Please go learn how time works.

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Keni
Stranger Things
occasionally subtle

Discoholic 🪩
Show & Tell
DEAR READER

JBB: An Artblog!
dirt enthusiast
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Cosimo Galluzzi
styofa doing anything
almost home
Peter Solarz

★
Xuebing Du
RMH
YOU ARE THE REASON
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
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@phenyxsnest
Please go learn how time works.
captain afab is honestly a very relatable character because whomst among us does not have some great beast that has eluded us all our lives. mine, for instance, is a decent night's sleep.
Ahab. I meant fucking. captain Ahab.
y'all are gonna make this a whole thing aren't you
top 5 things people have said in the tags on this so far:
moby girldick
I mean, he is chasing dick
the real white whale was testosterone
assigned whaler at birth
captain afab and his trusty crewman cismale
"oh food now has so much added to it, past food was so pure and untainted" victorians used to cut bread with chalk and aluminum powder. romans put lead in the wine, which was made from dirty feet mushing unwashed grapes covered in horse shit and road dust. i think our species will survive a few additives in food. our food systems have never been cleaner and safer. it has room for improvement, but we're not putting fucking plaster of paris in the milk
#people think the food additive situation in the past was BETTER???? #baby i am begging you to google 'swill milk' (via @json-derulo)
Exactly. Food doesn't have more additives today; it's just required to REGULATE and LABEL the additives.
But to these "alternative health" types, visibility = the problem. It's the exact same logic behind claims that people had fewer allergies in the past - Nah, you just didn't hear about them because children ~*died mysteriously*~ more often!
Listening to the local fire department radios as they rescue a cat in a sewer. Here's how it's going:
FD: We can see the cat. Do you have an ETA on animal control?
Dispatch: Twenty minutes.
FD: Alright, we think we can get the cat.
Dispatch: Copy, we'll let animal control know.
FD several minutes later: We've got the cat.
Dispatch: Copy, do you still want--
FD, interrupting: Update, the cat DOES NOT like us.
Dispatch: ...so you do still want animal control, then?"
FD: Yes. Tell them the cat is in the engine.
Dispatch: ...are you also in the engine?
FD: Not anymore, no.
i read my first discworld novel around 25 years ago. i was 10 or 11 maybe. and when i say that discworld raised me.
it snuck in through the cracks and seeded better philosophies into a young mind that was being brought up in a cult, and as i grew, those things took root in me, crumbled the cult rhetoric like so much shitty concrete and let something a bit more alive have a chance to blossom.
discworld met me where i was at--in my youthful impotent rage, in my cleverness, in my fears.
discworld said that monsters were real but i was allowed to carry a frying pan and some string. discworld said it was okay to care an irrational amount about pedantic things but it wasn't okay to be an elitist asshole about it because everyone else is people, too, and if you're so clever maybe you have a duty to use it rather than a right to lord it over everyone. discworld made me think about my thoughts.
discworld gave me socks to shove down my pants when i was 14 and didn't know how to have words for not being a girl and it laid out a framework for understanding my autism almost 20 years before i knew what it was. it told me i was allowed to have agency and if i didn't then i was allowed to take it from whoever was trying to keep it from me.
discworld said there are words for that feeling of always watching myself, that it doesn't make me evil for needing to be my own built-in leash. and that it's okay to think the world is full of idiots and bastards as long as i understand at the end of the day they're just as human as everyone else and that has to matter or everything breaks down.
discworld, in particular, drove home just what that humanity meant. what it meant to be part of it, when i had grown up too isolated to understand in any organic way.
discworld was there for me as a kid and it was there for me as an adult revisiting my favourites with eyes ever made fresh by adult worry and grief and exhaustion and hope, understanding me every step of the way. it reminded me again and again through the difficult years that i had to care because caring is all we've got and if we don't care, what's the point?
and it did all of that while making me laugh so hard i couldn't breathe. helped me consistently value joy and humour against a painful world, even at my lowest.
i wouldn't be this me without discworld; i would be some much worse version of me, and that would really suck.
i don't have anything terribly poetic or moving to say today. i'm just full of gratitude and gladness and melancholy and assorted other soft feelings.
it's the 25th of may. i've been wearing lilac in my hair since before i was even old enough to know why.
i guess all that's left to do is track down a hard-boiled egg.
