Officer Fancypants

I never guessed that in my adulthood, I’d be relating to Calvin’s parents as much as I do in this comic.

The most varied part is the dragons. No one had a real definition for the thing, it seemed. For your pleasure and entertainment, I have ranked some medieval depictions based on how impressive George's feat seems once you see the dragon.

Paolo Uccello, 1456

This is a terrifying beast. The hell is that. Uccello was one of the first experimenters with perspective, so the thing also looks surreal, like it's taking place on Mars, or a Windows 95 screensaver. I would not want to fight that, I would not want to be tied to that. (Sometimes the princess is tied to the dragon for some reason.) 10/10

Horse thoughts: Maybe if I look at the ground it will be gone when I look up

Unknown artist, c. 1505

This is a rare change of form for the dragon; it's the only one I've seen actually flying (or at least falling with style). It doesn't look particularly deterred by the spear through its throat, either. Also, George looks appropriately nervous. On the other hand, it hasn't got teeth, it seems to be fuzzy rather than having scaly armor, and George is bolstered by his army of Henry VII and his children, most of whom definitely didn't actually die in infancy. Still, wouldn't want to fight it, wouldn't want my pet sheep near it. (Sometimes the princess has a pet sheep for some reason.) 9/10

Horse thoughts: I am so glad I wore my mightiest feather helmet for this

Raphael, 1505

We are coming to Dragons With Problems. This guy looks about comparable in size to George, and does have wings, but doesn't seem to be using these things to his advantage (and has he only got one wing?) And how does he deal with the neck? He does have a comically small head, but holding it up with such a twisty neck seems complicated at best. But most egregiously, he is doing the shitty superheroine pose where he is somehow simultaneously showcasing his chest and his butt, with its unnecessarily defined butthole (more on this later) (regrettably). 8/10 bc it's Raphael

Horse thoughts: AM I THE BESTEST BOI? AM I DOING SUCH A GOOD JOB? WE R DRAGON SLAYING BUDDIEZ

The Beauchamp Hours, c. 1401

We had a spirited debate about this one at work. Again, the dragon has gotten smaller, and this one hasn't got even one wing. He's basically a crocodile. So the debate became: would you want to fight a crocodile if you had a horse and a pointy stick? Would the horse trample the animal, who can't get on its hind legs, or freak out and throw its rider? Would the pointy stick be enough to pierce the croc's thick hide? In this case, George seems to be controlling his horse and putting his pointy stick in the dragon's weak spot, so we can be impressed by his skill and strategy. However, his hat is dumb. 7/10

Horse thoughts: Dehhhh

Book of Hours, c. 1480

Here we have the same kind of croco-dragon, but George's focus on his strategy has gone out the window. He's flailing around, not even looking at his target, he's about to lose his pointy stick, he hasn't got a hand on the reins, and his sword seems to only be poking the invisible dragon over his shoulder. All he's got going for him is that his hat is slightly less dumb. 6/10

Horse thoughts: Yay, new friend! Come play with me, new fr- what is happening

Final dragons put behind this Read More for your safety:

I wish I could say I cherry-picked these, but really the image of the dragon as a sky-blotting behemoth seems to be a quite recent one. They started to get bigger and more menacing around the 16th century, but really you'd be hard-pressed to find a dragon bigger than the horse.

Here's an anonymous one from around 1510:

There's a hefty amount of dragon there; I also enjoy his bug eyes, George's impressively stupid hat, and the gnarly bone pile. Also, if you check out the distant figures, this artist seems to be covering his bases by also including the version of the legend where George instead captures the dragon with the princess's girdle, taking it back with him to her kingdom where he uses it as blackmail to get them all to convert to Christianity before he'll kill it. Nice one, George. (This does explain why it sometimes looks like the princess is tied to the dragon.)

I have learned of another dragon-slaying saint, and I am never letting George off the hook again.

The story of St. Margaret of Antioch goes that she was imprisoned for refusing to convert and marry a Roman official; in prison, she was visited by the devil in the form of a dragon. The dragon ate her, but she was holding a cross/made the sign of the cross and the dragon EXPLODED IN HALF and she escaped. (Still got beheaded tho; tough luck.)

And let me tell you. EVERY ONE of Margaret's dragons KICKS ASS:

That took me like five minutes. Big! Wings! Teeth! Fire! Sometimes there's another devil there getting his ass kicked too! And she ain't even trying!

And it nullifies my earlier thesis that they just weren't making big dragons back then. Go back and look at what Raphael had George fight, and then check out what he gave Margaret:

welcome! here are what you need to know about ao3 and how it’s the complete opposite of wattpad

trigger warning for the mention of contents that are allowed on ao3 that can be triggering to some.

ao3 is a non-profit organization. it’s run by fans (people like you and me), for fans.

fans donate to the site on their own free will to keep the site up and running smoothly.

ao3 is not a social media. it is an archive.

ao3 doesn’t have ads. it doesn’t have algorithms. it doesn’t have “going viral.”

everything is endlessly free on ao3. there is no “ao3 premium.” you will never see a single ad on ao3, and you can download as many fics as you want to read offline for free.

ao3 doesn’t have an app. and ao3 doesn’t need an app. any “ao3 apps” you see are third-party apps and are not affiliated with ao3, so be careful giving these shady apps your login infos or other personal information.

ao3 was built with the main purpose to 1.) be completely against censorship and 2.) host fics that are banned on other platforms like wattpad.

the reason ao3 doesn’t have an app is because for it to have its own app, appstore and google play store will have to approve it first. and due to the contents ao3 allow, chances are that it won’t get approved. which is actually a good thing. it doesn’t need an app. it works more than fine without an app.

on ao3, every single thing is allowed as long as it is fanfic or fan work (original works, fan art and video edits count as fan works, but if you want to post a video edits on ao3, you will have to post it elsewhere and then link it back to ao3 — ao3 cannot host video edits on its platform due to copyright issues)

by every single thing that is fanfic, I mean every single thing:

the filthiest smut without plot that is written purely for sexual pleasure is allowed. it has its own canonical tag called “plot what plot, porn without plot.”

fics that focus on non-consensual sexual intercourse are allowed, doesn’t matter if the fics glorify or romanticize the act, doesn’t matter if they’re written as kinks. they have their own canonical tag called “rape/non-con.”

fics about characters who are minors are allowed, even if they’re portrayed in a sexual manner, even if they’re non-consensual sexual intercourse. even if the minor characters are romantically and/or sexually involved with characters who are adults. even if they fics are written in ways that glorify and/or romanticize the thing. they have their own canonical tag called “underage sex.”

fics about incest are allowed. doesn’t matter if they glorify or romanticize the relationship. they have their own canonically tag called “incest.” fun fact: the first ever fic that was posted on ao3 was a fic about an incest ship from supernatural.

fics about self-harm and suicide are allowed. doesn’t matter if they glorify or romanticize the act. they have their own canonical tags called “self-harm” and “suicide” also “suicidal ideation”, “suicide attempt”, “implied/referenced suicide”, etc.

fics about violence and gore are allowed, even if they were written for the sake of shock value. they have their own canonical tag called “violence”, “blood and gore”, “blood and injuries”, etc.

rpf is also allowed. doesn’t matter if the content of the fics are dark and taboo. they’re treated the same way as any other fics.

every single dark and taboo fic you can think of is allowed. and it has its own canonical tag. because it is the main reason why ao3 was created in the first place.

“but what do I do if I don’t wanna see fics about xyz?” you can filter out any specific tag, character and/or pairing you want.

“what do I do if I wanna find fics about xyz?” you can search for any specific tag, character and/or pairing you want.

a lot of ao3 users rely on tags to search for specific tags, pairings, characters they want. they also rely on tags to filter out and exclude specific tags, pairings, and characters that they don’t want to see.

ao3’s tagging system is by far the most efficient one I’ve ever seen.

on ao3, our main principles are “don’t like don’t read” — which means YOU have a responsibility to curate your own internet experience. yes, ao3 allows all kind of messed up fics, but they also allow you the ability to NOT see anything you don’t want to see, by filtering out specific fics, pairings and/or characters.

no. you cannot harass authors who write about things that disgust you. you can and will be reported for harassment, and ao3 takes harassment very seriously. they will not take your side. because fucked up fics are allowed on ao3—fucked up fics are the main reason ao3 was created—whereas harassment is a direct violation of their terms of service.

