Welcome to the Madness

|| "I came to see a king. Not a row of corpses." ||

[portrait-paintings]

Self-Portrait at the Spinet

Artist: Lavinia Fontana (Italian, 1552-1614) 

Date: 1577

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Italy

[cparti-mkiki]

jardin de la noblesse française, abraham bosse (french, 1605-1676) after jean de saint igny (french, ca. 1600-ca. 1649), 1629 (boston fine arts)

[toxictoad]

Lestat giving candy to kids on Halloween and Lestat haunted by the cries of his nieces and nephews and Lestat sparing the man on the phone with his daughter and Lestat being gentle with his younger self when he stutters. Idk man just. Lestat and children and childhood.

[rayreedlioncourt]

my good friend Jacob Anderson said communication is the key to a happy relationship and damn he was right. just look at the difference

[prokopetz]

Once you've learned the spot the historical signposts, it's interesting how many "generically medieval" fantasy settings manage to miss the actual medieval period on both ends. They've got the Roman Empire rubbing shoulders with the German Renaissance, skipping directly from the year 500 to the year 1500 with nothing in between!

[prokopetz]

(The one consistent exception is, of course, the obligatory Vikings-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off culture, who legitimately are medieval, but nobody they interact with is, so you've effectively got Vikings with time-travelling boats raiding both Roman-occupied England and Renaissance Italy.)

[prokopetz]

"Oh, they skip the actual middle ages because it's too Christian" listen. If fantasy authors are willing to hold their noses and elide the explicitly Christian dimensions of both the latter Roman Empire and the fucking Reformation, they can deal with Christianity in the middle ages just fine.

[namarikonda]

As a martyr submits to death, the masses ravage their body. What part of this divine flesh will be ripped to shreds, to be revered until the end of time? 🫀📿

[flightmussy]

Europe by rail — every notable train route on the continent, drawn as one map. High-speed lines in gold (see the star of routes out of Paris, and the fans from Madrid and Milan), sleeper trains in purple threading between the capitals, scenic lines in green through the Alps. It's a live, interactive map — 852 routes worldwide, free, no signup: https://trainrouter.com

[cardboardlife]

A video about making bubble prints. Prints?? Not sure if they're prints exactly. Anyway I want to animate with this somehow

[omnia-mors-aequat-nstrwa]

Armor of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–1564)

[postcard-from-the-past]

Tomb in the Nantes Cathedral, Brittany region of France

French vintage postcard

[josephinthepast]

This sculpture represents Prudence, one of the four Cardinal virtues. Her two faces - a young woman at the front and an old man at the back - symbolise that she can see both the past and the future.

The virtues stand at the corners of the tomb of François II, Duke of Brittany (1435-1488), and his wife Marguerite of Foix (1449-1487).

The tomb was commissioned by their daughter, Anne (1477-1514), the last independent ruler of the duchy of Brittany and twice queen of France through her successive marriages to Charles VIII and Louis XII. Anne, however, was determined to maintain Brittany's independence from the kingdom of France and her parents' tomb was an expression of that wish.

The tomb was sculpted from white marble by Michel Colombe (1430-1515). It has been suggested that Prudence's old and young faces are portraits of Colombe and his patron, Anne of Brittany.

The tomb was originally placed in the convent church of the Carmelite nuns in Nantes, and Anne's heart was later buried alongside her parents in a gold casket. The tomb was saved from the destruction of the French Revolution and reassembled in Nantes Cathedral in 1817, where it can still be seen today.

[fishtrouts]

Swordfish lives through the pursuit of the world’s worst archers, and finally meets Grym! I can’t tell if either of them are very enthusiastic about their situation, but at least Hopper’s happy!

Patreon | WEBTOON (all comics in order)

[phantom-threaded]

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

2025, dir. Rian Johnson

[yodaprod]

Robocop behind the scenes (1987)

[carduelis-carduelis]

Fandom PSAs

Dont’ Like, Don’t Read

or DL; DR

You are responsible for curating your own online experience.

If something upsets you, makes you angry or queasy or triggers you, stop reading/looking at it. Avoid things that might make you feel that way.

Learn to use the Sort and Filter function on AO3, especially the Exclude tools.

On social media, block and mute accounts / tags / words when necessary.

If you hated something, you don’t need to tell that to the creator or start pointing fingers at them publicly.

The Back button is free. Use it.

Addendum:

Yes, for this to work, creators need to tag their works accordingly, so that people know what sort of content they are about to engage with and can nope out if necessary.

I will probably make another PSA about the importance of proper tagging later.

Ship And Let Ship

or SALS

You are allowed to ship whatever you want.

Everyone else is also allowed to ship whatever they want.

You are entitled to dislike or even hate a ship. If you want to do this online, in public, don’t use the ship tags for hate posts.

If you see someone posting about a ship they like and you don’t, there is no need for you to start arguing with them in their replies / comments / QRTs / reblogs. Don’t throw your hate in their face.

Do not harass fan creators or fans for shipping something you disapprove.

All of this also applies to liking / disliking an individual character.

Addendum:

”I agree with this, except when…”

No, then you are NOT agreeing with this.

Let me make this VERY clear. There are NO exceptions. None.

You don’t EVER harass real people over pixels.

If you disagree with this, kindly block and move on.

