As the sun sets in the West...

I hate writing intros. Current interests are: spirituality (pagan polytheism), asexuality, Witcher Netflix, and The Amazing Devil. I like to talk. Please feel free to make use of the ask. :). https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenwatcher/pseuds/goldenwatcher Wallander: Bloodless master post

[maryreadings]

obsessed with this silly tiger

[ruinedchildhood]

[ororium-z]

Happy Pride!

[rootbeergoddess]

Every pride, you must reblog this. No exceptions

[thesaltofcarthage]

I love that four different people on my feed scheduled this joyous person to reblog by 8am on June 1. I look forward to seeing this a dozen more times today.

[transmascmarypoppins]

why is this post completely broken in every way imaginable

[cecilsrandomeverything]

Broken notes… deactivated account… removed image….

Finally, we have them all.

[spacefinch]

In addition: OP’s name is just… gone. No “[insert username]-deactivated[insert a bunch of numbers]” as is the standard for deactivated blogs.

Just the world “deactivated.” Look upon their post, ye mighty, and despair.

[chatblancofficial]

It’ll be almost impossible to find this post unless it wanders across your dash.

[huewrite]

It wandered across mine. I shall help it travel forward.

[gossamermouse]

this is not a place of honor

[jackviator]

[dinosaurana]

Oh hey post of Ozymandius, good to see you again standing on your feet in a desert where no one remembers you

[roughentumble]

love her. get his ass kiyohime

[roughentumble]

here's an image of her transforming back from dragon into a woman. queen

[theanishimori]

[mintykiwi]

oh wow get his ass.

[jonnywaistcoat]

I low-key love the fact that sci-fi has so conditioned us to expect to be hanging out with a bunch of cool space aliens, that legitimate, actual scientists keep proposing the most bizarre, three-blunts-into-the-rotation "theories" to explain the fact we're not.

Some of my favourites include:

Zoo Theory: What if there are loads of aliens out there, but they're not talking to us because of the Prime Directive from Star Trek? (Or because they're doing experiments on us???)

Dark Forest Theory: What if there are loads of aliens out there, but they all hate us and each other so they're all just waiting with a shotgun pointed at the door, ready to open fire on anything that moves?

Planetarium Theory: What if there's at least one alien with mastery over light and matter that's just making it seem to us that the universe is empty to us as, like, a joke?

Berserker Theory: What if there were loads of aliens, but one of them made infinite killer robots that murdered everyone and are coming for us next?!!

Like, the universe is at least 13,700,000,000 years old and 46,000,000,000 light years big. We have had the ability to transmit and receive signals for, what, 100 years, and our signals have so far travelled 200 light years?

The fact is biological life almost certainly has, does, or will develop elsewhere in the universe, and it's not impossible that a tiny amount of it has, does, or will develop in a way that we would understand as "intelligent". But, like, we're realistically never going to know because of the scale of the things involved.

So I'm proposing my own hypothesis. I call it the "Fool in a Field" hypothesis. It goes like this:

Humanity is a guy standing in the middle of a field at midnight. It's pitch black, he can't move, and he's been standing there for ages. He's just had the thought to swing his arms. He swings one of his arms, once, and does not hit another person. "Oh no!" He says. "Robots have killed them all!"

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

I love that and want to add my own.

The 20 Minutes Late with Starbucks hypothesis: They noticed us and want to meet us! But since they are several million light-years away and don't have FTL travel, they're just gonna take a while.

[nonasuch]

Personally I lean towards the First One At The Party Theory. Yeah, the universe is 13 billion years old, but our own life-supporting solar system is 4.6 billion and the majority of known exoplanets are younger than us.

It took about a billion years for life to arise, once our planet existed. If our galactic neighbors are operating on a similar timescale, there might just not be anyone out there yet who’s technologically advanced enough to make contact. Right now, the best we can hope for might be people at similar levels of development to us, looking out at the starts and wondering if anyone else is out there.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

don’t know if there’s an official name for this theory but I will call it the “We Can’t Talk To Fish” theory

because while I am absolutely positive that there is life out there (it seems highkey unlikely that in an infinite universe across billions of years only one planet got life), *even if* we were close enough to make contact and *even if* both sides were advanced enough to try to communicate… we might still not ever hear it because it’s in a form we don’t interpret as communication. we have trouble communicating with *other humans,* let alone other species. it’s like sending a probe underwater and hoping the fish talk back to you.

[everythingfox]

“For the love of god”

[thesuperheroesnetwork]

Texts From Superheroes

Facebook | Threads | Patreon | Instagram | BlueSky

[ao3-anonymous]

I just saw an anon come into a gif-maker’s ask box and start with the phrase: “I’m trying not to spam your inbox with reblogs, but” and then go on to say how much they love the gifs.

But I’m still stuck on that opening phrase because…what? I am so confused by how people view interactions on tumblr & AO3 these days. Let me make it very clear for anyone who is confused:

CREATORS WANT YOU TO INTERACT WITH THEIR WORK.

The limit does not exist on how many of their works you can interact with in a certain period.

If you like every fic they’ve ever written? Then feel free to give them all kudos and leave a comment on every single one if you feel inclined! If you’re going through someone’s blog and you vibe with every post, like/reblog to your heart’s content!

As long as you’re not expecting something back from them or adding a ton of irrelevant comments, it’s not spam! It’s what this is all about!! I’m not even much of a creator and I still feel a huge sense of pride when I see a ton of notifications in a row from a person, as it clearly shows they thought my blog was worth spending time on.

And if for some reason a creator is annoyed by this (unlikely), they can manage their own experience (turn off notifs, not look at their notes, delete the fic, etc) so don’t deprive the majority of creators because of some imagined annoyed person. Fandom is a collaborative effort and we all must participate!

[baraphalloplastyclinic]

I actually do think we should discourage women from becoming housewives. Do not become financially dependent on a man. That's how a lot of women ended up dead over the years. A man gets violent suddenly and you have to choose between homelessness or potentially dying at his hand because you have an enormous gap in your resume and no degrees or certifications or anything that will help you pursue a career that will allow you to be financially independent. He owns your bank account. His name is probably the one on the car. Try and leave and he can report it stolen. Where will you go then?

Don't become a housewife.

[ladyfoxfire]

And if you do become a housewife, take steps to protect yourself. Make sure you’re legally married, for starters; stay-at-home girlfriends have very little legal recourse to claim their partner’s assets in a breakup. Make sure your name is on the house deed/rental agreement, and have your car in your name, even if your spouse is paying for it. Have your spouse transfer money every month into an account solely in your name, so you can buy yourself things without needing permission, but also so you can save up to leave if needed.

If your spouse fights you on any of this, then don’t quit your job. The tradwife to poverty pipeline is real, and so is financial abuse.

[dressedupliketheking]

also, many women/people experience controlling behaviour and domestic violence from their partner for the first time during pregnancy. don’t risk thinking “he’s just stressed, it’ll get better when the baby comes” because it won’t. neither you and your child will ever be safe with that man. get out as early and safely as you can

[everyonehasamnesia]

A good friend of mine married a pastor. She birthed, raised, and home schooled his SEVEN children. SEVEN. CHILDREN. They both agreed that she should do that, they both agreed that homeschooling was the best thing for their family, they both agreed to all of this.

She spent over 30 years doing this. For 30 years she didn’t work outside the home. She didn’t know the terms of their lease. She didn’t have the passwords to “their” bank account(s), “their” assets.

He left her when she was in her fifties.

He said that he needed time to reflect and moved out of their house, but told her to focus on getting their last kid through high school (still homeschooled!) and he would take care of everything.

She reached out to the landlord months later asking where the lease renewal was only to find out it wasn’t getting renewed. Because her husband hadn’t paid the rent in OVER NINE MONTHS. The whole time he was promising her he was still taking care of her.

She and her sixteen year old youngest son found out they had to move out of their house with 3 weeks’ notice. She didn’t have a job or work experience or a degree or any idea how to get these things in 3 weeks. She didn’t own her own car. If she had not had friends to take her in, she and her son would have been literally out on the street.

It ruined that friendship, too. It’s a lot to ask someone to put you up indefinitely while you try to put your life together. She burned a lot of bridges taking what anyone would or could give because she had no other choice.

She did, eventually, hard years later, get on her feet again. But it will always be hard and she will never be where she could have been in life if she’d done things differently.

You might be very sure of your marriage. You might be very sure of your husband. He might love you now, and be a good man now, but the rest of your life will hopefully be a long, long time. People change. It CAN happen to you.

[thestuffedalligator]

There is a species of butterfly that lives in the mountains.

When it hatches as a caterpillar, it lowers itself to the ground on a strand of silk, and then produces a chemical that smells like the larvae of ants. An ant eventually discovers it, lured by the scent, and brings it back to the anthill, where it is cared for by the colony until it pupates. After a few weeks, the adult butterfly crawls back up through the anthill, through the dirt and the winding tunnels, and out into the sunlight before it can finally open its wings.

Some say that the caterpillar “tricks” the ants into doing this. I don’t know if I agree – I think it’s too small a thing to accuse of guile, don’t you?

With this in mind: Once upon a time, there were seven dwarves.

They lived and worked in the mountains, mining for gold and jewels and precious things. And one night, after a long day’s labour, they heard a knocking at the great stone doors of their mountain.

Outside, shivering and small, they found a human child.

I’m sure you can guess most of what she told them. Stepmothers were involved – it’s not important. What’s important was that each of the dwarves felt a dire and pressing need to care for the child, and they took her into their home, fed her, clothed her, and gave her a warm bed to sleep in. And many seasons passed around that mountain, with the dwarves raising the child as one of their own, until one autumn’s day.

The girl laid, slender and still, in a coffin of spun glass. And some weeks later, one of the dwarves had the idea to call for a prince. This was of course the sensible thing to do, and the prince of a nearby kingdom who listened to the story thought an ensorcelled girl would be a grand thing to rescue.

Poor devils. It feels cruel to judge them. But there were so many questions they could’ve asked – what was this stepmother’s name? Was she real? Did she exist? Who had made the glass coffin? Surely one of them must’ve thought of the question. And why did it grow more opaque with every passing day?

Were they wrong to trust?

I guess it doesn’t matter now.

The moment the prince stepped into the subterranean chamber with the glass coffin, it shivered with a twinkling, plinking noise. Threads of glass exploded into glittering, razor-edged confetti.

A claw split the great glass cocoon.

The thing that spilled out of it, hulking and huge, knew in the fog of its mind, in a base animal sense that screamed, that it was in a room too small for it to fit. It wanted up. It wanted out.

In front of it was some twiggy little thing holding a sword.

It took its first breath.

The flames were the colour of cornflowers.

The dwarves fled. The thing followed close behind, up, up, up through the stone and the winding tunnels, not to chase, not to hunt, but to get up, to get out, out, out–

It struck the great stone doors at a run. They crumbled like gingerbread. And then there was sunlight, and the open sky…

And it could finally open its wings.

Convergent evolution is a hell of a thing.

The dragon, of course, lived happily ever after with its loot of gold and jewels from a hastily abandoned dwarf mine. Being much bigger than a caterpillar, we could accuse it of tricking the dwarves who were kind to it, had taken it in, had fed and clothed and warmed it.

It probably wouldn't mind.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

YOOO!!!!!!!!! I love this so much. It's like a folktale wearing the skin of a fairytale, I am so obsessed

I am also deeply into monstrous princesses (as they should be) right now, so this just made my day.

[dailymarvelheroes]

get you a man who can do both

[nitramaraho]

one of my patients came in for an emergency visit, because she snapped the wire on her retainer watching the movie when MBJ took his shirt off she clenched her teeth so fucking hard she snapped it. that is the fucking funniest shit ever to me this tiny 17 year old girl thirsting so goddamn hard she busted steel

[crystalitesummerstar]

Y'all, it gets better. She found out.

[buzzfeed]

We interviewed her, obviously.

[buzzfeed]

update:

[rainbowselfies]

[blvckgeezus]

Such a developing story.

[pastdueeverything]

I love this story

[athenadcvell]

This was a wild ride from start to finish

[gambit-of-a-small-rabbit-deacti]

I know I say this a lot, But this is one of the best things on this website

[nitramaraho]

Sophia is currently doing great in college, and I still get about one kid a month in the office who asked if this really happened.

