I was raised agnostic and tend to remain ambiguous on theological matters.

-but my house has a porch on the second story that affords me a terrific view of my neighborhood and the Colorado Front Range and I was partaking of some peace before the 4th Of July Finger-Loss Festivities begin, and I have had a

I just watched my neighbor try to unload an actual wooden pallet that had to have been forklifted into the back of his insecurity pickup worth of fireworks.

Except that he does not have a forklift in his garage.

He does have so much sports memorabilia and cardboard boxes of unsold MLM Merchandise and patriotically themed camping gear and posters of women in bikinis and flags of suspect political organizations in his garage that there is only BARELY enough space for the fireworks and certainly none for his truck.

So he had to unload the individual boxes of recreational explosives from the back of his truck and stack them in the minimal space he had cleared by hand. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as this neighbor has purchased a wide variety of recreational and locally illegal explosives instead of many of just a few types, so the individual boxes are rather small.

He begins, and this is crucial to what happens next, by cutting apart the industrial-grade saran wrap his explosives dealer had so carefully wrapped his merchandise in, and discarded it unsecured on his lawn.

Where Outdoor Conditions sometimes happen.

tag where you're from if you want

So tumblr has started putting this little banner at the top of posts from new accounts, and honestly I kinda dig it. I've seen a lot of people get absolutely eviscerated for doing something that was perfectly normal on their previous platform but a huge faux pas here, and I think this little banner will go a long way to mitigating that.

Editing to add: DO NOT BE SHITTY TO PEOPLE WITH THIS BANNER I SWEAR TO GOD IF THEY'RE TRYING TO BE NICE YOU BE NICE BACK OR SO HELP ME

It's the Tumblr version of the L plate! 😃

ig; kellydinhamphoto

I am once again explaining that in order for walkable cities and public transit to work for disabled people, there also need to be more public bathrooms available in and around those areas. Not just places to sit down or rest. Bathrooms. We need accessible, clean bathrooms. With sharps bins. With multiple wheelchair accessible stalls. With an area to set down supplies needed to maintain one’s body. Even if it’s not being used to get rid of bodily waste, bathrooms are one of the few spaces disabled people have to maintain some sort of privacy when they’re in the middle of a flare up or they need to take medication or what have you. Designing a public space? Include bathrooms.

I have been pregnant, which, for anyone who doesn't know, is basically handicapping your bladder with anywhere from a -12 to -200 ability to hold your pee, at a public event where they explicitly closed the public restrooms to "cut down on the homeless presence."

It was hell. I ended up peeing myself in the car, because they SHUT DOWN the bathrooms in the public transit center too! So not only can I not pee at the event, had to get a ride home bc public transit is crowded, no restrooms either, and the inevitable happened. Living with any kind of incontinence or anything that affects your general ability to go to bathroom, in the current public sphere of NO RESTROOMS EVER BC HOMELESS PPL EXIST? And IF there's restrooms there's no setting down your stuff or anything like that? The WORST.

Its a type of ableism I never really thought about until it happened to me and I'm never gonna shut up about it. Give us all the right to pee (or otherwise) in peace.

Twelve Moons and a Fortnight by stiltonbasket

Post-CQL Canon 51 chapters (complete) 290K words

It is then that he notices that the child in front (a little boy around nine years old, if Lan Wangji had to guess) has the hilt of a jeweled dagger protruding from between his ribs, and a small novice’s bow clutched in his hands with an arrow still nocked to the string.

“They’re not alive,” Li Shuai gasps, clawing her way upright against one of the pavilion’s four corner pillars as the ghosts keep coming towards them. “That’s sixth shidi, the one with the bow, and our third shimei there in the pink—but they’re not corpses, I don’t know how they could have—”

The ghosts come to a halt, then, standing right in front of Lan Wangji’s ward with pensive looks on their faces. Some have clear death-wounds in their chests, and one of the boys wears a gown covered with dull black blood from the cruel gash in his throat—but all of them are looking straight at Li Shuai, and their lips shape her name with open wistfulness; some of the older ones call her A-Shuai, and the children call her Li-shijie, and then they nod once in Lan Wangji’s direction before stepping closer to the ward and disappearing into it.

