im queer, im here @a-couchpotato - Tumblr Blog

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mysticalcoffeequeen

When you thought it would be easy peasy lemon squeezy but it turns out to be difficult difficult lemon difficult.

switchnx

Wait that’s actually really good, gonna pop this out of the tags

autism tests are so funny. I'm extremely literal most of the time, but people don't tell me that generally, so I'm inclined to answer disagree. because I'm taking the statement too literally

gonzos-humansona

my hips don't lie but they will exaggerate details, misrepresent the facts, and on occasion deceive via omission of crucial information

dragonroar87

legendary dashboard pull

virtualgirladvance

idontevenhaveone

... the worst bit is I know several people this could be, especially given the 'in Australia' clarification

derinthescarletpescatarian

If you know them then there's a chance I might know some of them and that thought will keep me up at night.

antikate

This wasn’t the guy who we all know who used to spray his jeans with Mortein and then light himself on fire, was it?

harlemshakemp3

He used to sit at the back of the bus, cup his hand, spray deodorant into it, then open it and light it on fire with a lighter in one fell swoop to try and impress girls.

He had to stop because the bus company begged our school to tell him to stop bc of legal liability. His hands never actually got damaged after doing it for about a year.

harlemshakemp3

I reached out to my old friend in question here, because I've been thinking about him all day.

I do not know what "the amulet" is. I have no idea what "the amulet" is referring to.

harlemshakemp3

I instantly remembered when he said that.

While we were all at the local park doing legal things that teenagers would do back in the late 2000s, my friend here found a rock at our old smoke spot that was unusually smooth and flat. He liked it so much that he took it to the woodwork classrooms at school, drilled a hole in it, and hung it on a necklace.

When we asked why he weanwearing this dinky-ass pebble on his neck, he claimed it prevented him from ever getting food-related illnesses: wouldn't get food poisoning, couldn't over-eat, was able to ingest anything (prior to him finding The Amulet, a few of us used to play a game called "Devil's Piss" where we would take turns shoving random food bits into a bottle of coke, and the first person to take a sip would get two dollars from the other players).

When we all asked him for the proof that this rock is magical—because nobody believed him, obviously—he said to meet him behind the History block at lunch, where he said he would drink two litres (or half a gallon) of milk in one go and not puke.

We met him there, and about ten of us all watched him down a whole bottle of strawberry milk in two or three breaths.

He didn't puke.

He jumped up and down and punched his stomach to prove it.

He still didn't puke.

I'm so glad I'm alive.

themythicalcodfish

this is why you go outside, something like this could never be scripted

the-haiku-bot

this is why you go

outside, something like this could

never be scripted

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

54625

flicking back through my procreate library what the fuck was this

pillowspace

Things to look for in this:

Fish

Eyes

Body

astronomical-bagel

derinthescarletpescatarian

This is one of the greatest pieces of art in the world OP

allthingswhumpyandangsty

itssjanedoe

s-h-a-s-e

goodfriendo

i wonder what they're gossiping about

jmawork

had to draw them

whimsifae

the most fun a girl can have is finding parallels, noticing patterns, making connections, contemplating

miss-nerd-alert

a-couchpotato

gorl things

princesseddiediazzzz-deactivate

“Steddie fandom is so back” REAL ONES NEVER LEFT, THAT SHIT IS TOO ADDICTING.

strangersteddierthings

lovely-v

Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”

busket

at the rose city comic con panel this month a fan asked them (sean and elijah) if sam and frodo were in love and they said

Sean: .....yes. absolutely

Elijah: 100 percent.

Sean: dont tell rosie

explorerrowan

Rosie: "This is my husband Sam, and that's his husband, Frodo. Frodo is my husband-in-law. I'm not into him, he's he's a bit too 'elfy' for my taste, but Sam likes him, and that's fine with me. As far as I know, Frodo can't give Sam children, but Frodo looks after ours all the same, so I don't mind sharing Sam if it means another pair of eyes on the wee ones. In all honesty, our family tree is right simple compared to some hobbits. Yes, I'm referrin' to you Lobelia, over there pretendin' you ain't eavesdroppin'. Still bitter you ain't got either of my boys or their house, eh?"

arcaniumagi2

ms-katonic-of-tamriel

Tbh it's canon that Frodo invited Sam and Rosie to move in to Bag End after their wedding and they all lived there for a couple of years until Frodo went to Valinor, so yeah. Running with it.

