A person that exists

Call me Renn! I’m pretty much a background character in the grand scheme of things. She/her, American. I post art and some random thoughts. Not a minor, for those of you concerned about that.

[staringamassivemistakeintheface]

Relevant links/info:

“renn’s silly little doodles” is my catchall art tag

my AO3 | my SpaceBattles

[disuse]

hate it when people call ada lovelace the first female programmer, when in reality she was the first programmer ever. she wrote programs for a machine before it was ever constructed

[freshcuntgrass]

Ada Lovelace was the first programmer and Charles Babbage was the first male programmer.

[fujokafka]

we need to bring back old school tumblr communication and im so serious. sending an ask to a mutual just to say hello. seeing three different asks in your inbox all asking how your dentist appointment went. seeing a post you think one of your mutuals would enjoy and tagging them/sending it to them in the dms. nowadays its just silently liking a post or (if youre feeling extreme) replying under posts. WHAT HAPPENED TO US!! we used to be a proper community!!!! #LetsBringWhimsyBack

[andthelaw]

reblog if you want ppl to send you random lil' asks

[handedsanitiser]

Warhammer Tumblr is thriving and healthy I see. (well I don't get many random lil asks but they happen and they happen to my moots as well as other posting Warhammer stuff as well :) )

[gumi-megpoidd]

did you have to use that photo for that

[gumi-megpoidd]

i mean good on them...? still paired with that image thats uh. interesting

[gumi-megpoidd]

[laura-the-swarming]

I respect the fuck out of this. The whole site is trying its hardest to go against every selling point the dog robots have as its selling points.

The dog robots are supposed to be autonomous, threehalves is explicitly only for being piloted by a human. The giant horns make it difficult for this machine to enter through doorways, and that is the point. Coupled with the built-in weak points, it is very easy to disable this thing, so it can't be used by the police or the military effectively.

OP alluded to how unsettling the machine looks, and I believe that it was a concious decision; the robot dogs have garnered sympathy due to their apperance, which makes it easier for the police to morally justify their use. This thing? You're not gonna get many people to sympathise with it. The only people who would are monster and-or robot fuckers, and I believe these circles generally understand that a machine cannot be trusted (though of course many would willingly approach it for pervert reasons (positive) knowing full well it's a bad idea).

[tlbodine]

For the last goddamn time...

"Kill your darlings" means "if something is holding you back, get rid of it, even if it sounds pretty."

That's it! That's all it means! It means if you're stuck and stalled out on your story and you could fix the whole block by removing something but you're avoiding removing that thing because it's good, you remove that thing. That's the darling.

It does NOT mean

That you have to get rid of your self-indulgent writing

That you should delete something just because you like it (?wtf?)

That you need to kill off characters (??? what)

That you have to pare your story down to the absolute bare bones

That you have to delete anything whatsoever if you don't want to

The POINT is that you STOP FEELING GUILTY for throwing out good writing that isn't SERVING THE STORY.

The POINT is that you don't get so HUNG UP on the details that you lose sight of the BIG PICTURE.

Good grief....

[prof-grace-aspen]

Also, you don't have to like, delete it from existence. Keep a second document full of the Darlings. You never know when you'll need it later.

[earhartsease]

yes, your killed darlings are ripe for rebirth

[eldritchsandwich]

compost your darlings

recycle your darlings

Darlings who don't fit this narrative go into the use later folder

[alphabetizing-posts]

compost darlings darlings Darlings don’t fit folder go into later narrative recycle the this use who your your

[meatswitch-deactivated20231107]

[lemondr0pz]

[conscious-naivete]

A story in four parts

[little-bullheaded-shit]

[giving-people-stars]

Hollywood is quaking in fear

[undeadrabbit-at-home]

my contribution

[biologyweeps]

TICK PSA

Alright you guys, ‘tis the season again and I’ve already seen bullshit float about so here we go: what to do and what not to do when you happen to have a tick attached to yours truly.

