Exit, pursued by a trilobite.

MlleMusketeer 2.0. Fandoms: Transformers, Star Wars Rebels and Clone Wars, The Expanse, She-Ra. Not a Megatron apologist because I'm not apologizing. Probably more than you want to know about infectious disease & politics. Icon from: https://picrew.me/image_maker/482731

[romanceyourdemons]

my flipflops are rapidly becoming unusable. and there’s a whole bunch of dry grass near my house. what i’m asking is does anyone have a good straw sandals tutorial they could point me to

[its-not-a-pen]

ok i've found two videos which can be combined. the modern method uses rope, and once you've got that down, you can just sub in the straw. Here's an example of the straw sandals i've made. This pair is hemp rope, its pretty soft and comfortable. I've also made a pair using sessile rope and they are SUPER prickly and can't be worn without socks. so if you're buying rope to use as ties, i recommend hemp.

video 1: rope tutorial

video 2: straw tutorial Here is an example of traditional methods made using rice/wheat straw. main takeaway is they beat the straw with a giant mallet first to soften the fibres so the stalks can bend when you weave it. I've also seen another video where they soak the straw in water first (then beat it) and weave it wet. i reckon you can just put the straw down and stomp on it for a bit, or pick it up and wack it against a surface like they do with flax.

i've never seen this done with normal grass, so let me know how it turns out! and remember, if two stout, heroic men ask to be your sworn brothers, say yes!

[its-not-a-pen]

prev thank you! I had a lot of fun making these. It feels like traveling back in time and experiencing what people 2000 years ago were doing

[introsquirrel]

County roads

Full of holes

On the route

I need to go

Road construction

Lane obstruction

Let me go

County roads

[brobotsbro]

ok I still love my "Optimus was faking the amnesia" shitpost but also how about this. He really did revert to that mentality but also he's not like fucking dumb and so when Megatron is all like "ratchet went crazy and destroyed Cybertron 😔" Orion is like calculus meme and upon the realization that some seriously evil bullshit is going on, plays up the wide eyed innocent act but like quietly sabotages the decepticons plans while he bides his time till he can get out

Ratchet: *pounds fist into med bench* they could be doing anything to him up there, we have to rescue him

Cut to Megatron, evilly snickering to Soundwave: I've got him in the palm of my hand

Cut to Orion, changing all of Megatrons passwords and installing malware into the weapons calibration systems: oh no how could those darn autobots do this 😔

[brobotsbro]

when you wake up in a weird underground cavern on a weird planet with no memories and your weird and historically violent friend tries to sell you some bullshit about how your cantankerous but generally mild tempered doctor friend randomly decided??? to take over the world and kill everyone??? And also you're inexplicably jacked??? And tattooed with the 'enemys' insignia??? also you're definitely not a prisoner but like don't leave this room???:

[jeegoo]

He should have said it was Jazz’s fault. That’s much more believable. 

[brobotsbro]

That's the thing that fucks me up always??? You could have gone with anybody. you could have made someone UP!!!! but you went with RATCHET

[brobotsbro]

Orion's been missing for a while and Ratchet gets a very dusty ping from his ANCIENT Cybertronian Snapchat account and it's a picture of a screwdriver just straight up stabbed into the decepticons space bridge control panel with the caption "no way I get away with this one"

[doubledecks]

“While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.”

— Francesca Coppa, “Introduction to The Dwarf’s Tale,” The Fanfiction Reader (via francescacoppa)

Someone put it into words. I gotta sit down

[claudiagray]

It’s this exactly. As I remember saying back in the X-Files days, I didn’t want Mulder and Scully to look like what the media portrayed as a romantic couple. I wanted the media to portray a romantic couple the way they portrayed Mulder and Scully

[renthony]

I NEED people to understand that condoms aren’t free because “MEN like to FUCK lol,” they’re free because thirteen thousand people die from AIDS every year in the US alone.

Stop framing free menstrual products as more essential than free condoms. They should BOTH be free.

[renthony]

This post is going around again, and I feel the need to finally make an addition that adds some context, because the notes keep picking up comments along the lines of “who cares if it’s just because people want to fuck? Fucking is great! Why are menstrual products even being brought up?”

Yes. Fucking is great. I enjoy it myself on occasion. But condoms are not free just because people enjoy fucking. Condoms used to be much, much, much harder to come by, and they were significantly more expensive. Many humans have always enjoyed fucking, but condoms have not always been available, much less for free.

This post was originally made in September of 2020. It was made after I got into a pitched argument with a straight cisgender woman, who argued that free condoms are actually oppressive in a society where free menstrual products are hard to come by. Her argument was that it is an act of violent misogyny for free condoms to be available anywhere when menstrual products are not, and that the prevalence of free condoms is clearly due to male privilege.

That is not why condoms are free, and if you think free condoms are in any way oppressive, you need to get your head out of your ass. You cannot drag free condoms into the conversation about free menstrual products without acknowledging the massive, grueling efforts of queer activists and allies–including WOMEN–that brought condoms into wider use.

Condoms are often free because AIDS activists put endless amounts of effort into education and distribution of resources for safe sex. Condoms are free because they keep everyone safer, not just the people (NOT JUST MEN!) who use them.

Free condoms are not patriarchal, and they benefit everyone. Please read up on the history of AIDS activists. There’s even a convenient Wikipedia page all about HIV/AIDS activism.

And since I didn’t include a source link in my original post (nor do I remember where I got that number by this point), here is some updated, properly sourced data on global HIV/AIDS infection rates, courtesy of unaids.org:

39.9 million [36.1 million–44.6 million] people globally were living with HIV in 2023. 

1.3 million [1 million–1.7 million] people became newly infected with HIV in 2023. 

630 000 [500 000–820 000] people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2023. 

30.7 million people [27–31.9 million] were accessing antiretroviral therapy in 2023. 

88.4 million [71.3 million–112.8 million] people have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic. 

42.3 million [35.7 million–51.1 million] people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic

[elfwreck]

Griswold v Connecticut is 60 years old this year. (Please tolerate weird Oyez link; some legal archive sites do not have fancy embed features.)

{{meta.description}}

That’s only 60 years of “condoms are legal FOR MARRIED PEOPLE, WITH ADVICE FROM A DOCTOR.”

…Several people on the current SCOTUS are trying to figure out how to overturn Griswold.

That right got extended to unmarried people in 1972, with Eisenstadt v Baird.

Condoms used to be a felony. And then they were a felony for unmarried people. And even after that, they carried a lot of stigma - why would you need a condom, unless you were being promiscuous?

AIDS activists fought hard for access to condoms as a public health issue, not as “a way for sluts to keep being slutty.” Free condoms save lives.

[queenlua]

all engineers are brothers (found attached to a steamship's engine):

1. 'The Squeak' apparently is originating from the Low Pressure (LP) valve. This is a large "D" slide valve with a lot of metal to metal contact. 2. We have inspected the valve, seat and LP cylinder and piston numerous times. We can find no evidence of rubbing, galling, burnishing, or any other sign of metal to metal contact. 3. 'The Squeak' is dependent on engine speed and temperature; as the engine heats up 'The Squeak' increases. Inexplicably, as the speed increases the sound decreases. 4. Suggestions about using WD-40 or needing sewing machine oil are not helpful. 5. If you wish to discuss 'The Squeak' with the Chief Engineer please donate $1 to The Squeak Abatement Fund to aid in construction of a new LP valve. If too many passengers speak with the Chief regarding 'The Squeak', the donation may be diverted to the Chief's beer fund.

[glacias-transformers-blog]

I finally snatched a Transformers toy on sale and it's... ...

a Megatron that pisses himself?

[glacias-transformers-blog]

I am not kidding. This man is pissing all over the place

[glacias-transformers-blog]

Megatron you cannot piss yourself in battle.

[glacia-posts]

Since Energon is blue in some continuities, he might be violently shitting himself

[beausbugbiome]

“When Insects Rule the World” series by Bill Mayer

[beausbugbiome]

Found some additional paintings from the same series! You can purchase prints from Bill Mayers website.

[sceptixfakemon]

i really genuinely wish I could hit chatgpt with my bare fists and hear its pityful electronic voice fade into glitched robotic gibberish and choking beeps as I hit it before I smash it for good and it shuts the fuck up forever

[sceptixfakemon]

no no it's fine

[sceptixfakemon]

why are so many people wondering if I'm horny for chatgpt. it's like the most unfuckable robot ever created heeell NO

[sceptixfakemon]

dragging you out of the tags like it's the last thing I'll ever do on this site

[creekfiend]

Having seen some births now i can say that dog birth is amazing cos they just slip n slide out one after the other like a little conveyor belt. And theyre so little and unformed. And then UNGULATE BIRTHS ... are amazing for the opposite reason which is that 10mins after being born they are filing their taxes. Unless they are goats, in which case they are committing tax fraud instead

[creekfiend]

Goats are what is called a precocial species, which means that shortly after birth they are able to do many thimgs on their own, such as standing, walking, eating, and embezzlement

[tanoraqui]

Neal Protectorofthesmall is great because it's like he accidentally wandered into Kel's Low Fantasy Tortall from the High Fantasy Tortall of the SotL & Immortals books. Nealan of Queenscove, eldest (remaining) son and heir of Duke Baird of Queenscove, a house which for generations has offered the crown more knights than almost any other. One of the oldest pages/squires/knights in Tortallan history because he was attending university before his two knighted elder brothers were both slain in the Immortals War, and now he's determined to carry on their memory and his family's legacy in their place. He has piercing green eyes, the same emerald color as his powerful magical healing Gift. He falls in love gets engaged to a close friend of the queen-to-be. He's literally Alanna's squire! How did he get here??

(A stubborn ten-year-old gave him the best lecture on chivalry he'd ever heard, so he decided to be her best friend/sarcasm translator/good right hand for the rest of their lives, that's how.)

[jocarthage]

And he’s constantly entranced by her stolid, forthright ways, and keeps trying to show her the ways of court intrigue, which often works, but so does her dogged insistence on just doing the right thing and working the job in front of her until the world complies and lives up to her expectations.

Love love love their dynamic.

[suigintou]

deliriously ripping open the sexy fishnet tights of a beautiful woman named bag of mandarins

[its-funnytwittertweets]

[ginny-lala]

[darth-memes]

[olderthannetfic]

Maybe this relates to the discussion about why people are less interested in characters of color, or maybe I'm just venting about something that's been annoying me.

I’m in a forum for a fandom where a number of characters are played by Black actors. Whenever a fanart gets posted that depicts one of those characters, people have nothing better to do than to get out the color swatches and complain if they feel that the image is maybe a shade lighter than the actor. Or if the artist gave the character some fantasy trait like colorful eyes or a strand of light hair — that’s racist. POC can only be brown all over, don’t you know.

This is the ONLY thing they reliably comment on, every time. Mind you, the ones making these comments are white people from Northern Europe, while many of the criticized artists are POC. 

It almost feels like they intentionally want to punish fans of these characters. Those played by white actors can be depicted with any light or dark skin shade and any eye color without incurring criticism, of course. 

--

Yup. The intense double standard has a huge chilling effect on relaxing fun around minority characters. It's particularly stark with black characters in my experience, but it can apply to any identity that's more contentious than the supposed default within a space.

[zero2god]

Pov: anakin is telling you his battle plan

[phantomrose96]

Dealing with burnout is sooooooooooooooo easy all you need to do is operate at 40% indefinitely and be kind of mad at yourself the whole time.