Dancong Oolong Delights

Tea, fiber shennanigans, and also random funsies happen here!

[corvids-corner]

I have a degree in environmental biology you can trust me 👍

[partywithponies]

My woke take, as someone who has worked in both a public library and a school library, is that we desperately need both more books that are at a higher reading level but a less mature subject matter, and more books that are at a lower reading level but a more mature subject matter, because 8 year olds who are advanced readers are still 8 year olds and don't want to read about graphic violence and torture, and teens and adults who have learning difficulties or who are just later readers for whatever reason are still teens and adults and don't want to read about Billy the Bunny going to school or whatever the hell.

[deboravelasquez1945]

Ranger's Apprentice AU where Will is Halt's biological son and Ferris is not a fraticidal bastard

Ok, so, this is a very crazy idea I had out of nowhere while organizing my bookshelves:

Imagine that Will is Halt's biological son, born in Hibernia as a result of an arranged marriage and raised alone by his father after his mother died in childbirth. Now imagine if instead of Ferris trying to kill Halt, the twins talked things through and decided to fake Halt's death so their father would name Ferris heir to the throne (since Will would be too young). Once the deed is done, Halt goes to Araluen to become a Ranger. However, he willingly leaves Will behind to be raised in the court, since he doesn't want to drag him into a dangerous life in the wilderness, and because he knows Ferris position is more politically secure if he has an heir. He gifts little Will the bronze oakleaf necklace that used to be Pritchard's when he was an apprentice and that the old Ranger gave to him. Ferris promised him that he would care for Will, and Halt always visited over the years when he could. They also communicate through letters. Like canon, Halt meets Crowley, recruits the rogue Rangers, fight Morgarath, trains Gilan, all of that, and he keeps his royal past a secret, so no one even knows he has family. Meanwhile, in Clonmel, Will grows into the extroverted, kind, witty, curious and smart boy he is in canon, being raised as his uncle's heir instead of an orphan, which makes him more confident than he is in The Ruins of Gorlan. He also grows up with his cousin Sean. Will loves Halt deeply, never takes off the necklace his father gave him (not knowing it's meaning) and cherishes his visits and letters, but he doesn't know his father is a Ranger because Halt doesn't tell him the truth, saying he works as a forest warden. Will suspects this isn't true because his father is too skilled to be just a forest warden, but doesn't pressure Halt out of respect. He trains archery, knife throwing and other Ranger skills just to have something in common with the father he rarely sees, unknowlingly becoming a self-taught Ranger outside of the Corps. Think of him as a male version of Maddie in TRR: Dutiful crown prince by day, Ranger by night.

Years later, Morgarath prepares to go to war against Araluen a second time: He makes a secret alliance with Tennyson. In exchange for Morgarath providing muscle (his mercenaries) and tactical advice, Tennyson uses the Outsiders cult to drain the wealth of Hibernian kingdoms, starting with Clonmel. The gold stolen from Clonmel's nobles and commoners via the Outsiders' extortion racket is smuggled across the sea to fund Morgarath’s war machine in the Mountains of Rain and Night. Tennyson's cult begins preaching that King Ferris and Crown Prince Will are "false rulers" who refuse to protect the people from bandits (the mercenaries Morgarath promised). Once Clonmel is economically crippled and politically divided by cult riots, Morgarath plans to land a mercenary fleet, execute Ferris, and use Clonmel as his western staging ground to launch a surprise naval invasion against Araluen's west coast. He knows that if he only attacks from the south, Araluen’s Rangers and army can bottle him up. An attack from the western sea forces Duncan to split his forces.

As the Outsiders cult grows in Clonmel, Ferris has Will investigate them, knowing how stealthy his nephew is. Will learns about the cult's connection to Morgarath’s forces across the sea (remembering the warlord from his father's stories). He gathers evidences of their plans to Clonmel and present them to Ferris, who then sends him to Araluen with the mission of showing the evidences to King Duncan and request his aid in purging the Outsiders from Clonmel. Will goes hoping to receive the King's help and to discreetly meet with his father to tell him about what's happening in Clonmel.

So there Will goes, and upon entering on the throne room for the private audience with Duncan, he sees Halt (a supposed forest warden) standing beside the King and the Ranger Commandant, freezes and says 'Dad?'

(Cue absolute chaos, Duncan blinking in shock, Crowley’s brain short-circuiting, and Halt having to explain why the Crown Prince of Clonmel is wearing Pritchard’s bronze oakleaf and calling him 'dad'.)

[bethanydelleman]

I have been listening to this podcast called Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex, Scandal & Society, and it's really reminding me of the main reason that you should listen to experts. It's not because of the reason media usually shows, them having encyclopedic knowledge of their subject (though many do have that) it's their ability to sort.

This podcast demonstrates that ability really well because sex scandals tend to be used as propaganda, so it's difficult to tell if they are true or not. The host will ask the historian guest, "Did he have sex with men?" and the guest will say something like, "Well four sources say so, but three were written after his death and the one from his lifetime was from a dude who REALLY hated him, so I'm going to conclude no."

That is what an expert can do, that we've perhaps forgotten about because we have so much information at our fingertips, an expert can tell which information is good & valid vs. bad & unreliable. An expert can sort much faster than a layman because they've been doing it for years.

It's the same for my field. Some things I am absolutely sure are wrong, like if someone says "We only use 10% of our brains." No, we use all of it and I can even tell you what every part does. But other claims, if I see a news article claiming something that sounds fishy, I can read the research article behind it and judge the validity of the source. I can sort. I know which parameters to sort on. That was the entire point of my education and it was pounded into my head.

Knowledge isn't enough. Researching isn't enough because if you don't know how to sort you'll just be led astray down dangerous rabbit holes. That is why experts are so important.

