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we're not kids anymore.
trying on a metaphor
Peter Solarz
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Sweet Seals For You, Always
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
izzy's playlists!
Product Placement
DEAR READER
sheepfilms
🪼
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
macklin celebrini has autism
pixel skylines
NASA
KIROKAZE
Stranger Things
Not today Justin
One Nice Bug Per Day
seen from Germany
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@scarletwitch185
fuck it, i'm curious. reblog and tag with the first fictional death to ever rewrite your brain chemistry and/or make you cry like a baby. mine was ares from the underland chronicles (who, for context, was a giant bat.) to this day i will weep if i think too hard about it. okay, go.
I need audiobook recommendations that are romance free. I loved project Hail Mary and I do not want to read a court of thorn and roses.
Please send help. My favorite sci-fi book is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep but I would like to laugh
I appreciate your help
Absolutely the Murderbot Diaries books by Martha Wells. Not really funny funny, but there's dry humor. This SecUnit is part organic, part machine, and wants nothing to do with icky human stuff. It just wants to watch its shows, dammit.
The Beware of Chicken series by casualfarmer is fun, if you don't mind isekai fantasy. There's some romance, but it isn't really the focus. Features a guy who gets yeeted to a Xianxia/cultivation world and immediately nopes out from all the fighting stuff to go be a farmer.
Elizabeth Bear's White Space books are good. Salvage crew gets mixed up in some wild conspiracy stuff involving ancient alien tech. Each book has a different POV character.
For silly fantasy there's Kim M Watt's Gobbelino London, PI series. It features a talking cat detective and his hapless human sidekick investigating supernatural stuff.
I'm gonna need to look through the replies, too, because finding good stuff without a romance focus is tough.
An acquaintance of mine ended up at urgent care after accidentally double dosing on meds, so this is my semi-regular plug:
Never forget if you did not take your medication. Its automatic stopwatch, allows users to easily detect the exact time your medication was
These things fixed my issues with missed/doubled doses. I leave them out on the counter where I see them every time I walk into the bathroom, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen them hit 48 hours in the last five years.
Details of Sue Tincher's arrest.
She told local media the experience made her "more committed" to observing enforcement actions.
Why did you choose the 2nd language that you learned in school? (Such as choosing to learn Spanish in high school)
It was mandatory because of the country's official languages
I like the language
Lived closer to one of the countries with the language
A relative knew some of the language, so I took it because of them
Unsure of why I did ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Other reason why you chose
See poll/I didn't have to take a 2nd language class in school
Funny, in my experience it would be easier the other way around
(native German speaker)
(also, how did you find learning Japanese? We've just gotten started)
I enjoy learning Japanese. It's just learning to write it that's frustrating, reading is easier. And I settled in an area with an odd accent, so my Tokyo standard Japanese doesn't help as much as I would like.
The reason Japanese TV is always subtitled is because the accents here are diverse, and people can't always understand what others are saying.
I chose Japanese from the options of Japanese, Spanish, or French because it was called "foreign language class" so naturally I was going to take the most foreign of all the proffered languages. This was how my 10 year old brain worked.
Just a gentle reminder from our birthday boy💖
I will try, Jin-ah, if not for myself (cause some days it's too hard), then for you, I will try
I need a high fantasy book series to obsess with since Harry Potter took over my childhood and teenage years and I no longer support she who must no be named, I need a new one to obsess over with sooo…
Bookblr I SUMMON THEE!!!!
the Shades of London books by V.E. Schwab - lovable rogues, a wannabe pirate, parallel worlds, an evil stone, elemental and bone magic
the Daevabad trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty - a con woman, djinn, a hidden city, a despotic ruler, a forbidden religion, a prince who’s trying his best, a mythical warrior back from the dead
the Rook and Rose books by M.A. Carrick - another con woman, a city that blends Eastern Europe with Venice, tricky politics, a mysterious vigilante, a living childhood monster, magic based on sigils and on tarot
N.K. Jemisin - have not read her high fantasy, hear that it’s absolutely incredible and goes hard
the Between Earth and Sky series by Rebecca Roanhorse - pre-Columbian inspiration, a determined high priestess, a mermaid-pirate, a man who might be a god, a city torn by clans and religion, a looming eclipse, light on magic but there are giant animals
Robin Hobb - also have not read her, know that her fans are fans and she has read so many books
the Daughter of Smoke and Bone books by Laini Taylor - YA, multiple worlds, a girl pulled into a war of monsters, an enemy angel, themes of morality and trauma, tooth magic and wishes as money
Of course, you could always go with Patrick Rothfuss, George R.R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, John Gwynne too. I have heard Very Good Things from their fans. But I thought I’d recommend some women who aren’t That One (and some enbies as well).