Your Kink Is Not My Kink

or YKINMK / YKINMKATO

The longer version is ”Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That’s Okay”.

People have different tastes. Not everything is for everybody.

Even if you don’t like a specific kink, other people are still allowed to use it in their creations.

You are entitled to dislike kinky content and think that it’s ”weird”.

Don’t kink shame or judge people based on their kinks.

This goes both ways: your kink is not someone else’s kink, so don’t push it onto those who are not into it.

Be Kind

or Don’t Be An Asshole

Focus on the things you like instead of the things you hate.

Create and unite instead of destroying and dividing.

Don’t harass real people over fictional things.

Stop stirring up petty drama just to get some attention on social media.

Stop trying to ”win”. Fandom is not a competition.

Remember that your own experiences aren’t universally shared. Your perception of things can differ from someone else’s, but that doesn’t mean either of you is necessarily wrong.

[hellallamerican]

yall HAVE to stop with the fake history bullshit yall HAVE to stop with the "historians dont want yall to know" i guarantee yall that you do not give a shit about what we want yall to know, yall just like peddling anti-intellectual conspiracies

[theres-a-hole-in-my-wall]

[professionals in their field] don't want you to know [x] is a surefire way to disinformation!

[masterdisastre]

That statement only proves that you never asked any professional about their field. Because it almost certainly ends up with your ears throbbing after being given an almost unprompted extended speech on a tiny detail they're being passionate about.

Historians, scientists, mathematicians, accountants, cooks, literature experts, linguistics fans, whatever really, we want to tell you EVERYTHING.

AND BY GOD WE WILL AT THE FIRST CHANCE. HOPE YOU HAVE AT LEAST FIVE HOURS BECAUSE IN THIS ESSAY I WILL

[mamoru]

life pro tip: if you happen to be considering purchasing an LG TV or monitor, you possibly want to pick something else! and if you have an LG monitor that has not been plugged into anything in a while, you might want to leave it that way!

if you already have an LG monitor or TV or intend to buy one, you probably want to watch this video and keep an eye on gamers nexus for updates (or anyone else covering the LG spying situation):

posted july 16 2026

LG is doing some bad things. how bad? well. here are some very brief bullet points. I am not an expert, gamers nexus is, see the video for more information than this:

LG monitors (brand new and years old, cheap and expensive) auto-install LG's own adware-spyware called LG Monitor App onto windows 10 and 11 computers. you plug in an LG monitor for video output and this gets installed automatically. no hitting OK, no confirmation, no toggles, NOTHING.

the auto-installed LG Monitor App auto-grants itself access to your internet connection and ALL computer resources. the LG Monitor App has the ability to collect: geolocation data, device data, personal information, online activity data, contact data, and more!

...and it shows pop-up ads! because fuck you

on some affected versions of windows, auto-installed shitware like the LG Monitor App can be prevented by navigating to gpedit.msc -> computer configuration -> administrative templates -> system -> device installation -> prevent automatic download of applications associated with metadata

...but, if your LG monitor already installed the LG Monitor App, this is like closing the barn door after the horse got out. and that horse has the logs of everything you were doing on your computer! someone stop that fucking horse!!!

unrelated to the LG Monitor App, many LG TV owners are now required to tell all household members and guests that their LG TV is recording and processing ALL nearby voices. or else they may be in violation of local eavesdropping and wiretapping laws. for owning a fucking LG TV.

plus, how many businesses, workplaces, public spaces use LG TVs?

allegedly the microphone spying can be turned off by disabling microphone features, but LG has been caught disregarding opt-out settings before.

LG TVs can record everything that happens on the TV, including the video output of connected devices like phones, computers, gaming consoles, anything that happens on the TV screen.

LG was sued for their spying, and as a result of that spying suit, now shows pop-ups saying oops! they got caught spying and intend to continue spying. thanks for buying LG!

as of when the video was posted, there was no list of every spying LG monitor or TV. but this stuff is getting rolled out to more and more LG devices, including those purchased years ago.

and that is the shortest summary I can make of this situation without just summarizing more of the gamers nexus video.

@gamersnexus.bsky.social

Update: We are working on a follow-up to the LG story and have some disturbing findings re: LG's products. It will take us a while to parse

⬆️posted july 23 2026

gamers nexus is fairly respected in technology journalism. they fly around the world investigating companies that fuck people over and have pressured major companies to make major changes over the years.

so for gamers nexus to say that this LG spying situation is both unprecedented in how uniquely bad it is in this era of spying, and that it gets even worse than their video where they already say to stop buying and using LG products while recanting every prior recommendation for LG products?

oooooofff

[jenroses]

For context, Gamers Nexus is a channel that does incredible deep dives and they work very hard not to be beholden to the tech industry. Steve is what I would consider a Very Reliable Source and I pay a lot of attention to his work.

Also LG is the epitome of planned obsolescence and while they often make very clever products, they also do things like not having parts available for less than the cost of a new machine and designing stoves that will destroy themselves with the self clean function.

I will not buy them again. Not in any category.

[wizardarchetypes]

it's so crazy too bc i'll be like "this phrase/practice is being touted as ancient knowledge with a secret unbroken lineage, but it was quite literally made up in the 20th century. like we can trace it back to its very inception in like 1961." and someone will be like "that can't be true because my grandmother taught it to me." and i'm like yes your grandmother was 20 in 1961.