you were almost turned into a vampire, but before you could be fully turned, the vampire was staked. This left you with a vampire weakness, while still being human.
Spin the wheel to find out your weakness!
How much does this effect you?
Nothing changes
It's inconvenient but I can deal with jty
It will be hard to adjust but I'll figure it out
I don't know if I'll be able to live like this
Maybe I can find another vampire to finish the turning?
I might just kill myself
Results/other
Remaining time: 4 days 12 hours
thanks @theemmjay for submitting this poll idea!! Seriously it's such a cool concept I love it so much
Yeah, nothing changes for me. I already get sunburned in 20 min of summer sun so I already cover up, use copious amount of sunscreen and if possible, go nocturnal in Summer. (yes, I got skin is extremely sensitive to the sun... which my skin already is... so fuck all changes)
phones love to go "do you want to clear up .3 GB by deleting these cherished pictures that you havent looked at in more than 30 days?" while also installing random apps and AI bullshit you didnt ask for. and you cant even uninstall half the apps
like many people have said this better than me but no it IS odd that we've come to think of potatoes as so quintessentially european that their presence in historical fantasy where they're anachronistic doesn't jar. and yes people are trying to have the trappings of post-colonial europe without engaging w the icky colonialism part and yes people are neglecting to imagine what a european cuisine without potatoes would be like.
im fully in favour of 'let people have fun w their fantasy world' but is considering how the potatoes got there in the absence of colonialism not a fun exercise? maybe every year the dragon riders go on a great transatlantic potato pilgrimage
if you put potatoes in your medieval european style fantasy world people will by and large not find it jarring and accept it as a normal fantasy trope
if you put, say, black people in your medieval european style fantasy world a whole demographic of people will get very angry and accuse you of breaking their immersion
this is in spite of the fact that black people were a lot more common in medieval europe than potatoes.
When you look at a map and realize how close Africa and Europe are, and how very far away South America is from both of them, it just drives home the point:
The way that certain people will talk you in circles until they're blue in the face about how it's Just Impossibly Unrealistic to have a black character in a European-esque fantasy setting...
...and then turn around, with apparently zero awareness, and go, "Aww, but I like potatoes! Potatoes are awesome! Where's the fun in a fantasy setting without potatoes??"
Like, uhhhh. My friend, I think Realism™ might not be the actual sticking point here for you.
One of the most fascinating stories of medieval times is the story of Mansa Musa of the Mali empire who was, until Bezos and Musk surpassed him, often said to be the richest man ever. He had control of his empires gold mines and when he went on the hajj he took with him 80 camels carrying gold. He gave away so much gold during the hajj that it influenced the worth of gold for the next ten years. He's mentioned on the Dulcert map of 1339 and the Catalan Atlas of the 1370ths so yes the Europeans of that time knew about him. He died 1337 (year is debated, but most scholars say it is the most likely year).
He was known as a scholar and did a lot for education and it is said that Italian traders put Timbuktu on their maps as a good trading place.
But yeah, Africa was well known and traded with in medieval times. That atlas I mentioned, it shows the entire coast of northern Africa and depicts parts of India and China as well. Educated people and those in the trading business, they knew about it.
But quite a bit of knowledge was lost around this time for the 1350ths were the time of the Black Death. So when we look at the sources of that time and complain they are sparse and incomplete, well the people at that time were busy trying to not die a horrible death (and often-times failing, the population of Europe would only regain their previous numbers by the 16th century).
But coming back to a bit less gruesome part of history, European cuisine. The fascinating thing is that Germanys entire bread culture developed because the entire northern part of it had the wrong climate to grow wheat. So they planted Rye and Barley. Rye for bread, Barley for beer. And since ryebread needed the sourdough method and each village had its own methods for that, the variety grew and grew.
It was only in the 1750ths that Friedrich the Great tried to get the people to eat potatoes because they were calorie dense and there was a famine because the grain harvest had failed. The story of the guarded potato field is most likely false, he used religion, preachers who praised the potato, as well as violence, having his soldiers beat the farmers if they didn't plant potatoes. Friedrich the Great is also known as the Kartoffelkönig = potato king and to this day people lay down potatoes at his grave. But yeah, Friedrich got his results and the Germans decided to try and make the best out of it and got so inventive that today the German cuisine is so full of potato recipes that you can't escape it, it's everywhere despite being part of it for only 250 years.
Oh and shout out to Belgium, who invented the French fry, but since their soldiers spoke French when working with the soldiers of the US, the USAmericans though the French invented it, thus French fry.
For all that the 1800s etiquette guides are--obviously--derangedly sexist from a modern perspective? They're also mindblowing in how casually they will assert things that MODERN DAY CONSERVATIVES would scream and cry and shit their pants about.
"People back then always married young it's natural!!!" Every single 1800s guide I've ever met casually mentions that, of course, you really shouldn't get married before you're at least 20, and waiting until 25 is usually better.
Or, like. Okay here's a long segment:
Just firmly going "it is crazy sexist to blame The Wife for overspending when thirty seconds of asking questions will immediately establish that her husband was outright lying to her about how much money they had. Talk to your wife like a normal person."
Or--okay, here. A section on being honest and not writing love letters in secret, because that's usually a good sign that there's something untoward going on....
....except that he then immediately acknowledges that sometimes, the reason you're hiding this from your parents is that your parents suck. That there are parents who frankly have not earned the right to approve or disapprove of your partner.
(I realize the phrasing there sounds a lot less strong than my summary, but--trust me on this. When you're familiar with the narrative voice of these kinds of books, this passage is downright radical. The mere acknowledgement that if you treat your kids badly, it's your own damn fault when they don't talk to you? I've genuinely never seen that before in this genre.
Don't freak out over "properly trained", either. It's just a linguistic shift--at the time, "training" was used the way we would say "raising" a child today. )
And tbh I think saying that Grace's life didn't matter (to Stratt, to the PHM crew, to the world, etc.) is a bit of a misstatement of the whole situation. The whole point is that Ryland Grace's life does matter a lot, both on an interpersonal level and on a technical one. In the book he's essentially Stratt's number one accomplice; in the movie he has plenty of genuine and soft moments with Carl and Stratt. He has all the competency and knowledge required for the mission, and even from the very beginning, he was specifically sought out for his astrobiological expertise. Sacrificing him would be a terrible loss for everyone involved. But the point is, if one person's life matters that much, how much are the lives of four billion people worth? That's invaluable. It's not that Grace's life is worth nothing, it's that the value of one person's life demonstrates the importance of all the people in the world. That's why Stratt still chooses to send him away. A version of Stratt that actually doesn't care about the moral weight of a person's life also wouldn't care about saving the world.
I would like to add to this a quote of one of my favourite authors:
Death stood alone, watching the wheat dance in the wind. Of course, it was only a metaphor. People were more than corn. They whirled through tiny crowded lives, driven literally by clock work, filling their days from edge to edge with the sheer effort of living. And all lives were exactly the same length. Even the very long and the very short ones. From the point of view of eternity, anyway.
Somewhere, the tiny voice of Bill Door said: from the point of view of the owner, longer ones are best. (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man)
Grace here is the one trying to make his life as long as possible and Stratt, who as studied history, knows that in the end the length doesn't give life value, but what the individuum did with their lives. Of course that doesn't do anything for Grace himself.
A photo of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman holding a model of the Hubble Space Telescope.
You have to be a pretty big deal for NASA to name a space telescope after you, and that is certainly the case for Dr. Nancy Grace Roman — our Roman Space Telescope’s namesake. She’s sometimes called the “mother of Hubble,” but she’s really the mother of all space-based observatories and NASA science in general. As NASA’s first chief astronomer, Dr. Roman's vision and leadership supercharged space science and helped make NASA the world-class scientific institution it is today.
Nancy Grace Roman as a young child.
Nancy Grace Roman was born on May 16, 1925 in Nashville, Tennessee. She was naturally curious about the world, a trait she attributed to taking nature walks with her mother as a child. By seventh grade, she had decided that she was going to be an astronomer.Â
She later recounted, “I certainly did not receive any encouragement. I was told from the beginning that women could not be scientists.”
A 1972 photo of Dr. Roman at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Nancy received her bachelor’s in astronomy from Swarthmore College in 1946 and her doctorate in astronomy from the University of Chicago in 1949. She specialized in spectral classification, which involves spreading starlight out into a rainbow to see the individual colors. She would decode these rainbows to learn about the temperature and brightness of the stars, and their distances and movements.
In 1959, just six months after NASA was founded, someone at the agency asked Dr. Roman if she knew someone who might be interested in creating a space-based astronomy program. She sure did — she applied for the job herself, and she got it!
Dr. Roman works with a model of the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO).
Creating a whole space program from scratch was no small feat. Dr. Roman quickly set her sights on the stars, determined to make space-based telescopes a reality.
Scientists had been batting around the idea of Hubble for generations. Today, after more than three decades in orbit and thousands of discoveries, it’s hard to believe that Hubble was ever a contentious idea. But in the mid-20th century, a budget-starved NASA and a post-World War II government were hesitant to follow the ambitious ideal of a giant new telescope.
But Dr. Roman knew how transformative it would be to observe the cosmos from above Earth’s turbulent atmosphere, which blurs images from even the best ground-based telescopes. So she gathered astronomers from around the country and sat them down in a room with NASA engineers to hash out the possibilities.Â
Then she championed the idea to Congress, saying that “for the price of one night at the movies each year, each American would receive 15 years of exciting discoveries.” (And she actually undersold it, since we’ve now received over 36 years of discoveries from Hubble!)
In this 1965 photo, Dr. Roman (center) conducts a demonstration with Smith College students during a visit to NASA.
With leadership experience stretching back to at least the fifth or sixth grade, when she organized her friends into an astronomy club, Dr. Roman paired a personable approach with unwavering commitment to the mission, regardless of who or what stood in her way. And now we have her to thank for not just Hubble but for every other space telescope that has followed.
A portrait of Dr. Roman with the Stratoscope II balloon in the background.
In less than a month, the observatory named in Dr. Roman’s honor will journey to the heavens to transform our view of the universe. Read more about the woman behind the mission’s name here: https://science.nasa.gov/people/nancy-roman/. Follow along with Roman’s road to launch at nasa.gov/roman, and virtually tour the Roman observatory here.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
There are SO many ways humans and Eridians compliment each other, and I don't even think some were intentional. For example: Lots of fan content I've seen has been kind of thoughtlessly projecting humanity's heat seeking behaviour onto Eridians. Reading the biology document, however, has made me infer something — Eridians love the cold.
They sleep at night, even in the absence of a light cycle, because that's when the temperature drops. Unlike humans, they don't use blankets. They don't try to preserve heat. They want to cool down faster, because because that's what their body needs shut down and rest! They RELAX in the cold!
Not only that, but their version of breathing is a constant influx of cool air. If they're without that coolant for even a few minutes, they're in serious trouble, and after half an hour, they're dead. Unlike us, they're at constant risk of overheating.
But not while they have a source of cold nearby. Like, for example, a human who lives at a fraction of their temperature.
On the Hail Mary, Grace spends a lot of time pressed against Rocky. Their temperature differences are extreme enough that xenonite can't entirely halt the heat transfer, so it's pleasantly warm. He feels like a cat curling up by the fire. It's relaxing. Of course, he also feels a little bad that he's draping his freezing raincloud of a body all over Rocky, but he figures Rocky puts up with the unpleasant cold okay.
Except: Rocky is chasing the cold just as much as Grace is chasing the heat.
Grace's muscles unwind with a constant heat press. Rocky relaxes with en endless source of peaceful, relieving cooling. What a funny quirk of biology, Rocky thinks, that being so incomprehensibly opposite to each other is so pleasant. What a lovely quirk of fate, that they've been given the opportunity to learn that through each other.
Leave it to me to always incorporate a Polaroid concept to make into a fan comic đź¤
Some notes and my headcanons about the details of this comic:
- Ilyukhina’s brought the Polaroid as part of her personal belongings bc it’s one of her hobbies
- Rocky eventually learns how to use it and becomes obsessed with taking selfies although he can’t see the pictures until he invents his radar gadget to see 2D surfaces
- Stratt never shares the photos with her team or the world. She keeps them as a personal memento. Just felt right to honor Grace’s legacy in this private way
just once I want to see a good post critiquing makeup culture that doesn’t turn out to be made by some janky radfem blog
oh hey!! I’m not a janky radfem I can do it myself!
makeup culture is wack and normalizes a ludicrously high bar as the bare minimum women can do. I saw a “lazy"makeup tutorial the other day that listed 22 separate goddamn products. you’re supposed to buy and know how to use 22 different things on your face just for the privilege of being considered lazy and that’s uuuuuuh what’s the word? bullshit.
Really, five products could work, even 3. Just frame the face, eyes, lips, and you’re done.
0 products also works great
because I’m gonna be real here, the idea that 22 products is a minimum sucks but it’s really upsetting that any amount of makeup is the bare minimum at all
I would really just suggest some powder foundation, concealer, mascara and lipgloss/lipstick, or tbh just mascara works too, but that’s up to you
I’m sorry if I didn’t express this clearly enough in the original post but I’m not really looking for more concise makeup regiments. my intention was to point out how it’s Bad that makeup is considered a bare minimum at all, regardless of individual feelings on the matter
no face should be “required” to have “a minimum” of makeup. makeup has no health benefits and does nothing but fill the pockets of companies that prey on women and our insecurities.
makeup should not be seen as hygiene because it isnt. get that shit out of your head.
this post: makeup culture is ridiculous and 22 products should not be considered a minimum requirement for someones face. no one should have to do that
the notes: so like……. what youre saying is……. we need to make the minimum about 5 or 6 instead… i gotcha
Really the only makeup you need is eyeliner but that’s just my personal opinion
Honestly don't bother most of the time, well unless you count sun-protection. I burn ridiculously easy so anything that helps keeping me unburned is a must. So Sunblock and a lipgloss with sunprotection. Because that will actually make my life easier.
Since Eridians are isogamous and sexual dimorphism isn’t really a thing for them I thought of the reason as to how Adrian grew so much larger while Rocky was away
I’ll say the normal eridian adult molts once every 35-40 human years and Adrian’s friends and family were concerned AF because they were going once every 12 years or so. Said loved ones forced Adrian to get a therapist about 5 (still human) years before Rocky and Grace returned
On the one hand I love the explanation of why Adrian is so much bigger than Rocky, on the other hand the fact that they grew bigger because they were constantly missing their mate and falling apart mentally makes me wanna scream.
