yeahhh I lied.

one more time, HAPPY MOON LANDING DAY!

aaand gooodnight.

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!

It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.

Hey. Hey. Tumblr. Ides of March ppl. We can do this

MOON LANDING DAY IS THURSDAY!

HAPPY MOON DAY EVERYONE!!! 🌙

Next installment of Lord of the Rings AU: It's Fine, Everybody's Fine is Aragorn's coronation, at which Boromir W E E P S:

I think in a circumstance where Boromir lives, or even just in interacting with Faramir in canon, Aragorn would be very aware of the optics of striding in out of the wilderness to take a throne that the line of stewards had been fighting and dying for in his absence (Thorongil cosplay aside). Cool thing is, in this AU, seeing the king's throne filled and experiencing Gondor at peace for the first time in living history is more than Boromir EVER hoped for.

The day the White Tree sapling blooms, Aragorn wakes up Faramir and Boromir like a six-year-old on Christmas:

And then there's that FIRST SUNRISE over the Mountains of Shadow, when day breaks over a defeated east that's clean and clear and Boromir WEEPS AGAIN because he NEVER THOUGHT he'd see such a thing and YES this is a THIRST TRAP why do you ASK

Hell yeah I gave him a tattoo, it's the seven stars of Gondor plus a coastal rockrose that grows in sandy soils along the Mediterranean because I figure that's like Dol Amroth in honor of HIS MOM because I LOVE SYMBOLISM

I would like to share with you all some absolutely raw advice my mom gave me about my anxiety today

There was a HUGE raven on top of the church and when I stopped to take a picture it swooped at me, so I figured ‘oh shit I disrespected the unseelie’ so I apologized as it flew away and ten minutes later I got hit by a car but like, really gently, so what I mean to say is that the Fair Folk are real and they are willing to dish out warnings

YOOOO IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS PICTURE

GUYS I TOLD YOU I HAD A PHOTO OF IT

FUCK YEAH

Apparently neopets not only managed to ditch the NFT bros, but with the closure of the Jumpstart brand weeks ago, neopets is now completely independent for the first time since the early 2000′s, got millions in a new investment deal and are currently installing a flash simulator so that all their games and animations work again.

OH????

OH?!?!?

Jim Butcher still at large.

May I add a few of my own favourites on this topic?

My first introduction to this was Archaeologies of Sexuality, edited by Schmidt and Voss. This is an edited volume with various case studies, exploring a variety of avenues of research into this topic that also does a pretty good job explaining a lot of relevant concepts to boot. For more specific explorations of this topic, I also like Looking at Lovemaking by John Clarke if you’re into Greek and Roman stuff, Sex and Gender in Ancient Egypt by Kathlyn Cooney for a basic introduction into this topic in Egypt, and Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives by Rosemary Joyce if you’re interested in embodied gender in prehistory.

wow millennials are glued to their i-phones and laptops so much they cant even be bothered robbing in person anymore!!! maybe these trust fund babies should stop phishing credit cards while sitting on their butts and go out there and put some elbow grease into their thievery!

Most people know Joseph Jacobs for his work of collecting and putting in a literary form the traditional fairy tales of England - he is the man that made famous tales such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, Tattercoats, The Buried Moon, and many others.

But what people tend to not know is that he was also the author of a very particular book called “European Folk and Fairy Tales” - sometimes shortened as Europa’s Fairy Book (in reference to the Fairy Books of Andrew Lang). Remember what I said before about the folklorist vs literary theories when it came to fairy tales? Well Joseph Jacobs lived in the full “folkloric fairytale” movement, fashion and study, and one of the main beliefs of this movement was that, beyond all the local and regional variations of a fairy tale, at the root of these similarly “cousin tales” found in numerous countries and eras, for each “fairy tale type”, there was an “ancestor-tale”. A “first” tale, a “primitive” tale, an “original” tale from which all the variants were born - a common ancestor that gave birth to all the different variations that formed together a “type”. It was the theory of evolution if you want, with each individual belonging to a larger group of species all coming from a common ancestor. 

And Joseph Jacobs, working on this theory and belief, decided to create his European Folk and Fairy Tales book. After collecting as many variants and variations of some fairy tale types across as much European countries as he could, he compared them, studied them, and tried to re-create the “original tale”, the “ancestor-fairytale”, the “original Europan story”. The result of this work was his “European Folk and Fairy Tales” book, a book contaned the supposed and believed reconstructed “original” tales that formed the “primordial” group of fairytales from which the ones collected by Grimm,  Asbjørnsen and Moe, Jacobs himself and others came from. 

Of course, this being a purely folklorist work that tried to ignore as much as it could all the literary side of fairytale history (for example Jacobs removed the fairy godmother from his Cinderella reconstruction due to it being an invention of Perrault), and a work of 1916 that was created with the resources and perceptions of the time, this is not at all considered to be a true scholar work today, and it mostly fell into obscurity as an entertaining project and an interesting piece of fairytale history. But it shouldn’t be forgotten by any means, since this book reflects the beliefs and theories of the folklorists and fairy tale critics of the 1910s Western Europe, and even today on the Internet you will see several illustrations created for this specific book reused for other fairytales (I was surprised to discover that a recurring illustration of Hansel and Gretel I saw everywhere was actually created for Jacobs’ reconstruction-tale). 

So if you ever want to check Jacobs’ Europa’s Fairy Book, you’ll find in it…

… The proto-”Snow White” fairytale, simply titled Snowwhite

… The proto-”Cinderella” story, Cinder-Maids

… “Beauty and the Beast”, which as you can guess is the reconstruction of the “original Beauty and the Beast”

… Thumbkin, the supposed “ancestor” of the Tom Thumb tales.

… The Unseen Bridegroom, the artificial ancestor of all “Cupid and Psyche” type of fairytales

… Johnnie and Grizzle, a synthesis of all Europan “Hansel and Gretel” stories

… The Earl of Cattenborough, the proto-”Puss in Boots”.

And many more artificial but fascinating wonders! 

(Though don’t get me wrong - I do not use “artificial” in a pejorative way. Many fairytales we know today are “artificial” in the eyes of folklorists - all literary fairytales for example, from Perrault to Andersen, are demmed “artificial” by their literary nature ; and even the folklorists have to admit that some of their own created artificial tales, such as those born of the Grimm’s editing of the collected folktales. So, considering all that, while Jacobs’ reconstruction are certainly not THE actual proto-fairytales - if such a thing even exists - it is not because they are artificial that they are less to be considered than literary works or the edited final Grimm stories)

So this Leia standing up which is adorable and I would have posted on Reddit to /r/catsstandingup but I haven’t really figured out Tumblr yet so is there a #catsstandingup is that what I do someone help I’m an old man

I hope it’s cool that I drew your cat

Taniquetil by J.R.R. Tolkien

Yes BUT. This specific desk is in a library so a parent that needs to use a library computer can do their work and have a little ease in managing their kiddo. In a library environment this is less productivity culture bullshit and more 'oh this is a fantastic solution to a difficult situation library staff see 8 times a day'. Is it still productivity culture bullshit because this parent may not have affordable childcare or internet available to them? Yes. Am I glad it exists in a library environment to fill a demonstrated need? Hell yeah.

and keeps library staff from having to act as babysitters...

dear GOD we could use a couple of these. we keep crayons and coloring books on hand for the ones old enough for that, but the wee ones squirming and fussing in laps while the parents are fighting with job applications or convincing gmail’s current 2-step verification to let them in so they can print off a return label (both of which i have seen)? this would be SO NICE.

library groups have been loving this & are spreading the word & actively trying to purchase/create similar things in different systems

Okay, I finished the main images that have been plaguing my brain, so help yourself to: Gondor-Rohan Weddin Day, AU Edition

BROTHER HONOR GUARD

Also details because we all know I love symbolism: Eowyn's carrying Theoden's sword, and she has a Gondorian medal of honor and seabird-wing necklace, while Faramir has a Rohanian crest.

After all the tragedy and trauma, you know--you know--Boromir and Eomer would spend all day being stupid giddy and trying to start shit to cover up for it.

With help from Merry and Pippin

Get him, Eowyn

Who's that in the crowd eyeballing the Third Marshal of the Riddermark?

Final shot for everyone who's obsessed with Boromir's awesome hugs

Okay I have to stop for now or I'm gonna miss a plane, byeee

A recent cartoon for New Scientist