idk what's going on anymore lads

Crowley presenting as female to be Warlock’s Nanny? The way this was filmed, acted, and written wasn’t made to be funny whatsoever. She was stunning, I loved the hat!

Pollution using they/them pronouns while the postman used the gender neutral honorific of sir for them? What’s there to make fun of? They’re royalty.

Archangel Michael, who has a traditionally male name, played by a female actress? Never questioned.

Lord Beelzebub’s androgyny? Only respect for the Lord of Hell.

Aziraphale sharing Madame Tracy’s body? Crowley recognized his angel and accepted it no problem. He was right about the dress too, it did suit him!

Crowley’s pure, unfiltered non-binary/gender-fluid energy in general? Fucking fabulous. Who could seriously make fun of this demon’s style? As someone once pointed out to me, you could swap him with Tilda Swinton and I’d see no difference. What an icon.

For our angels and demons, it was intensely liberating having male and female actors auditioning for the same roles, and just picking the ones who we felt nailed the characters best.

Also, can I just hear a wahoo for the wonderful Archangel Uriel, Gloria Obianyo?

I haven’t seen a lot of posts that shed some positivity for non-binary Muslims who wear the hijab – I personally sometimes feel it’s frustrating that people see hijabi non-binary people as “female” just because the hijab is an obligation for women. My hijab does not define my gender; only my obligation to my God and my religion! 

you have long cat (serval)

ear cat (sand cat)

small evil cat (black footed cat)

spherical cat (pallas cat)

cat who probably watches makeup tutorials on youtube (caracal)

very round cat (leopardus guigna)

water cat (fishing cat)

cat with socks (leopardus colocolo)

grayscale cat (geoffroy’s cat)

and let’s not forget revolver cat (ocelot)

Are You 100% Sure This Isn’t A Lemur (flat-headed cat)

That’s A Fucking Stoat (Jaguarundi)

Foot Fetish (canadian lynx)

(OK I’M SORRY FOR THAT ONE BUT JESUS JUST LOOK AT IT.)

and I move that my favorite, spherical cat, should be renamed Redonkasaurus Rex immediately (pallas cat)

London-based student Lewis Hornby is a grandson on a mission. When he noticed that his dementia-afflicted grandmother was having trouble staying hydrated, he came up with Jelly Drops—bite-sized pods of edible water that look just like tasty treats.

Each of these colorful “candies” is made up of mostly water, with gelling agents and electrolytes making up just 10% of their composition. Available in a rainbow of colors and presented in packaging reminiscent of a box of chocolates, Jelly Drops are an easy and engaging way to avoid dehydration—a common problem for those suffering from degenerative neurological diseases.

“It is very easy for people with dementia to become dehydrated,” he explains. “Many no longer feel thirst, don’t know how to quench thirst, or don’t have the dexterity to drink.” With this in mind, Hornby set out to find a solution. In addition to seeking advice from psychologists and doctors, he opted to “experience” life with dementia himself through the use of virtual reality tools and a week in a care home.

Once he was familiar with what dementia patients need, he brainstormed what they want. “From my observations, people with dementia find eating much easier than drinking. Even still, it can be difficult to engage and encourage them to eat. I found the best way to overcome this is to offer them a treat! This format excites people with dementia, they instantly recognize it and know how to interact with it.”

Second of all, I’d like to remind everyone that Jell-o counts as a fluid. 

That is, many doctors prescript Jell-o, and Gelatin treats to children and adults who, for whatever reason, have trouble keeping hydrated. Maybe they have jaw issues. Maybe dementia, or they are on a fluid-only diet and drinking broth for weeks is mind-boggling boring. 

Jell-o brand in particular has a lot of sugar added to the packets, however it’s quite straightforward to buy plain gelatin and make low-sugar jelly blobs to snack on for that sweet fruit-pop of hydration.

Soo~ Here we goooo~ 

2 cups juice – Orange juice, grape juice, whatever you want. Fuck, you could even use your favorite blend of tea, or coffee (though coffee, in my experience, needs a little more gelatin to set properly)

Low heat until juice is hot, but before it starts to boil – once you see a bit of bubbles rising, add 2 tablespoons gelatin, and stir gelatin into hot juice until totally dissolved.

Turn off heat

Add another cup and a half of juice (or whatever), stir for another minute or so, then pour into a mold.

