Cute Mail

My blog of stuff.

[playwrongs]

In King Ludwig II’s defense, if I had basically infinite discretionary funds, was accountable to absolutely no one, and was king of a country full of picturesque landscapes, you couldn’t stop me from building myself a big gay fairytale castle on a mountaintop either.

[playwrongs]

This post is spreading and I feel bad about it because it contains misinformation, so for the record: Ludwig II did not in fact have infinite discretionary funds. He only acted as if he did. He never dipped into the public coffers for his building projects, but he spent his own fortune extravagantly and borrowed heavily from everyone he could think of. By 1885, the year before his death, he was 14 million marks in debt.

[insomniac-arrest]

~ ✨✨ 14 million marks in debt ✨✨~

[centrally-unplanned]

I always find this inspiring because try to name another prince of a German state. What did the rulers of Hamberg do? The Grand Duchy of Hesse? Gone with the wind, no one knows them anymore. But Mad Lad Ludwig built a top 5 most famous castle in the entire world. Money is fake, castles are real. Go broke and die like a winner.

[the-barefoot-hatter]

EXCUSE ME, this is still wrong. He built 3.

Neuschwanstein, literally the inspo for the castles in Disney's Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella

Hohenschwangau, the practical castle

Linderhof, the final, the smallest, and the MOST fab.

Every room is incredible and the park is beautiful, but shoutout to The Bedroom, the biggest room

The Hall of Mirrors, which he probably wandered by candle light because he was a serious night owl

The Dining Room, with a wishing table that lowers to the kitchen, and rises with a crank, returning magically full of food

The Venus Grotto, constructed for the sole use of Ludwig to larp to his heart's content

A full artificial cave, it features a waterfall, fake stalactites, and a custom-designed swan boat floating on an artificial lake. The first electricity in Bavaria was generated here, to change the colors of the stage lights and to power Ludwig's fountain and wave machine.

Now THAT'S ~ ✨✨ 14 million marks in debt ✨✨~

[marzipanandminutiae]

I love that- and I cannot emphasize this enough -none of this was tax money

the public paid for zero of his fairytale castle hobby

rare European monarch W as far as spending money lavishly goes

[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.

[gudamor]

Happy Smallpox Eradication Day

[reagan-slayer69]

“but what if you abort the baby who’ll cure cancer?!” sir the baby who will cure cancer is an organic chemistry major who works at a Home Depot because you use AI to go through your resumes

[mel-155-a]

"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

[brinnanza]

one person does not cure cancer. teams of scientists who rely on funding from the government cure cancer. one person's singular novel ingenuity is not what is stopping us from curing cancer; fucking CAPITALISM IS.

[liminalbeauty]

Literally.

Kseniia Petrova - Wikipedia

[macmanx]

A NASA spacecraft discovers a formation on Mars resembling a bear

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped the uncanny photo in December. Eyes are formed by craters. A hill with a "V-shaped collapse struc

Come on [tumblr] where’s my Mars Bear fanart?

[sirartwork]

[a-totally-reasonable-username]

@namelessennes

[avidreaderffn]

@sandstonesunspear

[polyamorousmisanthrope]

Jesus Tapdancing Christ... THIS is a good welt pocket and the people who designed Simplicity 2895 ought to be blasted well ASHAMED of themselves for the crap way THEY wanted a welt pocket made. *SNARLS*

[makereadgrow]

This is how I learned to do it and a good example of what you want to see in a short form tutorial: pinning, pressing, seam finishing, good fabric handling.

I would mention that you can make the pocket facing with a small panel of your matching fabric that is visible and the rest in a lighter fabric to reduce bulk. That's a lot of denim layers for comfort.

[alanaisalive]

The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

[iguanamouth]

oh shit

[throughshadow-to-the-edgeofnight]

[alanaisalive]

As the OP of this post, I’m going to threaten that if this gets to one million notes by the 10 year anniversary on 1 June 2026, one year from today, I will get a lower back tattoo of the loch ness bear monster.

[docd666]

Y'all know what to do Tumblr.

[sentient-tent]

This is Tie, she is going to eat all of the notes

[sentient-tent]

reblog to feed her notes

[elodieunderglass]

How is she doing this

[pmamtraveller]

"An Empire Built on Waste" by artist Emanuele (Jane) Morelli

[fangirlsovertoomanythings]

The way that most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories’ most horrible villains are rich dudes that are abusive to women, in a time such as the 1880’s, compels me.

[gardnerhill]

There’s a whole subset of Sherlock Holmes stories that could be labeled Asshole Guys Try to Control Women’s Money.

[three--rings]

Yup, there’s a huge number of times where Sherlock Holmes is the ONLY person to take a young woman’s complaint or worry seriously and finds out someone is up to some serious evil.  Holmes also shows a lot of compassion and empathy with the victims over and over again.  (This is why I find “Secretly a woman” or “Trans” Holmes headcanons much more convincing than “sociopath” Holmes.)

