The Ink-Well

Hello. Keelan here. (he/him|they/them)  

[gunsandfireandshit]

[bace-jeleren]

[ooppo]

A PORN BOT UNFOLLOWED ME?

[ooppo]

not that i care

[ooppo]

[anachrosims]

just in case anyone forgot how wildly colorful Georgian interiors could be, even among the working class to the wealthy:

[anachrosims]

and EVEN WHEN things were more muted/neutral, the neutrality was OFFSET by ACCENT COLORS and HIGH CONTRAST between the wood tones and everything ELSE

ALSO AMERICAN COLONIAL INTERIORS POPPED OFF, Y'ALL (IN TERMS OF COLOR/COZINESS)

PEOPLE USED WHITEWASH AND COLORFUL TRIM OR EVEN JUST COLORFUL FURNITURE IF THEY COULD AFFORD TO DO SO

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON FRENCH AND BRITISH AND AMERICAN WALLPAPERS

"ELIZABETH" YOU CRY, "WHY ARE YOU BEING SO EXTRA THIS MORNING?! IT'S MONDAY"

Because, my friend, my war on GREIGE will NEVER end.

Historic interiors were filled with LIFE and LIGHT and COLOR. ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.

Part of the reason we don't see a lot of textile art is because, frankly, textiles tend to degrade over time - especially ones that had utility! And yes, pigments and weaving and dying all boosted the expense of things, when we were finally reliably block-printing fabrics and broad reams of paper, it was no longer just the wealthy who could afford pretty patterns!

In the Americas, a far wider variety of pigments also became available because of the abundance of... well, a shitton of flora and minerals, some of which weren't as common in Europe.

WHY THE HIGHLIGHTER COLORS? you ask.

CANDLES.

Those colors reflect candlelight and natural sunlight REALLY WELL.

Humans LOVE bright colors, it's NOT just a thing for kids. We live in a brilliant, vibrant, multifaceted world. We ALWAYS have.

(STOP MAKING YOUR HISTORIC SIMS 4 BUILDS BE BLAND. STOP IT.)

[periodinteriors]

On the subject of Colonial America: don't forget, even if you couldn't afford wallpaper, wall stenciling might still be in reach!

(If ever you have the opportunity to visit the Stencil House at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont (pictured above at 3, 4, and 5), I highly recommend.)

And that's before you get into American painted murals:

Embrace the decorative arts, folks!

[syn4k]

i will give tiktok one concession and that is that it has spawned a comment that contains a phrase that i think of often at relevant moments: pack it up boys we've made a social blunder

[syn4k]

(from a video featuring someone's father/grandfather)

[dragon-in-a-fez]

is anyone else reading "pack it up boys we've made a social blunder" in the voice of the lead penguin guy from Madagascar

[mismedleym]

toward the sun, from the sun

[lemoncakedoodles]

I’ve been waiting to post this edit for too long

(Original drawing by gooseworx herself)

Edit: guys please don’t let another meme that took like 2 minutes to make get a million more likes than my art. Please guys I’m starving.

[wileycap]

I think we in the A:TLA fandom have missed the absolute potential of the fact that Ozai Firelord is canonically a fucking idiot. I mean the dude's straight up stupid. And I want to be very clear that this isn't a plot hole, this isn't a flaw in the show, this is a fantastic and super realistic element that honestly enhances my enjoyment of it! Dictators are often stupid and breed a culture of cronyism-over-competence. Any similarities with real world leaders, dead or alive, are coincidental yet inevitable.

What do I mean?

Well, let's take the Drill. When faced with the problem of Big Wall, Ozai's Fire Nation comes up with Big Drill. One singular Big Drill. Which, as anyone except an idiot could have predicted, immediately breaks down and accomplishes nothing. And if the Fire Nation had made it past the wall, then they would have been fighting through a narrow opening against people who can hurl long distance rocks! Which, if your face or body is vulnerable to high velocity rocks, is a bad thing for you and also for the battle.

Not to mention the resource cost of that thing! It's so insanely gigantic, it must have cost the Fire Nation the equivalent of trillions. For ONE drill. Not ten smaller drills. Just ONE drill. (Fanfic fuel: how much did Ba Sing Se profit off of stripping that drill for parts? Did they reverse engineer it? Did Long Feng keep that for himself?)