He feels their spiritual energy pouring into the seals before he sees it in the ward, reeling back at the sudden shock of ninety-one ghostly golden cores taking up arms beside his—ready to defend their sect in death as they could not do in life, and then he finally understands why the land-eater went unnoticed for so long. The ghosts must have been suppressing it until its power surpassed theirs, and then they sought out Wang Hai for help when they could do nothing more—but for them to have taken shape like this, in something resembling their living selves even though their bodies must long since have rotted away—it should have been beyond them to do such a thing, unless…

“Auntie!” Xiao-Yan screams. “It’s Wei-zongzhu! He’s coming back!”

As Author stiltonbasket notes, this is the CQL (The Untamed) Universe with a few differences, the major one is that A-Qing is still alive during and after the Yi City events and is being treated for the damages Xue Yang did to her. There are other differences, given it's The Untamed version of the story. Second most important being that the Confession in Guanyin temple does not occur.

The story is written with both narrative point-of-view and letters to and from those involved. The style is most effective in moving the story forward.

Twelve Moons and a Fortnight begins months after the events of Guanyin temple. Lan Zhan is Chief Cultivator and Wei Wuxian has spent the following months near Gusu. He meets regularly with the Lan Juniors in Caiyi. It is at one of these meetings that he is told Jin Ling asked him to speak with Jiang Wanyin about something.

Wei Wuxian becomes Wei-zhongzhu, acting as Jiang sect leader while Jiang Wanyin aids Jin Ling in taking controlling power from the various factions in Lanling.

There is a brief stop in Yunping during an official tour of Yungmeng, where Wei Wuxian collapses and is taken somewhere to rest, which results in the adoption of a child, the eventual foundation of a lady's refuge, and the mystery of Wei Ying's illness begins.

There is the romance between Wei Ying and Lan Zhan that everyone except Wei Ying can see so plainly.

The world of Yungmeng is fleshed out in detail as the seasons pass. There is a land eater, and a mystery about its origins. Was a recent bout of illness in the area a result or the cause of the land eater? Did it have something to do with the summoning ritual Mo Xuanyu used to bring back Wei Wuxian? Why is Wei Wuxian having nightmares of Mo Xuanyu? There are discussions about golden cores and core sickness ... and an upset young child who has already seen one mother die.

The story is not centered only on Yungmeng. There are other important events occuring. Lanling is brought under control. In Gusu, Lan Xichen has healed the wounds Maiden Qing received as part of the Yi City story arc that precedes the story. There are junior shenanigans, including a rainy night and a bonfire involving Lan Xichen and the juniors.

We learn of Nie Mingjue's several Qi deviations. And the depth of the many betrayals of Jin Guangyao that still affect the living.

The stakes for all involved become higher as illness risks killing Wei Wuxian before he can reach a happy ending.

The resolution to most of what's going on hits like a hammer.

There is a night of terror, questioning using the qin language, reveals through empathy, several tense chapters with warning about body horror. And healing. Followed by 8 chapters in which some secrets are finally exposed, mysteries resolved and there are weddings to attend.

Author stiltonbasket has provided a number (47) of tales related to this one. Of these, one of the most poignant for me was The Trouble with Talismans: a Treatise on Time-Travel by Young Master Lan Xiaohui (Age 6)

truly my LEAST favorite form of advertisement these days is the faux-tiktoker/influencer who is here to Sell Me Something. the “omg unbox my Pureology (TM) skincare haul!!!” “doing the #NespressoChallenge!!!” “you guys will not BELIEVE what i got from shein-“ like its scary. its WEIRD. not only do i have no idea who these perfectly manicured, babytalking people are they feel less like real people than even an actual advertiser does. stop trying to make me believe you are my friend. you are something inhuman to me. you are a changeling. you are a brand wearing ill fitting human skin and i see its skeletal shape shift beneath the surface.