Tamora Pierce
Nnedi Okorafor - Akata Witch
Garth Nix - Sabriel
I second Tamora Pierce. I adore the Tortall books. Some other possibilities are:
The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander - a classic middle grade high fantasy, five books
The Damar duology by Robin McKinley - they can be read as standalones, but they are connected, two books
The Sevenwaters series by Juliet Marillier - technically it’s historical fantasy since it’s set in ancient Ireland, but it reads like high fantasy, six books
The Tearling Trilogy by Erika Johansen - part high fantasy and part dystopian, three books
The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin - another classic high fantasy, six books
the Pellinor series - Alison Croggon
the Septimus Heap series - Angie Sage
the Three Dark Crowns series - Kendare Blake
the Murkmere Hall series - Patricia Elliott
the Strange the Dreamer series - Laini Taylor
The Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull: Fablehaven, Rise of the Evening Star, Grip of the Shadow Plague, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, Keys to the Demon Prison.
The Obsidian Chronicles by Lawrence Watt Evans: Dragon Weather, The Dragon Society, Dragon Venom.
The Great Library series by Rachel Caine: Ink and Bone, Paper and Fire, Ash and Quill, Smoke and Iron, Sword and Pen.
The Princess series by Jim C Hines: The Stepsister Scheme, The Mermaid’s Madness, Red Hood’s Revenge, The Snow Queen’s Shadow.
The Magic Ex Libris series also by Jim C Hines: Libriomancer, Codex Born, Unbound.
I don’t know why Jim C Hines books aren’t more popular, especially on Tumblr. The Princess series is a retelling of sorts of well known princesses who are so bad ass, and there is LGBTQA+ rep. Same in the Magic Ex Libris series - there is bisexuality, and polyamory.
Can confirm NK Jemisin Broken Earth trilogy is amazing. Adult fantasy that doesn’t spend the whole book trying to prove that it’s an adult book written for adults. The story is very immersive with well written characters. Also has LGBTQIA+ rep and POC rep.
“The Weirdstone of Brisingamen”, “The Moon of Gomrath”, “The Owl Service” and “Elidor” by Alan Garner.
Perhaps a little lightweight nowadays, but I still come back to them once in a while after a first read nearly 60 years ago, and I like to think that’s more about the books than about me… ;->
And of course The Young Wizards and Middle Kingdoms / “Tales of the Five” series by Diane Duane,
Okay. there I’m biased, but there are plenty of other people who say the same thing.
Revisions and rewriting - in particular that of “A Wizard Alone” - make the NME (New Millennium Edition) Young Wizard ebooks the “Author’s Preferred Text”.
I cannot suggest the Earthsea Cycle more highly. POC cast, amazingly built world, asexual romance, all of it. Wizard school as well, originally written in the 60s, finished fifty years later. There’s a 50th anniversary edition that has all the books and the beautiful short stories
It is the wizard YA novel series that people should have always loved, but the characters are all POC, so it’s always caused issues. Even Ghibli turned the characters white when they made an Earthsea movie.
A thing that bothers me about wizard schools in popular media – outside of the magic-grade-school stuff, anyway – is that they're typically depicted as being basically magic universities, but their actual curricula and pedagogical approaches look much more like those of a technical institution. Like, buddy, that's not a wizard university, that's a wizard trade school. You can't just slap university student culture on top of trade school pedagogy. It doesn't work like that – the one emerges from the other!
"Well ACTUALLY wizards are" wizards are made up. They can be analogous to whatever real-world class or vocation the author wants. Wizard-school-as-university and wizard-school-as-technical-institute are both perfectly fine; what I am grumping about is wizard-school media that doesn't seem to have a clear picture of how different sorts of educational institutions actually operate.
Okay but now I really want to know what a Wizard technician would look like. Would he wear magical overalls with all kinds of reagents and magic tools sticking out of his numerous pockets?
