a torn notebook

sand's hoard of reblogs | 30s, they/them

[scrawlinglines]

Hello! call me Sand

This blog has mostly reblogs and sometimes rambles, animanga and games, cuteness, shitposts, pretty things and generally interesting stuff. Sometimes politics/discourse. I run most photography reblogs on a (pretty slow) queue.

Intended for 18+ followers. I don’t tag content warnings or ships/topics/queue/etc, unless it’s useful to myself, sorry. Posts can include spoilers, nsfw and blood.

[scrawlinglines]

I wrote a fic a few years ago of Touka and Mito having a conversation. The dynamic stuck in my mind and felt like it had potential, so I've finally written a sexy version, with bonus secret relationship and adultery and using an ink brush for sexy reasons

[expressions-of-nature]

by Andrey Polyakov

[maxknightley]

"it would be so good if it was good" will haunt you but "it's extremely good, except for the one or two parts which are so bad it's genuinely kind of insulting" will straight up drive you insane

[maxknightley]

one has you making posts like "okay but if the author UNDERSTOOD the POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS of the story they were telling, and leaned into it, it would actually be a really interesting exploration of..."

the other has you pacing your bedroom at one in the morning going "why. why would you ever in a million years do it like that. genuinely what possible thought process was involved. was the writer possessed by a fucking ghost or something."

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

When I was in uni my housemates had a baby, and we taught them some sign language so they could communicate before all their mouth parts were coordinated yet. None of us knew Auslan but two of us were familiar with the signs that the State Emergency Services used in the field so we worked with those.

The kid learned to request a drink, which is great, because that's like the #1 most important thing for a baby to be able to request, but instead of learning any of the other signs they just used modified versions of the drink sign to ask for all kinds of things. They couldn't actually make the proper drink sign (it requires some level of hand control) and used a modified wave, so they ended up with a whole bunch of subtly different waves to ask for stuff. Which was pretty fun in public because strangers would coo over this adorable baby who kept waving at them when, in practice, the baby wanted their ice cream.

[enitnerolf]

Babies are physically capable of making simplified signs from about 8 months. Speech usually comes at 12 to 18 months. That's half a years worth of frustration about not understanding/not being understood that can be minimized by teaching a child basic signs.

General advice is: start signing at 6 months. This gives the child time to observe, draw the connection, and learn. It also gives you the time to build the habit and practice. Start with a few signs, and wait till you see the child react to them before you introduce more. At 8 months you will start to see the child signing at you to communicate. The signs will be botched. That's ok. Just like with speech, make sure your reply contains the word/sign so they know you understand and can see the 'proper' version without feeling corrected.

Another tip: caregivers like to teach signs like tired and hungry and diaper. Signs that they (the caregivers) find relevant. Make sure to also offer signs that are relevant to the child, like their favorite toys, more and done.

[gatesofminrathous]

there will never be anything as funny as the mutual disbelief between long form and short form fic writers about each other's style.

short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.

meanwhile long form writers look at people writing 1000 word one shots like god I would cut off my left nipple to be able to say anything concisely. i would love to play with multiple ideas. free me from the shackles of this child I have birthed. i love them but I now must take them to t-ball and doctor's appointments and they're going to destroy everything I own.

[ao3commentoftheday]

[robotblues]

the brothers Area

[friend-crow]

[birds-in-posts]

Kelp gull (Larus dominicanus)

[highways-are-liminal-spaces]

Early evening in Hertfordshire, UK

Taken May 2026

[tobiasbones]

The other day i bought this yarn cause that’s obviously the trans flag, and I just saw that this colour is called ‘life’! I’m gonna cry

[sol1056]

I had a baby blanket in these colors that my grandmother crocheted for me. Apparently it was a popular tricolor yarn (at least in rural USian South, I'm told) for baby blankets, back when you didn't know the baby's gender eight months in advance. Maybe I'm just weird but somehow I like how that all fits together, that before there was a trans flag the flag yet existed, as a warm embrace that said, welcome to the world, you beautiful child, whomever you may become.

[kylebonallo]

Iona by Kyle Bonallo (ig: @kylebonallo)

[expressions-of-nature]

by Tatyana Biryukova

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This 1800 mill-turned-home in Camaiore, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy is absolutely incredible. 2bds, 1ba, 2,475.7sqft, €395k / $459,090 approx. USD. Below are photos of how it looks by day and by night. (It's so romantic at night.)

The sitting room has a dining area. Note the fireplace carved out in the corner of the room. There's another dining room, this is extra, so it's actually the living room.

But the kitchen is the star of the show. I love when the old equipment is still in a mill, and when owners remove it, it's just a plain ol' house. So, look at this- the kitchen has a mill stone.

The stone is still in the trough that held the ground grain.

Then, to the right, there's a giant crusher. Also, love the furniture.

This is the dining room.

Look at that big piece of equipment.

Look at this cool room off the dining room. This is fantastic.

Once I saw an old mill for sale that was completely modernized. Not one piece of the original equipment. It was awful. This one still looks like an old mill.

Even original tools still hang on the walls.

Here's a nice large bedroom. It's so pretty.

And this is the 2nd bedroom. It's so cozy.

The bathroom is so vintage. And, they did that thing with the shower- it's clear glass and made to blend into the background.

The water that ran the mill still flows under it.

There's a little patio here.

The water wheel still works.

