Embroidered Tarot Card Pendants // Robin Tailoring on Etsy

Oh, this fucking guy.

So apparently Andrew Blake (hereafter Andy), aka thanfiction, aka (now) CraftyCatDad, aka a whole bunch of other people over the decades, is back attempting to gain a(nother) following on social media.

Before I begin, a big thank you to @bemusedlybespectacled for identifying Andy as the author of this popular tweet thread, and spreading a community warning about him.

Unfortunately for everyone, Andy decided to post an (indirect) response. BemusedlyBespectacled and the truly incredible @theteablogger have already posted (excellent) discussions of his tweet thread. But his thread really pissed me off, and so I am going to do a breakdown of the some of the manipulation tactics he is using.

Unlike some other analysis posts I’ve made, I am not going to be looking at this thread in isolation – this is not a close reading within the four corners of our document. And that’s because, to give him credit, Andy is a good manipulator. I’ll be pointing out examples of this as I go through, but one of the tactics he is using in this thread is that a lot of it sounds reasonable outside the context of his history. While the extensive documentation of Andy’s history of abuse is both an independent good and useful to help warn people, the sheer amount of material can also make it difficult for a casual newcomer to know where to begin. This is particularly important when people point out behavior on Andy’s part that seems fine on the surface, but in context is part of a long history of a pattern of abusive and manipulative behavior.

This is a long post, but if you're inclined to scroll past without clicking the read more (or are like "Kaesa, what the fuck, I thought you didn't reblog callout posts and internet drama?"), I just want you to know that the tl;dr is this guy is super bad news and he is thus far the one exception to my no callout posts rule, because he has repeatedly caused people material harm in real life for decades, there is a paper trail, and his pattern of behavior is such that, if he really didn't mean to start two whole cults, he would have little to no internet presence. This is a guy who is legally prohibited from doing charity/not-for-profit work in the State of Oregon. It is emphatically not just internet drama.

The first paragraph of his long, weird Fanlore page is:

Seconding OP's suggestion of Abbey/Kumquatwriter's blog posts about getting out of his cult.

Aubrey Plaza Reads Thirst Tweets

Bonus:

Holy cotyledons, y'all. Xenocultivars: Stories of Queer Growth is on the Tor.com list of best books of the year.

My friend Isabela and I conceived, edited, and published this anthology. It's the second title from our small press Speculatively Queer, which we created in 2020 with the goal of publishing happy, affirming, hopeful stories to uplift our queer and otherwise marginalized communities. We run this business out of our homes, just the two of us.

This list only features a dozen or fewer small press titles, and almost all of them are more like mid-size publishers. It is incredible that our little home-grown stack of soothing queer plant stories made the cut. It is unbelievable. It is mind-blowing. Thank you so much, @torbooks!

You can learn more about our books, and buy them, on our website:

Xenocultivars: Stories of Queer Growth It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility

(cover art by the spectacular @layaart)

if you think Vico Ortiz is hot do yourself a favor and watch their new tiktok video, you won’t regret it

I also have a porn-focus tumblr and actually, I should have reblogged that over there... unff

When you are a classical musician and the public asks you to play Queen …

@hieronymus-bush … although I’m not sure what you’ll think of it 😆

Holy hell. He has amazing technique AND he didn’t just transcribe the piece to piano, he essentially composed classical music (and honestly some neo-classical, lol) based on the melody. Plus, he kind of looks like Freddie.

People in the 1800s would've gone apeshit over this in the concert halls

Reblogging to watch later...

Guys I miss LJ, should we just, like, go back there?

WE SHOULD or rather um sorry but not LJ I still propose Dreamwdith I know many ppl object but I'm so goddamn lost on tumblr and I want threaded replies and just. So. Goddamm. LOST. You have no idea how lost I am. I tried for years and then I stopped trying. There's plenty of new platforms and stuff I'm willing to try but my brain is tumblr-resistant, perhaps allergic, and just, yeah, please, let's go somewhere else I'm begging you.

marvel || battle royale

I love it SO MUCH

So, many of you might not know this because the streams so rarely cross, but my passion project is actually a webcomic called How Baby. It’s a (mostly) auto-biographical slice of life comic about motherhood, but through the lens of being a nerd, a fangirl, a feminist, and someone who didn’t take to the mantle of ‘motherhood’ very smoothly. It’s funny sometimes, it’s sad sometimes, it’s angry sometimes - just like motherhood.

It updates twice a week, and there’s over 250 strips now, all free to read. It’s ad-free and supported almost entirely by patrons! It’d do me a solid if you’d take a look, read it, and, even if it doesn’t appeal to you personally, share it around on social media with the moms in your life! Thanks. :)

I'm not a mother but that has never stopped me from enjoying How Baby! I'm proud & happy to be a patron of Lindsay, even at a meagre level. You should check it out :))

identities, slurs, and safe spaces

So let’s talk about “q-slur.”

The word queer has been used to inflict a lot of damage. This fact is the basis for both the fierce claiming of the word as an identity and the fierce rejection of it as a slur. I work with older LGBT people (ages 50-100+) and this subject comes up occasionally, with strong opinions on both sides. Increasingly frequently, I’m seeing younger people on Tumblr with similarly strong opinions. In my daily life, I mostly spend time with people between the ages of 25 and 45 who are startled to learn that this is even a conversation because they thought it was settled once and for all in the ‘90s. There seems to be a lot of miscommunication happening here on a lot of different axes.

Many of these arguments center around accusations of historical ignorance. Some people think those who identify as queer don’t know about the word’s history as an insult; some people think those who call it a slur don’t know about the movement to reclaim it during and after the height of the AIDS epidemic. I think, in general, neither of these accusations is correct (though if anyone is interested in learning more about the history of the word, there’s a brief rundown here and also an excellent in-depth graphic novel on the subject.) As far as I can tell, most everyone is pretty much clear on the basic facts of the word’s usage over the years; the conflict is more complicated than that. It’s about consent, and everyone involved perceiving theirs as violated. Those who reject the word “queer” feel that they are under attack when they are subjected to a derogatory term against their will. Those who identify as queer feel that they are under attack when their identity is treated as if it were the derogatory term they fought so hard to divorce it from being.

I see a lot of people on Tumblr saying that they don’t feel particularly strongly about the word, but they don’t see any harm in tagging it for those who do. There’s a lot to unpack there, given that the “slur” label itself is the primary issue for queer-identified people, but I want to point out something I haven’t seen mentioned much in these discussions: the people who use the word “queer” most often are those who don’t feel like they fit into other standard categories, which means that the more widespread the practice of “q-slur” tagging becomes, the more nonbinary/pansexual/marginalized voices are silenced. These conversations have focused on the question of whether the word “queer” should be used, but not on the reality that it is used, and the practical ramifications of excluding the massive number of people who do use it from discourse.

The word queer has been used to inflict a lot of damage. So has the word gay. So has the word dyke. So will the next word we create to escape all that damage. They will use every one of our words against us, no matter who started using them first. Do we let them define us? Or do we define ourselves?

Can we please put all of them on a runway? I just got my life

GO AWFFFFF

Omg yes

🎆🌎🌟 This is a spell to make everything better in 2017. Like for good luck. Reblog to charge. 🎆🌎🌟

#STOPBANNON  Phone Jam!

Tie Up Trump’s Phone Lines Until White Supremacist Steve Bannon is Booted from the White House! #StopBannon #PhoneJam!

Guess what, Donald? We’re not about to let you conduct business as usual with a white supremacist, anti-Semite, and misogynist as chief strategist of the White House. Let politicians collude with this travesty, and the media normalize it, but we’re drawing a line for basic human decency. Trump told the New York Times on 11/22 that he won’t be separating his business empire from the presidency. OK then. Let us jam the phone lines of every single Trump business with a flood of free speech until he cancels the appointment of Steve Bannon. The numbers are listed just below! All you need to do is make polite but long-winded calls, the more of them the better. Please be kind and respectful to the people who answer these phones, even as you keep them on the line as long as you possibly can. Let’s tie up every Trump hotel, every Trump golf course, every Trump spa, and even his winery with messages of opposition to Steve Bannon (sometimes, perhaps, only offered after, say, lengthy exploration of the possible rooms for rent in a particular Trump hotel). To make this really effective, we need it to spread widely—please reblog, invite your friends, and post the Facebook event in groups you belong to! Some of these numbers are answered 24/7, some just during limited hours. If you can’t get through, it means the protest is working – try a different number, or try again. Trump Tower Main number 212-832-2000 Trump Grill 212-836-3249 11:30am-4pm EST Trump Cafe 212-715-6788 8am-5pm EST Trump Bar 212-836-3200 12pm-10pm EST Trump Store 212-836-3226 9am-6pm EST Trump Events 212-715-7290 TRUMP HOTELS

