ArdentlyQueer

24. he/him, xe/xem, fae/faer. Yes, that's me in the photo - SCA, Kingdom of Lochac. There is no particular rhyme or reason to my interests, I'm bad at talking and mostly reshare art and frustrated opinions.

[macklesufficient]

i have too much joie de vivre for this

[macklesufficient]

i’m so serious when i say excessive fear of being annoying/creepy/taking up people’s energy etc holds us back. it seems like it’s just little things but they add up. over the past month i’ve ordered food and drinks almost exclusively by asking “do you have a favorite?” and i know if i said that on twitter or wherever ppl would dogpile me for demanding emotional labor of servers or w/e but every single person i’ve asked has seemed genuinely psyched to answer! i don’t ask if it’s busy obvi, and use a phrasing that gives them the easy out of “i don’t have one”— but no one has taken it! the girl at the cafe confessed to me with something like conspiracy in her voice how everybody raves about the gluten free chocolate chip cookies and sure, they’re great, but the delicious, fluffy homemade waffles are RIGHT THERE. the barbera the bartender recommended was actually kind of awful but it broke the ice and we ended up talking for like 45 minutes. the bodega guy declared that he usually makes himself a burger but tonight was “a breakfast sandwich night” and tbh he was totally right. it WAS a breakfast sandwich night

[macklesufficient]

thank you tumblr user @saw5. tumblr user saw 5 gets it

[spontaneousmusicalnumber]

A frustrating part of the mainstream vegan “love all animals and protect the environment” mindset is the fact that things need to die in real-life ecology all the time but deer hunting season makes icky feelings and carp culls aren’t cottagecore

[spontaneousmusicalnumber]

The vegan “any animal death ever is morally wrong” mindset doesn’t hold up when:

We don’t have any of the large predators we used to (black bears, mountain lions, or gray wolves) but still retain large deer populations. If nothing is removing animals, they’ll quickly overload the carrying capacity of the environment and have massive losses to starvation and disease that can also pass on to livestock. Human hunters replace the large predators that our landscape can no longer support.

It’s kinder to euthanize an un-releasable hawk rather than try to find it a permanent home with humans. Wildlife rehabs have extremely limited space and resources and are usually run entirely on donated money and volunteer time. Only a few are large and stable enough to care for permanent residents long-term, and those spots are few and far between.

An invasive species poses a danger to threatened native wildlife. I will admit- Australian possums are adorable. But not in New Zealand, where they’re an invasive species that eats the eggs of ground-dwelling birds that previously had no such predators. The landowners I worked with replanting native bush, all native Maori, had no qualms about setting the dogs on them.

I don’t know how to end this except. Sometimes things just gotta die and acting otherwise just isn’t a realistic expectation.

[spontaneousmusicalnumber]

Highlights from the notes over the past 6 months include a lot of angry vegans saying “you’re blowing things out of proportion, no vegans actually think like this!” and a lot of people who work in conservation and education saying “Every day. I have to fight people who think like this.”

As a bonus this post was originally inspired by the vegan who called me racist for saying we should kill invasive species

[josephbrassey]

“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

And I refuse to let the cynics own a chunk of my heart.

[ob-2-kenobi]

I miss the days when Dropout doing copaganda was a ridiculous joke that would never actually happen.

No company is your friend, and though it hurts I'm at least thankful to be reminded of that.

[haiimrowie]

@k1ju02's tags:

[randombsidk]

ABC’s ‘The Rookie’ to Crossover With Dropout’s ‘Game Changer’ in March Episode

It's the crossover no one knew they needed: ABC's "The Rookie" will air an episode "prominently" featuring the cast of Dropout's "Game Chang

Here's the article mentioned ^^

It unfortunately clarifies that the Game Changer cast and set will be on an episode of The Rookie, and not that some actors from that show just so happened to be on Game Changer :///

[primarchslut]

dia…

[deactivating-s00n-deactivated20]

tumblr users’ obsession with self-reporting (especially as a weird form of penance) needs to be studied