Look at how beautiful it looks lit up at night. The property is approx. 1.73 acres,

ttps://www.italianhousesforsale.com/.../unique-property.../

[lady-averie]

So while doing some pirate research for the play I’m writing I stumbled upon one of the most amazing things I’ve ever read. In the 5th century A.D. there was a Scandinavian princess called Alwilda who’s father tried to set her up to marry Alf, the Prince of Denmark. Alwilda wasn’t cool with this so she and some female companions dressed as men, stole a ship, and sailed away. Eventually they met a company of pirates who were in need of a new captain and they were so captivated by her that they elected her as their new leader. Her crew became so infamous that Prince Alf was sent out to stop them. When their ships met he took Alwilda prisoner and she was so impressed by Alf’s skill that she agreed to marry him after all and eventually became the Queen of Denmark.

[deadcatwithaflamethrower]

I stopped caring whether this was factually accurate about halfway through because it’s completely AWESOME.

[oldshrewsburyian]

Medievalist here for triumphant fact-checking: this story is, if not true, at least true according to the history of the Danes (Gesta Danorum) written in the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus. You can read his account of Alwilda’s story in the original Latin here, or in English translation here. Highlights include:

She exchanged woman’s for man’s attire, and, no longer the most modest of maidens, began the life of a warlike rover. Enrolling in her service many maidens who were of the same mind, she happened to come to a spot where a band of rovers were lamenting the death of their captain, who had been lost in war; they made her their rover captain.

I love the implication that there were lots of Danish maidens just WAITING for the opportunity of a life of piracy…

[lady-averie]

Reblogging my old post for this A+ addition to it

[mintbees]

if i was a popular minecraft youtuber id just tweet "hey guys stop drawing shipping fanart of me and my friends/coworkers, i only fucked one of them and seeing me paired with anyone else is kinda weird and crosses my boundaries" and then i'd turn my phone off

[aro-throughyourchest]

[just-another-cat-blog]

pride month!!!

[lemonsharks]

Is that a miette?

[jeanjauthor]

Pride for you!  Pride for a thousand years!!

[lost-and-cursed]

you COME OUT to miette? you come out to her as queer? oh! oh! pride for mother! pride for mother for One Thousand Years!!!!

[sexygaywizard]

Things are happening on reddit

[apokalypse-arisen]

[viktor-sbor]

A 50-kilogram anvil floats perfectly on the surface of mercury, because the density of the steel from which it is made is almost half the density of mercury.

[e-102]

damn that shit is light lmfao

[telltaletypist]

[vienna1954]

Fun fact! Many lighthouses with especially large fresnel lenses would have huge fucking tubs of liquid mercury in the lantern room because it’s a super easy way to make these giant lenses rotate quickly!

Shockingly, however, spending most of your time in close proximity to 500 pounds of liquid mercury is Not Great For One’s Health and tons of lighthouse keepers started to go crazy from the whole. Mercury poisoning thing. Hence why there are a lot of “haunted” lighthouses or wickies that lose it and maybe do a bit of manslaughter.

Anyway, people saw a bunch of lighthouse keepers go crazy and get sick and got empirical evidence that it was in fact related to the 500 pound mercury bath they have to visit every day and then they decided nah it’s fine actually. So we’ve kept the liquid mercury thing and I think that’s beautiful

[ben-the-hyena]

I love how it is so dense it does not "wet" the anvil, the drops all run and leave with nothing behind them unlike water, oil, sauce... it's super satisfying it's like in cartoons

[macleod]

In a letter written on April 19, 1825, Augustin Fresnel proposed the use of mercury to reduce the friction in revolving lenses. His statement follows: “I propose to float our rotating devices, of the first order, in a bath of mercury, instead of placing them on rollers. This project won't present many difficulties; nevertheless, as I have not put it into execution, I won't require you to adopt it for your first lighthouse.”

Fresnel’s plan for mercury flotation was not put into practice until 1890 when Monsieur Leon Bourdelles, Chief Engineer of the French Lighthouse Service, designed and built a workable mercury flotation system. The mercury bath allowed the lens to operate in an almost frictionless environment and, additionally, allowed the speed of rotation to be dramatically increased.

Lens Rotation by Thomas Tag | United States Lighthouse Society

[sashaforthewin]

Ah to be a sailor in 1890 who has to turn to his fellow men and ask "is it just me or are the lighthouses flashing faster?"

[asteroidtroglodyte]

They had been slowly getting faster for decades.

It mattered for optics reasons.

Under less-than-ideal conditions, you can only see the beam when it’s pointed more or less directly at you. In-between beams you would not be able to see anything. One solution to this was to create multiple beams, and the lenses Mr Fresnel designed usually created 8 beams. But, even still, duration between flashes could be as long as one minute in the old mechanical roller systems.

The nearly frictionless operation of the Mercury suspension system allowed the lenses (large pieces of precisely ground glass weighing several hundred pounds in some cases) to rotate fast enough that they could be redesigned to create fewer (usually 3) beams. Fewer beams from a similar light source will be proportionally brighter, and the gains in speed were sufficient that duration between flashes could still be reduced to as little as 10 seconds.

This was a big upgrade. It didn’t just make the lighthouse signal faster, it allowed them to completely overhaul the lens and derive more visibility from a light source.

What’s a little Madness, in the face of Progress?

[myth-myth-yeth]

mods are asleep, post the fresnel lens

[cass-without-the-andra]

The mercury baths are slowly being replaced by a new system, this video about it is super interesting and explains it way better than I can!