needle/pin sharpener.

no really, squeeze it. Does it feel like it’s got sand in it? is’s sharpening sand. Stab the tip of your needle into it back and forth and it’ll help put a sharp edge back on a pin or needle that’s been blunted by use, or has a little bit of rust on it. It can’t fix anything worse then a little of either, and won’t work on something REALLY blunted, but its a lifesaver.

also it is a pepper

It's not a pepper and it's not for sharpening!!

It may seem like it should be a pepper, since that would go better with the flavour of a tomato (and the mass produced modern ones are admittedly more pepper shaped), but it is and has always been a strawberry. Here are some antique emery strawberries, which are much more strawberry shaped, and some of them have seeds.

(source)

(source)

(Home Needlework Magazine, 1899)

And it's for cleaning needles, not sharpening them. I can't imagine how jamming a blunt needle point around in a bunch of loose grit could possibly sharpen it in any significant way, and all the historical sources I've seen only talk about cleaning.

-Woman's Institute Reference Library, 1916.

-The Improvement of Educational Administration in Massachusetts, 1916.

-Boys' and Girls' Clothing Club, 1915.

-The Unitarian Register, 1908.

-Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, 1910.

This patent from 1873 mentions an emery slab for sharpening pins, which is quite different from a cushion, and which sounds like it actually would work for sharpening.

Then later down the page it also says

So. Strawberry for cleaning. Not pepper for sharpening.

Gentle reminder - modern sewing tools are made from treated or plated metal, or stainless steel. In terms of human civilisation, this is a wild advance of technology. Needles are some of our oldest tools; rust was formerly ubiquitous, and attacked every form of everyday metal. A rusty needle tears fabric, or worse, stains it. The luxury and technology of rustproof needles and pins - forgotten in a few generations of human memory - and yet it is remembered in the strawberry. Memory is stored in the strawberry!

BRO?

Reblog if you're self indulgent and perverted lmao

Fanfic is not inherently degrading to the original art. The idea of "fanfiction" is a relatively new one; the idea of "I heard a story and I liked the characters but I want them to do something else/wish the story had ended differently/want them all naked" is as old as humanity. Shakespeare, Dante, the Arthurian legends, big chunks of Greek mythology, much of the Bible, it's all fanfic, one way or another.

And does this person really thing authors of original work don't write it because they enjoy fantasizing about certain concepts and characters? You can figure out a lot about various authors' kinks by looking at their work. Just saying.

This looks like a fucking parody post, or an edgy edit, but it’s 100% official real Flintstones.

Clarification: I don’t hate this book, I love it, it’s amazing. It’s just that taking a step back and looking it out of context is still really funny. Especially the line “We participated in a genocide, Barney.”

ok but imagine them in their cartoon forms saying this dialogue i’m

can we have some context to this, perhaps?

Bedrock is having a mayoral election. One of the candidates is a violent war mongering asshole that riles people up against the lizard people. This reminds Fred and Barney of their time in the army.

Back then the father of said violent candidate was riling people up against the “tree people”. Fred, Barney, and other soldiers fought what they believed to be a defensive measure against the tree people. Turns out, it was actually an invasion, in order to kill off the tree people and take over their forest to build Bedrock.

That’s what Fred means when he says he and Barney participated in a genocide. They literally did.

(Extra fun fact, Barney adopted a tree person baby after the war, and his son Bamm-Bamm is the last tree person.)

just fucking read it

http://readcomiconline.to/Comic/The-Flintstones

There are a lot of interesting things about this post but the AK-47 shaped spear is what really got me

This is just as wild with the context

Some of my favorite moments in the series

From the foreword to 2021 print of the comic.

Does anyone one else remember that terrible Tolkien adaptation called The Lord of the Rings Musical?

