Pretty eclectic personal blog. I love talking to people about anything! I also reblog EVERYTHING. If you want something tagged, let me know and I'll get right on it! "yells with me a lot about shit, very creatively good, eccentrically normal, 10/10 need...
there's just something funny about an NTR subversion doujin where the designated nerd 'victim' gets the jump on the guy that cucked him and then forcefems him 😭
also, fucking Femtanyl anrhjsjrjsjfjsnfjdfb
(the premise is amusing but what happens next is obvious lol)
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new updated drive with psych abolition resources! it’s sorted into folders for specific subtopics for things like harm reduction, different types of support, disability justice readings, mad liberation zines, etc. it’s not complete yet—there’s a bunch more resources I want to add once I’m at my laptop again but wanted to share now!
Been sitting on these for a solid month now so I figured it’s time to post em! AU in which an aging and frail Grace gets his consciousness transfered to an eridian body to extend his life :D
Some notes:
-Grace did not design the body himself, but was encouraged to pick a phenotype to grow it from so he opted for an orange colouration and the genetic traits that came with it. The science behind growing the body was based on the me-burger experiments.
-The body was grown to be older than Grace’s human age to make sure he would still be seen as a mature adult, but he’s still somewhat younger than Rocky.
-He requested having the scar of Rocky’s handprint tattooed onto one of his arms.
-He struggled with finding his balance and voice at the start, and grew a bad habit of not fully using the mobility of his fifth limb, either slightly dragging it or keeping it raised and out of the way. This resulted in a lot of tripping and stumbling but he figured it out eventually! …Mostly!
-He was able to pick up the language pretty fast since he was already familiar but his voice remains pretty “flat” sounding to other eridians. This is a somewhat uncommon but not rare speech impediment on Erid, akin to human stutters, so he gets by okay and most eridians might just struggle reading his emotional tones until they get used to it. At the start this made him hesitant to use his voice but Rocky and Adrian were quick to encourage him into several scientific yap sessions to make him more comfortable!
Potentially more doodles and situations to be added in the future :D
One of the most common ways you preserve pork without refrigeration is keeping it in really salty water. This makes the pork borderline inedible because it’s so salty. What you don’t see in medieval fantasy is people soaking their meat in water for a bit before they cook it.
That’s also a reason to boil your meat though. Like yeah meat tastes better if you sear it first but sometimes you’ve gotta get that salt out.
Also medieval peasants had more meat than you’d think because of these preservation methods. You can feed a pig scraps for the whole year and then butcher it at the start of winter and preserve the meat. Because of this they also often had access to lard.
Medieval peasants also didn’t eat chicken very often. That’s a source of eggs. If you’re lucky enough to own a cow it’s also unlikely you’d eat it unless it’s on its way out anyways. That’s a good source of milk. It’s more advantageous to keep a cow or chicken alive than to eat them.
These days chicken is usually the cheapest form of meat available. If someone is eating a chicken in a medieval setting though it’s either because they didn’t need that chicken anymore or because they’re rich enough to have chickens for eating.
If we’re talking mutton, European sheep are more often kept for wool or milk while middle eastern or African sheep are more often kept for eating. Europeans would of course eat sheep sometimes but it’s another one of those cases where it makes more sense to keep the animal alive rather than eating it.
Fat from a fat tailed sheep makes for good cooking fat if your setting is more middle eastern or North African inspired. European settings would prefer butter, lard, or olive oil depending on where exactly they are.
Goats weren’t super popular in Europe during medieval and ancient times. Very common in the Middle East and North Africa though both for milk and for meat.
A cow or ewe must have a calf or lamb every year to produce milk. Half of those offspring will be male, and thus will not produce milk. Ergo they were eaten, because you only need one bull or ram for a much larger number of breeding females.
