dragonlady7

Getting a weird little hobby is actually so importan

2024-01-26T20:25:35Z

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browniefox https://browniefox.tumblr.com/post/729273254238371840/getting-a-weird-little-hobby-is-actually-so :

Getting a weird little hobby is actually so important bc it opens your eyes up to the world. You start crocheting or knitting, and now you see scarves and sweaters differently. You try identifying plants, now you’re seeing opposite and alternate leaf pattern. Bird watching? Every chirp draws attention and interest.

Get into weird little hobbies. (Your picture was not posted)

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i love laura palmer

2024-01-25T19:25:17Z

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jumpluffdrifting https://jumpluffdrifting.tumblr.com/post/732171475067486208:

simplyjustagirlsblog https://www.tumblr.com/simplyjustagirlsblog/732113084450209792/i-love-laura-palmer :

i love laura palmer (Your picture was not posted)

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wait you understand that kinks are ok because they

2024-01-24T17:25:24Z

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fernwah-funzone https://www.tumblr.com/fernwah-funzone/730824605317677056/like-some-people-work-through-their-personal :

fernwah-funzone https://www.tumblr.com/fernwah-funzone/730824363290640384/wait-you-understand-that-kinks-are-ok-because :

wait you understand that kinks are ok because they’re fantasies that make you happy right? you all get that you don’t need to have trauma for your kinks to be okay? right? like none of you think i witnessed a tragic accident on the pool toy assembly line right?

like “some people work through their personal issues with kink” was a good first step for some of the class that were struggling but i think now we’re ready for “things that don’t hurt anyone and make people happy are okay even if you personally think it’s icky” (Your picture was not posted)

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switchplate covers update/tutorial

2024-01-23T20:25:31Z

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So the thing to keep in mind with this is that we gotta see how well the wear. A switchplate cover is a pretty high-traffic thing, and subject to a lot of wear. If these get too dingy I’m absolutely going to have to go buy fancy ceramic ones or something.

But. That said. Here is my final result, and below the cut is how I did this, partly because I want to remember how it worked LOL.

[Image description: A combo lightswitch/outlet with a black three-prong plug plugged into it, set into a white subway tile wall with a wooden breadboard leaned against it. The plate cover is painted with a mottled effect to look like a turquoise gemstone, complete with inset glitter to mimic the pyrite inclusions found in some raw turquoise.]

A better view of the glitter:

[Image description: Another turquoise-painted outlet faceplate on the background of a rumpled white dropcloth, my fingers visible tilting it toward the light so the flake glitter catches the light from the window.]

So I searched up for tutorials and found a few, each of which was like “can’t believe nobody else has done this”; I’m sharing the most helpful one here. What was thee very most helpful thing, though, was the writer’s pointing out that many different configurations of turquoise exist, so you can just pick a reference image and build off that. I did not in the end come very close to my reference, but decided instead to make it look sick as hell. LOL. I was just having too much fun doing whatever I wanted. So these are not super realistic! But then you wouldn’t… make an outlet faceplate out of real turquoise, so I felt like I wasn’t fooling anyone. Anyway–

How To Paint Faux Turquoise https://martha.net/2016/08/how-to-paint-faux-turquoise/.

So the first thing I did was find some very fine-grit sandpaper (I think I got 320? I found a mostly used-up sheet of it in the basement and just used the unused edge from where it had been fastened around a block, LOL) and went over the whole front surface of each plate I was going to paint, and then I washed them with dishsoap and hot water and dried them with a dish towel, because I figured finger grease, hand dirt, and sanding dust would keep the paint from sticking. I started with white plastic ones, the kind you get for up to a dollar at the hardware store.

Then I got a plastic container lid, put dollops of various of my paint samples in it, dug out the craft paints I got cleaning out Auntie’s basement and the sole tube of acrylics (Mars black) I could still find from the last time I did any painting, and went to town. The first couple, I did the pale shades and let them dry and came back to add the darker marbling. But then I was like, these are latex/acrylic, you don’t have to build them in layers? So I just did the rest of them with all the shading in more or less one pass.

Acrylic art paint and latex housepaint are both water-based, so there’s no conflict with using them intermingled. I’ve combined them before, I used to do a lot of sign painting and it works fine. Housepaint’s runnier, idk. Don’t mix oils and latex, is the thing to keep in mind; they just don’t stick to each other real well.

I went to the art supply store to get some water-based varnish, because all i had was polyurethane and that’s oil-based. It’d probably work as a topcoat but I was worried and the internet’s advice conflicted. I wanted to go get better glitter anyway, so I did. I happen to live near Hyatt’s All Things Creative https://www.hyatts.com/, so I take every excuse I can get to go there.

I bought some sick-ass glitter (over in the resin pouring section, hell yes), and puzzled thru the various offerings. (sassaffrassa https://tmblr.co/MlRJAsk337Gm_STFGiWQpeQ’s advice proved invaluable on this thank u.) I got just– “Gloss varnish acrylic medium”, the Hyatt’s brand, for four dollars and sixty-nine (nice) cents, and then because I was feeling spendy, I also bought Krylon spray-on glossy varnish. Belt and suspenders, y'know? Also to make the brush strokes less obvious.

The critical thing, though, about the gloss varnish, is that it says right on the bottle that you can either incorporate it into the paint as a medium to enhance the sheen, OR brush it over the finished work as a protective coating. Dries absolutely clear. So I knew, THIS is how I’m attaching the glitter. I’d been thinking like, mod podge? elmer’s glue? mix it into the paint? No.

[image description: the gloss varnish bottle. It is this product https://www.hyatts.com/art/hyatt-s-acrylic-8-oz-gloss-varnish-H56210. The relevant text says “can be used either as a medium to enhance the sheen levels of acrylic paint or as an over-varnish on finished artwork to provide a non-tacky, protective gloss coating”.]

So I carefully got open the little bottle of glitter (no sneezing! it was “white gold flake” style and cost eight bucks for like half a gram. to my knowledge it’s not actually made of gold but it was priced like it was) and painted little fine patches of gloss varnish onto the spots I wanted glittered, and then used tweezers to apply glitter just in those spots, and mooshed them around with the little varnish-covered brush until they stuck where I wanted them. (I put them on the darkest bits of the veining, because that was what my source image looked like, mostly. I wanted to be really liberal but then I thought, no, a little pop of glitter is more exciting actually. Still not sure, but it does look good so. They say measure that shit with your heart but I went light because I figured I could add more later, and then I didn’t.)

