Something Wicked This Way Comes

Julian | he/they | late 20s. I also make things on Etsy.

[classicalcanvas]

Weeping Willow (1919) by Claude Monet

[beardedmrbean]

[sioltach]

I looove when food is in a bowl. Frequently plates are being brought out and I'm thinking this could've been a bowl meal but nobody gets it

[sunderwight]

Mulan AU where she does get caught by the other fresh recruits while she's bathing but Mushu helps her spin it like the lake is cursed by an evil lizard demon and will turn men into women if they stay in it for too long.

From there it's not actually difficult to get the other soldiers onboard with covering up the fact that poor Ping took one for the team and got afflicted by the vagina curse, especially since it would have been all of them if they hadn't gotten the warning ahead of time. So they agree to help him cover it up, because obviously the army's not going to understand.

Shang is... tentatively glad that the men are bonding and getting along, even if they continue to be deeply weird about it.

[great-art-and-a-purple-tongue]

Ling: Hey man, what's up— you've got boobs?!?!

Mulan: Uh, what boobs? Huh? Where did these come from?

Mushu: *facepalms and thinks quickly* (speaks from the shadows) I AM THE SPIRIT OF THE LAKE! BEWARE MY CURSED WATERS FOR THEY WILL TURN MEN INTO WOMEN!

Ling, Yao, and Chien Po: Oh no! The spirit of the cursed waters!

[metazanni]

I love tumblr's dedication to solving problems in the funniest way possible.

[ubercharge]

look. look at this beautiful sword meme. i’m going to cry

[literallybyronic]

@petermorwood

[petermorwood]

I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but it’s always worth repeating, and this time I’m adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)

Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.

Here are Celtic bronze swords…

…Ancient Greek Xiphoi…

… and a Roman “Mainz-pattern” gladius…

Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.

Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. They’re weapons if necessary…

…but since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.

This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside it…

…but may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.

A couple of internet captions say it’s for “cutting ropes” which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Hero’s rapier (!!) wouldn’t be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didn’t work as well as intended for any purpose.

I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).

A lot of “flamberge” (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.

The giveaway is the centreline: if it’s straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.

Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.

Again, the clue is the centre-line.

Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.

Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.

There’s no doubt about this one either.

The reason - though that was a part of it - wasn’t just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.

However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasn’t that much of an advantage after all.

Here’s a Circassian kindjal, forged wiggly…

…and an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wiggly…

There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.

These more practical historical versions are usually called “sword-breakers” but I prefer “sword-catcher”, since a steel blade isn’t that easy to break. Taking the opponent’s blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.

NB - the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.

The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next one’s blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.

So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.

Here’s a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film - and this doesn’t even have an odd-shaped blade…

Just a very flexible one…

If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to start…

[ubercharge]

i could not ask for a better addition to my meme post than blade education thank you so much

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

It’s not fantasy anatomy, but knowing stuff about the objects you put in your fantasy world is also very important

[yesterdaysprint]

Hartford Courant, Connecticut, March 9, 1906

[alexanderwales]

Here's a legal PSA:

If you've committed a crime and a detective gathers everyone involved in the room, especially if he's not actually a detective and is instead a novelist, puzzle-setter, psychic, fake psychic, dog, chess grandmaster, etc. ...

YOU SHOULD NOT CONFESS.

Every year, hundreds of people are put away by non-traditional "detectives" who have either inserted themselves into the case or are working with the police in a dubiously legal capacity as advisor. In 99% of these cases, the murderer gives a full confession even though the evidence against them is circumstantial at best and often requires a long just-so story which can only guess at motive.

If this happens to you, stay quiet, do not attempt to defend yourself or talk your way out of it, only say "I want a lawyer".

Now if you find yourself being investigated by a boy genius, magician's assistant, anthropologist, classics scholar, or philosopher, it's likely that refusing to talk to the police (or investigator with no legal authority) is merely the end of the second act, and by the end of the third act they will have you dead to rights.

YOU SHOULD STILL NOT CONFESS.

Make them take it to court. Force the eccentric detective and his straight-laced police partner to take the stand and explain their methods to a jury of your peers. Have your lawyer look at the chain of custody on the evidence, especially if you believe it to have been handled by someone who has only bumbled into detective work through their natural charm and/or unique set of skills and outsider perspective that come in handy more often than they should.

Know your rights. Don't let eccentric detectives put you away.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

wish lion's mane jellyfish would stop doing that

[coastalqueerlive]

doing what?

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

i was going to say doing THAT

but apparently this photo is fake which is an enormous burst of relief to my already fragile, suddering psyche.

sadly though THIS photo of a barrel jellfish is real

don’t like that

[getgoodloser]

Yeah sure that photo is fake, but what ISN'T fake is the fact that the largest lion's mane jellyfish found was about 36 meters long. The average blue whale is about 25 meters long btw.

[getgoodloser]

Here if you'd like to see it:

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

we DO NOT TALK ABOUT TENTACLE LENGTH that is VERBOTEN

[wolfy8tyu]

damn, the girth on those tendrils tho

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT TENTACLE GIRTH

[snowthesprite]

Idk what the fuck yall talken about but I see jellyfish and by god do I love dem on bread.

Some of my favorite jellyfish (sorry if I go on a tanget and vear off jellyfish)

are the Stygiomedusa gigantea, which I believe is also called the blanket jellyfish, but like dude look up a video of it moving it is chilling and fantastic! This thing is 10 meters long, so not the largest here, but ohohoho look at my love

It is a deep sea jellyfish and is one of the largest invertebrate predators known. However, according to Cambridge, it has been consistently recorded in the twilight and sunlight depth zones down south so do with that what you will :)

If we want to keep going down the large and length category of ocean creatures, allow me to introduce the current longest recorded ocean animal. A deep sea siphonophore that clocks in at around 46 meters; my beautiful death halo

Technically siphonophores are hundreds upon hundreds of tinier organisms that grouped together to make a bigger one, but for all intents and purposes, this is one animal. Some of them are incredibly beautiful!

However there is also ones not so pretty, main one was something I saw a month or so ago and it looked like someone had fused like a dozen human limbs together and they were flailing to move and jesus christ yall can go mentally scar yourselves.

Man I can’t find a good picture but Deepsea Oddities has a really good video on them (and on other ocean related things… mostly deep sea)

[jenn-the-mostly-harmless]

Oh hey, I drew a siphonophore mermaid awhile back, or as I like to call her (them?) a siphonosiren.

[aq2003]

i can't get over this. this is fucking killing me

[bigandtired-deactivated20250405]

[dragongirlsnout]

i enter the shower. hours pass. i emerge from the shower, having mixed all of my soaps and scrubs and lotions and conditioners and shampoos and body washes together in the tub in precise alchemical quantities. i smell like 314 different herbs and spices. my hair will not need washing for the next 500 days. my skin has developed protective chitinous scales. i step out of the tub and immediately slip and fall on a stray puddle of mane 'n tail and sprain my pussy

[alchemistdoctor]

Howl Pendragon

[fu-boss]

Real life Road Runner

[sahonithereadwolf]

Looney Tunes is real and happening outside.

[dancing-crow]

good lord its feet really do spin around in a circle when going fast

[what-even-is-thiss]

Do you love boobies?

Like the birds? I like that they have blue feet.

[brain-deadx0]

There’s actually 6 different types of boobies.

Like the red footed boobie who has a surprisingly colorful beak:

The masked booby and his close cousin the nasca booby who look like they came from home alone 3 with that mask of theirs:

The Peruvian booby who didn’t want to wear the same clothes as everyone else in the family photo:

And the emo cousin the brown booby who was very excited to hear about mcr:

And of course everyone’s favorite, the blue footed booby:

[what-even-is-thiss]

Wow these are handsome birds

[egberts]

the world's smallest carnivore is called the "least weasel" 😭😭 i'm dying but like if it's the smallest carnivore then it sure is the least amount of weasel you can have 😭😭😭

[sator-the-wanderer]

Look at him: this is absolutely the least amount of weasel you can have

[quietwingsinthesky]

its so weird to me that cis people will dislike their name so ardently and yet. not change it. you guys know that’s an option, right. no one can make you keep the shit name your mom gave you. no, not even her.

[penrosesun]

One of my friends in undergrad changed his name because he didn’t want to bear the name of his abusive and absent father. It’s been years since he did it, and he still says that it was the single best decision of his life.

One of my friends in high school changed his named as soon as he turned 18, so that the ethnic name his family gave him was finally the name reflected on all of his paperwork. He told me that he understood why his parents had given him an “English” name, but that he felt that if he needed to assimilate in order to succeed, then that was a type of success that he didn’t want.

When I was on my way home from the courthouse after changing my own name, I got into a conversation with my rideshare driver, who was extremely interested once I told him what I was in court for, and wanted to know how I’d done it, how much it cost, was it difficult, etc. It turned out that his girlfriend had chosen the name “Yo-yo” when she came to the United States, unaware of how rare that was as a name, and that she was frequently made fun of because of it. Neither one of them had realized that a name change was so easy, and he told me he was excited to let her know that she had options.

There was an intern at a summer job I had once, who changed her name to be the same name, but a different spelling. She said that she had no idea why her parents had spelled her name so oddly to begin with, and suspected that it was just an honest mistake either by them or by some nurse, but it had been a headache for her entire life, and it was a huge relief to not need to be correcting people’s spelling on important documents anymore.

One of my exes legally changed his name to have an exclamation point, because he liked to sign his name with an exclamation point.

You can always change your name if you don’t like it. You always have that option. It doesn’t matter why – it can be conformist or anti-assimilationist, serious or silly, a minor change or a major change. Your name is yours, and you have every right to change it to be whatever you want.

[pnglove]

[what-even-is-thiss]

The thing about the fall of the Roman Empire is that nobody fully agrees on when it fell so I choose to take the most hilarious position which is that it never fell actually and we’re all still living in it.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Empire splits into western and eastern half, establishing that Rome can exist in many different pieces and still be Rome

Western half gets conquered by barbarians but still keeps doing Roman stuff and speaking Latin

Roman institutions don’t just end but slowly transition into medieval ones and Roman culture continues to influence most of Europe

Latin evolved into a bunch of languages and inserts itself into English also

The French, English, Portuguese, and Spanish all take over the world often feeling like they’re the inheritors of the legacy of Rome as they’re doing it

Everyone wants to be the new Rome

The United States independence movement starts a trend of modern democracies taking loose inspiration from the institutions of the Roman republic, even taking the idea of senators from them

Many modern democracies including the US and Canada get hyper expansionist Roman republic style

The eastern half of the Roman Empire continued to keep being the Roman Empire for another thousand years

When the Ottoman Empire finally takes over Constantinople they act like they’re inheriting the Roman Empire

The government of Turkey inherits the responsibilities of the fallen Ottoman Empire

The Catholic Church runs out of Rome as a remnant of a late empire institution

Catholicism becomes the biggest religious organization in the world with influence over world politics even in the modern era with its own micro country and observer seat at the UN

The boundaries of the Roman Empire often include places that were just heavily under the influence of Rome or paid tribute to it

Most countries in existence are allied with or under the protection of at least one country that takes heavy influence from the Roman Empire or the Roman republic or a country with a large Catholic population

Augustus succeeded in taking over the world

We’re all living in Rome

[jevn-kirstein]

I watched the pilot episode of black sails in like... 2021-2022? and hated it SO much that I dropped the show on the spot. it felt so painfully aimed to straight guys(tm)

but then I decided to give it a second chance in the big 2026 and it hit me like a truck. you're telling me that the show I feared was gonna be incredibly sexist ended up having queer themes and female rage??? that the wlw relationships are not shallow fanservice for straight guys(tm) but they have actual depth???? that the main character is a gay/bi (?) man and he's angry bc the british empire took his love from him????

god I wish I could erase my memory and experience it all over again. also I find it quite unfair how people think that black sails is "game of thrones but with pirates" when black sails succeded in doing everything what game of thrones got wrong

[queenofattolia]

#but see that is the beauty of Black Sails#it starts out as a very typical masculinr adventure show with pirates and scantily clad women#its the shallow version of pirates and their stories that got written down for sensationalism and misdirection#then as you go deeper into the show it starts breaking that down#except its cyclical#so it ends the same way it began--knowing that all they will become is the story you expected to find when it started (via @aisalynn)