A guy like that walks into your tower with a toothpick in his mouth, takes one look at your summoning circle and goes
“I see yer problem. You used chalk B12 instead of S3. B12 is only for transmutation circles. Gimme a sec I think I have a piece somewhere here.”
He fixes your circle, test summons an imp and goes.
“There ya go. Fit as a fiddle.”
“It’s the chalk.”
“The chalk? I always use that chalk, it’s never been a problem.”
“Ah - yes. This stuff will work just fine for most circles, but, uh - here, take a look with my loupe. You see the off-color flecks? Can’t hardly see them with the naked eye, but those are impurities. Silicates, might even be some iron in here, to be honest. Usually won’t cause a problem, but - you said you hadn’t tried this particular summons before?”
“First time trying a 5th level, yeah.”
“Those silicates will make your scribing a little fuzzy when viewed from the astral plane. You see, for example, these three fine lines here? With this chalk, on the astral that looks like one thick line with fuzzy edges. They can’t tell exactly what you want, and they’re picky lil’ critters so they just won’t do anything in response.”
“Really? Oh. I always thought the expensive chalk was just fancy to be fancy.”
“Making pure chalk is difficult, you need a dedicated production line or dust gets in the finished product. To be honest, you don’t need to bother with it for most things, but 5th and up, 5th level and up, it actually is necessary. Anything with lines within about two millimeters of each other.”
“So I need to start over?”
“Unfortunately yes. You’ll have to erase all this, but with some good chalk it should work just fine. Next new moon your summons should go off without a hitch.”
“Dang. At least it’s not my sigils, I was worried it was my sigils.”
“Nah Your sigils look good. Even and balanced. You know what you’re doing, it’s just an equipment problem.”
“Thanks for the help, sorry to make you come all the way out here.”
“No problem! It’s my job.”
A thing that bothers me about wizard schools in popular media – outside of the magic-grade-school stuff, anyway – is that they're typically depicted as being basically magic universities, but their actual curricula and pedagogical approaches look much more like those of a technical institution. Like, buddy, that's not a wizard university, that's a wizard trade school. You can't just slap university student culture on top of trade school pedagogy. It doesn't work like that – the one emerges from the other!
"Well ACTUALLY wizards are" wizards are made up. They can be analogous to whatever real-world class or vocation the author wants. Wizard-school-as-university and wizard-school-as-technical-institute are both perfectly fine; what I am grumping about is wizard-school media that doesn't seem to have a clear picture of how different sorts of educational institutions actually operate.
Okay but now I really want to know what a Wizard technician would look like. Would he wear magical overalls with all kinds of reagents and magic tools sticking out of his numerous pockets?
A guy like that walks into your tower with a toothpick in his mouth, takes one look at your summoning circle and goes
“I see yer problem. You used chalk B12 instead of S3. B12 is only for transmutation circles. Gimme a sec I think I have a piece somewhere here.”
He fixes your circle, test summons an imp and goes.
“There ya go. Fit as a fiddle.”
“It’s the chalk.”
“The chalk? I always use that chalk, it’s never been a problem.”
“Ah - yes. This stuff will work just fine for most circles, but, uh - here, take a look with my loupe. You see the off-color flecks? Can’t hardly see them with the naked eye, but those are impurities. Silicates, might even be some iron in here, to be honest. Usually won’t cause a problem, but - you said you hadn’t tried this particular summons before?”
“First time trying a 5th level, yeah.”
“Those silicates will make your scribing a little fuzzy when viewed from the astral plane. You see, for example, these three fine lines here? With this chalk, on the astral that looks like one thick line with fuzzy edges. They can’t tell exactly what you want, and they’re picky lil’ critters so they just won’t do anything in response.”
“Really? Oh. I always thought the expensive chalk was just fancy to be fancy.”
“Making pure chalk is difficult, you need a dedicated production line or dust gets in the finished product. To be honest, you don’t need to bother with it for most things, but 5th and up, 5th level and up, it actually is necessary. Anything with lines within about two millimeters of each other.”
“So I need to start over?”
“Unfortunately yes. You’ll have to erase all this, but with some good chalk it should work just fine. Next new moon your summons should go off without a hitch.”
“Dang. At least it’s not my sigils, I was worried it was my sigils.”
“Nah Your sigils look good. Even and balanced. You know what you’re doing, it’s just an equipment problem.”
“Thanks for the help, sorry to make you come all the way out here.”
“No problem! It’s my job.”
How do you pronounce Massachusetts?