Then I came back at the end and painted more gloss varnish just over the glitter, just to make sure it was all really stuck down and wouldn’t flake off with wear.

Let that dry for a couple hours, then used a larger brush to spread gloss varnish as evenly as possible over the entirety of each plate. It did leave visible brush strokes, which I didn’t mind. The art shop guy suggested using a really soft brush to minimize that, and I was like “yah sure ok” but then, well, I didn’t, I just used the brush I had.)

But then I let that dry overnight, and in the morning I put the plates all in my giant overspray cardboard box, and gave them each a liberal coating of the spray varnish. (Yes of course I have a giant cardboard box I keep in my basement to spray paint things in. I know it says use in a well-ventilated space but what I do, see, is I do that and then I leave the room, which is almost as good. LOL it’s 24F and snowing I’m not doing it outside.)

That bottle says two hours until handling on it, so I left it two hours, and then I put up the plates that were in spots where the painting was done or wasn’t happening, hence my example image being against a tiled wall.

The screwdriver immediately scratched the first one a little bit, but not super obviously. But I kind of would expect a screwdriver to scratch just about anything, so that doesn’t mean much.

I won’t guarantee how well these’ll hold up but if you were interested in doing something like that, there’s how it worked. (Hi, future me, you’re welcome for writing it down lol.)

I’m sort of sorry for no more process pictures but honestly most of it was following whimsy and doing what I felt like and kind of drawing on what I hadn’t realized was a lot lot lot of hours of past paint-handling in my life, so pictures wouldn’t help anyone else recreate this. But it did remind me that I love to paint and should do that more. So, I’ll try, I guess. (Your picture was not posted)

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[Image descriptions: First tweet by user “jamesmur

2024-01-23T17:25:34Z

while improving your vibes

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shorthistorian https://shorthistorian.tumblr.com/post/737906752884965376/make-this-your-new-years-resolution-i-promise-it :

Make this your New Year’s Resolution. I promise it will pay off.

[Image descriptions: First tweet by user “jamesmurtagh”: “Absolute easiest way to raise your vibration is by saying hello to animals when you pass them. Anyone who scoffs at someone waving to a bird is wallowing in hell. Say hello to a duck and you will naturally attract your dreams.”

quote-tweet and response by user “RoxyTall”: “level this up by adding ‘mister’ to every creature you meet. 'hello mister duck’ 'hi there mister spider’ 'ah mister magpie, god to see you again’ these interactions will bring light to your day” end transcription]

I suggest a further leveling-up by varying the title. not everything you meet is a mister. You may need to research a little to avoid misgendering your wildlife friends, which adds to the interest I think. Knowing that this is a juvenile specimen, or this a female in breeding plumage, really adds. And then you’re not just vibing, you’re also keeping your brain alive by learning about the world. A bird-identifying app opened up my world last year (I use Cornell Ornithology’s “Merlin” app, and the sound ID is amazing, even in a city.) (Your picture was not posted)

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tenowls: Misdirection, let’s try that. “I would

2024-01-22T17:26:08Z

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tenowls https://tenowls.tumblr.com/post/675359726438055936/misdirection-lets-try-that-i-would-have-either :

Misdirection, let’s try that. “I would have either disposed of the body so it was never found, or made it look like an accident.”

been rereading murderbot n have a bunch of scenes i wanna draw!! so here’s a small one from fugitive telemetry to start off :’D (Your picture was not posted)

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kitchen colors

2024-01-22T01:25:50Z

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so ok it’s the weekend and we were snowed in for a week and i’ve done a ton of unpacking but it’s all invisible yay

but dude was making low-key plans for the weekend and i was like NO WE MUST GO TO THE HARDWARE STORE AND GET PAINT SAMPLES

i had to like. drag him to look at the paint chips idk why it was so difficult.

So we haggled and hemmed and hawed and held chips up in various spots and eliminated almost everything I’d brought home. Nothing would do as the accent color. But the wall color… we narrowed it down to Behr’s Thai Teal, Celtic Queen, or Bella Vista. Celtic Queen was their pthalo-est green; Thai Teal and Bella Vista are almost the same except Thai Teal is dustier and Bella Vista clearer. Dude felt the cabinets having a dusty cast meant the wall should do, and I strongly felt the opposite. He yielded to my intensity of feeling on this.

But none of the colors I’d picked out were suitable as a trim color to pair with either of the teals or the green, so we’d have to go look. A lime green, perhaps, or a bright orange?

I also felt that painting the bay windowsill a strong color was the wrong choice, so we decided it should be a high-gloss white, but of course a shade of white that didn’t clash with the white countertop. Not having a sample of countertop, I instead brought a spare backsplash tile with me to the hardware store, so I could tell what color of white I needed (ugh).

Thus ensued Hell: Trying to pick which of the hundred colors of white would match the tile without being too obviously not-white (which would clash with the white-white plastic of the electrical outlets and the plastic window frames, which I am not painting. The outlet and switch plates are getting painted or replaced with something decorative, sure, but the actual bit you put the plugs into is staying as it is, I’m not painting that shit). But, fortunately, Dude comes of graphic designer types, and came through for me.

[image: a man’s hands, holding a white subway tile and several basically-white paint chips, in front of a hardware store display of paint chips in every shade imaginable of white, beige, black, or gray. This is my idea of hell.]

We tried lime green with the teal. It looked banger as fuck, but the only problem was, it also looked exactly like a really classic IKEA duvet cover pattern from about 2000. I could not paint my kitchen to look like the duvet cover Dude had when we met. That is not going to work out, psychically.

I picked a brilliant orange, and also hated it. It looked like… the 1970s. it looked. Too much. It popped but like, in a slightly upsetting way. it was giving Miami vibes, in an early-90s kind of way.

I dithered, and finally Dude went and picked a less red orange, in fact called Joyful Orange. That looked much better, and I got sample pots of Joyful Orange and Bella Vista to take home. (They are SEVEN DOLLARS each can you believe. Ah well.)

