Spica Vierge

Trying to find center and getting lost in tangents.

[mollyvega]

This hard-working dung beetle is Ralph🤎

[smalltowndiner]

Gozer deadass looked at Dana and said "bitch you're gonna serve"

[spicavierge]

And boy, did she serve. Slay, queen.

[powerburial]

i love how theres no rules for pronouncing words in English, you literally just have to learn and hear someone say every single word

[3liza]

if anyone is wondering why this is, it's because they stopped teaching American children (and many British) the rules (which exist, and have been standardized and written down for centuries) sometime at the turn of the 21st century. if you are gen x or older, have English degree-holding parents, and/or had any really old teachers who were still teaching into the "fuck grammar" era of public schooling, you unlock a special level of English comprehension where you can pronounce 99% of words perfectly without ever hearing them at all, as well as the ability to code switch to a higher-"class" dialect of English at will, which is extremely important for any social interaction where you have to deal with people who are judging you for such a thing, which happens a lot more often than you're aware of unless someone has already told you about it. usually no one tells you about it unless they're teaching it.

there were a lot of reasons for the shift, most of them can be blamed on Reagan and Thatcher (like everything else). it was pushed through to school curriculums and popular culture as a "de-snobbification" of english education where everyone's regional and ethnic accents would be normalized and accepted, what actually happened is that language gaps between rich and poor kids was crowbarred farther apart as you could no longer learn to talk, write, or read fancy in a free public school, leaving only the wealthy kids who got tutors and private schools and educated parents with a formal English education able to choose to code switch or to struggle considerably less in college when professors usually start expecting you to know grammar and etymology already and don't think it's their job to fix your high school teacher's fuckups. (it is, but that's a different post)

this is why almost everyone on YouTube is speaking only approximate English (see the #youtube grammar tag) a lot of the time and one of the big reasons people with average hearing and reading and processing function have started needing subtitles a lot more in the past ten years, when they didn't before

this gets brought up on Tumblr a lot, see prior discourse about cursive not being taught anymore (not actually a good thing, prevents you from reading anything handwritten before 1990, bad for handwriting ergonomics especially for hypermobile people [see: why do so many hypermobile and autistic people get into fountain pens]) and the new yorker article about "vibes based literacy".

anyway the lesson here is every time the education establishment announces they are about to make education "less formal" and that this will benefit "everyone", because hooray we all thought learning cursive and sentence diagramming and Greek word roots was boring, right? what they are actually announcing is that you will still be judged for not being able to use those formal skills, but now only rich people will be able to learn them from tutors as basic education becomes increasingly privatized.

[bourtange]

specifically on the topic of pronouncing words, a conlang nerd sat down and brute-force compiled a numbered list of rules for correctly pronouncing english words that gets it right for nearly every word 23 years ago (the date explains why his phonetic transcription is so weird, sorry)

[bigmickswingin]

[mr--spock]

👀🥰

[spicavierge]

Shatner was not always a hamosaurus but could be quite subtle. Beautiful.

[lgbt-tiktoks]

Description: [A video of a woman riding a galloping horse bareback while holding a large rainbow flag.]

[4x01]

saw a tiktok of a mother taking her very tiny daughter to an art museum and she’s just walking around going “whoooa” “woooaah” to everything but then they got to a marble statue of a nude woman lying on her back and the girl points and goes “mommy🫵” and i just immediately welled up with tears and all the comments are just laughing about it and of course it’s funny but how are you not insanely moved by the way art connects everyone on earth from a centuries-old sculptor to a toddler in 2023

[petrichara]

Mother and baby viewing Van Gogh's Madame Roulin and Her Baby at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, US. By the Boston Herald

I’m not sure how to look at art by Lynda Barry

[ink-the-artist]

Why I Captured This MRI of a Mother and Child

A venerable symbol of human love, as you've never seen it before

[evenlyevi]

Dandelions

[spicavierge]

The celestial flower, at turns the sun, moon, and stars. Food for bees. Roots and leaves good in salad. Flowers can make wine. The perfect plant. Not a weed.

[stitchbuggies]

I saw pill bugs on here a few weeks ago and really wanted to make my own! The pattern is a bit rough but I hope it works (I tried to get it perfect for like a week before calling it good enough).

Just print out (or copy from a screen) the first page and cut out the pattern pieces. Hopefully the pictures on page two will help but if not I will do my best to answer any questions!

Hope you enjoy and make your own lil isopod friend!

If anyone makes this, I would love to see pictures 💕

[p0mipaws]

Thank you so much for the pattern!!! Here's my own little neapolitan pill bug 💕💕💕

[cinkabear]

My idiot badly sewn son

[spicavierge]

When a person writes "like so" on their isopod pattern and shares it for all the world to see, they are automatically and forever adorable.

[marshmellin]

[spicavierge]

Get him, Gil!! This is why Erenion is High King.

[statecryptids]

Fresno Nightcrawlers enjoying a winter stroll.

[spicavierge]

Thigh-high knits and Fresno Nightcrawlers. These are a few of my favorite things!!

[daily-smol-silm]

Hi !

For your Winter cosy asks, how about Caranthir and Haleth chilling by the fireside with a cup of hot chocolate and discussing her future plans ? Caranthir needs some cosy time and Haleth needs the warmth and the energy before her trek :)

Day #148 - Fireside

Sorry, it's probably not as cozy as you imagined lol 😅 They were both very excited to talk about their ambitions

[spicavierge]

The Silmarillion carries a lot of tragic and epic themes, from songs of sorrow to incandescent rage. An adorable moment here and there is good medicine.

[spicavierge]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Caranthir, while dark in temperament to match his dark hair, is a largely maligned character within The Silmarillion. Ill-fitting among his brilliant family, he is quick to anger, withdrawn, and a brooding figure. Yet, he develops into a man astute in his alliances, open to change, and defends the free lands of Beleriand as much as he is able. ...When he is not kinslaying or fulfilling terrible Oaths. Like all of the flawed Fëanorians, he is captivating in his own way.

This fic is an ongoing series of character studies of Caranthir, Carnistir Morifinwë,

[spicavierge]

Slap-happy rough draft energy - Caranthir edition

When one's been writing for a long time (for fanfic is a guilty pleasure and a break from smithing original creations), one tends to get giddy. That said, filler to set the tone of a conversation in rough draft is a good way to keep the energy of a scene without having to do the heavy work of actually writing:

"'Father plans to ride north in a month,' Maedhros said quietly, handing the block back to Amrod, who rolled across the rug and began building another tower. 'He says Ambarussa is old enough to ride with us this time. Mother and I think not, but you know how Father’s will is all. ...Mother will not be riding with us.' Caranthir scowled, a default expression that he never could control. It frequently made the wrong impression. 'She always has before.'

'She needs time to finish her work.' Maedhros said, lying back on the bed and covering his eyes with his wrists. “Plus, Dad is being a DSM-5 narcissist again.”

'I totally get that,' Caranthir said. 'What a dick.'

'Language,' Maglor warned from across the room. A badly plucked note fell from his fingers. 'It is amazing what small ears can hear.'

'I didn’t hear Caranthir calling Dad a dick,' Amras said, adding crenelations to his portion of the castle. 'What’s a dick, anyway?'

'Like a weenus,' Amrod said, giggling. 'Dad’s a weenus.'"

[fribble-tribble]

the ultimate fantasy vs sci-fi standoff

[spicavierge]

I am forever team terrier-dressed-as-an-alien-mammalian-lizard-bug and will die on this hill.

[herpsandbirds]

Green Flash (Artipe eryx excellens), family Lycaenidae, Malaysia

photograph by LC Goh

[spicavierge]

Collecting green bugs, without pins or ether.

[bedupolker]

Utah's most special guy, the Coral Pink Sand Dunes tiger beetle, only occupies a 1800m x 300m area in the state park of the same name. This guy is NOT going places!

[spicavierge]

My new favorite Local Bug, aside from our family of House Centipedes.

[onenicebugperday]

Orache moth, Trachea atriplicis, Noctuidae

Photographed in France by Matthieu Berroneau

Shared with permission; do not remove credit or re-post!

[spicavierge]

Green moth! I lichen her.