#sheer bertha

[gogmstuff]

Back to the mid-1600s (from top to bottom) -

Woman Washing her Hands by Eglon van der Neer (Mauritshuis - Den Haag, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands). From pubhist.com/w40585 807X1000 @72 309kj.

ca. 1660 Lady playing a lute with a gentleman seated at a table in an interior by Eglon Hendrik van der Neer (Sotheby's - 28Jan16 auction Lot 28)2880X3782 @72 3.3Mj.

1665 La Grande Dame by Eglon Van der Neer (private collection). From Wijimedia; fixed some cracks, spots, & veiling reflections w Pshop 1721X2048 @72 1.7Mj.

ca. 1666-1670 Isabella d'Este by Frans Denys (Galleria Nazionale - Parma, Emilia Romagna, Italy). From tumblr.com/roehenstart; fixed spots w Pshop 1022X1280 @72 394kj.

1669 Woman at a virginal with a cittern on her lap, accompanied by a man by Eglon van der Neer (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen - Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands). From Wikimedia 2802X3430 @72 2.1Mj.

[freddiemercurylegendabovelegends]

Today - December 13th, 1974 - Queen Story!

Barcelona, Spain, Palacio de los Deportes de Barcelona

'Sheer Heart Attack Tour'

- Last show of the European Tour

🔸December 13th, 1974, Barcelona, Spain - Queen chatting with ‘Rock'n'Roll Popular 1’ Spanish magazine redactor Bertha M. Yebra, who also is combing Freddie’s hair in the first picture, for a photoshot session with Martín Frías (known as Martin J. Louis)

Bertha M. Yebra (editora de la revista musical 'Popular1', amiga)

“El vaig conèixer cap a l’any 1974 perquè a la revista vam dedicar a Queen una de les fotonovel·les que fèiem. Crec que va ser el primer cop que visitaven Espanya. Amb Mercury va sorgir de seguida una connexió especial, ens vam caure molt bé. Teníem aficions comunes, li agradava que el pentinés, que li pintés les ungles i que intercanviéssim braçalets i joies. Era un home fantàstic, amb una gran sensibilitat, i un talent descomunal per a la música, capaç de compondre temes tan extraordinaris com 'Bohemian rhapsody'. Des de llavors vam ser sempre amics i quan ens retrobàvem era molt afectuós i atent amb mi, com si fóssim amics de tota la vida i ens acabéssim de veure el dia abans. Vam coincidir sis o set vegades més, l’última dos anys abans de morir, quan va celebrar el seu aniversari a l’hotel Tony Pikes d’Eivissa i em va convidar. La malaltia encara no se li havia desenvolupat gaire i estava radiant, contentíssim de trobar-se amb els amics”.

(➡️ source: https://www.ara.cat/…/Freddie-Mercury-perfil_0_1604839652.h…)

[carionto]

A Proper Welcoming Party - P2

Part 1

As Big Thrasher's fleet emerges from hyperspace, they are all pleasantly surprised that: a) they all arrived roughly at the same time this time around; b) none of them are crashing into a planet or space station; c) they're not getting shot at immediately.

Glorious success!

Now the raid begins.

Quickly scanning the perimeter, Big Thrasher learns the orbital mining station around Mercury is, for starters, way bigger than they thought based on the intel they had, which was only a few months old. And there were three of them now. Okay, Humans build quite fast. Noted.

There was a number of heavily armed and armored large ships docked at each station, and signs of recent hyperjumps of similar magnitude, but no cargo ships. Weird. Are the Humans somehow transporting the processed materials using individually powered containers? Doesn't seem very efficient.

No matter. Big Thrasher has a fleet of a hundred ships, they can just pillage the stations themselves and load up with precious cargo. In fact, none of the Human ships or structures have shield! What fools, such easy pickings! As he was about to broadcast his demands and threats, he noticed the comms have been pinging for a while now. Oh, they want to surrender already? Good. This is going so much better than planned!

"Unidentified vessels, this is the Heart of Liquid Stone. Your sudden appearance in our space is disrupting scheduled flights. Move out of the indicated transport departure area and identify yourselves, please."

Something's off, but Big Thrasher can't quite put his finger on it. Oh well, they're listening, and they clearly don't know who they're dealing with. So, he shall speak with the full authority bestowed upon him by the raw confidence of someone who doesn't know he's about to learn a very valuable lesson!

A moment of silence after his proclamation. Indications of encrypted communication between the stations and the docked ships, and several scan pings going over his entire fleet. Then, a slightly bemused Human calls back:

"Uhh, you sure about that? From what we can see, you guys don't got enough, well, frankly everything, to do much of anything to Bertha's Bosom over there, let alone this station."

At this, one of the large unshielded military ships undocked from the station with uncanny speed and grace for a vessel it's size. If Big Thrasher was paying attention, he would have noticed that a single turning engine was more powerful than all the main engines on his flagship combined. But he didn't, because he was paying attention to the several massive cannons training their sights on his fleet.

Sure, they're big, and kinda scary, but, but, BUT - his ships have shields and theirs don't! Doesn't matter how big a gun you have, any weapons technology before the invention of shields becomes obsolete. This has proven to be true in every civilization. Energy weapons, now that's the real stuff. Drain the shields, then easily melt through the hull, everyone knows this.

So... why is it that they have all been firing at one spot on the hull of Bertha's Bosom for nearly a full minute now (without retaliation or evasive maneuvers, but they're too busy to notice such details), and it's not even red hot yet? You would need an astronomical amount of reinforced multi-layered plating with the highest grade heat dispensing alloys interwoven throughout the entire vessel to absorb a concentrated laser barrage like that. The sheer mass of such a ludicrous thing would then require stupendously powerful engines. AND to power THOSE would demand literally impossible levels of energy generation. Nothing is making any sense right now.

Then, there was a thud. Even though it's the vacuum of space, Big Thrasher felt it. He did not understand what it was.

He equally did not understand what the shiny particles were where one of his ships used to be. Or why they were streaking in a trajectory directly away from one of Bertha's.. cannons....

Oh.