[image description: In the center of the photo, a section of wall trim is painted bright yellow-orange, next to a section of wall painted deep teal. To the right, a blue-washed cabinet corner, the white tile backsplash, and a section of counter with the tea kettle on it; to the left is the paler yellow in the distance of the living room, with a bunch of blurry stuff piled in the middle of the room.]

It’s. Sort of parrot colors? But it’s bright and it’s bold. I like it in every lighting situation. So I think this is what I’m going with.

And then for the outlet covers, I got one lighter shade of turquoise, and then dug out my craft paints. I bought a couple of spare outlet covers at the hardware store– forty-eight cents apiece? I’d be crazy not to– lightly buffed them with some fine sandpaper, and went to town. This is just the first layer, once it dries I’m going to go back over and try to add realistic veining and like metallic glitter and such to make them look like turquoise gemstone material.

[image: lying on a crinkled paper towel, a US-style outlet cover is mottled in shades of turquoise paint, in an irregularly-textured pattern.]

Ah maybe I should do a layer of clear coat and then do the veining? We’ll see. I’m not sure. (Your picture was not posted)

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I’ve had a hard time articulating to people just h

2024-01-21T17:25:13Z

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saja-star https://saja-star.tumblr.com/post/738251598578565120/ive-had-a-hard-time-articulating-to-people-just :

I’ve had a hard time articulating to people just how fundamental spinning used to be in people’s lives, and how eerie it is that it’s vanished so entirely. It occurred to me today that it’s a bit like if in the future all food was made by machine, and people forgot what farming and cooking were. Not just that they forgot how to do it; they had never heard of it.

When they use phrases like “spinning yarns” for telling stories or “heckling a performer” without understanding where they come from, I imagine a scene in the future where someone uses the phrase “stir the pot” to mean “cause a disagreement” and I say, did you know a pot used to be a container for heating food, and stirring was a way of combining different components of food together? “Wow, you’re full of weird facts! How do you even know that?”

When I say I spin and people say “What, like you do exercise bikes? Is that a kind of dancing? What’s drafting? What’s a hackle?” it’s like if I started talking about my cooking hobby and my friend asked “What’s salt? Also, what’s cooking?” Well, you see, there are a lot of stages to food preparation, starting with planting crops, and cooking is one of the later stages. Salt is a chemical used in cooking which mostly alters the flavor of the food but can also be used for other things, like drawing out moisture…

“Wow, that sounds so complicated. You must have done a lot of research. You’re so good at cooking!” I’m really not. In the past, children started learning about cooking as early as age five (“Isn’t that child labor?”), and many people cooked every day their whole lives (“Man, people worked so hard back then.”). And that’s just an average person, not to mention people called “chefs” who did it professionally. I go to the historic preservation center to use their stove once or twice a week, and I started learning a couple years ago. So what I know is less sophisticated than what some children could do back in the day.

“Can you make me a snickers bar?” No, that would be pretty hard. I just make sandwiches mostly. Sometimes I do scrambled eggs. “Oh, I would’ve thought a snickers bar would be way more basic than eggs. They seem so simple!”

Haven’t you ever wondered where food comes from? I ask them. When you were a kid, did you ever pick apart the different colored bits in your food and wonder what it was made of? “No, I never really thought about it.” Did you know rice balls are called that because they’re made from part of a plant called rice? “Oh haha, that’s so weird. I thought ‘rice’ was just an adjective for anything that was soft and white.”

People always ask me why I took up spinning. Isn’t it weird that there are things we take so much for granted that we don’t even notice when they’re gone? Isn’t it strange that something which has been part of humanity all across the planet since the Neanderthals is being forgotten in our generation? Isn’t it funny that when knowledge dies, it leaves behind a ghost, just like a person? Don’t you want to commune with it? (Your picture was not posted)

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Likewise, there are more gradations of fashion for w

2024-01-20T17:25:56Z

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amuseoffyre https://amuseoffyre.tumblr.com/post/738578973389471744/i-dont-think-you-can-talk-about-makeup :

axiomschema https://axiomschema.tumblr.com/post/180350747292/i-dont-think-you-can-talk-about-makeup :

carrionthrash http://carrionthrash.tumblr.com/post/180348539010/i-dont-think-you-can-talk-about-makeup :

penguinsandpride http://penguinsandpride.tumblr.com/post/180348347803/i-dont-think-you-can-talk-about-makeup :

carrionthrash http://carrionthrash.tumblr.com/post/180348210145/i-dont-think-you-can-talk-about-makeup :

I don’t think you can talk about makeup politically without talking about economic oppression. Women are expected to spend thousands a year on cosmetics (and other stuff likeclothing, health supplements, etc) when men aren’t. This isn’t just because of social pressure, it’s required by employers implictly or explicitly the majority of the time. Women are expected to put in an extra hour, if not more, work every day for no compensation before they even leave the house. Class society props up everything else

I think this really heavily applies to a lot of other appearance-related purchases as well, which you did mention but I think it is worth emphasising.

Men can wear the same suit for a week and no one will bat an eyelid, but a woman wearing the same outfit for multiple days in a professional setting is seen as unprofessional, not to mention that most women’s clothes are more expensive and less practical, especially when it comes to pockets, which requires us to get bags, which again is more cost.

Yeah absolutely!! Thank you for this addition! Stuff like this is why eliminating the wage gap between men and women won’t actually eliminate gendered economic inequality (especially when women are expected to be the some caregivers of children which is even more unpaid labour)

The expectation that women spend all of this additional money and devote all of this additional time also serves to further stratify women across class lines. These expectations put women who are already economically disenfranchised at a even more pronounced disadvantage. It further solidifies class barriers for women and makes it even harder for women to accumulate wealth or overcome debt, which increases women’s economic dependency on men and makes their labor more exploitable.

Not only is womens’ clothing more expensive/impractical, it is often made with thinner/lower quality material. Even just compare and contrast the fabric used in a simple t-shirts or trousers in many high-street shops and see how transparent and thin the womenswear is compared to a basic t-shirt or trousers from the men’s department. Subsequently, the clothes wear out faster and have to be replaced more regularly, which chips away even more at the income.

