one time i read a book with an ambiguous ending and i was GUTTED but i was like okay i do trust the other and how kind they were to these characters. i'm going to believe things go well <3

the book effected me so deeply though and it was the author's debut novel so i was like i'm gonna send fanmail. they had no author website or public email address so the first google result under their name was their linkedin and i saw that they WORKED at the same place as me?? there were thousands of employees so it made sense i wouldn't know. it was just wild to me bc i found the book at a library in another town on the "new release" shelf so it was just a rly funny coincidence to me.

obvs i wasn't sending them fanmail on linkedin but i did find they had an author's facebook page so i sent my fanmail there as appropriate telling them why i loved the book sm. but i was like "hey no pressure but i saw on linkedin that we happen to work in the same place. would i be able to drop my book off in your mailbox to have it signed?"

well they ended up not only responding to me but inviting me to lunch!!! we talked about mostly non-book stuff and it was really fun but then i asked if i could ask a question about the books' ending and they said of course! so i only asked "will the characters be okay?" and they said yes.

so anyway that's the most roundabout way i ever made peace with the ending of a story i love.

The Kickstarter is now live! Every backer for a physical reward will also get two free sticker sheets, one from each artist!

The middle 3 pics are my designs and the bottom 3 are @fuzziesartdesigns work!

Any reblogs are a huge help and we both appreciate it so much 💖

Check out the project here

Here are the sticker sheet designs we have! Backing for any physical item means you get both of them totally free!

Kickstarter won’t take any money until April 30th and that’s only if the project reaches its funding goal, so there’s no risk of losing money if we can’t fund the project 🥰

Link

@onenicebugperday I hope the single bug is an acceptable reason to tag 😭

illustration commission for @coloneljamesmoriarty of Jovial, who is a man who finally has the truth, and the world should be ashamed for it ⛈️ ⛈️com info in the source⛈️

Should have worried more about his mental condition.

Shadow Puppets by Alex Kuno

People straight up do not realize that part of the reason manufacturing is not returning to the United States in massive waves is because we have things like “OSHA” and “environmental laws” and “minimum wages.”

It’s not even just about fair wages. It’s literally about the fact that you can’t dump industrial waste in a river here anymore.

Our cheap goods are so cheap because South American and Asians environments are being destroyed so you can buy a $40 pair of shoes every 3 months.

Cutting granite countertops has lead to a rapid increase in silicosis in the lungs out in California. All the working men and women in my family have died from pulmonary fibrosis. They were carpet layers, Post office workers, floor tilers. Staying safe in manufacturing jobs is annoying but also very, very expensive. Real manufacturing factories belch smoke and dust and grime that causes asthma and birth defects in surrounding communities. Everyone wants their manufacturing jobs back until they realize their kids are living directly under the Asthma Plant.

There will come a time when the workers in these countries rise up and demand better and things will start to even out, but if you want to honestly “do your part,” you gotta stop buying cheap shit for no reason.

Not every event needs to be celebrate with a baseball cap or a coozie or a t shirt or a keychain. Not every wall in the house has to have a picture or a cute phrase on it. The knickknacks are killing people.

Yep!

outlining is soooo satisfying. the fire won’t have an outline

he’s not burning, he’s a medieval salamander, he’s a happy little guy

look. look at this beautiful sword meme. i’m going to cry

@petermorwood

I saw and reblogged this one a while back, but it’s always worth repeating, and this time I’m adding a bit of background info comparing common fantasy sword features to the Real Thing (with pictures, of course.)

Leaf-bladed swords are a very popular fantasy style and were real, though unlike modern hand-and-a-half longsword versions, the real things were mostly if not always shortswords.

Here are Celtic bronze swords…

…Ancient Greek Xiphoi…

… and a Roman “Mainz-pattern” gladius…

Saw or downright jagged edges, either full-length or as small sections (often where they serve no discernible purpose) are a frequent part of fantasy blades, especially at the more, er, imaginatively unrestrained end of the market.

Real swords also had saw edges, such as these two 19th century shortswords, but not to make them cool or interesting. They’re weapons if necessary…

…but since they were carried by Pioneer Corps who needed them for cutting branches and other construction-type tasks, their principal use was as brush cutters and saws.

This dussack (cutlass) in the Wallace Collection is also a fighting weapon, like the one beside it…

…but may also have had the secondary function of being a saw.

A couple of internet captions say it’s for “cutting ropes” which makes sense - heavy ropes and hawsers on board a ship were so soaked with tar that they were often more like lengths of wood, and a Hollywood-style slice from the Hero’s rapier (!!) wouldn’t be anything like enough to sever them. However swords like this are extremely rare, which suggests they didn’t work as well as intended for any purpose.

I photographed these in Basel, Switzerland, about 20 years ago. Look at the one on the bottom (I prefer the basket-hilt schiavona in the middle).

A lot of “flamberge” (wavy-edge) swords actually started out with conventional blades which then had the edges ground to shape - the dussack, that Basel broadsword and this Zweihander were all made that way.

The giveaway is the centreline: if it’s straight, the entire blade probably started out straight.

Increased use of water power for bellows, hammers and of course grinders made shaping blades easier than when it had to be done by hand. This flamberge Zweihander, however, was forged that way.

Again, the clue is the centre-line.

Incidentally those Parierhaken (parrying hooks - a secondary crossguard) are among the only real-life examples of another common fantasy feature - hooks and spikes sticking out from the blade.

Here are some rapiers and a couple of daggers showing the same difference between forged to shape and ground to shape. The top and bottom rapiers in the first picture started as straights, and only the middle rapier came from the forge with a flamberge blade.

There’s no doubt about this one either.

The reason - though that was a part of it - wasn’t just to look cool and show off what the owner could afford (any and all extra or unusual work added to the price) but may actually have had a function: a parry would have been juddery and unsettling for someone not used to it, and any advantage is worth having.

However, like the saw-edged dussack, flamberge blades are unusual - which suggests the advantage wasn’t that much of an advantage after all.

Here’s a Circassian kindjal, forged wiggly…

…and an Italian parrying dagger forged straight then ground wiggly…

There were also parrying daggers with another fantasy-blade feature, deep notches and serrations which in fantasy versions often resemble fangs or thorns.

These more practical historical versions are usually called “sword-breakers” but I prefer “sword-catcher”, since a steel blade isn’t that easy to break. Taking the opponent’s blade out of play for just long enough to nail him works fine.

NB - the curvature on the top one in this next image is AFAIK because of the book-page it was copied from, not the blade itself.

The missing tooth on that second dagger, and the crack halfway down this next one’s blade, shows what happens when design features cause weak spots.

So there you go: a quick overview of fantasy sword features in real life.

Here’s a real-life weapon that looks like it belongs in a fantasy story or film - and this doesn’t even have an odd-shaped blade…

Just a very flexible one…

If you want more odd blades, Moghul India is a good place to start…

i could not ask for a better addition to my meme post than blade education thank you so much

It’s not fantasy anatomy, but knowing stuff about the objects you put in your fantasy world is also very important

the thing is that childhood doesn't just end when you turn 18 or when you turn 21. it's going to end dozens of times over. your childhood pet will die. actors you loved in movies you watched as a kid will die. your grandparents will die, and then your parents will die. it's going to end dozens and dozens of times and all you can do is let it. all you can do is stand in the middle of the grocery store and stare at freezers full of microwave pizza because you've suddenly been seized by the memory of what it felt like to have a pizza party on the last day of school before summer break. which is another ending in and of itself

<3

As it is Passover again, it is time for the annual debate as to whether the frog plague, which thanks to a quirk in the Hebrew, is written as a plague of frog, singular, rather than the plural, plague of frogs, was in fact, as generally imagined, a plague of many frogs, or instead a singular giant Kaiju frog. This is an ancient and venerable argument that actually goes back to the Talmud because this is what the Jewish people are. If we can't argue for fun about this sort of thing, what are we even doing.

In that spirit, I would like to submit a third possibility, which is that in fact it was one perfectly normal sized frog, who was absolutely acing Untitled Frog Game: Ancient Egypt Edition. One particularly obnoxious frog, who through sheer hard work, managed to plague all of Egypt.

@kindness-ricochets

oh and I got a nice lil blue basket for the stim toy pile because it was starting to get a little out of control

Love the idea of gathering them all in a pile and putting them out for guests.

LIZARD

2024

Gonna bring back these bust commissions if anyone is interested! They're 40 USD (50 if they have complicated clothes or details - if you're unsure just ask!). I'm open to any characters, not just dragons, though I'd like to stick to animals rather than humans/machines/etc.

Contact: Holly.o.lucero@gmail.com

Long eared bat hunting a dragonfly, carved in basswood and painted with acrylics.

Oh joyous day! Happy 19th anniversary of neil banging out the tunes and happy 16th anniversary of homestuck

HAPPY HOMESTUCK DAY U WANT FIC? >:U

It's 4/13 and 4 days ago I finished posting Karkat Vantas vs The Evil Gods, a fic that I've been percolating for more than a decade and am very proud of, and which readers so far seem to have quite enjoyed! So this is me enthusiastically doing jazz hands at my baby. HEY THERE MY FRIEND DO YOU LIKE

1. Humanstuck, vigilante/superhero AUs, eldritch gods, possession/exorcism, religious horror, hurt/comfort and drama?! Alternia City as Basically Gotham?!

2. Riffs on the Winter Soldier/Turns Out The Guy You Love's Not Dead But He Came Back Wrong?! People slowly recovering from horrible dehumanization and learning to be people again through the power of many different forms of support and love?! People negotiating messy poly situations?! Pale Gamkar, even, perhaps?!

3. Copious shenanigans of Space and Time?! The ever-increasing urge to beat Doc Scratch's smug little "Hee Hee Hoo Hoo" ass with your bare fists?! Goddessdemonangel in a sundress?!

3. Ensemble casts whose backstories could sustain multiple spin-off fics each?! And the personnel forms I fabricated and filled out for every single one of them because I've lost control of my life?!

WINTERSOLDIERSTUCK WEDNESDAY WSUNDAY BE UPON YE. If you've been on the fence please consider checking out my huge and fully-illustrated brainchild (with an eye to the tags and warnings of course) because I had a lot of fun and think it turned out pretty sick! Thank you for attending my TED talk.