My Corner of Crazy @moi-the-bard - Tumblr Blog

Two identical infants lay in the cradle. “One you bore, the other is a Changeling. Choose wisely,” the Fae’s voice echoed from the shadows. “I’m taking both my children,” the mother said defiantly.

dycefic

Once upon a time there was a peasant woman who was unhappy because she had no children. She was happy in all other things – her husband was kind and loving, and they owned their farm and had food and money enough. But she longed for children.

She went to church and prayed for a child every Sunday, but no child came. She went to every midwife and wise woman for miles around, and followed all their advice, but no child came.

So at last, though she knew of the dangers, she drew her brown woolen shawl over her head and on Midsummer’s Eve she went out to the forest, to a certain clearing, and dropped a copper penny and a lock of her hair into the old well there, and she wished for a child.

“You know,” a voice said behind her, a low and cunning voice, a voice that had a coax and a wheedle and a sly laugh all mixed up in it together, “that there will be a price to pay later.”

She did not turn to look at the creature. She knew better. “I know it,” she said, still staring into the well. “And I also know that I may set conditions.”

“That is true,” the creature said, after a moment, and there was less laugh in its voice now. It wasn’t pleased that she knew that. “What condition do you set? A boy child? A lucky one?”

“That the child will come to no harm,” she said, lifting her head to stare into the woods. “Whether I succeed in paying your price, or passing your test, or not, the child will not suffer. It will not die, or be hurt, or cursed with ill luck or any other thing. No harm of any kind.”

“Ahhhhh.” The sound was long and low, between a sigh and a hum. “Yes. That is a fair condition. Whatever price there is, whatever test there is, it will be for you and you alone.” A long, slender hand extended into her sight, almost human save for the skin, as pale a green as a new leaf. The hand held a pear, ripe and sweet, though the pears were nowhere ripe yet. “Eat this,” the voice said, and she trembled with the effort of keeping her eyes straight ahead. “All of it, on your way home. Before you enter your own gate, plant the core of it beside the gate, where the ground is soft and rich. You will have what you ask for.”

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greenchestnuts

Nonsexual Intimacy

For Asexual Awareness Week, Elizabeth Barrette, aka ysabetwordsmith, posted a list of types of nonsexual intimacy that I found really interesting both as an asexual and as a writer:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

#asexual #asexuality

commiescummie

i’ll literally never have enough of that dylan b hollis dude cause like. hes a college student who just.,.blew up on tiktok. he has the soul of a man who has lived for 60 years in the body of a twink. he cooks and is surprised every single time. he goes CINAMIN everytime he uses cinnamon. he has the kitchen of a 60s house wife and cooks like hes going to kill someone

teacupfulofstarshine

other favorites include

- “moo juice!”

- E G G - G I E

- BUTTER GO BRRRRRRRR

only-in-movies

- Floof powder

angryalliterations-deactivated2

F I R E

xanthumn

everythingfoxes

foxpost-generator

it fucken WIMDY

ourspecial

ever since i first saw this post, “it fucken WIMDY” is easily one of the top ten most commonly used phrases in my household.

foxpost-generator

My job is done.

thefingerfuckingfemalefury

This fox looks SO OFFENDED

“Mother nature STOP BLOWING AIR AT MY FACE AT ONCE I am Just A Smol Fox and need to do fox things HOW DARE YOU”

asymbina

TOO MUCH WIMDY

thefingerfuckingfemalefury

“DO NOT WANT”

thespecialpsycho

@hellsite-hall-of-fame

marlinspirkhall

A Vulcan named Stork works at the Terran adoption agency. Parents always request that he be the one to deliver their child to them.

taken-aurally

It’s years before anyone explains it to him.

thetimetostrikeislater

People keep gifting him robes with long white birds on them.

thetimetostrikeislater

marlinspirkhall

[ID] A digital pencil drawing shows a Vulcan man holding hands with a short human girl, who are both pictured from behind, walking away from the viewer. He's wearing long-sleeved robes with three white stripes on the sleeves, which have pointed, feathery-looking shoulder pads. On top of this, he's wearing a hooded cape which is covered with pictures of long-necked white birds, all in flight. There's another layer of feathery cape draped on top of this. [End ID]

dradelcrahasmoved

Bruh

geoclaire

I can’t believe I read this post with my own fucking eyes

lurkerwithcomputer

I love it unironically, I burst out laughing. It hits the same note as “the opposite of malice is bonfire”.

sofhtie

i don’t think I’m ever going to get over this line

doomhamster

#the problem with becoming the kind of hero you needed yourself #is that it can’t change the fact #that nobody came for you

roses-raindrops-and-writing-dea

Holy shit these are two of the most fucking raw things ever….hit home so hard they took my breath away