[deactivating-s00n-deactivated20]

you don’t need to tell the world you still like Harry Potter because it’s your comfort movie or because your dad read it to you when you were little or something like that in response to a post about the harm continued monetary support of Harry Potter causes. you don’t need to tell tumblr all the myriad of reasons you don’t like rap under a post about how rap is often misrepresented as ultra-violent or overtly sexual and misogynistic because of racism. No one on tumblr has to know anything about you. no one has to know you still read your old Harry Potter books or that the only rap artist you like is Eminem. No one is going to say “oh of course you’re the One True Good Person with a Good Reason!” when you say that rap is difficult to listen to because of your auditory processing disorder or you’re only a part of the Marauders fandom. Just keep your shit to yourself and don’t embarrass yourself under other peoples’ posts.

[lebada]

funniest possible reply and its not even on purpose

[crimeronan]

-charlotte zhang art installation at the alice gallery

[elumish]

Things that People Forget About When Writing Sword Fights

You don’t have to dodge by a foot. You only have to dodge by an inch.

Not all swords are made the same way. You wouldn’t fight with a katana the same way you would fight with a broadsword.

You don’t need to aim for the heart or the head. Get the vein in wrist, and you could incapacitate that hand.

Small cuts matter. If you’re cut up enough, you’re going to start suffering from blood loss, and that’ll put you at a disadvantage.

The blade isn’t the only thing that matters. There isn’t some set of rules in sword fighting where you can only stick the stabby end into the other person. Hit them in the head with the hilt, and they’ll feel it.

If there are multiple attackers, you want to incapacitate or kill each one as quickly as possible. Endurance matters, especially when you’re not only swinging/stabbing/aiming something that is 2-5 lbs (ceremonial ones were a lot heavier, but wouldn’t be generally fought with) but also taking/blocking heavy blows from at least one opponent.

[the-haiku-bot]

You don’t have to dodge

by a foot. You only have

to dodge by an inch.

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

[english-history-trip]

That final haiku actually makes for a pretty good maxim!

[mckitterick]

also, real swordfights only last seconds, not minutes: you take a hard hit in the hand, or your leg gets gashed, or a sword-tip finds its way between protective armor, and the fight is effectively done

[lady-wildflower]

That last one is very true; I’ve been learning fencing lately (SCA rapier fencing) and timing is vitally important. Last night’s practice we went over how different parts of the body take longer to do something with.

If you can do something to force your opponent to move their whole body in order to get to you, that gives you a huge opening to do multiple things with your wrist and feet. Wrist is fastest, then legs, then body. Speed is key.

Though, one reason a fencing bout might last more than like ten seconds is if one party is extremely defensive to the point they aren’t properly engaging. See also me, because I missed the start of the class term so I kinda know what to do with a sword and dagger but my footwork is atrocious and I have very little idea what to do with just a sword lol. I don’t know what I’m doing so I’m constantly defensive and retreating, though at least my flailing defense is in the right direction.

Also some additions:

You don’t always have to dodge at all - especially in fencing, a lot of it is redirecting your opponent’s sword a little with your own so that their sword goes over your shoulder, and your sword goes in their throat. Dodging, since it’s a lot of your body, is often slow, and you want to be doing something quicker. Or dodge with your foot, step back instead of trying to lurch your whole body back. But it’s best when you can do something with your arm to stop or redirect the attack, like the above. Speed is key, so you want to be doing the quickest thing you can, which is always your hand!

If you are the multiple attackers, stick with your buddies! It’s hard to deal with multiple people at once! I’m not great at fencing, but what I am is someone with steel in stabbing range and just because I’m an amateur doesn’t mean I can’t get ya in the spleen if your sword isn’t in my way because you’re focusing on the competent ones.

If there’s someone with a gun who wants to shoot you (or if you have an ally who wants to shoot your opponent), as there might be depending on the era or setting, put your sword opponent between you and the gun so their ally would have to shoot through them to hit you. We do rubber band gun stuff in SCA melee, like a period-appropriate arquebus - they’re about as accurate as a real one lmao - and for the first bout our opponent kept me between him and my gunner. It made life very difficult for my gunner! The second bout, I did everything possible to stop him from doing that, and he got very rubber band gun shot.