Massa-tu-sits
Massa-tu-siss
A secret third way that I haven’t been taught (please put it in the tags)
I pronounce it Massa-tu-sits, but was informed today that Massa-tu-siss is apparently the standard, so now I need to know.
im so fucking obsessed with this genre of poll where op is blissfully unaware of what the actual most popular answer would be and leaves tumblr in absolute shambles
It's /ˌmæsəˈt͡ʃusɪts/ if you write it in the international phonetic alphabet to avoid any ambiguous spelling conversations.
wearing sky-colored shoes to hide from the devil. earth colored hat to hide from god
Iron breastplate to ward off fairies, Fishnet leggings to ward off cod.
Did Cecil Palmer make this post
Someone please provide fan art of Cecil dressed like this.
it's time again for the ✨#ADHDCosmicTakeover!✨ my comic this year is about pinballing helplessly between interests and the frustrating feeling of being a "jack of all trades, master of none" (but who said i have to be a "master" of anything anyway? fuck off!)
thank you so much to dreamadoodles for organizing this year! pls check out the tag to see more comics from other contributors 🌠
Alien crewmate: you talk to that small earth creature like it's a person. It must be intelligent to understand you and respond.
Human crewmate: oh you mean my cat? They don't understand most of what we say. They can understand basic commands and tone. And some of them are as intelligent as a human toddler. But they can't understand most of what we say.
Alien crewmate: but... it made noise back at you. It responded.
Human: oh yeah cats do this thing where we can have "conversations" with each other but we don't understand each other. Sometimes I meow back at her, too, but I don't actually understand her meows. It's only polite to speak her language sometimes, after all.
Alien crewmate: fascinating
How much blame does Russian society bear for Putin's war crimes?
Many Russians have recently left their country. SPIEGEL reporter Timofey Neshitov, born and raised in Saint Petersburg, visited his compatriots in exile. A personal journey to the origin of evil.
(Long article, imho well worth your time, translated with Deepl)
The morning the first bombs fell on Kiev, I bought white cabbage in a village shop in Siberia.
I didn’t need cabbage, I was travelling chain-smoking through a country about to start a war of aggression in Europe, trying to capture the mood. At the counter next to me was a woman with a wrinkled face. She looked at the cabbage on the shelf and asked the shop assistant to weigh the smallest head. As she spoke, I saw that she had no teeth. She counted the coins in her hand. Her money was not enough, I paid for her.
On the street, I asked her what she thought of this war. We were standing in front of a man-sized pile of snow, four thousand kilometres east of Moscow, she with her net bag in her hand, me with my iPhone. She said her father had been killed in the war.
Then she asked me, “Or which war do you mean, son, not the one against the fascists in Kiev?”
24 February was a sunny day. I watched her as she walked.
To this day, when I see footage of missile strikes in Ukraine, I see that woman’s bent back, I hear the snow creaking under her galoshes.
That day I thought something irretrievably cursed had happened in Russia, the country where I was born and raised. The people here are not only destitute. They have stopped thinking, I thought. They have stopped feeling.
The people. That was this woman with no teeth for me. That was my own great uncle. He lives in the countryside not far from Saint Petersburg.
A few years ago he started watching TV regularly, in his garage, he escaped there from his wife. My great aunt imagined with age that her husband was cheating every time he left the house. My great-uncle is over 80, she shouted at him: Go to your whores!
My great uncle was born in western Ukraine and married into St Petersburg. Today he believes everything that is on Russian state television. He has lived in Russia for 60 years, he was a private in the army, but never in action. He thinks Putin is ridding Ukraine of fascists.
I have lived in Germany for 18 years. My great uncle used to ask me to bring German razor blades and pumpkin seeds, now he doesn’t want “the Nazi stuff” anymore. My great-aunt has died in the meantime, he watches TV alone in the living room. When I call, he no longer answers.
I used to think there were people like him and people like me, who grew up after the fall of communism, who were cosmopolitan, multilingual and connected. I never trusted Putin. I already left Russia in 2004 after my studies and his first term in office, I was 22 at the time.
I became a journalist in Germany, wrote about gold mines in Congo, theatre in China, the IS in Berlin. Occasionally about Putin, like when he annexed Crimea, but I didn’t warn about Putin like you warn about cancer. He was more like a foot splinter, he was annoying.