[demigoddessqueens]

I found it!! The original post!!

[urcadelimabean]

HAS SHE SEEN SINNERS

[madenthusiasms]

Preferably when she wasn’t wearing the retainer.

[only-cat-memes]

[forgwater]

[heycallmered]

people will really come into kink spaces and say you can't forcefem women like there wasn't a feature length movie about an elderly gay man forcefemming a woman as part of scheme to thwart an elaborate assassination attempt before the killer even determined their target

[llama2237]

What... What movie is this.

[heycallmered]

[heycallmered]

ain't no way in hell this post even breaks 500

[marmoset-marmoset]

i was trying so hard to remember the nonexistent assassination subplot in My Fair Lady

[azspot]

Magic Arena developers say they were told to relocate or effectively lose their jobs

It's one of many reasons that workers tell Polygon they are eager to unionize.

Employees and developers working on Magic: The Gathering Arena say they were hired with promises of remote flexibility, so they bought homes and built lives around those assurances. But they say they are now being told they may need to relocate to Washington state — or effectively lose their jobs.

Those concerns are a major reason why a supermajority of workers on the Arena team are attempting to unionize with the Communications Workers of America, under the banner United Wizards of the Coast. The group publicly launched its campaign on April 27, calling on Wizards of the Coast and parent company Hasbro to voluntarily recognize the union by May 1.

[apricops]

These employees are doing important and laudable work in response to being forced into a bad situation but I’m glad they still took the opportunity to call themselves “United Wizards”

[basic-bamboo]

WotC has still refused to recognize the union and has escalated to sending organizers letters directly to their homes about how unionizing is a bad idea. Luckily, our United Wizards are educated, organized, and agitated and the form letter from Hasbro was as laughable as it was threatening.

If you want to help out the United Wizards you can sign this petition

cwa.org/uwotcletter

Solidarity baby!

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Absolutely sobbing over this story I wrote in 2011 about a senior high school class being forced by the US govt into an alien exchange program (the idea behind it being the MC is loved in the new culture because she shares the same empathic abilities)

---excerpt----

As leaving early meant going home, Sandra was often the first to instigate group activities which made her more popular than she had been any other time in high school.

It was during one such day during 5th period math which was, in fact, 5th period Monopoly that the man in the black suit marched into class without so much as a “by your leave”. Sandra and her peers perked up at this intrusion. No one so formal had ever graced their classroom, besides the principal, before. Speaking of the principal, he was hot on the suit’s tale, face an ashy white while he nervously wrung his hands.

“Good afternoon, students,” said the suit, acting as if it were usual for an entire class of energetic high schoolers to be struck dumb, “I am Agent Morrison from the Department of Defense. I am here on behalf of the President of the United States to thank all of you for your sacrifice for this country.”

He paused for a moment, clearly expecting some reaction. Lynn was the first to start laughing, albeit weakly.

“Sacrifice? I guess you could call high school that.” A few other kids began to chuckle with her and began to outright laugh by the end of her statement. The Agent stared impassively until silence once again descende

“What is the meaning of this, Principal?” Our teacher, Mr. Boar asked directly. 

The principal licked his lips. “The school has been commandeered by the US government.”

“Do we need to evacuate?”

“Yes,” Principal nodded, “We do,” pause, “But the students have been commandeered as well.”

Pandemonium.

--- end excerpt---

Like it thrills me how much I clearly loved writing even back then. As I try to get over this latest stint of writer's block, reading my old work reminds me I like what I do (and have gotten a little better at it in the meantime)

[kawuli]

random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google

I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.

also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo

also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)

[yomikoreadsbooks]

Keeping a list of Google alternatives just in case…

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:

Search Engines

Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)

WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.

Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.

Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.

Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines. 

Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted. 

Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy. 

Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.

Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden. 

MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.

Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching. 

Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar. 

https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results. 

https://www.mojeek.com/ 

https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. 

https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.

https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.

https://yep.com/ is a crawler

https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx

https://www.dogpile.com/ 

https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)

https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?

https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?

https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.

Other Searchers

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine