Miss Malaphor

Halloween Tumblr at the stroke of midnight on October 1st

It’s that time of year again!!

Siri, define capitalism in one image

People don’t like Ted Cruz very much

Fuck Ted Cruz.

Advice from Zoe

[captions]

Person filming in a quiet, comforting voice: hey Zoe do you have any advice for us today?

Zoe: (chittering while the words appear on screen)

Where there's a will, there's a way. via

Winter winner chicken dinner

Just a reminder that Frederick Banting, discoverer of the process to synthesise insulin, sold the patent for $1 because it was so important to him that it be widely available and easily mass produced. Yes, you should be angry.

I've never hit reblog so fast in my entire life omg

Reblogging

still not over how much I love this

Posts that would kill a peasant from 1173

Darrell Thorne on Instagram

Here’s some of his other artworks

i do unironically love saying The Before Times when talking about covid. if we’re gonna be in a deadly pandemic we might as well talk like we’re in bad YA. let’s allow ourselves that

‘WAULKING’ THE TWEED

Waulking is a finishing process that is applied to woven wool tweed. In Gaelic language, the process of waulking is called luadh (“loo-ugh”) and the songs of waulking are known as orain luaidh (“or-ine loo-ie”). There were four parts to the waulking process. The first, similar to the fulling process, entails shrinking the fabric so it thickens to give a degree of wind and waterproofing. Then cleansing the cloth, folding the cloth, the process of giving it tension, after which came a rite of consecration. Waulking was a daylong project and once begun it had to be finished in one session.

When cloth had been woven and removed from the loom, a session was planned. The waulking women assembled at the house of the owner of the cloth after breakfast. The tweed, up to 70 yards long, was sewn together at the ends to make a continuous loop and then it was soaked in human urine, fualor graith, which was saved in each house for this sole purpose. The ammonia served to deepen and intensify the dye colors but also to remove residual oils used to dress the wool.

Waulking of cloth was done by pounding the material against a board. Women would sit around the waulking board and the cloth would be pulled towards you and beaten on the board then passed slightly to your left before pushing it back, moving it in a four-time clockwise direction. Cloth would be inches narrower when the process was complete in addition to being softer, thicker, and more tightly woven.

Accompanying this work were waulking songs, òrain luiadh, a musical form unknown elsewhere in Western Europe. Waulking was measured by song - not time - it was never said, “it will take another half-hour” but rather “it will take another song”. The songs, which have common themes of love, war, hunting and sewing, are very rhythmic and were composed to keep the beat as the cloth was being waulked. The best singer, the ban dhuan, would sing out the verse and then everyone would join in the chorus. The verses and choruses (sometimes there are up to 4 choruses) are very short, sometimes only a few syllables.

The original video link is broken, but there are a few other examples out there

The thing with telling “cliche” stories, but with representation, is… these stories aren’t cliche for us.

Picture this. The people at the table next to you have been getting chocolate cake as a dessert for YEARS. After every meal, they get a chocolate cake. Now, it’s been years, and the people at that table can barely stand chocolate anymore. They want maybe a cheesecake. Or lemon mousse.

But your table? Has NEVER had chocolate cake. Mousse is also good, but you are SO hungry for that chocolate cake, cause you never had it before, and it’s brand new for you, and you’ve been watching the other table eat it for YEARS.

That’s what’s like getting a “cliche” story that’s representative. Has it been done a million times before? Yes. Has it ever been done for US? Well… no. Maybe it’s the 500th chocolate cake in existence, but all the other chocolate cakes weren’t meant for us (girls/PoC/queer folk/disabled folk/etc)

So it being cliche is not a bad thing. You may not want chocolate cake anymore. But we want our slice too.

I love using “good catch”

I also say “thanks for the update” or “thanks for the head’s up!”

“I really appreciate the head’s up!” also a classic

If I haven’t gotten back to someone in a swift enough period (i.e. one work day max) I say “thank you for your patience. after some consideration, I have decided…”

don’t apologize for piddly things! 

thank you > sorry

I need to remember

thank you > sorry

Thank you for waiting for me > sorry for being late

Thank you for helping me/for your time/for listening to me > sorry for bothering you

Thanking someone when they do you a favour > apologizing for your existence

This is especially hard when you haven’t been taught that people need to respect your limits, but with a bit of practice you can absolutely get there!

My kitty on wet floor for the first time 

(Source)