Discworld Bound

@jpbebbington on Twitter Big Friendly Giant. Fond of cuddles, literature, and mythology. Basically a human Totoro and essentially the reincarnation of Oscar Wilde. Very queer. Very autistic.

[iamjaynaemarie]

Dangers of working on a set.

That’s what I said.

[seawitchkaraoke]

Okay but you forgot the best part! During the scene where Aragorn, Gandalf and the other Main CharaktersTM ride ahead to go shout at the gate (and talk to the mouth of sauron in the extended edition) they were very firmly told only to ride up  ahead “this far” because that area was cleared and beyond that it wasn’t.

But. Viggo Mortensen is absolutely mad and lead them just…. a bit farther than that. Everyone else was very scared they might blow up any second. Viggo said it “added a little extra tension”.

[mikkeneko]

[ithinkitsdashing]

#they just don’t make behind the scenes stories like lotr anymore

[ophidahlia]

Viggo was just Like That™ for the whole trilogy, taking method acting to extreme levels:

he would spend multiple days walking overland to locations in full pack, sword, & armour when everyone else was travelling in trucks

refused to use any prop swords that weren’t actual steel

basically lived in the forest in-costume, sleeping rough under the sky, even fishing & foraging for his food when possible

often spent hours in the barn just bonding with the horses. He adopted the horse he rode, Uranus, after filming ended

repaired all his own gear by hand, which was often since he never took it off

had a tooth knocked out during filming but had the crew simply glue it back in place so they could keep filming

the instructor who taught everyone swordplay said Viggo was the best swordsman he had ever trained

carried his sword literally everywhere & practiced non-stop, resulting in the cops being called when locals reported “a wild man swinging a sword around his head" outside a gym in Wellington

an orc actor fucked up & accidentally threw a dagger directly into Viggo’s face, but Viggo just deflected it with his sword. They kept that shot

infamously broke 3 toes kicking that helmet but stayed in-character & sold his very real scream as part of the scene. They also kept that shot

Viggo insists on doing his own stunts; in The Two Towers where Aragorn is unconscious & floating down the river, the strong current pulled him underwater for so long that a rescue team had to go in to save him. Viggo survived by grabbing a boulder on the riverbed and pulling himself to the surface

It’s probably more accurate to say that Aragorn played Viggo Mortensen in the off season, so I’m 100% unsurprised to hear he put a whole crowd of fellow actors in genuine mortal peril for a 12% increase in authenticity

[nightbringer24]

Viggo, No?

More like Viggo, Yes!

[lotrheritageposts]

LOTR Heritage Post

[autisticlittleguy]

"Grace Ryland is Rocky's dog" is such a funny fucking dynamic when you think about it

Eridians are further behind than humans technologically right? They dont have computers, relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. In fact, Eridians probably dont even know about the Big Bang because their atmosphere would filter out most of the cosmic microwave background radiation we use to detect it. On a human timeline, theyre anywhere between like early-mid 20th century. Rocky's basically a cosmonaut.

So the human civilization is pretty advanced from Rocky's perspective. Rationally he understands this. On a conceptual level he knows this to be true.

But at the same time... imagine youre one of the first ever cosmonauts to make it into space. Then you meet a 10 year old alien dog who cant do 2+2 without pulling out its calculator. It forgets everything constantly and has to keep notes everywhere, like it basically lives in Memento (2000). Also if it doesnt nap constantly it gets even stupider. And you somehow has to reconcile this with the fact that this dog has a better understanding of physics than your entire civilization does. Like the dog knows how the universe started.

[luulapants]

If we wanted to engage in nuance (lol, lmao) on the "are audiobooks reading" debate, we really do need to bring literacy, and especially blind literacy, into the conversation.

Because, yes, listening to a story and reading a story use mostly the same parts of the brain. Yes, listening to the audiobook counts as "having read" a book. Yes, oral storytelling has a long, glorious tradition and many cultures maintained their histories through oral history or oral + art history, having never developed a true written language, and their oral stories and histories are just as valid and rich as written literature.

We still can't call listening in the absence of reading "literacy."

