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@saoirsefreedom76
So I just made a joke that "more women should poison their husbands" to my cool boss and then immediately found out that he got divorced because he was poisoned by his ex-wife
I'm apologizing profusely and he's like "oh it's fine it was funny" and then he offhandedly mentions that his next girlfriend tried to poison him also
Yeah this is going to break containment babe.
Once wrote halfway through a sci-fi short story where there was a human petting zoo. Alien creatures of all carbon-based species could go to a special park to be petted by humans. Due to having not only extremely dexterous hands, but also some ability to instinctively pick up on non-human body language, and genuinely enjoying both teaching each other things they have learned about how to do a task and the simple act of petting, humans are just really, really fucking good at this sort of thing.
The story was just of one nonhuman creature having a friend introduce them to a petting zoo for the first time, and being impressed by the service. They agree that it is pleasant and very relaxing, but is it ethical to keep humans this way? There is so many of them for such a small area, and there doesn't seem to be shelters or appropriate nesting materials anywhere.
The friend is like oh no, they're not in captivity. These are wild humans and they're free to come and go however they please. They simply enjoy this activity as much as we do, and come here as a form of recreation as well. The one currently at your prothorax is my cousin's dentist.
As far as ethical materials go you can't really get better than wool.
The sheep need the hair cut.
Nothing dies for it.
Sheep live pretty much wild for most the year.
Placed correctly they maintain a landscape and help the wildlife that live there to thrive.
Doesn't use Vast Quantities of land for little product.
Not draining inland fresh water oceans.
Been spending thousands of years perfecting the genetics for this purpose.
Comes in many different kinds of uses.
And the animal it comes off is fully edible.
My main issue with it is it has fallen so out of fashion that it pays the farmers who make it more to transport it than they get per fleece, and people have really fucking weird hang ups about the ethics of giving a sheep a hair cut.
Sheep can get infested with wool maggots if they are not shorn.
Also an unshorn sheep can drown if it falls into water, just by the sheer weight of the water its wool can absorb, dragging it down.
A Tunis sheep can live in a large doghouse, and staked in a different place every day, will mow your lawn (buy they get lonely. Buy two).
Light shearing nicks heal fast because the sheepâs waxy lanolin coats their skin. Though most sheep farmers wonât Nick the sheep bc it gets blood on the wool.
Sheep farmers MUST treat their sheep with care, because any little thing that upsets sheep affects the quality of their wool.
Even ânaturalâ fibers like bamboo take TONS of water to process and alkaline dyes to color them. You can dye wool with unsweetened koolaid.
Portrait of a Young Woman, Jean-Etienne LiotardÂ
Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes VermeerÂ
#they look like theyve been having a chat about u and u just walked in
Iâm on mobile, somebody edit them into this please
Y'all take too long
Same energy
No worries guys, theyâre there too
Like. The quote âI do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defendâ is such an integral quote/concept to LOTR that I just cannot for the life of me comprehend how people come away from LOTR inspired to write the grimdark i-love-war-and-suffering stories that populate fantasy
literally JRR TOLD us that if more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But did we listen? No of course not! More angsting about redeeming our rightful throne by slaughtering hundreds!!!
I personally feel thereâs a strong correlation between the âheroes save suffering world through WAR AND SUFFERINGâ school of fantasy and the people who think Aragorn is the hero.
Instead of, you know, functioning entirely as a) a healer, b) a distraction, and most importantly c) a hobbit delivery system. Â
Hobbits brought down Sauron AND Saruman, thwarted Denethorâs insanity, stopped the Witch King of Angmar, thwarted Saruman again, and REBUILT AFTER THE WAR. And they did it all with, I swear to God, the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP.Â
Bilbo befriends Gandalf and a bunch of cranky dwarves, intervenes repeatedly to try to prevent dragon attacks, murder and war, and then just WANDERS HOME WITH THE RING.
Bilboâs POWER OF FRIENDSHIP allows him to actually leave the Ring, something nobodyâs ever done before.
Frodo and his friends set off to take the Ring to Elrond, make friends with the local reclusive demigod and survive purely thanks to THAT FRIENDSHIP.Â
The hobbits unite the Nine Walkers with FRIENDSHIP.Â
Merry and Pippin befriend the reclusive tree people, GOODBYE SARUMAN.Â
Frodo trots across the world befriending people and gets them all the way to the fiery mountain, when Samâs friendship GETS THEM THE REST OF THE WAY.Â
Meanwhile, Pippin makes friends in Minas Tirith and SAVES THE DAY AGAIN.Â
Merry befriends Eowyn and inspires âDernhelmâ to just suit up and go like he does and distracts the Witch King at the crucial moment DAY SAVED THANK YOU.Â
Then when they think itâs all over, they amble back to the Shire, find it in trouble, and CALL ON THEIR FRIENDS TO FUCKING CARE BEAR STARE SARUMAN OUT OF TOWN.Â
So, you know, any swords-and-orcs fantasy that has the Aragorn/Boromir character as the hero and no hobbits? You know that author Missed The Point. Aragorn was a great guy, but he wasnât the hero. The hero, always, was the Ordinary Person, the Little Guy, the kindly souls who never wanted to pick up a sword, but did it because it needed to be done.Â
many people think they know the â Tolkien heroâ, but they do not. they skim, they assume that theres some destined turnip farmer who defeats evil because prophesy and gets the girl and theres a happy ending. missing every point of Tolkien they believe Aragorn is the hero and his virtue was valor the true Tolkien hero hates adventure, every step of the way wishing they were back at home having eggs for breakfast and cake for teatime, and the only reason they havent left to go back home is they fight to preserve eggs and teatime as something that exists at all. on their adventures they saw the beauty of the world and would defend that beauty even if it meant great personal sacrifice. the true Tolkien hero is Samwise and his virtue was compassion the evil may be beaten back, but never truly gone, you may have returned home but your scars remain eggs for breakfast and cake for teatime are not somehow magically better because you bled for them, your journeys should be seen as a necessary pain and not something to glory you spit in the eye of glory for youve seen good men die for honor and never again will they return home or sit beside you in the garden watching the sunset
to understand the heros journey is to understand the pain of loss and the compassion that keeps you together
Tolkien fought in WWI. He didnât want glory or valor, he wanted home.
he was the only survivor of a squad, the real fantasy book was about how everyone came back home
yall look at this shit ad*be is tryna pull now on ppl who have outdated software:
(note for context: iâm all for piracy, but in this case my copy of CS6 was downloaded years ago when they were giving it away to students. i got it totally legally.)
so here is what NOT to do if youâre a loyal fan of adobe who has the cash to shell out for a newer and shittier version of the product you already paid for.
1) DONâT use your search bar to find and open the Run app
2) DONâT type in services.msc
3) DONâT find Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Services and right-click to get a dropdown menu, and donât select âpropertiesâ
4) if you happen to click properties, DONâT use the startup type dropdown to locate the option to disable the program. be sure you DONâT click apply to finalize that change.Â
5) DO NOT do the same thing in order to also disable Adobe Genuine Software MonitorÂ
if you do all of these things, this WILL disable adobeâs ability to monitor the software, and you will be forced to continue using the same older software that you already paid for instead of having to sign up for a newer, shittier version and pay more for it. so if you have lots of cash to spare and are cool with putting it the pockets of racketeering capitalists, definitely donât do any of these things.Â
however, you SHOULD reblog this to spread the word, as we certainly want to make sure lots of people know what NOT to do :)
IâM SORRY MA'AM. I KNOW YOUâRE UPSET.
Pretend to be upset.
OP how could you
I hope none of my friends who use Adobe programs find this, follow your detailed instructions, and spread the word. That would be devastating!
It would.
my opinion on quantum physics is that we should stop looking into it. it's none of our business and frankly the particles seem to agree
scientists should walk away really exaggerated and call out âOK! i guess iâll stop researching quantum physics...â and then when the particles relax, they whip around super fast like a kid who just watched Toy Story trying to trick their toys into acting alive
Isn't that already how it's studied
So, okay, fun fact. When I was a freshman in high school⊠let me preface by saying my dad sent me to a private school and, like a bad organ transplant, it didnât take. I was miserable, the student body hated me, I hated them, it was awful.
Okay, so, freshman year, Iâm deep in my âeverything sucks and Iâm stuck with these assholesâ mentality. My English teacher was a notorious hard-ass, letâs call him Mr. Hargrove. He was the guy every student prayed they didnât get. And, on top of ALL OF THE SHIT I WAS ALREADY DEALING WITH, I had him for English.
One of the laborious assignments he gave us was to keep a daily journal. Daily! Not monthly or weekly. Fucking daily. Handwritten. And we had to turn it in every quarter and he fucking graded us. He graded us on a fucking journal.
All of my classmates wrote shit like what they did that day or whatever. But, I did not. No, sir. I decided to give the olâ middle finger to the assignment and do my own shit.
So, for my daily journal entries, over the course of an entire year, I wrote a serialized story about a horde of man-eating slugs that invaded a small mining town. It was graphic, it was ridiculous, it was an epic feat of rebellion.
And Mr. Hargrove loved it.
It wasnât just the journal. Every assignment he gave us, I tried to shit all over it. Every reading assignment, everyone gushed about how good it was, but I always had a negative take. Every writing assignment, people wrote boring prose, but I wrote cheesy limericks or pulp horror stories.
Then, one day, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of good writing. When a fellow student asked who wrote it, he said, âSome pipsqueak.â
And thatâs when I had a revelation. He wanted to fight. And since all the other students were trying to kiss his ass, I was his only challenger.
Mr. Hargrove and I went head-to-head on every assignment, every conversation, every fucking thing. And he ate it up. And so did I.
One day, he read us a column from the Washington Post and asked the class what was wrong with it. Everyone chimed in with their dumbass takes, but I was the one who landed on Mr. Hargroveâs complaint: The reporter had BRAZENLY added the suffix âizeâ to a verb.
That night I wrote a jokey letter to the reporter calling him out on the offense in which I added âizeâ to every single verb. I gave it to Mr. Hargrove, who by then had become a friendly adversary, for a chuckle and he SENT IT TO THE REPORTER.
And, people⊠The reporter wrote back. And he said I was an exceptional student. Mr. Hargrove and I had a giggle about that because we both knew I was just being an asshole, but he and the reporter acknowledged I had a point.
And that was it. That was the moment. Not THAT EXACT moment, but that year with Mr. Hargrove taught me I had a knack for writing. And that knack was based in saying âfuck youâ to authority. (The irony that someone in a position of authority helped me realize that is not lost on me.)
So, I can say without qualification that Mr. Hargrove is the reason I am now a professional writer. Yes, I do it for a living. And most of my stuff takes authorities of one kind or another to task.
Mr. Hargrove showed me my dissent was valid, my rebellion was righteous, and that killer slugs could bring a city to its knees. Someone just needs to write it.
This is the first time Iâve seen this post but I know Iâm gonna love reading it every time it shows up on my dash
Secondary lesson: Spite is an entirely valid motivation.
If you can't find hope, empathy, or goodwill to connect with your fellow humans - find someone to thwart.
I promise you there is always someone worth thwarting.
which one of u was going to tell me that tea tastes different if u put it in hot water?
y- you were putting it in cold water?????
Radish. Answer the question radish.
yeah??? i thought for like. 5 years that ppl just put it in hot water 2 speed up the tea-ification process didnât realize there was an actual reason
You dont have the patience to microwave water for 3 minutes???
[ID: Tags reading âu think i have the patience to boil water wtf ?????â /End ID]
why are you. putting it in the microwave to boil it
Do you think I have the patience to boil water on the stove
Its takes less than a minute
Bestie is ur stovetop powered by the fucking sun
How long does it take you to boil a cup of water on the stove
Like seven minutes
Just stick the mug on top of the stove on medium heat n it boils in like two minutes⊠less than that is u use a saucepanâŠ
Crying youâre putting the whole mug on the stove ???? On medium heat???? Ur stove is enchanted
Every single person in this post is a fucking lunatic
Yet another post that reads like four shakespeare characters who come out in the middle of the play to talk about something completely unrelated for comic relief
(Enter RADISHNâT, MOTHMAN MISATO, BOIMG FROG and CATS'N RAINCOATS, stage left. They are having a HEATED DISCUSSION.)
RADISHNâT: Prithee, which one of you had planned to tell
Of diff'rent flavours gained by simple act
Of brewing tea with water hot, not cold?
MOTHMAN: Egad! you poured the water cold? Wherefore?!
FROG: An answer from you, Radish, I must beg.
RADISHNâT: Indeed I did, dear friends - why does this shock?
Without the guide of others I assumed
That heat was merely added for the sake
Of expediting this solutionâs brewing!
Half a decade I have spent, or more,
Not questioning this worldview I had made.
In fact, I am myself a bit surprised
That you might think that I, your dearest friend,
Might have a patience of sufficient stock
To wait until a pot of water boils.
FROG: Three minutes overtaxes patience so?
The microwave will beep when it is done!
CATS'N: My friend, this answer vexes me the more!
Can it be true that thou dost boil by nuke?!
FROG: Are you in turn, my friend, so shocked to know
That I have not the patience, like our Root,
To boil upon the stove our favourâd drink?
CATS'N: It takes less than a minute!
FROG: On what plate?
Perhaps your dinner cooks atop the sun?
CATS'N: How long can take your stove to fill the task
Of boiling but a single cup alone?
FROG: In minutes?
CATS'N: Yes!
FROG: I counted seven, once.
CATS'N: Perhaps you ought to have your timepiece checked!
If on a middle heat you place the cup
You soon will have the scalding drink you crave.
Two minutes, in a mug upon the plate
Or even less, if you should have a pot.
FROG: You cause me tears - is this how thou dost live?
You place upon the iron stove a mug?
A mug, ceramic, filled with water cold?
How do these flames, though medium in height,
Not shatter like a glass this fragile thing?
Surely, then, your kitchen is bewitched
With magicks far beyond the mortal ken!
(The FOUR realise they have wandered into the THRONE ROOM. The ROYAL COURT watches with fascination.)
KING: Ev'ry single person in this group must be a fucking lunatic, it seems.
I feel like i walked in on something i shouldnât have
and hilariously that is not why it is called that.
It is the circle of the bears cause of ursa major and ursa minor, and the circle without bears cause ya'know opposite part of the sky.
We lucked right into that one....
#so what youâre saying is#the stars dictate whether bears do or do not exist in places
Astrology is real but only for predicting where bears will be
Bears do not travel to places they cannot see their gods
Human vs Animals
Every year, in a small Welsh town, there is a race between riders on horseback and runners on foot. Evidently he above subject came under some discussion in a bar, and a bet was made, which resulted in a challenge people have recreated every year since. The race features dozens of horses versus a similar number of runners, and while a horse usually wins, it is always pretty close, and SOMEtimes, sometimes a human runner wins.
The race is 22 miles long. It is shorter than a standard human marathon. This is so that it is fair to the horses. A typical marathon is 26 miles long. A healthy distance for a horse to undertake in a single day for the purpose of travel is between 20 and 30 miles, but only if they walk at least part of the way. The years a human runner has won the race, the weather has been hot, as heat also favors human runners.
Interestingly, if the race is only ten to fifteen meters, 30 - 45 feet, a human can also win against a horse, which takes longer than a human to get up to full speed.
This fact of human capability for pursuit hunting and distance running is also part of why we have partnered with dogs for so much of our time on this planet. Dogs and wolves also engage in pursuit hunting, and sled dogs in particular can run miraculous distances due to some very interesting biological processes.Â
Interesting
What does the arab in your carrd mean? Is it like afab and amab?
.. iâm palestinian
same energy
thereâs more
SIGH
hereâs another one
IT GETS WORSE WITH EVERY ADDITION
how does this get even worse
I think about once in a while...
We have another one...
This is the internet now tho đđ
@lifeistooshorttowasteyourtime @marril96 @latent-thoughts @suometar
đđđ
Omg so many additions since I last saw this post! đđđ
It's funny but incredibly telling how entitled/ignorant/insensitive some of these people are... idk if it's an education gap or purposeful ignorance.
The really bewildering thing to me is that I remember when you needed to get up and pull a dictionary off the shelf, or visit a library to look up the facts you needed. Now people have all kinds of information literally at their fingertips and they canât be bothered to use it.
Oh dear gods, it's gotten worse
we are already living in the cyberpunk future and i know this because within a span of 3 days we went from this tweet:
to thousands of people making phony images and replying to them with their passionate desire to have them as a tshirt to overload the bots with nonsense and junk and send out warnings to shoppers like this:
and now we even have people replying to pictures of baby yoda with âi want this on a tshirtâ knowing how ravenous disney is being with copyright in hopes to get the stores taken down altogether
i dont know what it is about stuff like this and the whole turn mei into a symbol of hk protesters thing but, its really reassuring for some reason
And the next stepâŠ
https://teezyli.com/
Holy shit yâall look at the front page of the site right now
Oh my god
Anyway, I just emailed [email protected] to report the site for very evilly stealing Disneyâs IP! Because obviously that is very evil and bad and shit.
Iâve never seen such a perfect example of fighting fire with fire.
Holy fucking shit
Iâm DYING.
đđđ
More accurately
NFT bots have met their match in the form of t-shirt bots stealing their 'exclusive' works. Here's how it's all going down.
The next generationâŠ
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2021/10/nft-bots-tshirt-online-twitter-war/
every person can feel freddieâs presence in their souls when they sing MAMAAAAAA UUHHHH, I DONT WANNA DIE, I SOMETIMES I WISH IâVE NEVER BEEN BORN AT ALL with all the air in their lungs iâm not joking
itâs fucking crazy to think about the amount of people who have sung bohemian rhapsody? like itâs such a unifying song, by nature of the fact that so many people know it. it holds so many good memories for me and other people. itâs a song you scream in the car with your friends while you drive around your boring hometown, itâs a song you drunkenly sing with your arm around your best friend, or a song you sing along to with strangers when itâs on in public. itâs bittersweet to think about freddieâs legacy carrying on like that through his masterpiece. freddie carries on because heâs a part of so many peopleâs good memories and bohemian rhapsody is a huge part of that.
Reblog if you have sung bohemian rhapsody with your friends
every time i see this post iâm reminded of the video of 65,000 people singing bohemian rhapsody in near-perfect harmony
like, what other song can make that claim?
Some of the highlights of that video include:
The crowd cheering after the first stanza when they realize what theyâre all doing
So many people audibly âdoing the guitar partsâ⊠like ya do
The sheer number of voices joining the rediculous falsetto (thanks, Roger)
How they all start jumping at the ramp-up âso you think you can stomp meâ
Hands up, hundreds, thousands deep for the final âoooooâs and the last line to close the song
Only days before my state went into lockdown, âBohemian Rhapsodyâ came on in the restaurant kitchen Iâd just been hired at and, no shit, every single worker in that little diner started singing along. Me (the only queer afaik), the manager, all the other kitchen workers, the dishwasher up front, the two people on the counter, all but two of the men over 30. Just belting out Freddie Mercury at the top of their lungs. And you can bet when âsometimes I wish Iâd never been born at allâ came around, we every single one of us ramped up the intensity and basically made sure Freddie could hear us in the afterlife.
One of the things that struck me, listening to the video, is that you cannot distinguish the original vocals from the crowd, and sometimes you can barely hear the music. And the POV is on the stage the speakers are playing the song from!
Thereâs good reason why, nearly fifty years after the height of their career, Queen is still considered one of the best bands of all time ever.
(And how albums left lying about in cars will eventually metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.)
Something else thatâs rather incredible about this is, Bohemian Rhapsody is a very difficult song from a technical standpoint. Likeâhumor me, okay, go flip it on and try to sing the whole thing at the top of your voice without falling off-key, out of breath, or cracking at least once. Then come back.
Okay. Youâre back? Welcome back. Unless youâre a trained singer, you probably canât do it. There are too many long notes, too many key changes, and too many places whereâif youâre singing all the partsâyouâre just up and down the scale too damned fast. Iâm saying this as a trained singer and I canât do it. I always crack on âmagnificoâ and âleave me to die,â and I have a pretty decent range, but I know I sound ugly as hell on that final coda.
