This is a Toothless Appreciation Blog

Plants and birds taken from the 'Holkham Bible Picture Book' (England, circa 1320-1330).

for angst day <3

As much as she wanted to, Maddie Fenton could not refute the media’s claims. Well, not all of them. For instance, she and her husband had both been aware that their late son was Phantom. They had enabled his ghost hunting and encouraged him to spend his teenage years on the edge of peril. And yes, they did fake his medical records—but only so he could receive professional medical treatment!

Though, contrary to popular speculation they never experimented on him. Not once. Even though she’d wanted to.

(Oh, how she had dreamt of running tests…)

She couldn’t blame the public for coming to that conclusion. All the other nasty rumors about their family were true; what was one more? Either way, they were already up to their knees in CPS violations. Besides, they’d committed numerous taboos—the matter of experimentation was almost insignificant.

For me, vile means they fill me with revulsion. And the way Bill casually disregards not only death but also the suffering he causes is just so repulsive

Detective Comics #542

As always, the Gender Census is getting a great response from Tumblr - 34% of respondents so far! Thank you so much, I am really grateful for all the signal-boosting. 💜 Now that the response rate is slowing down after the initial peak, my main goal is reaching new people and under-represented groups.

The most common country entered is the USA (53%). In the USA over 60% of the population are aged 30 and over. [Source.] In the Gender Census at the moment it's 25%, and the average age is only 26. Since the main way we reach new people is by word-of-mouth, the survey needs your help.

The following are really effective for getting the word out:

Flyers! On noticeboards, on tables, in eBay parcels, etc. Printable PDF here, or Google Doc here for easy copying and editing. This is a top method for reaching people who aren't super-online.

Sharing this Facebook post in local LGBTQ+ groups. Facebook is particularly good for reaching under-represented age groups.

WhatsApp forwarding. We have a WhatsApp channel here with regular shareable posts that you can drop into LGBTQ+ groups or share one-on-one.

Any creative idea you have for sharing the survey URL: survey.gendercensus.com

Thank you everyone!

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

I see this reaction a lot, and I gotta say, it always makes me a little sad. Whenever the conversation of exploitation of labor comes up, inevitably someone finds themselves struggling with the guilt of “It is so important to me not to contribute to exploitation but I cannot do this thing myself and need someone else to do it for me, so how do I even approach that?”

Exploitation isn’t in the hiring of a service worker. Exploitation is in the respect you show them for their ability to perform the service you need from them.

I have been on a cleaning service staff before, and also been someone who hired a cleaning service, and I can tell you for sure that a lot of cleaning crews (especially worker owned ones) absolutely LOVE their clients and are genuinely happy to be able to make their lives better. The clients they don’t like? Those are the ones who disrespect the workers.

When I was involved with a cleaning service, we had everything from little old ladies living alone to McMasions with five cars as clients, and I can assure you that whenever there was someone who clearly hired us because they were overwhelmed or unable to keep their space clean, those were the households where you put a little more elbow grease in and did a deep clean even when it wasn’t paid for, because you could see how much these people were trying and struggling, and they were always so kind and generous and often embarrassed when talking to you about the job.

I only hired a service a couple if times in my life, but whenever I did, I worked with the same people as often as I could, tipped as well as I could afford, and tried to be the kind of client I would want to have, and that’s how I often ended up with my baseboards cleaned too, or my fridge scrubbed and organized or a restorative clean done in a high use room even when that wasn’t what I had scheduled or paid for.

I’ve heard the same thing from all manner of service workers over the years. Many of us like our jobs! We enjoy the work. It’s the customers that can do a number on you.

I solved this by switching genres for each POV. so when you're with Protactinium-231, it's a rom-com. things are bouncy and mostly fun. but when you're with Tantalus? it's a gothic horror. he's stuck in a wheel of abuse, in a temple deep underground, where his ancient mother prunes her brood. this is where the cannibal incest comes in. but there is one shard of hope: the Elder Gods seek to rise again, and in doing so, they will spread their curse, eliminating the humans who keep his family trapped in their own filth!

and then there's Fidelgard (the last POV) who's in a more traditional politics-oriented fantasy. she alone seems to understand that the other two are bringing in their own contradictory genres, and she is SO fed up with it all.

Fidelgard is my favourite character. she was barely supposed to be in the book initially, but she ended up taking over the entire plot and changing the grande finale. my original idea was: what if Protactinium had a straight man to follow him around and go “oh no!!!” every time he did something stupid. and it’d be better if they looked fussy, so what if they had super intricate medieval clothing and a Beatles bowl-cut. then for some reason (I didn’t make her do this) Fidelgard became extremely violent and skinned a man, and I realized she was the coolest person in the world. and that’s how the book became the Fidelgard show

very interesting question! because Glenda isn't an especially bad person in her world, she's just an early 2000's WASP who doesn't understand why people would deviate from social norms. so she'd look down on Fidelgard for not being traditionally beautiful or feminine (and for being a human, of course) but she would actually be kind, just in a condescending "I'm prettier than you so this is basically charity" way.

I got the idea from cowcatchers old locomotives used to have.

Anyways, yesterday I uploaded the model to Thingiverse, and just hours after uploading it, the Community Relationship Manager of the whole website left a comment suggesting I enter the model into a competition that's currently being held on the site.

So I did... and now it's in third place not even a day later. First place is $500, but the competition still has a month to go.

Then the Community Manager contacted me again, telling me they want to feature my model in an upcoming design promotion.

Just, what is happening? I mostly made this thing for myself in, like, an hour, and now it's suddenly super popular? This is all a little bit overwhelming 😵‍💫

Other models I worked on for weeks didn't get nearly as popular. I swear, it's impossible to predict what people will like.

Anyways, if you want to print the wheel guards yourself, you can get the model here or here.

I also made a quiet version you can stick furniture felt pads on.