speculativeartisan

[speculativeartisan]

I think it's important to occasionally make fun of Deer Skull Christian God Pomegranate type writing for the exact same reason that you have to actually write that sort of thing. You have to develop an original voice as an author and that will inevitably take you through the Faux Gothic Melodrama Swamps.

[speculativeartisan]

My Pokemon head canon is that if you were holding an Aron and she wanted to go down she would do the little cat thing where they wiggle until they leap out of your arms gracefully except Aron is made mostly out of solid steel and would land with the impact tungsten cube, dent the floor, cause permanent structural damage to the foundation, and then stand up and happily trot along like she didn't do anything

[speculativeartisan]

I need to see BDSM haters go on rants about the evils of capsaicin

[speculativeartisan]

let's awooo with mama

[speculativeartisan]

Today I was trying to chat up this girl standing with her friend at a lesbian bar and said “oh are you two together?” meaning were you friends before being next to each other at this bar and one turns to the other and goes with all the venom of a black mamba snake “I don’t know Cara, are we?” and I was like you know what? not my table

[speculativeartisan]

“How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘Biology enables, culture forbids.’ Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It’s culture that obliges people to realise some possibilities while forbidding others. Biology enables women to have children – some cultures oblige women to realise this possibility. Biology enables men to enjoy sex with one another – some cultures forbid them to realise this possibility. Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behaviour, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition. No culture has ever bothered to forbid men to photosynthesise, women to run faster than the speed of light, or negatively charged electrons to be attracted to each other. In truth, our concepts ‘natural’ and unnatural’ are taken not from biology, but from Christian theology. The theological meaning of ‘natural’ is ‘in accordance with the intentions of the God who created nature’. Christian theologians argued that God created the human body, intending each limb and organ to serve a particular purpose. If we use our limbs and organs for the purpose envisioned by God, then it is a natural activity. To use them differently than God intends is unnatural. But evolution has no purpose. Organs have not evolved with a purpose, and the way they are used is in constant flux. There is not a single organ in the human body that only does the job its prototype did when it first appeared hundreds of millions of years ago. Organs evolve to perform a particular function, but once they exist, they can be adapted for other usages as well. Mouths, for example, appeared because the earliest multicellular organisms needed a way to take nutrients into their bodies. We still use our mouths for that purpose, but we also use them to kiss, speak and, if we are Rambo, to pull the pins out of hand grenades. Are any of these uses unnatural simply because our worm-like ancestors 600 million years ago didn’t do those things with their mouths?”

— Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Harari, Yuval Noah)

[speculativeartisan]

It's not enough to call your knight a "good boy". Sometimes you've got to hit him with a "you're the only one worthy to sit at my feet".

[speculativeartisan]

I still think that my favorite urban legend/folklore fact is that there are certain areas in New Orleans where you cannot get a taxi late at night not because it isn’t safe, but because taxi companies have had recurring problems of picking up ghosts in those areas who are not aware that they are dead and disappearing from the cab before reaching the destination and therefore stiffing the driver on the fare causing a loss for the company.

[speculativeartisan]

https://dieworkwear.com/2022/08/26/how-to-develop-good-taste-pt-1/

From the comments "In my experience clothing on anyone looks best when it is done with confidence. We are all different shapes and sizes. I was really struck by your post on dressing well that included John Goodman in a faded t-shirt and jeans. He rocks it!"

Excellent advice, whatever gender or style one is looking for. Thank you

I'm a trans guy and Derek, I can tell you my wardrobe has improved a huge amount simply by reading your threads. The "dress for your body type" stuff never worked well for me; your threads about putting together an intentional look and for getting a good fit - that's 99% of the game.

[speculativeartisan]

person in fandom: eeeyikes!!! i hope im writing this character in this short little fanfic right >_< eeekkk what if my takes on my meta are all wrong and everyone will Kill me!!

guy in professional comic industry: okay lets mischaracterize every single character that appears in this comic for 50 or so issues

[speculativeartisan]

I think fandom tends to be so fraught because it might be one of the first times a person runs headlong into the realization that two people can look at the exact same thing, watch the same movie, or read the same book, or listen to the same band and come out the other side with wildly different interpretations and experiences. It's hard to enter a space where the experience is almost entirely subjective (I say almost because it's still possible to be factually wrong about the contents of media) and rooted in personal interpretation. You think 2+2=4 and the other guy is adamant that it's actually 2+3 which is 5 and of course you get into a fight about it because the other guy clearly did their math wrong and they won't fucking listen to sense. It takes more time and more practice to realize it's like one of those duck/rabbit pictures and the answer is somehow 'both at once.'