[waterhobbit]

I am never going to shut up about how much I specifically love The Adventure of The Copper Beeches because it is literally Sherlock Holmes listening to a young lady he does not know except as a potential client, agreeing with her that a potential job she has interviewed for that she thinks is SUPER SKETCHY is, indeed, sketchy as fuck and when she says she’s probably gonna take the job anyways because the money is good and she needs it going “OKAY I GUESS but for the love of god please write to us so we know you’re okay we will literally drop everything and jump on a train if you want us to”.

The job turns out to indeed be sketchy as fuck, she writes to them, Holmes and Watson drop everything and jump on a train when she asks them to. I read this story for the first time when I was twelve and it made a HUGE impression.

[three--rings]

This is also the basis for a lot of speculation about Holmes’ family life.  The idea that he has been a victim of abuse, or his mother was abused (or even murdered by his father.)  There’s definitely SOMETHING that makes him very aware of how dangerous isolated families can be, and the dark things that can happen behind closed doors.  Plus, of course, the motivation to devote himself to stopping crime.  And yes, so much of it is of the personal type. 

[volkswagonblues]

dude see this is one aspect of the original books i NEVER understand why modern remakes (cough cough) don’t go all in on. Like, in the 21th c we HAVE all the dumb forensic shit that made Victorian Holmes stand out, but we STILL DON’T HAVE uh….you know, compassion for women and minorities, or the willingness to believe them, adequate community support for domestic violence or hate crimes, etc. etc. which you’d think is exactly where a renegade consulting detective would come in handy. A good modern day Sherlock Holmes remake, instead of trying to convince us that Holmes is some super genius for being better than fingerprint analysis or whatever, could have him just be…a good person who helps out people the police can’t and won’t help. There you go. That’s how to write a relevant modern Holmes.

[fahbee]

One thing that annoys me is how much the BBC version of Sherlock (and the fandom around it) focus on police cases or cold cases.  In the stories, Holmes’ bread and butter cases had fuck-all to do with the police and in a few stories, he actively works around/against them, or outright lies to them.  Of the many, many things I wish that show had done differently, this is one is particularly obnoxious since it’s such a gimme.

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

There were very few actual murder cases in the Canon, and Holmes handled them either one of two ways:

Option one: The murder victim was innocent while the killer was an abusive bastard, see Speckled Band. Conclusion, arrest and have the killer charged (Or in the case of Speckled Band, indirectly murder him yourself then shrug and go home)

Option two: The victim was murdered to protect someone that the victim was abusing, or for vengeance, see Boscombe Valley, Devil’s Foot, Abbey Grange. Conclusion, Oops, I don’t know who the killer is, I am suddenly incompetent, oh look a pheasant.

[faejilly]

#my favorite murder in holmes canon#is when they straight up witness a lady murder her blackmailer#do nothing except destroy his other blackmail material#and then straight up lie to lestrade about it#sherlock holmes#more of this in modern adaptations pls (via @cactusspatz )

[muffinworry]

Let’s not forget the time Holmes helps a young woman who’s being catfished by her own stepfather to steal her inheritance, and when the villain sneers that the law can’t touch him, Holmes grabs a horsewhip out of sheerest chivalry.

[anxietyproblem]

[comorbid-curiosities]

Image ID: black on white text says:

“Tell me more about yourself”

Me trying to remember who I am:

Followed by a picture of a black cat with a derpy, empty, overwhelmed expression and a loading symbol over its head

[justsomeguycore]

knock knock

[dismembered-jackalope]

who's there

[justsomeguycore]

deez

[dismembered-jackalope]

sigh

deez who ?

[justsomeguycore]

deez are the voyages of the starship enterprise

[mafuyuh]

little guys in ghibli movies

[sforzzz]

copper ii sulfate has no reason to be this blue. this shade of blue looks like it should only be a digital invention

[rabbitindisguise]

forbidden blue raspberry candy

[adobe-outdesign]

In other news, Pokemon has made a 30th anniversary logo for every Pokemon. And yes, when I say every, I do mean EVERY

[ospreyonthemoon]

It is very funny to see the levels of effort put in, like

Okay! You've integrated the pokemon into the number! That's cute!

Okay, you couldn't really make it the zero but it is interacting with the space, which is fun!

You didn't really know what to do so you just slapped it in the middle. I mean, i get it.

You didn't even redraw this in the simplistic style. You just grabbed a picture of avalugg and slapped it front center without any care as to this. Its just randomly listing to one side. You did NOT have enough time in the day to give a shit about avalugg.

[rate-my-reptile]

Reach WITH IN To your LOCAL dirt and you may find A Friend And Boy…

[lilhoneycat]

[felixfeliccis]

I will kill shapes.inc with my bare hands

[felixfeliccis]

Insane ratio honestly but Im glad we all agree

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

if I wrote a dystopian novel where the corrupt evil megacorporation that controls society has a fucking smirk for a logo, my editor would tell me to use a less heavy-handed metaphor

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

and yet

[twinkiefairy]

I love this because if I were to write a literary novel in the Western cannon that described the image of an apple with a chunk bitten off, any high school English student would tell you it is a Bible reference meant to represent the source of all evil and downfall of humanity and YET 

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

[theo-the-ghost]

Imagine telling someone that the evil corporation that makes you waste away hours because they want you to watch more ads had made their name be a clock sound. They’d tell you it’s ridiculously on-the-nose