Okay. Now that weâve established that, I want to talk a little about singing as a chorus. One of the things a lot of people learned during the pandemic is how hard it is to take twenty people, all in different places, and stitch them together to make a single coherent song with perfect pitch and timing. Youâre all practicing on slightly your own tempo, slightly your own key, even if youâre all working from the same base track. (You can see this in a lot of the Wellerman compilations from Tiktok, where someone always says âSoonâ a moment before everyone else on âsoon may the Wellerman come.â) When you have a chorus comprised of many smaller choruses that are all traveling to be together, this is what dress rehearsal is forâto get all of you onto the same tempo so youâre starting and finishing at exactly the same time. This is a thing that normally only happens after at least several days of practice, and it is an important skill that must be taught. Youâre not just born knowing how to do this.
I do not know how many people at that Green Day concert were trained singers. But I do know there is no way in hell all few thousand of them were a single groupâthey showed up a few at a time, maybe even flying solo for the night. Now go and listen to the video again. Listen to the ends of verses and the pickups. Theyâre fucking crisp as hell. Everyone is starting and ending at the same place. Not even a single note off. (And yes, you can hear when itâs a single note off, even in a crowd that big. A handful of people would be enough to throw it off.) And while a few in the crowd may be off-key, so many more are on-key that the cumulative effect is of the song being on-key. This isnât even the band theyâre there to see.
They donât just know this song, this technically-difficult song, this long and complex song by a completely different band. They know it perfectly. They know it down to the fucking note. They know it so well that they did it in perfect synchrony, without a single chance to practice.
Do you know how insane that is?
Hereâs a story about changelings:Â
Mary was a beautiful baby, sweet and affectionate, but by the time sheâs three sheâs turned difficult and strange, with fey moods and a stubborn mouth that screams and bites but never says mama. But her motherâs well-used to hard work with little thanks, and when the village gossips wag their tongues she just shrugs, and pulls her difficult child away from their precious, perfect blossoms, before the bites draw blood. Maryâs mother doesnât drown her in a bucket of saltwater, and she doesnât take up the silver knife the wife of the village priest leaves out for her one Sunday brunch.Â
She gives her daughter yarn, instead, and instead of a rowan stake through her inhuman heart she gives her a childâs first loom, oak and ash. She lets her vicious, uncooperative fairy daughter entertain herself with games of her own devising, in as much peace and comfort as either of them can manage.
Mary grows up strangely, as a strange child would, learning everything in all the wrong order, and biting a great deal more than she should. But she also learns to weave, and takes to it with a grand passion. Soon enough she knows more than her motherâwhich isnât all that muchâand is striking out into unknown territory, turning out odd new knots and weaves, patterns as complex as spiderwebs and spellrings.Â
âArenât you clever,â her mother says, of her work, and leaves her to her wool and flax and whatnot. Maryâs not biting anymore, and she smiles more than she frowns, and thatâs about as much, her mother figures, as anyone should hope for from their child.Â
Mary still cries sometimes, when the other girls reject her for her strange graces, her odd slow way of talking, her restless reaching fluttering hands that have learned to spin but never to settle. The other girls call her freak, witchblood, hobgoblin.
âI donât remember girls being quite so stupid when I was that age,â her mother says, brushing Maryâs hair smooth and steady like theyâve both learned to enjoy, smooth as a skein of silk. âTime was, you knew not to insult anyone you might need to flatter later. âSpecially when you donât know if theyâre going to grow wings or horns or whatnot. Serve âem all right if you ever figure out curses.â
âI want to go back,â Mary says. âI want to go home, to where I came from, where thereâs people like me. If Iâm a fairyâs child I should be in fairyland, and no one would call me a freak.â
âAye, well, Iâd miss you though,â her mother says. âAnd I expect thereâs stupid folk everywhere, even in fairyland. Cruel folk, too. You just have to make the best of things where you are, being my child instead.â
Mary learns to read well enough, in between the weaving, especially when her mother tracks down the traveling booktraders and comes home with slim, precious manuals on dyes and stains and mordants, on pigments and patterns, diagrams too arcane for her own eyes but which make her daughterâs eyes shine.
âWe need an herb garden,â her daughter says, hands busy, flipping from page to page, pulling on her hair, twisting in her skirt, itching for a project. âYarrow, and madder, and woad and weldâŠâ
âWell, start digging,â her mother says. âWonât do you a harm to get out of the house nowân then.â
Mary doesnât like dirt but sheâs learned determination well enough from her mother. She digs and digs, and plants what sheâs given, and the first year doesnât turn out so well but the secondâs better, and by the third a cauldronâs always simmering something over the fire, and Maryâs taking in orders from girls five years older or more, turning out vivid bolts and spools and skeins of red and gold and blue, restless fingers dancing like theyâve summoned down the rainbow. Her mother figures she probably has.
âJust as well you never got the hang of curses,â she says, admiring her bright new skirts. âI like this sort of trick a lot better.â
Mary smiles, rocking back and forth on her heels, fingers already fluttering to find the next project.
She finally grows up tall and fair, if a bit stooped and squinty, and time and age seem to calm her unhappy mouth about as well as it does for human children. Word gets around she never lies or breaks a bargain, and if the first seems odd for a fairyâs child then the second one seems fit enough. The undyed stacks of taken orders grow taller, the dyed lots of filled orders grow brighter, the loom in the corner for Maryâs own creations grows stranger and more complex. Maryâs hands callus just like her motherâs, become as strong and tough and smooth as the oak and ash of her needles and frames, though they never fall still.
âDo you ever wonder what your real daughter would be like?â the priestâs wife asks, once.
Maryâs mother snorts. âShe wouldnât be worth a damn at weaving,â she says. âLord knows I never was. No, Iâll keep what Iâve been given and thank the givers kindly. It was a fair enough trade for me. Good day, maâam.â
Mary brings her mother sweet chamomile tea, that night, and a warm shawl in all the colors of a garden, and a hairbrush. In the morning, the priestâs son comes round, with payment for his motherâs pretty new dress and a shy smile just for Mary. He thinks her hair is nice, and her hands are even nicer, vibrant in their strength and skill and endless motion. Â
They all live happily ever after.
*
Hereâs another story:Â
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Iâm not crying youâre crying
Every once in a while, technology does good things. It does things that resonate with us as *humans*, not machines or abstractions. I love stories like this.
Oh my god I have it in my 1946 Lily Wallace New American Cookbook too Iâm screaming
This is it! This is the white culture weâve been looking for!
Iâm sorry are we just not gonna mention âBeef Teaâ âRaw Beef Teaâ and âCooked Raw Beef Teaâ one after the other
#WHY
Because the majority of human existence has not been to the knowledge and supply level we are at now. You canât just give someone electrolytes in the 19th century, you have no idea what the fuck they are. Someone is sick, and can only keep weak liquids down, but you know enough at this point to realise that man cannot live on water alone.  So you work out really weird ways to infuse foodstuffs into liquids they can handle to try and keep food into them. A lot of these also come from a way to stretch nutrient sources in times of poverty and scarcity.Â
Thank you for this addition. People are curiously comfortable assuming everyone in the past was stupid and illogical, and itâs always struck me as showing a sad lack of empathy for fellow human beings. Itâs like people in the past arenât seen as, you know, people
Your local 19th century PhD researcher popping in here to add to this. Toast water is 100% a drink for treating illness. It turns up listed in several household medicine guides in the 19th century, and is listed as for treating people with fever, diarrhoea and vomiting, who canât keep anything down. Itâs essentially oral rehydration therapy.Â
It interestingly starts turning up in literature in the period covering five major cholera outbreaks in the UK and US (this was obviously an English language Ngram search).
And peaks several times at epidemic peak points (1830s, 1850, 1880s), including its first peak in 1831/2, which corresponds with the first cholera epidemic in the UK.Â
It also corresponds with the year William Brooke OâShaughnessy discovered that a lot of people who were dying of cholera were severely lacking water and salts in their blood and urine. Dehydration was found to be a major cause of death in cholera patients. âToast waterâ was suggested in the Lancet medical journal in 1832 as an initial treatment for cholera patients.Â
Most of the recipes in household medicine guides I found suggest sweetening or flavouring the toast water with something if the patient could keep it down in order to cover the terrible taste.
People in the past were just people. And in this particular case, they were trying to keep their loved ones from dying of cholera.Â
And here is a link to possibly my fave ever book, with some modern recipes to do the same job , including the water you cooked rice in with the water you cooked rice in plus half a teaspoon of salt - so really toast water was pretty smart - https://en.hesperian.org/hhg/New_Where_There_Is_No_Doctor:Dehydration#Rehydration_drinks
