idleness, and the dwelling-on of dreams @mossandrock - Tumblr Blog

Green Jay (Cyanocorax luxuosus), family Corvidae, and a Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus), family Tyrannidae, get into a squab, South TX, USA

herpsandbirds

Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus), chick (fledgling), family Cuculidae, order Cuculiformes, Arizona, USA

photograph by Mark Koster

alm-of-lexia

i dont even want TES 6 anymore. its going to be a generational disappointment that will cost at least 50 dollars, wont be available in physical disk form and be one billion terabytes for the privilege of a fishing minigame that doesnt work and ten fewer skills than skyrim offered us.

alm-of-lexia

the more i think about it the more im like. who is the promise of TES 6 for? They didn't have to tell us a decade ago that they were planning on making it. They didn't have to release a trailer that teased absolutely nothing but the name. Who is this game even going to be for?

are they going to fix the problems with skyrim and eso? why don't they fix the problems with eso in eso? is it for the dedicated fans who buy every version of skyrim for every console? is it for the lore buffs who point out the inconsistency in the games that even "dragon break" can't answer? is it for the casual gamer to drop a day of minimum wage earnings on?

where could someone even buy it if not physically? on steam? on xbox digital services? would they own the game, or would it be a subscription? is the platform its played on a subscription? Who is this game for? how can people play it? how can it even get made, when theyre laying off every important member of the Zenimax team? how much money is going into it? how much money will be spent on it? how much can a consumer gain from it?

I say this with much love, as someone with a Morrowind profile picture and a Morrowind username. TES is a franchise that deserves a dignified conclusion to its releases. Promising a sixth game for over ten years only to focus on the microtransaction ridden massively multiplayer online game is such a cash-grabby way to do it.

not to mention being caught plagiarizing its fans, laying off writers and artists, releasing and re-releasing the same game for more money every year, narrowing down the fandom at large to people who can afford the games and dlcs and subscriptions? if there even is a sixth game, what could it possibly offer that would make it worth the cost to play it?

Who is this game going to be for? Will they even enjoy it?

teddy-stonehill

I went to the local aviary today and they had some really mean things to say about owls.

teddy-stonehill

elodieunderglass

I can confirm that most birds have a detectable amount of wiring behind the eyes - blinking lights and buttons and sliders and frizzy things that spark and chirp and beep. They also have a lot of soul that can communicate with ours because the programming is fairly compatible. Vultures are clever and curious, swans are clear and lawful, chickens have a lot of personality, caged parrots are dissociated and disinherited and frankly worrying, falconry-trained birds of prey are tremendously businesslike.

And owls are absolutely lovely beasts with their own irreplaceable validity. but they are basically stuffed with polyester fiberfill. They have one button, like a child's toy dinosaur that opens and closes its mouth when you press the back of its head. And it isn't even a sophisticated electronic button it's just a lever that rocks back and forth to make the claws open and close. I think they may have actually evolved independently from sponges. Their skulls simply exist to create holes that funnel sound and light, and as a place to hang a giant hinged beak. An owl is just an empty tube like a windchime that the wind whistles through, and you can drop meat down it. They use the meat to generate feathers, and then emit the bones in pressed little packages like those machines that flatten a penny and stamp it with the logo of a theme park. I think that's the gist of it - most birds are electronics of varying levels of sophistication, but owls are just a system of levers and pulleys. No elevator music in those skulls, just the wind echoing through empty caverns of slightly irritating design. Absolutely fantastic.

jiubilee

The real tragedy about the barricade is that we don’t know how much is true. Victor Hugo was there at the June Rebellion, so what is fact and what is fiction? That question gives me chills because we’ll never know.

enjolras-in-valinor

Charles Jeanne (who I think is probably actual real life Enjolras) wrote an in-detail account of the ACTUAL barricades in a letter to his sister after the fact

you can read it, tenlittlebullets translated it into English :)

it’s really graphic, he leaves no gory details out, just FYI if you’re gonna read it, keep TW: VIOLENCE in mind

tenlittlebullets

#how is he real-life enjolras if he survived (via metellus-cimber)

I’m so glad somebody asked this, because the answer is: when they finally ran out of ammunition, Charles Jeanne rounded up everyone who was still standing, went, “look, if we’re going to die, we might as well die fighting,” and led a suicidal ten-man charge against an entire flippin’ infantry column, armed with nothing but bayonets. The first few ranks of soldiers were so unprepared for such a spectacularly insane attack that they were too surprised to shoot. They crossed bayonets and tried to hold the insurgents off in hand-to-hand combat, but Jeanne’s swordsmanship was apparently aces, because he held off a bunch of them at once and covered his friends as they tried to breach the ranks. And once they were in, nobody could shoot them for fear of taking out their own guys.

So the last stand that the insurgents had intended as a noble suicide ended in them breaking through the ranks entirely and winding up in the next street over, outside the combat zone, going “well shit, what do we do now?” (I’m guessing the infantry column wasn’t very deep; central Paris at that point was a rabbit warren of narrow twisty streets, and assembling troops en masse for an organized attack was a logistical nightmare.) Unlike the National Guard, the army weren’t total chumps and got themselves turned around to give chase and start shooting once they weren’t at risk of friendly fire any longer… and that’s when all the civilians holed up in their houses went “no way, you’re not getting your hands on these crazy bastards” and started hurling furniture and crockery down on the soldiers’ heads. Jeanne was understandably distracted at the time, but afterwards somebody informed him that the barrage of unlikely projectiles included a piano. A piano. That is some straight-up Looney Tunes slapstick right there. No wonder Hugo went for the heroic death scene instead; if he’d stuck to real life, he probably would’ve gotten complaints that he’d wrecked his readers’ suspension of disbelief.

Anyway, someone opened an alley gate for them to shelter in and take stock of the casualties–most of them survived(!!!), but a few were pretty nastily wounded. Their host then had to lock Charles Jeanne in to keep him from charging right back out and taking on the whole goddamn army singlehanded. He probably would’ve broken down the door if the poor man hadn’t pointed out that going back out would give away his wounded comrades’ hiding place and the identities of the people sheltering them. They sat there listening to the gunfire gradually slow and go silent, and then in the middle of the night the ones who could still walk were allowed to slip away one by one at long intervals from each other. Charles Jeanne went straight home, slept like the dead for a few hours, was woken up at five in the morning with a warning that he’d been denounced and the building was surrounded, and then slipped out in disguise and managed to evade the police for four months before a former comrade ratted him out and he was arrested.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Charles Jeanne’s letter is an absolute treasure that deserves to be available to anyone in Les Mis fandom who wants to read it. Incidentally, “how Actual Historical Enjolras survived the barricades by being too good at his suicide mission” is also one of the stories I tell when anyone asks me what the hell is so interesting about researching people nobody’s ever heard of from an obscure chapter of French history.

tenlittlebullets

Bringing this back for Barricade Day! To answer a few questions that keep coming up in the reblogs: here’s my translation of Jeanne’s letter, which was my main source. Jeanne stood trial, was imprisoned instead of executed (because can you imagine what a martyr he would’ve made), and died of tuberculosis just a few years later. Despite his improbable survival story, the RL June Rebellion was not an everybody-lives AU–like the revolt in Les Mis, it ended in a hard-fought retreat into one of the buildings on the street, followed by a massacre. The guys who led a suicide charge and accidentally won were, unfortunately, the exception.

bramble-berries

when I went for my adhd assessment one of the questions was something along the lines of, do you struggle with waiting periods? and I was like, no. I’m an expert at waiting actually, I am so good at it. I carry 1-2 books, my Switch, a crossword puzzle and/or sudoku book, and an assortment of small tactile toys like a spinning top, a Rubik’s cube, a small puzzle slider, etc. at all times in my big bag. I am so good at waiting. No struggles there.

ullathynell

Another illustration from my 2027 wall calendar. This piece is also available as art prints on Inprnt (based in USA, offers worldwide shipping) as well as Printler (based in EU).

starlightomatic

i’ve invented a new microwave its called microwave 2. it randomly makes your food colder 9% of the time. don’t worry i’ve already entered your home and replaced your old microwave with it. im very good at technology

starlightomatic

this is about google’s ai overview

barnsburntdownnow

Baby red-spotted garter snake on blackberries Lindy Pollard (b. 1946; USA) William L. Finley NWR, Oregon; 2022 Photograph

cerleansky

The legacies people leave behind in you.

My handwriting is the same style as the teacher’s who I had when I was nine. I’m now twenty one and he’s been dead eight years but my i’s still curve the same way as his.

I watched the last season of a TV show recently but I started it with my friend in high school. We haven’t spoken in four years.

I make lentil soup through the recipe my gran gave me.

I curl my hair the way my best friend showed me.

I learned to love books because my father loved them first.

How terrifying, how excruciatingly painful to acknowledge this. That I am a jigsaw puzzle of everyone I have briefly known and loved. I carry them on with me even if I don’t know it. How beautiful.

speaklavenderthoughts-deactivat

absolutely obsessed with these tags

gallusrostromegalus

If I was slightly better at archery and slightly less afraid of intestinal parasites, Charlie would have been a really excellent hunting dog.

