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The White Rabbit Is Following You.

@holdthemegaphone

I'm Róisín 22 years old From Manchester, recent graduate of the University of Leicester, spent a little time in California. I apologise in advance for the mess I have made of my theme You can find me as @decidedlypale on most social media Personal posts under #personal My Face Poems AO3 Twitting
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this is by far my favorite safety/warning sign btw. they really went off with this one

No cuz I fucking love this sign. It’s not an actual barrier so it’s not like some sort of challenge it simply says “fuck around and you will find out”

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Ohohoho I LOVE “fuck around and find out” signs, especially the really dramatic and ominous (but true) ones

(Context for the last one: it’s a WWII era sign posted around the soldiers’ washroom mirror, warning them to never discuss military plans in places where civilians could hear them and report back to the enemy, e.g. in restaurants and pubs in the country. “Loose lips sink ships”.)

I also love these two, which I would place in the category of “You already fucked around, now you’re about to find out.”

Aerated water is fucking scary. It's water that has a fuckton of gas in it, which reduces the buoyancy to the point where you will immediately start to sink if you fall in.

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ive been collecting these recently and wanted to add some of my favorites

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Strange that it never occured to me. There are times I've been so upset that I've stamped around while cussing, that I've lain flat on the floor and groaned for as long as I had breath, that I've ranted my frustration aloud in an unhinged monologue, that I've swung my limbs about in a fury. All until I'd vented enough to just ... resume my normal life.

And if I'd had not the privacy of my home, I'd either have had to bottle that all up ... or open it all up where the public could scrutinize my every move. It really is a privilege to not be constantly on display like that.

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kids these days who are fans of fall out boy and can just read the lyrics on spotify or whatever. do you know how lucky you are. when i was a lad you listened to an illegally burnt cd, heard a nonsensical string of syllables, and listened to it 100 times until you thought you know what was said. and then you got ahold of an album sleeve with lyrics and read the lyrics. and realise you were absolutely nowhere close.

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What able bodied authors think I, an amputee and a wheelchair user, would want in a scifi setting:

  • Tech that can regenerate my old meat legs.
  • Robot legs that work just like meat legs and are functionally just meat legs but robot
  • Literally anything that would mean I don't have to use a wheelchair.
  • If I do need to use a wheelchair, make it fly or able to "walk me" upstairs

What I actually want:

  • Prosthetic covers that can change colour because I'm too indecisive to pick one colour/pattern for the next 5+ years.
  • A leg that I can turn off (seriously, my above knee prosthetic has no off switch... just... why?)
  • A leg that won't have to get refitted every time I gain or loose weight.
  • A wheelchair that I can teleport to me and legs I can teleport away when I'm too tierd to keep walking. And vice versa.
  • In that same vein, legs I can teleport on instead of having to fiddle around with the sockets for half an hour.
  • Prosthetic feet that don't require me to wear shoes. F*ck shoes.
  • Actually accessible architecture, which means when I do want to use my wheelchair, it's not an issue.
  • Prosthetic legs with dragon-claw feet instead of boring human feet or just digigrade prosthetics that are just as functional as normal human-shaped ones.
  • A manual wheelchair with the option to lift my seat up like those scissor-lift things so I'm not eye-level with everyone's butt on public transport/so I can reach the top shelf by myself.
  • A prosthetic foot that lights up when it hits the ground like those children's shoes.

We need like “unclench your jaw” posts but for eye strain. Like

Go look at something 20ft away for 20 seconds.

take off your glasses if you wear them for 20 seconds

Recommended by my optometrist

Look at something 20 feet away, then 10, then 5, then one, then if you can your nose.

Repeat twice, then again without glasses.

Face forward look out of the corner of your eye. As far as you can look. Slowly move to the other corner. Repeat twice.

Look down as far as you can. Slowly look up. Repeat twice.

Roll eyes twice.

Close eyes for five minutes.

I do this every day usually at my halfway point. My migraines went away. My vision go better. Honestly stretching my eyes as she put it feels great too.

this clip from make some noise s1e8 with oscar montoya and brennan lee mulligan is the only super mario bros content i care about personally

brennan lee mulligan has the greatest superpower: the unlimited ability to make an absolutely off-the-cuff monologue and then follow it up with the ultimate turnaround. he can share the power with others

but credit also needs to be firmly planted in the hands of oscar for hearing the prompt say "dramatic video game cutscene" and then going "got it, mario and luigi."

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Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them. 

“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”

Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”

It’s just. 

50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job. 

i also like that this is a “ask craftspeople” thing, it reminds me of when art historians were all “the fuck” about someone’s ear “deformity” in a portrait and couldn’t work out what the symbolism was until someone who’d also worked as a piercer was like “uhm, he’s fucked up a piercing there”. interdisciplinary shit also needs to include non-academic approaches because crafts & trades people know shit ok

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One of my professors often tells us about a time he, as and Egyptian Archaeologist, came down upon a ring of bricks one brick high. In the middle of a house. He and his fellow researchers could not fpr the life of them figure out what tf it could possibly have been for. Until he decided to as a laborer, who doesnt even speak English, what it was. The guy gestures for my prof to follow him, and shows him the same ring of bricks in a nearby modern house. Said ring is filled with baby chicks, while momma hen is out in the yard having a snack. The chicks can’t get over the single brick, but mom can step right over. Over 2000 years and their still corraling chicks with brick circles. If it aint broke, dont fix it and always ask the locals.

I read something a while back about how pre-columbian Americans had obsidian blades they stored in the rafters of their houses. The archaeologists who discovered them came to the conclusion that the primitive civilizations believed keeping them closer to the sun would keep the blades sharper.

Then a mother looked at their findings and said “yeah, they stored their knives in the rafters to keep them out of reach of the children.”

Omg the ancient child proofing add on tho lol

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I remember years ago on a forum (email list, that’s how old) a woman talking about going to a museum, and seeing among the women’s household objects a number of fired clay items referred to as “prayer objects”.  (Apparently this sort of labeling is not uncommon when you have something that every house has and appears to be important, but no-one knows what it is.)  She found a docent and said, “Excuse me, but I think those are drop spindles.”  “Why would you think that, ma’am?”  “Because they look just like the ones my husband makes for me.  See?”  They got all excited, took tons of pictures and video of her spinning with her spindle.  When she was back in the area a few years later, they were still on display, but labeled as drop spindles.

So ancient Roman statues have some really weird hairstyles. Archaeologists just couldn’t figure them out. They didn’t have hairspray or modern hair bands, or elastic at all, but some of these things defied gravity better than Marge Simpson’s beehive.

Eventually they decided, wigs. Must be wigs. Or maybe hats. Definitely not real hair.

A hairdresser comes a long, looks at a few and is like, “Yeah, they’re sewn.”

“Don’t be silly!” the archaeologists cry. “How foolish, sewn hair indeed! LOL!”

So she went away and recreated them on real people using a needle and thread and the mystery of Roman hairstyles was solved.

She now works as a hair archaeologist and I believe she has a YouTube channel now where she recreates forgotten hairstyles, using only what they had available at the time.

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every few months rich people start up a new debate about how often you should shower and all of them have the very strict opinion that it's at least once a day despite consistently being told that 2-4 times a week is actually better for your skin unless you're getting downright disgusting every day. they're always absolutely appalled. like every time i see an interview with some random rich person they are DISGUSTED by the idea of not showering every single day. i genuinely can't tell if they're always serious or just embarrassed by their habits but i can say with 100% confidence that these rich people would not survive one day with any poor person i've ever met

You people aren't showering every day???? Not even a quick rinse in the morning?????

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Listen to your elders

So last week I posted abut the importance of downloading your fic. And then three days later AO3 went down for 24 hours. No one was more weirded out by this than I was. But while y’all were acting like the library at Alexandria was on fire I was reading my download fic and editing chapter eight of Buck, Rogers, and the 21st Century. And also thinking about what I could do to be helpful when the crisis was actually over.

So first off, I’m going to repeat that if you’re going to bookmark a fic, you really need to also download the fic and back it up in a safe place. I just do it automatically now and it’s a good habit to get into.

But let’s talk about some other scenarios. Last October I lost power for over a week after hurricane Ian. Apart from not having internet or A/C I did find plenty to do, I collect books so I had plenty to read, but maybe, unlike me, your favorite comfort reads aren’t sitting on a bookshelf. So let’s do something about that, shall we?

In olden times many long years ago around 1995 we printed off a lot of fic. It was mostly SOP to print a fic you planned to reread and stick it in a three ring binder. And that’s totally valid today too, but you can also make a very nice paperback with a minimum amount of skill and materials.

Let’s start with the download; Go to Ao3 and select your fic, we’ll be working with one of mine. This method works best with one shots, long fic tends to need a more complicated approach. Get yourself an HTML download

Open up the HTML download and select all then copy paste into any word processor. Set the page to landscape and two columns, then change the font to something you find easy to read, this is your book, no judgement. This is all you have to do for layout but I like to play a little bit. I move all the meta, summary, notes to the end and pick out a fun font for the title: 

No time like the present to do a quick proofread. Congratulations, you’ve just created your first typeset. On to the fun part.

Now you’re going to need some materials:  8.5x11in paper ruler one sheet of 12x12 medium card stock (60-80lb) scissors pencil pen or fine tip marker sheet of wax paper white glue two binder clips 2 heavy books or 1 brick butter knife

You’ll also need a printer, if you’re in the US there is almost a 100% chance your local library has a printer you can use if you don’t have your own. None of these materials are expensive and you can literally use cheap copy paper and Elmers glue.

Print your text block, one page per side. Fold the first page in half so that the blank side is inside and the printed side out:

use the butter knife to crease the edge. Repeat on all the sheets. When you’ve finished, stack them up with the raw edge on the left and the folded edge on the right. I used standard copy paper, because you’re only printing on one side there’s no bleed to worry about. Take the text block and line everything up. Use the binder clips to hold the raw edge in place.

Wrap the text block in the wax paper so that the raw edge and binder clips are facing out. I’m going to use my home built book press but you don’t need one, a brick or a couple of books or anything else heavy will work fine.

Once the text block is anchored down, take off he binder clips and get out the glue.

You can use a brush but you don’t need one, smear some glue on that raw edge.

Go make a margarita, watch The Mandalorian, call your mother. Don’t come back for at least an hour

In an hour smear some more glue on there and shift your brick forward so that the whole book is covered. This keeps the paper from warping. While glue part 2 is drying we’ll do the cover. Get out your 12x12 cardstock

Mark the cardstock off at 8.5 inches and cut it. Measure in 5.5 inches from the left and put in a score line with the butter knife (the back edge not the sharp edge)

Carefully fold the score line, this is your front cover. You have some options for the cover title, you can use a cutting machine like a cricut if you have one, you can print out a title on the computer and use carbon paper to transfer the text to the cardstock. I was in a mood so I just freehanded that beoch. Pencil first then in pen.

Take your text block out from under your brick. Line it up against the score mark and mark the second score on the other side of the spine

Fold the score and glue the textblock into the cover at the spine. Once the glue dries up mark the back cover with the pencil and then trim the back cover to fit with your scissors.

Voila:

I’m going to put this baby on the shelf next to the Silmarillion.

The whole process, not counting drying time, took less than an hour.

If you want to make a book of a longer fic, I recommend Renegade Publishing, they have a ton of resources for fan-binders.