And you might be thinking, fairly, that it was War Minister Qin who came up with the drill and you'd be right, but it's Ozai who's approving all this shit. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and asking Qin if he et the whole edible, or even the in-character thing of burning him to death, Ozai just goes... big drill. Makes sense. We should have the biggest drill, because we are the biggest nation. Drill, baby, drill. sorry

It's not the first time, either! He also approves Zhao's invasion of the North Pole, apparently just because Zhao is good at kissing ass and hates Zuko? I couldn't tell you what merits Zhao has. We do not see him lead a single successful mission. The closest he comes is Pohuai, and even then its the Yuyan archers who do most of the work. (My longstanding headcanon is that the reason we don't see the Yuyan archers again is because Zhao blamed the whole thing on them and they were disbanded. This is great fic fuel for displaced Yuyan archers just, wandering around, being elite.)

He approved a massive naval invasion of the North Pole, surrounded by and made of water and ice, inhabited by people who bend water. A nation that was, by its own choice, completely out of the war.

Every time we see Ozai doing something, it's something stupid. Like disfiguring and banishing his firstborn child in a culture that has primogeniture. And then (once he's done pissing away a massive fleet of ships) he does the logical thing and sends his only other heir to bring his first heir back - even though his first heir would have been willing to return with a simple invitation. Like he could have sent a letter saying "dear son come home miss u pick up 200 000 tons of steel qin wants 2 build a drill lol", and Zuko would have come. (Okay, he did have a valid reason for having Zuko escorted, since he thought Iroh was a traitor, but there's absolutely NO reason to risk Azula. Why not send Combustion Man? It's the luckiest stroke of luck ever that Azula is 100 times more competent than her dad.)

Of course, a dictator(-wannabe) sending his daughter on high-level diplomatic missions is pure fiction. Nobody would do that.

The best part of this is that it's entirely realistic and in-character. I could absolutely imagine Ozai purging all of his competent admirals and generals, and then promoting brownnoses like Zhao and crackpots like Qin, because they promised him glorious destinies and secret knowledge of Big Drill.

I also really, really want a scene of Zuko and Azula realizing that their father is a fucking idiot.

I would also like to note that all this stupid shit happens after Iroh leaves with Zuko. So, here's a headcanon: the only reason the Fire Nation didn't immediately implode when Ozai took the throne and purged everyone is because of Iroh. Iroh leaving with Zuko doomed Ozai. It's also a nice little drop of complexity in Iroh's character - he knew he was single-handedly keeping the Fire Nation afloat, yet he only left when Zuko did. Did he plan for Zuko to take the throne from the start? What was his plan before Aang showed up? Did he not intervene in the Agni Kai because he was afraid, or because he knew that Ozai was making a huge mistake and didn't want to interrupt? Give me chessmaster Iroh please.

[wynterwulf7]

[howmanyholesinswisscheese]

Biggest fuck-up ever is that people have to pay to become doctors

[howmanyholesinswisscheese]

Like unironically we should be subsidising at least 50% of their educations. What do you mean we have a shortage of doctors we should have surplus. What do you mean they’re being overworked they should be treated like royalty, they can fix human bodies

[howmanyholesinswisscheese]

I don’t care if some of them are only doing it for the money. I don’t care if all of them are only doing it for the money. Intentions don’t matter to the stitches in my nana’s leg or the ten billion other lifesaving treatments we all get at a detriment to their finances and mental wellbeing. Entire cities are kept alive by just a couple thousand of them what are we DOINGGGGG

[naamahdarling]

If we had more, maybe it would be easier to get the shitty ones fucking replaced. The board isn't going to do much to the only endocrinologist in the state who takes Medicaid, you know? But if there were more than, idk, maybe 5? Maybe then?

[dragongirlsweetie]

lays a 136 GB egg in your hard drive. and you can't delete it because i'm an endangered species

[anarcho-gunman-g17]

I regret to inform everyone that google just did that

[pocket-deer-belly]

at some point in being autistic it becomes really clear that everyone wants you to come up with solutions to problems you've never been helped with

[pocket-deer-belly]

i don't know how to fix our communicative problems, you're the source of it and it's exhausting to be treated as irrational for not responding correctly to small talk, do you think you could help a disabled bitch out and not put the onus of solving the problem on me, the one who is constantly excluded and treated as a freak

[pocket-deer-belly]

and then when you point this out they're like "but we literally put up with you, could you do something for us please?" and it's like. you put up with me?

[thatlittleegyptologist]

will this revolving door nightmare of self serving cunts never end?

[invisible-goats]

I've been informed this is to try to disrupt the finance investigation. But also that it won't actually do that and even if he does win (because "real people don't care about his finances" or something) they can suspend him which would potentially allow...the triggering of a bielection

[kn0wmore]

[cocainesocialist]

[manynamedshe]

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

[thequeerwithoutfear-deactivated]

[images: series of tweets from @realavocadofact. tweets read, “they’re not elite they’re rich”, “they’re not better they’re better supplied”, “they’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”, “there is nothing wrong with you; you’re doing your best in a game rigged against you, probably not enough people and fruit tell you that”]

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I see this reaction a lot, and I gotta say, it always makes me a little sad. Whenever the conversation of exploitation of labor comes up, inevitably someone finds themselves struggling with the guilt of “It is so important to me not to contribute to exploitation but I cannot do this thing myself and need someone else to do it for me, so how do I even approach that?”