And once Rosie dies, Sam says his goodbyes and disappears after him.

roach-works

what’s funny is people assuming that rosie would somehow be too dim or naive to KNOW that sam loved frodo, instead of looking at a guy who would loyally follow a beloved friend to hell and then help carry him home again, and not be like ‘oh i can’t not fuck that.’

elodieunderglass

Polyamory, specifically polyandry, would be an interesting solution to the oddball population of the Shire.

The Shire is excellent farming country, with consistently good weather, and only one tough winter in living memory; hobbits like to produce large families; they’re resistant to disease, rarely violent, and encounter few dangers. It is usual for hobbits to produce many children, so that (for example) Bilbo and Frodo are unusual in both being only children, with no siblings, and not having children of their own. All of this should point to a population that increases every generation if not doubling outright. Young people (and their ideologies!) should rapidly outnumber the old with an ever-increasing effect and impact on society. However, the Shire has a surprisingly stable history; it never seems to increase or decrease greatly in population, and the bell curve of age seems… demographically balanced? There certainly isn’t a conflict from rising young bloods challenging the middle-aged reactionaries; there’s no unemployment; there are no housing crises or waves of emigration, or even a tendency for young people leaving home to marry. Meanwhile, not only does the Shire not suffer from internal pressures, but it remains obscure and hardly noticed in global politics.

What makes sense here is that adult hobbits form a loose group. Four parents in a polycule, between them all, may produce four children. All four parents claim to have four children. An outsider would assume this meant the adults had eight children.

Hobbits therefore are not especially fertile or fecund. They simply have large families. Much of their interest in genealogy is due to the complex relationships of blood-kin, hearth-kin, love-kin and pledge-kin, who must all be carefully tracked and measured - not just because you need to make sure that you don’t climb into bed with an un-permitted degree of blood-kin, but to track family alliances and carefully quantify the precise level of thoughtfulness to put into the proper present to gift your father’s lover’s lover (too much implies a degree of intimacy that might upset the polycule.)

Thus, while a hobbit matron may tell a startled dwarf that she has seven sons, she might only have borne five of them herself, and have one hearth-son by her wife, and a pledge-son of her first husband’s. There are between three and four fathers involved at various stages of production, from conception to pledge-duty, but there is debate about the precise number of fathers, as one child was festival-conceived and therefore provisionally pledged to the Brandybucks until more distinctive paternal traits should materialise. It’s expected that four of the sons will be uninterested in women, and their contribution to family life will be in raising hearth-children and pledge-duty. However, this level of detail is normally negotiated later in conversation, as a mutual overture of friendship. So she’s just clear and simple: yes, certainly, she has seven sons. Yes, they’re all hers. Yes, that’s fairly normal - yes, hobbits like big families. How big? That’s really hard to say! Well, about thirteen hobbits live in her house… er, she has forty-three nieces and nephews. Yes! She has nine siblings, that’s correct, but some of them are still babies themselves..

In this way, a bewildered dwarf might assume that hobbits are absurdly fertile, producing an average of seven children per couple, at an absurd pace.

When in fact, with about half of hobbits never bearing biological children, the population of hobbits is pretty much always the same.

Tl:dr, hobbit population works perfectly well, both internally and in the perceptions of outsiders, if the majority of the Shire is gay, they’re all polyamorous, and they all firmly claim to be parents of high numbers of children. Of course Frodo fathered Sam’s kids - he named them! They were pledge-kin but not hearth-kin, as Frodo needed a lot of quiet and stability in the home.

No outsider ever parses hobbit genealogy well enough to understand this except for Gandalf, who never explains anything either.

the-writing-goblin

Okay, reblogged this too quickly out of enthusiasm.

This makes so much sense in the worldbuilding, actually???

Like, consider: Elves don't understand hobbit families, but hobbits are also baffled by elf families. You have exactly one partner ever? And it's considered wildly inappropriate to take another even if that partner straight up dies? And they only raise their own children, usually three maximum? Most hobbits would be convinced that elves were cold, unfeeling and anti-social.

Bilbo is percieved as oddly elf-ish when he comes back from his adventure at least in part because he only takes on one hearth-child, and even then quite late in his life. Like sure dude, you don't have to have romantic or sexual partners but no children????? Very strange. Here. Take a Frodo. Maybe he'll fix whatever is wrong with your brain.

And this also explains why hobbits get on better with Elrond than most other elves. Because Elrond has a weird af family by elf standards and takes in foster children all the time. He seems much warmer by comparison. Basically, when Bilbo comes to stay at the Last Homely House and he's doing his writing Elrond would be thrown by how comfortable Bilbo is with his family.