He's a Mdium-sized Rez Dog which is to say he's mostly sighthound and pointer but he's a perfectly classically shaped hunting dog. He looks like he modeled the dogs on grecian pottery or hopped out of one of those 1700's paintings of stags at bay that would hang in the smoking rooms of the guys that funded the pillaging of the Americas but I digress. Sometimes I feel bad that I can't indulge him in what he was bred to do, because he loves scent-tracking and flushing geese and he damn near got me arrested in Grand Teton National park after he chewed through his leash and went haring off after a pronghorn antelope for half a mile at roughly mach fuck before the damn thing finally crossed a river and I was able to grab Charlie because he doesn't like getting his feetsies wet.

But today, we were on a walk in the local open space on a moderately muddy trail with fresh horse tracks in it. As in, we parked next to the horse trailer. The horse itself is actually perfecty visible about half a mile ahead of us.

But Charlie saw the tracks and went "I'm gonna scent-track this shit. I'm gonna hunt this motherfucking ungulate down by smell alone. I am truly the Nimrod of Dogs."

Full Instinct takeover happens. Head down, nose to the ground, pulling on his martingale hard enough that I could have hooked him up to a sled, stopping and dramatically pointing at road apples and bits of nibbled grass until I acknowledge that he has Identified An Article. He is having a GREAT time doing this, so I'm just there, looking at the horse that we are slowly catching up to and going. "Yeah! You got it! Good Job!"

But I'm also walking Herschel, who is a Corgi and he loves Activities, so he sees his big brother doing this and goes "OH BOY! AN ACTIVITY!!" and is trying his darndest to copy what Charlie's doing. Except he doesn't have a damn clue what is happening so he's slapping his livestock-bullying instincts on these horse tracks as hard as he can and just. Barking at horse shit to alert me to it's existence. Stalk-posing at the gras Charlie is pointing at, in case it jumps up and tries to run off. I think he thought perhaps they were herding an Invisible Cow and BY GOD it wasn't gonna run lose on his watch. Wherever it was.

Eventually, we get to about 100 feet behind the horse, which is an older Pinto out for a nice stroll and some fresh air and at this distance, Charlie decides that we're probably close enough for my dumb, relatively sensorily deprived human ass to see the horse, but just to make sure, he POINTS.

He's so fucking good at pointing. Perfectly still. Perfectly straight back and tail. Head up and ears forward. Front paw up and at the ready. Little diamond shape of back hackles up in excitement. Determined, unblinking lazer-eyed stare at the target. He looks like a very carnivorous hood ornament, the distilled essence of Hunting Dog, in a perfect scuptural pose. It's downright artistic. Inspiring even

Herschel is DELIGHTED, because he might not understand scent-tracking but he DID learn how to Point from Charlie and copies his pose exactly.

It has almost exactly the opposite emotional effect.

A Pointing Corgi is the most canine clownshoes nonsense possible. Herschel's pose is flawless of course, he learned from the Master, but the perfectly straight back looks funny as hell with a perfectly straight nub of a tail. His head is up and his gaze is locked but instead of predatory intent his face is EXTREMELY excited about this new Giant Friend and thier giant ankles he can barely wait to launch himself at and his face is about 80% Big Dumb Corgi Grin. Instead of Charlie's minute, even delicate hackles, Herschel has a full-body length doggy mowhawk, which is a good three inches long at the peaks over his shoulders and hips, ruining the sleek image and making him look like he just came out of the dryer and is still full of static electricity.

And, of course.

The Paw.

The Front Paw is up and at the ready- he and Charlie are both right-pawed apparently- and on his little stubby Corgi legs it looks like a toddler trying to use a smartphone. He thinks he's doing exactly what the Big Dogs do, but he only has these tiny feets.

Anyway, that's how they made a Jogger laugh so hard she ran into a garbage can.

yekkes

The only thing that has ever improved my mental health in any measurable capacity is making more friends. That's literally it

thejhambs

The way isolation plays on your psyche, and the way that a solid support system can improve your life is insane. One of the worst things that we did as a society is removing most avenues to find this kind of thing, and the over reliance on the idea of getting better on your own

yekkes

!!!

yekkes

can-i-make-image-descriptions

[Image IDs: Image #1: Tumblr tags reading: #you can 'self care' and 'minefulness' all you want #humans are a social species and there is only so much you can do on your own #and that is okay. hyper individualism is a sickness

Image #2: Tumblr tag reading: #no amount of self love can replace the love of the community /End IDs]