Uhhh...

huh

Big Thrasher is having a thought (a truly rare occurrence, so let's give him some time)

...

..

.

RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!!!

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Round Two: Berthasaura vs Ceratosuchops

Berthasaura leopoldinae

Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs

Name meaning: Bertha and Leopoldina’s reptile (in honour of naturalist and women’s rights activist Bertha Maria Júlia Lutz, and first Empress of Brazil and advocate for Brazilian independence Maria Leopoldina)

Time: Uncertain, likely ~121 to 75 million years ago (Aptian to Albian stages of the Early Creataceous) but may be younger

Location: Goio-Erê Formation, Brazil

Theropods are famously carnivorous dinosaurs, but many, many groups of theropods have decided “actually but what if I didn’t” and gone vegetarian, and yet it’s still wild when another one of those pops up every now and then. Even among them though, Berthasaura is special for being the only theropod that seems to have tried to just straight up turn itself into an ornithopod. The long spindly legs, the teeny little arms, and a big head with a toothless beak all come together to create an utterly bizarre little theropod that honestly nobody could have predicted.

Berthasaura is a noasaur, and those of you familiar will at this moment be saying “oh of course it’s a noasaur” because those guys were small ceratosaurs that were basically Theropod Wacky Experimental Phase 1.0. Within this group you’ve got wild sticky-outy teeth, a single weight-bearing toe on each foot in our fellow competitor Vespersaurus, and now multiple instances of beaks evolving independently. Theropods just love to evolve a beak, what can I say? Whatever the hell Berthasaura had going on, it must have been successful because as the basalmost noasaurid currently known its direct lineage has been surviving since at least the Late Jurassic!

Ceratosuchops inferodios

Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @zygodactylus

Name Meaning: Horned Crocodile Faced Hell Heron

Time: ~128 million years ago (Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous) 

Location: Wessex Formation, Isle of Wight, England 

Say hello to the Hell Heron! Ceratosuchops is one of many new Spinosaurs described recently, showcasing the sheer diversity of this group as well as their much larger spread than previously believed. Ceratosuchops, previously thought to be just Baryonyx, is one of such new taxa that point to the entire group originating in Europe, a piece of their evolutionary puzzle not previously well known. Ceratosuchops was about 8.5 meters long, and had a long crocodile-like skull, with a horn on the top of it (hence its name). As a spinosaur, it would have probably been an aquatic stalker (you know, like a heron) - waiting near bodies of water for food, and snatching it up before it could swim away. Just, the difference between Ceratosuchops and actual herons, well, this was a big heron. It probably wouldn’t have had a sail, though it is possible it may have had a ridge like its close relative Suchomimus. It lived in a heavily river-filled environment, giving it a wide variety of locations to choose from for hunting. Besides a vast diversity of invertebrates, sharks, ray-finned fish, salamanders, lizards, turtles, many kinds of Neosuchians, Plesiosaurs, mammals, and pterosaurs, Ceratosuchops lived alongside other dinosaurs such as Hypsilophodon, Brighstoneus, Iguanodon, Mantellisaurus, Valdosaurus, Polacanthus, Eucamerotus, Oplosaurus, Ornithopsis, Aristosuchus, Calamosaurus, Calamospondylus, Eotyrannus, Neovenator, Ornithodesmus, Yaverlandia, Vectiraptor, Thecocoelurus, and even another spinosaur, Riparovenator!

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Okay, really. Gilded Age Peeps.

I've heard all about the dresses. And the other dresses. And some more dresses. And how sexy Bertha Russell is and how gay Oscar is and how Larry Russell was raised to Treat Women Right.

WHEN WAS SOMEONE GOING TO TELL ME ABOUT THE SHEER GLORY OF GEORGE RUSSELL EARNING "HUSBAND OF THE YEAR" BY LOOKING SOMEONE DEAD IN THE EYE AND GOING "MONEY TALKS AND MINE SAYS YOU'RE A LITTLE BITCH. NOW BE NICE TO MY WIFE, OR ELSE"?!?!?!

[honourablejester]

Starfinder Character Concept: A Borai, an Almost Marooned One

“Death is for quitters. Yon hungry ghost can eat its own foot.”

Okay. Marooned Ones are fucking cool? Sci-fi horror makes me happy, nautical space undead, the remnants of spacers left to die slowly in derelict ships and on barren asteroids. Bearing signs of their stubborn attempts to stay alive, motivated by fury and a desire to share their lonely ends with the living. They like to lure in ships, cull out one member, and arrange for them to be stranded/marooned/abandoned in their turn, so that the Marooned One can watch them suffer as they suffered, until their victim finally dies and becomes another Marooned One themselves. So if you’re exploring an abandoned space hulk, looking for salvage, you might find yourself separated out from your crew, and lured somewhere they won’t find you again …

And then there’s the Borai player race. Which, again, is a space undead. Well, half-alive, half-dead. Some of them come from Eox, or result from botched resurrections, but others were ‘people who were simply too stubborn to fully die when their time came’.

… The Marooned One lured her there, and her ship left like the idiots they are, but fuck that space ghost, and fuck her crew, this bitch is not going down. If I have to become undead, I’m gonna do it on my terms, and you can shove yourself out an airlock. Not that it’d make any difference to you, Mr Already-Dead, but it’s the thought that counts. Death is for quitters. I’m not going down just ‘cause you got lonely out here.

Basically, I want a scrappy borai who became only half-undead out of sheer spite for the creature who stranded her. A spacer, a salvager, who doesn’t give a good goddamn about your tragic end, how dare you try to drag her down too. Just for that, she’s not going to go. She’s just not going to die. No. Fuck you.

For the class, I figured mechanic. She’s a spacer, and she’s a salvager, and she’s a stubborn-ass survivalist, and she’s just going to build her way out of death.

Character Concept: Bertha Mourne, the Almost-Marooned-One

Name: Bertha Mourne

Age: 53

Starting Statistics:

Strength 10, Dexterity 14, Constitution 13, Intelligence 16, Wisdom 8, Charisma 12

The Wisdom flaw is a little bit painful because I do want her to have Survival/Perception, but our theme and class can compensate for that a bit.

Starting Skills:

Acrobatics, Athletics, Computers, Engineering, Medicine, Perception, Stealth, Survival

Race: Borai

Neither alive nor dead, but just too stubborn to quit. She’s going to be an ex-human borai, so we’ll get Skilled as well, for an extra skill rank per level. It’s been a few years since she ‘died’, and she’s in her fifties now, but she still looks 47. One benefit of being half-dead, you don’t show the passing of time as much.

From Borai we’re going to get darkvision, a +1 racial bonus to saves against various conditions, immunity to negative damage, no penalties from energy drains, and the ability to be healed and resurrected like a still-living person, though we can also be affected by both things that affect the living and things that affect undead.

Description:

A short, stocky ex-human woman, apparently middle aged, wearing battered but well-maintained spacer gear. When she was more alive than she is currently, her skin was a light brown, and it's still trying to be, but there's a definite grey undertone now, and black veins web across her features. Wires, too. Her eyes are brown, sharp, and tired, and her normal resting expression could politely be described as ‘set’. And less politely described as ‘pugnacious’.

Theme: Crisis Refugee

I’m going to theme it slightly differently, it’s less that she was thrown somewhere by the Drift Crisis, and more than she was marooned by a Marooned One on a derelict ship for a while, became half-undead, and now has no place to go because of the leeriness around borai. It’s not that her homeworld is physically unreachable anymore (she’s from the Diaspora, I just like the Diaspora), it’s that it’s socially unreachable now. Like many of the half-dead, she is looking for somewhere new to call home, but in the meantime she’ll stubbornly carve out a space for herself. And, maybe, find a better crew, one that won’t abandon her.

So at first level, we’re going to get +1 to Con, Survival as a class skill, and we can reduce the DC of culture checks about new/unfamiliar cultures.

Class: Mechanic

A space scrapper, salvager and engineer, Bertha wasn’t going to let a little thing like a derelict ship and a homicidal undead stop her from going anywhere. While the limits of her resources on the ship did result in her not-quite-death, she did eventually manage to hijack the distress beacon the Marooned One had used to lure her ship in in the first place, and get a mostly-dead shuttle out to meet them without that undead arsehole interfering, and managed to augment herself to survive long enough for a new ship to reach her.

I did flipflop a lot on exocortex vs drone. A drone would make sense for a starving salvager who wanted access to places she maybe couldn’t go herself, but … The thing with borai is, it’s a physical metamorphosis. Which kind of makes me want to have her focus on herself? Trying to rebuild herself to try and survive, to get via machinery what flesh couldn’t manage. So … I think exocortex. When she felt herself starting to fail, she started trying to mechanically arrest the process. It didn’t work, and in the end it was raw stubborn that actually stopped her slow slide into death, spit and vinegar more than ingenuity, but hey. She tried.

So as a baby exocortex mechanic, we get proficiency in light and heavy armour, small and longarms, basic melee weapons, grenades and shields. We’ll get Skill Focus in a skill via our exocortex memory module, which we can change every level, but for the minute I think we’ll put it in Perception to help compensate for our Wisdom, and because she was stuck on a ship with a hostile undead, so she built her exocortex to help her track her surroundings. We get a bonus to Computers and Engineering, and a Custom Rig, which counts as personal comm, hacking kit and engineering kit all rolled into one. The Custom Rig can be external, but it can also be an augmentation, in brain, eyes or arm. Given how we’ve already gone with exocortex, I think we’ll install it in our arm. Bertha wanted everything she needed to be part of her, if at all possible.

Starting Feat: Toughness

We’re surviving on spit and vinegar here. We’re still even as barely alive as we are on raw stubborn. Of course it’s toughness. Bertha’s made of leather and spite and homemade wiring over here.

Summary:

I’ll be honest, I saw that one line in the borai description, someone just too stubborn to fully die, and it merged with the Marooned One in my head, and Bertha’s entire character concept fell out whole cloth. She’s smart, yeah, but more than that she’s just plain stubborn. This undead jackass wants her to die? Well then she’s just gonna not.

I do also want to play with the whole … borai searching for a home and acceptance, and the crisis refugee theme of relying on and helping others, and the Marooned Ones dying alone, that their rage and their grief is that no one came and they were left to slowly die alone, and have her … decide to be stubborn about that too. Her crew flew blithely off without her and left her to die, but sod that. She’ll find a new crew. A better one. One that won’t. People flinch from her mostly-dead ass? She’ll find someone who doesn’t. She’s not welcome in her old home anymore? Well, time to find an unclaimed asteroid and build a town there. Not a house, a town. She’s not dying alone. She’s not dying full stop, but she’s also not dying alone. She plans to be stubborn about this.

And if she sometimes wonders how much difference there is between that and the Marooned One luring people towards itself, well. She’s not planning on letting people slowly die, so she’s already a step up, right?

So. Bertha Mourne. The almost, but not quite, Marooned One. Heh.

[shrimpmandan]

I love Pokemon Sun/Moon so, so much. I'm so glad I decided to properly replay them. The first hour or two is a slog if only because of the sheer quantity of cutscenes, but once you're a few hours in and the story starts picking up? I think it's one of the best Pokemon games out there. The story and characters rival gen 5. It does such a wonderful job at portraying broken/toxic/abusive households, in a way that's digestible and relatable for the target audience. Lusamine finally smiling up at her daughter for the first time in years and asking "When did you… start becoming beautiful?" made me fucking tear up. It always does.

Music is phenomenal, graphics are pretty good, the Pokemon themselves are great. I'm so attached to all of my little goobers. Cedarwood is off the team now but she's enjoying retirement in Pokemon Pelago's hot springs. Nebby will probably end up joining her. This game means so much to me and I'm glad I decided to finally pick it back up after so many years.

Champion fight was fucking brutal though LMAO why the hell didn't they put any trainers in the caves leading up to the e4

Here's a picture I took of my team right after fighting Gladion!

