Sometimes you just gotta UwU

sometimes I just want to draw some wrestler Thorin... you guys get it, right? 🙈

Your honor I love them…

today in: i'm not a comic artist

Happy #iwd2018 💜 here’s a short comic about my Chinese grandmothers. Thank you to all the women who make life better for those who come after. #herstoryourstory #chineseamerican

this movie is so fucking creepy jesus fuck

It’s by Tim Burton, what did you honestly expect?

Actually, it’s Henry Selick, who was the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The book was written by Neil Gaiman, though, and is far…far….worse.

Sorry, I’m about to geek the hell out.

The movie is captivating, but the book is twenty kinds of terrifying, even now, ten years after I first read it. As disturbing as the movie may have been to some, the things Selick added really serve to cushion just how horrific the story really is.

First of all, the character of Wybie does not exist in the book. Coraline is facing all of this nearly alone, with her only help coming from the sly comments of the cat, a warning from the circus mice, and the stone given to her by her neighbor, presented with no comment but that it “makes the unseen seen.”

Second, the Other Parents are never quite as warm (and, dare I say, normal) as they are in the gifs above. They’re described as having paper-white skin and the Other Mother’s hair is said to move on its own, and her long, red, claw-like nails don’t ease any uncertainty that she is absolutely, positively up to no good. The first time Coraline meets them, they (and the rest of the Others) seem to be playing roles (for whatever reason, Coraline does not seem to pick up on this), like they all know what to say and what to do and are simply waiting for Coraline to make her move in their terrifying play world. This is shown to be partly true when the Other Parents tell her they know she’ll be back soon after she refuses the buttons - this time, to stay.

Third, the Other Mother commits atrocities that really should not have been in a book for anyone not fully grown up. She physically deforms the world around Coraline to slow her progress in their game beyond any mild traps the movie portrays, and, instead of turning the Other Father into the wandering pumpkin-thing seen in the film, she simply ceases to use him and throws his body away in the cellar, leaving him to rot with whatever bit of sentience he has left. She begins to lose her touch, as Coraline gains the upper hand. Her world doesn’t just become a nightmare - it falls apart completely. No creepy but oddly cool bug furniture here, just the house that now appears to be a child’s drawing. Whatever the Other Mother is (a beldame, but something tells me she’s much more ancient and powerful than that), she does not give half a hump about what she has to do to ensnare Coraline. Destroy the supporting characters of her twisted creation? Done. Allow herself to be dismembered to ruin Coraline’s life in the normal world? Not even gonna bat an eyelash.

On a final, personal note, imagine eight year-old me, ignored by my parents, absorbed in the story and identifying with Coraline from the start. Imagine me finishing this bloodcurdling book and immediately thinking of my basement, where there is still a locked door that my grandmother swears up and down is nothing more than a storage room, but has not once in my (or my mother’s) lifetime unlocked.

Can you see why this book still scares me?

Fun fact I learned from seeing neil gaiman speak: when he first wanted the book published, his editor said it was too scary. He suggested she read it to her young daughter, and then decide. So she did, and her daughter wasn’t afraid, and it was published. Years later, Gaiman was sitting next to that daughter at an event and told her this story, and she said “oh I was terrified I just didn’t want to tell my mom”.

Coraline WAS too scary to be published, but exists anyway because a girl lied to her mother.

@neil-gaiman, is this true about the publisher’s daughter?

It was my literary agent, Merrilee Heifetz who read it and said “you can’t seriously expect this to be published as a children’s book.” So I suggested she read it to her daughters. And she called me back a week later and said “They love it and they weren’t scared at all. I’ll take it to Harper Children’s.”

A decade later, at the Opening Night of the Coraline musical, I was sitting next to Morgan, Merilee’s youngest daughter, and told her how her not being scared had made the book happen. And she said “I was terrified. But I needed to find out what happened next. So nobody knew.”

So, yes.

This website can be toxic at times, but the fact that people can just tag Neil Gaiman to get his input, like a sorcerer invoking a benevolent spirit, is definitely a bright spot.

the joys of maintaining a non-USAmerican wiki

A patron of terrible things. Face of the void, head of the sun. Finally finished this guy!

I would bet cash money that Dick said the exact same thing to Bruce when he was 14, too. I AM MAKING THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR YOU BY PUTTING ON A SUIT. IT IS RESTRICTING MY FREEDOM IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES, BRUCE. Dick has earned the right to say, "Your sacrifice is appreciated." okay, he's been there and now it's his turn to be the one that finds this funny.

just learned that magnolias are so old that they’re pollinated by beetles because they existed before bees

They existed *before beetles*

Why is this sad? Why am I sad?

https://xkcd.com/1259/

This is how I feel about Joshua Trees. They and avocado trees produce fruit meant to be eaten and dispersed by giant ground sloths. Without them, the Joshua Trees' range has shrunk by 90%.

(my own photos)

Not only they, but the entire Mojave ecosystem is still struggling to adapt since the loss of ground sloth dung. their chief fertilizer.

Many, many trees and plants in the Americas have widely-spaced, extremely long thorns that do nothing to discourage deer eating their leaves, but would've penetrated the fur of ground sloths and mammoths. Likewise, if you've observed a tree that drops baseball or softball-sized fruit which lies on the ground and rots, like Osage Oranges, which were great for playing catch at my school, chances are they were ground sloth or mammoth chow.

You can read about various orphaned plants and trees missing their megafauna in this poignant post:



First quote from the linked article. Found it poetic.

too many cute reshirement bagginshield fics where thorin becomes a sweet bumbling house-husband to bilbo and not enough where he starts playing hobbiton like stardew valley. he is thorin oakenshield son of thrain son of thror and he SHALL make the best blackberry cobbler for mid-years day and his enemies will WEEP for it

playing with my touys

We've apparently invented an artificial stone that, when cut, functions as a kind of Super Asbestos.

So, you know, watch out for that.

Nononono silica dust is a known and common hazard in construction and manufacturing. This is deliberate and horrifying neglect on the part of these employers. They could have properly implemented engineering controls, they could have required respirators on the shop floor. What you call "super asbestos" (silica dust) has been killing people for centuries, as long as people have been stonemasons really. OSHA has strict standards regarding the PEL for silica dust, but there is a dangerous lack of awareness and enforcement of safety protocols. This is not some new horror of the culture of capitalism, this is ordinary and awful and age old neglect.

Silicosis is an old problem, but this specific case is a new horror.

If you read the article, it points out that silicosis has been around a long time, but engineered stone has a much higher percentage of silica than ordinary stone, and so instead of dying of silicosis in their sixties or seventies, men are being disabled or dying as early as their twenties. Even the workshops that are using the standard safety protocols aren't safe, because this material is so dangerous:

[...]

one of the oddest things about the beatles episode is there was no beatles music in it

this is only like, the third or fourth oddest thing about that episode

the others are: