The Talon Times

A story is entertainment. A story is a life lesson. A story gains sympathy, garners respect, engenders disgust. Stories play through the entire range of emotion, effect us deeply and leave us thinking. Stories shape our lives, we formulate them in our silences and share them in our words. Stories are very powerful things, they are a way of life that has lasted for centuries. Some people say that you never truly die until nobody knows that you lived. Stories are what keep the memory alive. Stories are what brought our ancestors close around the fire, sharing some of their food with a stranger who did not in any way participate in the quest for sustenance. They did this because the stranger walked in the midst of them and told stories. Wonderous descriptions of a mighty mountain engulfed in flame, Dramatic tales of the battle of gods in the clouds, of whole lands consumed by massive walls of water. Stories of danger and disaster, adventure and woe. Stories of Life and Love. These are some of my favorite stories from around tumblr.

[descole-dead]

Tintin remembers what comes after 15.

[drtanner]

FUCKING HELL IT’S BACK FROM LAST YEAR

[descole-dead]

This literally gets reblogged every 15th of the month. It’s almost two years old. It’s beautiful.

[descole-dead]

listen up ya’ll this post is 6 years old now and you’re still reblogging it. every month. once a month, my notifications blow up for this one video, but only until the 16th. then the notes on this vid completely stop. it’s so eerily spot on and impressive how you just all collectively know what to do. if I’m not online, people irl still remind me that it’s the 15th. thank you for six surreal years of me wondering if I completely fucking lost it. here’s to the 15th

[ruffboi-mags]

13 years and going strong.

[conker-shell]

everyone make sure you leave out the milk and cookies and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife and knife tonight 🥰

[p1ss]

[ejacutastic]

I DIDN’T LEARN ABOUT THIS IN DRIVING SCHOOL

[biszumletzten]

Stop says the red light, go says the green

Wait says the yellow light, twinkling in between. 

KNEEL, SAYS THE DEMON LIGHT WITH ITS EYE OF COAL  SAURON KNOWS YOUR LICENSE PLATE  AND STARES INTO YOUR SOUL

[demonsnakes-deactivated20160829]

THIS IS ALWAYS FUNNY

[brightlotusmoon]

@irritatedlifeguard I agree with your tags.

[puppygirllaika]

Finally broke down and looked up "67" on wikipedia today, and i love that wikipedia had to include the fact that people are using the meme as evidence of "brain rot" in younger generations because of how low-effort it is. And like, i have no horse in this race, i'm clearly out of touch enough with what the kids are saying that i have to go look up memes on the internet to understand them, but brain rot? I'm pretty sure kids have been saying random numbers as memes since... like, the beginning of language. the beginning of numbers. I'm guessing that some time around 15,000 years ago in hunter-gatherer tribes all around the world a scene played out where one kid shouted "hey look, four rocks!" after seeing a few rocks on the ground, and every other kid in the tribe shouted "four rocks! four rocks!" and the adults just stood around like "what the fuck are the kids on about now?" and then had to live with the kids saying "four rocks!" every time they saw four of literally any object together. Like, this does not seem like a new phenomenon.

[kneebie]

You make a compelling point. Especially because "four rocks" IS hella fun to say. Thanks for the new way to confuse my friends when hiking!

[puppygirllaika]

four rocks!!!

[dericbindel]

four rocks!!!

[animentality]

[silly-jellyghoty]

Yes please to all of this!

[ozth]

found this three year old draft buried in my files. is it funny? I don't remember

[wispsofwhimsy]

no no you’re on to something don’t leave this in the notes!

[smuganimebitch]

To this day I still don't believe that anyone actually thought you could generate infinite chocolate via an optical illusion. That's a thing people tell themselves to feel superior

[smuganimebitch]

The defining feature of tumblr is not "the website where people actually think infinite chocolate is possible", it is defined by a group of people refusing to break kayfabe, another group being genuinely confused by an optical illusion (NOT the same thing as thinking infinite chocolate is possible) and a third group who is certain they are a lot smarter than the other two.

[queeranarchism]

If this is your first round on the 'US uses blatantly false evidence as an excuse to attack a country for purely selfish reasons' track, then let me save you a lot of future embarrassment:

You don't need to try to become a public expert on Venezuela or Maduro based on reading half the Wikipedia page or scrolling the Bluesky tags. You don't need to state any opinion on the former political situation of Venezuela at all. It's okay for now to admit that you know fuck all about it, or to just not speak on it.