The limiting factor for livestock keeping in the medieval period was winter fodder--there was enough summer grazing for the spring births in fallow fields that they fertilized with their manure , but not enough hay and grazing to get them through the winter. So the lambs--all the males and some of the females--would be butchered in the fall. A bull calf might be butchered as veal (or "baby beef", depending on timing) its first fall or might be over-wintered and butchered as beef the following fall. A few of the older ewes would be butchered as mutton, replaced with female lambs from the spring births. A female calf would be traded, sold, or kept as a replacement.
Similarly, half of the chicks born would be male, destined for spring/early summer butchering. (Or caponed, castrated, though that's much more difficult with a bird.) Chicken is a lean meat, though, and rather tough in a free-range bird, so it was usually stewed rather than roasted. Capon was a bit of a luxury food due to the difficulty of castrating them. Geese were much more popular due to the fattier meat.
Pork was plentiful due in part to the large size of a sow's litter. Over-winter one sow, and you get eight piglets or so, much more than a cow's single calf or a ewe's one to four lambs. Even if you didn't keep your own sow, buying piglets to raise and fatten was common. Most medieval pigs would forage rather than being fed scraps--hence the ubiquity of swineherd as a humble occupation.
Here's me trying to interpret how Danny's hazmat suit would look like if it were more realistic, based on my experience with biohazard PPE.
I feel like I also need to add a disclaimer to not use this as safety advice. Please consult your local health and safety guidelines prior to handling ectoplasm, ecto-contaminated materials, and/or ectobiological organisms!
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On Grace’s relationship with DuBois and Shapiro in Project Hail Mary
***book spoilers ahead***
I want to do a quick dive into the infamous scene between Grace, DuBois, and Shapiro in chapter 17 (pp. 283–285 in my copy) because an idea occurred to me and I can’t rest until I dig into it. This is the scene in which DuBois informs Grace of the sexual nature of his relationship with Shapiro.
Something about the conversation didn’t sit quite right for me. Upon reflection, I wanted to take a step back from (or perhaps, as it happens, a step further into) my aroace reading of Grace and get to the bottom of what Weir’s intention was in writing it. While I do believe that the aroace reading is strongly supported by the text, I don’t believe that it was specifically intended, which brings us to these points:
The reader is meant to understand that Grace feels a general social disconnect from the Project Hail Mary team stemming from his poor self-confidence
The reader is meant to perceive his total lack of awareness with regard to how highly he ranks in the project’s hierarchy of power
These two points, having previously been established, are both cemented by the scene. Grace is uncomfortable being enlightened to the details of DuBois and Shapiro’s sex life, and he doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that both scientists view him as a superior. It’s heavily implied that DuBois initiates the conversation because he feels the need to report developments in his workplace relationships to a higher-up, and I firmly believe this to be the case—he comments on the prudence of informing Grace on the subject—but that motivation alone doesn’t account for all of what he says. The way I see it, just about anyone alive (regardless of their personal stance on romance or sex) would feel awkward in Grace’s shoes, which begs the question: Why did DuBois and Shapiro both overshare so brazenly?
The first possible interpretation: Knowing that their relationship is doomed, they’ve elected to completely set aside social decorum in the interest of enjoying their time together to the fullest.
The second possible interpretation: They wanted to test Grace’s receptivity to becoming their third.
Stay with me. We can infer that the conversation was premeditated—DuBois launches into it very suddenly, and the first thing he does when Shapiro returns from the restroom is update her on the basics of what’s been said. This is clearly something that they discussed sharing with Grace in advance. Furthermore:
DuBois gently counters Grace on the merits of entering a relationship under the otherwise bleak circumstances
He’s overly blunt and forthright about specifics, such as the lack of need for condoms and the fact that he and Shapiro have both undergone thorough medical examinations
When Grace demonstrates disinterest, DuBois drops one last hint, which is what really sealed the deal for me: “It’s quite pleasurable.” Grace still doesn’t take the bait, so DuBois begins to back off. After briefing Shapiro on the status of the conversation, he deftly changes the subject by pivoting into science talk, but Shapiro gives another independent push: She interrupts the beginning of Grace’s lecture to openly invite DuBois to sex after the lesson, and then they both look at Grace. Grace interprets this gesture as them being “ready for their lesson,” but I would argue that it’s really a classic case of unreliable narration. He misses the cue.
