sendingflowerstothemoon

[sendingflowerstothemoon]

"All monsters must die bloody, and by a hero's hands, and soon," he says over brunch.

He doesn't think it's a rude thing to say in front of a monster. There are no rude things to say to monsters, only rude things monsters say.

"Don't worry," she says between bites, "You're one of the good ones."

"But I am still a monster," I do not say. I do not say that I love my claws and teeth, my prehensile shadow and my glowing eyes. That I cannot imagine giving them up even for survival, that to hide my shadow and trim my claws for them makes me feel diminished. In public I cannot say that I do not wish to be human.

They're progressives, this bunch, even if he carries a hero's banner with its proud history and none of them ask him to put it away. They know there are good monsters, monsters who can speak eloquently and hold the fork right, monsters you can be seen with in public. Some of their best friends are monsters.

They do not know the monster who is invited to brunch knows solidarity with the monster who is not. Believes and understands the monster who is not invited more than the human who does the inviting.

"Isn't that a little harsh?" says a third human, and I have not forgotten I am outnumbered. "We have ways of killing monsters without blood now, painlessly. And, of course, a monster should be allowed to live if it never growls."

He has never seen me growl. Yet how loudly and endlessly I will, when I'm out of earshot. He's talking about killing monsters who cannot stoop to civility, about mother and brother and lover who were never able to mute themselves like me, and does he not know how small a child who can only growl is?

"To growl is not to kill," I say, and all heads turn toward me. It is one of those rude things monsters say.

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Babe wake up! The theatrical and streaming release dates for the new Benoit Blanc film “Wake Up Dead Man” Just dropped

Link to post also another source

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Dropout might be the only company lol

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Where's the African mythology?

The Kickstarter is live now!

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I hope you know that it’s always this

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Joy Sullivan, “All Day Long There Is a Bursting”, Instructions for Traveling West

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It's so important to remember that when it comes to developmental research, almost everything is confounded* with poverty (*hard to distinguish from). Breastfeeding leads to "better" children? Who has the time, energy, and family support to breastfeed? The middle and upper class (especially in the US which has no paid maternity leave, and guess where a lot of research comes from). So is it really breastfeeding or wealth? Self-control on the marshmallow test leads to better life outcomes? Nope, highly correlated with poverty. Less screen time is important for development? Guess who can pay for better daycare and take advantage of maternity leave? Guess who is stuck using a screen as a babysitter so their family can eat? You can't pick these factors apart; is it the sceentime or is it the thousands of small benefits a child picks up when their parent isn't barely keeping their head above water?

And anyone who replies to this, "Well then the poor shouldn't have children" I'll turn you into Soylent Green because, aside from that being eugenics and all the other reasons, guess what else is highly correlated with poverty? Access to birth control and factual sex education. The solution is to help people out of poverty

Edit: to perhaps be a bit more clear, it's not a parenting "choice" if it's your only option. If someone is choosing formula, or screentime, or whatever because poverty has made them feel like they have no other choice , then you aren't studying parenting you are studying poverty

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Just because one of your chicken eggs hatched a fire breathing dragon people think you’re evil. But you’re still just a regular farmer trying to make a living while dealing with an overprotective dragon, heroes that want to kill you and fanatics who want to worship you as the new Demon Lord.

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acrylic on wood panel my beloved,,,,

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need someone to press their thumbs into my centre and prise me open like a garlic bulb until all my cloves fall out. then you can bash me with the flat side of a knife

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I think it would be better for discussions of decision-making in general, and decision-making by young people in particular, if we reframed decision-making from "avoiding regret" to emphasizing that: -It's okay to change your mind at any point, and -Your feelings at the latest/most recent part of your life are not more important than your feelings at any previous part of your life.

If someone says "You'll regret that in 20 years!" -- first of all, they don't have any possible way to know that, but secondly, what they're really saying is "I expect you to get 20 years of happiness out of that decision." 20 years of happiness is nothing to sneeze at. If you get married and 10 years later, you decide you don't want to be married anymore, and you get divorced, then, okay. You get to make that choice, and you got to be happily married for 10 years.

This whole cultural attitude is based on the assumption, not only that changing your mind is impossible or shameful, but that your life is a linear process of working your way towards a True Final Form, and that if you undergo any changes between [past age] and [final age], that means your [past age] self was not your True Final Form and should have been considered too young to make decisions. It's the underlying premise that at some point in your lifetime, your self-identity (sometimes synechdoche'd as "the brain") stops changing (spoiler: it doesn't), and then and only then are you your True Self; then and only then should you truly be allowed to make your own decisions, because your selfhood is fixed and your decisions will be free of regret.

It doesn't work like that. The self is constantly changing. Just go with it.

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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!

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you never think too hard abt having an apple but then you see one and think "hm i haven't had one in a long time" and then you take a bite on a whim and it's like fuuck wait this awesome #myapple. and then when you're done you'll forget about the appleful joy because it's the only way it can be experienced again

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i may have my father's worst traits but i am more ethical & virtuous with them than him

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tim gets headaches often because i said so totally not because i get headaches and migraines often (it is)

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i’m sure someone’s said this already, but the “samalamadingdong” game changer ep is so good not really because sam’s getting a taste of his medicine. but because it’s actually showing us how much sam loves his friends. he remembers brennans monologue, can name episode off of the top of his head, genuinely thanks brennan and everyone else at the end, because really. he’s just having a great time. and everyone that took part in the episode are not really there for revenge. they’re there to make sam laugh, to help him and comfort him. it’s all just one big show of love, i think.