I will love like steel & I will hope out of spite

NB agender (any pronouns), ace, mom, autistic, ADHD, craft-crazy, massive nerd

[systlin]

So what ARE your opinions on field vs water retting? I’m gonna farm some fiber this year

Water retting makes flax a beautiful golden color, but field retting is easier to keep an eye on.

ALSO, I've come to the conclusion that Tolkein's Teleri elves did field retting for the sails of the swan ships, because field retting leaves the flax a beautiful silvery gray, and while all flax will eventually bleach to white with washing in lye and sun the sails are supposed to be pale and the silver would suit the aesthetic better than the golden color you get from water retting. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[magenkeshet]

Oh you’re SO right about that. Now I’m thinking about elven textile manufacturing….

[systlin]

Welcome to our super niche nerd Tolkien Elves Textile Work Fan Club. Me and @batsintheshadows are founding members. We both have Opinions about linen and nettle fiber.

[readingreddingread]

The amount of time they have to master stuff no arthritis or aging eyes their lace craft is probably sickenly good.

[systlin]

THAT'S WHAT WE'RE SAYING LIKE

These MF folks can casually spend 300 years mastering bobbin lace and then can casually spend 100 years making one full length entire ass bobbin lace DRESS out of linen spun as fine as a sigh. Can you fucking IMAGINE the absolute Bullshit they get up to with fancy weaving.

[dreamingdormouse]

And you'd be far less likely to lose techniques to time. Like, there's a bunch of stuff we don't know about even just flax processing, because most of the people who were insanely good at it lived before the world wars. The world wars messed up linen production at scale in a lot of Europe, and people didn't have the resources to get back to it until after a lot of the experts had already died of old age.

Old age is not an issue for the elves. Quite aside from having the individual ability to spend time on their work, you just wouldn't lose the experts.

My guild has been part of an effort to reprint the Davison green book, in cooperation with Marguerite Davison's descendants. Imagine if we just, like, still had Marguerite Davison.

I mean, we can't know how many techniques were lost to Fëanor's BS, but I bet there were some Teleri sail weavers with special techniques. But at least time itself wouldn't be the problem.

[leebrontide]

Spoke to someone who is by all accounts an excellent pediatric endocrinologist, who mentioned to me that her very own daughter struggles with hypermobility, who had never heard of low dose testosterone for hypermobility.

Cis people, I blame you for this. The information never gets around because taking hormones not associated with your AGAB is so taboo and shocking and people don't discuss it. Research doesn't go to it.

Even doctors who actually know about it don't tell patients about it. It's absurd.

[leebrontide]

For context, I lost multiple jobs and was in daily pain for years due to hypermobility. No doctor even suggested this to me. Either they didn't know, or, in at least one case, they knew but never thought to tell me because of the goddamn cis assumptions that I would never consider testosterone because I'm a "woman".

I personally went from struggling to wash dishes because my hands weren't working and panicking about how to find a house without stairs in my neighborhood to giving daily piggyback rides to 110 lb of child and saving up to get back to fencing classes. And like, not every 40+ year old even WITHOUT hypermobility can do those things. I can do significant yardwork and rarely even have to think about it.

My hypermobility and joint pain aren't gone but now they're something I don't have to organize my whole entire entire life around. I am fitter now than at any other point in my life, by a wide margin.

I know I got an atypically good response but in what universe the possibility of a response like that with a medication that is cheap, established and safe not a front line option to try??? Or at least suggest??? A leading research subject? Something that every doctor should know?

It's a once daily topical gel! You don't even need to be able to swallow a pill for fucks sake!

Cis nonsense.

[entrandoempanico]

do you feel any “collateral effects” one would expect from taking t? (i’m thinking about balding — i already have to take oral minoxidil because my hair is giving up on life and id not like to lose more of it, but my hypermobility has bothered me more in the last few years, nothing so extreme but things like fatigue and weak fingers etc)

[leebrontide]

I don't have balding in my family so I'm maybe not the best person to ask about that. In fact my #1 side effect (other than truly spectacular muscle development) is more hair. I shave my neck about once a week, and peachfuzz under my nose somewhat less than that, although frankly I don't think I have more facial hair than the average menopausal woman, I just really do not like the sensation of facial hair.

