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[aardrinn]

anyway. onto better things

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so today at work one of my coworkers hands me a box

I have no context for this. He’s a 50? 60? Year old plumber who tends to walk into the office, tell a dad joke, and leave. I’ve just arrived at work and am still putting my purse away. So he hands me this box and says it comes with instructions. I open it and unfold this

He says his great grandma probably made it

This pansy is the tiniest pocket in the world

It could use some blocking after who knows how many years in the box but look at these sweet little pansies!

The pattern was clearly typed on a typewriter, several pages of it. I guess this was an apron specifically for having your friends over for tea.

I just happened to be wearing a skirt that kind of goes with it, so I did wear it all day (it’s a @mayakern skirt!) and another friend said I look like I should be living in a shoe. Perhaps as some sort of mouse girl making pastries for the other woodland creatures. But uhhhhh what an incredible heirloom piece to just be handed. It’s probably twice as old as I am. I’m definitely going to bring it to stitch circle this week

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Top-Tier Villain Motivations

They will be safe. It doesn't matter who else or what else burns as long as They will be safe.

I will be safe. The hunger and the cold will never touch me again.

Fuck any bitch who's prettier(/cooler/better-liked/better at making dumplings) than me.

Yes, Master

Love me. Love me. Love me. Love me. LOVE ME!

I know the terrible things these so-called "heroes" will do if I don't stop them (<- is absolutely wrong)

I don't want a better future, I want a better past!

No other way to get performance art funded these days

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what are you guys’ most “tumblr is a website” moments

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when will he stop

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What are some examples of benevolent (or at least benign) dragons in classical western folklore? I recall you mentioning that they did indeed exist, but I don’t recall you ever mentioning any specific examples.

Well, firstly, most of the dragons from Greek mythology. Like, the dragon that Cadmus slew was Ares's pet, and Cadmus had to build an army to fight war in Ares's name as penance. The dragon of Colchis was beloved by Medea and viewed as a protector by her people, and in some versions of the Argonauts myth was put to sleep peacefully instead of slain. Ladon, the dragon who guards the Hesperides, was specifically beloved by the nymphs who lived alongside him, and in the versions of the myth where Heracles slays him, Ladon is explicitly mourned by those same nymphs. Dragons were agents of the divine in Greek myth as often is not more so than they were enemies of it, which makes sense given that so many of them were, like, first cousins with the Olympians. It's really funny that people will cite the Greek myths as examples of dragons as "agents of evil" in the same way it's funny when people cite Greek heroes as moral paragons, when any actual look at Greek mythology shows its morality was always very murky shades of gray rather than the black and white view we like to pretend all European mythology shares.

I think this inflicting of Christian black and white thinking on a morally gray mythology also occurs with Norse myth, though sadly we don't have a lot of pre-Christian Norse literature to serve as concrete evidence for this opinion the way we do with Greek dragons. Like, outside of Ragnorok (which some have argued is not a REAL Norse myth, but something concocted during the Christian-ization of Europe as a way to placate Christianity into not destroying all of Norse culture), Jormungandr doesn't do a single malevolent thing in any Norse story. The most he ever antagonizes anyone is when he lets Utgard Loki (no relation to normal Loki) make him look like a cat to teach Thor a lesson in humility that the god of thunder never fully learns. All subsequent encounters are a result of Thor fucking with Jormungandr out of spite for the cat prank. The corpse chewer dragons in Niflheim are terrifying, but the souls they're gnawing on are the dishonored dead, and they don't cause problems for the living until - well, until Ragnorok, which again, may not be a real Norse myth. Fafnir's a piece of shit, sure, but he's not a dragon by birth - he's a dwarf who turned into one out of greed for gold.

Then you have a myriad of stories about dragons who were tamed by saints or heroes only to be killed by townsfolk who thought they were still vicious, and promptly mourned afterwards - the Tarasque is probably the most prominent of these, but there are other stories that are variations on the formula. I'd also include Maud and the Wyvern/Dragon of Mordiford in this category, as while the dragon is never fully tamed by Maud's affection, it's nonetheless kind to her, and the story ends with her mourning its death rather than the townsfolk celebrating it. You are clearly supposed to feel sympathy for these dragons, even if the stories present their deaths as necessary or inevitable.

There are even examples of good dragons in explicitly Christian Medieval stories, despite them usually opting to treat dragons as purely evil. You have Y Ddraig Goch, the red dragon of Wales, whose defeat of a white dragon is an explicit omen of how the wicked Saxons will be overthrown and driven out by a good (or at least better) king in time, and who becomes the heraldry of King Arthur, a paragon of virtue by the standards of the times each of his stories are told in. There's one saint - I think Carantoc? - who found a dragon sleeping in a well and convinced it to move without much complaint, and another, St. Simeon, who removed a thorn from a dragon's eye to the amazement of all and was shown gratitude by the dragon in turn.

Benign/benevolent/not-explicitly-evil dragons may not make up the majority of European dragons, but they're not as rare as modern generalizations of it would have you believe.

