I’m reading a book on the history of man-made monsters and at one point it casually mentions “the famous Pope Formosus, who was the focus of the terrifying Cadaver Synod.” I can’t believe I went to Catholic school and was never taught about this… what’s the point. It turns out that in the 9th century a Pope decided to sue the previous pope, who had died the year before, and so naturally they dug up his corpse and dressed it in full pope outfit to hold the trial in his “presence”. The dead pope was pronounced guilty and cancelled (his papacy was declared null). Then the next pope held another synod that uncancelled him and forbade future cadaver trials. Then the next-next pope went “no, digging up a corpse to sue it was a good idea” and re-cancelled Formosus. Lesser-known chapter of Catholic Church history. 

What does this have to do with man-made monsters you might say—my book mentions that among other things Formosus was accused of dabbling in alchemy and creating a “frog with huge eyes” who showed “diabolical intelligence.” The brief mention of him ends with

if the pope’s sentient evil frog actually existed rest assured that it was possibly destroyed

[Image description: Screenshot of text that starts in the middle of a sentence and reads “…have been insane. It is possible that his alleged alchemical creations (if they actually existed) were destroyed upon his death.” /end ID]

all the photos of him are like this, I love that this guy understood he had been born with the face of a wizard or axe murderer and just leaned fully into it

he knew EXACTLY what he was doing

We stan a legend.

You can tell a Euro-fantasy medieval city map is made by an American when the layout is a grid and not:

A) a giant thumb print over a slightly bent river, interrupted by roads never meant for cars

B) One of those experiments where they give a spider cocaine, surrounded by a wall that has been rebuilt three times

A grid could be an interesting worldbuilding point if a capital city has a grid layout because the rulers trued to impose it on the chaotic layout of the original city for control/modernisation (a la beijing). Or because the population expanded rapidly. The shape of a city is a political decision

And the areas around critical political structures absolutely have often had grids and organised planning: Beijing is a fantastic example. Before the CCP knocked down the old walls and gates, there were nested rings of walls:

There were the general city walls (circling both the Manchu and Chinese cities), then the enclosed Manchu city, and then the imperial city, and finally the Forbidden City (i.e., the imperial place). And note the broad, straight ceremonial route from the Forbidden City down across Tiananmen Square down to the two great temples: those are some big ol’ straight lines and right angles.

Rulers and regimes throughout history have always used physical space to articulate authority.

Grids show up:

The real weakness of D&D city planning would be not thinking flexibly about how different cultures’ values would be expressed in how they plan (or if they plan) a city. Heck, if you just Google the differences between Greek vs. Etruscan temples, you can already begin to get an idea of how different things can get.

Also someone should do Robert Moses (of NYC city planning infamy) as a wizard NPC.

Someone did! Brennan Lee Mulligan did, in The Unsleeping City (um, spoilers), an urban fantasy campaign (he somehow made it work with D&D 5e) set in NYC. The arch-villain is Robert Moses, and he’s a lich. What an inspired move, I loved it.

same energy

trans girls not tucking needs to be seen as a completely normal and nonsexual thing. chasers go die.

trans women’s genitals are not so repulsive that they need to be totally hidden through our clothes at the expense of our health and safety and for the sake of your comfort.

if cis men don’t have to tuck then neither do trans women.

Tucking is way more dangerous than people seem to realize. Tucking can cause irritation, blisters, urinary tract infections, and may increase the chances of getting testicular cancer.

Forcing trans people to tuck is violence.

all of this!! it can also cause inguinal hernias, which is basically when the abdominal muscles in the inguinal cavity (where the testes go when u tuck) weaken and part of ur intestines slip through that wall and either get the blood supply cut off or worse. its fixable with surgery but if left alone can be life threatening.

and like you say, its violence. its society forcing many trans women to choose between either self inflicted violence or violence from a hate crime. trans bodies need to be normalised and accepted. we deserve to live safely and happily.

This includes if said trans girl is wearing a swimsuit/leggings/short shorts

send cropped political memes

like this

everyone’s reblogging this and no one’s giving me any lmao

I gotcha

a few more

"The gears of capitalism are well oiled with the blood of the working man"

Honer Simpson quote seen in Chicago

He needs to be obliterated like im so serious

I don’t think it’s fully possible to embrace nonbinary people until you stop thinking of men as the opposite of women and of masculinity negative femininity and vice versa. Like. Honestly it was a ridiculous belief to begin with, we’re not an incredibly sexually dymorphic species to begin with and men and women (even cis men and women!) are far more similar than different. Until you stop thinking of men and women as inherent opposites you can never accept bigender people or people who combine masculinity and femininity or people who hold manhood in some ways and womanhood in others. And honestly it’s a kind of heteronomative viewpoint anyway

I think the fact that there are advertisements on cocomelon and advertisements on baby sleep soundtracks makes me feel unspeakable levels of violence.

The baby I was just rocking to sleep does not know what your product is and there is zero percent chance of them ever buying it or me remembering you fondly because you just woke the baby up who is now screaming in my ear if you had any thought that it's justified because just MAYBE I'll hear enough words to think about your product.

We are living in an increasingly breathless world that screams 'think of the children' as it loads yet more disruptive, loud adverts onto platforms and media for small children and quite honestly I think that 90% of advertisement should be illegal.

Fairplay (formerly known as Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood) is a legitimately great organization fighting against this exact thing.

Fun fact, Reagan has something to do with this

Basically deregulation in advertising lead to children's TV functioning as ads

— Raquel S. Benedict, Is It Imposter Syndrome? Or Are We All Imposters?

— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Other Wind

y'all are really missing out on this one

Adam Krause, Walking Each Other Home

some teddy bear dall e 2 images i am crying over

the capitalists will sell us the rope with which to-- oh it's rope rental now? rope subscription service yes I see-- Uber for rope, yeah okay sure-- freemium with an ad-supported tier uh huh--