You could pour it into ice cube trays, a Tupperware container, or any sort of silicone candy mold.

Cover it, stick in the fridge overnight, and viola~

Bite-sized taste snacks, full of water.

Gelatin is broken down very easily and put to use once in your gut, so it’s fine to eat loads of it, and otherwise you’re just taking mouthfuls of juice… or tea or whatever.

If you want it a bit more sweet, feel free to add sugar or honey to your hot juice… or hot…whatever…

seeing inventions like this come into existence is uplifting!

and THEN when women dropped out, they started using incarcerated women as their guinea pigs, and then despite the fact that some scientists who participated in the original trials were like “uh i don’t think this is actually good, it’s making a lot of these women sick,” the pharmaceutical industry & fda were like  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and approved it for the general population anyways, without really warning women about the potential for all these negative side effects

and THEN researchers basically ceased to do any type of research on side effects like depression and decreased libido for 50 years, despite the fact that women were still complaining about them, and because there was no “hard evidence” of these side effects, a lot of doctors basically just assumed women were exaggerating or making it up. and that continued until the first major study of depression in women who take hormonal contraceptives was released just. this. year.

the puerto rico pill trials

the racist & sexist history of keeping side effects of birth controls secret

“it’s not in your head” striking new study links birth control to depression

the side effects of male birth control stopping drug trials reveals a disturbing sexism

male birth control shot prevents pregnancy, researchers call for further study to reduce risk of depression, other side effects

Elizabethan Peasant 2: More fool they, for I cannot read.

Elizabethan Peasant 2: Verily, and to compose as well.

Elizabethan Peasant 2: I wist not, but certain am I that thou shalt tell me speedily.

Elizabethan Scholar 2: Lusty fellow, knowst thou well what such a sum portends!

Elizabethan Scholar 2: Cease cease cease. Wither is the bee?

1021 was not an uneventful year. The emperor began a campaign into Italy. Illustrious abbots died. There was an earthquake. But Herbert took the time to note, at the end of the year, that his brother was born. 

I read that and my heart melted

I’ll be real I don’t know much about Phoenix Wright. But! I do know a lot about birds.

The mighty ptarmagin! Practically a feathered rabbit, these magnificent creatures are built for the snow.

Look at those boots! Wonderfully feathered. They spend most of their time as little snow lumps.

In fact, they’re very well known for the above phenomenon.

 Dickens originally set out to write a Very Serious Pamphlet About the Plight of the Poor in Modern Times, with numbers, and statistics, and gruesome details about the state of debtors prisons. And he realized that it would probably not change a single thing, in the end.

So he changed it to fiction, and made it emotional, and focused on the lives in one specific family.  And he also self-published it, because he realized that a for-profit publishing house wouldn’t want to touch it.  And gave it to friends.

Not only did it help change people’s attitudes toward charity organizations and help reform labor laws, it also (pretty much) revived the whole custom of celebrating Christmas at all.

The pamphlet was going to be called ‘An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child’

He decided to write the story because he realised that soap-boxing factory workers and their employers on the importance of educational reform wasn’t going to work on a society-wide scale.

“...Gurira beat out Avengers: Infinity War’s Chris Hemsworth, Jurassic World star Chris Pratt, Deadpool 2’s Ryan Reynolds, and her Black Panther co-star, Chadwick Boseman, for the honor.”

“Thank you for affirming that women and girls, when they are given the chance to hang with the boys, can hang with the best of them…”

Rest in peace, Stan Lee (December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018)

I have no idea about MHW, I’ afraid, so cannot judge.

But if you mean something like this…

It started, IMO, with the Schwarzenegger “Conan the Barbarian” movie in 1982.

There may have been comic or book-cover images before then, but I doubt it. I haven’t gone through my Marvel “Conan the Barbarian / Savage Sword of Conan” comics, but I’ve checked my bookshelves and seen nothing on covers painted by Achilleos, Frazetta, Froud, Jones, Matthews, Woodroffe - basically most of the fantasy artists of the 1970s.

I’m fairly sure “Conan” either started the back-carry business in 1982, or was at least the first time it got noticed by a non-genre mass audience. I added an extra image of the sword to show what’s behind his shoulder. It’s much more obvious in other scenes.

