glad google ai is on top of this
Renfield.
This assumes a single fly weighs 8g, which is the weight of a 1-2 week old mouse (!). If you are unfamiliar with metrics: 100g is a bit less a quarter of a pound.
Btw, Wikipedia says a single house fly weighs in the range of 0.2 grams, so Google has discovered a world where flies are about 40x bigger
I was going to tell you that horseflies still absolutely do not weigh 8 grams
but I found a funnier answer
sorry since realizing my gender i have zero tolerance for the whole “man hating” angle of being queer i hate i hate it i hate you. stop. you are hurting people.
i just. speaking up for trans men and getting hit with “imagine defending men” as a reply has enraged me deeply on this day
it’s very “yall only consider trans men real men when it hurts us.” we experience misogyny until we try to speak on it, and then we’re invading women’s spaces. we’re not men when we don’t pass well but we’re men the second we’re looking for queer community and are faced with “men and mascs not allowed” i’m tired
@bookslutskye’s tags:
literally this. when i replied to “imagine standing up for men” saying that trans men deserve to be fought for too, i got hit with “nobody says trans men don’t belong in queer spaces” except a lot of queer & feminist spaces, especially online, actively villainize being a man and dump you the second you transition. it’s gross.
Jesus fuck.
Imagine saying something like that to someone and thinking, "I am a good person who is definitely contributing to a better world."
Queerness is not a license to play Mean Girls without consequences & some of y'all need to really internalize that. Trans men & mascs deserve community support. The bullshit spoken about above is just high school bullying wearing a rainbow cape. It's not cute or justified just because y'all painted a fucking pride flag on it.
As a transfem, this is pure realness. Tired of this shit, helps no one and makes trans people look like clowns alongside how we're getting fucked in every way possible by many governments.
[ID: Boxed shaped clay sculpture of a Przewalski's horse. The horse's body is painted onto the box in the style of palaeolithic cave art, and the front half from the shoulders is realistic and three-dimensional, fully emerging at the end of the box. The horse is in a walking pose with the front left leg raised and the head tilted slightly sideways. Each photo shows a different angle. End ID]
Yeah, happy with this. Will be remaking it at some point, hopefully with less issues. I'll have to give it a coat of gloss as this clay is not hardy and needs protection.
what would a drinking contest with the bois look like?
Unforgettable
direct action 😂😂😂
the working class hero we need
I made a huge batch of roast potatoes with the intent of freezing some to have later on low-energy days, and you should hear the pitiful noises Holly Mop is making.
I already gave her a tiny piece. But she knows there are delicious, delicious, crispy golden potatoes currently cooling in the pan and for some reason, Mama is not sharing them.
Mother is cruel. Cruelty to the Mop. Father will be hearing about this when he returns from the Dreaded Outside.
Hgskl. Thank you, yes. This is exactly what it’s like.
it’s the smallest boy in the world
since the cowboy and the samurai were both dying out in the 1800s i want an action adventure historically wildly inaccurate comic about the last cowboy and the last samurai teaming up BUT one of them is gay and the other doesn’t understand what being gay is and there are multiple comedic mishaps resulting from this
after lots of frantic googling of “were samurais gay” “were cowboys gay” “how did gay samurais work” “did gay cowboys love each other” ad nauseam i have decided that it’s actually funnier if both the cowboy AND the samurai are gay but not for each other and also they both have their very culturally specific understandings of gay social politics so both of them still are equally like “dude why are you like this” to each other
samurai, trying to comfort the cowboy who just got dumped over pony express: when my lover left me for another man, i killed both him and his new lover, and proved to all in shudo that it is what happens when you leave me for another, and i felt much lighter. would doing that also help you?
cowboy, absolutely reeking of the flask, who stopped howling purely out of confusion to try and figure out if the samurai was being serious: dude what the fuck is wrong with you
the depictions of homosexual identity at the time are painstakingly accurate and very clearly heavily researched, and this is purposefully in direct contrast to how absolutely absurd and crazy the entire rest of the premise of the comic is
As I gaze at the structural column in Copley Station, cracked nearly in two and held together with zip ties that have been carefully painted over to match the column underneath, I feel my soul intertwined with that of a small Italian boy of days gone by, who also stopped to look up at a large, groaning, newly painted tank full of molasses
I feel that some non-Boston people think I may have been exaggerating this. While I did not snap a photo as I was on the train, someone else did several months ago. I do want to stress that this column is now freshly painted and therefore completely structurally sound and in absolutely no danger of causing the entire tunnel to collapse. And yes, it did in fact never cross my mind that the original post was nearly 105 years to the day of the Molassacre
This is so safe this is the safest I’ve ever felt good job mbta gold star
The concrete surface appears to be a decorative facade; the load is carried by a steel member underneath. That means that the steel bands holding the concrete on are just to keep the cosmetic part in place.
That said, there do appear to be support members in the MTA system that have deteriorated to the point of creating a safety risk.
See https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2022/07/20/new-image-deteriorated-column-mbta-shutdown-haymarket/
emthroney said:
I think spalling (attempted spalling?) of that type indicates that any structural steel underneath is either actively corroding or, at the very least, very much ready to start corroding now that it's been exposed. Painting it and smooshing the concrete back around it would probably lock moisture in, accelerating the corrosion.
Good point.
*kicks down your door*
HELLO
I am in need of ideas, and you always have good and interesting takes
What're you're favorite kinds of character development and just characters in general?
Oh ho! An interesting one. I had to wait for the weekend so I actually had time to sit down and think cohesively.
Favorite types of characters and their development? For me it's kind of subjective. There's no denying I tend to go for the damaged ones. The ones that suffer and choose not to process their pain in a healthy manner. I think the best all encompassing way to describe my favorite is: "consistent and nonlinear".
Deathy, what the hell does that mean? I'm glad you asked. Let's get into it a bit.
Consistency is so so important to me when considering a character's overall creation and development. I think a trap a lot of people fall into when trying to avoid stagnation in their characters is that they equate development with change.
They are not the same thing.
Did you know a bonsai tree is not a specific type of tree? The name actually refers to the way the tree is grown. Bon means pot and sai means tree. Bonsai can be loosely translated to tree in a pot. We carefully prune and wire the tree to keep it the size and shape we want; we set them up in special little ceramics and put them out on displays but a tree is still a tree no matter how it's grown.
Our characters are the same way. They are still fundamentally human. They are still the same person they always were. Another way to look at it is to look at a bed of sediment. Notice the layers. Each layer brings something new, perhaps fossils or even just a large deposit that changes the shape of the next layer. But somewhere, deep down everything is affected by that base layer. It may not seem that way by looking at just the last few layers but the whole slab is always affected by the beginning. The very start of everything. Our characters (and humans in general) are the same. They start somewhere and it always affects them, no matter how different they become.
Let's look at a character:
Sorry, we're using a character I'm pretty sure you don't know but it's the only one I can think of where I don't have to pull out a physical sourcebook and do four hours of cross checking on because I do not want to get up right now. So we're using John 117 from Halo.
John 117 is known as the savior of humanity. He's the face of the UNSC's Spartan supersoldier program and he'sore than earned every single award and distinction he's been given. He is a leader and the soldier of all time. He follows orders, even when those orders aren't the best choice when seen from the ground and he protects his people no matter what.
Chronologically speaking when we first meet little baby John he's a schoolyard bully. When he first meets Halsey he's playing king of the hill with the other boys and he's winning... violently. Deathy, how does a schoolyard bully turn into the face of the military? Well, through the power of childhood indoctrination, a spartan upbringing, and genetic experimentation you too could become a walking tank and the savior of humanity. And now as we roll out the Spartan IVs you can even sign up instead of being kidnapped as a child......
But back to the character study... it's more than that. As a child John is asked what his goal is. He says, quite simply: to win. This is the first layer in John's character sediment. He wants to win above all else. This is and has always been his goal. And to do that he has to "beat" his training sergeant. He has to "win" the challenges set out for him. There's a great moment when all of the kids are told to run an obstacle course. Chief Mendez says the last one to ring the bell gets no dinner. John of course wants to win so he does. He's the first to ring the bell. But in doing so he leaves his teammates, Kelly and Sam, behind and they don't end up finishing until very last. By the end of the exercise John is told that because his team finished last they all three receive no dinner. The next time when they're told to run the course again John helps his teammates and they receive dinner that night. This is our next layer in the sediment.
John's goal never changed. That little boy who wanted desperately to win didn't suddenly value his team over the goal, in fact he went through a few moments of anger and resentment towards them. He simply reevaluated what winning meant. Instead of "getting there first", winning turned into "getting the whole team there". He's still focused on winning but winning changed.
And years later a classic exchange that every Halo fan knows: "Master Chief, what are you doing?" Replied with: "Sir... Finishing this fight." It's a great exchange between Lord Hood and John that shows us that once again, John wants to win. His goal is to win. But winning doesn't necessarily mean getting there first. And it doesn't in this case necessarily mean getting the whole team there. It means finishing the battle. No matter the cost, just finishing it. Death isn't a concern if that's what wins the day. That's what the win is. This is a moment we step back and look at the whole sediment bed and we can see the layers having built up over John's years, including that he's learned to adapt and prioritize on top of still desiring that win.
All of this to say that John stays the same. At the end of the day he's still that little boy playing king of the hill and wanting nothing more than to be the man that comes out in top. The character doesn't change. The world and his response to it is what changes. I love that kind of consistency in a character's development.
Nonlinear is just a fun way to say complicated I suppose. It's not the perfect word to use but I can't think of another one that conveys what I'm trying to say. It's the way a character twists and shapes the world around them to fit their desires and their needs. The way some are willing to truly twist thoughts, actions or even people around, sometimes quite cruelly in order to justify their actions and their goals. Their journey becomes nonlinear as they reevaluate and work around blocks in their paths. It's the way John changes his ideal of what a win is depending on the situation. It's how Anakin's love for Padme becomes so dangerous. He never once stopped loving her. But it became obsessive and the frustration at his perceived lack of empathy towards his love morphed it into a thing he could not control. It's a very human thing to do.
And I think that's my own personal secret to character development. Making them human. Making them believable. No one is perfect. No one is faultless. No one knows exactly how the world around them works. Every person sees the world around them in a different light. People are affected by the world around them but they are very rarely fundamentally changed by it. A timid person that experiences abuse may shut down because of fear and self preservation while a naturally confident person experiencing the same thing may also shut down but out of resentment and anger. It looks the same on the outside but it's very different on the inside and it will affect how they act. I think it's important to consider what drives people to do things on a level deeper than "oh this person has ADHD so they're going to be hyperactive". Hyperactivity isn't always running around and bouncing off walls. Sometimes, the person worked hard to control that sort of reaction and instead taught themselves to channel the hyperactivity into obsessive fixation on a task or pass time. They still have ADHD and they still have bouts of extreme hyperactivity, it just manifests differently due to experiences and an ability to redistribute the energy. Give your characters that kind of humanity. Make them layered and complicated and full of contradictions that only make sense to them and their twisted little minds. Give them convictions and desires and ideals. A clingy character that wants nothing more than to find a place where they are loved is probably a very insecure person. But one that shrugs off love and refuses to accept it is also very likely to be an extremely insecure person that is desperate to be loved as well. It just manifests differently.
I hope maybe some of that made sense and helped you out. I love picking characters apart and finding out what makes them tick. It's my favorite part of the writing process.
one of the most enlightening realizations ive had was finding out that non-24 hour circadian rhythm people were a pretty large group and most of us have oddly similar cycles of usually around 28hr internal "days" and this masquerades as "insomnia" but if allowed to sleep and wake naturally we will just advance forward through time an extra 2-4 hours a day at a relatively stable pace. we can't go to school or jobs or even run errands on normal schedules without massive pharmacological and behavioral intervention. most of the people who have been diagnosed or figured it out themselves will report horrific, life-ruining disruption in their professional lives and terrible health from accrued lack of sleep. this disorder is most common in vision-impaired people which seems to suggest it's related to light cues. anyway just thinking about this as extremely loud yard work woke me up at 8am for the second day in a row
lot of people reblogging this identifying themselves in it so i wanted to give you a link to a more detailed desription of Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder, and mention theres a similar disorder called Delayed Sleep Phase disorder where you are on a regular 24 hour cycle but you naturally get sleepy around 3-4am every day and wake up around 10am-12pm (roughly). as far as i can tell, despite the widespread nature of both these disorders, its basically impossible to get diagnosed bvecause sleep medicine is probably the single most useless specialty and if you dont have sleep apnea they dont want to hear about it.
this got 14k because Tumblr is absolutely a self-selected population of people with the worst sleep disorders you can possibly imagine
Highlights from the conference room where they nominated contenders for Word of the Year 2023:
• They put Skibidi Toilet on the projector to explain what “skibidi” means.
• Baby Gronk was mentioned.
• We discussed the Rizzler.
• “Cunty” was nominated.
• “Enshittification” was suggested for EVERY category.
• “Blue Check” (like from Twitter) was briefly defined as “Someone who will not Shut The Fuck Up”
• The person writing notes briefly defined babygirl as “referencing [The Speaker]”. He is now being called babygirl in the linguist groupchats.
• MULTIPLE people raised their hand to say “I cannot stress this enough: ‘Babygirl’ refers to a GROWN MAN”
When technical issues occurred while voting on “kenaissance”, everyone had to reassure the speaker, Ben Zimmer, that he was “benough”
In a stunning upset, the last-minute nomination “(derogatory)” DEFEATS “cunty” as the most useful/most likely to succeed word of 2023.