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Every time i purchase a moderately expensive item the Karl Marx on my shoulder is like "For shame... you purchase yet another pair of jeans when you have 5 already at home, you despicable commodity fetishist? In my time, a man with five outfits would consider himself blessed beyond measure, and yet you want for more, while there are children starving in the world??" to which the second Karl Marx on my other shoulder says "Objection! Those 5 pairs of jeans all wildly uncomfortable or have holes in the ass, due to the decline of clothing quality driven by the fast fashion industry, unfortunately making this purchase a necessity... Plus, by purchasing a slightly more expensive pair of jeans from an independent brand, seeking quality over 'brand recognition', they are deliberately trying to avoid engaging in conspicuous consumption!" to which the third Karl Marx clinging to my back like that beetle from Doctor Who says "Remember, my friend; the less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt — your capital. Buy the jeans," to which I say "I don't know if any of you have actually read Karl Marx"

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No one ever tell me anything bad about the person who runs this account.

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being an adult and trying to be "responsible with my money" is so hard like literally what corners am I supposed to be cutting on this budget. what am I supposed to stop spending money on. my anxiety meds? food for my cats? impulsive takeout orders? spotify premium? patreon artists who draw huge throbbing monster dicks? all of these are completely necessary to maintain my quality of life.

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Bnnuys

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During the most poor and homeless period of my life, I had a lot of people get angry with me because I spent $25 on Bath and Body Works candles during a sale. They couldn’t comprehend why the hell I would do that when I had been fighting for months to try and get us on our feet, afford food, and have an apartment to live in.

Those candles were placed beside wherever I slept that night. In the morning, I would move them and set them wherever I’d have to hang out. At one point I carried one around in my purse - one of those big honking 3-wick candles. I never lit them, but I’d open them and smell them a lot.

I credit that purchase with a lot of my drive that got me to where I am today. I had been working tirelessly, 15+ hour days with barely any reward, constantly on the phone or trying to deal with organizations and associations to “get help at”. It’d gone on for almost a year by the end of it, and I was so burnt out, to the point that I would shake 24/7. But I could get a bit of relief from my 3-wick “upper middle class lifestyle” candles. They represented my future goals, my home I wanted to decorate, and how I would one day not be in this mess anymore.

When we moved into the apartment, and our financial status improved, I burned those candles every single day. When they were empty, I cleaned them out, stuck labels on them, and they became the starting point of my really cute organization system I had ALWAYS planned to have.

So whenever I hear about someone very poor getting themselves a treat - maybe it’s Starbucks, maybe it’s a home deco item, maybe it’s a video game… I don’t judge them. I get it. I get that you can’t go without anything for that long without it making you go crazy. You need to pull some joy, inspiration, and motivation from somewhere.

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I applaud the writers at Paizo for what they've done for Shivaska as of Starfinder. Here I was, the fool, poo-pooing the Demon Lord for using child slaves in her horrible clockwork castle out of a sheer, petty need to be EEEeeevil... I was blind to what she was truly doing, what she was truly embodying! I didn't spot the thread, not until the Starfinder writers had taken it and crafted a wondrous tapestry from what began as an obscure Demon Lord.

Shivaska isn't JUST the boogeyman, stealing away children to work in her factory. This is her first step taken towards what her true passion is: Unethical workplace practices. In Pathfinder, she's not entirely in tune with what she could be, what her true potential is, but as of Starfinder, she's fallen fully into her niche (the book even says it took her a while to realize what she could be doing with her power and her time). It began with dangerous child labor, and it (currently) ends with multi-level marketing scams, illegal animal testing, invasive ads, and even cryptocurrency schemes, all wrapped up in 12 hour workdays, company script, and union busting... filtered through the lens of a power-hungry Demon Lord, so all of her corporate malfeasance is even worse and more exploitative than anything we have here, to the degree it becomes almost darkly comedic.

She's literally using mortal souls to power her crypto mining rigs, for god's sake!

I'm impressed and a little giddy at what the writers have done. In just a few books, Shivaska has gone from total obscurity to potentially being the most powerful Demon Lord in the Starfinder setting, at least for the moment! I'm probably also buzzing from how delightful Mechageddon! actually turned out to be. After the... lukewarm ending of Tyrant's Grasp, I'm happy that at least the Starfinder Enjoyers know the grand finale for 1st edition is actually grand!

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the best thing on earth is how they designed darth maul to look scary and unnatural but we all took a look at him and decided that he was the hottest non human in star wars

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“I thought this city didn’t have any gods.”

The pigeon grinned a beak full of dog’s teeth. “Ha. They say there aren’t. They even kept most of them out for a while.”

“How did you make it?”

“By being smart. By hiding.”

She gave the one-legged, feral feathered thing a sideways look. “As a pigeon?”

“Sometimes,” said the pigeon. “Sometimes I’m graffiti on a wall. Sometimes I’m a coin dropped in a beggar’s hand. I am neon at night, the rain in the light. I am the song the busker sings. I listen to the prayers of those who come to the city with big dreams.”

“And in return?”

It grinned again. Steam rolled off its feathers, smelling of cigarettes. “I eat their despair.”

“That’s cruel.”

It moved its wings in something like a shrug. “That’s the big city for you.”

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do you think you’d actually notice if someone didn’t cast a shadow? or if their limbs were just slightly too long? or if they had just a little too many teeth? like how many times have you passed Something on the street and you just didn’t Notice It

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story about a man who only ever dated women bodybuilders and is now dating a chubby guy: this was different from being with a woman. women, with their sharp edges and hard bodies, tongues battling for dominance. Josh was all soft curves and smooth skin,