She didn't sneak into occupied France under cover of darkness. She walked calmly to the front door, rang the bell, and smiled.

"I'm looking for a room to rent," she said in perfect German, her manner gentle and unassuming.

The Wehrmacht commander saw exactly what he expected to see: a harmless middle-aged woman, polite and refined. A widow, perhaps. Someone who posed no threat whatsoever.

He had no idea he'd just welcomed a British spy into his home.

Her name was Lise de Baissac, and she was one of Winston Churchill's secret weapons—a Special Operations Executive agent tasked with setting Europe ablaze from within. Every morning she greeted her landlord with warmth and pleasantries. Every night she slipped into the darkness carrying explosives, meeting with resistance fighters and whispering her golden rule:

"We work quietly, or we do not work at all."

He thought she was his tenant. She was his surveillance. She was sabotage personified, living under his roof, studying his routines, gathering intelligence while he slept one room away.

But this audacious arrangement wasn't where her story began.

September 24, 1942. A British Whitley bomber roared through black skies over occupied France. At thirty-seven years old, Lise de Baissac jumped into the void—alone, armed with nothing but false papers and unshakeable resolve.

Her parachute snapped open over enemy territory. She hit the ground hard, hands frantically burying the silk and British equipment that could mean instant execution. Within minutes, she transformed.

Lise de Baissac vanished. "Madame Irene Brisse" appeared—a cultured widow with a passion for archaeology, sketching Roman ruins and cycling through the French countryside.

Perfectly invisible.

But in her bicycle basket lay coded messages, detonators, and maps of German positions. In the shadows, she built the Artist network—recruiting French resistance fighters who grew from dozens to hundreds to thousands. She established her apartment as a safe house for incoming British agents, briefing them, arming them, teaching them how to survive in a land where one mistake meant torture and death.

Her apartment sat one hundred yards from Gestapo headquarters.

The hunters passed her on the street every single day, never recognizing the ghost they walked beside.

Then came betrayal. June 1943. The Prosper network collapsed. Agents screamed in German cellars. Lise had minutes to live or die. She burned every document, smashed her radio, and sprinted across a moonless field to a waiting Lysander aircraft. As the plane climbed into darkness, searchlights clawed at the sky.

She didn't flinch.

London welcomed her home. Safety. Recognition. Rest.

She refused all three.

Eight months later, she parachuted back into France under a different identity. D-Day was coming, and she had work to do. She cycled hundreds of miles carrying weapons disguised beneath vegetables, smiling politely at German soldiers she passed on the road.

"They think women are invisible," she told fellow resisters. "They should fear what they cannot see."

And when she needed lodging in a heavily garrisoned town? She did the unthinkable—she rented that room from a Wehrmacht commander, living under the same roof as her enemy, gathering intelligence over tea and casual conversation, then vanishing into the night to coordinate sabotage operations.

June 6, 1944. Allied forces stormed Normandy beaches while behind enemy lines, Lise's network went to work. Roads exploded. Bridges collapsed. Trains derailed. Fuel depots erupted in flames.

The feared Das Reich Panzer Division should have reached Normandy in three days. It took seventeen—seventeen crucial days bought by bicycle chains, whispered codes, and carefully placed explosives. Days bought by quiet hands the enemy dismissed as harmless.

For two years, Lise operated deep behind enemy lines. Two parachute jumps. Two networks built from nothing. Torture always one mistake away. Execution always one betrayal near.

She survived.

After the war, she received the MBE, Croix de Guerre, and Légion d'honneur. But the French Resistance fighters who worked alongside her gave her the only title that mattered: "She was one of us."

Lise de Baissac quietly returned to civilian life, planting flowers instead of bombs, watering roses where she once watered courage. She never sought applause or recognition. True heroes rarely do.

She lived to ninety-eight—a graceful woman who broke an empire with patience and steel, who proved that courage isn't loud or showy. It's the archaeology enthusiast on a bicycle. It's the polite tenant who smiles at breakfast. It's the person the enemy never bothered to fear.

Until it was far too late.

Facts that will blow your mind.

This man's an expert

PEER REVIEWED, THIS IS THE BEST POSSIBLE ADDITION

‘The Magic of Jingle Sleigh Heights’

Or: Hallmark Christmas movie turned horror lol

Lego Gideon the Ninth. the overwhelmingly emotional bone dome scene at the end would be just gut wrenching. and then Lego Gideon lands on a lego fence spike and breaks into bricks. with the lil noise and all.

My favouritest sport fact ever is that in 1990s 2 cardiac surgeons watched an f1 race to save the lives of countless kids. The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) kept losing the lives of patients after successful heart surgeries. Specifically the 10-15 minutes after a bonefide clinically successful surgery patients would die:

And so the two surgeons filmed a handover after heart surgery and sent it to the Ferrari pitcrew who were told to critique and improve handover process

And from this:

we got this:

The error rate during patien handovers dropped from 30% to 10% with the F1 informed protocol.