Elrond: My apologies, I know this must be quite confusing for you.

Bilbo: No no I understand perfectly. You have two blood-parents (Elwing and Earendil), two hearth-parents (Maglor and Maedhros), one blood-brother (Elros), and one pledge-brother (Gil-galad). Certainly a bit unconventional due to the kinslaying and all, and a bit on the small side, but other than that...

Elrond, who has never in his life had his family called 'small': ...

elodieunderglass

You get it

sailor-lady

I need detailed breakdowns on the differences between blood-, hearth-, love-, and pledge-kin STAT

medliwaith

Blood - biologically related

Hearth - lives in your home, presently

Pledge - legal documentation on some sort of “vow,” of familial connection, like a legal marriage or adoption or birth certificate, and maybe also something like a fealty/apprenticeship in some cultures?

Love - you love them so they are kin on an emotional level, regardless of biology, where they live, or legal documentation.

I really like this a lot & it makes a lot of sense. I wonder how the whole “cabbage patch hobbits” reproduction would affect this! Like, that way, you can’t even rely on matrilineal genealogy, because biological parentage is nonbinary & sexless - any two, or maybe even fewer or greater numbers of bio parents could be involved in procreation.

elodieunderglass

Yeah you got it!

I think any cabbage-patch shenanigans would come under “blood.” Thus leading dismayed outsiders to ask: why do plants count as blood????? Why are plants blood!!!!!!!

distracteddaintydemon

I don't think I ever have heard about cabbage-patch hobbit-related shenanigans. Are you, by chance, in a mood to elaborate?

elodieunderglass

The Bagginshield fandom is a fascinating example of a pressure-cooker fandom of extremely creative ideas, still strong after 15 years, provoked by absolutely awful films. It just goes to show, though I’m not sure what.

In Appendix A of RotK, Tolkien writes:

Dís was the daughter of Thráin II. She is the only dwarf-woman named in these histories. It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves ‘grow out of stone’. It is because of the fewness of women among them that the kind of the Dwarves increases slowly, and is in peril when they have no secure dwellings. For Dwarves take only one wife or husband each in their lives, and are jealous, as in all matters of their rights. The number of dwarf-men that marry is actually less than one-third. For not all the women take husbands: some desire none; some desire one that they cannot get, and so will have no other. As for the men, very many also do not desire marriage, being engrossed in their crafts.

This gave rise to the “born from stone” mini-trope in the Bagginshield fandom, in which dwarves given sufficient motivation can simply carve a baby. This (among other things) allows same-gender couples to reproduce conveniently.

Cabbage Patch Hobbits is a more popular AO3 tag kicked off by an author inspired by the “Born from Stone” trope. Hobbits, the reasoning goes, are known for fertility/fecundity and association with the Earth. In this trope they can just plant a token, and it will grow a vine, which will fruit a baby to dig up. I believe the originating fic does this with a lock of both parents’ hair, and allows for posthumous baby-planting, with resulting amusing Baby Reveals when the parent turns out not to be dead.

It isn’t particularly my thing, but is a creative and whimsical burst of inspiration and imagination, patching holes, adding new, and resonating with canon and original ideas. These things are such charming and productive examples of collective storytelling, and so, even if I don’t like them myself, I will always hold these things in higher honour than people who think canon should be preserved in resin.

screamyvegetables

whencartoonsruletheworld

[ID: Screenshot of tumblr tags reading “please op i am desperate for the context.” End ID.]

Sure, here ya go:

Lord George Gordon Byron was an English poet in the early 1800s.

He wrote several narrative poems that influenced the gothic genre and was a HUGE fucking slut. HUGE. This bisexual mess slept with so many fucking people it was insane, no gender was safe. Unfortunately that “no one was safe” mentality did not work out well for him bc there were a LOT of rumors that he impregnated his half-sister.

His only child from a legitimate marriage was from his wife, Lady Anne Isabella Noel Byron, who straight-up left him after a year. You know how divorce was uncommon in the 1800s? His wife was just so fed up with him that she did not care and left when her daughter was five weeks old.

This daughter was named Ada and would become known as Ada Lovelace.

Byron signed the separation papers and then left the country to have sex elsewhere and would later die when Ada was eight.

During that time if a couple divorced, usually the Dad would get full custody, so just in case he tried anything Lady Byron made sure to play the devoted and overattentive mother.