Likewise, there are more gradations of fashion for women. For a man, the same trousers could be worn for a formal, business casual, or casual occasion. For a woman, she would likely be expected to wear very different outfits for those three gradations. And fashions change faster for women; trousers that still fit her just fine may become dated over the course of her career, if she even found any that were made of sturdy enough material to last, simply because the expected cut of trousers subtly changed over that time, but menswear does not change in the same ways except for very trendy looks only young men will wear in casual contexts. My partner will go from his daytime business-casual look to a more formal appearance for going out to dinner just by tucking in the same shirt he was already wearing into the trousers he already had on, but I will have had to change clothes entirely, possibly down to the undergarments (shapewear, or a bra that suits the eveningwear’s neckline) and also the handbag, which has to match the outfit and occasion or you look sloppy. He owns two pairs of shoes, plus a pair of winter boots in deference to the season; even with minimal concessions to fashion I still have thrice that many.

I was fired from a job for not expending enough effort on my wardrobe. This was not a customer-facing job. But I didn’t show enough ‘respect’ to the workplace because I wore the same five outfits all the time. Yes really. The company founder’s hygeine was so poor we had special protocols for not having to meet with him in his office, but I did laundry frequently to rewear the same (apparently, unfashionable) skirt and I was the problem.

yeah I wear makeup only because i like it, sure, ha ha (Your picture was not posted)

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opening up my own fanfiction document on my personal laptop to see if the author has updated it yet

2024-01-19T17:26:02Z

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ohhgingersnaps https://ohhgingersnaps.tumblr.com/post/679257635549298688/opening-up-my-own-fanfiction-document-to-see-if :

opening up my own fanfiction document on my personal laptop to see if the author has updated it yet (Your picture was not posted)

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new chapter!!!

2024-01-19T14:26:01Z

sitting

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In which Finn is one of those delightful little autists that make the world go around, and also there’s some lesbian sex, Morvran being pathetic, and Teofina gossiping with Geralt.

Fit For Thrones Chapter 6, on AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/50801218/chapters/134483206

“But we need General Voorhis to come and be measured,” Finn went on, “so we can give him the same treatment. Well, not the same. He’ll have different fitting needs, I expect.” “He is rather a different shape than Luliana,” Ciri said, amused. “Very,” Finn said. “And to be fair, he is of a shape that typically-designed trousers do tend to fit adequately, so it will be less dramatic of a change for him. But I also, well, I think– I think he–” “I think he would be a wonderful demonstration of your notions of superior fit,” Ciri said, rescuing Finn from where he had clearly tangled himself in his words in his excitement. “Yes,” Finn said, gesturing emphatically but rather vaguely. “Finn,” Solana said quietly, coming back into the room with another armload of garments. Finn visibly deflated, reining himself in with a grimace of chagrin. “Oh,” Ciri said, “don’t yell at him, I love his enthusiasm about this.” “Good,” Solana said. “I just worry, it’s a little technical for most people.” Finn sat down, studiously laying out the muslin pattern pieces he’d been gesticulating with. “I do get worked-up,” he admitted. “Don’t apologize,” Ciri said. “I’m perfectly capable of asking you to change the subject if I lose interest.” (Your picture was not posted)

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interested in your thoughts on the casting of Laurence Fishbone as Regis ? As someone who likes the

2024-01-18T17:26:02Z

that invested in actors, and despite being a fan i'm not that invested in the series, genuinely they can do what they like and i hope it's entertaining, asks answered

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I am a fan of Laurence Fishburne and have been impressed by him in every media property in which I have seen him perform. In terms of his appearance and demeanor-- well, Regis is only pretty minimally described in the books, and i think the most vivid description of him is at one point when he's at a dinner in a black velvet coat "looking very much like a vampire". I will say I'm glad they're casting people of color for not just villain roles (is it a spoiler that Vilgefortz is a huge villain? no we're to that point now in the show right?)-- I mean, in their defense, basically everyone in the novels is morally gray at best but it was a bit yikes to realize that the whitest actors are playing the characters we're most supposed to sympathize with and they both racebent Yennefer and gave her more morally-dubious things to do at the same time. Thanks guys. Regis is... has his dark past but at least he's unambiguously A Dude The Narrative Likes. You know? It's kind of a relief.

But my attitude toward the Netflix show is very much that I've taken what I needed and they can do whatever they like and I will probably watch it and enjoy some of the things, and I will probably hate some of the things, and that's just how it goes.

I'd love if he went more of a Cowboy Curtis direction with this than Morpheus, but again, they'll do what they want with this, and I'll enjoy what I enjoy and be annoyed by what annoys me and that's that. I'm not very like.... normal in my fannishness, but I also don't have a great visual imagination, so I have no concrete notion of what I expected Regis to look or sound like. Laurence Fishburne may well wind up fitting it perfectly and being my headcanon henceforth when I reread the books! I do like when that happens.

(Speaking of show stuff, I recently reread my whole Trust series with Keira and Lambert and man now that I've seen show!Keira I regret that she wasn't introduced until after I wrote all that, because I love her look SO much more than the video game character. However, the video game character being so obviously a male fantasy (and a boring one, at that) of what a sorceress might look like is kind of integral to the characterization in that series, so it's not like I could change it if I wanted. Ha maybe I should have Keira settle her appearance on show!Keira's as she's learning to like herself, that'd be kind of funny.) (Your picture was not posted)

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writing

2024-01-18T14:25:29Z

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So this whole time I’ve been on break– farm work ended at Thanksgiving and I came home and have been doing basically nonstop house work since then– I haven’t done much writing. I’ve sat down a few times and banged on things but have achieved little. But yesterday was a snow day and Dude was wfh set up in the kitchen, and so I couldn’t really do work on that room, and it was fucking Freezing so i wasn’t going to do tidying work in the attic (which is where I need to tidy next so things can get moved), and I said y'know what I’m gonna spend it writing. so I posted myself at the desk in the back room for like twelve hours and I have managed now to join up some disconnected bits through what I think will be the actual end of FFT, and begin the sequel. (I’m trying not to have any one work be like, So Huge, and I always try and always fail but. Listen there should be story breaks.)

I might change my mind, but as it stands now FFT is nine chapters total, of which I’ve posted uhhh four or five, and then the next thing I have a bunch of and am excited to get to the next part of.

so I have promised myself I can post a snippet (and a chapter tomorrow!) so let me find something. Probably something short so it’s not spoilery.

