I'm pretty sure open portals are against OSHA regulations
It took me a few moments to realise that these people are inside a warehouse type building and have opened a door to show the wild weather outside they are not in fact outside opening the door of their warehouse to show us the weather they are keeping inside
*taking notes for a fantasy story* They are now
God-Machine Infrastructure: The Warehouse of the Storm
Turn signals
“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year
If this post persuades even one person to get a free library account and use it, my time on this hellsite will not have been spent in vain
Certified Library Post
My library has been my oasis for several years. I don't know what I'd do without it.
scrap heap (computer country)
me as a writer: Oh no I can’t write that, somebody else already has
me as a reader: hell yes give me all the fics about this one scenario. The more the merrier
This one is so hard to accept. Reblogging to knock that into my brain.
Me as a writer: I feel like I’m repeating myself, I’ve already used that theme, I’ve already written that kink, that other character uses that speech pattern so this one in another fandom can’t, I feel like I’m writing predictable things, is this different enough from that other thing I wrote, are people filling out bingo cards by my work? :sobbing:
Me as a reader: oh hell yeah this hit the spot exactly, I hope this writer has written 20 more just like it
As one friend said when I felt I was reusing a theme too much, nobody ever says, Did Agatha Christie write about murder again?
I actually laughed out loud at the last one. A very good point.
“I love this, I hope there isn’t anything else out there like it!” Said no one ever
Sometimes you just really need other people to point out the obvious to you! Thanks, guys.
I remember being in a tiny fandom and reading every story a particular writer had written in that fandom, and then every other story they had written for good measure. Probably around 30-35 stories in all.
In every single story they wrote, one of the main characters either had, acquired, or considered adopting or buying a Bedlington Terrier. Always that one type of dog.
I never got tired of it. By about story 7 I was reading along thinking ‘when is the little lamb dog going to show up?’ and it didn’t even blip my weirdness radar.
Do your thing over and over again, friend.
…. I guess I’ll do the thing
been a while since I did a lil showcase post for the prints available on the shop! Canada Post's latest news is about how they'll be resuming a strike come May, so it's in folks' best interests to get their prints rn cuz Idk what kinda delay we'll be looking at come summer
ANYWAYS
so this isn't all of the prints available since that would turn this post into colours of the sky right fucken fast but here are a handful of em! I've hyperlinked the specific links to each post and remember you can always reach out about custom work
I love how all of the Batman villains are like “ah he’s not at the manor, it’s defenseless! and then alfred just racks an AK-47 and is like pull up bitch
Batman’s Villains: The butler will be easy prey!
He’s just an old man…he doesn’t have any of the Batman’s gadgets or training or fighting skills!
Alfred: Oh my you’re right
There’s something else of Master Bruce’s I don’t have as well
(Cocks a shotgun) A CODE AGAINST KILLING
Batman’s Villains: Wayne isn’t here to save you old man!
Alfred:
Alfred is the original “Call an ambulance — but not for me”
@dragonpuppies I spent way too long on this
Bruce: I have a code.
Alfred: And I have a gun.
Bruce: time to remove the guns.
Alfred: good fucking luck.
I’ve peer reviewed @ebonyheartnet’s addition and found that it deserves a reblog.
...he is weaving the chocolate. Do you copy, this bitch is WEAVING CHOCOLATE
Or as Strunk and White said in Elements of Style (to the best of my memory), "Feel free to ignore everything in this book rather than write something inelegant."
is it fucking weird to anyone else to think that deer are like, everywhere
like, i tend to think of them as a north american animal, but
I like how they just avoid Mongolia
Mongolia has an anti-deer forcefield.
I like the rat map even better
What is Alberta doing
we are fucking constantly vigilant
Jesus fucking christ, Alberta
Hey! Albertan here. I thought rats were fictional until I was 9 years old. I have still never seen a rat in person.
