#in fact please reblog

[sapphireswimming]

Oh my word I just met the most marvelous lady on my way out of work tonight

Once I got to the edge of the parking lot, we did that thing where the driver and pedestrian both wave at each other to go first for a while. I eventually went, but then she called me back over

Since I work on a college campus, it's not uncommon for visitors to ask for directions or confirm where they can park. Sure enough, she was looking for the music building

Her grandson played drums (and maybe the xylophone? definitely more percussion and, since he'd also asked her for her old piano music, I'm betting some other instruments as well) and asked if she had any plans today. When she said she didn't, he said, oh yes she did - she should come to his performance

To be fair, he emailed directions and a map of campus, but it still took me a while to decipher which building the concert was actually going to be in. We made small talk for a minute before I pointed her in the right direction but could tell she wasn't entirely confident about getting there so I offered to put my stuff in my car and walk with her

She said that wasn't necessary - she was grateful for the help I'd already given and would just look for a nearby handicapped parking spot. There were a couple in the section we were in, but I couldn't remember if there was one in the tiny section closest to the music building, so before I left, I offered to run over and check

Run? she asked, horrified at the mere suggestion. Do you... like to run? I said no, but it was no trouble - it would be really quick and it could be my exercise for the day since, you know, people say that sort of thing is good for you

How about this, she offered, how about I drive beside you while you walk until you can see whether or not there's one over there? I said that sounds great, so we both start heading that way at a snail's pace and introduced ourselves properly

She was really glad I was the person she flagged down because I was so nice. I laughed, said I tried to be, so I was glad it seemed to be working

She admitted that she could get lost driving anywhere, but never let it stop her going to new places anyway. I said my grandma was the same way, but always made friends because she'd just knock on people's doors and ask for directions. Always got where she was going to in the end. We agreed that they would have liked each other, if my grandma hadn't passed away a couple years before

She gave me her condolences and asked how old my grandma was when she died. Then smiled knowingly - ninety two was an impressive age. I agreed that it was, and, in turn, asked her how old she was

How old do you think I am, she asked. I hummed and finally said, well you don't look a day over thirty two. Immediately, she proclaimed I was going in her will. Not that you'll get much, mind, but her kids would just have to deal with the new addition to the family

(she was eighty six, by the way)

We'd long since come to a stop - there was a spot reserved for the library courier vehicle but no handicapped spot in that particular corner. At some point another car circumnavigated us by driving through a narrow gap between otherwise filled parking spaces

She told me more about her family, how she raised two kids as a single mother in the city while also looking after her ninety year old mother. No washer or dryer. No driver's license - after taking a reaction test, the proctors said she'd be dead five minutes before she ever reached a brake pedal - so she didn't learn until she was in her thirties

These days, she had to renew her license every few years. She wasn't sure how she'd do at the last one, she confessed, but the evaluator was a very kind and handsome young man who looked very bored when he first got into her passenger seat, checklist in hand. So she told him if she'd been a lot younger and had a much nicer figure, she would have worn a shorter skirt. He laughed and told her she'd do just fine. She did, and he said he'd see her again in a couple years

So here she was, still enjoyed driving despite the later start in life - and it hadn't killed her yet!

When something finally got her, it wouldn't be driving, either. With two artificial knees, two artificial hips, and three rows of metal pins in her spine, she liked to joke that she was a bionic woman

Sometimes she'd tell people she was in search of a bionic man, but then admitted to me that was actually a lie. She still enjoyed living alone, even after fifty four years. When I said that it was pretty apparent that she didn't need anyone else, especially since she had herself, she gave me a fistbump

Now that we finally had a clearer view, I pointed out the music building again and asked if she knew where she was going. Crazy, she said, and we laughed

She'd get there just fine and we both knew it, so we finally said our goodbyes - she went to find a closer parking spot while I left with a much lighter heart than I'd ever thought possible when off to the UPS store to return a printer because the company doesn't print the full model number on them despite there being several different kinds per line that don't all work with the same ribbon type apparently

Anyway

Lois, I don't think you'll ever see this, but if you do, please know that you may have more zest for life than any other person I have ever met and I think our twenty minute conversation changed something inside me for the better

[ooklet]

truly i would love it if the people who refuse to vote in november would keep indigenous people out of their fucking mouths when making their arguments for why punishing the democrats is more important than preventing shit like project 2025, which will have an immediate, demonstrably negative effect on indigenous communities.

i would furthermore absolutely fucking love to see their action plan for how they are planning, amidst another trump presidency, to help indigenous people maintain sovereignty & land rights, stop pipeline construction, put an end to food deserts, and actually get running water and electricity to the reservations that STILL don't have those things.

oh, wait. y'all don't have a plan for that, do you? you just want to use us as a talking point to justify your refusal to vote? as if doing so benefits us in any way? wow, it's almost as if indigenous people don't actually matter to you at all, but make for a convenient talking point!

fuck off, every single one of you. fuck off and grow up. i am so, so, SO sick of people who aren't indigenous trying to say what's good for us. paternalistic fucking bullshit.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Why would you—That's not—I just wanted to ask for help, why did you have to go and make it awkward???

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[eemamminy-art]

I want to make a rebloggable version of this thought since I had this happen last night and this morning on the same artwork, on a different artwork last week, and in general it's something I have to deal with more often than I'd like.

If you have an issue with a character or a ship, for fucks sake, don't air out those grievances on someone's creative work!!

It's fine to not like something, but it's really hurtful to leave a reply or tag it, or as was the case these last two times, put your opinions in the body of the post underneath the artwork. The artist or writer or gif maker can see that!! It sucks!! It's hurtful! And especially if you put it in the post itself it can potentially generate a discussion about criticizing the character or ship on what was otherwise a post celebrating it.

If you see a work on your dash and think, "I don't like the subject of this work" please just make your own post or complain to your friend. But stop putting those grievances on someone's creative work and shitting all over their good time. I would rather someone not reblog my art at all than to reblog it with a rude comment.

[mikkiina-mikina]

I've always wanted to do animations... I might reconsider tho 💀 my respect for animators just broke its limit.

Original:

[5qui99l3draws]

APRIL 2024: COMMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

hi everyone, my Circumstances™ have changed a little bit, so here's a new announcement post!

still offering digital sketches starting at 25€ ✨

more art examples below, and more info here:

5qui99l3comms.carrd.co

[fabienfrankels]

"And now, his monarch's sweating face thrust into his, he remembers something his father told him: if you burn your hand, Tom, raise your hands and cross your wrists before you, and hold them so till you get to the water or the salve: I don't know how it works, but it confuses the pain, and then if you utter a prayer at the same time, you might get off not too bad. He raises his palms. He crosses his wrists. Back you go, Henry. As confused by the gesture — as if almost relieved to be stopped—the king face away and so relieving him, Cromwell, of that bloodshot stare, of the indecent closeness of the popping blue whites of the king's eyes. He says, softly, 'God preserve you, Majesty. And now, will you excuse me?' (Mantel, H. 2012. Bring up the Bodies. 276-277)

MARK RYLANCE and DAMIAN LEWIS as THOMAS CROMWELL and KING HENRY VIII in WOLF HALL (2015-) | 1x05 "Crows"

[punctuation-completionist]

i have a plan for punctuation day everyone! so here's what i want you all to do!

my goal for the day is to get punctuation trending. is this too ambitious? maybe, but i don't care. i want everyone to appreciate punctuation a little

what are some things i can do you ask? well let's look at some things i could think of:—

you can make a post with every punctuation on it (but try, and here's the hard part) to put some text around it and not just list them all out

you can make up a new punctuation mark! for inspiration i would look at the works of people like hervé bazin, martin k specktor, or other people who tried to invent new punctuation

you can make a post about your favorite punctuation mark and why you like it

you can post anything related to punctuation really, those were my ideas but feel free to. i dunno. dress up as an interrobang or make art or something. go wild

so everyone! mark your calendars! september twenty fourth is the day we get #punctuation trending!

[mzminola]

This is not a perfect analogy but I am making it anyway to try to convey what being online has been like for me lately.

Seeing people say "Oh, Jews are fine, I just hate zionists!" is like seeing "Oh, women are fine, I just hate feminists!"

Zionism and feminism are both very broad socio-political movements that have changed focus over time, that ostensibly have some very basic core tenets but you really need to ask the specific person you're talking to how they personally define it to be sure.

Both have been subject to legitimate criticism, and hostile reactionary bullshit. Had waves, sub-movements, splinters, people with damn near opposite views sharing the term and people with seemingly identical views rejecting it.

You can give working, broad definitions like these:

Feminism is the belief that all people should be treated equally regardless of gender, with a focus on women's rights due to systemic oppression.

Zionism is the belief that all peoples have the right to self determination and safety, with a focus on Jewish people finding it in Israel.

You can also give different definitions! Many people give different definitions! Many people also hold these beliefs but use different names for them for various reasons.

There are self-described zionists who are jingoistic, racist, etc, and who attribute those attitudes to their zionism. Just as there are feminists who are misandrist, bio-essentialist, transphobic, homophobic, and so on, who attribute those attitudes to their feminism.

There are also incredibly selfless, compassionate activists working for positive change in the world who consider themselves zionists and feminists.

It has been very jarring to see people, who I respect, uncritically reblogging posts or headlines that use "zionists" as a stand in for "bad people", just as jarring as it would be to see them sharing things that use "feminists" that way. Especially when those posts contain easily debunked conspiracy theories that I know you'd have seen right through if the OP said "Jews" but because they said "zionists" you swallowed it whole.

I am not asking anyone to stop sharing important information, petitions, news articles, resources, and so on. I am asking you to slow down and stop spreading inflammatory language that paints a broad socio-political movement for Jewish self-determination as inherently bad. The same way I would ask you not to spread inflammatory language that paints gender equality & women's liberation as inherently bad.

If the information is important, please look for other, more neutrally worded posts. Or verify the links yourself and make a fresh post! There is no situation online in which the only way to share information must be to spread such language.

[theregressionlibrary]

Agere/petre archieve promo post!!

Hi! Thought it was a good time to do one of these! So, if you don't know, this is The Regression Library! Here, we reblog and boost lovely age and pet regression related works such as fiction, headcanons, moodboards, audio recordings- anything!

A lot of people are too afraid to post their fandom regression stuff in the main tags and if a work is completely from scratch then it often struggles to get traction! So what TRL does is reblog and tag works accordingly and add them to our big big list so it's easy for people to find what they can enjoy!

Why send out a promo post? Well, to encourage people to submit more! As much as we love to go out and collect pieces ourselves, we can only search through so many tags. There are just so many different ways different people use tagging, and it's hard to think of all the different pieces of media out there that might have these themes! So! We would love for you and your friends to submit (by ask or DM) any works you have made or you have found. Original works or fandom related is great! Hope to see you soon!

*cough cough, please reblog*

[superkooku]

Dionysus' iceberg

This post is what remains of an initially very long rant idea. That means there will probably be a part 2 😏.

Here's the reason for my title :

In theory, you can stop there since my meme pretty much summarizes my complaints. But since I like ranting, I'll continue 😈

The tip of the iceberg

When you think "Dionysus", which words come in mind first ?

Probably "wine", "party", "alcohol" "fun god".

These words are what most people remember about Dionysus. And yes, I'm not going to deny, they fit.

Unfortunately, my problem comes with the fact that 9.5 times out of 10, Dionysus' personality will exclusively revolve around these aspects.

Since the issue is about modern adaptations and perceptions, I'll use a modern term.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with flanderization, right ? If not, the link to TV Tropes' article on the subject is available.

Many adaptations fell into that trap for, I think, every single Olympian.

Hades, god of the dead, lord of the Underworld = Satan, evil death god, darkness and sorrow

Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty = Superficial bimbo who only cares about her pretty face

Zeus, king of the gods, lord of the sky and thunder = 100% pure God OR more recently : evil king god who constantly abuses women.

The gods are stripped of their complexity to fit simpler and more "digestible" characterizations. It doesn't help that the cultural context surrounding them is also taken away...

But this is about grape boi, right? Well, Dionysus is no exception to that rule. In fact, he might be one of the worst cases.

So far, he was never really portrayed in an "insulting" light, like Apollo in Lore Olympus or Hades in the Percy Jackson movie. Fortunately.

But, from all the popular adaptations I've seen, none of them manage to portray Dionysus ! None ! Does that make them automatically bad ? No, of course. It's just something I noticed.

God of war ? Doesn't appear, only mentioned

Disney ? Don't even try 🤣. Just a drunk goofball. Yes, that includes the fantasia segment and Hercules.

Lore Olympus? Well, he's a baby for 99.99999% of the time, so it doesn't count. But he's still a quiet little Gucci bag for Persephone.

Hades I ? Just a nice guy. But hey ! He can give us useful boons ! And I like his sass.

Maybe he'll do more in Hades II. They're usually more accurate than most, right ? Though that's not a very high bar. And they know about Zagreus ! Surely that's a good sign, right ?

Nevermind...

Here's what all these adaptations tell us :

Dionysus is the god of wine, feasts and parties

He's an Olympian

He likes to get drunk and party 🥳

And that's it.

Again, I'm not blaming anyone, but if the myths stopped with those three points, wouldn't everyone wonder why he's even an Olympian ? I sure did when I was a kid.

We have the god of thunder, the goddess of wisdom and war strategy, god of music/arts/medicine/100 other things, the god of the oceans ! Many cool gods !

And some drunk dude. He's not given any particular power, except the power to stay super passive no matter the stakes ! If the story revolves about epic godly fights (which is often the case), he's absolutely useless.

Heck, Hades II even actively depicts him as a pacifist who can't handle war. While he's not physically a weakling, he sure psychologically is.

Why is this a problem ?

I am not going to beat around the bush: this gives us a very incomplete and incorrect perception of the god.

Even the things that aren't forgotten about him (like his link to wine) aren't explored.

The thing with Hades II (that's the last time I'll mention it) is that it tries to deepen the flanderized version of Dionysus. He's not stupid, but afraid. He drinks to forget his issues.

While this characterization can be very interesting taken separately, we must remember that this isn't an OC, but an interpretation of a cultural figure.

It must be accurate ! While I can accept some liberties, I think that those should mostly be an extension of the original material, not a total deviation.

Dionysus isn't a scared little boi or a stupid drunkard you can manipulate. In fact, that's quite the opposite. And he's not afraid to get his hands dirty.

(even if the "dirt" in question is the blood of his enemies).

Under the surface

Though it's rather "stuff you can find on Wikipedia". Or by reading the myths.

More about it in part 2 of the rant...

It'll be about theater, madness, travels, link between mortality and immortality and... pirates turning into dolphins.

The actual interesting stuff about Dionysus.

I'm not sure about Blood of Zeus and Percy Jackson.

If anyone can explain what exactly he does in one of these series (or both), it'd be nice. My post would be more complete.

Though because of the general perception of Dionysus, my point still stands. None of the things I'll mention in part 2 play a role.

[akayna]

I decided the bottom half of this pic of me looked like an album cover, so I opened Wikipedia and hit random twice, taking one word from each article name it took me to and made it the title of my fake album.

Ooh! New (old) tag game!

Grab a recent picture you took, crop it to a square and slap a filter on it

Open wikipedia and hit random

Select a word from that article's title

Hit random again

Select a word from that article's title

(you may do a third round if you desire)

Slap your username and the words onto your photo

Upload to tumblr.com and tag people to do it

Weee!!

Tagging: literally anyone who sees this and wants to have a lil fun. But I'ma try to capture as many as I can think off the top of my head. Please do not take offense if I missed you. Pretend I didn't. Kkthxbai

@its-just-boo @animatedsentientmeat @a-ya-92 @env0 @env0 @fabledanarchy2 @heart-in-atrophyy @incrediblefiction @kadertins @lollygagtill @little-birds-three @moss-wizard @octopusonparade @onestepfootstep @spookydeetzx @thesparks @surethatsoundsgay @try5t @teacuprevelry @witchy-vibes96 @yamisnuffles @ptarm @bakedsailor @barillapasta @mbrainspaz @therebelgalaxy @algorhytym @backgroundagent3 @donttouchthestache

[gearsexual]

browser extensions i consider essential

includes download links for all supported browsers (i personally recommend using firefox)

1. ublock origin

firefox, chrome, edge, opera, thunderbird

privacy protection - ad, tracker, popup and miner blocking

2. duckduckgo privacy essentials

firefox, chrome, edge, opera, safari

privacy protection - tracker blocking, cookie protection, etc

3. privacy badger

firefox, chrome, edge, opera, safari

privacy protection - tracker blocking

4. i still dont care about cookies

firefox, chrome, edge

popup blocking - community alternative of the popular "i dont care about cookies" addon, under GPLv3 license. the original addon is owned by avast, gen digital inc.

5. ublacklist

firefox, chrome, safari

search filtering - block specified sites from appearing in google search results

6. save webp as png or jpg

firefox

file conversion - save webp files as png or jpg, with quality options

7. indie wiki buddy

firefox, chrome, other browsers

search filtering - redirects or alerts you to an alternative wiki when visiting a fandom wiki. includes support for breezewiki

8. video downloadhelper

firefox, chrome

file conversion - download web videos and images from various streaming sites

9. volume control for bandcamp player

firefox, chrome alternative

volume control slider for bandcamp audio player

[etrosgate]

given the people who complain about ffxiii's combat tend to talk about auto-battle like its a mandatory function, i'm curious as to how much people (especially actual ffxiii fans) use it!

speaking for myself, i had fun using just auto-battle on my first playthrough, but when i did an all manual run for my second it was so much fun that i can't go back, even if pulling out auto would make finding elemental weaknesses easier lmao

(for the sake of this poll, using the "repeat" command does not count as auto-battle)

[bleachbleachbleach]

When Hinamori enters her inner world, it is raining. The volcanoes she knows to exist in the distance are hidden by low clouds and ash. Tobiume is nesting high above, rain hissing as it evaporates off her brilliant red feathers. Her head, pink and meaty, shriveled like an umeboshi, peeks out from behind her wing. [x]

art by @criminal-sen ✨ Commission this artist!

[niko-jpeg]

Glowing.