Lady Byron was absolutely paranoid that her daughter would become an insane gothic mess like her dad so she decided the only thing to do would be to make sure she did not become a Poet™. So she heavily encouraged Ada’s interests in science and mathematics.

Around the 1830-40s, Ada met Charles Babbage through a mutual friend and he showed her his prototype for a mechanical calculator. She got absolutely obsessed with this machine and began helping him out with it to the point where her notes on it became more extensive than his.

She also added notes to a translation of a paper on this engine that is considered to be the first published algorithm.

These notes on the engine and translation became the basis for computer programming.

She’s considered The First Computer Programmer™

So, because Lord Byron was a little slut and his wife wanted their daughter to Not Be, we now have to deal with tumblr discourse. Thank you and goodnight.

autisticexpression

Vampire fiction and science fiction as we know it today also exist as a direct result of his friends being stuck in a cabin with him during a storm so there’s that as well. Hot vampires and sci-fi nerds are also his fault.

airandangels

She was one of the people stuck in the cabin (well I think it was more of a 19th century Airbnb that the group of friends rented for a holiday that was then ruined by the weather) with him. Since they couldn’t do any outdoor activities they decided to write spooky stories and read them together instead. She wrote Frankenstein, kicking off the science fiction genre, and Dr John Polidori wrote… I’ve forgotten the title and it might just be “The Vampire” or “Vampyre” or something like that but anyway he did that. Dracula is much more influential now but that was the first big vampire novel. Byron didn’t create either genre but arguably motivated their creation by being an annoying horndog so they wanted to stay in their rooms writing instead of hang out with him.

rattleroze

It’s also worth mentioning that the summer they were stuck in that cabin is referred to as the Year Without Summer and was directly caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia the year before. It is also blamed for failed crops and mass famine on almost every continent, and the explosion could be heard something like 1600 miles away. The eruption of Tambora and the subsequent lack of summer worldwide is estimated to have killed anywhere from 100,000 to many millions of people. If all the deaths from diseases such as cholera and typhoid that found perfect conditions to spread rapidly during the famines are included, the total death toll could be estimated around 40 million people worldwide, which would put it on par with world war one.

TL;DR: Byron being a goth slut led directly to his daughter inventing computer programming, and being stuck in a cabin with him during crazy weather patterns caused by the largest volcanic eruption in modern history on the other side of the globe directly led to the invention of the genres of science fiction and gothic horror

brightlotusmoon

Tumblr dragging Lord Byron is similar to its dragging of Ea Nasir, but more verbose and maundering and blunt and intense, which also describes Lord Byron.

tinyyellowflowers-blog

Recommend reading this callout article from 1869 by <checks notes> a Harriet Beecher Stowe.

tinyyellowflowers-blog

Sorry I recommend THIS callout post from 1869.

Lady Byron has not spoken at all; her story has never been told.

noping-out-deactivated20241117

Planning for a flight now consists of planning out how to document the legal violations the airline is inevitably going to commit.

noping-out-deactivated20241117

Since I started using a wheelchair, I have had exactly one (1) flight where an airline didn’t break the law.

The question isn’t “Are airlines breaking the law?” They absolutely are, on almost every flight. The questions are “Does the wheelchair user know their rights?” (most don’t), and “Are they physically and mentally able to document the violations and report them to the DOT?” (most can’t).

noping-out-deactivated20241117

[ID: @diffusedmuse “One question if you have a moment: do you confront airlines themselves or go straight to the DOT? For example, they often push me into signing a release of liability in case they wreck my wheelchair, which I’m fairly sure is illegal but I’m afraid to say anything and be denied my flight.”]

Under US law, it is definitely illegal for an airline to make you sign a release of liability for transporting your wheelchair. I would definitely advise you not sign any release of liability. The newest statistics show that airlines damage or lose 25 wheelchairs per day. (Source) You can’t afford for them to not fix or replace your wheelchair if they damage it.

“§382.35 May carriers require passengers with a disability to sign waivers or releases?

“(b) You must not require passengers with a disability to sign waivers of liability for damage to or loss of wheelchairs or other assistive devices.”

(Source)

I always insist on having my wheelchair in the cabin, but if the flight has less than 100 seats they’re not required to have space in-cabin, and if you have a power chair it’s not going to fit in the in-cabin wheelchair closet. So I realize some people have to put their chairs in cargo.

Personally I’d pocket whatever release form they gave me, scan it in when I got home and include it in my DOT complaint. I bet the DOT would be very interested to see what release they’re trying to get you to sign.

I have on several occasions had airline employees threaten to not let me fly, try to maneuver me into agreeing to take a different flight, or insinuate that if I continue to insist they follow the law they won’t let me fly. This is illegal, and I let them know that I know that it is illegal.

“§382.11 What is the general nondiscrimination requirement of this part?

“(4) You must not take any adverse action against an individual (e.g., refusing to provide transportation) because the individual asserts, on his or her own behalf or through or on behalf of others, rights protected by this part or the Air Carrier Access Act.”

(Source)

So yes, I confront the airline employees myself, although I realize not everyone is able to do so. I always have a copy of the law with me - I have a document where I put together the clauses that I know they’re going to violate, and I print out a couple copies before I fly. I also have the full ACAA on my phone. Only once has an airline employee ever looked at the law - they generally just flat out refuse to read it - but I have it with me so I can prove I know what the law says. That means that can’t say “that’s not in the law,” they can only say “I don’t care what the law says,” and that is not going to show in their favor when they have to justify their actions to the DOT.

I definitely also report the airline to the DOT after I get back from my trip. The DOT’s formal investigation process is to have the airline investigate themselves and report their findings back to the DOT. IME the airline always, every time, lies and claims they didn’t break any laws. They generally accidentally admit to breaking a couple laws, but for the majority it ends up being a he says/she says situation.

Personally, I want the airline to get fined for every clause of the ACAA they break when I fly, not just the ones they accidentally admit to because they are that ridiculously unfamiliar with the law they’re required by law to know. (The record so far is fourteen clauses broken on one flight.) So as of my last flight I now record every interaction I have with an airline employee. On that flight, the minute I realized they had found a new and ridiculous way to violate the ACAA, I set my phone to video and put it in a shallow outside pocket in my personal bag with the camera facing out. When I got home, I extracted the audio file from the video, made a transcript, and forwarded both the audio file and the transcript to the DOT along with my complaint. When the airline investigated themselves and lied about what they did, I then forwarded the audio file and transcript to them as well and proved that their employees lied. It was interesting watching them scramble to explain themselves.

The DOT takes a year to process complaints, so I haven’t heard back from the DOT on that one yet, but I’m particularly interested to see how this complaint turns out as it’s going to be impossible for them to squirrel out of any of their violations. I have proof.

After that last flight I bought myself an audio recorder (like the kind you use to record lectures in school) which I now have hanging from my personal bag. Some airlines prohibit photography and video in their contract of carriage, but I have yet to find one that prohibits audio recordings. Part of my prep for this trip has been testing that audio recorder to see what the range is and how well it records, so I know where on my bag to hang it to be sure it records everything that happens.

If you’re recording audio, keep that in mind when you’re dealing with airline employees. Ask for names or read out their name badge (”Jane Smith, right?”) and describe what’s happening if it’s not apparent from what they say. (”Wait, so you’re telling me I need to sign this release of liability form before you’ll transport my wheelchair? You do realize that’s illegal, right?”)

I have an audio recording of an airline employee on my last flight saying “I don’t care what the law says!” and my response which was “I don’t think the DOT is going to be very impressed with that.” I’m pretty sure they’re not. I can’t wait to see the DOT’s response to the airline.

spoonie-living

This is absolutely amazing. And it’s great that OP outlines several different levels of protecting yourself against and documenting these illegal actions—because, yeah, not everyone can or wants to go All The Way. But to those who do? We salute you.

Anyway, know your rights when flying, y’all [same source as above, we just wanna highlight it].

chronicillnesshumor-deactivated

Doctors are like: ughhhhh. You're confusing. Come back if you die

sanctuarytiktok

🌈Frill_ on TikTok🕊️

marlynnofmany

#this is one of those 'oh yeah we're stewards of the planet' moments #the skill with which she grabbed that bird tho #apex predators who take it upon themselves to heal and repair little things…

gardensofcanaan

@a-rogue-god

thegirlwiththemooglehat

todaysbird

here’s a picture of a baby cedar waxwing begging for food from a robin. neither of these species are nest parasites, so it’s not possible the cedar waxwing was ‘adopted’. this is essentially the bird version of tapping a random person on the shoulder at the grocery store and going “MOM”

bunjywunjy

I love that the robin’s body language is basically WHAT THE FUCK WHOSE KID IS THIS

tinysaurus-rex-deactivated20240

Robin is bathing which make’s it even funnier. More like the equivalent of a strange kid barging in while you’re taking a shower and demanding you make them mac n cheese right now

mitski-miyawakis

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im queer, im here