[ardently-queer]

the SCA has been so much fun for analysing combat scenes in movies. sometimes they're really good! and sometimes it's... yeah.

i could never be trusted in olympic fencing, i'm used to playing with a sword not a wire on a handle. don't be there is always useful and in our first class the instructor drilled us on not stepping so far through a particular dodging maneuvre. but sometimes you like where you are just fine thanks and when that is the case the next best thing is, as lady-wildflower said, you make their sword not be there instead.

that doesn't work in olympic fencing. it requires a certain amount of mass. there are varying degrees of finesse with which you can accomplish this, but finesse is not my strong suit so i'm quite fond of the classic just whack their sword and follow it through into a stab. this may or may not have something to do with being a heavy who also does fencing, rather than solely a fencer.

unit fighting is a totally different skillset to single combat. i learned this the hard way. don't be me.

absolutely whittle their numbers down as fast as possible, but the way you need to move to do that is totally different. do not get separated from your mates. i can't think how to describe the terror of losing track of your team in the middle of a melee, i had never felt fear on the field like that before.

in the end my team of five (four when I bowed out) won the melee tournament against a total of eleven others, more than doubly outnumbered.

unit fighting changes the game completely. individual skill becomes so much less important than communication, spatial awareness (and I have dyspraxia, I suck at this, I have also improved enormously because it is something you can develop even if you were born with a detriment to it) and nerve.

any single physical advantage another person has, it doesn't grant advantage overall. greater height and reach is a weakness, too - sure they can reach right over my shield to bop me on the head the bastards, but I'm faster and if I block right I'll get them in the body or leg and keep their weapon trapped up in their air totally useless while I do it. yeah they have long arms, but they've got a whole body i can stab them in. I'm also in general surer on my feet because my centre of gravity is that much lower, and that's invaluable. my arms may be shorter but if i flick my wrist just right, i can still get you over your shield in the side of the head.

contrary to the mandates of dnd you can and should attempt to cut people with rapiers, it is a perfectly legitimate tactic. they *usually do not have the mass to do a big sweeping cut (*meyer disagrees, german and many english rapiers are shorter and heavier thanfrench and spanish ones) but you can apply your nice sharp edge to a blood vessel and make that your opponent's problem. oh you missed a thrust? no problem. what were you aiming at? the head? neat, look at all those blood vessels in the neck. the body? same goes for under the arm and in the groin. draw cuts work. it's not a needle, it's a blade, you can and should use it like one.

nobody likes fighting left-handers less than other left-handers.

it isn't just a game of sharp edges. your blade is your defense and your grappling hook and the furniture is a perfectly decent bludgeoning instrument (which is a thing you should not do in real life because we kill our friends we don't maim them).

and in it not being just a game of blades... your off hand isn't just there for decoration. if it's empty, make your grabby paw your opponent's problem. or put something in it. shields. cannot overstate how much i love these criminally underrated things. yes your blade is your defense but that's fuck all good when the other side's got archers. a shield's just better at it.

shields are so good for hitting people that they don't let us do it because there's really no way to make it safe-ish. you can scone someone with the edge of a buckler but you should leave it to your dnd characters and fictional protagonists because it works a bit too well.

if you're shorter than the average cis guy is, like me, you're gonna be fighting taller people a lot and boy are shield corners beautiful. cannot count the number of times i've managed to uppercut somebody with the leading corner of my shield. works really well. don't do it on purpose, sometimes it just happens. your shield is not a static nothing item. we talked about making their sword move? yeah, you can do that with a shield. hook their shield out to make an opening, apply the edge to their weapon (especially if it's a polearm) or to the arm holding said weapon. it's an active tool and you are an ape with powers of creative thinking.

kicking, knee-ing, elbowing and headbutting people are all perfectly legitimate tactics if you can't get a sword in there, and we can't play with those in the SCA because we prefer not to break eachother. if it's a desperate fight, bring these tricks out because sure they're a bit dirty but they work and people used them. they're just not the sorts of things people like to write songs about.

now go forth and write more interesting fight scenes. bring me a shield hook already.

[eulers-babe]

for no reason whatsoever here’s a reminder that if you consider yourself a leftist/punk/abolitionist/anarchist/radical in any sort of way and get called into jury duty, you are to become the most square person on earth during the jury questionnaire!!!

don’t be that guy who says fuck the police in the jury questionnaire! that just gets you sent home! if you want to generate change, interact with the case and use your jury vote for good! ESPECIALLY if it’s a high profile case!

[libraryogre]

Remember, when you're on the jury, a good "that cop's story didn't add up" will sway a lot more Chads and Karens than "fuck the police."

[damnfool-of-a-took]

Had jury duty, can confirm!

An innocent man is home with his family instead of spending his kids' whole childhoods in jail for "resisting arrest" when none of the cops could agree on why he was being arrested in the first place. (But it definitely had nothing to do with him being a Black man in a nice car, honest! 🙄)

And it still took like two hours of delibration after we'd heard all the evidence because one lady was so gung ho about believing everything the cops said, even when not a single goddamn one could agree with their own testimony, let alone their colleagues'.

Pointing out all the inconsistencies and admitted misconduct and letting people slowly come to their own conclusions as the trial played out was fucking hard, I won't lie. I can be patient, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

But. Yelling about how this was obviously a bs case would have shut everyone down and made them stop listening. Asking questions and letting people discuss how the cops tried to make xyz sound suspicious but it was totally normal, or about how if things played out the way the cops said then logically events should have proceeded in a totally different direction, and positing different theories that actually lined up with the evidence presented?

That got people thinking, and everyone realized that for a variety of reasons we all had reasonable doubts that the defendent had committed any of the crimes of which he was accused.

Being able to raise reasonable doubt among a jury of one's peers saves lives. If you get the chance, take it.

[papercranesandpride]

So you know how every once in a while someone gets a bunch of notes for pointing out that it's theoretically possible for a trans masc to get two penises, one from phalloplasty and one from metoidioplasty?

So I had a consult with Dr. Rajveer Purovit at Mount Sinai in NYC, and while I am not remotely trying to get that, it just happened to come up in conversation that yes, he does in fact have patients who have done exactly that. His preferred way of doing things is to do metoidioplasty first, then construct a phallus from abdominal tissue and place it on the groin above the meta phallus, and then have a third stage of surgery where they are combined and urethral lengthening happens. And the PA was just straight up like "yeah, some people do just stop after phase 2 because they like having the appearance and visual of the larger phallo phallus, but the higher sexual stimulation and better ability to pee with the meta phallus."

So. Yeah it turns out. That is not just a tumblr hypothetical. There are trans people walking around right now in the real world with two penises, and this is a normal surgical outcome from a surgeon who is renowned enough to have his own Wikipedia page.

Like, I definitely would not want that outcome personally, but holy shit that's awesome.

[eightyonekilograms]

[vilecemetery]

leigh bardugo has massively edited and rewritten the six of crows books and no one has noticed

or has for some reason decided not to mention it at all or let anyone else know.

I just found out something insane today. in the new dregs editions that came out for the 10th anniversary, leigh bardugo has removed any and all mention of the crows being teenagers, cut out whole sentences and completely changed quotes that are classic and very well known by fans of the six of crows duology. she’s replaced any mention of words like ‘children’ ‘boy’ ‘girl’ and ‘kids’ with ‘man’ ‘woman’ ‘grown’ etc

this is concerning, bewildering and just feels wrong for so many reasons. but besides the obvious —which is that the six protagonists of the duology being young is essential to many aspects of the plot, seeing as their world weariness and competence is a result of their experiences as children and survivors who are victims of their environment—besides even that, editing a piece of literature that’s been published and on shelves for 10 years is objectively not a good idea at all, and doesn’t at all take into account the new contexts and connotations the new wording brings.

above is an example of the original scene we know verses the new version. lots of it has changed, namely their ages, but the sentence at the end in matthas' pov doesn't even sound like him at all. her writing quality has declined noticeably and she sounds like she wrote that sentence in a rush. it makes no sense, and it's not something matthias, who knows practically nothing about the barrel, would be thinking.

and not to mention the famous line 'brekker's eyes were ancient, but he couldn't be any older then matthias' — cut out of the book completely. I do wonder what impact, effect and influence these changes will have on new readers.

this is another example. such a classic line and they cut it completely.

the entire books are like this. inej saying kaz looking seventeen is changed to kaz looking like someone's apprentice. the boy of the barrel changed to man. criminal prodigy changed to just mastermind. inej described as a woman in place of a sixteen year old girl. wylan changed from boy to young man. full scenes cut. 'jesper is zemeni but don't hold it against him' changed to ‘don’t let him wax sentimental about it’ which sounds way worse then the original.

and I don't actually own the new copies of these books, my best friend was looking at them in a bookstore and that's when we first noticed all of the changes. so I truly have no idea what else could possibly be changed besides the things I noticed as I cannot look at them for reference - the crow's physical appearance, more of the plot, other famous scenes just being cut completely, etc. if nothing else has changed, then it’s still way too much and massively changes core aspects of the books. but I do wonder. if you own the dregs special editions, I suggest looking for similar differences. I might have to write examples to express how messed up the new connotations are.

leigh now implies that jesper, an adult black man, made the right choice by handing over his share from his job to his white father to keep for you, as he cannot control himself and isn't ready to receive his own funds, as he is a mindless gambler. this is extremely different to a reckless irresponsible teenager grieving his mother and making stupid mistakes, and then deciding to make better decisions in the future with help from his parent. I'm sure you can see without me spelling it out how awful, racist and problematic the new context of jesper being a grown man makes this situation sound.

another example is matthias' childhood centrally seeing him be groomed, manipulated and indoctrinated by a nazi coded witch hunting organisation that targets grisha, an oppressed community, with the intention of torturing, burning, hanging, raping and eradicating them from the world

matthias is just turning 18 when he meets nina. he has not yet done any of these terrible things himself. he is fresh out of training and still basically a child. his views are first challenged, and he eventually breaks out of the brainwashing and mental manipulation that has been taught and instilled in him with repetition. it's not an excuse, but it's more understandable. matthias, now a grown man apparently way older then 18, has no excuse for these bigoted views as he is way more mature, has way more experience, and would have had to have done these horrific things to grisha at some point.

it feels like some sort of fever dream that six of crows was edited and re published so that these famous teenage characters (who were first written so obviously— in dialogue, actions, pov, - as teenagers) and their criminal prodigy leader were made into poorly written adults. I can put into words how much this has deeply bothered and distressed me and many other readers I've spoken to.

it's such an odd choice and makes me think it was done to soften the backlash the shadow and bone adaption received from some fans for aging up the characters in the first place.

I cannot stress this enough- leigh bardugo would edit iconic lines and change core aspects of her characters that have been around for 10 years to justify a cancelled netflix adaption of these incredibly popular and well loved books. it's odd and uncomfortable.

now, these books mean the world to me, they have quite literally got me through physical, mental and emotional childhood abuse, suicide ideation and self harm, the everyday ableism and oppression, chronic pain and disability experience, severe depression and anxiety, absolute hopelessness, work and life, etc) but the sheer absurdity of this all just outmatches my distress that it happened. it feels like some sort of hallucination becasue it's lowkey just insane. she never even mentioned she was going to do something like this?

there is just no conceivable reason for leigh bardugo to have done this secretly and quietly other then to have stopped people negatively critiquing the show or some other deeply odd notion. and with all of these changes, the new books absolutely are not the 'dregs' editions— the heart of the dregs is the young blood, 'the kids like kaz who he had brought in a organised, who worked the hardest and took the worst jobs'

they are the bad netflix adaption editions. the sympathy for terrible adult cast editions. it's troubling, clearly not a well thought out decision, and deeply bizarre. tell me others agree.

[draconym]

I think it sucks that you have to go to so many different kinds of doctor to take care of yourself. It's the 21st century. I should be able to go to a single office where they scan me with a big xerox machine and tell me what I'm allergic to and why my tummy hurts and if I have any cancer or cavities or if my glasses prescription has changed. And then I should get a sticker.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

ao3 turns 16 today.

reblog if you’re older than archive of our own

[noah-wyles]

she's the best of us

[loveridden1999]

i miss my ex bestfriend & everyone else that i have ever loved but don't want any of them back either

[loveridden1999]

what the fuck man

[squidsmeister]

something vindictive but ultimately harmless I do at work is that if you’re at my register and you’re rude to me and you pay with cash I am finding the most disgusting desolate fucked up unspeakable coin I can to give to you. oh you were mean to me? you’re getting the yucky nickel bitch

[furryprovocateur]

i think ultimately you do really have to kill that part of your brain that vividly imagines how you would redo parts of your life.

[valdin-s]

Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett

[softness-and-shattering]

I never used to understand "but it all led me to here and now where Im happy so I cant be too mad about it all", till I got to a point looking back where stuff was bad, and I deserved differrent and should have gotten differrent, but it also so much shaped the next part of my life, that if things had gone differrently Id likely had had very differrent experiences, met differrent people, had a very differrent life, maybe become a differrent person. So I wish Id had things better, I wish Id been hurt less, but I cant actually wish that things had gone seriously differrently because who I even be? I wish things had been more fair, I wish I had been more supported, I wish I had known a million things I learned the hard way. But if it went differrently proper....thats a full branching timeline. I dont want that, because this is my life.

Idk if this makes sense as vague as Im keeping it tbh.

I think its important to acknowledge where you needed more help, where you should have been treated with more respect, that kind of thing. Its important also to note xyz was a mistake because of abc lets try not make that mistake again. I think these are helpful and self-building. I think pining over things that didnt happen, clinging onto if only-ies, thats not helpful. If you wish you had been more confident, work on your confidence now, yknow? Learning from yourself and your desires and regrets, thats helpful. Wallowing in alternate realities that didnt happen, thats not helpful.

Its normal to think hey what if xyz mightve mean, it just depends what you do with it, how you engage with it.

[chanafehs]

Calling for help - Racism on tumblr/dragon age fandom

I’m at my limit here, this situation has gone on for months and Tumblr hasn’t done a damn thing about it. I send out DMCA strikes so often, and the posts get taken down, but this nazi is still allowed to keep his account, still allowed to stalk and harass me, still allowed to whitewash whatever piece of art I make. His account got taken down for maybe a day or two and then was allowed to reinstate it. Because fuck Palestinians, POC, queer or trans people - right tumblr?

This person has:

Repeatedly whitewashed my art: (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)

Stolen from other artists: (1)(2)

Accuses me of being a scammer for sharing Palestine aid: (1)

Fed mine and other people’s art into ai: (1)(2)(3)

Specifically targets my characters for their features (having a unibrow or brown skin): (1)(2)

Been openly racist: (1)(2)(3)

Been openly violent and bigoted towards Palestinians (who they believe to all be scammers): (1)(2)(3)(4)

Been openly transphobic: (1)(2)

And a thousand other things I refuse to dig into their account to find, but @thestolenthrone-archive has been compiling their bigotry.

I’m over it, it’s not fair that I have to just ignore some neo-nazi who’s in love with me because tumblr refuses to do a damn thing. @staff @support

His account/alts to report:

@thestolenthrone

@lady—lucrezia

@theirin-dynasty

@daily-dose-of-fantasy-art

On deviantart:

@ dragonageart1

Please report these accounts. Get tumblr staff involved because this has gone on too long and I’m tired of just having to shut up and deal with it.