[speculativeartisan]

Wait, you were actually born in the 1900's? Thats so cool

i am going to eat my own entire skin

[speculativeartisan]

Can someone explain Dwarf Fortress to me???

[speculativeartisan]

daily affirmations:

i am kind

i am in control of my emotions

it does not bother me when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

everyone in the house has the right to be in the kitchen

i am kind and in control of my emotions even when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

[speculativeartisan]

I feel like somewhere in the wet and creepy bowels of the internet where new bad takes get cooked up somebody's getting ready to launch "it's a problematic power imbalance if your partner has more sexual experience than you" and it's going to hit like a hurricane

[speculativeartisan]

[speculativeartisan]

Okay, another little lesson for fic writers since I see it come up sometimes in fics: wine in restaurants.

When you buy a bottle of wine in a (nicer) restaurant, generally (please note my emphasis there, this is a generalization for most restaurants, but not all restaurants, especially non-US ones) you may see a waiter do a few things when they bring you the bottle.

The waiter presents the bottle to the person who ordered it

The waiter uncorks the bottle in order to serve it

The waiter hands the cork to the person who ordered the bottle

The waiter pours a small portion of the wine (barely a splash) and waits for the person who ordered it to taste it

The waiter then pours glasses for everyone else at the table, and then returns to fill up the initial taster's glass

Now, you might be thinking -- that's all pretty obvious, right? They're bringing you what you ordered, making sure you liked it, and then pouring it for the group. Wrong. It's actually a little bit more complicated than that.

The waiter presents the bottle to the person who ordered it so that they can inspect the label and vintage and make sure it's the bottle they actually ordered off the menu

The waiter uncorks the bottle so that the table can see it was unopened before this moment (i.e., not another wine they poured into an empty bottle) and well-sealed

The waiter hands the cork to the person who ordered the bottle so that they can inspect the label on the cork and determine if it matches up; they can also smell/feel the cork to see if there is any dergradation or mold that might impact the wine itself

The waiter pours a small portion for the person who ordered to taste NOT to see if they liked it -- that's a common misconception. Yes, sometimes when house wine is served by the glass, waiters will pour a portion for people to taste and agree to. But when you order a bottle, the taste isn't for approval -- you've already bought the bottle at this point! You don't get to refuse it if you don't like it. Rather, the tasting is to determine if the wine is "corked", a term that refers to when a wine is contaminated by TCA, a chemical compound that causes a specific taste/flavor. TCA can be caused by mold in corks, and is one of the only reasons you can (generally) refuse a bottle of wine you have already purchased. Most people can taste or smell TCA if they are trained for it; other people might drink the wine for a few minutes before noticing a damp, basement-like smell on the aftertaste. Once you've tasted it, you'll remember it. That first sip is your opportunity to take one for the table and save them from a possibly corked bottle of wine, which is absolutely no fun.

If you've sipped the wine (I generally smell it, I've found it's easier to smell than taste) and determined that it is safe, you then nod to your waiter. The waiter will then pour glasses for everyone else at the table. If the wine is corked, you would refuse the bottle and ask the waiter for a new bottle. If there is no new bottle, you'll either get a refund or they'll ask you to choose another option on their wine list. A good restaurant will understand that corked bottles happen randomly, and will leap at the opportunity to replace it; a bad restaurant or a restaurant with poor training will sometimes try to argue with you about whether or not it's corked. Again, it can be a subtle, subjective taste, so proceed carefully.

In restaurants, this process can happen very quickly! It's elegant and practiced. The waiter will generally uncork the bottle without setting the bottle down or bracing it against themselves. They will remove the cork without breaking it, and they will pour the wine without dripping it down the label or on the table.