Conan, Valeria and Subotai frequently back-carry their swords at various points in the film, but never draw from that position - I checked, at 15x speed. Indeed before the Big Fight at Thulsa Doom’s orgy, Conan very obviously brings his sheathed sword down from his back and just as obviously secures the scabbard at his waist, using its shoulder-strap to cinch everything tight. He even draws his sword before the fight begins.

There are Japanese woodblock pictures of samurai and ninja with back-carry, but always with emphasis on the “carry” and no indication the swords were meant to be drawn from there. These two images show ōdachi (the Japanese equivalent of a greatsword or claymore; “ōdachi” and “claymore” both mean ‘big / great sword”), and the BW drawing is almost certainly the back view of a “how to tie your sword on with a quick-release knot” diagram from a military manual.

Some other Asian cultures also apparently had back-carry; this (modern?) Thai statue shows double back carry, but AFAIK the swords couldn’t be drawn from this position. They’re too long to draw either straight up or tipped forward, and the forward-from-horizontal is a scary form of draw which brings the edge of any sword - in a drawing motion that’s also a slicing motion - far too close to its wielder’s neck, jugular and carotid. 

That risk of doing an enemy’s job for them is another sound reason against a draw from back-carry, even with a blade short enough to do it. Non-fantasy historical warriors (who didn’t do it at all) knew perfectly well why they didn’t.

I’ve never, EVER seen back-carry portrayed in Western medieval or Renaissance art, or photos of real historical back-carry harness. If all the posts expended on “but I / this re-enactor I know can draw a medieval sword from back-carry” had been energy spent on finding historical evidence that back-carry existed not just BC (Before “Conan”) but 500+ years ago, we might actually know something real.

The quarter-scabbard with crossguard-hooks of @we-are-knight‘s original post is also a Fantasy Thing, emphasised by use of a two-hand Highland claymore (a sword specific to period, region and dress) in combination with a distinctly non-specific, thoroughly generic, Romantic foofy shirt.

Even in fantasy that quarter-scabbard makes no sense, since the purpose of a sword’s scabbard is to protect people from the edges of the blade and the blade from wet and weather, either by a close fit at the throat or by flaps either extending upward from the scabbard…

…or downward from the sword-hilt, like this one from the Musée Cluny in Paris.

This one from the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich…

…has its hilt leatherwork extended into a little cap, which this beautiful repro shows in place.

In the game “Witcher”, not one but two swords as big as the real longswords above are back-carried and also, apparently, drawn from the back-carry position, but it’s a cheat. The link is to YouTube; here are three stills.

When the character starts their draw, the CGI scabbard simply fades from around the CGI sword-blade. If only real life back-draw was that easy…

Theis live-action version is done with edits - three separate shots, or four if you count the hiccup that included two almost identical close-ups, but definitely not a single unbroken take.

The viewer’s mind fills in what the viewer’s eye thinks it’s seen - which BTW is why it’s so easy to miss spelling mistakes while editing text…

Back-carry also features in TV’s “Game of Thrones”, where it seems to be such a trademark of Sandor “The Hound” Clegane that it even turns up in caricatures…

I once saw this photo of The Hound with someone’s comment along the lines of “the way he wears that sword on his back is so cool…”

So Rule of Cool means back-carry is here to stay, and people try hard to make it work because it looks cool, and cool is never wrong.

Just don’t put it in something trying to be historically accurate, please.

Even in fantasy, swords shouldn’t be drawn from the back-carry position without a carefully-described special scabbard like that on in the OP image, and a good reason why someone thinks that telegraphing their draw while exposing their armpit (a vulnerable point even in full plate) is a good idea.

Of course history has had special kinds of warrior - berserkers, English longbowmen, Landsknecht Doppelsoldners - with special mental or physical characteristics, and fantasy has had vat-bred Uruk-Hai, trained-from-infancy Unsullied and so on.

It’s not unreasonable to create a race or subspecies with the proper anatomy for drawing big swords worn on their backs.

Start here…

If you really want arrows at your back, you can stick them through your belt the way this gal is doing, which is very effective and my fave form of carry on the range (though how she’s managing to do this when she doesn’t have an external belt on is a mystery only the illuminator can explain):

Another common style of belt carry:

A nice belt quiver:

On horseback:

At the bottom, crossbow bolts in a belt quiver, arrows stuck in the ground for fast access:

This is one of very few images used to justify back quivers, and to me it looks like a belt quiver the guy’s slung around his neck for some reason (sudden attack?)