The City of Troy from the Sea by François-Louis Schmied

something something Achilles and Agamemnon fighting to drag out the war because its end brings both of their deaths

Sooo... I got myself a new friend for my spinning utensil flock!

Meet Jasper Junior, the Plying Ghost. He turned out being very handy for freeing my left hand from pressure, cut-off circulation, sweating, itch, sensory overload and finger cramps I'd get from making plying bracelets (my favourite way of using up leftover singles).

Are you tired too of being chained to your wheel or lazy kate while you wrap that bracelet, your fingers looking more and more like fat little sausages, and you wrap faster and faster hoping you can escape the agony? Well, worry no more!

I tried out my Jasper tonight for the first time and he is a really nifty little tool. His "hands" screw off so you can easily remove the plying bracelet once wrapped. Then just hold it securely (don't mess it up at this stage!) and slip it over your wrist and voilà, ready for plying :D He can comfortably fit 50g of a medium weight yarn. I should say I wish his neck/head were a bit longer because I sense that with fatter singles, they might slip off his head if you don't wrap carefully.

If you want your own Jasper, he can be found here:

I promise I don't make money with this, but I thought Jasper could be a great tool for spinners with joint pain, finger mobility issues or sensory issues who are otherwise unable to work with plying bracelets :)

I will say, the Abhorsen trilogy does have the best take on magical animal companions ever done. Like, they have they're own agendas, personal histories and conflicts. Their motives are often complex, obscure, and subject to change. Do they want to help you? Possibly. Are you dependent on their help? Definitely. But they are also surely using you, their human companion and supposed master, for their own purposes. And every once and while one of them makes a serious attempt at killing you or your friends...

my cat is incredibly sweet and wants nothing more than to be within a 5 ft radius of a person at all times, gently chilling in your orbit. he is also VERY, VERY DUMB 

it’s a slow morning so husband and I are reading, not making much noise. meanwhile, Barold goes downstairs to use his box and when he comes out, he starts yowling like his lil heart done broke. husband goes to to the top of the stairs all worried like, “Barold, what’s wrong?”

kitty zips back up the stairs and just oozes onto husband’s feet, purring high-powered lawnmower style. the realization hit us both at the same time…

this. boy. this itty bitty kitty boy. 

he couldn’t see or hear us for ten continuous seconds, forgot. we. were. home. and immediately burst into tears !!!!

127k notes later

and I just wanted to update you that moments ago, this big orange infant found himself on the wrong side of a baby gate, could not hork his lorge butt over it, and so just started WAILING until everyone in the house came to rescue him. Me, my partner, the dog, our other cat… everyone came to be like, “Barold, what’s wrong?”

after this harrowing ordeal, he is now in my lap

Why am I not surprised that he’s ginger?

Precious baby!

Fontainebleau State Park, Louisiana by Lana Gramlich

Yawning is so contagious

(Source)

Ok I am firmly in the camp of “academia is classist and dark academia is a glorification of that” but then I embody it. I get asked daily if I’m a librarian. I *am*, but that’s besides the point. I can recite whole passages of the Iliad just. For fun. If I get drunk or high around you it’s a matter of time before I start explaining the complicated relationship blood has to sex in literature and talking about the times my friends almost died. It’s this hard mix of “in order to do well in and enjoy academia you have to respect the stupid little games a little bit” and “god college should be free.”

the way sophocles presents ajax' moral inflexibility as a path to his doom while odysseus' flexibility (while still operating within set social rules) acts as a stabilizing force.

also:

- Christina Elliot Sorum, Sophocles' "Ajax" in context (1986)

not to be controversial bc I know this is like…not in line with shifting opinions on fanfic comment culture but if there’s a glaring typo in my work I will NOT be offended by pointing it out. if ao3 fucks up the formatting…I will also not be offended by having this pointed out…

‘looking forward to the next update’ and ‘I hope you update soon!’ are different vibes than a demand, and should be read in good faith because a reader is finding their way to tell you how much they love it. I will not be mad at this.

‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ is also incredibly high praise. I’m not going to get mad at this.

even ‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ is just another way a reader is engaging in and putting thought into your work.

I just feel like a lot of authors take any comment that’s not perfectly articulated glowing praise in the exact manner they’re hoping to receive it in bad faith.

fic engagement has been dropping across the board over the last several years, and yes it’s frustrating but it isn’t as though I can’t see how it happens. comment anxiety can be a real thing. the last thing anyone wants to do is offend an author they love, and that means sometimes people default to silence.

idk where I’m going with this I guess aside from saying unless a comment is outright attacking me I’m never going to get mad at it, and I think a lot of authors should feel the same way. ESPECIALLY TYPOS PLZ GOD POINT OUT MY TYPOS.