I imagine that at this point, Shapiro (like DuBois) is willing to give up the cause, but we get one more small tidbit of insight: Grace asks (out of what I can only assume is morbid curiosity) if DuBois sticks to his convention of using Shapiro’s professional title during sex, and they both answer affirmatively. Just prior, we hear Shapiro address DuBois by his first name, and prior to that (directly before introducing the topic of sex), DuBois encourages Grace to address him by his first name as well. Granted, that encouragement was prompted—Grace makes it known that he would prefer to drop the formalities in private settings, given that he views the three of them as equals—but DuBois is shown time and again to be someone who highly values professionalism in and out of the workplace. He politely declines Grace’s invitation to address him as Ryland.
Power dynamics seem to play a role in his sex life with Shapiro, as evidenced by her disclosing that she “kind of likes” his use of her title in the bedroom. With that in mind, I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that they would both be into the idea of incorporating (what they mutually perceive to be) actual power dynamics into the relationship through the inclusion of Grace.
Circling back to DuBois’s staunch professionalism, I would cite that as further evidence that he’s coming on to Grace in this scene—discussing the minute details of your sex life with your boss is about as far from professional as you can get. Much of what he says is superfluous and irrelevant to the goal of reporting on the existence of a sexual relationship under obligation, unless you factor in the possibility that an obligatory report wasn’t his only goal.
As a final note, I remember the DuBois-Shapiro scene in the movie sticking out to me even upon my first viewing, just because of how oddly it plays out: The two of them are cuddling up at the pre-launch party, and DuBois seems to intentionally make eye contact with Grace from across the bar—who, being caught off guard and slightly uncomfortable, nods in acknowledgement and looks away. I wasn’t sure what to make of that prior to reading the book, but now it stands to me as a reference to the existing undercurrent between the characters in the text. In both versions, DuBois and Shapiro make a bid for Grace’s attention, and Grace is unreceptive. Given that no pre-launch party scene occurs in the book, I have to conclude that the inclusion of this detail in the movie was intentional and carries subtextual significance.
Obviously, if we take this interpretation at face value, it’s more fuel to the fire that is the aroace reading of Grace. It can be used to argue that he rejects amatonormativity on all levels—not just in his scant experience pursuing longterm committed relationships, but in his failure to so much as entertain the idea of a fling or friends with benefits arrangement, even when an easy opportunity presents itself. Romantic affairs never seem to cross his mind. He’s oblivious to the way his relationship with Stratt is perceived until confronted on the subject by DuBois, and he’s quicker to accuse her of sexism upon learning that she sought an all-male team of astronauts than he is to put stock in her actual line of reasoning. If DuBois and Shapiro were indeed trying to make a move on him, it’s no wonder that it flew over his head.
Even beyond the aroace reading, though, this interpretation still contributes to the narrative: It showcases Grace’s emotional isolation on a broader scale and demonstrates how grossly he underestimates the regard his associates have for him. He’s woefully out of his depth in the rigid world of international negotiations that he gets thrust into, ignorant to the degree of sociopolitical power and authority he’s been granted through his close proximity to Stratt, and unaware of what makes his participation so crucial to the project’s success. It only follows that he would also be immune to flirtation, never recognizing his own assets or what might make him uniquely desirable. Thematically, this underlines his later growth in finding a purpose, building the courage and confidence needed to fulfill that purpose, and embracing love (however unconventional its form) as a driving force.
#i think the authorial purpose of the scene was moreso establishing a reason for shapiro to go with dubois at the research centre#but i would be lying if i said I don't love the#“my fellow human sacrifice and i saw you from across the lab and we really dig your vibe” interpretation
She played bass on 10,000 songs, including the most-played track of the twentieth century. She was paid $55 per session. Her name never appeared on the albums.
Gold Star Studios, Los Angeles, 1964. A woman in a cardigan walks past the receptionist, a Fender Precision bass in her hand like a briefcase. She doesn’t sign autographs. She signs a timesheet.
Her name is Carol Kaye. In three hours, she will record what will become the most-played track of the twentieth century. She’ll pocket fifty-five dollars and head to another studio, on the other side of town, for the next session.
The record label will never put her name on the album.
Between 1957 and 1973, Carol Kaye took part in roughly 10,000 recording sessions. Not as the featured artist, not as a guest, but as a hired hand. She was part of an anonymous collective nicknamed The Wrecking Crew—elite studio musicians who actually played the instruments on your favorite records while the famous bands posed for promotional photos.
The work was relentless. Three albums before the day was over. Stale coffee in paper cups. No rehearsal. The charts arrived minutes before the tape rolled. If you couldn’t read a chart and nail the take in two tries, you didn’t get called for the next session.
Carol could do it on the first try.
She started playing guitar in grimy bars at fourteen because her family couldn’t pay the electric bill. Music wasn’t a romantic dream for her. It was survival. It was a job—factory work with better acoustics and lower pay.
But she was faster and sharper than almost everyone else. She corrected charts in pencil while the producer was still explaining what he wanted. In one session in 1968, she told a famous producer his arrangement sounded like a dying dog. She chose her own line. They kept her version.
That descending bass line that drives the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”? Carol Kaye. The propulsive groove of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”? Carol Kaye. The acoustic-guitar intro to “La Bamba”? Carol Kaye. The iconic theme from Mission: Impossible? Carol Kaye.
She invented techniques on the spot, out of sheer necessity. When the bass sound was too muddy for AM radio, she stuck felt under the strings and used a hard pick instead of her fingers. The tone cut through the static like a blade. It became the sonic signature that defined 1960s pop.
Bassists spent years—decades—trying to crack the secret of the Beach Boys’ gear to get that sound. They were studying the wrong people. They should have been studying Carol.
She received no royalties. No residuals. No gold-record ceremony. No credit on the album sleeves. When “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” hit number one, Carol was already back in a studio cutting a soap jingle.
The biggest bands mimed her bass lines on TV variety shows. New York marketing departments decided a mom in classic clothes didn’t fit the rebellious-youth image they were selling. So they simply left her name off the album credits.
For thirty years, almost no one cared. The truth only began to surface in the late 1990s, when music researchers found the same union contract numbers on thousands of hit records. The very documents meant to preserve studio musicians’ anonymity betrayed them.
Think about it. Every time you heard “Good Vibrations,” “River Deep – Mountain High,” the Righteous Brothers, Nancy Sinatra, or Sonny and Cher, you were hearing Carol Kaye. She composed the soundtrack of an entire generation’s youth.
And yet the records still say nothing. She’s now over eighty. She wrote instructional books. She trained countless bassists. She is finally starting to be recognized by music historians who uncovered the truth about The Wrecking Crew.
But she never got what she deserved: her name on those albums. Credit for the music that defined an era. Recognition that those bass lines everyone associates with the “Beach Boys” were, in fact, Carol Kaye’s.
Fifty-five dollars a session. Ten thousand sessions. The most-played track of the twentieth century.
my friend you are off your rocker if you think this thing is even getting close to one of my ring slots I know better than to make that mistake after putting on one of your amulets and being turned into a newt for a week
love when an absolute nightmare of a character is introduced and all you can think is "jesus christ buddy what the hell is your problem" and the narrative gives you a hot minute to stew before explaining Exactly what is Their Problem. and you just sorta sit back in your metaphorical rocking chair and think "huh. yeah okay fair. that would do this to a person, yes."
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My memory of The Birdcage (1996) is always that it's more dated and more difficult to watch than it actually is. You hear "drag-themed comedy from the 90s based on a musical from the 80s based on a play from the 70s" and you brace yourself just a little, right? But the film has a strong gay perspective, so the fruity fag jokes mostly come off as warmly affectionate. There is a surprising amount of poignancy in Robin Williams' portrayal of Armand, grudgingly agreeing to his beloved son's request that he go back into the closet for an evening ("do me a favor and don't talk to me for a while"). The drag club's staff attempting to redecorate the apartment with stuff straight people might like (a taxidermy moose head, an enormous crucifix, and Playboy magazine) is extremely funny. Albert's histrionics are a point of tension because he does often come off as a stereotypically pathetic/comic figure, but towards the end of the movie he makes it very clear that he's aware of how people see him, and asserts that trying to copy a stoic masculinity he doesn't possess for the sake of social approval would be more pathetic. In the 1983 musical adaptation, they give "Albert" (Albin) the only good song in the whole show, "I Am What I Am", which Gloria Gaynor covered to the delight of gays everywhere. Apparently Nathan Lane wasn't (publicly) out yet in 1996, which is amazing because it means that at one point in this movie you're watching a gay man playing a straight man playing a gay man playing a straight man, in a movie about how it's important to be yourself, an absurdity that does seem to encapsulate the state of gay America in the 90s.
I'm seeing a couple of posts circulating about the gay 90s and this movie. The above is a very good summary, and I think it's worth adding a few other points.
This movie got made because Robin Williams said yes to it (and it's important that Gene Hackman did as well). Williams in the 90s was a mega-star of a type that's not present in the current media environment (maybe Tom Cruise, but I personally think that's echo from his salad days). Even his flops made money on the back end in the video rental market, which also doesn't exist anymore (streaming is different). Hackman was on the other side of his A-list career but still Hollywood nobility if not full royalty.
Playing gay was considered career suicide in the 90s. There had been a number of actors who put lie to that belief stretching back decades, but this was Williams and Hackman (yes, being on screen next to a gay character was enough to get you blacklisted) saying "screw that" and doing it anyway.
Being gay and out was career suicide in the 90s.
Nathan Lane had a really nice gig going for himself. The Lion King put him into the Disney rep company with people like Williams, Bette Midler, and Whoopie Goldberg (check their IMBD list from the 90s--they were making bank at Disney).
Lane didn't come out until several years later (nice summary: https://deadline.com/2024/06/nathan-lane-robin-williams-advice-coming-out-birdcage-1235975010/).
I don't want to imply that this was a Sorkinized moment where everything changed because of one thing, but this was a very important movie that caused real movement in the needle on queer acceptance.
It also proved that there was a market for films with gay characters, which had the knock-on effect of gay filmmakers being able to find distributors of their gay-themed films. Which meant that more people than ever (queer and non-queer) got to see representation on-screen.
Our UK warehouse is closing, and everything in it is on SALE!
Get 35% off all items shipping from our UK fulfillment center while supplies last. These items are available to customers outside the US, and once they're gone, they're gone.
On the final day of the sale (July 2), all remaining inventory will be marked down to 50% off. After that, the warehouse will close and any leftover stock will no longer be available.
If you've had your eye on something, now's your chance to grab it before it's gone for good!
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alright I've got to do some quick math to explain attitudes towards AI to my boss.
we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)
please rb for larger sample size!
Question 1/3
What is your age, and do you feel AI is a net positive or net negative in our lives today?
Glad that a policy is at least being discussed at your institution! IMLS somewhat recently funded a multi-institutional team developing a toolkit to support internal conversations like this that I've found helpful when talking to faculty through determining whether/how incorporate AI into research project workflows that could be useful as well: https://www.lib.montana.edu/responsible-ai/viewfinder/
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