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i am legit crying here

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This is what hieroglyphs and figures in ancient Egyptian temples looked like before their colors faded. They were recreated using a polychromatic light display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, following thorough research.

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was reminded of that youtube channel that records footage of that bridge that scalps trucks today. one of the fascinating developments that's happened since i last heard about it is that, in one of their many attempts to stop the trucks from being can-opened, they installed a traffic light that detects when a vehicle that's over the allowed height is coming and turns red so the driver can stop and hopefully notice the signage all around that's screaming "YOUR VEHICLE IS OVERHEIGHT TURN AROUND" and avoid an accident. However as a result sometimes drivers see the light turning yellow and IMMEDIATELY start flooring it to avoid having to stop, ensuring that the roof of their truck just gets fucking annihilated instantly. Really beautiful stuff you should check it out

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Male writers writing female characters:

“Cassandra woke up to the rays of the sun streaming through the slats on her blinds, cascading over her naked chest. She stretched, her breasts lifting with her arms as she greeted the sun. She rolled out of bed and put on a shirt, her nipples prominently showing through the thin fabric. She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards.”

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i just realized this is funny every month of the year actually

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The important thing is that from now on Sam will be as paranoid about Game Changer as the rest of the cast is. And that is justice.

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it’s fucking wild because one day you’re like i guess i’m not dying tragically young and you go to the store and you buy dental floss, ingredients for soup, and a bath mat

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just letting everyone know this post has been cooking for 7 years and it'll finally post in 2028

its so old that when i click edit the corners of the boxes are still sharp

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Saw this on Twitter. What 3 potions would you drink?

I would take brown, white, and yellow!

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was waiting on an emergency plumber, decided to smoke by my car instead of stare at my fucked up kitchen. he pulled up next to me, leaned out the window and goes "i'm assuming you're the client" like yeah buddy, read that one right

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As a general rule of fantasy and sci-fi naming, the closer to the back half of the alphabet the average letter in their name is, the eviller they are. A name that doesn't contain any consonants north of R is poison frog colouration. If it uses Y as a vowel in a non-terminal position you're basically fucked.

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My therapist, who specializes in adults with ADHD, recently told me that all of her clients need a three day crashout period after a big life change. Finish the semester? Crashout. Change jobs? Crashout. Go on a really cool, really relaxing vacation? Crashout the moment you get home.

It's true of literally all of her clients. She works with a lot of them to put systems in place so that their crashouts are only three days. This includes the high-powered execs who travel regularly for work. It does not matter how successful or high functioning they are - they have ADHD, and a crashout is just part of the process of living with it.

I'm sharing this with all you ADHD friends out there, just in case you (like me) start shaming yourself if your crashout lasts more than one day. It turns out three days is kind of the best case scenario. Be kind to yourselves!

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There used to be a lot of activities that took place around a populated area like a village or town, which you would encounter before you reached the town itself. Most of those crafts have either been eliminated in the developed world or now take place out of view on private land, and so modern authors don't think of them when creating fantasy worlds or writing historical fiction. I think that sprinkling those in could both enrich the worlds you're writing in and, potentially, add useful plot devices.

For example, your travelers might know that they're near civilization when they start finding trees in the woods that have been tapped, for pitch or for sap. They might find a forester's trap line and trace it back to his hut to get medical care. Maybe they retrace the passage of a peasant and his pig out hunting for truffles. If they're coming along a coast, maybe your travelers come across the pools where sea water is dried down to salt, or the furnaces where bog iron ore is smelted.

Maybe they see a column of smoke and follow it to the house-sized kilns of a potter's yard where men work making bricks or roof tiles. From miles away they could smell the unmistakeable odor of pine sap being rendered down into pitch, and follow that to a village. Or they hear the flute playing of a shepherd boy whiling away the hours in the high pasture.

They could find the clearing where the charcoal burners recently broke down an earth kiln, and follow the hoof prints and drag marks of their horse and sledge as they hauled the charcoal back to civilization. Or follow the sound of metal on stone to a quarry or gravel pit. Maybe they know they're nearly to town when they come across a clay bank with signs of recent clay gathering.

Of course around every town and city there will be farms, more densely packed the closer you are. But don't just think of fields of grains or vegetables. Think of managed woodlands, like maybe trees coppiced-- cut and then regrown--to customize the shape or size of the branches. Cows being grazed in a communal green. Waiting as a huge flock of ducks is driven across the road. Orchards in bloom.

If they're approaching by road, there will be things best done out of town. The threshing floor where grain is beaten with flails or run through crushing wheels to separate the grain from its casing, and then winnowed, using the wind to carry away the chaff. Laundresses working in the river, their linens bleaching on the grass at the drying yard. The stench of the tanners, barred from town for stinking so badly. The rushing wheel-race and great creaking wheel of the flour mill.

If it's a larger town, there might be a livestock market outside the gates, with goats milling in woven willow pens or chickens in wooden cages. Or a line of horses for the wealthier buyer or your desperate travelers. There might be a red light district, escaping the regulations of the city proper, or plain old slums. More industrial yards, like the yards where fabric is dyed (these might also smell quite bad, like rotting plant material, or urine).

There are so many things that preindustrial people did and would find familiar that we just don't know about now. So much of life was lived out in the open for anyone to see. Make your world busy and loud and colorful!