Someone renominates “babygirl” for word of the year, saying that they have spent the past year trying to figure out if people are “little meow meows, blorbos, or babygirls”. This is in front of a room of hundreds of people.
ENSHITTIFICATION WINS WORD OF THE YEAR 2023
While verifying this was true (it is) I discovered that there is a wikipedia article on enshittification
Even though this means I'm going to end up with a poop emoji on my headstone, I'm ok with it.
UM.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T KNOW
@mostlysignssomeportents IS THE PERSON WHO COINED THE TERM "ENSHITTIFICATION"
And we are so proud of our babygirl.
My roommate pacing the floor, talking to their partner on the phone: "NEIL GAIMAN called COREY DOCTOROW a BABYGIRL on MY POST"
someone I follow on the bird app just announced they're starting a very exclusive private fic server because they and a bunch of other people want to talk about how much they love the fics they're reading, and as an author can I just say that a really great place to talk about a fic you love is in the comments for that fic
I understand that people are trying to create safe spaces, but as the number of comments that I get on my fics dwindles with each passing year, knowing these spaces exist where my fics are being discussed, places that I am excluded from, makes me want to write fic LESS
I mean I guess who cares, right, because if I stop writing, there's 10,000 other people that will continue...but if you participate in a fic "book club" server and you say nice things there about a fic you loved, maybe copy and paste that into a comment on AO3?
the only thing fanfic writers are asking for in return for hours of hard work is attention. please don't rob us of the one thing that we hope for when we hit "post"
this is directly related to this post I made about how fanfic authors now are treated like content mills, and not like valued members of a creative community who thrive on interaction. for the past decade, we've watched the fandom ecosystem disrupted over and over, as NSFW fan artists seek safety by putting their work behind paywalls, and self-conscious fic readers squirrel away their feelings in invite-only communities
an easy way to do your part to fight against the evils perpetrated by social media is to leave a comment on a fanfic you love
but don't take my word for it -- here are some responses that my fellow authors have left on this post:
The fact I had a fic that was fairly beloved and NO ONE commented on it because it was all being done in a fucking book club server made me want to scream.
I haven't updated that fic in two years now.
I cannot express enough how imperative it is to show the writer how much you love their work. The comments don't have to be novels themselves - even just an "I loved this so much!" Or keyboard smashing works wonders to keep the writer going. Please, we need to bring back supporting writers and artists now more than ever!!!
oh so they’re just saying the quiet part out loud? Good to know they’re just out and open now
That’s not the quiet part.
There’s something else, something they might not even be fully aware of themselves. The real quiet part is that if it was *their* child or *their* ectopic pregnancy they’d pull out all the stops to save their life or get their grandchild aborted. Planned Parenthood sees reactionaries and regressives all the time, and they are every bit the nightmare patients you’d imagine them to be. But the one thing all those patients have in common is that *their* abortion is *justified*, and the next week they’ll be outside the clinic again, rejoining the protestors for “killing their baby”.
It’d be one thing to have ghoulish principles, but the far-right have none at all.
When I was younger and had more time to waste on the internet, and spent a lot of time in various online forums getting into arguments -- on purpose -- I made up a game I called Six Degrees of Slut.
The game (which is a variation on the well known Six Degrees of Bacon) was very simple. In any discussion of abortion, see whether you could get the other side to articulate, within six back-and-forth exchanges, some variation of The Filthy Sluts Must Be Punished. Regardless of where their argument started, the goal of the game was to get them to admit that.
I never once lost a game of Six Degrees of Slut. On a few occasions the match was inconclusive - the other person left off arguing before we reached round six - but I never lost; I never once reached six rounds of debate with a prolifer without them expressing some variation on this sentiment. But what was really remarkable to me was, a lot of times, that there was no effort involved at all -- they would blurt it out themselves, with effectively no provocation.
Scratch a prolifer, and you'll find right under the surface the conviction that The Filthy Sluts Must Be Punished. I have never once yet found an exception. Sometimes you don't even have to scratch.
That's what we really need to understand about reactionaries. The degrees to which they dehumanize others cannot be overstated. It's never hypocrisy for them if they get an abortion because, see, they had valid reasons. Nobody else ever would. They are just special, they are just better than you.
hey now...
Couldn't have nailed me any harder to the floor if you had a fucking hammer.
untrue! i don't care if anyone judges me <3
i mean. yeah that’s pretty much it huh.
Finally, a quiz that gets me