(Big Bertha's shiny by the way! She's an extremely lucky SOS chain catch I got by complete accident)

[bellafragolina]

More things that I’d do to mess with Jubilife (+The Clans Edition)

-Catch the gods/Legendaries they worship

-Treat Dialga and Palkia like normal Pokémon by training them to battle better. I would introduce them to human food from the future using those dishes to get them to behave.

-Establish a “Platinum” Clan to live in the Distortion World cause Giratina deserves followers too. Even if all the inhabitants end up being Pokemon, it’s still progress.

-Tell Adman about time capsules and Irida about us distorting space casually to teleport.

-Be a cryptid in photos where I rarely face the camera photographing me. Will allow me future anonymity if I am stuck in poke-verse.

-Have Pokémon with artificial sleep negating abilities (Insomnia, Vital Spirit) live on New Moon Island alongside Darkrai.

-Test Uxie’s limits on what they are comfortable knowing. I bet it doesn’t like thinking about when people procreate.

-Recruit Anthe to remake modern clothes to wear in the village, nothing to outlandish I only want something like a hoodie…

-Civilly ask Melli for help raising Poison-Types. Yes, I am annoyed by him. No, I won’t let the warden of literal living bombs know that.

-Introduce games like capture the flag to help the Survey Corps get used to working with Pokémon in large groups. Don’t know if that would trigger any memories from recent wars.

-Pull an Itachi pranking both clans by gathering as many Murkrow as I can for a morning flyover.

-Reform/Collect all of Vessa’s wisps.

-Make sure Vessa still be around people even if she/they can no longer disguise as a human all together. And find out who knew her back when she was alive to give both parties closure.

-Tell the first Hisuian Zoroark’s story so everyone knows how they came to be. I am sure I could find them somewhere in the region.

-Give Arezu “ideas” for her haircuts. :)

-Find if any villagers have medium potential so they can look after my Ghost Types.

-See if there are plans to build the Old Chateau in Eterna Forest yet.

-Drill into everybody’s heads that Magikarp can evolve from sheer rage so if they don’t have anything nice to say then stay quiet! Also under no circumstances are they to kick a specimen, James learned the hard way.

-Get Captain Cyllene to teach Abra other moves than teleport.

-Tell the stubborn pricks who probably don’t accept me even after saving the region real ghosts stories. And casually admit non-ghost type Ghosts exist in the world.

-Find alternative ways to make the Noble Lord Basculegion’s food so Iscan can save himself some fright of being around a Dusclops.

-Catch Alpha Pokémon.

-Get strong enough to lift my smaller Alpha Pokémon with ease.

-Ask how the Noble Pokémon deal with Alphas of their same species. Is there a special pecking order in authority they needed in at the start?

-Baby all my Alphas even the ten foot tall Garchomp that can look Dialga in the eye.

-Gift Professor Laventon a Gabite as a Pokemon partner due to its funny dex entry.

-Find out whether Rei, Akari or both of have any family. I might need to adopt them.

-Gather interviews progressively over my time in Jublife to record how everyone feels. I want their future to know that the threat of Pokemon was entirely real. And the hardships they went through learning to work together.

-Make sure the Miss Fortune sisters don’t get themselves killed so the timeline is preserved. Record Agatha and Bertha’s shared grandma.

-Ask how in the world Kamado snuck having a Snorlax and feeding it before I arrived.

-Have my most experienced Zoroak replace me so I can check out Michina Ruins if this is the Anime continuity.

-Catch all the mythicals.

-Ride Heatran up Mount Coronet from the very base to Spear Pillar. A challenge to us both.

-Organize Shaymin races if my own can get in contact with others.

-Travel exclusively through Darkrai’s shadow transport ability to scare people for a week.

-Talk to Regigigas about why it created only one Regieleki and Regidrago.

-Give Doran the biggest Alpha Buizel I can find.

-Question the Forces of Nature on why they traveled to Hisui.

-Find out where the Lake Guardians have feathers/claws.

-Visit Alola using the Creation Trio’s ability to get an Alolan Raichu. (They’re cute, sue me.)

-Attend Palina and Iscan’s wedding.

-Take so many freaking pictures with my God Phone. Hopefully, I can take it along.

-Make sure Rei and Akari know about type balance on their teams! Why does one canonically have two fairies?

-Keep the Porygon line a secret until I have Alphas of each stage. :)

-Start the Legend of Meltan and Melmetal if there are no mentions of them.

-Get Beni to teach me how to be ninja-level stealthy, plus how to parkour as easy he can.

-Complete Ingo’s Path of Solitude for every unevolved Pokemon. I will teach Magikarp to use Hydro Pumo so help me.

-Go an entire day without saying a single word (after solving red sky) to freak people out.

By Checklist Anon

checklist anon has chosen violence and i wholly support it because i wanna watch the chaos unfold! might as well, after all the protag goes through during the games, like sheesh

bravo! will we be getting little drabbles of these things you're doing? these would all be darling one-offs!

~Renee

[significant-ace-nnoyance]

OKAY SO I'M READING THIS REALLY GOOD FANFIC AND I WANTED TO SHARE MY COMMENTARY ON IT.

OKAY LET'S GO.

OOOOOOOH OKAYYYYYYYY LET'S GOOOOO

OH MY GOD IS HE GOING TO CONFESS!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!

OKAY...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LMAOOOOOOOOOO ALL OF THAT SET UP FOR THIS.

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO

WILL YOU CHICKEN.

AWWWWWWW NOOOOO STOP OVERTHINKING MIKE OH MY GOD STOP HATING YOURSELF-

....................................OH MY GOD?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?! IF SOMEONE DID THIS TO ME I WOULD MARRY THEM ON THE SPOT OH MY GOD I WOULD DIE.

DUDE SAME I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO MOVE, ALSO 🎶SHE SMELLS LIKE LEMON GRASS AND SLEEP...SHE TASTES LIKE APPLE JUCIE AND PEACH...🎶 OMG THIS IS SO INTIMATE AND LOVELY???