Trump Hotels North American Reservations 1-855-878-6700

Trump International Hotel and Tower NYC 888.448.7867 or 212.299.1000 Spa Treatments 212.299.1000 EXT. 1097 Jean-Georges Restaurant @ Trump 212.299.3900 Trump International Hotel Washington DC 202-695-1100 Reservations 866-660-9426 Trump Soho 866-915-9267 877-828-7080 or 212-842-5500 Trump Resort Miami Main Number: 305-692-5600 Reservations: 866-628-1197 Trump Hotel Miami 800-713-6725 or 305-592-2000 Trump Chicago 312-588-8000 Reservations 877-458-7867 Spa at Trump Chicago 312-588-8020 Restaurant 312-588-8030 Trump Las Vegas 702-982-0000 Reservations 866-939-8786 TRUMP GOLF Trump Golf General Number 212-832-2000 Trump Golf Club, Bedminster NJ (headquarters for the Trump transition) 908-470-4400 Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia (Pine Hill NJ) 877-450-8866 Trump Golf Club Colts Neck NJ 732-696-9000 Trump Golf Links, Ferry Point, NY 718-414-1555 Trump Golf, Hudson Valley, NY 845-223-1600 Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles 310-265-5000 Trump National Golf Club Charlotte 704-799-7300 Trump National Jupiter Golf Club 561-691-8700 Trump International Golf Club Palm Beach 561-682-0700 Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C. 703-444-4801 Trump National Golf Club Westchester 914-944-0900 Albemarle Estate at Trump Winery (Virginia) Reservations: 855.TRUMP.00 or 434-977-4001

The #InformalTwitterPodficExchange is back for Year Six! We’re a low-key multi-fandom podfic exchange that runs mid-October to December 25th. You’ll need a Twitter account to play! Look for the #ITPE hashtag and make sure you follow @ITPE_mod. We’ll be posting full exchange details and sign-ups there on October 10th (2016).

LET'S GET READY, IT STARTS TOMORROW! :D :D

Natalie Portman being confused by the fact that you have to say “hi” to someone before starting a conversation in France got me like ?????

“I feel there’s a lot of rules of politeness and codes of behavior there you have to follow. […] A friend of mine taught me that when you go in some place you have to say “bonjour” before you say anything else, then you have to wait two seconds before you say something else. So if you go into a store you can’t be like “do you have this in another size,” or they’ll think you’re super rude and then they’ll be rude to you.” [X]

#wait you don’t do this is other countries??

So that’s it guys. French are not rude, we just don’t like it when people don’t say “Hello” or “Hi” when they start a conversation. 

Don’t everyone say “Hi” before they ask something to someone? What’s next? Saying please is also a french thing or others countries does that too? 

Canada is similar. We say sorry and please. The Hello thing seems strange, but it actually makes sense.

Bro, this threw me for a loop when I moved up north. Like in the southern United States you say “Hi, how are you?” And then make a few seconds of small talk before you ask your question or order your food and when I went to Connecticut they were like “What do you want?” Without any hello or anything. In other places they just STARE at you waiting on you to place your order and gtfo.

I laid my hand over my chest the first time, and the only way to describe my look was “aghast” before I said “Good lord!” My husband said it’s the most southern thing he’s seen me do. He thought it was hilarious. But…. Like??? That’s rude as fuck??????? Don’t y'all say say “Hello” before throwing your demands at someone??

maybe this is why everyone thinks new yorkers are rude

this is absolutely why ppl think new englanders r rude. no one has any fucking manners

african culture, at least in ghana, demands you greet a person before you ask them something. if youre in an open market they may even ignore you if you dont.

We do this in Australia as well. If you just started straight off saying “yeah I want XXXX” we’d think you’re rude as all fuck.  You say hi, then make your request.  It’s basic acknowledgement of the other person as a person rather than some random request-filling machine.

Huh. Speaking as a New Englander, I usually go with “Excuse me,” but sometimes “hi” or “hey,” but with no pause – it’ll be, “Excuse me, hi, I was looking for X?” From my POV, it seems rude to get too chatty and waste some stranger’s time; I assume they have better things to do than make small talk with me, so I just get my request out there so they can answer me and get back to whatever needs doing. I always thank folks for their help afterwards, if that helps?

(The rules of etiquette are strange. People say New Englanders are rude and cold, but once during an unexpected snowstorm here in Seattle, my car got stuck and I was standing by the side of the road at a busy intersection in the snow for half an hour waiting for my housemate to come pick me up, and not a single person stopped. Back in Massachusetts, every other car on the road would’ve been pulling up to check to see if I was okay, if my phone was working, did I need a lift, etc.)

No but this was the first thing my cousin told me in France? you never ever ever start a conversation with anyone, not even like “Nice weather today, huh?” without saying Bonjour first. You HAVE to greet them or, just like Ghana, they’ll ignore the shit out of you, you rude little fucker

(And “excuse me” or “pardon me” doesn’t cut it. you still have to open with bonjour)

[and I can’t speak for New England but coming from Chicago and then moving Out West where the culture is VERY influenced by the South and DETERMINED to think of themselves as small town folk… I HATE when I have to make small talk before ordering food??? Like, if it’s a coffee shop that’s pretty much empty I’ll chit chat for a few seconds, but I’m still not going to make inane conversation about the weather unless the weather is extreme.

In a big city it is rude as fuck to waste my time making small talk with me when we are not even friends or neighbors??? I am here to get shit done. There are four other people in line behind me, and I don’t want to waste their time. I am here, I HAVE MY ORDER ALREADY DECIDED BY THE TIME I GET TO THE FRONT BECAUSE I AM NOT A CAVE WOMAN, and I am being polite by saying both Please and Thank You and not wasting other people’s daylight.]

I live in a small northern city, and I feel it would be rude to engage someone in more than maaaaaybe a sentence of small talk before placing my order. In addition to feeling I was wasting their time, I’d feel like I was demanding emotional labour (small-talk is emotional labour for *me*) that they weren’t being paid to give.

so bizarre.  New Yorker here.  Saying hi, how are you, etc before these kinds of commercial interactions is what’s rude to me - because ffs, there are people in line behind you, we have lives, move it along.  It’s really just a dramatic cultural difference - but borne of a real practical necessity.

Wait up, is NYC the only metropolis in the world teeming with busy people? No, no it is not. This 'pratical necessity' is not a necessity; while perceived as such, it's a cultural specificity. I might speculate that it's borne more out of the puritan & capitalist drive to make every damn second 'productive' than anything else - but whether that's right or not, who cares, my point is that NYC is not unique in its business. Also, while obviously on a personal level it's legit that someone might be shocked when discovering that other places have other cultural mores, calling this very fact bizarre sure is really bizarre to me.

every star wars alien is so good and then there’s

this

yo man you talkin’ smack about max rebo you back off my blue elephant son

i always said he looks like elefun the elephant

MY FAVORITE OF THEM ALL

Polished Malachite Stalactite - Copper Crescent, Congo

*looks around*

Is

Is anyone gonna say it

malachite is a poisonous mineral. please do not fuck the malachite stalactite

@lizaleigh do you know any rock people that can confirm/deny because I am very curious and really don’t feel like getting into a conversation with my geophysicist brother that MAY somehow get back to the fact I saw a malachite that looked like a weird dildo.

…sadly, I am not on good enough terms with any of our partner geologists to just attach this to an email with the subject line: “EXPLAIN.” Although I think @mollisaurus is a mineral person. Thoughts?

oh geeze, i’m kinda rusty on minerals but malachite is just copper carbonate and is really common in both antique and modern jewelry so i think like if you were really gun-ho about it you could go ahead and put it wherever you want?

It’s really only a problem if you’re polishing or cutting it. The particles would be bad to breathe. It’s rather porous too, so I would worry about bacteria growing. Well, being literal anyway… Better to leave the poor thing alone. ._.

I mean it kinda depends on where you stick it because malachite does not like acidic environments very much and the malachite will degrade and also might dye your bits blue-green as the copper dissolves out.

So use a condom when fucking rocks is the takeaway here.

Oh my god guys it’s poisonous

It is super poisonous

There is a reason we do not use it in make up any more

Not even with a condom, do not fuck the rock

Try this one instead. 

malachite literally explodes in water does it not?

I… no… I think you’re thinking of pure sodium?

Malachite is however water soluble, which really just means it will poison you quicker

This is both hilarious and cool as fuck because you’re getting all this information on minerals and rocks. You’re also watching people argue over wether or not you can fuck this rock

I go on hiatus for a week and come back to find tumblr molesting my post, but hey, at least we all learned something so yay tumblr, you just keep on  being you.

I’m still not sure if I can fuck this rock.

I’m looking into it.

UPDATE:

Today in “I’m so sorry, coworkers, it’s for Tumblr,” I brought this post to the attention the science reporters at BuzzFeed. Dan Vergano did a some research and weighed in on the question “Can you use malachite as a dildo or is it toxic?”

The answer is “It’s probably fine, just wash it first and maybe use a bunch of lube.”

Oh man this got so much better than the last time I saw this post

This is my favourite. Science side of tumblr: asking the REAL questions

*biologist crashes through the underbrush* Ok so here’s the thing though Malachite is not poisonous to YOU. BUT fucking this stalactite will probably wreck your vaginal flora and leave you with a gruesome infection within a couple days. Want details? SO GLAD YOU ASKED, ‘CAUSE HERE THEY ARE. • Malachite is not copper oxide. It’s Cu2CO3(OH)2. Like most carbonates it’s water soluble– that’s how it became a stalactite in the first place! And technically any given chunk of “malachite” isn’t just malachite– it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. This will become important later.  • When malachite dissolves it makes a bunch of copper (Cu++) ions. Cu++ is GREAT at killing bacteria and fungi– so good at it that sprays with Cu++ get used a lot as a spray in agriculture to stop plant disease. It takes such a large dose to harm larger organisms that copper sprays are used a lot in organic agriculture (like Bordeaux mixture).  So bottom line, yes malachite is technically nontoxic to humans. But it kills bacteria when it dissolves and releases Cu++. • Malachite dissolves somewhat slowly in water– but vaginal secretions aren’t just any water. A healthy human vagina has a pH of 3.8-4.5 and a salinity of about 0.9%. It’s also warmer than your average underground cave at 37°C (or 98.5°F in American meat units). As luck would have it, acidity, salinity, and warmth all make malachite dissolve faster.  • In other words, the human vagina dissolves malachite.  • I have no deeper explanation for why human females can dissolve rocks with our genitals. It simply is.  • Gonna to take a quick moment to point out that sex toys that dissolve when you use them are maybe not the best investment.  • Anyway the key question now is “how fast does the human vagina dissolve malachite?” Are we talking geological timescale, a Nazis-in-Indiana-Jones situation, or something in between? If the reaction kinetics of dissolution are very slow, then there’s nothing to worry about. An encounter with a stalactite would have to last years for enough Cu++ to leach out to cause problems. If it’s quick then we’re in trouble.  • Unfortunately it looks like nobody really knows. One of the best sources on how malachite dissolves & precipitates in water– an EPA document on how to avoid too much Cu++ in municipal drinking water systems– helpfully says “The kinetic constraints on the formation of these solids in water systems are largely unexplored” (p. 42) because end equilibrium points is all you need to run a city water system safely. In other words, the experiments that would tell us how fast malachite dissolves in various types of water just don’t exist because nobody’s ever needed to know before. So we’d better assume it’s going to happen reasonably quickly, #for safety. • So in best scientific fashion, we’re just going to bullshit our way ahead using what facts we DO have on hand: endpoint equlibria.  • Is there any info out there telling us what equilibrium concentration of Cu++ we get in salty acidic water at body temperature? Almost! One J.F. Scaife published some great data on this back in 1957. TAKE IT AWAY, SCAIFE. 

