Otter

Avatar from a photo ©Linda Wilinski

[solgarmr]

something something grace is a "retired" (emphasis on retired) joust knight who got banned from competing because he yelled at an opponent in front of like. the king lmao. so anyways he moves to Nothingville and teaches math to kids UNTIL stratt - my lovely stratt- my lovely herald calls him back to help her plan an interplanetary joust (my liege i care not. my liege this is a sci-fi x middle ages au)

grace trains the other knights and as canon wants one of them dies so stratt enrolls grace even if he doesn't want to. he's done with tourneys and he's done risking his life yada yada yada you're swinging that lance lad! and rocky is his squire and tactician/master of arms

on the other hand simon is an exiled and dishonored knight who's wandering the lands. initially he doesn't know how to walk the path of exile and although he's good at hunting he's very.... bad... at foraging. to the point that he eats something he shouldn't and starts Suffering

luckily he's found by none other than adrian who is DRUM ROLL a herbalist! so they haul simon over their carapace and get whatever he ingested out of him and simon wakes up and looks at adrian and they look at him and simon goes hey can you teach me. and they become inseparable i tell you there's not a day they don't walk the lands together after simon's fully recovered. i'm saying adrian packs their stuff and becomes a wanderer they don't even hesitate

sometime before the interplanetary joust grace manages to escape because he chickens out and makes stratt lose his tracks (she actually knows where he is) (but she's confident he'll come back) (which he of course does) and whoomp there it is! the knights meet. one is fleeing while the other's arriving and they'd gladly move on with their lives if it weren't for rocky and adrian imprinting on each other and Falling In Love and wanting to never ever part

compromise: making camp halfway. pro: close to everything. con: close to everything. they get to roam the woods in peace but they're also very aware that the city is always somehow watching and ready to flush them out

the knights are absolutely not cooperative at first but they warm up to each other quite quickly and weird things happen but they don't talk about them and rocky and adrian are an item now so there's no point in pretending that all their lives will need adapting soon enough

one night they're by a river as rocky and adrian wash and tend to each other and grace and simon are sitting by the bank and grace comes clean about why and from what he's running and simon tells him about why he's in exile (he's partially guilty of letting fire eat at an entire town). by the end of the conversation grace looks at simon and goes i need to go back, don't i and simon replies i think you do

grace proves stratt right and he's got a Big Man following him around now and stratt tries to pry and ask why that is and grace tells her that he needs a peculiar doctor for my..... peculiar..... things. problems. rashes you know those guys and she stares. deadpans no i don't but she's cool with it as long as grace does his job

he gets back to training and he's sharing a room with simon at the castle and simon is actually pretty good at sword fighting and he's very good with the court's children and the citadel likes him and rocky likes him and adrian is wonderful and they get to live comfortably for a bit

so grace enters the lists and wins a few tourneys on the first round of the joust but something Happens and on the night between the first tourney and second dun dun duuun another knight dies which is terrible because 1) grace is a man with HUGE feelings 2) stratt is a woman with a task and she almost loses it because earth's short of a champion

simon is quiet for a moment. pondering. he really thinks it through. he rises from his chair and asks stratt to let him swing the lance on earth's side. before she can answer grace blurts out absolutely not you've got no vows on you and simon really really looks at him and takes the whole of him in and goes make me swear them again, then and stratt could knight him, she really could and it'd be so swift but no, we're asking ryland grace. so she watches as grace almost faints. leaves them alone. and grace tells simon he's signed up to risk his life, not simon's, this is not how things should go and simon just smiles. and grace knights him. fade to black wink wink

so simon enters the lists. and grace has an inkling but he's never dared to ask about it because there are certain things simon won't talk about but yeah. he's troubled by an Entity. and although the first tilt goes well, the second is ruinous and simon's mind shatters. in order to stop him from doing something irreversible, his opponent wields his sword and bye bye simon's arm you'll be missed

and that's it folks, this is what i got! i'll be back #trust

[solgarmr]

more about this

let’s talk about armour shall we

GRACE

heavy armour with reinforced joints and jousting accessories, fully decorated with etchings. the breastplate displays a gilt sun and matches the earth and erid broaches securing the cape to the pauldrons