This is likely from FFT’s sequel but again let’s see where the chips fall.

“What are you doing?” Luliana asked. Ciri grinned, then darted a glance at Morvran. “Now, that’d be telling,” she said. Geralt sighed eloquently. “Please don’t make the head of the Intelligence Bureau think you’re engaged in subterfuge,” he said to the ceiling. “His job is hard enough.” “It is,” Luliana put in, a little reproachfully. But Morvran rolled his eyes, an uncharacteristically unrestrained gesture from him. “It’s not sedition if you do it,” he said. “Subterfuge all you want. It’s none of my business to tell you what’s in the national interest or not. It’s just that when I don’t know about it, it’s hard for me to make coherent reports to prove we’re doing it on purpose, which is my job. And I certainly can’t requisition you military support if I’m not informed of the need for it.” (Your picture was not posted)

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disturbing

2024-01-18T12:26:05Z

know how, so i'm posting about it instead, it's not like a blog i can link to, it's their fucking automated suggestions i can't opt out of, if i type it now it doesn't come up, because i have no idea what criteria they use for this, it's clearly contextual in some way, what are they analyzing idk, what about my blog led their shitty algo to decide i'm into that, idk but it's upsetting as fuck, and here we are worrying about fictional depictions of shit omg

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I was writing a post and at the end I was adding tags, as I do, and I typed the singular first person pronoun, I, and a list of tags popped up as suggestions that took me the fuck out. It was so disturbing I took a screenshot.

[image ID: a list of suggested tags, screenshotted. It’s titled “popular” and the list is “I want to [star emoji]ve” “i wanna lose weight” “i sell content” “i love him”]

I wanna star-emoji-ve???? Well there’s some pro-ana shit for you.

I don’t know if the kids these days remember this but back in Livejournal around the era of strikethrough (the ‘07-'09 time period is where I remember noticing it) there was a movement to censor pro-self-harm blogs, that were support groups mostly supporting one another in more and more extreme anorexic/self-destructive/eating-disordered behaviors.

This is absolutely that. And they were like “it’s self-expression” and everyone else in the world was like “it is actually a toxic encouragement of self-harm” because they were like, concretely instructing one another and recruiting vulnerable people to join them in ways to literally starve to death, they were support groups for killing yourself more or less, and so those tags would occasionally get banned or delisted or removed from search or whatever, but remember this was very early in the history of such things, and there was no algorithm. But people did use the browsing of blogs’ “interests” to find one another, it was a feature of how Livejournal worked, and there wasn’t a lot of moderation but the deactivation or delisting of those self-harm-encouraging tags were a hotly-contested bit of debate.

And so they got more creative, and found other ways to find one another, and people starved to death or otherwise irreparably damaged their bodies and their mental health and so on. I cannot emphasize enough, this was not fiction. These were not fictional stories depicting fictional scenarios that weren’t happening, these were real people posting stories and encouragement and photographs of their real selves, showing off how much damage to themselves they were doing, concretely encouraging one another to do the same. This was not fiction.

But they kept finding new ways to talk about it so it couldn’t be censored.

And then LJ deleted blogs for posting about fiction instead, and we all kind of forgot about it and moved on.

Highly displeased to find that it’s all alive and well on Tumblr, to the point that it’s the number one suggestion when I type the fucking first-person pronoun into the tag field, and I can’t opt out of seeing that. COOL. (Your picture was not posted)

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law idea: products that are not currently and will n

2024-01-17T17:26:13Z

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transarsonist https://transarsonist.tumblr.com/post/734446835029180416/law-idea-products-that-are-not-currently-and-will :

law idea: products that are not currently and will not be purchasable from the parent company for the foreseeable future are not counted as “copywritten” in regard to the sharing, reproduction, and other “piracy” claims in court of law.

if you aren’t selling them your customer doesn’t have to buy

this is in regards to all copyright, if someone starts a factory producing clones of iPhone and iMac chips for the purpose of repairing devices, that’s not copyright infringement, because apple does not sell those chips :)

if they want to keep their copyright they can put their repair chips on the public market, continue matinance of old products, etc

Nintendo will hate this law the most I’m sure.

widows is surprisingly robust to this law as you can actually buy every copy of windows ever produced right now on windows website, albeit you might have a hard time finding it because they’d PERfer you didn’t.

streaming companies dropping original content from their service for tax purposes can expect to find it on YouTube the next day for free no ads

I think you all will be able to see how this will have a hotting effect on the market, where as now copyright holders have the power to delete content from the legal sphere, under this law they cannot do that. they can sell it themselves or they can give it away for free.

no more manufactured scarcity for the sake of inflating already inflated prices (Your picture was not posted)

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Something like this exists in Celtic music too. I’

2024-01-16T17:25:31Z

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roach-works https://roach-works.tumblr.com/post/738129399423074304/although-dithering-already-has-a-meaning-as-an :

airedelalmena https://airedelalmena.tumblr.com/post/727757376743145472/something-like-this-made-its-way-into-european :

thegaymertrainer https://thegaymertrainer.tumblr.com/post/720771044398530560/thats-so-cool-to-see-it-explained :

That’s SO cool to see it explained

Something like this made its way into european music in flamenco via gitanos/romani people whose origin was ultimately in india

although ‘dithering’ already has a meaning as an audio term, in pixel art it’s a way to produce gradients by alternating very different tones:

in this way you get a whole range of shades with only two color values. the indian musicians are doing the same thing with sound, a pixelized gradient of scale. it’s extremely cool.

Something like this exists in Celtic music too. I’ve only seen it notated in bagpipe music, where “grace notes” are written as 1/32nd notes, but my dad was a piper and explained to me that while they’re written as 1/32nd they don’t actually take up any time, you could have 32 of them and they still wouldn’t take up a whole note.

It’s just a little flip or dither of the notes around the note upon which you’re going to settle. I haven’t studied it formally, but you hear it in pibroch-style pipe music– a solo bagpipe, as opposed to the massed formations of them you mostly get with pipe band competitions etc– and you hear it in sean nos style singing. Both instruments, the pipes and the human voice, as performed this way, make use of ornamentation rather than western-style dynamics, the pipes because you can’t make them louder or softer, and the voice because that’s just the style– when you want to express greater emotion in a phrase, you add ornamentation to it, rather than getting louder.

But, again, I only know it from listening, I haven’t studied it formally and don’t know what it’s called. (Your picture was not posted)

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inspections

2024-01-16T16:25:45Z

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in terms of the kitchen remodel we are still waiting on like five pieces of trim and the door of one cabinet. so we’re to the final details phase. which means the electrical and plumbing inspectors from the town have to come by.

the plumbing inspector came by and was super friendly and funny and was like “i guess i gotta run some water, i’ll feel silly if i don’t and there was a problem, but mostly i mean, if there was a problem you’d probably have noticed right?” and i was like yeah fair enough, wanna look at the gas lines they moved? and he was like oh i guess i will, sure. Super low-key.

The electrical inspector was similarly chill but he looked grimly up at the smoke detector they’d put up in not the place I’d expected them to, and said “that’s. not where that goes.” I said “it goes off all the time” and he was like “yeah it’s way too close to the stove, I would not have put it there. But the problem is, you need there to be a carbon monoxide sensor within fifteen feet of your bedrooms, and the closer bedroom is seventeen feet that way.”

Sure enough. It’s the right kind of smoke detector but it’s in the wrong place.

I looked up the manufacturer’s instructions and they say to put it 20 feet from the main cooking appliance. Ten if that’s not possible, but preferably 20. I measured, and it’s eight feet from the stove. I can’t get emojis to insert but this is the upside-down smiley, right here.

So the hallway location would have been completely fine for that, and in fact better. And that’s where I had pointed out that they should put it, and that’s where Jim had said they’d put it, and it’s where I fully believed they were putting it until they finished the job.

So I’m displeased and have to psych myself up to call Jim and break the news to him, that it’s not just that I could put another sensor up and be good– the one they put in is just plain in the wrong place. I don’t know if they can properly move it, they hard-wired the communication wire to the basement alarm, and I don’t know if they can fish that through the ceiling that direction. (They can’t, I’m one thousand percent sure the joists go the other way.)

But the alarm they installed, which cost me extra outside of the five figures of work done on the kitchen, is incorrectly located, and meets neither the manufacturer’s guidelines nor town building codes. So I gotta put my big girl panties on and complain about that. I’d been preparing myself to just suck it up and set the smoke detector off every time I cooked but realizing that it’s absolutely not supposed to be there has removed my last shred of putting up with that shit.

Hell fucking no. Now, how to say that nicely???? deep breath I can do it. Polite but firm.

On another note– I went out of town for the weekend and got stuck there because of the snow, and finally made it back Monday morning, and when I texted the family groupchat that I’d made it home my mom was like “great!” and then literally one minute later was like “so what color are you painting your kitchen” so understand that y'all are not the only ones waiting to find out.

LOL any color would workkkkkk so I gotta pick one and do it. But probably not this week, as today’s the last break in the weather and then we’re supposed to get absolutely slammed with snow. (Your picture was not posted)

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Yeah the thing is this site sometimes disincentivize

2024-01-15T17:25:36Z

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daisywords https://daisywords.tumblr.com/post/708192351121735680/btw-i-know-ppl-on-this-site-go-on-abt-mutuals-but :

btw I know ppl on this site go on abt mutuals but if you are someone that shows up in my notes regularly who I don’t follow, I do notice and I am fond of you and if you reblog something from me I do think “YES I have pleased the follower with good taste”

Yeah the thing is this site sometimes disincentivizes following someone back. There are users who are fantastic curators, who rebog extremely well-curated selections of things, who are instrumental to the site’s functions, but– I already follow everyone they’re reblogging, if I follow them back I’m going to have to wade through even more redundant stuff. It’s not like in the LJ days, where you’d friend someone to read their posts– it’s all reblogs on here, people rarely post their own things, so the majority of users mostly reblog things. which if you already have a lot in common with them, you’ve already seen.

So the structure of the site itself makes “mutuals” less of a reasonable thing than traditionally on other sites.

So if I don’t follow you back that doesn’t mean I don’t see you in my mentions and appreciate you, it’s just that it doesn’t make a ton of sense. I sort of wish this site didn’t flag mutuals for you, because a lot of people I follow are not people I expect to follow me, and a lot of people who follow me are not people I’m going to follow back. it’s not designed for that kind of relationship. Like– you reblog everything I post? Great, cheers, love it, but I don’t… need to read it because I already did??? Anyway it’s weird.

I do have a lot of followers with good taste who I appreciate but don’t follow back. Because that’s sort of the only sensible way to use this site. (Your picture was not posted)

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sweaty-confetti:idk y’all should treat fat men bet

2024-01-14T17:25:46Z

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sweaty-confetti https://www.tumblr.com/sweaty-confetti/724356366437957632/idk-yall-should-treat-fat-men-better-and-i-dont :

idk y’all should treat fat men better. and i don’t mean mildly chubby guys i mean honest-to-god love-handles-and-double-chins fat guys. stop calling them shit like discord mods or gross weebs or nasty creeps or neckbeards or that they’re stinky or sweaty or beer bellied or whatever else. fatphobia isn’t cute, even repackaged in a neat little box of “ew men” (Your picture was not posted)

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Something I wish a lot of people understood is that

2024-01-13T20:25:35Z

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ghostonly https://ghostonly.tumblr.com/post/732589503855919104/something-i-wish-a-lot-of-people-understood-is :

Something I wish a lot of people understood is that just because I mention wanting to do something completely doable doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Not to speak for us all, but I’ve got ADHD. I’m almost entirely made up of “I’m gonna"s and "we should"s and "it would be so fun to"s and "one day"s and almost all of it means absolutely nothing.

Wanna know why?

Because when your to-do queue is 700 items deep and you add five new things to it each day, according to priority, almost all of it is never going to happen, even if you would really like it to. There’s just not enough time in the world.

So!! If you’re friends or lovers with someone like me and you keep wondering if that thing they said is ever going to happen, please ask them.

Because, personally, there is a good chance that if I suggested something would be fun to do with a friend and then didn’t follow up on it within the week, I didn’t know you were actually that interested, and/or completely forgot about it, and/or it got swallowed by the higher priority to-do items in the queue. If you ask me about it and say you really wanted to do that, your personal investment is going to make that item jump the queue by like 95%

Sincerely, a guy with so much ADHD (Your picture was not posted)

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Somewhat on the vibe of “your glorious revolution

2024-01-12T21:25:43Z

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amaditalks https://amaditalks.tumblr.com/post/737870269629267968/theres-nothing-radical-leftist-or-anarchist :

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Somewhat on the vibe of “your glorious revolution doesn’t exist,” I want to talk to you all, especially the young folks, about effective anarchism.

Spoiler alert, it’s not blowing stuff up or arson.

I am considered the most anarchical person of all among my friends. Granted, most of my experience has been wreaking anarchy against the systems present in my high school and college, but the principles are the same.

Practical anarchy is not the big, flashy, romanticizable thing people online make it out to be. It’s more about the long haul - digging in your teeth and just being a menace that no one can really get rid of.

Everyone’s “Why vote when you can firebomb a Walmart” posts (that they don’t follow through on) are just not pratical because this is a surveillance society. With CCTV and DNA testing and cell phone cameras and GPS tracking, if you do something big like that, you are GOING to be caught; then that is the end of your anarchical career. And, keep in mind that you might get caught while you’re setting up this big event - it’s a crime to blow up a Walmart and also a crime to conspire to blow up a Walmart, so your career in anarchy might end before it begins, and then you are permanently out of the game. No matter what causes you were working for that inspired you to do something big and violent that you thought would get someone’s attention, you now can’t help at all ever again in your entire life. What you did will be a passing headline on the news, and then everything will go back to exactly what it was because big, acute actions can’t compare in effectiveness to small, constant actions (just being a thorn in the side of the system, poking and poking, but unable to be dislodged).

This is just the practical side of it too: think about the risk of hurting innocents if you really advocate for doing things like that. You think blowing up a Walmart would really make a dent in that big of a corporation? But if you intentionally or unintentionally kill a bunch of Walmart shoppers, that’s going to devastate families that had nothing to do with whatever your cause is.

So all that big talk about violence and destruction: not practical, not effective, not ethical.

The only way I’ve started to change oppressive systems around me is by justing chipping away from within the confines of the rules of these systems, and/or only stepping just outside them (never breaking rules in a big way that could have allowed said system to easily and “justifiably” get rid of me).

So if you’re going to be an anarchist, you need to consider:

Having the longest career in anarchism possible (i.e. being careful enough and judicious with your actions so that you don’t get expelled from the system you wish to fight).

And then for any given anarchical plan:

Potential consequences.
Insurance.

I’ll give you an example. I had serious beef with the culture of my college’s science department. Students were constantly overworked, and if they expressed their misery outloud or reached out to any of their professors about their struggles, they got apathetic responses if not direct insults to their abilities or dedication. I had too many similar disparaging interactions with professors in one week, and I realized a lot of the responses I was getting were just the result of professors not really knowing how they sounded when they said certain things to students (ex: If someone says they’re struggling with a course, don’t IMMEDIATELY respond with “change your major,” - you can give that as an option, but if you make it your first suggestion, the implication to the student is that if they’re having any trouble with the course, they’re not good enough for the program).

So I wrote up a flier of examples of good and bad ways to respond to students having anxiety with explanations and distributed it to every professor in the department. Everyone who knew about this perceived it as a great personal risk - that I would get in some kind of unspecified trouble or piss off an important professor, so before embarking on this project, I considered…

Potential consequences: I couldn’t really think of any specific college or department rules I could be violating. People postered and handed out fliers in the department all the time. What I was doing fell pretty clearly under freedom of speech. I just shoved the fliers under professors’ doors, so I didn’t trespass in anyone’s office. Worst I could think is that individual professors would get mad at me and make my life difficult, or I’d simply be told to stop fliering in the department.

Insurance: Just in case there were any consequences that I didn’t think of and to insure me against the ones I had thought of, I didn’t put my name on the flier. It was typed in Word, something everyone had access to. I came in to do it after professors had all left for the day but before I needed to use my ID to get into the building (no electronic record of me being there). I took the elevator to the first floor offices because the stairs require ID swipe after 5pm, but the elevators do not. I found out the building had no cameras by asking about it on the grounds that something of mine had been stolen a few weeks prior. I shoved the flier under the doors of dark offices and left it outside offices with lights on (so that no one would come out and spot me). And here’s one of the most important pieces of insurance: I put up a few of the fliers on public bulletin boards in the building. This was important so that if I slipped up and said something that conveyed that I had knowledge of the content of the flier, I would have an excuse for that, i.e., I read it on the bulletin board before class this morning.

And then I did the thing. And surprisingly, it was incredibly well-received by professors. A few who knew that the flier must have been mine (because of previous, similar anarchical actions rumored to be associated with me) told me that everyone was RELIEVED that they finally had an instruction manual from the student perspective on what the hell they’re supposed to say when one of their students is panicking. It sparked a real change in the vibe of the department and student experience. Had it instead pissed people off, I would have simply said I could not claim authorship of the flier but had read it and thought it contained good ideas then gone on creating more anarchy while angry people grasped at the zero straws I had left them to pin the action on me.

That’s an example of a single action I took that was part of a much longer (~3 years) campaign of mine to change the culture of my department. Everytime I did something in that campaign, I made that consequences vs. insurance calculation to make sure they couldn’t expell me from the program, the department, or the school before I succeeded.

There’s nothing radical, leftist, or anarchist about tearing things down and destroying things and being nihilistic.

The motto is: stay low and build. Do things that help people organize and create a better life, even in small ways, and stay inconspicuous while you do. Don’t look for glory, don’t look for fireworks, look for impact. Results. Change. (Your picture was not posted)

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chapter update!