Exploitation isn’t in the hiring of a service worker. Exploitation is in the respect you show them for their ability to perform the service you need from them.

I have been on a cleaning service staff before, and also been someone who hired a cleaning service, and I can tell you for sure that a lot of cleaning crews (especially worker owned ones) absolutely LOVE their clients and are genuinely happy to be able to make their lives better. The clients they don’t like? Those are the ones who disrespect the workers.

When I was involved with a cleaning service, we had everything from little old ladies living alone to McMasions with five cars as clients, and I can assure you that whenever there was someone who clearly hired us because they were overwhelmed or unable to keep their space clean, those were the households where you put a little more elbow grease in and did a deep clean even when it wasn’t paid for, because you could see how much these people were trying and struggling, and they were always so kind and generous and often embarrassed when talking to you about the job.

I only hired a service a couple if times in my life, but whenever I did, I worked with the same people as often as I could, tipped as well as I could afford, and tried to be the kind of client I would want to have, and that’s how I often ended up with my baseboards cleaned too, or my fridge scrubbed and organized or a restorative clean done in a high use room even when that wasn’t what I had scheduled or paid for.

I’ve heard the same thing from all manner of service workers over the years. Many of us like our jobs! We enjoy the work. It’s the customers that can do a number on you.

I think a lot of people are afraid that by needing a service they are inherently exploiting or harming the people who perform that service, and they really aren’t. But it does benefit a capitalist system for us to all be burnt out and overwhelmed because we’re too afraid to hire the help we need. Be upfront and honest with service workers about what you need and why you need it, and treat them with dognity and kindness while they perform your service, and I promise you they will always be happy to answer your call.

[headspace-hotel]

HIRING A PROFESSIONAL TO CLEAN YOUR HOUSE ISN’T MORE EXPLOITATIVE THAN GOING TO A DENTIST OR ORDERING A PIZZA

We all fucking depend on each other, it’s about respect and treating one another as fellow humans instead of seeing them as below us

[andhumanslovedstories]

Back in 2013, I posted a Welcome to Night Vale fic and someone commented, “I’m autistic and I see myself a lot in the way you write Carlos. Did you intend for him to autistic?”

And I was like “I’m flattered you think so! No, he’s not intended to be autistic, but I’m glad you can see yourself in him.”

Now twelve years later I spent some time this evening trying to track down that comment to give a very belated clarification. Whoever you were stranger, hey. I only said no because I based Carlos heavily on me, and since I wasn’t autistic, Carlos wouldn’t be either. Well. I’ve learned some stuff in the intervening decade that strongly support your literary analysis.

[maandarinee]

[bokuwaboku-datte]

Eridians must be absolutely amazed that Grace can be woken up before his sleep cycle is finished. They take advantage of this and fit the biodome's bedroom with a remotely-triggered alarm system, so if something ever goes wrong with the life support systems while Grace is asleep, they can wake him up and have him move to safety. But, being that their sleep is more like a deep dormancy, they WAY overestimate what it takes to forcibly wake someone up.

The first time they have to use it (over something stupid like a tiny ammonia leak), Grace wakes up to like three different foghorns and a hundred camera flashes going off at once and is like HOLY GEEZ THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US

(eta if someone with art talent wants to make this a proper eridian welcoming committee comic please do!)

[goodieprocter]

RIP Rocky’s project

Bonus:

And here’s my reference:

[rederiswrites]

Turns out the horsemen of the Apocalypse now prefer to go by Shareholder Profit, Private Equity, Corporate Personhood, and Workforce Optimization.

[jottingprosaist]

Shareholder Profit: War (the casus belli for attacks on workers' rights)

Private Equity: Pestilence (they are parasites that voraciously strip the value out of a healthy business until it withers and dies)

Workforce Optimization: Famine (cutting hours and employees until the business is starved of staff, barely functioning)

Corporate Personhood: Death (a hollow, shambling mockery of a human with rights and needs)

[rederiswrites]

Yeah I can work with that.

[zoctopode]

can you imagine being a parent in the pokemon world and your kid comes home with one of those straight up basically human pokemon. i know those motherfuckers can talk.

its morning. i see my childs Throh getting some oj from the fridge. 'morning', i say. he doesnt catch himself in time and says 'morning' back. he freezes and we both stare at each other knowingly. 'throh,' he says, but its too fucking late