The term literacy needs to stay restricted to the written word, to the ability to access and engage with written texts, because we need to be able to talk about illiteracy. We need to be able to identify when a society is failing to teach children to read, and if we start saying that listening to stories is literacy, we lose the ability to describe those systemic failures.

Blind folks have been knee-deep in this debate for a long time. Schools struggle to provide resources to teach students Braille and enforcing the teaching of Braille to low-vision and blind children is a constant uphill battle. A school tried to argue that one girl didn't need to learn Braille because she could read 96-point font. Go check what that is. The new prevalence of audiobooks and TTS is a huge threat to Braille literacy because it provides institutions with another excuse to not provide Braille education or Braille texts.

That matters. Braille-literate blind and low-vision people have a 90% employment rate. For those who don't know Braille, it's 30%. Braille literacy is linked to higher academic success in all fields.

Moving outside the world of Braille, literacy of any kind matters. Being able to read text has a massive impact on a person's ability to access information, education, and employment. Being able to talk about the inability to read text matters, because that's how we're able to hold systems accountable.

So, yes, audiobooks should count as reading. But, no, they should not count as literacy.

[naamahdarling]

Finally, a good fucking take.

[electronicgallery]

Museum Asks People To Recreate Paintings At Home, Gets 30 New Impressive Photos

It appears that boredom lies behind the most creative ideas. That's why quarantine has produced some of the most entertaining activities. One of them is the Getty Museum challenge, that so many of you have already seen in our previous article here.

[delphinidin4]

Narcissus taking a selfie is the ACTUAL best.

[simplyclockwork]

These are REALLY cool

[notallfay]

These are art in themselves, in a some of them point out what lockdown was like for us, they’re expressed themselves in a really cool way. But I think these are going to be talked about in the future.

[sufficientlylargen]

@elodieunderglass I see that you are in this series

[elodieunderglass]

No series would be complete without!

[stargirl-and-potts]

Still thinking about how Grace was always treated as disposable. Kicked out of his passion field for his honesty—underpaid as a (very good) teacher, to the point he can’t afford a car—left alone in a room full of argon with a sample that might kill him, while all the indispensable guys who put him there stood on the other side of the glass and watched. Shoved screaming into a mission that would kill him. And then, then this bonkers little alien who just met him gladly trades years off his life (via extended return mission) to save him. Runs burning through deadly air to keep him from dying. Chooses finally to weave their lives together forever and recreate Grace’s best dreams of Earth to make him happy. No wonder Grace told Rocky he doesn’t have to get him a gift, he’s given him everything. To one little spider guy, Grace is irreplaceable. That’s love.

[stargirl-and-potts]

And of course Rocky, who flung himself into the impossible trusting his crew would be there, only to lose every single crewmate with no warning and no understanding — Rocky who spent endless days alone with no other voice, no one to watch him sleep, no way to even tell Adrian he’s sorry — Rocky found everything he needed in Grace too. Rocky needed a miracle desperately and he got one. He finally hears a voice, and it is kind. It apologizes instantly for frightening him. It laughs with him just for joy at having met. It belongs to this soft silly improbable creature who without knowing him at all meets his trust halfway and tries everything just to be able to speak to him, before they even know they can help each other. Rocky finally found one other soul and it’s wide open. Rocky may have saved Grace but Grace saved Rocky too. Over and over they (we) save each other.

[baelonthebrave]

biologists will be like this is a very simplified diagram of a mammalian cell

chemists will be like this is a molecule

[blackwoolncrown]

okay but this is what the best render of a human cell looks like

They are not kidding

[normal-horoscopes]

We are full of so many fuckign guys

[dianapocalypse]

[sushiisiu]

hey mary take a sick ass photo of us

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[depsidase]

[colddeadfingerpeeler]

Similarly, Kuwait was created in the 20s (the last 20s) by British oil interests and a family of lucky sheiks to insulate and protect it from the interests of greater Mesopotamia (Iraq) and its people.

[tiktoks-i-enjoyed]

"the forbidden advent calendar"

[liberalsarecool]

Patriarchy protects men from responsibility regarding guns and gun violence.

It, in fact, romanticizes their monstrous flaws.

[spring-ephemeral]

me when i like the 2-3h movie: directors should never have to compromise their vision to appeal to something as fickle as people's "patience". anyone complaining about the movie's length is simply a tiktok-addicted philistine.

me when i don't like the 2-3h movie: once i become god emperor of earth anyone trying to make a movie longer than 90 minutes will be shot.

[knightofleo]

[avidreaderffn]

He was done and then he just. Kept. Going.

[magicratfingers]

how long till he makes a gundam

[brightlotusmoon]

[greatmountainfloofsquatch]

PUT THAT THING BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM OR SO HELP ME...

[pjeckleburg]

i hate the "we should only have queer actors playing queer characters" argument for several reasons. but what annoys me the most is that people who argue this straight up don't realize that it's illegal to ask someone about their sexuality in relation to a job interview. like an audition. i don't think breaking anti-discrimination laws to screen people's sexualities to determine their employment is the woke take you think it is.

[pjeckleburg]

and just. setting that aside. if you're saying "we should only have queer actors playing queer characters" you're saying that queer people must be publicly out to play a queer character. even if that actor and that character have the same sexuality. that actor has to disclose that to the whole world. again. i don't think demanding queer people to out themselves in order to engage with a queer acting role is doing anyone any good.

[pjeckleburg]

head in hands. it's acting. it's playing make believe. i don't care if the actress playing a lesbian character has kissed a woman before. i care if she's good at pretending she has.

[hashtagloveloses]

the earthsea books literally have something for everyone the first book is about bisexual wizard boy going to wizard boy school and going on the traditional bildungsroman, the second book is about wizard boy helping a priestess girl escape a cult and go on her healing from religious trauma journey, the third book is about wizard boy begrudgingly in his middle age becoming the merlin to earthsea’s arthur to help the once and future king go on HIS hero’s journey, the fourth book is about how the priestess girl from the second book is now a widowed milf who adopted a dragon and seduced the now very depressed wizard man with sheer old woman rizz, the fifth book is fun little short stories about crazy shit that happened in all different times of earthsea, and the sixth book is about the wizard man becoming a house husband and having his now wife and kid handle the big issues in earthsea, and the whole time ursula k le guin is like yeah tolkien is cool i guess but what if gandalf and all of middle earth wasn’t white and they were on boats the whole time and also the wizards have a Begone Thot incel spell

[yubriamakesart]

we’ve been drinking a lot of tea lately.

[yubriamakesart]

update:

[stovetop00-deactivated20230907]

We’re winning.

[lilnasxvevo]

I found his bio on societyofpresidentialdescendants.org and it was so delightful I had to copy paste the whole thing:

“Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave it to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale (BA, 1977), and was trained to be a museum curator in the University of Delaware’s Winterthur Program in American Material Culture (MA, 1980). A decorative arts curator at the Newark Museum for thirty-seven years before he retired, Ulysses has never stopped writing for the sheer pleasure of it. Aside from books on Victorian furniture, art pottery, studio ceramics, jewelry, and the White House, Ulysses created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel, appeared in 2012. His most recent novel, Cliffhanger, was released by JMS Books in December 2020.

“Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of 45 years. They have two grown children, adopted in 1996.

“Ulysses is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant. His late mother, Julia, was the President’s last living great-grandchild; youngest daughter of Ulysses S. Grant III, and granddaughter of the president’s eldest son, Frederick. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City. He is also on the board of the U.S. Grant Presidential Library and Museum at Mississippi State University.”

[wakingfromthewater]

And frankly, the novels sound like they slap:

Desmond was nominated for a Lambda Award.

[doctorscienceknowsfandom]

“With his husband of 45 years.” You kids don’t know ... they got together before AIDS, at the peak of the Gay Glam Life. They stayed together as their generation died around them, and made through it to the point where they could marry and have a legal family. He looks like a chipper preppie who never had a serious thought or care in the world, but it took *incredible* determination, commitment, and also luck to get here.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

having now read the first of this man's vampire books, you can absolutely tell that he cares a lot about historical furniture because oh my god he really wanted to tell us about all the historical furniture in this vampire's house. material culture as foreplay. seduction via theses about chairs