2024-01-12T17:25:29Z

sitting

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chapter 5 of Fit For Thrones is on AO3 now! https://archiveofourown.org/works/50801218/chapters/134051443

in which there are mild morvran and lu shenanigans, which are now my favorite thing to write

i can’t put in a blurb because the cat is mercilessly on me because it’s cold, lol. (Your picture was not posted)

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All I need is for someone to gently cup my face and

2024-01-11T19:26:06Z

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raccoonboywrites https://raccoonboywrites.tumblr.com/post/737791711984664576:

certainstudentdreamer https://www.tumblr.com/certainstudentdreamer/735530918264160256/all-i-need-is-for-someone-to-gently-cup-my-face :

All I need is for someone to gently cup my face and tell me I’m not as doomed as I feel.

reblog to gently cup your mutual’s face and tell them they’re not as doomed as they feel (Your picture was not posted)

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Forgive my desperate urgency but you are The Person

2024-01-11T05:25:53Z

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A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION DESERVING OF SERIOUS CONTEMPLATION

So dragonborn are descended directly from chromatic/metallic/gem dragons in some way (the exact way is a point of theological contention). The difference between those three dragon types is, to the best of my limited knowledge, not germane to the discussion. I will consider dragons as a single category. [[MORE]]

Dragons are definitely not reptiles. They are warm-blooded and they act like cats. I do not actually think the cat thing is relevant to them being reptiles or not, Forgotten Realms wiki, but thank you anyways. So they are not like crocodiles, but are they like birds? Probably not. Although they did evolve from proto-dragon species which were among the few survivors of the cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs. Much like birds! (Or maybe they were created by the gods. Whatever. I’m not getting into a Faerûnian creationism debate. Anyways, in this context only, por qué no los dos.)

Dragons are preferentially carnivorous, but functionally omnivorous, with an emphasis on the omni. They can eat and digest just about anything, including inorganic materials. This ability is because of their “innate elemental nature”, which kind of makes me think dragons don’t really have digestive systems as we know them. They’re more like great primordial engines. I think this precludes gizzards in the dragons themselves — how would they get stones in their gizzards if their digestive system can break down stone? What would they even use them for? So if dragonborn have gizzards, they did not get them from the dragons.

Dragonborn do not seem to usually be capable of regularly digesting rocks, so if they swallow inorganic matter it should stay where it’s put. Baby dragonborn are born toothless and are fed by a lactating parent (dragonborn → monotremes??) until they grow teeth, and then are graduated through soft foods up to regular food (consisting of much more meat than your average humanoid). They are capable of digesting non-meat foods, but it doesn’t look like they have the dentition to chew non-meat foods. Which is why birds of just about all diets have gizzards — they don’t got no teeth! I’m going to go with either dragonborn have trouble eating vegetarian meals, as they have no grinding molars, or they do have gizzards. Courtesy of whatever primeval force or deity created them, maybe.

I also considered whether, if dragonborn are normally gizzardless, the Dark Urge specifically might have been created with special dietary capabilities, but you don’t need a gizzard for, say, osteophagy. (Notably, the only primarily osteophagous bird, the bearded vulture, has lost its gizzard.) And I feel like the other things animals use gizzards to digest are not quite On Theme, as it were. However, they might possibly, like bearded vultures, have a hardened, partially keratinized digestive lining for dramatic osteophagy (involving sharp broken-off pieces of bones).

On a different hand, dragonborn manifest draconic abilities at different levels, ranging from different or multiple breath weapons, dragonfear, or abilities from Bahamut or Tiamat. I wonder if some dragonborn, maybe those with particularly strong breath weapons (since the breath weapons are formed from elemental energy produced by dragons’ unique diets), might also manifest the ability to Just Eat Fucking Rocks. Not a glamorous ability! But very fun I think! Possibly more fun for dragonborn which do not natively have gizzards, as having a sort of elemental furnace in their belly instead of a stomach would then enable them to more comfortably eat food like salads.

On another totally different hand, polymorphed dragons (or not polymorphed, if you’re not a coward) are supposed to be able to hybridize with most of the humanoids, producing children that may take after either or both parents, and aarakocra and kenku are Right There. I mean, not in BG3, but, y’know. Half-dragons and dragonborn are different, but still interesting.

Also, dragons in the Forgotten Realms taste like turkey. I don’t know what you can do with this information but I feel like you would enjoy knowing it

YES Na ha ha i am delighted by this answer, which really boils down to my favorite kind of answer, which is "yes! if it's funny/ suits your purpose", which is how i like to interact with any canon.

(Saskia's decorative bone china plate of lovingly-selected shiny rocks as a digestive aid set out for her at dinner IS getting incorporated into the P-T timeline, it just hasn't come up yet. It will, have zero fear.)

We're all just into BG3 for the vibes and in my case, for the excellent shitposting potential. (Your picture was not posted)

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People don’t understand that the US HAD A COMPREHE

2024-01-10T20:25:40Z

damage, and racist urban planning in general, this was taken from us, we had it once, history

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catboymothman https://catboymothman.tumblr.com/post/738543857163272192/so-wait-were-the-tracks-not-in-use-at-all-or :

amtrak-official https://amtrak-official.tumblr.com/post/738543114474668032/also-the-alternative-is-more-highways-which :

amtrak-official https://amtrak-official.tumblr.com/post/738542740358447104/so-do-people-realize-that-we-arent-building-new :

So do people realize that we aren’t building new train tracks when we expand the amteak network, I have multiple times seen people say that we shouldn’t expand the network because it would destroy protected lands, which would be a fair criticism but Amtrak doesn’t build new tracks, we use existing tracks. We are not destroying protected lands, we are using land that has already been clear for a century

Also the alternative is more highways which destroy significantly more land for less capacity than railways. So the question is do you want to keep complaining about something that isn’t happening and let the environment get damaged as a result or do you want to actually learn how things work

So, wait… Were the tracks not in use at all? Or was it like only commercial transport on those tracks? Either way, its good that amtrak will be able to use them again, but one would be much more frustrating

Almost all rail tracks in the US are either abandoned or only used for freight rail at the moment

Jesus, we really have no excuse for having such a lackluster rail system, do we?

Sure we do! The US government hate both rail and you personally

People don’t understand that the US HAD A COMPREHENSIVE RAIL SYSTEM.

I am from a rural town about 10 miles outside of a small city. Currently, it takes about half an hour to drive from my small town to that city, where the nearest doctor’s offices and large grocery stores are located. (We have a small grocery store but it doesn’t carry much.)

In 1850 there were ten trains a day, and the trip took 15 minutes.

The tracks are all torn up and gone now, but there remain a few old bridges, abutments, embankments, cutways. You can see the tracks used to go through, down to the nearest city and there was also a throughline that went east-west, carrying trains to major cities either direction.

We *had *railroads. But then we tore them up to sell more cars. (Your picture was not posted)

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