I literally love this fact so much because being an pitcrew member is such a thankless job because theyre underpaid and overworked mechanics and they literally saved lives in this instance.

“BACK WHEN TIME DIDN’T MATTER” — AN OIL PAINTING BY RIONA

@teaboot

the thing is that Harrow said "I also choose this guy's dead wife"

She bloody well did too

One flesh, one end, bitch.

My version of "doomscrolling" nowadays is just going to iNaturalist, browsing pictures of animals and fantasizing about where I would introduce them outside of their natural range if I was some kind of ecology-focused evil scientist. I do this when I'm depressed. I don't know if it helps.

Bring hyena to Texas put Texas in hyena paws humans can trust Texas to hyena pack yesss

How could I disagree with such a trustworthy source

animals i really want to introduce to the USA:

-red pandas in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. they can live in those you-pick orchards and delight tourists, and in the winter the big ones can be harvested by the farmers for food and fur. america also has native bamboo, as well as plenty of escaped invasives.

-koalas in southern california. we already have a lot of feral eucalpytus in the state and it makes our wildfires way worse. let's put koalas in there too. coyotes can hunt them like dingos do.

-cheetahs in colorodo, wyoming, nebraska, and oklahoma. we had cheetahs here once, that's why pronghorns are so fast. let's give them something to really haul ass about.

-spotted hyenas in texas and new mexico. did you know there's actually a shit ton of oryx already roaming around new mexico? they were brought in for a game preserve. oryx can fight off lions, but spotted hyenas are actually superior pack hunters with some of the highest kill rates of large cooperative predators in the world. we might have a problem with ranchers, but like: fuck ranchers. they already decimated the mexican wolf populations. they deserve hyenas.

-pangolins. i would drop these guys in arizona honestly. everyone in arizona hates and fears fire ants. i think entire neighborhoods would throw ecstatic parades for pangolins (which smell much better than giant anteaters) at least until a pangolin dug straight through their pasteboard condo.

-new zealand's little penguin in louisiana. they burrow into mud and sand banks during the day and tolerate quite hot temperatures! i think they'd do fine, and louisiana is sliding into the gulf anyway. let's have penguins there. i'd also try them out in new england in case lousiana is just too swampy for them. i feel like new yorkers would go insane with pride over having penguins around. they would act like they invented the whole concept of penguins. we should let them.

-water buffalo. georgia and the carolinas. i just think it would give everyone there some interesting new problems.

-i firmly believe that asiatic elephants would do great in the southeastern united states. it's a subtropical climate that's only going to get swampier as things heat up, and there's plenty of kudzu and tall grass species for them to munch on. they're also smart enough to learn to navigate and negotiate with people, and to follow set routes around human farms rather than tromp through them, so disruption to existing human infrastructure would be minimal but occasionally hilarious. i think it would be so cool to have an american subspecies of elephant. if i ever win the lottery this IS what i am going to be doing with my millions.

Animals I would introduce to each continent:

Europe: Wombat

We've had enough of your fucking rabbits and foxes. Here, have a huge badger type thing that can destroy cars with its arse. It'll outcompete your badgers and where will you be then. Haha.

Asia: Wombat

We've had enough of Indian camels ruining our deserts. Here's something to ruin your terrain for a change.

North America: Wombat

We've had enough of United States tourists with no manners. Here's some tourists with even less manners.

South America: Wombat

WE'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR FUCKING CANE TOADS. WOMBATS FOR YOU.

Africa: Wombat

The feral ostriches aren't actually all that much of a problem right now, but in revenge for the problem they will probably become in the future, have some fucking wombats.

Antarctica: Wombat

I'll take it right back home and warm it up I promise I. I just really want to see a wombat walk and dig in the snow.

Australia: Wombat

The populations of all three species of wombat are dangerously low.

see while the first set of animals is really selling me on the concept of an ecologically based supervillain, Derin's wombat themed villain is showing up MUCH clearer in my minds eye

@wholesome-animal-images

i feel like i should reiterate because you idiots have proven yourselves in need of careful supervision: DO NOT BUY ME A FUCKING PS4 CONSOLE? i still dont have anywhere to put it, i also don't even have a tv/pc to connect it to, AND I CAN GET MYSELF ONE AFTER I'VE MOVED. SO STOP IT.

No tv you say?

callout post for tumblr user @savantthinker: participates in problematic shipping

Imagine having such a bad day at work you read about it on the internet when you finish

Where are my high diving bears? Are they alright? Is everything okay?

Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That's why I build pallet structures on the company time.