It was super weird, very expensive with a moving stage, used almost none of Tolkien’s actual songs and was quickly forgotten…

In defense of the musical, at least it kept the general spirit of things? Like Now and For Always is most definitely a good song that also happens to really capture the general vibe of hobbits, but also Sam and Frodo’s relationship imo? I also really like Wonder as it deals with Galadriel’s emotions towards Lothlorien, how it will eventually fade, etc.

I mean, it was FAR from perfect (really, really far), but a lot of the songs were quite charming and really kept with the feeling of Tolkien even if they weren’t quite right. Admittedly, I really love The Road Goes On, Cat and the Fiddle, Lothlorien, Wonder, and Now and For Always as songs and do listen to them for comfort.

Me: lol what a clever shitpos--WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IT'S REAL?

I like Now and For Always - but if you can avoid the visuals of the “Lothlorien” ribbon dancing video on YouTube you’ll spare yourself some secondhand emotions that are hard to quantify

I think it’s best expressed by imagining that someone like a dad or an in-law or academic mentor kindly took you to see it as a special treat, and is now sitting there next to you with a really polite patient grimace, and when the pole-dancing elves and ribbon-dancing Galadriel come on, you feel like you need to somehow apologise to them for it, like it’s your responsibility to explain or disclaim it somehow. You know? Like, “I’m sorry about this, yes I’m into the idea generally, but I do understand that this is a big ask to sit through.”

guessin’ y’all ain’t heard of the 6-hour Silmarillion opera, eh?

I mean, the 1-hour Russian rock opera (“Finrod: the Rock Opera”) is on my work playlist, so… hit me with it.

not only do i remember this, I SAW IT ONSTAGE IN LONDON IN 2008

i was 18 years old on a school trip (which was somewhat motivated by the fact that you can drink in england when you’re 18 and you cannot in the us). we were asked ahead of time which shows we wanted to see. we were given a list. absolutely no one chose LOTR the musical. (or if they did, they never owned up to it).

every tour guide we encountered on this trip asked us if we were going to see any shows. we were going to see phantom, which was as you expected, a decent production, the chandelier falls, the phantom sings, there are no real surprises there. but when we told these poor tour guides that we were also seeing LOTR the musical, they got kind of quiet.

“i’ve heard the sets are really nice”

“they have some interesting sets”

“oh, i’ve heard good things about the set”

my friends, when you have spent a lot of money producing a west end musical, it should worry you when the nicest compliment anyone can give said musical is about the SET.

(the set was genuinely very cool, there were vines all throughout the audience, and the centerpiece of the set was a rotating circle with multiple levels that went up and down, it was nifty)

the puppets were also really dope

none of the comments so far have really captured the experience of seeing this show. the music was... fine. if you remember the late aughts you probably won’t be too surprised, instead of emo music it was off-brand enya for the most part. like if celtic women was sung by men from london. it’s all on youtube.

there are several things you need to know about the stage production:

1. i have no idea how the show opens. there were hobbits onstage as people were getting seated, and they had these massive nets they were waving over the heads of the audience, trying to catch fireflies. no idea how the fireflies worked, that was very cool but this was a liability lawsuit waiting to happen. anyway they caught the fireflies, shouted HUZZAH and the show began. nobody was prepared, there was no warning about fire exits, and everyone in the audience was still talking, so i missed the first 5 minutes

2. gandalf was yelling every single line, no explanation

3. aragorn had stripes of dark paint underneath his eyes like a football player, no explanation

4. arawen kept showing up in the background of scenes she was not in, such as the death of boromir, no explanation.

5. so did galadriel.

5b. i won’t dwell on it too much because it is on youtube, but the lothlorien song is exactly as describe above, EXCEPT in addition to the ribbon dancing there were AERIALS. legolas comes swinging in on a vine, galadriel has a vine/sex swing setup, it was Camp.

6. the orcs. had pogo sticks. for hands.

