Am geek, am witch

22 yo, this is my multifandom blog- you’re gonna get a good mix of things :)

[marisashorror]

Iron Lung Fanart

Ballpoint pen on paper

8x10"

[feetoffire]

jeremy brett and horses

this got waaaayyyyy longer than i thought it would - part two soon!

one of the first things i noticed about brett's holmes was how he interacts with horses. we haven't even spent half an hour with him before he goes undercover as an out-of-work groom and ends up handling one of irene adler's carriage horses, and then it takes all of six and a half seconds for his experience to shine through:

the immediate, unconscious way he sort of hugs her head made me sit up and go OH?? because that's something that, as a member of the industry, i've done and seen done a gazillion times. the fact that he's also working the brush onto his hand just makes it clear how long he's been doing this.

the mare also immediately starts investigating his pockets for treats (i couldn't fit it into the gif 😕), and considering the gray cab horse later in the episode does the same thing, i'm inclined to think that he carried something with him a lot of the time. or maybe they're just beggars. hard to say, with horses.

^^ "treats???? no treats? RUDE"

i love these creatures.

even more under the cut:

this isn't the only episode where brett's ease with horses shows up; the other big example comes from the priory school, where we see holmes and watson on horseback for the first and only time in the series.

of the two ways of riding the trot shown here, sitting seems easier but it's actually infuriatingly difficult. when you're posting (what hardwicke is doing), you're coming out of the saddle as the horse hits the suspension point (where all four feet are off the ground) and therefore avoiding the bumpiest part of the trot. sitting, on the other hand, requires figuring out how to glue your ass to the saddle so you're not bouncing everywhere and fucking up both your back and the horse's. sitting as smoothly as brett does takes literal months, if not years of practice - look at how most of the 'bouncing' movement comes from his scarf rather than his body. that's no mean feat.

admittedly, sitting the trot is also exhausting (your core and lower back are doing so much), so i'm not surprised at all that he posts the trot everywhere else.

there's also this moment after he dismounts:

(yes his cane does get caught in the reins.) what i actually wanted to point out is how he asks for the roan's foot and how quick it is, because it's another example of how long he's spent around horses. it's definitely scripted, since there's the clue about old shoes and new nails, but you can also tell how natural the whole process is to him - he's barely thinking about the steps.

his cane/walking stick then gets used as a hoof pick, which. i mean i've seen old spoons used as hoof picks so this feels like a step up. anyway, the quick touch to the front of both hooves also rings true re: things-horse-people-do. again, he's barely thinking about the steps and probably only halfway acting.

and then, of course, there's this shot from master blackmailer:

honestly, that whole scene in the park is a pretty good showcase of how long he's been handling horses; this is just kind of encapsulates it. it's the multitasking (trying to set milverton on fire by sheer force of will) that ultimately gives it away, but even things like his hand placement belie his experience. he knows what he's doing with horses to the point that he can be absent-minded about it, and it's very cool to see in a non-horse-focused production

[vampantheon]

on the topic of disabled characters, though, i think a LOT of artists give characters mobility aids that their character wouldn't actually benefit from using.

i'm sort of having a mild brain fog moment rn so i can't fully articulate what i'm on about, but i think a lot of able-bodied artists view things like canes and crutches as interchangeable. and they often don't know enough about the wide range of mobility aids to make an informed decision about what their character might actually use based on their disability

i also think that aids like walkers and rollators are sort of viewed as "cringe" on some level, and many people view them to be "just for old people," so many artists will opt for giving a character who has full-body pain and fatigue a cane (which, in many cases, can potentially WORSEN full-body pain) instead. and a lot of people don't realize that most wheelchair users are able to walk, so they don't consider it an option for characters with chronic pain

[vampantheon]

idk it's kind of frustrating. i've genuinely never, ever seen a character that uses a rollator before. not once. i cannot name a single one. i know of multiple ocs who are described to have full-body pain, dizziness, and fatigue that are drawn as cane users and are never shown with wheelchairs or walkers, though

[vampantheon]

it's also sort of sad? i've been diagnosed since i was twelve years old, and i only heard of rollators LAST YEAR. and that was only because i saw one irl and immediately asked what it was. i wonder how many disabled people out there don't even know it's an option solely because they're completely underrepresented online and in media

[vampantheon]

if you're a creative with a disabled oc, PLEASEEE check out this link. it's a very nice and detailed guide for telling which mobility aids suit someone's needs best. it's incredibly important to make the right choice for your character! mobility aids tell you a LOT about someone's lived experience. picking the right one will communicate to your audience #1 what your character goes through #2 that you UNDERSTAND what your character goes through!

[radgepacket-deactivated20241030]

big day today

[buryymeinblack]

queued for the next wednesday the 12th

[buryymeinblack]

happy wednesday the 12th everyone

[daysleftofsecondterm]

happy Wednesday the 12th on 892 days left

[dizzyghoast]

every so often i remember how awesome the modern interconnected multicultural world is. i grew up getting to hear fairy tales from all over the world. africa, asia, europe, america. everywhere in between. i can have bagels for breakfast, curry for lunch, and ramen for dinner without even leaving the city limits. music and art and philosophy and technology that originated thousands of miles and years apart from eachother have come together and interwoven into something greater than the sum of its parts. its hard not fall into despair when thinking about the horrors but god. god the wonders.

[dizzyghoast]

you can have friends on the other side of the planet! neither of you even has to travel!!!!! you can just talk to them whenever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[blue--deer]

*slides this across the table* you're going to want to read this

[elodieunderglass]

There are Experiences behind this sign

[secretmellowart]

Caine and Gangle go outside and touch grass. I was thinkin too hard about their Parallels as self-destructive “failed” artists and this was the result.

Brad Bird once said that you can’t create the illusion of life if you haven’t actually lived one, and that’s a line I think about a lot around the Traumatizing Digital Circus. This comic was inspired by: the purpose of making your own art in a world where AI image generators can churn out endless content for you, the way 3D software makes it easy to create infinite spaces but hard to capture authentic hand-drawn human touches, the way all my college art teachers were skeptical of the students’ desire to make anime-inspired stylized 3D visuals right up until it became the new trend in the animation industry—- and how easy it is to get so lost in the technical aspects of art & the consequences of failure that you lose sight of what art is even supposed to be for.

[also: a special thanks to the windows error message generator, this Blender grass tutorial, & all the different poets who wrote about grass— though I’ll let you guys figure out all the Tolkien/biblical/& poetry references.]

[sailermoon]

“besides, I have a sister.” top contender for one liner that makes me so emotional

[sailermoon]

i can’t explain why that last sentence always feels like a punch to the gut but if you get it, you get it

[cantanopeshitthatwastaken]

It’s interesting how diseases rip through schools at incredible speeds despite being in an arguably modern, clean(ish) environment. I wonder if it has something to do with the whole “you need a doctor’s note to excuse your absence of even one day” combined with the average price of going to a doctor, the lack of education on things like “you’re still contagious even after the fever goes away”, and the overwhelming message of “if you don’t struggle through it, you’re a failure!”

[thatgiraffebutt]

On my campus there tends to be a problem where even I you have the doctors note professors will still take points off of your final grade regardless of how sick you are. I’ve seen people show up to class with the stomach flu, pneumonia, respiratory infections and all sorts of other contagious ailments.

[literallyaflame]

Here’s a fun story:

The school system I grew up in put an absolutely ungodly amount of pressure on kids to Show Up Every Day No Matter What. Many schools are like this, but looking back, my town’s was borderline fucking dystopian. They asked me why I didn’t just “postpone” a surgery at one point— when I was fifteen— to give you an idea of how monumentally obtuse these people were.

So, in elementary school, I started having chicken pox symptoms, right? They were mild because I was vaccinated (yay!) but my mom recognized them quickly and took me to the doctor, because my mom is a reasonable human being with standards. The doctor said “yup, you’ve got those pox, it may seem mild but please for the love of god DO NOT take her to school, she is very contagious even though she may FEEL okay.”

So I had to stay home from school until I got clearance from my doctor to go back. I was an angry little gremlin the whole time, because I wanted to go to the school library and read books about the human skull, but my mother said, “no, you cannot leave this house, and do not scratch the bumps please.” So I sat at home and tried not to scratch the bumps, like a good little gremlin.

A few days into my Chicken Pox Related House Arrest, we got a letter from the school. I was far from the only person with chicken pox, as it so happened. Like… a tenth of my second grade class had Confirmed Pox. We all fell ill within DAYS of each other.

So how did this happen, you ask? Well, a kid had chicken pox, and he came to school anyway. “Ah, well perhaps they didn’t know,” you may very well say. “Maybe his parents didn’t notice!” No. No, they noticed. In fact they KNEW it was CHICKEN POX. They sent him to school anyway.

The kid’s parents…….. were, in fact, teachers at the school. And they KNOWINGLY made him go to school sick, because they didn’t want to risk hurting his precious “perfect attendance” record. They figured that since he wasn’t, like, Literally Dying, it was better for him not to miss school. Never mind the fact that they were actively endangering hundreds of little kids.

Fast forward to my freshman year of college. A kid came to class with mumps because he ‘couldn’t afford to miss’. Guess what happened? Mumps outbreak! Diseases are, as it turns out, good at being diseases! Vaccinations are phenomenal, but they can only do so much, and some people rely on herd immunity to not be killed by preventable illness.

This entire attitude needs to die. It’s dangerous. Food service workers are forced to show up sick, little kids are forced to show up sick, college students show up sick because they’re afraid of flunking out.

And on top of it all, misinformation campaigns are encouraging people not to get vaccinations! It’s 2019 and we’re flirting with the plague! Next thing you know some blogger is gonna be like “actually we should all be fucking rats and eating our meat raw, death to all science and god bless america”

[madd-catter]

Many kids at my school will show up really sick because we only get like three days of excused absences without a doctor’s note.

[gen-is-gone]

this is what those in literary academia call “foreshadowing”

(note the dates)

[anarchistmemedistro]

this post aged like an ice cube in an oven

[deathcomes4u]

worst part is! IT’S STILL HAPPENING! SCHOOLS AND WORKPLACES ARE STILL LIKE THIS!!! THEY LEARNED NOTHING!!!!!!!

[mod2amaryllis]

[thotsoflore]

Literally looking like the kind of note you find in a post apocalyptic horror game jesus

[sunnywalnut]

If only we as a society learned from our mistakes

[inthetags]

Reblog and put in the tags if you think you’re visibly queer 

[ane-doodles]

Okay, so yesterday afternoon we had a double earthquake (7.2 and 7.5 with multiple aftershocks) in Venezuela. Fortunately, the place where I live wasn't affected, but Caracas and other states near the epicenter did suffer building collapses, and people are still missing.

You can see some pictures here (Instagram).

Many people lost their homes, and a state of alert was declared today (yesterday we even had the possibility of a tsunami, which thankfully is no longer present). Venezuela doesn't have the resources to recover, and the total losses are still unknown... please pray for us, we need it.

[ane-doodles]

WAYS YOU CAN HELP VENEZUELA BY SHARING THIS INFORMATION:

My best friend helped me gather this information. If you have the time, we would greatly appreciate it if you could share it so it reaches the people who need it:

Gofundme: Emergency relief for Venezuela earthquake victims

(Argentina) Donations are being received here to send to those affected in Venezuela

Veterinary help for affected animals

More resources and information to help those affected by the earthquakes in Venezuela (images with information after the cut)

Most of this information is in Spanish, but we appreciate your help by sharing and donating if you have the opportunity.

[thereinart]

A double piece featuring Penelope, Clytemnestra and Helen 🥹❤️ cause I love them very much

I hope you like it 🙂‍↕️

[positivelyqueer]

”I have this artistic idea but not the skills to achieve it to the standard I want.”

congrats! Now you have a motif! A recurring theme! A focus for your art! Something to haunt you!

Seventeen still lives of dandelions? Three hundred poems about grief? A sketchbook dedicated to your grandmother’s house? Two books trying to unravel the complexities of familial relationships?

Don’t let the fear of it not being perfect on the first try stop you from being Weird About It!

[jaseroque]

Please view Hokusai's gradual working towards The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, over a period of 39 years.

An early exploration of the themes Hokusai would keep coming back to is Spring in Enoshima, done in 1793 when he was 33. The wave is small and there are no boats, but Mt Fuji is clear in the background, and Enoshima is in Kanagawa, so we are clearly beginning to work towards something here.

A second pass, eleven years later in 1803 when he was 44. The title of this one begins to get more familiar: The View of Honmoku Off Kanazawa. It has a towering wave over a smaller boat, but Mt Fuji is not present, and the boat is considerably larger and has a sail. But the feeling of danger in the wave and the smallness of the boat are here, and of course the general composition is definitely recognizable.

This is A View Of Express Delivery Boats, done in 1805, merely two years later at age 46. Here we find the wave and the boats almost exactly as we'll find them in The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, though Mt Fuji isn't present, and the location is uncertain. And it's a good picture! The wave is threatening, the boats are small -- but the feeling of "ocean" isn't really there yet, is it? It's unlikely this picture would have become a classic for the ages. But that's okay, there's still time.

And here we have it, a full 26 years later, done by Hokusai in 1831 at the age of 72. The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, one of the most recognizable pieces of art in the world. The boats are there, the mountain is there, the wave is there, and the FEELING is there. He did it! He reached the apex of his ongoing motif and theme!

Or did he? Because the whole point of a motif is not that you're striving to get to the perfect version of it, the one idealized image you carried in your head all along, and when it is done, you are also done. Hokusai is on record at the age of 73 saying he'd only just begun to feel like he was learning how to draw things properly, and that "if I keep up my efforts, I will have even a better understanding when I was 80 and by 90 will have penetrated to the heart of things. At 100, I may reach a level of divine understanding, and if I live decades beyond that, everything I paint — dot and line — will be alive." He had drawn The Great Wave, but he didn't believe he was finished -- he thought that he was still just beginning to get started.

And he wasn't finished with his ocean motif, either. Please check out his Mt Fuji At Sea, done in 1834 at the age of 75.

It's all there; Mt Fuji, the ocean, the wave. The boats are gone, but replaced with birds, flying with the wave instead of fighting against it. It's not as famous as The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, but that's not what motifs are for -- each successive work does not have to surpass the previous in terms of success, especially in terms of external success. They're there for you to keep playing with, keep remixing and re-experiencing, for as long as you think you have something to say.

[aropride]

12 years old: i was so cringe when i was nine, i'm super mature now though

15 years old: i was so cringe when i was twelve, i'm super mature now though. i'm a totally different person. i'm basically an adult

18 years old: i was so. (trying to be nicer to myself) fifteen. when i was fifteen. i wasn't an adult even a little back then. i'm an adult now though of course

21 years old: i was so newborn fawn taking its first steps when i was 18. i wasn't an adult at 18 i'm barely even an adult now tbh

23 years old: i was so. hey wait the others have all gone up in increments of three why'd it change

23 years old: because i'm still 23 so i can't speak to that experience yet

23 years old: do you think anything will magically change in the next few months to the point where you can't possibly imagine how you'll feel at 24

23 years old: i mean you never know. anything can happen. they're letting people born in 2002 turn 24, for instance

the mold spores in my house speaking to me telepathically: yeah that's perfect now hit post

[doppelgangerleaverite]

can anyone on this gay ass website give me an opinion on which translation of the epic of gilgamesh i should read? ive been wanting to read it for ages but theres a number of common translations and i know translations can make or break a story; i dont want to start with the wrong one

[gilgamesh-enjoyer]

I've read a few so I can offer recommendations! I started with the Sandars translation, which is a good starting point but a pretty early translation. Benjamin Foster's translation is one of my favourites, and the version I read (Second Norton Critical Edition) includes some really interesting discussion essays with it. Andrew George's translation received an update a couple of years ago so is up to date with Foster's translation, though I prefer how the language flows in Foster's.

I would also recommend Gilgamesh Retold by Jenny Lewis for a translation with a more modern poetic take.

[perrenlore]

GILGAMESH TRANSLATION MASTERPOST:

Benjamin Foster’s Gilgamesh condenses all the different tablets we’ve found together to make one cohesive narrative which is way less intimidating and therefore my go-to if you want something that feels cohesive while also sticking very close to the language of the original. 10/10

Andrew George is the most thorough and up-to-date, and sticks as close to the text as you can get. It does, however, separate out all the different tablets, and feels very unedited in its style. Definitely not a “pretty” version. 10/10 cuz he’s a legend and this is the most definitive scholarly edition but don’t start with it.

Maureen Kovacs has a lovely translation with some very interesting footnotes on word choices. Her Ninsun is absolutely incredible and if you want to cry your eyes out over Gilgamesh’s fate that’s the one for you. It’s one step up from Foster’s in terms of poetic-ness but still pretty close to the original. 8/10

Sophus Helle is more poetic than Kovacs but BRILLIANT, one of my favourite Enkidus and his Shamhat is wonderful. Top favourite of all time. This is a very good starting point. 9/10

I wouldn’t recommend Sandars simply because it’s prose, and also condenses the twelfth tablet into a nice tidy ending that doesn’t really work with the Standard Babylonian narrative. 6/10

Lewis’ Gilgamesh Retold is more of a poetic retelling than a translation; it’s beautiful but definitely not a starting point. Sweet and gentle Enkidu though, very charming. 7/10

Stephen Mitchell I’m not a fan of. He smooths the poem out into something tame and very expected. This is my personal bias but I really dislike his Shamhat. His Enkidu and Gilgamesh are also explicitly more like brothers, which is a valid interpretation but also again not one I lean towards. 5/10

Herbert Mason’s Gilgamesh has some stunning moments in it (Enkidu! They do not know you like I know you!) However it is nowhere near the real text BUT closer than Lewis’. Changes the ending of the poem so it’s about Gilgamesh mourning Enkidu rather than mourning his own mortality; a much sadder conclusion with less resolution than in the Standard Babylonian. 7/10

BONUS ROUND:

Derek Hines’ play GILGAMESH is fucking DERANGED guys. Ten Gilgillion out of ten.

[quieteeks]

I found this a really good perspective on writing VNs for anyone interested!!

[a-silly-poll-side-blog-yay]

the last song you listened to is your battle theme now how is it going

good

bad

great

awful

meh

perfect

results

Voting ended onAug 11