he wields a slender long sword with an irregular guard, leather-wrapped grip and rocky's statue of him on the pommel. the scabbard is embellished with etchings of the solar system

everything is made out of xenonite and entirely crafted by rocky, who fixed every nick after the knight's early jousts (and actually quite loves decorating the armor as much as he can)

the decorations' richness and pristine state shows that, although not always playing it safe, grace has never really left the comfort of the court. even after retiring from the joust, once earth knighted him a knight of science, he never looked down on the title and cared immensely about it

after officially retiring, he rarely puts on the whole ordeal. he enjoys wearing some pieces here and there to go hunting in the woods. he doesn't wear the cape anymore, says it hinders his ability to run heels over head when the game he chooses barks back

when simon first sees grace wearing the full ensemble he gets caught staring. grace rolls his eyes and goes i know this is a lot, it's uhhh unnecessary and makes me look like a pretentious idiot UGH i told rocky everything's too… shiny but noooo he wouldn't have it, armour must shine armour must glisten and simon shrugs and replies you look like a saint and grace presses his eyes shut and almost auto-combusts

SIMON "THE BUTCHER"

when adrian finds him, simon is wearing light armour, simple pieces with no ornamentation

thick gambeson, roughly patched up

mainly white steel with leather straps, dented by battle over battle

adrian: your gear is inefficient, how are you still alive. simon: it serves me well, surely saved me from a lotta trouble. adrian: it didn't save you from ingesting cicuta maculata. simon: how about we stop talking for a while

he wields two weapons: a spear with a leaf-shaped (common ivy) blade he uses for defense, hunting and ranged attacks and a sword with a silver-embellished pommel that once represented a great oak tree, now faded. the hilt is wrapped in black leather, the crossguard is simple. on the blade were inscribed words that are now mostly illegible, but simon knows them. it's a prayer. the scabbard is made out of animal skin

old blood, new blood, it all sticks: when simon got sentenced with exile, he didn't bother cleaning up the mess he left behind as he fought for survival and freedom

rocky reaches a point where he gets severely stressed out by looking at simon's equipment and can't tolerate it anymore so he takes matters into his own hands, discarding the old pieces while still using the metal to make simon something efficient and reliable (with proper decorations)

[otter-incomprehension]

I love all of the AUs I'm seeing where Adrian picks up Simon while Grace and Rocky are still out in space, but they all have Adrian establishing communication and Simon picking up Eridian sans translation software in a timeline similar to Grace's. Mutations this, hand wave that... but. Languages are hard! Especially in a zero-resource situation! And depending on how they find Simon, they might not put together that his vocalizations are a structured language for a bit, much less that he's from a spacefaring species. Simon's not necessarily going to try to establish vocabulary either (especially since all the other alien life he's met could speak his language already). The language barrier is a great excuse to stay in the weirdly-large-room-with-a-consistent-food-and-water-supply. Sure, he's always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but like hell is he going to risk them figuring out why he was welded into the SM-13 and putting him back. Not when they give him cloned meat at the first glimpse of a hunger cue. Who cares if it's dark? So was the COI, half the time.

Imagine Rocky pulling into orbit yelling for a hospital and the other Eridians going, "Oh, another space cat, we know what to do with those." Then Rocky explains that Grace helped solve the astrophage issue and the Eridian scientists realize in sync that the planet's collective pet has had Eridian-level intelligence all along. Simon in the background sweating profusely, trying to figure out if he can get away on the Hail Mary before they catch him.

[everthefractal]

I can't get over how human Simon was. He apologised for his outbursts, even when punching the sub at one point, he repeatedly apologised for the radiation in the exact same way like he was still reeling from the shock of that information. Whenever the oxygen ticked down you can see a new wave of horror washing over him that he needs to take a second to cope with. When Ava gives him the login details he stumbles on remembering control-shift-9 never mind the password she rattled out.

They managed to present a man with a dark past and anger issues who is also not a monster. He is a human being desperate to survive and nobody even knows his name anymore. The closest thing he had to a family he resents but still obviously misses terribly as he clings to that pendant and shakes.

