Star Follies @starfollies - Tumblr Blog

nora-yoko

#cat #black cat #stars

meredithmcclaren

Happy Lunar New Year!

#meredith mcclaren #year of the horse #ooh i missed this before

finitevoid

the goblin emperor is such a book. Opens with a mock academic text giving you a bunch of terms to remember. you’re line okay this is a fantasy novel with Terms. not uncommon. fantasy and sci fi novels like to flesh out their alien worlds by inventing whole slangs and made up words that work diagetically within context. and this book It’s seemingly got a whole grammar system and detailed worldbuilding which is cool and you’re prepared for the Terms. and then BAM fucking cold open the emperors dead and the main characters speak in archaic English okay wait what the fuck is an elf or goblin in this context actually and then as soon as all that percolates it proceeds to bludgeon you upside the fucking head with an entire grammar system made up around adding an entire formal pronoun to the English language. Fuck you . and so not only are you like Hey what’s a goblin you’re also being absolutely dumped with an onslaught of Terms that mean nothing to you AND all the characters are speaking in THE ROYAL WE the entire time AND no breaks baby the political intrigue starts NOW!! and this is done with such razor sharp precision that every moment a character slips into informal I/thou it is HUGELY noticeable and significant. By the end of the book you are GASPING when the informal I/thou gets whipped out. the book is literally forcing your attention and entrenching you in its world by making its world deliberately opaque. To understand the word of tge you have to be studying it as you read, to be paying attention and absorbing context and enjoying doing so. it won’t spoon feed you and that’s the point. Your understanding of it is so hard fought that it makes you feel pretty proud of yourself once you get the hang of it. As a result you feel that much more attached to its world; its world feels that much more lived in. A delightfully effective tactic and toolset I’m obsessed with it

#the goblin emperor

battlecrazed-axe-mage

I've acquired a creature that stares at you no matter which direction you look at it from

orphanedsource

I’m hypnotized

battlecrazed-axe-mage

Two years on, their wood grain has darkened because they live on my laptop keyboard and I'm constantly patting them <3 To be loved is to be changed

#creature

carys-the-ninth

slowly infecting everyone i know with the Vorkosigan Saga disease

maykendehoutman

Promoted from the tags:

#holding up miles by his armpits like a cat an swinging him around#get a load of This Guy!#vorkosigan saga

#vorkosigan #vorkosigan saga #miles vorkosigan #look at this little guy!

liesmyth

the new euro banknote designs with the birds are sooo pretty... I hope the birdies win

liesmyth

I would like to get paid in birds...

misseffie

You can vote for one of the bird designs here: Go Vote!!!

girl-mercury

nickname poll

So currently I answer to my full first name (which I usually introduce myself with) as well as two nicknames/diminutives plus my last name when people mistake it for a first name. There are two or three other nicknames I've also gone by in the past. I'm perfectly fine with this, or neutral at minimum-- I have a common name and have had to be flexible with how I'm distinguished for my whole life. I also don't feel a deep and fundamental connection of my name with my identity, though I think going by another name entirely would confuse me.

A number of friends have been appalled at me being called names I don't say are my name. Which is really weird to me, although I'd go to battle for anyone else who was getting either deadnamed or called something they didn't want. But this perspective seems surprisingly common!

How do you feel about being called something other than the name you introduce yourself with?

I think it's fun if people give me (non-derogatory) nicknames or shorten my name

I don't care if people call me something else and will answer to it

I'm mildly uncomfortable or annoyed but won't make an issue of it

I HATE being called something else and will always correct people

Nuance in tags/Vanilla extract/I'm bald

Remaining time: 1 day 18 hours

#my name is already short and there is one nickname that could be used for it #but there have only been about 3 people who have ever done that #i don’t really recognize it as my name #though i do recognize variations of my inline name as my name #so that is always fun

sandmandaddy69

girlballs-archive

narliecaps

how could you be no one when you're everything to me

#heartstopper #heartstopper forever #heartstopper forever spoilers

feather-bone

[ID: an illustration of rainbow birds overlapping, flying to the left and surrounded by simple black leaves. end.]

Flocking together. (available here until claimed)

#birds #rainbow

and-fishing-equipment

in 2026 DO NOT ask yourself whether your art is GOOD

instead ask:

is it SINCERE

was it CATHARTIC

was it FUN TO MAKE

is it MADE BY ME

and don't forget to stay silly

heartstopper forever (2026) / the last line of solitaire (2014)

#heartstopper forever spoilers #heartstopper spoilers #heartstopper #heartstopper forever

nudityandnerdery

Just off the top of your head, don't need to try and look it up to check out anything:

Can you name a web search engine that you used before Google?

Yes

No

Don't know/just want to see the results

Voting ended onJul 26

The book I'm reading suggests that Google became so market dominant that most people couldn't name a search engine that came before it, so I'm curious.

alex51324

HotBot.

akinmytua2

Askjeeves

whatbigotspost

I primarily used AltaVista and Yahoo before my 10th grade English teacher told me about Google in 2000. I have such a vivid memory of being like, "oh shit this IS a great tool..." which is hilarious to recall 26 years later.

#dogpile