WHAT NOT TO DO:

DON’T cover the tick in anything. Vaseline, nailpolish, whatever. Doesn’t matter. It’ll all suffocate the tick, making it panic vomit germs into your blood stream. That’s the opposite of what you want.

DON’T burn the tick. Same problem, plus the additional option of giving yourself a burn wound in the process. 

DON’T squeeze the body of the tick when you try to remove it. Again this empties the tick’s digestive system into your body. Bad. 

DON’T wait for the tick to detach itself. The longer it stays on you, the higher the chances it’ll transmit anything to you. Plus when ti detaches it may again vomit germs into you. 

WHAT TO ACTUALLY DO

STAY CALM. A tick hanging on you is not a reason to panick. You’re not going to keel over just like that, and if you’re unsure what to do, there are many resources on the internet on how to safely remove a tick, like this one from the CDC (aka the professionals)

USE APPROPRIATE TOOLS. These can be suitable tweezers (the pointy kind, not blunt tipped ones), tick removers (there are cheap ones out there, those you can buy at the vets are totally fine for use on humans, too!). Ideally you can remove the entire tick in one go, however if that doesn’t work and the mouth part breaks off in your skin, that’s not a terribly big deal and you can totally remove it separately after you got the body remove. Again, don’t panic.

KILL THE REMOVED TICK. But not by squeezing it. Flush it down the toilet, submerse it in alcohol in a container etc. Ideally if the tick has bitten you and not your dog, keep the tick around in a sealed container in case you start having symptoms and someone needs to identify the tick species. Also IF you start getting symptoms like the tell tale Lyme disease rash, HIT A DOCTOR RIGHT AWAY AND TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR TICK BITE. Do not wait this out, ticks can transmit a whole host of diseases beside Lyme, so be mindful of that, too! 

Some of those diseases you can actually get vaccinated again, such as tick born encephalitis. Check with the local authorities if you live in a risk area, and if so, get the shots to protect yourself. 

[t00tsmcgee]

Excellent post! I would like to add that ticks hide in tall grass and bushes mostly. They do not drop down from trees or jump to other people’s heads etc. Ticks aren’t designed to jump, they latch on somewhere on your leg and then crawl upwards in most cases. 

So be careful with bare legs and tall grass!

[th3-dark-abyss]

ALSO Lyme doesn’t always leave a rash! about 10% of cases are this way. so pay attention to weird joint swelling and/or pain and go to your doctor to get tested if you suspect that’s what’s happening.

-signed: someone who got rashless Lyme and didn’t know (only one of my knees swelled which was also irregular)

[somecunttookmyurl]

i can tell i’m sleep deprived bc i just made myself cry about tutankhamun and i have, like, negative interest in the kid

[somecunttookmyurl]

have now made the rest of the discord cry about this little boy who had multi-coloured ducks sewn onto a tunic that he loved so much he wore it to a Very Important Event because he was EIGHT and have you SEEN my DUCKS

[somecunttookmyurl]

sorry no i’m not done i’m gonna make you all cry some more i’m bringing you down with me

there was once a little boy.

he is born disabled. his body hurts, and he can’t walk properly the way the other children do. he doesn’t understand why. he’s a little boy. but he plays with wooden boats and pulls toys on a string.

somebody makes him a tunic. they sew ducks onto it in red and green and yellow and blue. the bright colours of a child.

the little boy is eight years old, and he’s going to be king now. there’s a big ceremony about it. he doesn’t really fully understand what’s going on, because he’s eight, but he wears the tunic with the brightly coloured ducks for the occasion because he loves it. look at his ducks! aren’t they great?

he is a child. the adults around him manipulate and coax him to gain more power for themselves. he still plays with toys.

as a teenager, not yet an adult, he fathers children. they do not survive. he’s not even old enough to have full agency in his job and is still being manipulated, but he had babies and they died.

he does not make it to his twenties. at eighteen or nineteen years old he dies, and is buried. his babies, so tiny, are buried with him.

and so is his tunic with the little ducks that he loved so much he kept it long after it no longer fit.

there was once a little boy.

[somecunttookmyurl]

yeah i think that like. especially with historical figures in your mind people who were kings and queens or important nobles were adults. even if you know how old they were it doesn’t really click. it doesn’t seem real

but then you get something like a little tunic with brightly coloured ducks on it and it hits you like a fucking truck that this really was a little kid and no matter how far removed you are a little kid is still a little kid. their brains didn’t develop any quicker back then. he was just as developed/mature mentally as any 8 year old now. he had cartoonish animals on his clothes and he played with toy boats and probably terrorised the local cat population.

tutankhamun was a child and he didn’t make it to adulthood because he was unfortunate enough to be a very important child

his dad died when he was 8. he saw his own babies die when he was still just a boy himself.

but he had brightly coloured little ducks on his favourite shirt, and he kept it.

[somecunttookmyurl]

and he did not just keep the duckie shirt either

tutankhamun had a little pair of sandals with ducks on them. he had earrings decorated with ducks. he kept those, and other items of childhood clothing. some toys. keepsakes. things he loved, and treasured. he kept them all in a little wooden chest. the chest… was carved with ducks.

and that little duck chest, filled with things he kept from his childhood, was buried with him. maybe he was keeping them for the little babies who did not make it. maybe they just reminded him of good days and fun times.

but he was a little boy who thought ducks were just the best

[somecunttookmyurl]

WITH PLEASURE

(greyscale makes it hard but the duck head is on the right above the toe strap. always takes me a while to find it too)

[beggars-opera]

[libriamore]

Ok but this is how to teach history. This is how you get people to pay attention, to care. Find something small and make it personal, then zoom out to the wider context. History is best taught as a story, with people who lived their lives in ways that came together to create something remarkable that we still talk about today, but who were still just human at the end of the day. They kissed, argued, cried, and dreamed just like we do. And sometimes they really liked ducks.

[kedreeva]

I want to point out that there are at least two obvious duck heads on the sandals (circled in red) but!

The patterns between them, to either side of what looks like lilypad/lotus flower petals, could very well be “ducks as seen from above.” There is a beak on the lower edge, a clear “head” shape above/behind it, darker ovals that look like folded wings, and a body/tail. I didn’t see the red circled ducks first, I saw the “swimming on a pond” ducks amongst the lotus flowers.

[captain-price-returns]

oh no they’re going to start calling democrats the same thing they’ve been calling democrats for 20 years now

[hotvampireadjacent]

[thewellofastarael]

"Here’s a trick I learned during the Obama presidency for handling certain types of political labels. Take, as an example, the Tea Party claim that Obama is a Communist. Don’t take the word of the person making the claim (Tea Partiers). Don’t rely on the rebuttal of the target (Obama), because that will just be dismissed. Go to the group itself (Communists) and ask them. Ask an actual Communist if Obama is a comrade and see how they answer. Watch as they laugh at you, then explain in great detail how they wish there was a Communist in the White House, but here’s a long and exhaustive list of why that just isn’t so. Now apply this logic to the claim that Hillary is pretty much the same as a Republican. Ask an actual Republican if they think Hillary Clinton is one of them. Watch them laugh, and then explain in the same exhausting detail why that just isn’t so. Some of them might concede that she’s better than Trump, but that’s not the same thing. Finally, go ask a White Supremacist if Trump is one of them. As they excitedly explain how Trump is the guy they’ve been waiting for all these years, and how he’s really empowered their movement, use this to guide how you will be voting in November."