And Ava. Ava too. She's in an impossible situation. She doesn't want more humans to die. She has no idea how much damage radiation has done to her. This man, who she thought was a heartless killer, is begging and pleading and apologising like a child and it's getting increasingly harder to lie to him that he's going to be ok. Her screaming and begging that this is bigger than him is so achingly desperate I can still feel it, humanity is almost entirely gone. I fully believe that she hates this as well, all of it, but if she doesn't follow orders and take calculated risks then what else is there to keep her tethered and sane? What else can she cling to? They're almost entirely alone in an empty universe. She needs this hope.

[fuckthisshit-ugh]

please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

reblog. share. don't scroll past.

[digitalmyyth]

everyone needs their own pet scientist

[junietuesday]

white people go like “is anyone going to redesign this nonhuman evil character as a poc?” and not wait for an answer

[junietuesday]

white people go “is anyone going to redesign this nonhuman good character as a white person?” and not wait for an answer

[junietuesday]

white people can rb but please do not clown

[junietuesday]

white people really cant give a shit abt anyone but themselves unless held at gunpoint or smth huh?

“what about the poor little white kids just trying to have fun?” what about the poor little kids of color made to feel unsafe and unwelcome in a space that was supposed to be fun?

“why can’t poc just make their own redesigns and we can keep these ones” why cant you realize that your actions have consequences and that you should maybe try to not enforce racist stereotypes??

like ofc its ideal to have VARIETY among both villains AND protagonists, its when your characters look like this

that the issue arises

scratch “can”, white people are encouraged to reblog

[catantennae]

[Image description: 3 white stickmen labeled as "good guys" and 3 Brown stickmen labeled as "bad guys". End image description.]

[thememedaddy]

[the-final-sif]

So! This is a perfect case study in situations where you should be wary of misinformation.

Take a moment and ask yourself, a project like this requires a lot of time, money and dedication of resources, why would scientists dedicate that time to something that could just be done by a tree?

The answer is they wouldn't. So that means this claim requires further investigation!

This project is called LIQUID 3, and it's not meant for cities with wide open spaces, it's meant for cities like Belgrade in Serbia. These cities are densely populated and heavily polluted, to the point where pollution actually chokes out current trees and makes creating green spaces difficult.

Liquid 3 was a PhD scientists answer to these problems. The microalgae tank is intended for spaces where you either:

Don't have enough space to plant full trees, or

Don't have enough time to plant trees and wait for them to grow up.

The tank is extremely efficient when you consider the amount of space needed compared to the amount of CO2 turned into oxygen. The tank can operate throughout the winter. And most importantly, it can be quickly set up in areas that desperately need relief from air pollution NOW not in 10 years when trees are done growing. Children currently suffocating on polluted air can't wait for trees to grow, they need to be taken care of now, and Liquid 3 is one of the ways to take care of them. Depending on the species of microalgea used, a number have shown a pretty amazing capacity to pull heavy metals out of the air which is something trees can get choked up by.

The tanks aren't just tanks either! Liquid 3 have solar panels placed on top, they have lighting and mobile phone charging, and they work as public benches. The designers of it want to encourage green spaces where there's room, but where there isn't room or time, Liquid 3 can step in. Realistically, this isn't a replacement for trees. It's replacing boring metal city benches with new, cooler benches that also clean the air (and have at least some heating during the winter).

Not only that, but the microalgea that grows is native to Serbia and all that microalgea has a ton of great uses! It makes for great fertilizer, compost, wastewater treatment, cleaner biofuels and even for helping create new tanks for further air purification. They only require a quick algae divide once a month, and the produced algae can be carted off to where ever it's needed. This makes them effective solutions for areas that can't sustain complex installations.

So yeah, there's actually quite a lot of places that would like these. Lots of people currently breathing in terrible quality air would much rather have their boring city benches replaced with really fucking cool algae tanks that clean the air and can be used to help create + sustain future green spaces in cities. I dunno about you, but I'd take that over a dumb metal bench any day. Put these at every bus stop and I'd be delighted.

[straawberries]

can ppl pls reblog this version

[us-nowhere-girls]

Well damn. I was also like wtf is this stupid slime tank and then I read the rest and my mind got blown

[squillysquicken]

what is best?

regular yaoi

toxic yaoi

doomed yaoi

old man yaoi

toxic doomed yaoi

doomed old man yaoi

toxic old man yaoi

evil toxic doomed old man yaoi

Voting ended onJul 13

reblog for larger sample size :thumbs up:

[mellosdrawings]

Maybe -- just MAYBE -- don't spit on other characters and ships and works when the artist you congratulate and reblog from also draws those?

[comedydoctor18]

FANDOM ETIQUETTE NEEDS A RETURN SOOOO STRONGLY

[pro-gay-deactivated20170112]

I’m Gay

[whippedcreamtitties23]

I’m A Lesbian

[pro-gay-deactivated20170112]

[daovihi]

I’m bisexual

[pro-gay-deactivated20170112]

[maniacalwalrus-deactivated20160]

i’m trans

[pro-gay-deactivated20170112]

[ask-desperately-laurens]

Im Asexual.

[ask-henriette-lafayette]

[reallychico]

I’m not sure yet

[ask-henriette-lafayette]

it’s ok!

[wizardgender]

a wholesome post

[fumbledeegrumble]

oh, interesting note: op is throwing a pity party because someone added those nasty-wasty acey-waceys to their pure L! G! B! T! ONLY post, and they DIDN’T LIKE THAT. Keep reblogging this version to piss them off.

[but-theyre-so-cute]

Yaaassss

[savetheflower-1967]

Nun in red heels from Readers Digest magazine, ca 1967.

[raisondetriment]

I know I only have so many mutuals but I can NOT let you get away with hiding this in the tags

[donuts-multifandom-hellhole]

Something that I get chills about is the fact that the oldest story told made by the oldest civilization opens with "In those days, in those distant days, in those ancient nights."

This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find

Some people get existential dread from this

Me? I think it's fucking awesome it shows just how much of this world we have yet to discover and that is just fascinating

[sleepymccoy]

@makaeru peer review cos this made me check when the Sumerians happened and I forget how recent history is for every other continent. 7000 - 8000 years ago just isn't that long when you're in Australia, and the amount of detailed history we have access to here is wonderful and should be recognised more internationally

Source (non Aboriginal)

And a quote I picked out from a longer interview with an Aboriginal local elder about the area where he touched on the history

Source (the rest of the interview is really interesting and all transcribed, have a look if you're curious)

[chaotic-archaeologist]

This is part of my Ancient Civilizations class that I teach, which does a whole week about Australia and the Torres Strait Islands because I was sick of never seeing them represented in USAmerican history contexts. With the help of @micewithknives and @acearchaeologist I've learned so many incredible things about Australia's past and it's been incredibly rewarding to share them with students.

[aggressivelybicaptainamerica]

My favorite fact about Aboriginal oral history is the fact that we pretty recently discovered that the Aboriginal myth of the 7 Sisters, an origin story for the Pleiades star cluster, accurately reflects a point TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO when two stars in the constellation got close enough together to no longer be distinguishable by the naked eye.

The story? 6 sisters running from something that took their 7th sister.

[jinkohhh]

as a gilgar gunditj woman, i was not expecting to see my culture on my dash.

thank you for spreading our words and treating our culture with respect.

[ladyshinga]

OceanGate tried to scrub the internet clean of traces that it ever existed, taking down its Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages

OceanGate, the deep-sea exploration company that created the Titan submersible, has removed its Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn a

poor things, well we should definitely make this easier on them by never repeatedly mentioning their name and deeds on the "reblog things forever" website

[judgejudyofficial]

stop letting miserable people on the internet convince you that you must have a concrete, well-constructed opinion on everything that has ever existed.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

[judgejudyofficial]

everybody say thank you Marcus Aurelius

[otter-incomprehension]

Character A tries to set up a Just One Bed situation, only for character B to start fretting because they flail in their sleep and do not want to accidentally punch A in the face.

[hulk-janitor]

I think I might be too lost in the bloodymary sauce. Because what do you mean I sketched this fully believing this would obviously be Simon Iron Lung.