ALSO "it reminds of my great aunt berthas couch a little bit :(" CRYINGGGGG LMAOOOOOO

I'M LAUGHING TOO I'M SORRY BUT THIS WAS SO RANDOMLY FUNNY.

AWWWWW WILL HE'D NEVER BE MAD AT U :(

LMAOOOOOOOOO WHO KNEW A COUCH COULD BE SO FUNNY

ALSO THEY'RE HOLDING HANDS?!?!?!?!?!? INTIMATELY!??!?!?!?!?! THAT'S SO CUTE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? OMGGGGG EVEN THE WAITER NOTICED HOW GAY THEY ARE

LMAO THEY'RE SO CONFUSED.

CRYINGGGGGG OMG THE WAITER REALLY SAID

"I TOTALLY SUPPORT THE SKITTLES PEOPLE 😊🫶 🎶BEEEEEEEE WHOOOOOOO YOUUUUUUU AREEEEEE FOR YOURRR PRIIIIIIIIIDEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DON'T HIIIIIIDEEEEEEE🎶🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈"

I BET YOU WISH YOU WAS THO.

AWWWWWW ARE THEY GONNA COOK TOGETHER?!!??!?! 😭

"mike wheeler...the shitty cook...a CHEF?"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOH THEY'RE GONNA HAVE THE PLACE TO THEMSELVESSSSSS, NOW WHATEVER WILL THEY DO WITHIN THAT PERIOD OF TIME??? 👀

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA HE'S NOTICINGGGGGGGG

he's so real 😭

THIS IS SO POETIC??? WOW.

*crazy evil laughter*

OOOOOOH OKAYYY MIKE'S LOOKIN SEXY 🎶BLUEEEE JEANSSSS WHITE SHIRTTTT YOU'RE SO FRESH TO DEATH YOU KNOW YOU MAKE MY EYES BURNNNNNN🎶 AND ALSO OMG HE'S SWOOPING HIM INTO A HUG!?!??!?!?! SO SWEEEET 😭

ITALIAN MIKE WHEELER CANON.

MICHEAL? MORE LIKE MICHELANGELO 🇮🇹

HEHEHEHEHEHEHE THEY'RE FLIRTING NOWWWWWWWWW

ALSO NOOOOOO WILLLLLLLL PLEASE DON'T BE SADDDDD

teehee 🤭

oh my god the INTIMACY. the SHEER TENSION between these two.

"will can smell the clean citrus of mike's shampoo, he can feel his fingers brushing up against the small of his back as he secures the tie of the apron, the sheer closeness of the curly-haired boy is maddening"

I'M GOING INSANE.

OMG IM SO WXCITED LETS GO

…. BESTIE… BESTIE OMG OMG GOTMT I KNOW THIS FIC IT IS LITERALLY MY FAV THING EVER I HAVE BEEN DESPERATELY WAITING THE NEXT INSTALLMENT BECAUSE ITS SO DJDNBDBEBDBBD OMGOGMGOGM

LMAO IK I LOVE MIKE IN THIS FIC HES SUCH A SIMP SO CANON ACCURATE

the i’ve never been good at lying to you???? my fav trope of them omg adorbs

AHHH I FORGOT ON TOP OF A SIMP MIKE IS ALSO AN OVERTHINKER WITH SELF HATRED ANDLOW SELF ESTEEM 😭😭😭😭 SO MUCH FLUFF SO I ALWAYS FORGET HOW THESE FICS GUT ME

BESTIE IKR?????? SAME OMFG THEY R LITERALLY SO PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER AND SO CARING ABOUT EACH OTHER AND THEM BEING HAPPY MAKES THE OTHER HAPPY AND I WANT TO CRY

🎶oh you would find her in a polaroid picture <33 and she means everything to me 🎶 AHHHHHHHHH I KNOW I ABSOLUTELY DEVOUR SCENES LIKE THAT AND THIS ONE WAS SO WELL DONE

beeeeeeee whoooooo uuuuuuuu areeeeeee

omg though i do love the waiter she’s literally all of us being like OMG GAY PEOPLE <3 YALL R MARRIED RIGHT and i love that this fic is set in a world like without much homophobia it was a good break and sort of getaway like mike was more mad at himself about will not liking him over will being grossed out he’s gay which i liked like yes could i have one order of the pining and oblivious and kinda sad and angsty 😭 and cute ofc but WITHOUT the self hatred for queerness??? yes pls

ALSO side note i love that gif from heartstopper it’s literally the funniest part of the show i swear such a quotable set of lines djbdbdbebbdbd

I LOVE WILL FLIRTING U KNOW MICHAEL IS GONNA BE DONE FOR WHEN WILL FEELS COMFORTABLE ENOUGH TO LET DOWN HIS GUARD AND FLIRT THAT BOY TO DEATH

omg fr will is literally me

POETRY OMFG I LOVE WRITERS ANDBYLER WRITERS FOR SOME REASON ARE SO ???? TALENTED ???? BEAUTIFUL ???? AMAZINGINCREDIBLEPOETICSHOWSTOPPING

byler freaking out over every piece of clothing the other wears is so real and i eat it up every time💀💀 also I NEED BYLER HUGS DONEJENEJ THAT WOULD ACTUALLY HEAL MY ENTIRE HEART

JSHDJDJJENEJSBEBBESTIE UR SO RIGHT IM WHEEZING MICHAELANGELO WHEEEELER FOR THE WIN

ugh more will being relatable it’s a constant back and forth with those two frfr like one minute shameless flirting and a flash of clarity through the obliviousness and the next right back to nonono don’t get the hopes up 😭😭

CHEF WHEELER

BESTIE I AM TOO LOSING MY MIND I AFORE THIS FIC THANK U FOR GIVING ME AN EXCUSE TO BASICALLY REREAD ITS LITERALLY ALL THE BEST DOMESTIC BYLER TROPES IN ONE NDBDJDJJEJDJDJJFJD

sorry this took so long to answer 😭😭my phone case is broken and half my keyboard is at like 50% functioning level 😭😭 BUT TY FOR SHARING OMG IS THE NEXT CHAPTER OUT???? I NEED AN UPDATE I NEED RESOLUTION I CANT WAIT DHBDBDJJSB

[nominalnebula]

George Russell as a single man in New York (maybe Bertha divorced him. Big scandal. He's tainted, untouchable, but still attends functions to escort Gladys). He asks for a space on your dance card and you're either A) Stunned like Lizzie Bennet like 'oh shit did I say yes' OR B) Having a Scarlett O'Hara OH YES I WILL moment when your mother days you will not be able to dance with him

like there's the old money reaction aka a) lizzie bennet "oh shit I said yes?" vs new money and the scarlett overreaction but for the sheer drama of it all and because of the pining/angst potential, because you know I love a good mutual pining, even if they're not gonna admit it for SO LONG

I gotta go with A - it works with both old and new money, but the stakes are a lot higher if you come from an old money family, because a) familial disapproval, the Judgment, the potential Scandal, but he's cornered you without actually cornering you, so what were you supposed to say? and like blacking out for like a second even though it felt like an eternity and Yeah That Just Happened

but the chemistry??? and the tension??? that moment when you're dancing with him????

[gogmstuff]

1670 Woman by Abraham Lambertsz. van den Tempel (Hermitage). From tumblr.com/baroque-beauty-24 1228X1478 @72 328kj.

ca. 1670 Gentleman and his wife with their four children in an interior by Eglon Hendrick van der Neer (Sotheby's -  Old Master Paintings Lot 18). Fixed spots & flaws w Pshop  2024X2288 @72 1.5Mj.

Lady with a Girl attributed to Henri Beaubrun (Hermitage). From tumblr.com/blog/view/la-reinette; fixed spots and gouge marks w Pshop 1214X1920 @72 1.2Mj.

1673 Young woman with a letter and two servants in a distinguished interior by Eglon van der Neer (private collection). From Wikimedia; fixed spots w Pshop 2061X2578 @72 1.4Mj.

[foxilayde]

Dearest Danny,

I'm back to harass you with George-Russell-Is-Just-Jay-Gould thoughts

I'm rereading Dark Genius of Wall Street and this excerpt delighted me and now i'm thinking of our Georgie doing the same

And I'm sweating

@youvebeenlivingfictionalreplies I LOVE THIS SO MUCH

“Well would you look at that, old boy? We seem to have run aground.” Cruger, pink-faced and jolly like a Middlewhite farm pig, tips back his head and his glass, letting the candied onion at the dregs of his cocktail roll into his open mirthful mouth. 

George’s face doesn’t shift in the silghtest. The old lush had paid dearly in time, labor, and inconvenience (none of which he himself would suffer) all for the pittance of an annoyed reaction from George. And George Russell could be a withholding man. No, he does not react. Does not give Cruger the satisfaction. He barely lost his balance as the yacht had bumped to a surprising halt on the muddy banks. Several young ladies had toppled in muffled thunks on the hollow deck, to the sheer delight of Cruger. It is a wonder how he’d managed to retain his wealth. How could be be so laissez-faire concerning the corrupted underside of his own yacht, making an enemy of the wealthiest man in Manhattan in gratuity?

George fixes his face to stone against the balmy breeze on the Hudson and shifts his eyes to Penn Station. So very close. 

“I daresay the only way you’d be able to catch that beloved train of yours would be for you to swim your way over.” Cruger chortles with a wheezing vigor, earning uncomfortable parroted laughs from his surrounding guests. George was clearly not the only one to have their afternoon plans foiled by Cruger’s asinine collision and it’s all he can do to mask a grimace. 

George cooly stalks to the starboard rim of Cruger’s newest and shiniest toy and contemplates with amused sincerity the gulping even tide of the Hudson River against the pearlescent fresh white paint of the hull. It can’t be that deep. The Yacht is run aground. Eight feet to the banks at the most, and only inclining from here to Penn Station. The distance does appear long (over a hundred yards at least) to the shore, but he wouldn’t be fighting against currents, and it will, for his 6’1 frame, be almost entirely a “refreshing walk” to the station. George has always been a master at reframing unpleasant tasks into appealing language. A refreshing walk through the invigorating banks of The Hudson. Good for the health. The natural advertiser in him.

George downs his last finger of scotch from the etched crystal rock's glass, casually setting it on a deck table before lifting his starched collar and blindly disentangling his tie. He unloops it from round his neck without haste, folding it in an almost acceptable manner and placing it on the deck chair. Along with his coat, vest, pocket watch…. As soon as Cruger catches on to George’s intention he sputters and flails his hands in George’s general direction. 

“Come now, George. If catching that blessed train really was as urgent as you’d been hinting, I’d have offered you one of the side skimmers! Henry can lower it and row you to shore. Really, George there’s no need for all this! There are ladies present!” 

“Indeed.” He hears one aforementioned lady mutter deeply and the tone is not any flavor of “affronted”, but encouraging. 

“I wouldn’t dream of taking any of your staff away from you in this dire hour, Cruger. After all, my good man,” George shoulders off his white dress shirt with a raised brow, “you’ve been shipwrecked.” 

[insert photo of shirtless George Russell *lipbite emoji*]

Cruger bargains as George strips his boots and socks, and the guests admire the theatrics in abject amusement.

George's smile is genuine now, this is far and away the most fun he’s ever had at a social gathering. His mirth is only faintly marred by the absence of Bertha. He entertains breifly how amusing for him it will be to keep secret the transpirations of this yacht ride. He will allow her to glean the gossip from Missus soinso tomorrow, choking back tea, stifling her shock in public, thinking a clever endearment for her mad husband in the snap of the eyes-on-her moment. Yes, he will go home and kiss Bertha good evening, she will remark on his shoes and how they are not the ones he left in (he cannot swim with both his clothing and his boots, he decides while bundling his clothing, to leave them on the deck, confident he will be able to purchase an acceptable pair from a fellow departant on the train). He will give her some boring excuse for the shoes and when she asks about the trip on the Hudson he will dismiss it as “dull” and focus the more pressing topic of how he wishes she was there. Which is true. He does wish she were with him now. Though he highly doubts her presence would have let him get this far down to his skivvies to prove a point. Let alone carefully lower himself down into the sloshing river with a salute towards Cruger and a bundle of cotton and wool which he keeps expertly held above his head, all the way to the shore of the island. 

*PRAYING FOR THIS TO TRANSPIRE IN SEASON 2*

[cindermetalheadgw2]

Mad because I used up all my character slots so I can't make my necro Bertha Deathmetal right now immediately (bass player of the metal warband). She's goth and her favorite things are whiskey, metal, and Halloween! She used to be a soulbeast like Cinder (they trained together and helped take care of each other's pets) but her devourer Stinger was killed by Ajax Anvilburn's renegades, and their soulbeast bond was so strong she gained the power of necromancy through the sheer strength of her grief and rage and reanimated the exoskeleton. They can't merge anymore, since it would be too dangerous and potentially kill Bertha, but she's just happy to have her friend back. In fact, she got so comfortable with her undead pet she seems to think all dead things are good potential pets, including a very not tame and very biohazardous risen chicken she managed to capture and name Mr. Murderfeathers. Good thing Dinky is a guardian because people always need healing after an encounter with the chicken of doom. One of her hobbies is finding dead things in the woods and putting them back together in creatively wrong ways. Her study of necromancy eventually lead her to the priory's archive of information on The Mad Realm. One Halloween she entered the labyrinth and stumbled upon edrick thorn. She was wary of him at first, considering all the atrocities he committed in life, but eventually they were drawn to each other for their unique relationships with the concept of death and hey, it's been a few hundred years, even if he can never make up for it he can at least change and start doing some good, right? Starting, of course, with bringing her revenant friend Blaze Metalscrean to the labyrinth to... summon each and every villager from Pelchalice... one by one... for him to apologize to. An excruciatingly uncomfortable experience for everyone involved. She plans to free him from the mad realm one day, hopefully when she finds a way he stays true to his word, and really is ready to change

[simon-newman]

Long Overdue Animal Post Part 1

So. I’ve promised to make a large update post to celebrate the 2 years of my tarantula keeping...

It’s been quite overdue... And by quite I mean... I’ve been keeping tarantulas for 3 years and 4 months now...

A lot has changed. I had some losses and... Well. I went a bit over my set limit of 6 spiders...

But here’s the deal.

1. Tliltocatl vagans (ex. Brachypelma vagans) female

So. My first spider luckily turned out to be a female. She’s grown quite a bit but is not nearly as large as some of my younger spiders - being from a medium-sized species in general.

One thing for sure - she’s a big and healthy female even if she likes to disappear underground for several months at a time (I haven’t seen her from December 2021 to July 2022).

She’s also the first spider I’ve paired. But you should know that from the post I’ve made before.

2. Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens - male (Typhoon)

My first spider. What most keepers consider to be the most beautiful species out there - the Greenbottle Blue Tarantula.

Has matured as a male in 18 months and not long after I’ve loaned him to one of the breeders in my country in January 2021 - in return I’ve received two slings from the same species.

Unfortunatley, when I inquired about his fate 2 months later they confirmed that Typhoon was eaten by a female they paired him with.

Here’s one of the last pictures I took of him:

3. Phormictopus Sp. “Green - Gold Carapace” - female, Draka

The BIG ONE.

Probably the largest spider in my house. She’s huge and likely has not yet reached her maximum.

For a while I was convinced she’s a male and called her “Durotan”.

Hearing I have a sub-adult male some people offered me a nice price for “him” as the price for this species tripled since I’ve got mine. I could have made 5 times what I paid for the spiderling.

Luckily I haven’t sold her as the adult female is likely worth even more.

Now - finding a male for HER might be more problematic than most.

To add to this - this is the spider I am actually nervous when dealing with. Draka was moody and jumpy all the way back as a sling and now she’s extremely defensive. Every feeding is a potential angry fit from her and I don’t want her fangs in my hand.

Yes - I have much more venomous spiders now. Draka is simply big and much more eager to bite when compared to them.

Here’s the most recent photo.

Yes - she threw a threat posture right after I took those pictures... I had to wait with watering the enclosure - doing it with her already angry risks a case of spider outside.

4. Psalmopoeus cambridgei, famale Bertha

The one that got away.

Yes - the only spider that escaped in my care. She spent some 16 hours loose in my house and neither me, my mom or my sister’s cat were able to find her until next morning.

Also quite large but less bulky spider. Mostly a ghost. I see her once every few months now that she’s in her final enclosure.

I’ve got a mate for her at the same event I’ve got a mate for #1 but... I don’t know why he died some 3 weeks after molting. I fed him a week before and he seemed perfectly healthy. Then next week I just found him dead.

Anyway. Here’s the most recent photo when she decided to grace me with her presence.

5. Lasiodora klugi, ?????

Okay I am confused. I can’t tell if it’s a male or female tho my last attempt would indicate it’s a male after all this time.

Potentially the largest spider in my collection. Definitely rivals Draka when it comes to sheer bulk.

A bit jumpy but nowhere nearly as moody as her and overall a good specimen to deal with when you want to get used to huge ass spiders that aren’t pet rocks.

Keeping him (?) has been a delight and the fact it’s likely not female is only a bit of a downgrade. Some breeders already told me they’ll gladly take him as males from this species are hard to come by. In fact when I got him as a spiderling it was likely the first time they appeared on sale since 2014 - some even assumed males went extinct in the European branch of the hobby.

6. Harpactira pulchripes, male “Gilgamesh”

The golden boy. Matured too fast. Loaned. Met his demise much like Typhoon.

I looked up my spreadsheet - I’ve only had him for 16 months.

Very moody for a species often suggested as a good first Old World tarantula (old worlds are more defensive and have stronger venom).

The species has been a disaster for me.

I’ve raised Gil from a tiny sling without any issues. Loaning him I’ve got 2 slings in exchange - much like with Typhoon.

Both slings suffered from DKS - a symptom of illness that disrupts tarantula’s coordination. I don’t know what caused it. One sling passed away shortly after developing this condition. The other one struggled for over 2 months - seemingly recovering to some degree just to pass away anyway... Those were Spiders 11 and 12.

7&8. Phoprmictopus Sp. “Bayahibe”, male and female.

So. This is the species I’ve broken my limit for. Can you blame me? They are absolutely stunning:

#7 - male:

#8 - female:

They’ll hopefully get more violet coloration as they age - I’ll try to slow down male’s growth as well and hopefully pair them later on. There was exactly one time they were sold in Poland until recently. The entire population in Europe is likely very limited and I have a pair.

9&10. Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens, ???

The two slings I received in exchange for Typhoon.

They’re growing nicely and now that I think about it they’re actually older than  Typhoon when he matured - being around 22 months old.

I didn’t bother to check if they’re males or females but I might be forced to do so soon.

They’re in vertical setups made in plastic jars and with their last molt both spiders destroyed most of their webbing that allowed them to use this vertical space efficiently. If they don’t remake it I’ll likely look for more horizontal enclosures for them.

To be continued...

[princessnijireiki]

the sheer power of the adult Russells in episodes 2 & 3 of The Gilded Age...

both of them said, "I am mean, petty, and spiteful, but also extremely hardworking, especially in service of cruelty, pettiness, or spite against people who INSULT MY FAMILY, and if you try to hurt my spouse or kids or business I will destroy everything I have just to take you fuckers down with me," and EVERY SINGLE TIME one of them does some shit like that the other one goes, "babe that was sooooo sexy"

and then in E3 they did that when the old money families wanted to play legal games to humiliate the Russells + profit off of financially destroying them, but then added in a severe game of Poverty Chicken against people who had never been poor and were terrified of that fate lmao... the Russells said, "So what? I've been broke before! I didn't die! 😂 You think this would be my first time being foreclosed on? We can earn it all back & then spend all our money again," while the rich WASPs up the street freak the fuck out

bonus bc no confirmation yet on George except for "bro, just look at him," but Bertha is confirmed Irish American... so yeah they're new money spicy whites and they're real cutthroat about it while Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector bring all the severe Gomez & Morticia contender level chemistry that you would expect from a couple whose entire dynamic is, "baby, you were so mean when you humiliated our family's professional enemies & rivals (because your rivals are my rivals babe we hate them TOGETHER) in public while making a scene by making it rain big big dollars at the rich people charity event just then... ooh do it again :)"

[whitepolaris]

Baltimore’s Bar District

Fell’s Point has two proud boasts: It was the birthplace of the Baltimore Clipper and, at one time, had more than fifty bars and saloons. If the walls of these buildings could talk, they would tell tales of hard drinking, outbreaks of disease, and the drugging and kidnapping of strong young men to serve as unwilling deckhands onboard ship. Such was the way of things in port towns in centuries past. And with this kind of history it’s no surprise that some unwilling souls are still being spotted along these brick-paved streets around Alliceanna and Thames.

The Horse You Came In On Saloon boasts several things, all with great conviction. It’s the oldest drinking establishment in Fell’s Point, dating back to before the Revolution. It’s the last place in which Edgar Allan Poe ever took a drink-they say he fell facedown in the gutter staggering back from a night’s bender here. And they say a ghost that everyone calls Edgar makes his presence felt here all the time. 

They also relate that cash register drawers fly open at random. The chandeliers swing for no good reason. And sometimes, to appease the ghost, the staff will leave a glass of whiskey out for him at closing time. Those are the rumors, and when we asked Mike the barman about it, he confirmed another: One night after closing time, something slammed shut the heavy door of the safe in the office. This heavy metal door was hard enough for a barman to move; it seemed unlikely that gravity or a guest of wind could do it. With a laugh that wasn’t entirely mirthful, Mike told us he closed up pretty fast after that. 

The Cat’s Eye Pub at one time could have been more accurately named the Cat House. During renovations to the place, workers discovered a system of switches wired to the upstairs to receive customers. This had clearly been a fast-turnaround operation. Naturally, the switch system hadn’t worked for longer than anyone could remember, and by the end of the renovations it was safely hidden behind a wallboard. But many insist that it’s possible to hear clicking behind the wall, as if the ghosts of the former working girls haven’t quite shaken their work ethic even in death. But the weirdest tale of all is one of the co-founders of Fell’s Point Ghost Tour tell. Amy Lynwander and Melissa Garland spent years pulling together the tales they relate on their tour, during the research phase Garland visited the Cat’s Eye and bought a T-shirt from a barman there. When she returned to the bar a few years later to tell him he would be mentioned on the tour, the staff looked very disturbed and named had died six years earlier, a clear four years before she claimed she had bought the T-shirt from him. 

Bertha’s Restaurant, with its famous, if uninventive, slogan “Eat Bertha’s mussels,” is a favorite haunt of paranormal watchers. This tends to make the tales of the place a little unreliable, since people looking for ghosts tend to find this evidence they want. The number of photographs from Bertha’s we have seen with orbs in them is huge . . . and after the event, it’s hard to tell whether these faint circular blobs are ectoplasm or dust or some strange refraction in a flawed camera lens. But the sheer volume of Bertha’s stories is hard to ignore. A few years back, when the Maryland Ghost and Spirit Association had a dinner at the restaurant, most of the people present were getting dozens of cloudy flaws in their pictures, swearing that these were spirits transit lacking the energy to take on their human shape as they moved. 

For those who aren’t impressed by such evidence, there’s a stained glass window in the restaurant that responds very strangely to electromagnetic field detectors; it can elicit wide EMF detector readings that swing from the edge of the red back to a normal ambient green without any apparent electronic interference. Like most places in Fell’s Point, Bertha’s used to lodge people in the upper rooms in times when yellow fever and typhus were rife in the port towns. People who hear strange noises on second-story floors or see the owner’s cat hissing down the fall or feel strange presences in the rooms (and these people are many) like to pin their experiences on victims of some nasty outbreak who aren’t yet ready to quit the vibrant bar district. After all, it’s much cleaner and safer than it was in centuries past. And all the really interesting characters seem to have stuck around.