Source: a 2016 facebook posts by Craig Enan, since then deleted (OG link here)

[escuerzoresucitado]

Pedestrian traffic lights

[sjorsdottir]

Ooooh, we have a bunch of really fancy pedestrian traffic lights in Germany! I need to share:

Starting off with the difference between formerly Eastern German traffic lights (upper images) and formerly Western German traffic lights (lower images):

The city of Erfurt had some additions, like an umbrella or a heart:

Same sex love in Marburg (upper image) and Frankfurt (lower image):

Traffic light lady in Bremen:

Karl Marx light in Trier:

Face of Friedrich Engels in Wuppertal:

Elvis in Friedberg (Hessen):

A sparrow (for the Golden Sparrow film awards) in Gera:

Winemaker in Bad Dürkenheim:

Mainzelmännchen (mascot of the public broadcasting service ZDF) in Mainz:

Otto Waalkes (German Comedian) in Emden:

Town musicians of Bremen in Bremen:

A miner in Pirmasens, Rheinland-Pfalz:

Bishop in Fulda:

Source: Saarbrücker Zeitung

Enjoy!

[translatingpoststogerman]

And we call these "Ampelmännchen" ("traffic lights little man").

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

omg that's amazing! I wanna visit Germany just to take pictures of all the cute traffic lights.

[key-pair]

in case folk outside the UK aren't abreast of our news, the British press just hounded a black academic to death

[key-pair]

a rough timeline of events (from memory, there may be inaccuracies, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

Cambridge professor of sociology Jason Arday is accused of plagiarism by another academic

the accuser is a "race realist" who believes that in a true meritocracy all university professors would be white. this is somehow not acknowledged much during the entire ordeal

this leads to several days of media coverage demanding an investigation, or that Arday is expelled from his post immediately

somehow this accusation that has no effect on the lives of 99.99% of the population becomes FRONT PAGE NEWS in all the newspapers for multiple days, above anything else happening in the UK or the world at large

following intense media scrutiny, Arday resigns his post as a Cambridge professor

today, august 14th, days after resigning, Arday is found dead at his home in Battersea

the British tabloid press remains, and will always be, fucking evil

[nyokoko]

Please do not leave out the most damning part which is

This is the Zionist who wrote an entire hit piece on how Black academics are not smart because Black people are an inferior race. He wrote an entire paper on how white people and Jews are the only superior races in this world and that anyone Black who had a position or standing in academia was essentially a fraud. He started this witch hunt on the basis of Zionism and white supremacy and this is a very common fucking occurrence in academia.

All because he was passed over for the position Arday was in at Cambridge.

White inferiority complexes kill Black people across the board everyday and y’all need to stop ignoring that very big factor that went into this because several white professors have been outed for plagiarism and got to keep their jobs.

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

Hold on, pump the breaks. What does Nathan Cofnas’s Jewishness have to do with this incident?

Like, I’m looking into this case, and yeah, this guy is a racist piece of shit who led mass media in hounding a Black Academic to death. No dispute there. Fuck him. He needs to face consequences.

But the way this latest post is written frames the whole thing like a wicked Zionist conspiracy targeting Black academics. I shouldn’t have to point this out, but Zionism is an ideology focused on the Middle East. Even at its worst, most genocidal incarnation, its adherents are focused on Israel/Palestine conflict and the peoples involved with it. In all the articles I’m reading about this incident, I/P never gets brought up. The word “Zionism” is never used. Like, I don’t even know if Cofnas supports Zionism, that’s how little the topic is discussed. Is he a Zionist? Or is he assumed to be a Zionist because he’s a Jew?

And before y’all roll your eyes and go, “Boo-hoo, who cares,” may I remind you that one of the most pernicious antisemitic canards is that Jews are wicked conspirators manipulating the world for their own nefarious ends? We have been massacred for our supposed plotting over and over and over again. So when you drag in an irrelevant Jewish-coded ideology into a call-out of a Jew’s shitty behavior, it really comes off as, “The Jews™ are out to get Black academics.” And I have a problem with that! I have a big fucking problem with that!

Just…fuck, Cofnas is a racist piece of shit who rallied racists to hound a Black academic to death. Why can’t we focus on that? Would his alleged Zionism have come up if he was a Christian? Somehow I doubt it.