@wearepaladin

@alrtist

Unpopular opinion but literally not one person in the world should have their human rights violated

sandersgrey

If one person's rights can be waved away, so can yours

cumaeansibyl

yes, even those people.

r0zeclawz

hello i like you a lot, do you like me too? [ ] yes

[ ] no

ps. ignore the foul homunculus i brought into being to deliver this message, i am a little shy. this is the wizard from spanish class (you know the one)

clockworkvulpine

*marks the paper yes without reading the ps. I am now dating your homunculus*

r0zeclawz

dear diary,

it fucking happened again.

raptorific

funniest thing would be if when Queen Elizabeth dies or steps down and Charles is all ready to assume the throne, here comes King Arthur, Excalibur in hand, sauntering back from Avalon like “oof what a nap! thanks for keeping the chair warm I’m back to be king again”

raptorific

like, given that “King Arthur isn’t actually dead, he’ll be back to be King again someday” is, like, an actual aspect of the legend and a thing that a lot of people purport to believe, has anyone ever actually tried it? showing up to buckingham palace claiming to be Arthur Pendragon, The Once And Future King, and assume the throne? does the british government have a protocol for checking whether someone claiming to be King Arthur actually is? does parliament have a secret picture of the Real Excalibur kept under lock and key, only viewed if someone claims to be King Arthur, that they can use to confirm or refute the identity of alleged Kings Arthur? if not, how do they deter every jackass with a sward from pretending to be him? does filing a false King Arthur report constitute treason?

lunetta-suzie-jewel

The rules are simple. “Arthur” has to show up with a sword. They give the sword to the Lady of the Lake, and if she throws it back to the claimant, he’s legit and gets to be king again.

pargolettasworld

So the test for King Arthur’s identity falls to the even less officially identifiable Lady of the Lake. No one can even agree on which Lady, or which lake, is the official one, much less how to tell if you’ve got The Lady of The Lake. All of which suggests that all you need to accomplish this is one (1) sword, a willing female acquaintance, and a nearby body of water.

There isn’t even any requirement for “Arthur” to catch the sword, so the Lady can just javelin an epee right at him.

lunetta-suzie-jewel

Well when you look at it that way, one might conclude that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

goodatyugioh

surely this is a good idea that doesn't have the capacity to end real fuckin badly

dragoninthedesert

Bridges aren’t supposed to have weight restrictions on them. That is, they don’t come with weight restrictions on them when they’re new. So a bridge with a weight restriction on it is a sign that something has gone wrong and the bridge does not meet current standards.

The maximum weight that a vehicle is allowed to carry on the Interstate System per federal law is 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (with a max of 20,000 pounds per axle). That’s 40 tons. That limit applies to every inch of pavement, not just the bridges. Since this is a known cap, a new Interstate bridge will be designed to accommodate an 80,000 lb GVW load on it. You could say the bridge’s weight limit is 80,000 lb/40 tons but that doesn’t really have much meaning, because a load higher than that would be illegal to transport on public roads anyway, and the road leading up to the bridge has the same weight restriction. (In practice, the bridge doubtlessly will be designed to have a little bit of let to it just in case some idiot tries to squeak by a few hundred extra pounds.)

Now, note that that law applies to the Interstate System only, because the federal government only has a governing interest in the Interstate System (and other roads that together make up something called the National Highway System) because they partially fund it. Most long-distance roads are owned and funded by the states. The states could theoretically set lower standard weight limits and/or design bridges with lower weight limits...but in practice they don’t.

One, because all of that 80,000 lb GVW traffic on the Interstate system has to go somewhere when it exits the system.

Two, because a group called the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO, who are best known for picking the road numbers) maintains a catalog of standard components for making bridges that meet Interstate System requirements. Engineers are expensive on a per-hour basis, so if you can direct your engineer to use standard components and make a standard bridge, that’s a lot cheaper than having them design a bridge from scratch to go over the creek in Nowheresville. As a result, most new bridges meet Interstate standards and have an 80,000 lb GVW rating even if they aren’t on the Interstate system. (This is also why all new bridges kind of look the same, but we’re not worried about how boring the bridges are for the sake of this post.)

So a bridge only has an explicit weight limit if it has been damaged in some way (through failure to properly maintain it usually) or because it predates the application of Interstate System standards and the standard AASHTO bridges.

Older bridges often have other problems in addition to the weight limits: many older designs are what we call “fracture critical”, which means that if one component of the bridge fails the whole thing collapses. Modern bridge designs have redundancy designed into them so that if one beam fails the other beams will carry the load until the damaged beam can be replaced. Older bridges also often don’t meet other standards, like height (16 ft clearance) and width (12 ft per lane plus 14 ft for shoulders) requirements.

