Writing is hard

I really need a beta reader

[tomb-mold]

im watching a little doc on youtube about an 11th century castle, and theres a bit where they are talking to a group of older women who are working on a large hand embroidered tapestry commemorating its nearly 1000 years of history & into the modern era.. and off on the border they show a bit where the women have stitched themselves working on it into the piece itself, and it made me kinda emotional

how amazing to have a visual depiction of the women who spent literal years painstakingly stitching such a wonderful piece of art that historically would have gone uncredited

[kedreeva]

Hey hang on a second

As important as it was to contact Tumblr when they made that asinine, fucked up change, now that they've reversed it, you have a chance to say thanks for reversing it.

I know that you're probably still riding the high (negative) from the stress of going through yesterday's changes, and worrying about the fate of your community, and how badly the change would have affected creators. We banded together, and we let the staff know that we didn't like what they were doing, and you know what? They listened. That's part of why we're here on Tumblr and not other places that would have just shoved that down our throats regardless of the hundreds of thousands of complaints. Yeah, they fucked up. Big time. But they also backed off, and it's important to speak on that front as well if you want them to do it again later.

So, even though you may still be mad that they did it at all, take a moment and a breath, and click here. Select feedback if it isn't already selected. And just say "Hey, thanks for listening to your users, and for rolling back the change. I like my community here, and I like that you listened to us when we asked you not to do something we didn't like." It doesn't need to be elaborate. But if we want them to listen to us, making it worth listening to us is a step in the process.

Which also means that if you added a negative review somewhere due to this update, consider retracting or editing it to address the back track on the update. If you were a premium user and you cancelled in order to speak with your money to object to the change, consider speaking again now that you've been listened to.

Staff fucked up. But I'd rather have a staff that fucks up sometimes and then actually listens to its users and fixes or tries to fix it, than a staff that fucks up and pushes through to force the fuck up on everyone. So I'm going to thank them for listening this time, and I'm going to encourage them to listen again next time.

[utah-mountain-drifter-deactivat]

At face value, this is a ridiculous headline. But the article then says his managers berated and insulted him for leaving the party after an anxiety attack, and the company then fired him for taking days off work for “unsafe work practices,” due to having anxiety?

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Seems like pretty often headlines that paint a lawsuit as frivolous and ridiculous seem a little more rational after some digging

[clockworkrobotic]

There’s so much more to it as well. He repeatedly asked the company not to throw a party for him due to his anxiety (apparently this is standard practise for their office and he knew it would be triggering for him) and they “forgot” about his request. On the day in question, he predictably had a panic attack and went to his car to do breathing exercises.

The next day he was called into a meeting where he was insulted and grilled about “ruining the party” and “stealing his co-workers’ joy”, which caused him to have another panic attack and start doing coping behaviours like hugging himself, at which point his employers decided he must be angry and was going to turn violent. They then suspended him for days and later told him he’d been fired.

So yeah, it’s not over an “unwanted birthday party”, it’s over employers repeatedly failing to accommodate someone’s disability, trying to frame them as the villain for having accessibility needs, and firing them for not conforming to some stupid office politics.

Source with the court documents

[puttingherinhistory]

I am completely pro-lawsuit. Lawsuits are often the only tool that otherwise powerless individuals have to demand some accountability from large corporations and institutions, and historically lawsuits have been a very important tool for civil rights, women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, and disability rights. But this is exactly why the media is always depicting lawsuits as something frivolous and silly that only uptight spoiled crybabies who want easy money do, and people just eat up that propaganda without doing any research or critical thinking.

[cryoverkiltmilk]

REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO PROPAGANDA AND THAT SENSATIONALIZED JOURNALISM FALLS UNDER THAT

[gaya-the-k]

Finally

Beware the Ides of March 

[gaya-the-k]

Beware the Ides of March

[gaya-the-k]

Beware the Ides of March

[gaya-the-k]

Beware the Ides of March

[ubercharge]

look. look at this beautiful sword meme. i’m going to cry

[literallybyronic]

@petermorwood

[petermorwood]

I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but it’s always worth repeating, and this time I’m adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)

Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.

Here are Celtic bronze swords…

…Ancient Greek Xiphoi…

… and a Roman “Mainz-pattern” gladius…

Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.

Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. They’re weapons if necessary…

…but since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.

This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside it…

…but may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.

A couple of internet captions say it’s for “cutting ropes” which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Hero’s rapier (!!) wouldn’t be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didn’t work as well as intended for any purpose.

I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).

A lot of “flamberge” (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.

The giveaway is the centreline: if it’s straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.

Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.

Again, the clue is the centre-line.

Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.

Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.

There’s no doubt about this one either.

The reason - though that was a part of it - wasn’t just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.

However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasn’t that much of an advantage after all.

Here’s a Circassian kindjal, forged wiggly…

…and an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wiggly…

There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.

These more practical historical versions are usually called “sword-breakers” but I prefer “sword-catcher”, since a steel blade isn’t that easy to break. Taking the opponent’s blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.

NB - the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.

The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next one’s blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.

So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.

Here’s a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film - and this doesn’t even have an odd-shaped blade…

Just a very flexible one…

If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to start…

[ubercharge]

i could not ask for a better addition to my meme post than blade education thank you so much

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

It’s not fantasy anatomy, but knowing stuff about the objects you put in your fantasy world is also very important

[zarithial]

@ncat

[the-tenth-arcanum]

🗣🗣🗣 free youtube premiere of the national theatre the importance of being ernest announced!

nationaltheatre

[britts-galaxy-brain]

"Why is it ONLY trans women that get called out for predatory behavior?!"

Toonkritic. Cis man. Has been blacklisted from community spaces for ten years for predatory behavior. Has tried to rebrand and come back multiple times, and gets blacklisted again every time someone spots him.

Kero the Wolf. Cis man. Zoosadist. Blacklisted from community spaces. Everyone except other zoosadists fucking hate him.

The entire guest list of FreeFurAll. The only reason that con even existed was because the people who got banned and blacklisted from community spaces for reasons including but not limited to predatory behavior and extreme right-wing ideology (including outright nazism) were indignantly whining about the fandom getting """too political""" and rejecting them for their beliefs. The con staff consisted of Jasonafex, who groomed his girlfriend when she was 15 and he was in his 20s, and has a history of predatory behavior on top of being an abusive piece of shit in general. Peacewolf, a cis woman who spews homophobic rhetoric and had sex with Jasonafex and his girlfriend while her kids were in the room (she admitted to this and tried to downplay it). Foxler, face of the Furry Raiders, which is a straight up nazi group (Rags, the character in the dog porn art Patricia Taxxon sent to a 13 year old, has been a guest on their podcast multiple times, how bout that).

I could go on.

The point I'm making here is it is a flat out lie that "only trans women" get held accountable for rancid behavior. They're just the only ones who have successfully been able to co-opt a real struggle faced by innocent people to cover their asses.

[mexican-neji]

a headcanon of mine is that kakashi heard from gai that his new student tenten decided to focus on summoning scrolls, so kakashi thought to teach her a cool trick to dance with them like ribbons :)

[buntong-h1ninga]

Yoooooo!!!!

FilmCow Royalty Free Sound Effects Library by FilmCow

FilmCow Royalty Free Sound Effects Library by FilmCow

[ben-shapiro-onlyfans]

wikipedia is a gem

[laineysbucketlist]

If I’m correct, this is from the article “list of common misconceptions” which happens to be one of my favorite Wikipedia articles

[xkcd-for-that]

[ID in alt text]

[xkcd-for-that]

Happy first Tuesday in February!

[megapope-deactivated20220531]

god damn this is a QUILT (‘late day shadows’ by nancy messier)

[cyber-seagull404]

THIS IS A QUILT?!?!?!?

[madronasky]

Zoom IN!!

[ozth]

found this three year old draft buried in my files. is it funny? I don't remember

[wispsofwhimsy]

no no you’re on to something don’t leave this in the notes!

[shutyourmoustache]

[hostilemakeover]

[g00seg1raffe]

Holy fuck you illegally downloaded a cardigan

[rederiswrites]

@inkthusiasm

[through-a-historic-lens]

A father with his 4 daughters, 1904

[elucubrare]

Raymond Schuyler and Four of his Children, photographed by William Bullen (link is to an article with historical context, especially about the use of these family photographs as a counterweight to racist images of Black Americans and the Black family.)

[the child in the striped hat is most likely his son Stephen]

[officialprincefroggy]

Mrs. Claus opens "The Year Without a Santa Claus" by claiming the eponymous year took place "before you were born". Seeing as the movie was released in 1974, this means the year must have been before then.

Bounding this on the lower end is the presence of ice hockey - mentioned by Heat Miser - and the use of telephones. Ice hockey was invented in 1875, while Alexander Graham Bell built the telephone in 1876, meaning the year must post-date these. These figures give a range of approximately 100 years during which Santa may have taken his holiday.

Yet, narrowing this further is the presence of a December calendar counting the 1st to a Wednesday. Between 1876 and 1974, only the Decembers of 1880, 1886, 1897, 1909, 1915, 1920, 1926, 1937, 1943, 1948, 1954, 1965, and 1971 started on a Wednesday.

But still this can be narrowed further.

When Santa set out that Christmas Eve, we see what appears to be an almost full Moon in the sky. Within the years listed, only 1920 had a full Moon on Christmas.

Ergo, 1920 was the year without a Santa Claus.

[nylarac]

[someemochick]

[fishingscam]

op didn’t add a link so here’s a link to his patreon where all of his minis are free to download please support him if you can

[marlynnofmany]

I would absolutely download a dragon, and I’ve already shared this with my D&D group. We’re gonna have some adventures! Thank you to everyone who made this possible!

[sufficientlylargen]

This is leaving out the best part of his patreon, which is that he’s been doing polls for “silly models” to create for years, bringing us such wonders as the Baba Yaga Taco Truck, the Horse Head, Goostarian (Goose Astarion), a Pirate Ship Mimic, the Honkdra, and Definitely The Five-Headed Dragon God Tiamat And Not Five Wyrmlings In A Trenchcoat

[championofdnd]

@elodieunderglass I feel like there are a few here that you might appreciate

[elodieunderglass]

Oh they’re really nice! thank you!

[enki2]