Many Russians have emigrated over the years. They preferred to do research somewhere else, to start their companies somewhere else, to raise their children somewhere else.
Since 24 February, I have been asking myself: should I have stayed in Russia?
My brother, who is one and a half years older, told me at the time: One of us has to stay, what will become of us if everyone leaves?
He stayed.
In Russia today, there are not the deluded old people with the cabbage and the smart young people with the iPhone. There is a society that has failed. As it stands, in 2022 we Russians are responsible for the biggest rogue state on earth. A country that fires missiles at hospitals and puts war opponents in prison camps.
The Western view of Russians has never been particularly relaxed. The Russian is coming. Now he is actually coming. And the West is sorting its Russians into two pigeonholes in 2022: The bad Russian murders in his neighbouring country, the good one burns his passport in European marketplaces.
Millions of Russians seem to have fallen silent since the war began. Others have fled. To Tbilisi, Riga, Istanbul, Yerevan, Belgrade, Limassol, Tel Aviv, Berlin. Hundreds of thousands are estimated to have gone into exile. It is a historic exodus, comparable to the wave of migration after the coup d'état of October 1917.
Many of my compatriots whom I have visited in exile on this trip have done in recent years what I have not done. They have stayed in Russia, they have warned against Putin, they have complained against him, they have tried to stop Putin.
I wanted to know from them: How could Butcha and Mariupol happen? Who is to blame? How should it continue?
Weiterlesen
Get yourself a fabric store that will light your fabric on fire for you
No but legit I asked what the fiber content of something was and the guy didn’t know so he cut a chunk off and lit it on fire and felt the ashes and was like. Yeah this is mostly cotton with a lil bit of silk. And that was the moment I knew. This is it. This is the fabric store for me. Also that guy is marriage material. Not for me but damn some person is gonna be so happy with him.
Ok but this is actually one of the easiest ways to tell what something is made of! I did a textiles degree and one day as part of a class we all went outside with a pile of scrap fabric and set fire to the little pieces and recorded how they burned. We were given a chart that looked something like this to tell what each fabric was (it gets a little tricky is it’s a mix of fabrics though). Why did we do this? There is very little regulation in the textiles industry so a lot of materials are mislabelled as something they aren’t and sold for more than they should be, also sometimes people buy fabric second hand or discounted which doesn’t have any label at all. If you have a fabric you are having doubts about, cut a tiny piece off and do the burn test and you should know pretty fast what you are dealing with. Anyways your fabric store should be lighting things on fire because this means that they are actually checking what the fabrics are and aren’t trying to pass cheap stuff off as more expensive than it is.
Ooh! I knew it was a standard test but I hadn’t seen a chart as detailed as this thank you!
Vaccine PSA
Since Monkeypox is spreading, I just want to inform people that smallpox vaccines are potentially very dangerous for people who have eczema / atopic dermatitis. A lot of people don’t know this, but exposure to the traditional smallpox vaccine even if it’s skin to skin contact with someone who has recently been vaccinated can cause eczema vaccinatum in people with a history of eczema. It basically causes a systemic reaction that could kill us without proper and immediate treatment. This hasn’t been a huge issue because we haven’t had to universally vaccinate for smallpox in a long time. However, one of the two monkeypox vaccines has the same problem according to the CDC. Yes, there is a safe vaccine available for people with eczema / atopic dermatitis called JYNNEOS, but the ACAM2000 monkeypox vaccine is not considered safe for us and you should probably avoid skin to skin contact with anyone who receives this vaccine. That also means you should not share clothes or other items with someone who received this vaccine until at least 30 days after their last dose. I’m not a doctor, but I do have atopic dermatitis. I generally don’t want to discourage people from getting vaccinated but a lot of people like me simply don’t know we’re not physically able to be vaccinated for this the same way as people who don’t have a skin condition. Please talk to your doctors first to figure out what you can do to stay safe at this time.
For further information:
Traditional Smallpox Vaccines and Atopic Dermatitis Frequently Asked Questions
Also just as an FYI for immunocompromised people, jynneos has Cipro as an ingredient, if you have had a reaction to this antibiotic in the past you also cannot get the jynneos vaccine.
Remember, folks:
This is why it’s important for all those who can to get vaccinated.
I will have to find Jynneos. And if I can’t…
…then this time it’s up to you to protect me.
And this is how I find out that literally none of the monkeypox vaccines are safe for me. FML.
