “It’s probably fine, just wash it first and maybe use a bunch of lube.”
Oh man this got so much better than the last time I saw this post
This is my favourite. Science side of tumblr: asking the REAL questions
*biologist crashes through the underbrush*
Ok so here’s the thing though
Malachite is not poisonous to YOU. BUT fucking this stalactite will probably wreck your vaginal flora and leave you with a gruesome infection within a couple days.
Want details? SO GLAD YOU ASKED, ‘CAUSE HERE THEY ARE.
• Malachite is not copper oxide. It’s Cu2CO3(OH)2. Like most carbonates it’s water soluble– that’s how it became a stalactite in the first place! And technically any given chunk of “malachite” isn’t just malachite– it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. This will become important later.
• When malachite dissolves it makes a bunch of copper (Cu++) ions. Cu++ is GREAT at killing bacteria and fungi– so good at it that sprays with Cu++ get used a lot as a spray in agriculture to stop plant disease. It takes such a large dose to harm larger organisms that copper sprays are used a lot in organic agriculture (like Bordeaux mixture).
So bottom line, yes malachite is technically nontoxic to humans. But it kills bacteria when it dissolves and releases Cu++.
• Malachite dissolves somewhat slowly in water– but vaginal secretions aren’t just any water. A healthy human vagina has a pH of 3.8-4.5 and a salinity of about 0.9%. It’s also warmer than your average underground cave at 37°C (or 98.5°F in American meat units). As luck would have it, acidity, salinity, and warmth all make malachite dissolve faster.
• In other words, the human vagina dissolves malachite.
• I have no deeper explanation for why human females can dissolve rocks with our genitals. It simply is.
• Gonna to take a quick moment to point out that sex toys that dissolve when you use them are maybe not the best investment.
• Anyway the key question now is “how fast does the human vagina dissolve malachite?” Are we talking geological timescale, a Nazis-in-Indiana-Jones situation, or something in between? If the reaction kinetics of dissolution are very slow, then there’s nothing to worry about. An encounter with a stalactite would have to last years for enough Cu++ to leach out to cause problems. If it’s quick then we’re in trouble.
• Unfortunately it looks like nobody really knows. One of the best sources on how malachite dissolves & precipitates in water– an EPA document on how to avoid too much Cu++ in municipal drinking water systems– helpfully says “The kinetic constraints on the formation of these solids in water systems are largely unexplored” (p. 42) because end equilibrium points is all you need to run a city water system safely. In other words, the experiments that would tell us how fast malachite dissolves in various types of water just don’t exist because nobody’s ever needed to know before. So we’d better assume it’s going to happen reasonably quickly, #for safety.
• So in best scientific fashion, we’re just going to bullshit our way ahead using what facts we DO have on hand: endpoint equlibria.
That orange box is how many moles of dissolved Cu++ Scaife got from sticking malachite in some water that had 0.171 moles NaCl/L (body salinity is about 0.154 moles NaCl/L so this is slightly less salty than people) at 30°C. He’s got no acidity in there, and again the salinity and temperature are slightly lower than people. But this is probably the closest we’re going to get to data on how malachite behaves in vaginas anytime soon, folks. From this we can take away that if you leave malachite alone in a vagina you’ll get AT LEAST 9.12 x 10^-4 moles/L, or 5.8 ppm, of Cu++ at equilibrium.
• Recall from above that most “malachite” isn’t actually pure malachite, it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. The EPA document elaborates: “[T]raditional ‘eyeball’ identification of malachite by its blue-green color is extremely
unreliable, because almost all cupric hydroxysulfates, hydroxycarbonates, hydroxychlorides,
and even fresh cupric hydroxide can be some shade of blue-green. … Thus, the uncertainty in the computed copper
concentration in equilibrium with malachite is at least about a factor of 2 … until further experimental data focusing on this problem is generated.”
In other words, “do your math and then double how much Cu++ you think is going to be in the water, just in case.” So that gives us 11.6ppm Cu++, at equilibrium, with malachite in a (til now!) healthy vagina.
• Next step: do we have any idea what happens to bacteria in acid conditions with copper? OH MY GOD WE TOTALLY DO. Gyawali et al 2011 checked this out in the context of “so what if we rinsed tomatoes with a solution of lactic acid and copper, because that would be a safe & organic way to get rid of E. coli?” So now this post has officially ruined stalactites, vaginas, and tomatoes.
^This would happen. These are the counts of 4 E. coli strains exposed to various levels of lactic acid & Cu++ for 8 hours. This table only shows the end counts but it represents the death of 99.7% of bacteria*.
• Losing 99.7% of your vaginal flora is seriously bad news. You’re looking at really good odds of a yeast infection, bacterial vaginosis, and/or other infection issues. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to not be in the 4% of the population or so that’s sensitive to skin contact with copper.
• The good news? Biochemically speaking, you’re probably ok to put it in your butt. It’s not as acidic or salty in there, plus there’s a huuuuuge stockpile of gut microbes right upstream that can quickly repopulate the colon after spelunking is complete. However this stalactite is not flared at the base so it is the wrong shape for putting in your butt. Do not put this stalactite in your butt.
• This all looks like fun and games, but I think it’s really interesting that the internet’s mistake in concluding that this stalactite is fuckable is very similar to the mistake made by the Flint water management system. Hear me out.
• Central to the Flint lead poisoning crisis is that authorities only looked at & tested Flint’s water in its central treatment plant before it went out through the pipes. Not after it went through the pipes. They did not consider what would happen biochemically as it went through the pipes and metals started dissolving.
• Similarly, in concluding that the stalactite is fuckable, the internet only considered the stalactite itself. Not the biochemical processes that would happen to it as it, welp, went through the pipes.
• Media frequently reports that the Flint River’s water is “corrosive,” leading many to believe the river is full of industrial waste. This ain’t the case. You’d need industry to fill a river with industrial waste, and industry left decades ago. That’s why Flint’s so poor. So what IS in the water? Road salt. Plain old stupid road salt. The old Detroit-based source didn’t have salt because it came from Lake Huron which has a large, mostly rural watershed. Meanwhile the Flint River runs through a lot of towns, making it slightly salty as everything melts down in spring. And as we recall from the stalactite experience, a little salt is all it takes to get metals to dissolve.
• Information on this engineering problem was not coming through clearly from the engineering or chemistry sides. It took a biologist, pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, to document the real-time results and provide the data to kick-start a high-level investigation.
• Morals of the story: when dealing with a biological system pls consider asking a biologist, your vagina and/or city could depend on this
• Pls use a condom when fucking any water-soluble material
• Still don’t put the stalactite in your butt -3/10 do not recommend
OK, I haven’t reblogged this before now but the final post takes it to a whole new level and I can no longer resist.
fine, this is the Best Tumblr Post
What a wild fucking ride.
I LOVE YOU SCIENCE TUMBLR
IT GOT BETTER!!!!
Ahem. @buzzfeed things have gotten (even) more interesting on the malachite fucking front.
tumblr is an incredible social networking website
With fucking harvard style references tumblr i love you
what i do is not up to you 