[ceorl]

me seeing heaven officials blessing written as tgcf: ah yes, Tian Guan Ci Fu. i know this :)

me, painstakingly writing out tgcf: thank... god... cunt... friday...

[overthinkingmoth]

shoutout to everyone who made it to thank god cunt friday

[void-cultist]

congrats. you reached another thank god cunt friday

[marzipanandminutiae]

The worst thing is trying to go to sleep when you're up too late and sleep is boring and you want to keep doing the fun brain things but you know you need to sleep but you can't turn your brain off so sleep seems impossible because your mind is just racing and continuing trying to think and have fun

[brightgoat]

rummaging for an earl grey teabag like its a cigarette

[yousaytomato]

Hello! And Welcome to Taskmaster! Please welcome our five contestants! And next to me, a man who once told me in confidence that his wife has filled his house with chintz. To keep it real I fuck him on the floor. It's little Alex Horne!

[ironlily-art]

Wrapping a single long, rectangular piece of fabric around the body was exactly how many ancient culture made their fashion.

[s-u-w-i]

Random Éowyn with Eorl the Young above her 🐎

[frostedmagnolias]

Pale Blue Afternoon Dress

c. 1867

Silk taffeta and silk faille

Label: Worth & Bobergh / 7. Rue de la Paix 7 Paris

Albany Institute of History & Art

[potatopirate]

For the @dashcon-two Crow Exchange, I made custom DashCon/Magic the Gathering trading cards. They were a huge hit! Unfortunately, it was my first convention I've ever gone to and I accidentally handed them out wayyyy too fast and had people tracking me down all day and had to send them away empty handed. So to make up for it I've decided to publish the files for them here! Feel free to print them out and stick them on your own cards. If you end up playing any games with them I'd love to see. (Also included is the Tumblr University card that no one got because I accidentally left them behind in the U.S. lol)

[oodles-of-reblogs]

Quite possibly the top contender for my fav dashcon photo.

[lavender-linens]

How to put up your hair using two of these bad boys:

This is a tutorial for people who want a quick, 1-minute way to put up their hair. You will need two 1" clippies with rubber on the inside and a comb/brush.

It's comfortable, stays the whole day even when active, is decent for the car depending on bun placement (unlike a claw clip), and can accommodate a wide range of hair lengths. I have slick hair and I don't have to re-do this style at all, which is the main reason I keep doing it instead of cool long hair buns.

Step 1: Comb out your hair and gather it into a ponytail where you want the bun to sit. (Embarrassingly, I will sometimes skip the combing, be better than me. If you keep the hair up all the time and comb it well each time you put it up and take it down you'll have 200% fewer tangles)

Step 2: Start twisting the hair. It will naturally start to form itself into a bun. I usually use the second hand to guide the hair into the bun while the other one twists.

Step 3: Hold the bun with one hand, and put the clips in one at a time. Make sure you get both scalp and bun hair in the clip or it won't stay. Adjust the clips as needed so your scalp is comfortable.

Congratulations! Your hair is up!

[justgarb]

So a while back I bought a quern, which I drug out to Rosenfeld's event with a bag of rice. The kids played with is all morning spraying rice everwhere, so I had to cut them off from fresh rice and make them recycle the grains they had already cracked. This is at the end of the day, with a significant amount of fine flour, minus the large amount that was tossed up into the air and left in hair and little clothes or got swept up off the floor. Jessimond and I got to play with it a bit before I put it away

[marzipanandminutiae]

just want to say i appreciate your acotar posting - it isn't my thing but i'm glad to see someone be reasonable about it, rather than be weirdly derisive of it (& the genre). genuinely it's like Fine Or Whatever, not the end of the literature as we know it, lol.

thanks!

I've said it before, but I feel like the weird thing about ~*romantasy*~ nowadays is that when I was a teenager...reading Dark Fantasy Romance Books WAS the intellectual option. back then, the normal way to do things was just not reading for fun at all. librarians scrambled for anything that would Get the Kids Reading- when YA lit started picking up in the early 2000s, they'd jump on new releases immediately. anything and everything that seemed to be dragging teens away from reality tv was hailed as the savior of youth literacy

I remember when teen sections started popping up in libraries, fun rooms with brightly-colored beanbags and manga posters and events calendars packed with author visits. and it spilled over, too, I believe- I didn't have a firsthand experience of this because of my age, but I think recreational reading had an upswing among adults at that time, too

if the current derision towards Romantic Fantasy Stories Popular With Women And Girls had existed back then, my Holly Black- and Melissa Marr-reading ass would have been right in the crosshairs. and those are books I still remember fondly, that shaped me as a person and as a writer myself. those are books that I felt like an outsider for reading and enjoying, that seemed to understand me when the world around me didn't

the goalposts have shifted back to an earlier metric, as recreational reading has become mainstream again, where reading Girl Books is embarrassing. and even potentially morally harmful (especially to Silly Little Woman-Brains that need careful protecting!). and as a result, any book that smacks of Girl Book is obviously Bad and you don't even have to read it to know that

some of these books do invite legitimate criticism, to varying degrees (I say again- the Illyrian thing is not well-handled at all). but to judge them as Dreck without even reading them, especially when I've enjoyed the same sort of thing myself before?

when I make those assumptions, I'm doing it to her:

and if she deserved grace and research and understanding books for what they are rather than taking them at face value based on stereotypes, so do modern romantasy readers

[feytouched]

xing ren xiang (almond aroma) phoenix dancong oolong—very decent quality, i overfilled the gaiwan and had to let it cool so the first brew was oversteeped, but even so it did not become unpleasantly bitter. very fragrant and enjoyable.