Zelink ballet!! More under the cut 💜
It will come when you call
Originally posted at: https://blog.chrislegge.com/it-will-come-when-you-call/
I'm a deeply angry person. Not that I have a temper or anything like that, quite the opposite actually.[^1] No, it's more of a deeply ingrained anger at the world. I've come to find out it's described as an "autistic sense of justice". It's deep anger at my core about the way the world works and the injustices around us.
I was also extremely emotionally repressed for a large part of my life. No negative emotions were allowed in my mind. I was "above that". Eventually the negative emotions would build up, as they always do, and find new ways to come out. New health complications. Sure. Get into a fight on the phone with my brother and hurt my hand slamming my fist into the ground or punching a wall I knew I couldn't damage? All the time. Bite my nails and pick my cuticles until they bleed? Absolutely.
I hated that I couldn't control it. I would think “I should be better than that” and repressed harder. I followed this cycle of internal abuse until a few things happened. First I started seeing my now spouse who accepted me for who I was, not who I "should" be. Second, I first read what is now my favorite book, Night Watch by Terry Pratchett.
You do the job that's in front of you.
How did a fantasy book help me? Well, first you need to understand something about the book and the author.
Night Watch is the 29th book in the Discworld series, but it's also part of a sub series about the City Watch of the Disc's largest city. It was instantly my favorite sub-series. The arc of its main character, Sam Vimes, is one of the best I've ever read. He goes from being an alcoholic police sergeant to a man who reforms the profession for his city and, eventually, much of the wider world as well. Vimes would be the first person to say ACAB and that there’s a better way to do good than just "being a copper". He spends the length of the series moving the world to be better around him out of sheer force of will. One step at a time.
Then there's Terry Pratchett, who himself had a very righteous indignation and anger at the injustices of the world. I can't speak to whether he was neurodivergent or not, but I felt a real connection with this restrained, directed anger. I wanted that level of control that he seemed to have and that he wrote into his character.
It’s a real soldiers’ song: sentimental, with dirty bits.
The Glorious 25th of May is an extremely important day in the book. It's the date of a failed revolution that Vimes and several characters were a part of and they all hold a day of remembrance for it every year, wearing lilacs as symbol of their shared experience.
The story follows Vimes getting sent back in time and taking on the role of the sergeant who taught his younger self how to be a better person and not give in to what he called "The Beast" (the unrestrained anger that he knew would destroy everything if he let it). This builds up to the Glorious 25th and the formation of the People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road.
There’s a lot of humor and absurdity in the course of the story, but there’s so much heart and sentimentality as well. There are parts I still cry over even though I’ve read it dozens of times. There are passages I think about when things are dark and seem like they will never get better. When I feel like I'm going to lose myself in the anger, I think of two parts in particular.
"When we break down, it all breaks down. That’s just how it works. You can bend it, and if you make it hot enough you can bend it in a circle, but you can’t break it. When you break it, it all breaks down until there’s nothing unbroken."
That stays with me, but it didn't rewire part of my brain the way another did.
Hold it back! Tame it! Don't waste it!
There is a scene that resonates with me in a way that it has basically become a core belief of mine. Vimes is stopping his younger self from giving into the anger he feels at a jailer who committed unspeakable acts. Before The Beast wins, he steps in at the last minute and says, in my opinion, one the best lines of all time:
“No! That’s not the way! This is not the time! Hold it back! Tame it! Don’t waste it! Send it back! It’ll come when you call!”
I read that when I was discovering more about my anger and it all clicked. The anger I felt could be put to better use than just being locked away and forgotten about until it came out in uncontrollable ways. I could use it, direct it, not be a slave to it like I had seen in others so many times before.
This sentiment is continued in the next book in the series, Thud. In it there is a mental representation of this idea, called The Guarding Dark. It's how Vimes keeps himself in check when it would be easier to just let everything go and let The Beast take control. It results in a scar on his arm after he resisted being overtaken by the Summoning Dark (a spirit of vengeance).
All of this felt like a way forward when I read it. I found myself trying to overcome the anger not by repressing it and pretending it wasn’t there, but instead acknowledging it and trying to find a use for it. Let it fuel my art. Turn it into kindness for others. Give it a purpose. Drive me to be better than I was before.
They were remembering who they were not singing it with.
Terry Pratchett fans have been using the 25th of May as a kind of day of memorial since his passing in 2015. People wear lilacs and talk about how much both the book and Pratchett's other work means to them. I was already in the habit of rereading Night Watch in May, but I make sure I do it every year since then. It's cathartic and feels important that I do it.
Now, every year on the 25th of May, my partner and I wear lilacs. What's more, for the last couple of years I've been wearing the lilac everyday. You see, when I got my first tattoo I wanted to be something important, something that keeps me, me. So, there was only really one choice: I have a lilac sprig and a representation of the Guarding Dark on my arm. It's there to make sure I never forget who I am and why I'm here.
With everything going on in the world, this country, and my life in general, I'll admit my tolerance window has been very small. The emotions are always close to bubbling over lately. So, when I'm close to letting them take control, I have taken to tapping my arm where the tattoo is. It reminds me who is in control and the overwhelming feeling recedes.
Tame it. Don't waste it. It will come when you call.
¹ It's actually very difficult for my anger to rise to the surface. So much so that a friend I used to work with made it his mission to make me mad so he could see it. At one point he walked into my office, saw papers on my desk, and slid them off with the back of his hand like a cat knocking something off a counter. He stood there in defiance for a second and I went back to work. Exasperated, he picked up and organized the paper (it was just a random jumble when I had them on my desk before). He said a few swears and left the room. Poor guy still hasn't seen me get mad to this day.
Night Watch is one of Sir Terry’s most hopeless novels - and, by the same token, because of the same things, one of his most hopeful.
It’s a parody - and I use that word very loosely, because there’s really nothing funny about it - of Les Miserables. It’s about a failed revolution, and a barricade, and the people who fought and died there for nothing. Nothing changes. Politics with a capital P goes on, and even the most pure and noble of intentions only becomes food for the pit of snakes who pull the strings. The powerful remain powerful, the powerless, despite their solidarity, their desperation, their violence, their hope, remain powerless. Their little lives don’t count at all. Things continue exactly as they always have, minus a few faces in the crowd.
It is also, I think, where we see Sam Vimes at his lowest. Sure, Thud! does similar things in stripping him down, but that is under an outside influence, and he has his family to think of. He has something to fight for.
In Night Watch, though, all of that is taken away. Sam Vimes, eternal cynic, for once has Cassandraic knowledge that his cynicism is absolutely founded. He knows how this will end, and there’s no Corporal Carrot to make the world magically better around him, no Sybil and Young Sam to push through for, no city to protect. The absolute best that he can expect is to succeed, and lose that family, that future, forever. The absolute worst? He dies. Everyone he cares about here dies. And it’s all in vain.
Sam Vimes is an alcoholic. It’s something that we tend to bring up when we’re talking about how amazing he is, how much he’s overcome, but gloss over otherwise. Which is a little sad, because it’s fundamental.
Sam Vimes faced this exact dragon, years ago. Sam Vimes saw there was no way to slay it. He saw the ants eating at the heart of every hope, every effort. He saw the first man he really knew as a good and kind and just - but never passive, never weak - man die, horribly, slain for no reason but petty grudge and Politics. He saw John Keel’s garden wither and die in its bed. He saw the hope of a better, brighter Ankh-Morpork squelched, and the sacrifice of a good man wasted. He saw the world, in all of its rotting, miserable, pestilent despair, spoiling every good thing that dared show its face, its only ordering principle the slow decay of entropy.
Young Sam Vimes had no anchor. Young Sam Vimes had nothing left to turn to but the bottom of a bottle and the smelliest part of an Ankh-Morpork gutter.
Sam Vimes, as of the events of Night Watch, is back there. Not only physically temporally displaced. He has nothing. There is no reason for him to stand up, to take on the role of John Keel, to take responsibility for the barricade, to try to bring Carcer back to justice. To fight the doomed fight. There is nothing between him and finding a quiet seat at the Broken Drum, ordering himself a pint, and giving up. There is nothing between him and despair.
But he gets up anyway. He intervenes anyway. He tries to help anyway, even when he can’t believe it will make any difference. And it doesn’t, in the end.
Except that people lived who, save for the actions of John Keel, would have died. Except it quite literally meant the world to them.
And that’s where the hope is hiding, in this hopeless, bleak, despair of a book. There is no glory. There is no revolution. There is no good thing that cannot be corrupted. There is no point. Except.
The Disc turns on the ‘except’. Always has. Always will.
The hope across the whole arc of Discworld is that things can, if good people try very, very hard, go from extremely awful to only very awful, and that’s worth it.
Overall, the Discworld series is very hopeful about the grand scheme of things and the effect people, no matter how small, can have on it. But Night Watch is not about that. Night Watch is about what happens when ‘things’ don’t get better. When the grand scheme of things isn’t impacted at all, either way, by the actions of individual people. Night Watch is about what happens when the hope runs out. When the ‘worth it’ runs out. When all that’s left to do is save what little you can, because you can.
That’s why there are no monuments to the Glorious Heroes of Treacle Mine Road. In the grand scheme of things, nothing they did mattered. But they are remembered, because they need to be remembered. Because sometimes what we do does not matter.
And when that happens, all that matters is what we do.
My favorite joke in Metalocalypse is how as the show goes on it becomes increasingly obvious they’re naming characters with the sole purpose of torturing Mark Hamill.
It’s been almost two years since I posted this but here’s a list of the official spelling of every character he introduces here:
Dr. Gibbitz
Dr. Amon Skagerakk Fredrickshaven
Dr. Donald Gorthian
Ronald Von Momnaldberg
Dr. Natasha Nesciantskidovich
Vicenzo de Alimamala Corningston III
Professor Jerry Gustav Mangledink
Horace Marmingblat Wimplestein, Jr.
Dr. Chazz Fazzledopenhoffer
Vater Oorlag
Dr. Milminaman-lanilim-swinwamly
Dr. Gibbitz again (but for some reason it’s spelled “Gibbetz” in the season 2 subtitles)
Melmord Fjordslorn
Dr. Ralphus Galkinsmelter
Dr. Amomolith Chesterfield
Wilmore Unduntingiminen
Dr. Ninmiltrid Fmiltindryden
Dr. Imptnin Pmiltson
Dr. Tormindbind Mickmildididindnin
Dr. Krumpworth Chponglasia IV, Jr.
Dr. Borgermu Barret Swingdworth
Dr. Richard Reinhold Rnawighiwowpj
Captain Slufgyflaysid
Dr. Bartholomew Grahsrihajul
Dr. Alsajahb Fifborgiltk
Dr. Fsmilejera Irlelwoll
Dr. Commander Vernmim Chuntspinkton
Like I just love how you can pinpoint “Ninmiltrid Fmiltindryden” as the exact moment the joke went from making Mark Hamill say funny but still vaguely name-shaped words to forcing that poor man to pronounce straight up keysmashes out loud.
they don’t teach people with EDs how to actually respond to diet talk because to do so would mean cultivating and embracing rage. you can’t do that within a medico-psychiatric industry that mandates compliance at all costs. I would very much like to start a workshop for channeling & expressing rage, including and especially toward carceral institutions and authorities, for ppl with EDs… like I want to teach you how to terrify your doctor
Genuinely being a self advocate is 99% channelling pure rage
#HOW are u supposed to respond???#i get hit w diet talk all the time at work and i hate it i hate it#but im sooooo bad at feeling and channeling rage. how do u self advocate!!
with people who do not have medical/economic/carceral power over you:
walk away/physically remove yourself rather than engage
"i am not interested in your thoughts on my lunch"
"I am not interested in your thoughts on my [or someone else's] body"
"did she gain weight?" "it isn't our business/it isn't relevant to you."
"why are you eating that?" "because i'm hungry."
with doctors:
"i choose to decline my weight" (you can always choose to decline your weight as an outpatient)
"i am requesting a larger blood pressure cuff in order to receive an accurate reading"
"i am here to discuss [x]. my time and yours would be better spent addressing my present concerns, rather than speculating on others."
"i am not interested in discussing my eating habits, because it is not currently a priority to change them."
these scripts are YMMV. people are horrible, doctors are abusive, and not all situations can be escaped. grey rocking, putting up an affective/communicative wall for all but the most basic/removed exchanges, is a technique many people use with abusers until they can safely remove themselves; this can be helpful, too. but these scripts are perhaps a starting point to shut down and redirect harmful diet/weight loss talk & refuse social pressure to surveil other peoples' bodies and your own.
With an acquaintance a month ago:
"Oh, you've lost weight!"
":( Oh, I have? I'll try eating more. I'm trying to gain it."
"I meant it as a compliment!"
"Oh! Okay, well I'm still trying to gain weight, so definitely let me know if I start slipping. It's bad."
"... Oh."
And it was automatic 🥳 I genuinely thought it was a warning, and I really threw off that off-track. There wasn't a way to frame it as a positive for me, because I kept forcing it to be a negative and weight gain as a positive. I'm proud of myself 💖
Yesterday I almost cried because my baby cousin ran up to my grandmother and was like. “Ha! Buhbuh ba ha.” And she said okay you want to show me something? And he led her over to the garden patch and crouched down and pointed at rocks and plants and was like. “Ah. Habah ba ah” as she listened attentively.
And I was like that happened 1,000 years ago. Probably 10,000 years ago. Maybe 100,000. The youngest human in a group went to the oldest one and said to the best of their ability “come see.” And the adult went.
this is such a beautiful post it doesn't need my dumb addition, but i can't fit this in the tags. at the archaeological site Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic there are a bunch of really really fascinating finds and I'm only going to tell you about one tiny detail of one of the most interesting sites in the world.
at this settlement 20-30,000 years ago there lived a person who appears to have been a sort of sorcerer-grandmother-ceramics artist and her workshop was preserved very well in the sedimentary layers. her hut where she had her kilns was full of little sculptures of animals and people that seem to have been made to explode in the kiln on purpose, we're not sure why but nevermind. the relevant detail is that when you sculpt something with your hands and then fire it, your fingerprints can be preserved in the surface of the clay forever, so we have fingerprints of ancient ceramics artists that have survived for tens of thousands of years. and one of the major artifacts from Dolni Vestonice has a fingerprint on it that is so small it could only have belonged to a child
so this shaman-grandmother-sculptor, who was buried with her pet fox by the way, had children running through her workshop and touching everything she made while she was at her mysterious work of creating the world's oldest ceramics, none of which appear to be bowls, bottles, pots, or any "useful" items at all, but rather a collection of animal and human and sometimes anthropomorphic figures, some of which appear to be self portraits. exactly the same as sandersstudios' grandmother being led to the garden by an excited baby. we've all been the same for 30,000 years.
I know I sound like your mom but you kids need to stop fucking vaping
1) Vaping is confirmed to cause cancer. Vaping coats the lungs with toxic substances, such as heavy metals and benzene, which are known to cause cancer
2) Many vapes contain diacetyl, which, when inhaled causes popcorn lung, or scarring of the lung
3) Ultrafine particles, when being inhaled, can be lodged in the trachea (not good!)
4) Ultrafine particles can also constrict the arteries in the lungs potentially causing A HEART ATTACK
5) Vaping is relatively new. Not much studies have been done in comparison to tobacco. Plus, the vaping companies are powerful people. There is a large chance that they are purposely downplaying and even burying any evidence that vaping is harmful - just like the tobacco companies before them. They do not care about you, or your health, or the truth. They only care for money
Also STOP VAPING INDOORS AROUND OTHER PEOPLE. Holy shit, if you're gonna wreck your lungs at least give me the option not to wreck mine.
It’s such an issue that the MTA had to run a campaign about it
yeah okay ill reblog that
Please I’m begging yall as an asthmatic, your fruit-flavored vapor will still give people around you who are smoke-sensitive attacks. So will weed. Don’t do it inside; if you’re at a bus stop or something try to not stand right next to people or move downwind of them if you can.
the only place that 'i suffered and because i suffered so should you' belongs is when you see something diabolical or emotionally devastating on the internet so naturally youve gotta call up your best friends
may I respectfully add: "This is awful; try it!" *holds out a food or beverage*
watched maleficient last night. has anyone explored the economic and material ramifications of getting rid of all your spinning wheels in one blow. you’re back to drop spinning now, and it takes roughly 6-10 hours of spinning for the yarn to allow a single hour weaving. everyone ought to be spinning, kids included. the housekeepers should be spinning. people waiting for their wares to sell should be spinning. guards on duty should be spinning. i must believe the only reason we don’t see all this spinning on screen is bc the camera loves watching the king’s descent into madness, which i agree with. that man is spinning something, but it ain’t fiber.
has anyone figured out how to turn off the thing where you love your pet so much it slides inexorably into grief-borrowing
“For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”
Ribbon dancing I was not aware of your evolution 🤯
i NEED people to realise foreshadowing is. in fact. a literary device. and not a Bad Thing. the audience picking up on your hints is a Good Thing. because. it makes the story and it’s conclusion make sense. and some people will not see those but enjoy seeing them on a second read through. red herrings are one thing but if your novel consists of nothing but red herrings it’s not a coherent story it’s just a collection of paragraphs that don’t actually plausibly link to one another. you're not fighting with the audience you don’t look clever you look like you don’t know how basic fiction works. be vulnerable for once in your goddamn life and don't treat writing like a game to be won where the audience losing is a good thing.
Getting to the end of a story and going "THE CLUES WERE THERE THE WHOLE TIME!" is always joyous for me whether or not I picked up on the clues leading up
If I saw the clues and caught the hints then yes! I am clever and me and the author/creator/artist etc were in on it together the whole time!
If I didn't notice the clues or got fooled but can clearly see them in hindsight then "Ha! You won this time storyteller! I am delighted by this game we play!' and then I enjoy putting the pieces together afterwards and enjoying how clever it was. I feel like the creator respects me as an audience
If there is a "twist" that comes with 0 clues or foreshadowing at all I'm annoyed. I'm pissed off. I feel like I'm being condescended to and patronised. It's not clever or interesting and makes me annoyed I ended up caring about characters and plot points that ended up meaningless.
Because it's not that these stories don't have foreshadowing or plot clues. They just abandon it for a "surprising twist"
A story that pays off the clues is letting me into the fun and makes a participant in the story
A story that just gives me a "shock" but no pay off is telling me not to engage or get attached or care. So why would I watch?
OMG! THIS!
Random plot twists that don't connect to anything in the story are not clever. If we don't see it coming because the writer didn't provide any clues, they aren't clever and it's totally unsatisfying (and I will NEVER read this writer again). These clues need not be lit up in neon with a parade of elephants and showgirls. But they need to be present
I'm a writer and am rarely surprised. Often, if I am surprised it's because the writer was a dumbass and included a "twist" that makes no sense (and therefore isn't really a twist, it's just random bullshit). If a writer genuinely surprises me, without being an absolute dumbass, I am FUCKING DELIGHTED! I will tell everyone I know to read the book/see the movie/watch the show.
Foreshadowing is the reward for paying attention. It's the story letting you in on the secret like a co-conspirator because you're the clever little audience member who has been picking up on the clues the writer has been setting up.
It even makes watching/reading again more worthwhile because if you didn't notice the foreshadowing the first time you have the joy of being able to notice the things you missed!