Day: August 11, 2017

where-i-reign:

ajax-daughter-of-telamon:

where-i-reign:

myautisticpov:

Anyone else have sensory issues with wearing glasses?

I have an awful headache but I cannot face putting them on right now…

Yup. 😖

IDK what yours are, but for me it’s, like, the weight and pressure of them. It can be almost intolerable, but I need them to see anything that’s not, like, two or three feet in front of my face, so I gotta wear ‘em regardless. It can feel like either 1. clamping the bridge of my nose in a vise or 2. having to hold up some kind of heavy iron mask or crown with just my ears, though, on a bad day.

Yeah. I recently got some without those fuckin nose pad things though thanks fuck.

But i am obsessive with having them feel Just Right
And they hurt and itch and my eyelashes brush against the lenses.

I want contacts lmao

I don’t usually notice them that much anymore, unless I’m already really overloaded and/or have a bad enough headache. Then they’ll feel heavy and like they’re pressing into my nose and sometimes ears too hard.

It is kind of interesting again, what different problems people can have with fit and general sensory reactions there.

My old sensory nemesis: The giant plastic ‘80s fuckers I started out in as a kid. With no real nosepieces, much less adjustable ones. Just molded slippery plastic.

(A trip: Throwback Thursday- Vintage Eyewear Ads From The 1980’s)

Maybe those wouldn’t have been so bad if any of them had been designed to fit my face better. But, choosing the best-fitting frames available? Especially with a low nose, the bottom rode on my cheekbones constantly–getting the lenses greased up in the process, besides causing zits for the glasses to press and rub on. And usually the earpieces were set so they pressed up against my temples too. At least when they weren’t making a bid for the floor, because they sure as hell didn’t want to stay on my nose with nothing really holding them up there. I’m sure all of that would get annoying even without any particular sensory issues, but yeah.

Just a few years of that did help me start agitating to try contacts when I was 12. Thankfully, less huge frames with the adjustable nosepieces did come in during the early ‘90s, and the situation got way less annoying with my specific fit and sensory issues.

They still inevitably slide down on my nose a lot, and I haven’t managed to try any “Asian fit” frames which might work better yet since I found out that’s an option. But, at least they’re way less likely to suddenly just slide totally off my face, and I haven’t gotten hold of any for ages that ride on my cheekbones. Probably extra handy since I haven’t worn contacts with my allergies in over 10 years now.

But yeah, I was mostly reminded of that by the nose pad mention as something undesirable 😉 Plenty of different needs.

japan-magpie:

pizza-eagle:

hogna-lenta:

prokopetz:

note-a-bear:

shrewreadings:

sunshinetrooper:

black and asian vikings 100% definitely existed (also, saami vikings)

you know how far you can get into eurasia and africa by sailing up rivers from the baltic and mediterranean seas? pretty fucking far, and that’s what vikings liked to do to trade

then, you know, people are people, so love happens, business happens, and so ppl get married and take spouses back home to the frozen hellscape that is scandinavia (upon which i’m guessing the horrorstruck new spouses went “WHAT THE FUCK??? FUCKING GIVE ME YOUR JACKET???????”)

and sometimes vikings bought thralls and brought them home as well, and i mean, when your indentured service is up after however many years and you’re a free person again, maaaaaaaaaaaaybe it’s a bit hard to get all the way home across the continent, so you make the best out of the situation and you probably get married and raise a gaggle kids

so yeah

viking kingdoms/communities were not uniformly pure white aryan fantasy paradises, so pls stop using my cultural history and ethnic background to excuse your racist discomfort with black ppl playing heimdall and valkyrie

Also we KNOW they got to Asia and Africa. 

Why?

Because Asians, Africans, and Vikings TOLD US SO. 

Also, we know there was significant mercantile trade between Scandinavia and parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern India, Kashmir, North and Eastern Africa because there is evidence in burial sites.

Check that out: the goods Vikings and Scandinavians were getting from their trade with the rest of the world was so important they buried themselves with it, as part of their treasure hordes.

We KNOW this.

There’s a reason you can still see many of the trade routes from the ancient world etched into the very earth.

Plus, we know that some Scandinavian cultures that participated in Viking raids had established minority communities of ethnically Mongolian folks living among them during the periods when such raids were common, and it’s difficult to credit that none of them would have signed on.

Islamic Ring in Viking Grave

Vikings in Persia

Black Vikings

Vikings in North Africa

Buddha statue in Viking hoard

Vikings brought Native American woman to Europe

Unflattering texts in Arabic about Vikings

Original text by Ahmad ibn-Fadlan

More about the Islamic World and Vikings (some Vikings converted to Islam! sort of sketchy site tho)

Viking technology came from Afghanistan

More on trade route determination via metallurgy

… is that enough? 🙂

Yet another on the pile of reasons why it monumentally honks me off when pusillanimous, pseudointellectual white supremacist scum try to use Scandinavian culture as a crutch for their arguments and act like Norse mythology agrees with their biases. No it fucking doesn’t, bitch. Odin would personally kick you in the dick for being a witless coward and then send your ass to the Realm of the Dishonored Dead.

that last comment, lol

Kiwi!

rjzimmerman:

Couple of Kiwi items.

First, Smithsonian (link) tells us that the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute celebrated the hatching of a  kiwi. The kiwi is bird that is native to New Zealand’s North Island. The kiwi is endangered. Its populations have been declining because of predation by dogs and habitat destruction by human land developers. Here’s a photo of the baby kiwi:

Second, the Smithsonian article told me about a animation video that I hadn’t heard of or seen. It’s called Kiwi!, and was created in 2006 by Dony Permedi, a student in the New York City School of Visual Arts, as his Master’s Thesis Animation. It’s less than three minutes long. I had to think about it after I watched it.

Here’s what I’m guessing. Kiwis can’t fly, so this Kiwi is altering its environment by nailing coniferous trees on the side of a cliff. When he finishes his chores, he puts on aviator head gear and jumps off the cliff, passing along the tops of the trees as he falls. But he’s flying. A tear comes out of his eye as he falls/flies. The animation ends watching him disappear into the fog at the bottom of the cliff, and we hear a “thunk” noise. Once I figured that out, I watched it again, and the video was more than creative. Now it’s sad. But still creative and fun to watch.

There’s a version out there in which the music is replaced by the song “Mad World.” I watched that, but I didn’t get the connection between that song and the kiwi.