🎶Province with a rat quell! Rodent power!🎵
The Ketamine King Musk has shutdown the IRS's Free Tax Filing system.
Of all the things a government could off, a way to Freely calculate and file your taxes seems like a good one. But the richest man in the world thinks we shouldn't have that.
President Trump’s “special government employee,” Elon Musk, announced on Monday that he had dissolved the Internal Revenue Service’s free file program—suggesting that he effectively fired the staff who worked on the popular program.
The billionaire revealed that he “deleted” the group of individuals who oversaw the system that allows Americans to easily file their taxes for free on the IRS website. The IRS-run free and simplified tax filing option had 76% approval from registered voters based on a 2023 poll by Navigator. [...]
If you have the time to burn, and a bit of financial cushion -
File your taxes by hand. Fill out the forms with a pen. Overpay by about $50. (You will eventually get that back. It is likely to take several months.)
It will take longer to get any refund you're due. But I promise you the entire federal bureaucracy has been cutting as many corners as they can for as many years as they can, and the current set is going to cut even more corners, and...
they don't have the staff on hand to process a huge number of paper claims anymore. They expect everything that came in digitally last year, to continue to be filed digitally. And they expect more digital filings every year. They've planned for that. They've staffed for that.
One of the only acts of protest we have available is "comply, but slowly."
File on paper if you can.
If you have the software to file digitally because doing the math & forms is such a nightmare for you?
If you're up for it: Print the final form, and then fill out a new blank form by hand. With your lousy handwriting. Send it in the post, by mail.
Does that stop them? No, but every bit of sand we can throw in the gears slows them down and pulls resources away from the other horrific rights violations they're trying to codify into law.
While Direct File is an IRS-hosted program, there is also Free File, which is government-subsidized and hosted by third parties:
You need to use THESE SPECIFIC LINKS in order to access the Free File programs, fyi - they are hosted by tax preparers who also often order paid services which may have deceptive names like "TurboTax Free" that make them sound like they don't cost anything, so be sure to only use the IRS links. Don't just Google them, you will not find what you're looking for.
Here's an archive link in case they take down the Free File page. (You may have to manually cut out the web.archive.org part of the URL to use the links.)
It is not possible for Elon Musk to access these programs directly because they are not hosted on government servers. You are eligible for Free File for your federal taxes if you make less than $84k, as well as for your state taxes if you make less than $48k, as well as some other situations such as if you are active-duty military or if you live in certain states (for your state return).
If you want to throw sand into the works and file these as paper forms instead of e-filing, you absolutely can do that by printing them out after completing the program, but PLEASE do not pay a tax preparer if you are eligible for Free File!!! It's a ripoff!!!!!!!!
Direct File is a great program that saves the government money (they do not have to pay third parties if they keep the program in-house) and helps protect taxpayer data security, but you DO NOT need to pay an accountant or risk filling out your return incorrectly just because it goes down.
older lotr illustrations sometimes depict éowyn wearing ridiculously small armour. apart from the problem general sexualisation of the only female character (who really does anything), there’s another hilarious thought:
éowyn pretended to be dernhelm, a man. to fit in, she must have worn men’s armor. so the armor in the illustrations is normal for rohirrim.
there’s a thundering sound in the distance as the rohirrim ride into war but rather than hoofbeats it’s the collective sound of all their cheeks clapping
the artist for this particular piece is Frank Frazetta and to be fair to him this is how he drew the orcs armor
so the rohirrim comment is probably not that far off
That’s a man who just straight up had a problem with the concept of wearing pants into battle, and I respect that
male or female
hero or villain
sea or land
even in the snow
I guarantee you Frazetta’s Rohirrim were 100% pants-free
Good Old Frank. That man loved bodies and hated clothes so much
Frank Frazetta was the reason He-Man was designed like that; the producers conduct a study to see what art appeal the most to children, and Frank’s work came out on top in popularity. So everyone in He-Man is dressed the way they are directly because of Frazetta.
