Maureen Lycaon's Tumblr Blog

Mostly random reposts and occasional posts copied from my Dreamwidth blog. IC blogs for my characters on Wyrmrest Accord include: Musings of a Mage-Geologist (Lethdor Morningshard); A Dead Man's Thoughts (Bernatt Harrick); A Troll Druid's Scribblings (Ubal); Belida's Writings (Belida); Limathael's Journal (Limathael)

[creatureprofessor]

Art source

[moodydk]

looks legit to me

[whitepeopletwitter]

[moodydk]

[OOC] and [IC]: Me too.

[theconcealedweapon]

[theweefreewomen]

[ID: a short comic. the left panel shows a person from the waist down walking, holding a red handbag, with text reading ‘A person steals $2,500 of stuff from a company. Felony, up to 20 years in jail, right to vote revoked’.

the right panel shows a businessman in a suit holding up two large bags of money, with text reading ‘A company steals $140,000 from employee paychecks. In most states, not a crime, grace period to reply, can still buy politicians’. a small bubble by the businessman reads ‘Bonus: interest-free payments’.

the bottom panel reads ‘Criminalize wage thief. Why do we even have to say this?”

end ID.]

[whitepeopletwitter]

[closet-keys]

[ID: Tweet by Leeee J. Carter @carterforva reading, “The history of Nazis holding rallies in left-wing areas of Weimar Germany, instigating street fights, and then telling the press that only they could save Germany from the “violent communists” seems like an important thing for people to be studying right now.” ]

[solarpunk-aesthetic]

Steampunk without commentary on the exploitative machinations of imperialism is not steampunk.

Cyberpunk without commentary on capitalism’s efforts to buy the world out from under us is not cyberpunk.

Solarpunk without commentary on how to grow a brighter future for everyone instead of submitting to gloom is not solarpunk.

These three make a trifecta of how capitalism took over, what can happen if it continues, and how to prevent it from doing so. What was, is, and still could be.

[spockslash]

An open Tumblr letter to younger fans, from a 77-year-old TOS fangirl

* who has shipped Spirk since that night in 1967 that Amok Time first aired * and helped storm NBC to keep TOS on the air for a 3rd season * and wrote fanfic way back in the day * and was privileged to be around for the earliest days of fandom, when Leonard used to come to your house if that’s where the fan club was meeting and sit on the sofa with you in that Spock hair cut and eat cake

All of you who are writing TOS/AOS fan fiction and creating fan art now: remember, YOU are the ones shaping the traditions of fandom. You have inherited the kingdom. Bless you for keeping it vibrant, growing, alive. In fifty years, you will be the ones who are remembered for molding it and handing it down to the future. It probably doesn’t feel like now, but you are making history.

Your current addiction to TOS and the feels you get when you contemplate the love between Jim and Spock will be with you for life. It won’t always be in the forefront; you will sometimes go years, sometimes go a decade, without Star Trek being more than a passing thought. But then something will remind you and every consuming feeling you feel right now will come rushing back, every bit as powerful and deep and strong as it is today. All there, right where you left it.

The friendships you make in fandom will be with you for life. Like all friendships, they will wax and wane as the focus of your life shifts over time, but you will always be able to pick up the thread. You will — to give you a hypothetical example — be 77 years old and discover Tumblr and get a rush of Spirk feels after a decade of not giving TOS a thought, and contact your 83-year-old fangirl friend in the nursing home, to whom you haven’t spoken in several years. You will open the conversation with, “So, Jim and Spock love each other and that just makes me so happy.” And your friend in the nursing home will sigh and say, “Yes. They do love each other. It’s such a comfort.”

That look that Jim and Spock give each other, of absolute adoration and acceptance and love? That’s real. It’s rare, but it’s real. One of my greatest joys in life is to see my son and his husband give each other looks like that. Of course I don’t know you; I don’t know your strengths and struggles or your place on the spectrum of gender or anything about your sexuality or what you look like or what your life has taught you to believe about yourself, but I do know this: YOU DESERVE TO BE LOVED AND LOOKED AT THE WAY JIM AND SPOCK LOOK AT EACH OTHER. Please don’t accept less than that in your life.

The future of our planet does not seem very hopeful at the moment. But please remember that when Gene created Star Trek, the world was in turmoil and the future seemed very bleak. Star Trek is, was, always shall be about hope. Reach for it. When TOS first aired, we hoped to see some form of a Starfleet on the horizon in our lifetimes. That vision must be passed on to you. Do it. Make the world worthy of launching the human race out into space. CREATE STARFLEET.

You are all creative and funny and amazing. Far more amazing than you know. Be kind to yourselves. Live long and prosper, kids.

Tags are in reference to my first bullet point. Meant as a kudos to your work, but feel free to untag yourself if you don’t want to be linked to my ramblings; I won’t be offended! (Also, this extends to a thousand other artists and writers out there who deserve kudos. tag at will.)

[nogodsnokingsnomasters]

Kent State University

[tiredtransgal]

“The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre)[3][4][5] were the shootings on May 4, 1970 of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio during a mass protest against the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces. Twenty-eight guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[6][7]”

“There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of 4 million students,[10] and the event further affected public opinion, at an already socially contentious time, over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.[11]”

Student strike of 4 million students! Let’s do that again lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

[solarpunkcast]

Don’t forget that basically half the country thought the students deserved it…

[captain-rez]

Another picture from Kent State.

But it was not just Kent State, eleven days later Mississippi Police fired 150 rounds into a dormitory at Jackson State College, killing 2 and wounding 15 black protesters.

[saurons-optometrist]

Btw half of the students killed at Kent State weren’t even protesting, they were just there

[bando--grand-scamyon]

What in the absolute fuck

[wuh2k]

When the Irish guy has known about this since he was like 8, but it’s suspiciously hard for Americans to learn about…

[maureenlycaon]

This was the alternative that our elders gave us to selling out. Think about that.

[urielrenlancaster]

Vending machine but it vends moss covered rocks, small opals, faux ivory brooches, mushrooms to plant, tiny sacks of dirt, seaglass, and gnome statues

[luckymisfortune]

Faending machine

[demons]

What the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive wants the world to know

“I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.”

It is not often you get the chance to meet a man who holds a place in history like Ben Ferencz.  He’s 97 years old, barely 5 feet tall, and he served as prosecutor of what’s been called the biggest murder trial ever. The courtroom was Nuremberg; the crime, genocide; the defendants, a group of German SS officers accused of committing the largest number of Nazi killings outside the concentration camps – more than a million men, women, and children shot down in their own towns and villages in cold blood.

Ferencz is the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive today. But he isn’t content just to be part of 20th century history – he believes he has something important to offer the world right now.

[cricketcat9]

EVERYONE, absolutely everyone should read this. 

[daddynobucks-deactivated2017101]

Great article. Take a few minutes to read it. 

[tafkarfanfic]

If you are feeling hopeless today, read this.

[maureenlycaon]

We Interviewed This Neo Nazi With Our Truck’s Front Bumper

In times of political turmoil, it can often be difficult to have respectful, open and honest conversation with those of differing opinions than us. In…

No comment. ;)

[eliamatrell]

— CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE, A Monstrous Manifesto.

[maureenlycaon]

Just occurred to me, with force, as I thought about all the young leftists that make me fantasize that the Sixties did, after all, reincarnate.

[weaver-z]

How the media depicts the Apollo 11 mission:

Actual quotes from the Apollo 11 mission:

[jellyfishjulie]

Y’all I read a lot of scripts. And the one note I give over and over and over and over to the point that I can pretty much copy and paste it from one review to another…. let your characters lie. Let them omit, stumble, and circumvent. Allow them to be completely unable to express what they’re feeling. Make them unable to admit a truth. Let them sit in silence because they can’t think of anything clever to say! Let them say the exact wrong thing!

Dee Rees talks about it in her BAFTA lecture (which you should ABSOLUTELY WATCH): that what your character actually says should be three degrees of separation away from what they mean to say.

I read script after script after script where characters articulate their needs, desires, and objectives with perfect accuracy off the cuff 24/7 and there is not one single human person on this planet who is actually able to do that. This is the #1 thing that’s going to make your script sound stilted and the #1 thing that’s going to make shit difficult on your actors. Let them shut up, and let them lie.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

This!! In real life no one says what they mean. We say we’re fine when we’re not. We keep secrets because the truth is painful or embarrassing. We fight over stupid shit that’s a stand-in for what we’re really upset about. We don’t say what we want or need because recognizing, let alone vocalizing, our wants and needs is hard.

If your characters say what they mean all the time, you, as a writer, are robbing yourself of so much power to affect the audience. This is true in all writing but especially in dramatic writing, where everything in the character’s interior life has to be externalized in some way to be known. You can create intimacy by allowing the audience to see something your character hides from other characters. You can create tension by letting the audience know the character has a secret or has told a lie they don’t want revealed. You can create catharsis by allowing the character to finally say what they’re really thinking at a key moment.

You’re also creating a much more interesting text for your actors because you allow for the presence of subtext. If you’re someone who directs your own material you’ll start to realize how little you actually need your characters to say to make it clear exactly what’s going on with them. What starts as a monologue in the first draft may, in rehearsal, become a single line, which in the final cut becomes a shared glance, and the audience will still know exactly what you mean.

[kimbureh]

I love this. thank u so much for pointing this out so concisely, it explains so well why some lines have an insane impact, while others feel just meh

[maureenlycaon]

Current reading: Providence, by Alan Moore

I’m up to the third issue, but I just have to blabber on about the protagonist’s second dream, the one in which he’s on a train. All the hints and hooks and seemingly minor incidents in the story up to now feature in the dream, but at the same time, some of these allusions are obviously “premonitions”. I put “premonitions” in quotes because in Providence, time is kind of a permanent, motionless thing where every thing that happens sets up echoes in the past and the future. (It makes more sense in the actual graphic novel than in my words.)

The premonitions are unmistakably of the Holocaust, still twenty or so years into the protagonist’s future. Stating it flat out like that doesn’t begin to convey the growing atmosphere of dread, of foreboding. It’s still just disturbing little hints, but it chills me to the bone! It’s almost as if the premonitions reflect something approaching him that’s even worse, if possible, than the Nazi genocides.

I originally started reading the novel due to Gordon White’s praise of it. He described it as having a genuine magician’s understanding of time, and that each event thus sends echoes down through the past and the future. I’m beginning to see what he meant.

[aplpaca]

That rabbit/hare post is messing me up. I’d thought they were synonyms. Their development and social behavior are all different. They can’t even interbreed. They don’t have the same number of chromosomes. Dogs, wolves, jackals, and coyotes can mate with each other and have fertile offspring but rabbits and hares cant even make infertile ones bc they just die in the womb. Wack.

[aplpaca]

These

are more genetically compatible than These

and that’s why morphology-based phylogeny has Issues

[thellamamongler]

@aviculor

[aviculor]

The problem is perspective. People always think dogs are the ‘standard’ animal, the metric to use for whether or not two organisms “look like” they’re related. When in fact they’re a massive outlier due to the fact that we fucked up this lineage of wolf beyond recognition with selective breeding. It’s why people always say “breed” when they mean “species”, especially when talking about groups like lizards which can’t even be defined cladistically since some of them are closer to snakes than each other. To say nothing of fish.

[thetinybutimportantthings]

I once read an article that emphasized there is no such thing as a fish. Sharks and rays, lamprey, lobe-finned fish like lungfish and coelacanth, bichir and sturgeon, and of course the multiple infraclasses of more “modern” fish groups are all only very distantly related to one another. They’ve maintained semi-similar body structures only because there are limited ways to efficiently move through water as a vertebrate. 

This

And this

Are more distantly related from one another than you and I are from a lungfish

Which is absolutely fuckin wild.

[bogleech]

Not only that, but all of us air-breathing land vertebrates, all the lizards and chickens and people and frogs, are closer to one another than those three “fish” are to one another as well.

[i-have-approximately-4-bones]

these

are genetically closer than these

[i-have-approximately-4-bones]

and…

these

are genetically closer than these

[i-have-approximately-4-bones]

and my personal favorite, it really fucks with people…

these

are more genetically similar than these

[augustdementhe]

COOL. 

[maureenlycaon]

Some phylogeny for your evening reading, folks. :)

Is it true that some lizards are more closely related to snakes than to other lizards? Holy crap, I did not know that!

[heyyitsjayy]

The snake branch of the lizard family tree (Squamata) is pretty high up. They’re one of the basal (bottom/ancestral) branches of the Toxicofera clade. The other members of the group include the Heliodermata (Gila monster), Varanidae (monitor lizards like the Komodo dragon), and the Iguanidae (iguanas, chameleons, and anole lizards make up the more famous members). Iguanas are more closely related to cobras than they are geckos!

[maureenlycaon]

It seems you’re right. I knew snakes and lizards are closely related, but I didn’t realize that snakes actually nest *in* the lizard clade! Thank you. :)

[aplpaca]

That rabbit/hare post is messing me up. I’d thought they were synonyms. Their development and social behavior are all different. They can’t even interbreed. They don’t have the same number of chromosomes. Dogs, wolves, jackals, and coyotes can mate with each other and have fertile offspring but rabbits and hares cant even make infertile ones bc they just die in the womb. Wack.

[aplpaca]

These

are more genetically compatible than These

and that’s why morphology-based phylogeny has Issues

[thellamamongler]

@aviculor

[aviculor]

The problem is perspective. People always think dogs are the ‘standard’ animal, the metric to use for whether or not two organisms “look like” they’re related. When in fact they’re a massive outlier due to the fact that we fucked up this lineage of wolf beyond recognition with selective breeding. It’s why people always say “breed” when they mean “species”, especially when talking about groups like lizards which can’t even be defined cladistically since some of them are closer to snakes than each other. To say nothing of fish.

[thetinybutimportantthings]

I once read an article that emphasized there is no such thing as a fish. Sharks and rays, lamprey, lobe-finned fish like lungfish and coelacanth, bichir and sturgeon, and of course the multiple infraclasses of more “modern” fish groups are all only very distantly related to one another. They’ve maintained semi-similar body structures only because there are limited ways to efficiently move through water as a vertebrate. 

This

And this

Are more distantly related from one another than you and I are from a lungfish

Which is absolutely fuckin wild.

[bogleech]

Not only that, but all of us air-breathing land vertebrates, all the lizards and chickens and people and frogs, are closer to one another than those three “fish” are to one another as well.

[i-have-approximately-4-bones]

these

are genetically closer than these

[i-have-approximately-4-bones]

and…

these

are genetically closer than these

[i-have-approximately-4-bones]

and my personal favorite, it really fucks with people…

these

are more genetically similar than these

[augustdementhe]

COOL. 

[maureenlycaon]

Some phylogeny for your evening reading, folks. :)

Is it true that some lizards are more closely related to snakes than to other lizards? Holy crap, I did not know that!