An opinion like 'The US shouldn't use blatantly false evidence as an excuse to attack a country for purely selfish reasons' is a full opinion that doesn't require knowing exactly what was up in the country being attacked.

Don't fall for the temptation of 'the enemy of my enemy must be a friend, so I'm gonna get on their hill and write minimally-informed stuff about how great they are'. Trust me, you're gonna feel very silly about that later.

[mumblesplash]

i might have already talked about this before but it’s actually crazy that jogging gets treated as a default ‘getting into shape for the first time’ exercise ESPECIALLY if someone’s goal involves weight loss. people who are more than ~200lbs often need special gear and running techniques to avoid shin splints etc *even if all that weight is solid muscle*, and the likelihood of injury only goes up as strength to weight ratio decreases. someone who’s both heavy AND untrained is just going to be miserable for however long it takes their bones and connective tissue to adapt to the sudden increase in demand. usually this takes months, but it can take even longer under adverse conditions like, say, suddenly eating way less than normal. and all this for an activity that literally isn’t even fun unless you are a specific type of insane. there are so many low impact and actually enjoyable forms of cardio why are we slapshotting biomechanically disadvantaged novices into the david goggins torment dimension

[gingersnapwolves]

could. could you maybe. list some of those 'low impact and enjoyable forms of cardio'? this is not sarcasm, this is a genuine request, every form of exercise I have tried recently has put me in the torment dimension. thank you and I love you

[mumblesplash]

yeah sure! there’s a lot of good suggestions in the notes, i’m probably missing a few

if you have access to a gym/appropriate facilities:

a LOT of people in the notes vouching for swimming, and it makes sense. not only is it basically zero impact on any of your joints, it engages just about every muscle in your body and it’s actually easier to stay afloat the higher your bodyfat%

stationary bike/elliptical: works for some better than others, but definitely far lower impact than running, usually has adjustable difficulty, and you can watch youtube videos or play games on your phone to pass the time

non stationary bike: the benefits of a stationary bike plus the ability to travel to a location

weight lifting: if you’re a total beginner to exercise this genuinely might be a better place to start than any designated ‘cardio’ activity, it Will get your heart rate up and build strength to do higher impact stuff with less risk, but designing a routine can feel overwhelming without help from a trainer/more experienced lifter

classes: yoga, pilates, dance, kickboxing, spin class, water aerobics, etc. as long as you can find one that accommodates your current fitness level and is a reasonably friendly environment

rowing: i actually know relatively little about rowing, but this has come up in the notes several times and people seem to like it. def seems like a good overall workout with little to no jarring impact

roller derby: definitely less of a Safe Beginner Activity and more ‘form of cardio you can do if you are on the fit side but still hate running’ but has come up in the notes multiple times specifically as a sport where a range of body types can do well

minimal equipment alternatives:

walking: if you have the resources to jog you have the resources to walk, and it really is a good form of exercise that also puts less strain on your joints

dance tutorials: seen a few people recommending these, there’s apparently a huge variety on youtube and you can take things at whatever pace works for you

yoga: also beginner friendly classes on youtube, good way to build up mobility and bodyweight strength

someone in the notes recommended hula hooping?? which actually sounds kind of genius especially if you don’t have a lot of gear or space. also iirc you can buy different weights of hula hoops for reasonably cheap so there’s a way to up the intensity over time

this seems like a decent resource at first glance and i think i saw more than one rec for them

one important thing to remember for anyone out there who’s significantly out of shape and feels overwhelmed is that when it comes to fitness you have one enormous advantage: it is currently EXTREMELY EASY for you to get exercise

do you 🫵 get winded walking up a flight of stairs? is curling a 5lb dumbbell 10 times difficult for you? can you barely do a single knee push-up? well i have great news: doing all of those things twice still probably takes less you less than 10 minutes. which means you can do a genuinely worthwhile daily workout in less than ten minutes. and it’ll probably get easy fast, and then you can find a heavier dumbbell

[gwenthebard]

in the second little pig's defense, the average log cabin is not besieged by wolves of a supernatural nature, and he honestly made a good home choice for most circumstances one might encounter in Germany

[self-loving-vampire]

I am a gender abolitionist and I think even if my wishes were realized and we got a world without gender people would still want to transition, they would just describe the process differently.

"I want to have soft skin and boobs" rather than "I want to be a cute girl", for example.

[self-loving-vampire]

This is what TERFs, who only pretend to be gender abolitionists for optics while going out of their way to enforce gender, don't seem to get.

They pretend that if there were no gender roles no one would transition and trans people would cease to exist.

What's more accurate is that "trans" as a category would become incoherent but people would still have preferences about their bodies and would benefit from modifying them in ways that our current world considers to be heavily gendered.

Personally, I think it would be all upsides if you did not even have to convince a medical gatekeeper that you are really a girl deep down and grew up playing with dolls and trying to wear makeup before you're allowed to have tits. You should be able to get those at your local pharmacy no questions asked.

[liberalsarecool]

Let's have the conversation about UBI.

Let the actual data and facts end the bad faith arguments.

[wizardshark]

I was a participant of the now cancelled UBI pilot in Ontario Canada. I was happier, safer, was able to move and work at better jobs.

And oops there it is. Better jobs.

Better jobs

It's a class barrier. They need a poverty class to function

[teratocybernetics]

#people being able to leave jobs that maltreat them is a threat to capitalism

[kyraneko]

Being able to force every last job in existence to make itself sufficiently respectful, acceptable, and worthwhile to the worker that someone will choose to do it when NOT goaded by the threat of starvation is probably both the greatest positive effect UBI would accomplish AND the real reason it faces so much opposition.

[vilkalizer]

#people being able to leave jobs that maltreat them is a threat to capitalism

[swimmingblue]

and there it is.

Capitalism needs an underclass. It's not that these jobs are less valuable - in fact, many of them are necessary for society to function. (thank you, sanitation workers!) It's more that capitalism needs these jobs to be seen as less-than so that they can get away with treating these people like shit - bad wages, bad treatment, etc.

If everyone got UBI, a lot of jobs would stand empty. Not because people don't want to do them, but people don't want the bad treatment that comes with them. Employers would be forced to change their methods if they wanted to hire and retain staff, and they don't want to do it.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#honestly you could probably hire retail workers at like $5 an hour under UBI#but you wouldn't be able to schedule them for a clopen on a weekend and threaten their livelihood if they're five minutes late#would that be worth it? probably to like normal people. megacorps... well.

[armengoldira]

Roman aqueducts

[doodleoo]

[marxistgnome]

Memes shared by kids who grew up on starships I think they should have sea scout/land scout beef with kids that grew up on Starbases

[vaspider]

This is legitimately one of the best things I've ever seen on the internet, and it made me intensely happy.

[reddpenn]

Oh hey, "cool rock I found (it's making a weird humming noise)" is a Petoskey stone! Specifically it's MY Petoskey stone!

No weird humming noises yet, but by the 22nd century, who knows?

[hemipenal-system]

dragon absolutely happy to marry a human princess for diplomatic reasons but she is NOT going to turn human. she can fit on that bed just fine as a big scaly quadruped

[hemipenal-system]

they tell the dragon she doesn’t need to fit in the bed because she isn’t actually obligated to fuck the princess and she’s almost more shocked at the idea that she wouldn’t have sex with her wife

the princess is conflicted about all this

[hemipenal-system]

the princess is no longer conflicted about all this

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

[astro-egg-celent]

I want a dachshund or other small dog because it seems like a good middle ground

[veshume]

Sorry for the unsolicited advice, but please do think it over. Dachshunds (and many other small breeds) actually require quite a lot of activity and exercise (mental and physical)*. If those needs aren't met, that can cause so many difficult behavioral problems. They're working dogs, after all: if they aren't given a job, they'll find one themselves (and it'll be likely something very annoying or unpleasant to you)

*yes, it does depend on the individual dog, but the general tendency points to those breeds being high energy

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#tons of small breeds were made specifically to hunt small fast animals so like. don't get a small dog thinking it'll be easier#dachshunds were bred to hunt badgers. do you want a dog with the need to hunt badgers or do you want a little dude to hang out with#if it's the latter just get a cat

[brickylittle]

oh my god I just realized this is the year people will stop being born and stop aging and stop dying

[trippin-on-apple]

What football will look like in the future

Something is terribly wrong. Something is terribly wrong. Something is terribly wrong. Something is terribly wrong.