ao3 is a house of the freaks and the perverts (affectionate). you ARE in the house of the freaks and the perverts. so don’t think about harassing or being rude to the freaks and the perverts who built this anti-censorship house and are kind enough to let you in.

ao3 is proship, profic, and anti-censorship.

any writer can write whatever they want, however they want. the only etiquette is that you tag your stuff properly and accurately

mistagging for visibility is heavily frowned upon here, and it won’t get your works more views. people will either block or report you if you deliberately mistag things with the purpose of getting your fic more views. as I’ve said before, ao3 is an archive. it’s not a social media. it doesn’t have algorithms or going viral.

if you come across a fic that has the tag “creator chose not to use archive warnings” it means the fic may or may not contain topics that can be triggering, but the author won’t tell you what these topics are, or if there are any at all. so proceed at your own risk.

that said, because ao3 is a non-profit site that hosts millions of works about others’ copyrighted characters, you CANNOT link a monetization platform anywhere on ao3, you CANNOT mention any donation, commission—or anything that involves money—anywhere on ao3. no, you cannot imply donation, commission, or anything that involves money either. that is against their terms of service.

and because ao3 is a place for fanworks, the “work section” of your post has to actually be fanwork (fanfic, original work, fan art, link to a video edit count as fanwork). anything that isn’t fanwork is not allowed.

you cannot post something on ao3 that is not fanwork. so no political statement, no call-out post, no “I’m looking for fics about xyz”.

ao3 is anti censorship as long as what your post is actually fanwork and as long as you don’t violate their terms of service that I’ve mentioned above.

ao3 has their own team of lawyers to protect them, their users, and every fanwork that is posted on their platform.

last but not least, don’t write directly onto ao3. write and store your works elsewhere before copy and paste them onto ao3 once they’re ready to post!! because ao3 does NOT autosave drafts for you, you risk losing everything you’ve typed if there’s a glitch, if the site crashes or if your device unexpectedly shuts down for whatever reason.

Martha Wells is pretty cool.

I like how she encourages people to just keep on creating. Doesn’t matter if you’re good or bad, what your goal is, what you’re writing. Just write.

Don’t let them take the joy away.

The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.

Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.

I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so go drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.

Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.

"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."

"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."

"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"

They were us.

Like literally genetically they were US, just like. A while ago.

Like

Would you trust a TV caveman with a baby? Probably not

As long as homo sapiens have existed, we have had the same emotional and mental capacity as you and I do today. You nailed it. They were US. Even Neaderthals existed alongside and had offspring with Homo Sapiens for many thousands of years.

There's much evidence that cavemen would have had complex spoken language, culture (learned information passed down), symbolic interpretation, and I think they most certainly would have been able to handle holding a baby. In fact I have my suspicisions that an ancient homo sapiens mother may be a more present, attentive, and knowledgable mom than I could be today.

Do not let media trick you into believing we are the pinnacle of humanity. Unilinial evolution theory (google it quick I beg) is BUNK, GARBAGE, and the root of so much evil.

At the beginning of the next class, my teacher showed us a cave painting of a horse. And then he showed all of our horses, which he had scanned and put into the presentation.

He then pointed out all the ways that our horses looked similar to the prehistoric horse. Same features, drawn from the same angle, etc.

And then he asked us, "Isn't it cool that you draw horses the same way as someone who lived 20,000 years ago?"

Yeah. That stuck with me for a while.

Scientists are now pretty sure the scribbles were made by kids ages 3-6, more or less on their own. The adult cave artists were probably doing what any modern parent might do when they want to keep small children out of their hair for awhile: they gave the kids some drawing tools of their own and a small section of wall to work on, out of the way but still close enough to keep an eye on them, and let them have at it.

The team compared the ancient art with the developmental stages exhibited by modern children: the furiously scribbled circles and push-pull lines typical of 3-year-olds just learning to control their bodies, for example, or the wobbly, right-angled figures of slightly older kids beginning to master fine motor skills.

Both are apparent in the cave, superimposed on each other as though two or more kids were drawing at once. That’s a clue the Las Monedas marks were likely made by “siblings or a mixed-age play group within the sphere of safety around adults, but also within their own space,” says co-author Felix Riede, an Aarhus archaeologist.

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