That orange box is how many moles of dissolved Cu++ Scaife got from sticking malachite in some water that had 0.171 moles NaCl/L (body salinity is about 0.154 moles NaCl/L so this is slightly less salty than people) at 30°C. He’s got no acidity in there, and again the salinity and temperature are slightly lower than people. But this is probably the closest we’re going to get to data on how malachite behaves in vaginas anytime soon, folks. From this we can take away that if you leave malachite alone in a vagina you’ll get AT LEAST 9.12 x 10^-4 moles/L, or 5.8 ppm, of Cu++ at equilibrium.  • Recall from above that most “malachite” isn’t actually pure malachite, it’s a mix of various copper carbonates & oxides. The EPA document elaborates: “[T]raditional ‘eyeball’ identification of malachite by its blue-green color is extremely unreliable, because almost all cupric hydroxysulfates, hydroxycarbonates, hydroxychlorides, and even fresh cupric hydroxide can be some shade of blue-green. … Thus, the uncertainty in the computed copper concentration in equilibrium with malachite is at least about a factor of 2 … until further experimental data focusing on this problem is generated.” In other words, “do your math and then double how much Cu++ you think is going to be in the water, just in case.” So that gives us 11.6ppm Cu++, at equilibrium, with malachite in a (til now!) healthy vagina.  • Next step: do we have any idea what happens to bacteria in acid conditions with copper? OH MY GOD WE TOTALLY DO. Gyawali et al 2011 checked this out in the context of “so what if we rinsed tomatoes with a solution of lactic acid and copper, because that would be a safe & organic way to get rid of E. coli?” So now this post has officially ruined stalactites, vaginas, and tomatoes.

^This would happen. These are the counts of 4 E. coli strains exposed to various levels of lactic acid & Cu++ for 8 hours. This table only shows the end counts but it represents the death of 99.7% of bacteria*. • Losing 99.7% of your vaginal flora is seriously bad news. You’re looking at really good odds of a yeast infection, bacterial vaginosis, and/or other infection issues. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to not be in the 4% of the population or so that’s sensitive to skin contact with copper.  • The good news? Biochemically speaking, you’re probably ok to put it in your butt. It’s not as acidic or salty in there, plus there’s a huuuuuge stockpile of gut microbes right upstream that can quickly repopulate the colon after spelunking is complete. However this stalactite is not flared at the base so it is the wrong shape for putting in your butt. Do not put this stalactite in your butt.  • This all looks like fun and games, but I think it’s really interesting that the internet’s mistake in concluding that this stalactite is fuckable is very similar to the mistake made by the Flint water management system. Hear me out.  • Central to the Flint lead poisoning crisis is that authorities only looked at & tested Flint’s water in its central treatment plant before it went out through the pipes. Not after it went through the pipes. They did not consider what would happen biochemically as it went through the pipes and metals started dissolving.  • Similarly, in concluding that the stalactite is fuckable, the internet only considered the stalactite itself. Not the biochemical processes that would happen to it as it, welp, went through the pipes.  • Media frequently reports that the Flint River’s water is “corrosive,” leading many to believe the river is full of industrial waste. This ain’t the case. You’d need industry to fill a river with industrial waste, and industry left decades ago. That’s why Flint’s so poor. So what IS in the water? Road salt. Plain old stupid road salt. The old Detroit-based source didn’t have salt because it came from Lake Huron which has a large, mostly rural watershed. Meanwhile the Flint River runs through a lot of towns, making it slightly salty as everything melts down in spring. And as we recall from the stalactite experience, a little salt is all it takes to get metals to dissolve.  • Information on this engineering problem was not coming through clearly from the engineering or chemistry sides. It took a biologist, pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, to document the real-time results and provide the data to kick-start a high-level investigation.  • Morals of the story: when dealing with a biological system pls consider asking a biologist, your vagina and/or city could depend on this • Pls use a condom when fucking any water-soluble material • Still don’t put the stalactite in your butt -3/10 do not recommend

OK, I haven’t reblogged this before now but the final post takes it to a whole new level and I can no longer resist.