[lesbianshepard]

honey is the only food product that never spoils. there are pots of honey that are over five thousand years old and still completely edible

[lesbianshepard]

i also want to point out we know it tastes the same even after thousands of years b/c archaeologists who discovered two thousand year old honey tasted it. presumably right after they looked at each other and went “what the hell here goes nothing”

[celtic-pyro-deactivated20230725]

[key--lime--pie]

I’m pretty sure they also identify human remains by taste. Archaeologists are straight up freaks.

[notaflippinmermaid]

No, no no… you identify bone from rock or other substances by touching it to your tongue. If it sticks, it’s bone. The taste itself has nothing to do with it. And most archaeologists won’t lick human bones if they know they’re human.

…and I realize that doesn’t actually do much to prove archaeologists aren’t freaks.

[midnightmindcave]

mai nam is jane and wen i dig i fynde some roks both smol and big i put my tung upon the stone for science yes i lik the bone

[dinosauriaawesome]

I’m sitting with a bunch of archaeologists and we just laughed so hard we CRIED we’re getting tshirts with this on them

[thesaltofcarthage]

I will never ever get tired of seeing bredlik poems. It is really one of the seminal art forms of the century. I am not being sarcastic. 

[wholesome-dragon-lady]

If I ever don’t reblog this, assume I’m dead and archaeologists are licking my bones.

[cephalophor]

The first funny bitch was Cain, who straight up lied to God after killing his brother.

[nakedinasnowsuit]

God: where’s Abel?

Cain: fuck if I know??? I’m not in charge of him

[thewitchway]

It is TRAGIC that you can’t read this in the original Hebrew.

God:  Where’s the Sheepkeeper?

Cain: Do I LOOK like a Brotherkeeper? 

[careful-crow]

God: hey where’s Abel???

Cain:

[adventuretfox]

He killed his yonger brother in cold blood because he was jealous of him. There is in no way anything funny about this. No hesitation just poped a rock over his turned head, droped his body over the edged and tried to lie to god about what he did. FUCK YALL CRAZIES!!!

[funkyness]

oh are those the receipts, Cain is problematic now?

[bprinny]

Cainceled 

[kraetys]

This post gets worse every reblog

[this-account-is-a-mistake]

yet im not Abel to scroll past

[schmuckered]

This post hit me like a rock to the head

[nikkoliferous]

This is the quality content that keeps me on Tumblr

[depsidase]

[liarsblade]

*touching his extremely defined six pack* who did this to you.....

[invisiblefoxfire]

*gently lifting a cup of water to his lips* it's going to be okay. *choking back tears* just a few more sips and then we'll get you a sandwich...

[cloverandcrossbones]

Reblog to give a glass of water to every dehydrated actor with shrink wrapped abs whose life was endangered for a shirtless scene

[luimnigh]

Okay, here's my idea:

The British should put a time limit on the Monarchy.

Not like declaring a republic tomorrow, but deciding on a date in the future that ends the British Monarchy.

And there's a perfect date for it coming up!

October 14th, 2066.

A thousand years since the Battle of Hastings. A thousand years of this one specific bloodline ruling England.

Call time on the Monarchy after exactly one thousand years. Nice, and neat.

Even better: Charles isn't living 44 years. He'll be gone in about twenty. Now William? He's what, 40? Yeah, he can live another 44 years. His great grandmother was over a hundred, his granny was 96, William can make it to 84 barring accident or assassination.

So on October 14th 2066, William the Last steps down a thousand years after William the First won the crown.

Nice, neat, and fair. William gets the crown he's been waiting forty years for already, but ten-year-old George grows up without expectation of it.

Have a nice big abdication ceremony, even.

[lasrina]

Plus, what an absolute baller move to announce your regnal name as William the Last.

[hiveswap]

they dont tell you this but you carry your upset younger self in you like a parasitic twin