I have more and thicker body hair, and my fat has redistributed some. My voice went from a very very high soprano to a semi-low alto (this did involve a year of hilarious voice cracking). In fact I sound exactly like my mother, now. But my singing range is massive, with only the very tip top dropping totally out of reach. If you truly scrutinize my face with an old photo, you can see it's masculinized a little bit, but it takes that level of attention.

I'm pretty sure I'd actually still be having periods if I hadn't had my uterus electrocuted years ago due to it's mutiny. In fact my hormone cycles seem calmer now than the chaos I endured in my youth.

The only side effect that actively annoys me is that I now look my age. Before taking T I had that youthful look common to people with hypermobility. The speed at which I aged to looking my actual age was startling. But then it slowed to a regular pace.

I wish I could tell you more, but, again, the research just hasn't been out there.

[dreamingdormouse]

Wait wait wait.

"... that youthful look common to people with hypermobility."

Say what now?!

I don't have any diagnosed hypermobility things because honestly it's the least of my worries and if I asked my doc for one more diagnosis I think he'd start shredding things in despair (he's awesome but the number of times I've had to come in like "hey Doc, I think I've got ___" and been proven correct is frankly insane)

But I'm pretty sure I'm hypermobile - quite aside from excessive bendiness, I have a litany of the side symptoms and several things that it's frequently comorbid with.

This one is new to me. Youthful appearance?

Well that would explain a lot. That's been a thing at least since I started college (my first year in college, I was mistaken for an 8th grader. Not by some out-of-touch professor in their 80's... But by 8th graders.)

Not usually a PROBLEM, but definitely a known data point.

I still ain't telling my poor doctor though. Dude has been through enough and this only hurts me when I sprain my ankles again.

[systlin]

"Sys how is your decent into fiber arts hell going"

Glad you asked. I have arrived at 'modern flax is Bullshit compared to what we had in historical textiles, the flax widely available for handspinning is basically the tow that would be discarded from textile creation and used with tar to caulk ships back in the day'

This naturally led me down a hole of 'why is the staple length of this stuff a bullshit 6 inches' and the answer is 'we have bred modern flax more for the oil than the fiber because cotton usurped the place of everyday textile thanks to slavery and the cotton gin'

Anyway, THIS led me to a rabbit hole that culminated in me finding flax seed bred for proper 30 inch tall plants for fiber, sold by some fellow minded nerds on a website that has not been updated since 1998 and you have to email them to buy anything.

Anyway how are all of you doing.

[systlin]

I FAILED YOU ALL here is the site. You can also buy flax fiber from them. The PROPER shit, not the hot garbage ass tow fiber sold as flax top for handspinners.

[systlin]

'machine combing shortens the flax fibers by several inches'

This right here is part of why modern linen is a pale shadow of historical linen. Legitimately it cannot be properly replicated by machines. It HAS to be made by human hands if you want the best quality.

[once-a-polecat]

There was a whole article in the most recent issue of Little Looms magazine on how to produce flax to spin with. As well as an article about how to troubleshoot weaving with linen yarn.

[dreamingdormouse]

I have the opposite of a green thumb. Tragic really. Everyone else in my family has EXTREMELY green thumbs.

Possibly I can get my green-thumbed sister who lives on a farm to grow me some flax if I promise her some of the resulting linen... With the natural caveat of "assuming I ever finish."

...probably better to pay her, honestly. I wonder if it's too late to plant flax in her zone?

[kleinergeist]

After 9 months of work, my Oseberg tapestry sweater is complete!

This was my first sweater knitted in the round, first stranded colourwork project, and my first time steeking. It was definitely my most challenging project so far, and a lot of learning and research was involved. I used a colourwork chart created by the very talented Molly Gifford, which is available for free on Ravelry

For reference, this is one of the fragments uncovered from the gravesite:

Some scholars think that the Oseberg tapestry includes the earliest known artistic depiction of Odin's ravens, Huginn and Muninn. So I added them to the sleeves as a little Easter egg.

[interlockingpatches]

New Bead Maze with cotton outlines (interlocking filet and bead crochet)

[dreamingdormouse]

This is SUPER COOL!

but ... i can't make the beads go loop de loop ...

But I still wanna make this! Such an awesome idea, and beautifully executed!

[preserving-tiktok]

[dreamingdormouse]

If you are making browned butter and you want extra flavor, as soon as the butter is melted add some instant dry nonfat milk powder.