6b. i need to emphasize this: the orcs HAD POCO STICKS FOR HANDS!!

they used these appendages like sproingy crutches and also as weapons during the fight scenes. why.

7. act 1 ends with the balrog showing up and there’s a rain of gold confetti glitter and a bunch of orcs are in the audience snarling at everyone and oh by the way they’re doing all 3 books.

8. during intermission everyone who wasn’t with a school trip from the u.s. got drunk, no explanation necessary

9. GOLLUM

9b. gollum is wearing a skin-tight costume with a skimpy little tarzan loincloth, and he is giving a very crotch-forward performance. i’m talking crab-walking on his back with his pelvis thrusting with every line. gollum is giving us the most blatant display of raw sexuality i have ever seen in my life. gollum does not just want the precious. gollum is HORNY for the precious.

this actor deserves every award for doing the absolute worst thing in the best way possible.

10 (??). there is another part of the show i did not see, despite being in the audience, and it’s a song that is not part of the album, i think it was maybe supposed to be aragorn’s wedding? anyway, a bunch of extras walk out onstage in what might be gondor soldier uniforms, but they are some very white robes with some very pointy hoods, and perhaps presciently, they are carrying what appear to be tiki torches. someone in the (very drunk) audience shouts KKK, the actors pause, and then they just walk offstage, never to be seen again.

11. the ring gets thrown into the lava, galadriel shows up on her sex swing again, gandalf is alive and screaming about his friend tom bombadil, who does not make an appearance, the show is over and we leave, knowing innately that we will never be the same again

12. the dude who shouted kkk is outside getting arrested, which is an absolutely bananas reason to have an arrest record, wonder what his life is like now, maybe it was boris johnson, it probably wasn’t, but don’t know, who can say.

anyway, dream a little dream of gollum, whose knee pads require no explanation:

Thank you for blessing us with this write-up??? And I’m really glad about the Lothlorien sex swing elaboration, thanks for that too

I took my daughter to see it TWICE because she loved it so much. Most of the music was meh but that rising falling rotating set was the business, orcs on springs somersaulting across the stage/ growling in your ear were hilarious and Lothlorien boy elves in harem pants and not much else linger in the mind.

In short, it bore very little resemblance to anything Tolkien but it was huge fun.

Teen girls reading this, if you feel a calling to write fanfiction about a teen girl being transported to a fictional world, go for it. If you want to write about a teen girl being adopted by your favorite characters or joining the fellowship of the ring or becoming a knight, please do.

We should be encouraging kids to be creative and practice writing, an important life skill, not discouraging it because we find teens acting like teens to be cringe.

Liking a post says you liked it, or maybe it’s a personal post by a friend and you want to just quietly acknowledge it to them. Maybe you can find it again later in your likes if you want to share it. It’s NOT mandatory.

Reblogging is sharing it with everyone who happens across your blog. Reblogging is a good thing to do for sharing and promoting things you want to share and promote, or things you like enough to keep on your blog for other people to happen across as well. It’s NOT mandatory. 

The OTT extreme language I’m seeing used to try and guilt-trip people into constant reblogging isn’t healthy. It’s what happens when you’ve had your brain poisoned by the commodification of hobbies and start treating everyone who’s not actively promoting your brand as some kind of enemy. Nobody who sees something in passing and finds it mildly interesting or generally appealing or whatever is obligated by blood-debt to then also recommend it to all their friends and promote it to everyone who happens by. It’s not an act of violence to not reblog. Stop calling people murderers when this is just about posting on our stupid little blogging platform.

You can reblog this if you want. Or not. It’s fine. It’s your blog. It’s your internet experience. You can curate it how you want to. You should curate it how you want to.

The Least Intimidating bakery in the village has closed for good so now I’ve got to go to the Intimidating Bakery, it’s awful. If you don’t have a PhD in being French I don’t recommend going to that bakery, here’s the humiliating account of the 3 times I’ve visited it so far: