Cyris' chatters @cyrischatters - Tumblr Blog

Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me.

I know there is a lot of discourse (tm) around this right now but listen to me

sometimes you do just have to lie to children.

If, when my toddler is, you know, toddling around saying “mama? Big ball?”

If I were lean down and say “unfortunately the big beach ball for some reason fills you with such an unadulterated rage that is beyond human comprehension that you scream until you pass out, so mama had to remove the beach ball from the premises until you can better regulate your emotions” she would simply stare at me like I had 3 heads full of equal betrayal.

So, for now, instead “big ball went night night!”

Please understand when I say “removed the ball from the premises” I mean I popped it in a fit of exhausted confusion. I murdered the beach ball.

See I’ve lied to you all too and it was better this way.

inkloom

you can’t just leave this in the tags etc.

You can’t be funnier then me on my own posts, I’m in tears from laughter

wifegideonnav

“bits to use in everyday conversations”

What would a Yankee Candle go for in ancient Greece?

tbh the most confusing thing about it to them would probably be the glass that the candle is contained in. They might try to buy information about glass from you.

Yeah basically

Yeah I should’ve clarified (pun intended). They had glass in the ancient world especially in Rome and Egypt but it was basically super heated sand and color additives put in a mold and often looked opaque and kinda lumpy. Even if it was blown like it was in some regions it wouldn’t have looked like modern glass.

Clear blown glass like you’d see a modern scented candle contained in wasn’t invented until the late Middle Ages and certainly wasn’t mass produced until the 1500s and even then places like Venice that had knowledge of these techniques literally forbid their glassmakers from leaving their city or region so other people couldn’t make it, forcing artificial scarcity and making it a very expensive material.

So if you showed a yankee candle to an Ancient Greek, especially one from a city or something, they’d be like burning scented wax okay not something I’d do but it makes sense. Also how the fuck is that glass transparent.

Like imagine if someone brought you something weird but understandable contained in a material that they said was made out of wood and you could tell that it’s clearly made out of wood they’re not lying about that but it was also completely transparent and see through with no visible flaws. That’s about the level of weird we’re talking about here.

animnightmare

It isnt flawless, but transparent wood does already exist actually

What the fuck I feel like a medieval peasant seeing an iPhone

unyieldingsilence

‎ ‎

derinthescarletpescatarian

Who goes there

beardedmrbean

Beyblade heavyweight division

This is the most unsafe thing I've seen in a while

justeliiijah

@osha-unofficial

osha-unofficial

back in the 60s they let you do this on airplanes

sepdet

wizardshark

hey can you guys keep an eye on my red explosive barrels while i go take a nap

do NOT smoke weed beside them

blappature-executive

Visit Original Link

mist-the-wannabe-linguist

Us, arriving to Austria to a tiny family hotel owned by an elderly lady

Us: speak only limited German

Lady: barely speaks English

Us:

Lady:

Lady: Czech? Slovak?

Us: Czech

Lady, to herself: Czech, that's a Slavic language right

Lady: understand Yugoslavian?

Us:

Us: yeah that works

eastern-lights

Shit like this can really only happen in Europe. Reminds me of the time I took my best shot at ordering at a restaurant in Spain in spanish. The closest language to spanish that I actually speak is latin.

Waiter: Germany?

Me: No, Czechia.

Waiter, in a heavily accented but intelligible Czech: Why didn’t you say so before! We get you guys here all the time!

krcmelound

Já v roce 2019 na Ukrajině: OK, takže když použiju tohle staročeský slovo, přidám polský sloveso, své chabé znalosti záhoráčtiny a řeknu to s ruskym přízvukem, tak to projde.

mist-the-wannabe-linguist

[Me in 2019 in Ukraine: ok so if i use this Old Czech word, add a Polish verb, my poor knowledge of the Záhorie dialect of Slovak and say it with a Russian accent, it might pass]

Reminds me of the time when we were in Poland and I tried to order a burger using a truly unholy mix of Slovak, Russian and Ostrava dialect (which in itself is like an unholy mix of Czech and Polish).

I did get the burger

orion-the-onion

mmaurysiek

[#my grandpa called this "Slavic Esperanto"]

I know Ukrainians who can do this on purpose and masterfully, and it was mind-blowing to hear a speech as immediately understandable to an audience of native speakers of three different native Slavic languages, not just two languages as is common

alamuts-lair-of-madness

During one student exchange I (a Pole) got acquainted with two students from Czechia and Russia. At first we talked in English or German, but after a while we’ve noticed, that we could understand each other’s native languages just fine. And if some word was unknown in one language, another one had the right synonym.

*Each of us talking in their mother tongue*

Me: Bla bla bla.

Russian: I don’t know this “bla”.

Czech: Oh, we have “bla”! We also call it “that”!

Russian: Oh I know “that”! It’s a very old version of “this”.

Me: Oh, we have “this” too, but it means something slightly different.

German acquaintance: Was für nen Scheiß zieht ihr da ab? o_O

leseigneurdelorage

the reason there aren't slavic people in the bible is that they wouldn't have been surprised or awed to hear the disciples speak in tongues and be understood by people of many nations at once

alexfeelyx

Slavs walked away from the Tower of Babel mildly inconvenienced.

invisiblefoxfire

As a non-native speaker of Czech who is only conversationally proficient and has terrible grammar, let me tell you, no one was more surprised than I was to discover that I can understand Slovak just fine. And when the two moving guys finished hauling my furniture to my new apartment and we were chatting a bit before they left, I discovered that the reason I'd had a little trouble understanding one of their "accents" was because he was speaking Ukrainian the whole time.

treba-neco-napise

"Slavs walked away from the Tower of Babel mildly inconvenienced." killed me

mist-the-wannabe-linguist

starvulture

Collecting these rn

jpegdoll-heritageposts

JPEG Doll Heritage Post

shopcat

look at this wonderful gif of scallops getting scared and scattering like a flock pigeons

elioftheasphodel

whatever. go my scallops

whitachi

last night I had the experience of "referencing a tumblr post that you think is widely known but turns out to not be as widely known as you thought it was" last night and it was this post. whatever. go my scallops

prokopetz

Blackout poetry exists on a dual axis from "banal" to "insightful" on the input side and "kind of deep" to "incredibly fucking dumb" on the output side, and while taking something banal and producing something kind of deep is well and fine, for my money taking something insightful and rendering it incredibly fucking dumb is where the real art is.

petrodykeonicapocalypse

absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog

#i stuck the word 'banal' in there twice specifically so that 'anal' would be low hanging fruit#but i genuinely did not anticipate 'banana' --@prokopetz

inthefallofasparrow

tanadrin

dislike the digestive system. do not need my flesh to randomly gurgle.

tanadrin

off the cuff ratings of various elements of human anatomy and physiology:

eyes: very nifty design only a little undercut by the viscera horror of something terrible happening to them. 8/10

nose: a lil goofy ngl but it works in context. 6/10

ears: also goofy, don’t like them, why do they produce wax and get infected. but the core concept is fine. 4/10

brain: very cool, does lots of neat stuff without having to gurgle, ooze, or twitch. 10/10

liver: like most good organs it is a calm, steady machine. a tranquil filterer of the blood. don’t like the whole oozing bile thing though. 6/10

kidneys: piss is actually slightly less gross than bile. 7/10

bladder, gall bladder: i strongly feel organs should not grow random rocks in them. 4/10

bones: very aesthetic. functional in sort of a primitive mechanical way but they give us an extremely useful set of imagery for death and time. 8/10

skin: terrifically design, though it does sometimes flake. 7/10

tongue, lips: crudely mechanical but in kind of a cool way. 7/10

digestive tract: why does it gurgle and ooze?? why must it engage in peristalsis and jerk and shudder? it’s not even the products of digestion I object to—it’s that so many organ systems in the body are at least on a macroscopic level serene and still and almost plantlike, quietly performing their function without calling any attention to themselves. and then we have the system that farts and burps and generally reminds you you are trapped in a prison of wet red meat. 1/10, only because eating is often pleasant.

heart, lungs: for such crucial organs the fact they have to continuously move feels so… primitive. we should respire by like passively absorbing air through our skin. our blood should be whisked around our body by millions of tiny invisible cilia in our veins. what is this rube goldberg shit, with an extremely vulnerable single point of failure? 3/10

hair: almost completely unnecessary. mostly functions as a way to further customize our flesh-prisons. that’s actually pretty neat. 8/10

hymnism

making a collection

putridghost

Wait I have more

acemingo

ot3

looking for animal references on image searches has always kind of sucked but it's much worse after AI image generation technology has begun to actually past muster, which is why i always just go straight to inaturalist. can't recommend this highly enough. you get to both find out about niche species you've never even heard of and also see some really good photographs like this one

birdsy-purplefishes

I KNEW I had seen this exact same image before! Good old "Organisms On or Near Appropriate Signs" project.

ot3

oh that's a fun project. haven't seen this before. some good ones in here.

teddy-stonehill

I went to the local aviary today and they had some really mean things to say about owls.

teddy-stonehill

elodieunderglass

I can confirm that most birds have a detectable amount of wiring behind the eyes - blinking lights and buttons and sliders and frizzy things that spark and chirp and beep. They also have a lot of soul that can communicate with ours because the programming is fairly compatible. Vultures are clever and curious, swans are clear and lawful, chickens have a lot of personality, caged parrots are dissociated and disinherited and frankly worrying, falconry-trained birds of prey are tremendously businesslike.

And owls are absolutely lovely beasts with their own irreplaceable validity. but they are basically stuffed with polyester fiberfill. They have one button, like a child's toy dinosaur that opens and closes its mouth when you press the back of its head. And it isn't even a sophisticated electronic button it's just a lever that rocks back and forth to make the claws open and close. I think they may have actually evolved independently from sponges. Their skulls simply exist to create holes that funnel sound and light, and as a place to hang a giant hinged beak. An owl is just an empty tube like a windchime that the wind whistles through, and you can drop meat down it. They use the meat to generate feathers, and then emit the bones in pressed little packages like those machines that flatten a penny and stamp it with the logo of a theme park. I think that's the gist of it - most birds are electronics of varying levels of sophistication, but owls are just a system of levers and pulleys. No elevator music in those skulls, just the wind echoing through empty caverns of slightly irritating design. Absolutely fantastic.

Cursed to be stuck inside this ancient amulet for years but you know I was kind of getting used to it. The solitude had eaten away just enough of my sanity that I'm pretty sure it only would've been a few more days before I started hallucinating some really neat shit.

But then. THEN. This fuckass twink descendant of my mortal enemies picks up my amulet. Takes right out of the sacred chamber. I guess it was finally a ruin now? Worse timing possible, too late to stop me going insane and right before the insanity could pay off.

So some clueless idiot is actually wearing me for the first time in centuries. I'm gonna wreck this dude's shit, I don't care if he is weirdly nice and kind of pretty in the face department. The second I accumulate enough power I'm breaking out of here and making him regret being born.

Okay so I did accumulate enough energy that I might have been able to break out, maybe, but also probably not quite just yet. Which is why I had to use it to stop that dragon from killing Captain Fuckwit.

Like I had to do it. If the dragon kills him how am I supposed to be the one to do it? I didn't rot in that sealed chamber for centuries just so that the last living descendant of my most hated enemies could get offed by something that wasn't me. There's no poetic justice in that and also I am NOT owing any dragons any favors.

I've been thinking about how I'm going to kill this guy. I mean there's not a lot else to do, I'm still stuck in the amulet so mostly I'm limited to being spooky in his dreams until I suck up some more power. But it's going to happen. I'm out of the sealed chamber now there's so many opportunities and also I'm patient. I've learned to be extremely patient. Would be weird if I hadn't.

Anyway I'm not going to kill him right away. Where's the satisfaction in that? He's the last descendant of my enemies (pretty sure) so of course I gotta drag it out. This is the only revenge I might ever get. I'll have to capture him. Keep him sealed away for a long time, see how he likes it. But like. In a nicer placed than that fucking chamber because unlike some long dead assholes, I have standards. Plus I'm also going to spending a lot of my time there too, menacing him and shit, so it better be nice for me.

I'm thinking summer house on an otherwise uninhabited island. I keep him there where there are no dragons or ogres or demon kings to interrupt, and I tell him all about the shitty things his ancestors did, to like. Demoralize him. So that he knows that even though I'm a scary evil creature that's going to be his ending, he doesn't get as much moral high ground as he'd probably like. I make him eat meals with me just to draw out the tension, and then I give him nightmares, making him twist and writhe in his sweat-soaked sheets while his heart hammers against his ribs and he wonders if this will finally be the night I finish him.

Yeah. Sounds good.

Fuck. Turns out there's another one. Descendant of my hated enemies from centuries ago, I mean.

Hope he falls off a cliff.

Listen. Giving him command of the remnants of my dark army is just practical right now. I don't have the energy to communicate extensively with them myself, and they'll keep him alive long enough for me to take my elaborate revenge without me constantly having to intervene and sacrifice my own energy to do it. And anyway I have ceremonies to plan, it's going to be amazing, I'm going to round up every last remnant from the old days so that they can witness my final triumph when I claim his life and soul forever.

Also, he used them to humiliate that other fuckass descendant guy. Even I can begrudgingly admit it was pretty well done. Corrupting influence gain! I'm kind of surprised his allies haven't all abandoned him for using dark and sinister forces to save their lives, though, but I guess it's fine if they don't. Sure why not. We can be cool with raising cursed armies in this day and age apparently. Yeah that thing I was sealed away for for centuries is just not a big deal now. Cool cool cool.

You know what, I'm going to make his friends come to the ceremony too. So they can also witness my triumph and his utter defeat and subjugation at my hands.

Maybe I'll even let them visit him in his woeful imprisonment afterwards as well. Just to really hammer the point home. They're not the worst company, at least. Not as annoying as heroes used to be. We can have them over for dinner while I lord my victory above their helplessness. Real power move to just let them come and see the guy that they are nevertheless unable to free from my dark clutches.

I guess I better make sure they also don't all die either, if that's the case. It's a good thing I'm patient. So many fucking setbacks!

AHAHAHAHA!!!! YES!!! FREEDOM!!! I'm out of the FUCKING amulet!!! At last, nothing stands between me and total domination!!!

The hero is already kneeling, too!!!

God fucking dammit.

Those guys were supposed to be dead for centuries! And they're still ruining my life! Fucking. That fuckass other descendant managed to summon them and of course THEY are still not cool with me or my dark forces, although I'm going to be real, they weren't looking too noble and above-aboard themselves when they turned up. That was some hypocritical undead revenant bullshit.

Of course I ended up fighting them. They attacked first! Again! They were even trying to kill their own descendant! And those heinous bitches called me the monster. I've never tried to kill my own descendants. Probably because I don't have any but still. At least try and take over his body first or something!

Well actually they did try it, I think? But that hero of theirs had worn my amulet for so long that he was too corrupted for it to work. Ha!

Small victories.

I'm going to need to hang onto those.

Because now I'm sealed back in the fucking Chamber Eternal again.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKING---!!!!

Okay.

Alright.

I'm not going to lie this isn't looking good. I'm not in the amulet anymore but the seals on the chamber are strong, made with the souls of those fuckdamn ancient heroes. All my power is left with their descendant on the outside now. My plans are thwarted. I'm going to languish in this minimalist hell of a chamber until those ancient souls run out of juice, and currently they're forming a dome of spiritual energy so flush with power that the ghosts on the moon can probably see it.

It... it's going to be... I mean. It'll be fine. Back to getting to the good part of going insane, right?

You guys are not going to believe how I got out of the chamber.

Okay I think I've figured out what's going on.

I was really confused at first because, why would my sworn enemy who I've been plotting vengeance against this entire time free me from the chamber? At great effort and personal risk, no less? That fight was absolutely brutal, I'm not sure I could have even done it myself in his place, and I mean his situation without even bothering was quite good. He had all of my power. His ancestors were likewise distracted with sealing me away. He could have ascended to become the next Dark Lord or, I don't know, ran around doing his Power of Friendship bullshit for the next ten thousand years largely uncontested. Not only does he not have a further use for me but if anything, I present a massive threat to him if I can regain enough strength to take my power back.

But I think that's it! That Power of Friendship bullshit! Somehow, this guy has mistaken me for an ally.

I can work with this.

As long as he doesn't suspect that we're actually enemies, I can bide my time, restore my power, wrestle control of my armies back from his grasp, and then get him back on his knees.

I just need to pretend that I've actually been helping him out this entire time.

I really want him back on his knees. That was a good look on him. He's got like super long eyelashes for a dude. Plus you know that's where he belongs, groveling before my might! Mwahahaha!

Well this is going surprisingly well. Like I don't think it's even occurred to him to be suspicious of me? He hasn't even tried to drug me with truth serum or test me at a holy spring or drag me in front of any tribunals. When I caught one of his little friends passing information to his rivals he just... took my word for it. I could have been lying. I wasn't, because I was actually expecting him to check, but I could have been.

I'm almost starting to wonder if he really is descended from those ancient hero fuckers, he doesn't act like them at all. The apple must have rolled into a goddamn river and been carried off to sea after it fell off that tree.

This is going to be easier than I thought.

Just because I'm pretending to be his ally doesn't mean I can't still sabotage him, of course. That one little traitor might have been a real mole, who is... somehow still in the group, and not beheaded or anything(????). But I'm pretty sure the king's son is genuinely devoted to his brother-in-arms, to my hero-enemy, and hasn't committed any convenient betrayals that I can dig out and wave around to get rid of him. If that even would get rid of him (see: traitor mole still in group). More's the pity.

Such a strong political alliance with the ruling family will further cement my hero's power in this region. Potentially, that will make it even harder to extricate him for my own purposes later on. Of course, it's not worth the risk if I do something too extreme and it gets traced back to me, so I can't simply kill the prince.

But I didn't study medicine at my grandmother's knee just to forget all the useful bits in my dark rise to power. That idiot won't be riding out to adventure alongside his 'sworn brother' tomorrow if he has too many embarrassing rashes to get into his saddle.

This might seem like a petty plot that is beneath me but it's tactically sound. I've thought about it a lot.

I hate having no powers. Keep forgetting I can't turn invisible.

I can't believe I'm probably going to get ousted because I was caught putting itching cream in the shithead prince's ointment.

Apparently the prince is engaged to a princess from a neighboring kingdom who is also his childhood friend and one true love.

I don't know why people keep bringing that up as if I should care, but they haven't thrown me in a cell yet. So. Okay?

Starting to think I could just light this place on fire and everyone here would start apologizing for all the smoke.

I take it back these people are abominably over-observant. I'd rather be caught trying to poison the prince again, but the hero's singular suspicious friend, that woman knight, just had to follow me to the abandoned shrine instead.

Cats are one of nature's most successful predators. Properly trained, a dark familiar is an excellent spy and helper, and I am in need of every advantage I can get right now. Everyone knows the best way to ingratiate yourself to animals is to get them young. Feeding kittens is a sinister action.

I mean it's good that it helps my cover that these people think otherwise, it's just that they're wrong. Half of my family was executed for feeding cats. Back in those days everyone knew what was up and nobody cooed about it.

Shit, shit, I knew we shouldn't have kept that mole around. Fucking sob story bullshit. The hero's captured. My dark feline army isn't ready! I'm going to have to turn to some other means of regaining him before the enemy steals my power from him. They can't be allowed to do that. It'd kill him but more importantly it would make it that much harder for me to ever reclaim it.

HOW FUCKING DARE THEY?!

The only one allowed to strip him and put him in chains is me!!! ME!!! He's mine!!! I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FIRST TO DO THAT TO HIM!!!

Bastards! Hacks!

I didn't sell my soul to eight different devils to be upstaged by some fuckers who barely grasps the fundamentals of summoning circles. Fuck the low battery I don't need the dark forces of beyond to take these bitches out, their rituals are shit enough I'm going to end them with a piece of chalk and three drops of blood. Hold my fucking beer.

Fixed it.

Gonna have to rework some of my dungeon/summer home plans. Chains are tacky. Some good enchanted silk rope works just as well.

Hero says he needs to reward me for saving him when we get back. I should probably decline whatever it is, that's what all these people seem to do, but I'll at least see what he's offering first. Just in case it's worth cracking my cover for.

You guys are not going to believe what the reward turned out to be.