“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

#tapping the reblog button with utmost care because i’m handling a historical artifact (via @malarkiness)

I must sleep. Sleep is the mind-healer. Sleep is the big-life that brings total ability to fucking do anything. I will face my bed. I will permit the blankie to pass over me and snores to pass through me. And when sleep has gone past I will turn the outer eye to greet the new morning. When the sleep has gone there will be everything. Energy and will to live will remain.

Birding in Spain: Bearded Vulture - Gypaete,  Didier Buysse - Didbird

Reblog In 5 seconds for good luck

​this worked last night lets go for round two

I really need some good luck rn

The one bizarre thing to me about textiles is that warp-weighted weaving is at least 6500 years old, but our oldest knitted artifacts are only ~1000 years old, and crochet 200 years old. Even though you need less equipment to knit (two sticks) or crochet (one hook) compared to warp-weighted weaving (frame, loom weights, batting, heddles). Why the big gaps between these inventions? And why did each one appear and spread when it did?

Oooh, I know this one! Well, the knitting one. The commonly given reasons, at least.

Firstly, you don't just need two sticks. You need at least two (fairly) identically sized, (fairly) identically weighted, straight, smooth sticks that are strong enough to carry the weight of what you're making. Which isn't impossible to do with bronze age technology, but it's gonna take time or money. And every time you change gauge of thread, or want a different tightness of fabric from the same artisan, you need a new size of needles. A loom is more flexible about these things. Nalbinding, which looks very similar and fills a similar niche, is more flexible about these things and uses way less resources.

Secondly, it's probably older than the 12th century sock find. That thing has colorwork and a shortrow heel. Not something you do instinctually, not something you figure out on your first or second or fourth attempt if you've never seen it done. So we know it's older. We also know from contextual evidence that it doesn't show up in texts or art or myths before the Middle Ages, so... Not hugely older. It's hard to find archaeological evidence because almost every part of knitting, until fairly recently, was made of material that loves to decay. And if you were to find a knitting needle... It's a pointy stick. Made of wood, maybe bone. Even in the context of lying in a dwelling, that could be many, many things. Loom weights are slightly easier to categorize.

Then there's the fact that most knitted garments, while wonderfully stretchy and drapey, have a tendency to wear out fast. (It's why most commercial sock yarns these days tend to be reinforced with nylon.) Since the panels are made of one continuous thread without knotting off, you get a hole bigger than what can be easily mended much more quickly. So you need incentive to choose it over other, older, proven methods.

Good points, and when you mentioned "thread" something clicked for me - it's really hard to knit thread, i.e. laceweight yarn or thinner, into solid fabric. You need needles no bigger than toothpicks, which break easily even if they're solid steel, and if the size is even just 1mm off it'll make the fabric too stiff or too loose. And every knitter will need a different size of needles to produce a particular gauge of fabric, and you can't have more than one knitter work on the same fabric at once. It may also be slower and harder on your hands than weaving, since there's no way to form "sheds" and knit multiple stitches at once with only Neolithic tools.

So: Harder, and probably slower to work. Fragile tools, which are probably difficult to make in standardized sizes. Hard to get a consistent gauge you can price for the market. Like you said, these issues aren't impossible, but they might make it less economical, and less likely to become popular.

It's probably not a coincidence that our earliest knitted artifacts are socks, which are A) more durable than most knitted clothes, B) normally knit with heavier yarn than thread, and C) an item much more suited to knitting than weaving, so there's a stronger incentive.

I don't know much about how durable knitting is compared to weaving, but I'm not sure if that'd be a big factor in limiting its spread. Either kind of fabric can be felted for strength, and you can reinforce knitting with heel stitch or duplicate stitch, even years after you made the object. (My socks start wearing thin after about 6-8 years, and reinforcing an old sock takes about an hour.) But if this is easier to do on woven fabric, I'd be delighted to learn about that, too!

Weaving is also faster and takes up less yarn, since the threads are all running parallel to each other and not making loops. Plain weave is fast compared to knitting or crochet.

When you have to produce all textile goods for your family, of course you’re going to go for economy. I saw somewhere that it would generally take two or three hand-spinners to produce enough yarn for one weaver, so I can’t imagine how that would translate to knitting or crochet which use a lot more yarn.

Also, worn out woven fabric can be cut down and repurposed into other useful items, while knitting and crochet would come apart if you tried to cut it.

So it makes sense that knitting and crochet would take longer to gain popularity, since they take up more resources.

These are also great points, thank you! (Also, the work on your blog is beautiful!)

As a multicrafter I'm going to point out another thing here, too! We've talked a bit about how woven items are efficient, but naalbinding, more than knitting, is truly an efficient use of your resources in conjunction with weaving.

Naalbinding, as mentioned above, is much older than knitting! It uses what is essentially a single large-eyed needle similar to a tapestry needle. A type of needle that you could also use while making your weavings. But additionally, while knitting and crochet are ideal for using a long, single length of yarn, Naalbinding excels at using shorter lengths of yarn - If I use anything longer than 3 ft (about 1m) I run into problems very quickly.

Now when you're weaving? Any loom is going to have waste yarn in the warp - this is how it holds the tension needed to weave. Even on the small table looms I've worked with these scraps can be about 1-2 ft of yarn - a great size for Naalbinding, but extremely difficult to use for knitting or crochet. It's very efficient to take these weaving ends - yarn and thread that's already been worked heavily to simply get into yarn for the weaving! - and use them for naalbinding.

We don't really weave socks because, well. They're a tube. And not just a tube, but to be comfortable, it's a closed tube! With a curvy end! and decreases! This would be really hard to make via weaving, which excels in Flat Rectangles (see: why a lot of Ancient clothing was Flat Rectangles with Fancy Pinning) and simpler shapes.

Even knitting has some issues with socks - though I'm fairly sure knitted socks are going to be more comfortable than naalbound ones, as the fabric has a more even drape. It's not just two even sticks of the same size that you need for knitting a tube - it's a minimum of four. Usually five!

It's also easier to make increases and decreases in naalbinding than knitting, IMO. A closed tube is honestly ideal for the craft, especially if you are fitting it to yourself or a close relative as a mitten or a sock. Like, say, when you're both crafting next to the campfire and every row or two you can hold up the item against their body, and be sure you're on the right track for the fit.

Naalbinding is slower than knitting, overall, but in a more resource poor society it makes a lot more use of those scraps of yarn that you've already put hours and hours of work into making. And they won't go to waste.

The Trojan war is a perfect example of a bunch of seemingly unrelated actions from the point of view of the people performing those actions leading to just a whole bunch of death. My word. Nobody involved expected literally any of this.

You get into a petty argument with a couple of your relatives about who’s prettier. Surely this won’t cause anyone… to die.

You hook up with a god with a bird fetish and lay a couple of swan eggs. That’s really weird but whatever. Surely these children won’t set off the end of society as you know it.

You are given the choice between being king of the world, killing a bunch of people, and having a pretty wife. You choose the pretty wife. Surely this is the most peaceful option that will not start any wars.

You don’t want a war to start so you invoke mutually assured destruction on everyone involved because surely nobody would go to war with half of the Mediterranean for one woman. Nobody is stupid enough to start that.

Your husband is offering your daughter in marriage to the best warrior in the entire world! Surely he wouldn’t perform human sacrifice on his own family. Why would this even occur to you? Human sacrifice is a major taboo in your culture.

Uh oh! Your demigod boyfriend has decided that he’d rather die young and live on in legend than live a long life with you and be forgotten. Well the only right thing to do would be to follow him to Troy and be with him till the end. Surely this will not lead to your untimely death.

Your city is being besieged but don’t worry. Your walls were built by a god and your people will be safe inside. Surely the Greeks will give up soon enough.

Your commanding general has stolen your woman from you! You’re done with this. You’re tired of him. You’re tired of fighting this war for a cause that isn’t yours. You’ve decided you will live a long life and die in obscurity, actually. You’re going home. Surely this course of action will lead to less of your men dying and securing you a long life with your boyfriend and long suffering abandoned wife.

There’s the warrior that’s been slaughtering your people. Look there, he just killed a son of Zeus! Get him! End the war! Surely that isn’t his boyfriend wearing his armor. That would be ridiculous.

All of your major warriors are dead. Everyone just wants this to be over. Time for horse strategies. This will finally end the war. This will be it. Then we can all finally go home and see our wives, right? It only takes a few days to get home from here by boat, right?

we are not getting out of the plant blog allegations with this one