Why? Well, that's extra of the milk solids, the part that you'll be browning. More milk solids per butter stick means more intensely flavored brown butter.

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: I'm not sure what the different solid-to-fat ratio will do to your baked goods, it will depend on how sensitive the thing you're baking is and how much powdered milk you added. I usually use this as a sauce for pasta.

[sleepy-bebby]

He was a sk8r boi

He said, "See you later, boy"

[mystrothedefender]

[dreamingdormouse]

"my wheels now"

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

Genuine question why the fuck is February only allowed have 28 days? why can't we just give it one of January's and March's extras and even the score to 30. what fucklehead is responsible for this conniving calendar thievery

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

well shit we really did just let the romans get away with any ole thing huh

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I'm telling you guys. SIX days per week. THIRTY days per month. TWELVE months per year. A thirteenth "liminal month" of five days (six on leap years) between years, which is considered a holiday period.

Six day week is superior to seven because a prime number week is stupid. There's a lot of things that people like to do every second or third day; in a six day week, this is always the same days each week.

All months are the same length. Advantages obvious.

Thirty days is a good round number for a month; it can be divided into so many smaller numbers. Convenient for things that need to be done regularly; you can do them on the same days each month and have the gaps between them all exactly the same.

Every month in a given year starts with the same day. If the 3rd is a Wednesday, every 3rd will be a Wednesday. This is a massive help in scheduling bullshit that ends up happening "second Tuesday of every month" or whatever, and also helps people track regular monthly things (if you have a monthly meeting on the 15th, it's going to be the same day of the week every time). Fitting weeks perfectly into months just offer so many improvements for scheduling and remembering stuff.

The days move back with each non-leap year -- if the 1st of every month in 2025 is a Tuesday, the 1st in every month in 2026 will be a Monday. (This also happens with out current calendar as neither 6 nor 7 fit into 365). This means that if your birthday is on a Monday or whatever, it won't be that way every year -- only the same day of the month WITHIN THE YEAR (2 years in a row for leap years) is the same. (I bring this up because last time I mentioned this people didn't do the math and thought that the days of the week would be consistent across years, somehow, mysteriously).

Holiday transition period between years. You know you want it. People treat the Christmas-New Year's period like this already when their work lets them do it. Make it official.

[dreamingdormouse]

If you do 12 30-day months with 5 (sometimes 6) days at the end of the year, the extra days are generally referred to as "intercalary days," although I like Derin's description of them as a liminal month. But several historical calendars have included intercalary days! Check it out!

[dreamingdormouse]

I'd keep the seven-day week though, for two main reasons:

1) several religions are REEEEEAAAAALLY attached to it and will be resistant to a new calendar otherwise. If you want acceptance of a new calendar, asking all three of the Abrahamic religions to drop the cycle that they believe God commanded... it's going to guarantee you have opposition.

I don't AT ALL think that we should collectively live by religious rules, but for something like this where three religions and thousands of years of tradition are in agreement AND it's not something that's pushing religion on people or otherwise particularly harmful, I don't think it's worth the uphill battle.

2. I disagree with Derin about the 6-day week being superior! Yes, there are lots of things that people like to do every 2 or 3 days, and 7 is a prime number. But that's a good thing, in my opinion. Having more different cycles is beneficial. You can do some things every 2 days, other things every 3 days, and OTHER things every 7 days!

But I do very much like the idea of 12 months of 30 days each and 5 (sometimes 6) intercalary days.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

Genuine question why the fuck is February only allowed have 28 days? why can't we just give it one of January's and March's extras and even the score to 30. what fucklehead is responsible for this conniving calendar thievery

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

well shit we really did just let the romans get away with any ole thing huh

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I'm telling you guys. SIX days per week. THIRTY days per month. TWELVE months per year. A thirteenth "liminal month" of five days (six on leap years) between years, which is considered a holiday period.

Six day week is superior to seven because a prime number week is stupid. There's a lot of things that people like to do every second or third day; in a six day week, this is always the same days each week.

All months are the same length. Advantages obvious.

Thirty days is a good round number for a month; it can be divided into so many smaller numbers. Convenient for things that need to be done regularly; you can do them on the same days each month and have the gaps between them all exactly the same.

Every month in a given year starts with the same day. If the 3rd is a Wednesday, every 3rd will be a Wednesday. This is a massive help in scheduling bullshit that ends up happening "second Tuesday of every month" or whatever, and also helps people track regular monthly things (if you have a monthly meeting on the 15th, it's going to be the same day of the week every time). Fitting weeks perfectly into months just offer so many improvements for scheduling and remembering stuff.

The days move back with each non-leap year -- if the 1st of every month in 2025 is a Tuesday, the 1st in every month in 2026 will be a Monday. (This also happens with out current calendar as neither 6 nor 7 fit into 365). This means that if your birthday is on a Monday or whatever, it won't be that way every year -- only the same day of the month WITHIN THE YEAR (2 years in a row for leap years) is the same. (I bring this up because last time I mentioned this people didn't do the math and thought that the days of the week would be consistent across years, somehow, mysteriously).

Holiday transition period between years. You know you want it. People treat the Christmas-New Year's period like this already when their work lets them do it. Make it official.

[dreamingdormouse]

If you do 12 30-day months with 5 (sometimes 6) days at the end of the year, the extra days are generally referred to as "intercalary days," although I like Derin's description of them as a liminal month. But several historical calendars have included intercalary days! Check it out!

[breadandm]

somebody posted this Calvin and Hobbes strip and i cannot overstate just how topical this fuckin thing is

[rae-conteur]

One of the best legacies of this strip is how many of us started out as little Calvins, and grew up into Calvin's dad.

[beggars-opera]

So I just found the most useful photo album in existence for tumblr arguments

[noldorinwa]

I HAVE FOUND MY FAVOURITE POST ON THE INTERNET

@georgeorwell @lordhellebore @francisperfectionbonnefoy @janiedean and everyone else have you guys seen this gem

[janiedean]

OH MY GOD I’M SAVING ALL  OF THESE RN

[jasper-rolls]

this headline feels like something someone would post on this website completely devoid of context and get 5000 notes for

[dreamingdormouse]

Spouse to kids: "What are we feeling like for lunch, sushi or Italian?"

Kids: noncommittal mutters

Me: "I usually feel like Easter goes with brunch ..."

Spouse: "So maybe Bruchi's?"

Me: "JUST BECAUSE IT HAS FIVE OF THE SAME LETTERS DOESN'T MEAN - "

[sndwave]

the funniest thing in the entire pirates of the caribbean series is definitely that one scene in At World’s End where they have parlay but davy jones is part of it, and rather than have him stand in the shallows or something they get a big bucket of water and have in stand on it on shore

who thought of that idea? who thought “put davy jones in a bucket of water” and had the guts to suggest it aloud? and then who went “hey that sounds like a great idea!”

at some point someone told davy jones their idea was for him to stand in a bucket of water and he agreed to it

[sndwave]

*stands majestically in a bucket*

[stemmmm]

ok but notice the trail of buckets behind him meaning he walked from the ocean through three other buckets of water before he got into the one hes standing in

[prokopetz]

It’s even funnier when you consider how he must have figured all this out in the first place.

Some folks are asking “well, if he can avoid the no-dry-land curse simply by standing in a bucket, doesn’t that ruin his whole motivation?”, but he’s not on dry land here.

The parley takes place on a sandbar - which, for the unfamiliar, is a temporary “island” of sand deposited by breaking waves, unconnected with the shore, that spends most of its time submerged, being exposed only at low tide.

What Jones is doing here is rules-lawyering his curse. Can you imagine the trial and error he must have gone through in order to determine that this would actually work?

“Okay, do islands count as dry land? How about parts of the shore below the high tide mark? Reefs? Shoals? What if I stand in a pool of water on a shoal? Does it have to be seawater, or will any water do? Does it have to be a natural tidepool, or can it be something artificial, like a bucket?”

What I am saying is that there must have been a process.

[stumblngrumbl]

Pretty sure that this implies that the reverse - a bucket of sand, floating on the water (big bucket with just a bit of sand), would qualify as dry land. That’s absurd, so I’m pretty sure that his lawyer pulled a fast one over the curse governor.

[prokopetz]

It may be absurd, but the text of the film bears it out. Davy Jones can sense the presence of his heart while it’s at sea, but not while it’s on land (indeed, that’s why he buried it on land in the first place: to break his connection with it) - yet placing the heart in a simple jar of dirt conceals it from Jones’ awareness just as surely as burial on land does, even if the jar is on a boat at the time. Suitably prepared vessels filled with dirt absolutely count as dry land for the purpose of Jones’ curse.

[silver-tongues-blog]

Then the reverse should also be true. If he buried it in a jar of water, no matter how far inland it is, he would be able to sense it. So by this logic, any container of seawater counts as not dry land, ergo, the bucket is a perfectly viable loophole.

[prokopetz]

Not necessarily. It’s traditionally a lot easier to accidentally get whammied by a curse than it is to weasel around it - I figure that’s why he’s using multiple layers of indirection here. He’s forbidden to set foot on dry land, but it’s technically not dry land (it’s a sandbar, a non-permanent landform exposed only at low tide) and he technically didn’t set foot on it (he’s standing in a bucket of water). It’s entirely possible that either one of those things alone wouldn’t make the grade.

[officialharshnoise]

okay but this all raises one further, very important question: if it’s specifically “dry land” he’s forbidden from, what about wetlands. can Davy Jones fight you in salt marshes? can he throw down in a peat bog?Swamp Battle?

[musicalhell]

This is the quality content I come to Tumblr for.

[karometeenk]

could he step on land if his shoes are wet?

[there-was-a-girl]

No matter how ridiculous PotC gets I will love it. Especially when it results in conversations like this

[glumshoe]

What if he crawls around on his hands and knees, with his feet raised slightly into the air? Can he walk on his hands? Can he ride around in a litter or a wheelchair?

[princedorkface]

can he be in a wheelbarrow?

[bemusedlybespectacled]

What if he flies over dry land? Like in a hot air balloon, or in the claws of a giant bird?

[pantheraj]

What if he’s carried by two swallows using a strand of creeper?

[strikelikeahawk]

European swallows or African swallows?

[thinster13]

this whole thread reads like a conversation between these two:

In fact im not entirely sure that it wasn’t their idea in the first place

[marloviandevil]

It probably was.

[sluttyquarantinetheory]

The most horrifying thing about being a human is that no matter how intelligent you are or how much customer service training you have, nothing will stop you from being the idiot customer on occasion. At some point you won't read a sign or you'll misread a menu or ask the dumbest question a human has ever formed and there is nothing you can do to prevent this. It will happen. Accept it and continue on your way as one of today's dipshit customers.

[oh-boof]

I did this within the last 6 months.

I'm allergic to shellfish, but only the crab/lobster/shrimp side of shellfish. My brother decided on Red Lobster for his birthday dinner (severely limiting me on what I could eat in addition to my limited diet due to dental work), and I ordered calamari and told the waitress I was allergic to shellfish. I then had to specify and all the while she's giving me this 1000 yard stare.

Felt so embarrassed when she explained that the calamari was fried (and I was too scared to say anything because really my concern was it touching something that had previously touched shellfish).

This interaction has caused me to not order shellfish period anymore. Too scared to have another interaction where I have to overexplain my shellfish allergy to someone who knows how their kitchen works.

[dreamingdormouse]

You can narrow it down a little. I know because I have a related problem in the opposite direction.

You have a crustacean allergy.

I used to say "I don't like shellfish, except like crabs and lobsters and shrimp, those are fine but I don't like the clam-shaped things."

Now I say "I like crustaceans but I don't like bivalves."

And both of us can eat cephalopods, like calamari (fried squid)

Shellfish include crustaceans and molluscs, and molluscs include bivalves and cephalopods and more.

I might recommend not going to a restaurant named Red Crustacean though.

[narcissistcookbook]

someone should invent a waking up that feels good

[narcissistcookbook]

you know what. i made this bed and now i have to lie in it.

[bixbythemartian]

[dreamingdormouse]

Oh wow

Do you... Is there a version of this with less swears, or just the instrumental? Because I really want to make it my PRETEEN's alarm ⏰

[freak-motion]

last network effect chapters destroyed me here's a shitpost

[dreamingdormouse]

My pronouns are literally "anything BUT it/it's." He/she/they/neo pronouns, all good. "It" is the only one I don't feel comfortable with.

Someone calling me "it" - terrible, horrible, I hate it, ew.

Someone calling YOU "it," if that's your preferred pronoun - wonderful, awesome, I don't feel it but you do you.

You don't have to personally like something to support it being available for the people who do want it.