Biden isn’t advocating eliminating weight limits and letting it be a laissez-faire free-for-all where trucks can just go wherever they want. He’s advocating for replacing bridges that carry weight limits with new ones that don’t have them.

goodatyugioh

wow i got absolutely schooled thank you for all this this is really informative. i have learned so much

fandomsandfeminism

This is a great explanation of what the fuck Biden was talking about in his tweet. because I will freely admit that I also went ".......wtf?????" when I read it. So thank you.

tikkunolamorgtfo

Today I learned about civil engineering.

cookiedoughmeagain

Surprisingly, this is not a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference, but an actual fact. From Burnout: Solve Your Stress Cycle, by Emily and Amelia Nagoski

youreastargirl

What does it declare???

cookiedoughmeagain

“It will grab you by the face, shove you to the ground, put its foot on your chest, and declare itself the victor.”

The really interesting thing (imo) about this chapter of the book, is how it defines rest. It’s not talking just about sleeping, but also things like social connection and physical movement. So the 42% of your day that is rest might involve:

Meaningful conversation with someone you have a connection with

Exercising

Paying attention to your food, whether that’s shopping for it, cooking it or eating it

Socialising

Daydreaming

Each of us will need a different balance of these things, and each of these individual things will be different from person to person. The socialising and the meaningful connections might be IRL or it might be online - one of the examples in the book of something that counts as rest is “live-tweet Games of Thrones with a thousand fellow fans”.

It’s a really interesting book - definitely worth reading :)

(And Douglas Adams was obviously right all along - 42 is the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything;)

lokh1

[Image description: Excerpt from Burnout: Solve Your Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. Excerpt reads as follows:

Forty-Two Percent

So how much rest is “adequate”?

Science says: 42 percent.

That’s the percentage of time your body and brain need you to spend resting. It’s about ten hours out of every twenty-four. It doesn’t have to be every day; it can average out over a week or a month or more. But yeah. That much.

“That’s ridiculous! I don’t have that kind of time!” you might protest - and we remind you that we predicted you might feel that way, back at the start of the chapter.

We’re not saying you should take 42 percent of your time to rest; we’re saying if you don’t take the 42 percent, the 42 percent will take you. It will grab you by the face, shove you to the ground, put its foot on your chest, and declare (…)

Excerpt ends mid-sentence. End description.]

writing-prompt-s

You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches.

dycefic

I think I’d have minded less if I’d committed a truly heinous crime. Something that warranted death. Or even if I was the kind of person who would enjoy flinging a last defiance at my execution.

It was all just a show, anyway. They did it every year. They brought out a selection of criminals, and the Sorcerer who ruled us showed his power by bringing about their deaths by magic. Just to show, every year, what happened to anyone who crossed him.

There was a time, probably, when the people he executed really were rebels or assassins. In latter days he had to take what the dungeons offered. I was dragged up in chains between a pickpocket, sobbing in terror, and a man who’d killed another man in a brawl. There were few criminals of any note, by then. So instead of choosing the wickedest criminals, they chose based on appearance. The man who’d been in the brawl had a face like a clenched fist, and looked like a ruffian. The pickpocket, aging and with hands beginning to tremble, was a different kind of example. As was I.

“There aren’t many pretty ones, this year,” the man who chose me had said, examining me. “But this one will do. Not young, but not old, a woman, well-favoured enough for the gallows… what was her crime?”

The warder shrugged. “She tried to kill one of the sheriffs.”

The man looked down at me and I shrugged. “I hit him with a washing stick, because he tried to extort money from me, and he was a baby about it.” I refused to treat this as anything but pathetic, even after my sentencing. “I didn’t even break any bones.”

“Treason, then,” the man said, nodding. “Attacking the servants of the law. That will look well on the list. Send her.”

I had been debating ever since what to choose. Something quick? Something painless? I considered demanding that I suffer the attack I supposedly made on the sheriff, but then I realized the Sorcerer would only give me what the man had said I was going to do, and that was not a pleasant way to die. I had all but decided on something swift and relatively painless. Beheading with the sharpest of blades sounded good. It would be quick.

Keep reading

gncgalactus

#OverlyHonestMethods but for Magic in a Fantasy World

We have not listed the name of the creator of the spell used in this incantation because he once slept with one our colleague’s wives

gncgalactus

Phoenix Egg was left under an old toad for exactly the length of lunchtime #Overlyhonestrites

gncgalactus

Ground Nightshade was used because the phial was within arms reach #overlyhonestrites

gncgalactus

We used the Binding Ritual of Maranasa because one of our apprentices had a crush on her #overlyhonestrites

theonetheonlyanak

Potion was heated at 250 degrees because it made a scary whistling noise at higher temperatures #overlyhonestrites

gncgalactus

We only discovered that the Ritual of the Great Unmaking doesn’t require the hair of a virgin because all our practitioners have got Game #overlyhonestrites

gncgalactus

Half of the ancient tomes we cited are ones we haven’t read because the only member who could read Deep Old Goblin quit three days in #overlyhonestrites

pratchettquotes

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. [...] The thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms

jonjos-library

The UK based food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe recently tweeted a thread highlighting how official inflation figures didn’t account for the astronomical price rises in the cheapest products.

Off the back of that, they had the idea to do an index of their own based on their own experiences of the cheapest products that many people rely on having increases way above inflation or being removed altogether.

This isn’t just a feeling, Jack literally kept the receipts. They have over 10 years of shopping receipts kept for their food blog.

The twitter thread took off and has now had over 22 million views.

The idea of a separate UK index of everyday products people on lower incomes rley on, that reflects the actual affect of price changes on ordinary people’s finances, has completely taken off and is now being covered in all the major news outlets. It is also being supported by a whole range of organisations, camapaigners, retail industry professionals, data analysts and others.

Jack has put out a call for people in the UK to send their old shopping receipts to add to the exissting data for tracking historic price changes.

Today Jack tweeted that they had permission from the Pratchett estate for the use of the preferred name for the new project:

It will be called the Vimes Boot Index.

mischif

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchett-jack-monroe-vimes-boots-poverty-index

Campaigner has used the idea drawn from Discworld novels to register the disproportionate effect price rises have on the lower paid

shrewreadings

GNU Terry Pratchet and the PTerry Memorial Vimes Boots Index

This should ABSOLUTELY be a thing: your measure of inflation doesn’t do anything if the goods’ prices it’s tracking AREN’T THINGS PEOPLE BUY.

disgruntledinametallicatshirt

you know what actually pisses me off? when I finally start to feel a smidge of confidence in my writing ability and then some JERK POSTS A SINGLE LINE FROM A TERRY PRATCHETT NOVEL AND IT’S BETTER THAN ANYTHING I WILL EVER WRITE NO MATTER HOW MANY MILLENNIA I SPEND TRYING!

thebaconsandwichofregret

Terry was a professional writer from the age of 17. He worked as a journalist which meant that he had to learn to research, write and edit his own work very quickly or else he’d lose his job.

He was 23 when his first novel was published. After six years of writing professionally every single day. The Carpet People was a lovely novel, from a lovely writer, but almost all of Terry’s iconic truth bomb lines come from Discworld.

The Colour of Magic, the first ever Discworld novel was published in 1983. Terry was 35 years old. He had been writing professionally for 18 years. His career was old enough to vote, get married and drink. We now know that at 35 he was, tragically, over half way through his life. And do you know what us devoted, adoring Discworld fans say about The Colour of Magic? “Don’t start with Colour of Magic.”

It is the only reading order rule we ever give people. Because it’s not that great. Don’t get me wrong, very good book, although I’ll be honest I’ve never been able to finish it, but it’s nowhere near his later stuff. Compare it to Guards Guards, The Fifth Elephant, the utterly iconic Nightwatch and it pales in comparison because even after nearly 20 years of writing, half a lifetime of loving books and storytelling Terry was still learning.

He was a man with a wonderful natural talent, yes. But more importantly he worked and worked and worked to be a better writer. He was writing up until days before he died. He spent 49 years learning and growing as a writer, taking so much joy in storytelling that not even Alzheimer’s could steal it from him. He wouldn’t want that joy stolen from you too.

Terry was a wonderful, kind, compassionate, genius of a writer. And all of this was in spite of many many people telling him he wasn’t good enough. At the age of five his headmaster told him that he would never amount to anything. He died a knight of the realm and one of the most beloved writers ever to have lived in a country with a vast and rich literary tradition. He wouldn’t let anyone tell him that he wasn’t good enough. And he wouldn’t want you to think you aren’t good enough. He especially wouldn’t want to be the reason why you think you aren’t good enough.

You’re not Terry Pratchett.

You are you.

And Terry would love that.

rsfcommonplace

I only ever had a chance to talk to Terry Pratchett once, and that was in an autograph line. I’d bought a copy of The Carpet People, which was his very first book, and he looked at it with a faint air of concern. “You realise that I wrote that when I was very young,” he said, in warning.

“Yes,” I said. “But I like seeing how authors grow.”

He brightened and reached for his pen. “That’s all right then,” he said, and signed.

greenvillegreengirl

yubsie

There’s a collection of Pratchett’s short fiction that includes the very first piece he ever published.

This collection came out while he was still alive and each piece has an introduction from him. The introduction for that piece includes something to the effect of “LALALA IF I DO THIS I WON’T HEAR YOU READING THIS ONE!!”

Exact wording may be off but it very much starts with LALALA.