NADA

This is the world capitalists want to return to.

So, I just found a comic on Pinterest that showed Toph one-shotting a Weeping Angel. It was very funny, but it got me thinking. You see, Weeping Angels can only move when they are not seen, specifically by Sight. However, Toph's Seismic Sense is only a substitute for Visual Sight, which means that at a basic level of understanding the Quantum Lock feature of an Angel can't be activated and therefore they move unimpeded. Despite this, I would make the argument that Seismic Sense is better for stopping Weeping Angels than Visual Sight. My reasoning for this is that when Toph is using Seismic Sense she perceives a detailed recreation of her surroundings. Note the word 'recreation', because as we learned from Matt Smith's Doctor Who , "That which holds an image of an angel becomes itself an angel", which denotes that any image depicting an Angel has the same functions and weaknesses of a Natural Weeping Angel. Therefore, any Angel within Toph's Seismic Sense Range is forced into their Quantum Locked state indefinitely because Toph is always 'seeing' them despite not being able to so visually see them.

A mama lynx decided this Alaskan porch was a good spot to give birth. 

And I found the porch owner who took more photos. 

Check out the murder paws!

Annoying mama.

Climbing a giant tree… no big.

So you’d be getting a handful of squishy toes and fur, and some pretty big claws, but the beans would be small and well-hidden by fur.

BIG MASHERS

I don't know why the authors of PoliLingua act as if Trump's verbal misogyny and racism wasn't very much part of his "original intent".

For those of you who aren't familiar, I live in an exceptionally flammable part of the United States, and despite the fact that every goddamn year multiple parts of my state catch fire, destroy homes and kill people, the local assholes insist on getting drunk and setting fire to a bunch of illegal explosives anyway. In 2023, God granted me a Miracle that prevented my house from burning down.

Last year, I had to resort to Psychological and Chemical Warfare to keep the patriotic arsonists at bay.

This year is apparently An Important Birthday for the clusterfuck we have the nerve to call a nation, so despite the fact there is so much smoke in the air that the sun has literally been blood red for the last week, the pyrotechnic fetishists are out in force.

Last year, I hit upon the concept that if my neighbors were going to act like problem animals, it would make sense to use the management techniques on them that you might use on say, a Bear that was doing serious property damage. Thusly, I created The Stench, a nontoxic but FOUL smelling concoction that I could discretely spray around the flammable gatherings and render the area extremely uncomfortable to occupy for the rest of the night, forcing them to give up or move on.

If this seems harsh: There is no story from 2024 because a grass fire was started by fireworks less than 12 miles from me and the high winds put me in the evacuation zone in under an hour. Over fifty people lost their homes. Errant fireworks burning my house down is a very real possibility, and I pay the price in anxiety and insurance premiums.

The Stench is noxious but harmless, and also very effective at building a buffer zone around my home. But sneaking up to parties on foot in this heat is both exhausting and nerve-wracking. There have to be more effective ways to do this

-And there is! It involves Weeds and Business Cards :)

On one hand: FAR fewer fireworks parties this year!

- Only nine to last year's thirteen - three of them had the good sense to be firing their recreational explosives out over the local reservoir - That's far from foolproof - and really bad for the fish - also y'all are RIGHT NEXT to where the Bald Eagles are nesting - but congratulations on at least attempting some risk mitigation!

On the other hand.

I’ve seen a lot of designs that are incidentally named after things from fantasy books, but the actual look of the piece wouldn’t tell you what it’s inspired by. I’m more interested in designers doing dragon scale designs or at least sweaters I can picture on a hobbit.

Fabel Knitwear has some pretty stuff, but I hear her gauge is weird af and her patterns are confusing. I have the Montmartre but haven’t made a serious attempt at it yet, so we’ll see what I think. I’m not finding the instructions bad, but I agree with all the nitpickers that her own knitting is that trendy airy bullshit where the needles are 5 sizes too big and you’re making up for it with hairy yarns. My sense is that she’s one of those designers whose shots of herself in samples are by far the best thing about the designs.

Her other knits are a range of “normal” to “fantasy-esque”, but I think they’re neat. :)

Heavener Scarf

She also has a lot of lacework in some of her shawl designs but all are very pretty.

Here are some cool fantasy-ish pieces I’ve seen:

Olivia’s Cape by Amy Gunderson

The Seer by Ninja Chickens

Silversmith Hoodie by Meiju K-P

Dragon Scale Mitts by Colette Smith

Sekiryu Kimono Sweater by Tania Richter

Long Cardigan by Little Bunnyxx 

Firebird by Inna M (a colorwork chart)

Imperial Dance of the Dragon & Phoenix

Running Free

(above) Royal Peacock: (Ravelry link/Website link)

(above) Dripping Ripples (Ravelry link/Website link)

(above) Taboo (Ravelry link/Website link)

(above) Squirpool (Ravelry link/Website link)

(above) Pavlin (Ravelry link/Website link)

oooo classics indeed 👌

I don’t have kids

I don’t spend money on nicotine

I don’t gamble my money away on sports

I’m not reliant on a chat bot for all my life functions

But a major stylisation of it was that flat, shiny, Tim Burton/Disney CGI. The world was dripping in this. Everything was that oversaturated, over-polished, over-worked CGI.

But every time they collected/destroyed another Mcguffin, that CGI went away. But by bit it transitioned into real sets and practical effects until there is no noticeable CGI at all. Because that’s the system they were fighting - they weren’t being allowed to see what the real world looked like.

Decay and rot and broken infrastructure were being essentially photoshopped over because our villainous leader had no interest or ability to maintain things. It was only ever a temporary solution thought up by someone who thought that transforming a pack of wolves into humans to be her elite guard force was, in fact, a good idea.

(It was not. There was a whole subplot about the secondary antagonists in-fighting and being driven insane by the disconnect between how humans and wolves think and act where the one which were cubs when transformed were desperate to return to something they’d never experience and the patriarch/matriarch of the family knew they were too changed to ever survive as wolves again - definitely stolen from Terry Pratchett)

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.

someone sitting at home alone, an active alcoholic, squandering your charity, drinking all day is better situation than a street homeless alcoholic. someone using drugs in your charity house is better than them doing the same w no shelter

most of you would not like most street homeless people, I definitely don’t and didn’t when I was street homeless. for every one person who uses unconditional shelter to turn themselves around, someone else will do jack shit and very slowly, if ever, work through the issues that made them homeless, will maybe never be able to live independently. still better than street homelessness, still worth doing. ultimately either you believe that shelter should be universal or you don’t