That man gave us the gift of warrior thighs and tits for everyone.
Ah, it has been too long since I have seen the no pants post on my dash. And yes, this is a rare case where it wasn’t some sexist nonsense but an egalitarian No Pants Agenda.
love shakespeare. did a hamlet run tonight, looked someone dead in the eye to say “am i a coward?” during a speech and the fucker shrugged and nodded
we literally ruined society when we invented the fourth wall. let’s bring back call and response. heckling, even. fuck you hamlet you dumb piece of shit kill your uncle or shut up
"When we took Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” into a maximum security woman’s prison on the West Side… there’s a scene there where a young woman is told by a very powerful official that “If you sleep with me, I will pardon your brother. And if you don’t sleep with me, I’ll execute him.” And he leaves the stage. And this character, Isabel, turned out to the audience and said: “To whom should I complain?” And a woman in the audience shouted: “The Police!” And then she looked right at that woman and said: “If I did relate this, who would believe me?” And the woman answered back, “No one, girl.”
And it was astonishing because not only was it an amazing sense of connection between the audience and the actress, but you also realized that this was a kind of an historical lesson in theater reception. That’s what must have happened at The Globe. These soliloquies were not simply monologues that people spoke, they were call and response to the audience. And you realized that vibrancy, that that sense of connectedness is not only what makes theater great in prisons, it’s what makes theater great, period."
Oskar Eustis on ArtBeat Nation
I was in the front row of a Hamlet performance where the "Am I a coward?" was directed at me and I, being a no-impulse-control gremlin, hollered back "Yes!!" (they'd primed us ahead of time that audience interaction was encouraged). Hamlet got right up in my face as he kept talking and just kept going until I gently pushed him back; I forget what line it was on when it happened but he took the direction of the push and reeled away across the stage.
This meant that I had marked myself as someone willing to be fucked with, and so during the graveyard scene later he approached me again. "Here hung those lips that I have kissed--" he booped my mouth with the skull's "-- I know not how oft."
I have stories related to me from those at Blackfriars, the American Shakespeare Center (they play in a replica of the original Blackfriars, with modern safety conventions like lightbulbs in the chandeliers, but a great dedication to the way structure shaped the original work in the original Blackfriars. Their house is only about 45 ft deep (roughly 15 m I think), which is about the max distance two sighted people can be from each other and still make eye contact. They play with the stage and house equally lit, they talk to the audience, they enter from the audience, they whip up crowds from within the audience. It’s fantastic. But anyway, on to the stories.)
#Oh I have SO many stories from peak audience moments at the American shakespeare center#I have been to plays there that legit felt more like rock concerts#And I don't even mean the parts of the show where the cast is also a live band and they play#Covers of songs relating to the show#Fair maid of the west with Ginna Hoben#We were all SO on her side we absolutely lost our whole shit any time she even entered or exited#Knight of the burning pestle where Rick would pick a random audience member to be his lady love he was fighting for every night#And one time (I saw it thrice) he picked an older lady#And there's a part of the show where iirc he like gets almost defeated?#And he calls out to his lady love to like inspire him to keep fighting smth like that#And she Got Up Out Of Her Seat and went over to him and kissed him on the cheek#And no one was expecting that least of all Rick#And we all lost our shit whooping and hollering#They did a hamlet where...I forget who was polonius that year but there's a line where he's like 'what was I gonna say again'#And he paused SO long on that line you were legit unsure if he the actor had actually forgotten it#And once someone in the audience called out the next line and he was like 'oh that's right' and carried on#It was scripted though there were other nights no one said anything and we all sat there#In wonderful horrid awkward silence#Until he resumed#Please go if you get a chance#And sit stateside (via @rootingformephistopheles)
Happy Flat Fuck Friday everybody, Data is celebrating today as well
Image description: A four page black and white comic of my tortoiseshell cat, Bunny, complaining that I won’t let her in from the screen porch.
Page 1
Panel 1: A small tortoiseshell cat sits on the other side of a glass door, looking up sadly, saying, “Mama! Mama, help! I’m in the screen porch!”
Panel 2: She scratches at the door. “Mama! Mama I’m trapped! I’m trapped in the screen porch! Mama!” she cries.
Panel 3: She looks through the glass with her sad, innocent expression. “I see you, Mama! Can’t you hear me? Why won’t you let me in? What have I done, Mama!”
Panel 4: The left corner is dominated by a close up of her face, as she reminisces about the cat tree in the screen porch. We see her perched on the very top, looking out over the backyard.
She says, “Was I not grateful enough, Mama? You gave me a throne, here in the screen porch! A place where I could look down upon the world as a god!”
Page 2
Panel 1: While she’s perched atop her cat tree, it begins to rain outside. Bunny looks askance at it from behind the screen.
“But I couldn’t touch it, Mama!” she narrates, now in boxes instead of word balloons, “I could see the rain lavish the earth, but never feel its cool caress!”
Panel 2: A paw rests on the screen. On the other side, two birds chirp, unbothered by the presence of Bunny.
“I could smell the blood of the song birds, but never taste its warmth! I lived as Tantalus in this screen porch, Mama!”
Panel 3: Sitting on a cushioned chair, bunny looks out over the yard, barred from her by the porch screen.
“Tormented by what I could never reach!”
Page 3
Panel 1 : Another reminiscence, this time of Bunny running through the open door to the screen porch earlier that day while I was taking out the garbage.
“And yet I returned, again and again and again! Was that my sin, Mama? Is this my punishment? To be condemned forever to a hell of my own choosing?”
Panel 2: Returning to the present, Bunny looks up from the otherside of the door, her eyes wide.
“Is this what you call justice, Mama?” She says. “Is this what you call love?”
Panel 3: From Bunny’s perspective we see me; I am ignoring her, going about my business. She calls out to me, “Answer me, Mama! Mama!”
Panel 4:I glance back at her, unmoved by her cries. “Mama!” she yells.
Page 4
Panel 1: Pulling out we finally see more of the wall which has the door to the screen porch. Directly beside it is a cat door that goes through the wall, out into the screen porch. Another cat, Bunny’s sister Maggie, is coming through the cat flap with no issue.
I say, “ Bunny, I know you know how to use the cat door.”
Clawing at the window, tears in her eyes, Bunny screams “MAMA!!”
End ID.
I feel like “is this what you call justice, Mama? is this what you call love?” is going to enter my “cats being dramatic” lexicon the same way “you KICK miette?” and “father is…evil?” have.
yeah okay ill reblog that
lil wip for a carte blanche commission lol
LINES ARE ON THERE BAYBEEEEEEE OUGH GOD MY FUCKIN WRIST
(i kinda wanna scan this through as is for colouring page purposes lol. might do so after cleaning up the pencil)
hopefully i made the silly little details quite clear but:
GUESS WHAT'S FUCKING COMPLETE YALL!!!!
( will not be making this one a print but I've asked for permissions from the commissioner/OP of the post to make it into a pay what you want coloring page, waiting for that)
I GOT PERMS FOR MAKING THIS A COLOURING PAGE!
I'm still doing digital cleanup on the file itself, but for the moment know that I will shortly be able to provide yall with a link to a pay-what-you-want item on the kofi shop, since etsy doesn't allow PWYW stuff
o7 thank you for commissioning and giving perms, @theriverbeyond i have the ko-fi link for the colouring page here!
in plaintext in case links are busted again: ko-fi.com/s/f3a26404bb
it's pay what you want for it with a 0 dollar minimum so you can get it for free or however much you'd like to toss me for the sheet!
ah i've been prompted to remind folks that the pay what you can amount is set with CANADIAN currency - whatever you think a silly il colouring page you think is worth, adjust accordingly since, for example, canadian dollars are worth like seventy american cents
