Day: December 17, 2018

This is another one of those things where I really really hope people are talking about some very different patterns of behavior with different motivations.

Because, from my perspective, that sounds like it falls into the same category as “EDs are inevitably really about manipulating and controlling the people around you”. Or “persistently running late for things inevitably means you’re lazy, just don’t care about other people, and think you’re more important than anyone else”. Or “scrupulosity and general perfectionism-applied-to-yourself inevitably indicate that you think you’re better than everyone else”.

(Noticing some themes there? 😩 Those are just a few examples I have personally been exposed to, which honestly sound like the kind of projection where somebody is quick to assume everyone else’s motives are as bad as their own.)

I do kinda hope that the OP was about something other than PTSD-driven hypervigilance, and getting stuck in a habit of watching out for impending explosions. Though I wouldn’t bet on it.

Which is why I even paid attention enough to comment. Because the main places I have encountered assertions like that have been as part of gaslighty abusive behavior patterns. To the point that it set my teeth on edge.

vampireapologist:

vampireapologist:

vampireapologist:

I don’t hang out with white dudes who use mustache wax anymore bc it’s only a matter of time b4 they fall in love with me and find out I’m gay and write a song on their…idk..their fuckin harpsichord or banjo or ukulele about the girl from the forest who broke their heart but also they don’t even like hiking

i know this seems oddly specific & that’s bc it is

3 times

If we’re gonna talk about animals evolving to do things they weren’t meant to we’ve gotta talk about Thylacoleo

greyspell:

sixth-extinction:

brontozaurus:

Thylacoleo, for the uninitiated, was Australia’s equivalent of the sabre-tooth cat. It was the size of a leopard, murdered rhino-sized marsupials with sharp teeth and huge claws, and looked like this:

Its closest living relative is this:

Yes, the most vicious mammalian carnivore Australia has ever produced is most closely related to a herbivorous furry cube.

What the fuck.

It’s obvious when you check out Thylacoleo’s teeth. Most mammalian carnivores have a similar setup: incisors, canines, premolars and molars. Dogs have it, cats have it, we have it. Thylacoleo’s teeth look like this:

You’ve got pincer-like incisors in the front, giant sharp-edged molars in the back, and no canines to speak of. 

That last bit’s the important part. Canines are most useful for holding meat, so herbivores tend to shrink them down to nothing. Thylacoleo’s lack of proper canines show its ancestors were originally herbivores. But because you can’t just re-evolve features once they’re gone, it had to make do with what it had. Hence those ridiculous fucking teeth, which were nevertheless perfect for grabbing and chopping meat just like every other carnivore’s teeth do.

tl;dr: at some point in time a bunch of vegans decided to weaponise their limitations to kill everything and by god did they do it

I love thylacoleo’s bizarre dentition.

To be fair to the wombat, Australian children learn at a fairly young age to not go near them because they are grumpy and violent (always) with very sharp claws and teeth and will attack you.

Also, if you hit one with your car, your car’s a gonna! And you have to look at their paws! Little baby feet with frickin claws!!

straycatj:

皆さんたいふう大丈夫ですか

ここは夜中ガタガタしていました

オレは夜 こうふんしていたので今から寝ますが、どうぞ皆さん気をつけて外へ行ってください…ぐぅ……

A typhoon passed last night! Are you OK?

My house was rattling around midnight.

Although I am going to sleep from now on, because I was excited last night, please be safe when you will go out… Zzz……

Menacing Christmas Songs

alarajrogers:

elodieunderglass:

Friend @theflyingromana​ recently requested “menacing Christmas songs.” Since that is one of my favorite adjectives, here are mine.

We start with Jingle Bells by the Crash Test Dummies, which is Jingle Bells, but sung in a terrifying key by, apparently, a tribe of festive orcs, occasionally accenting their chant with a funeral bell. Incredibly menacing. Not Christian. https://youtu.be/__ZR8BeVS88?t=7m32s

There  may still be some people on the planet who haven’t heard the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Carol of the Bells, and today is their lucky day. I saw this performed live when I was a young person and there were pyrotechnics and I wandered around for days afterward like a bird that had flown into a window. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCabI3MdV9g Quite menacing. Not explicitly Christian.

There’s something about choral music in Latin that sounds particularly portentous and foreboding. Here, have Gaudete by the Choir of Clare College Cambridge: https://youtu.be/l1NgHonWNE0  Tense, like in a video game or fantasy movie, when something dreadful is about to jump out at you and go “blargh.” Technically Christian, but Latin doesn’t count.

Wintersmith album by Steeleye Span, a collaboration with Terry Pratchett. I don’t like any of these songs nearly as much as you’d think as I would, but: definitely menacing, definitely wintery, kind of folk-metal sound, some people might like it. The Dark Morris is fairly menacing.  Not Christian, Discworld-inspired. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXE47z3_71E

The Canadian Christian hymn Jesous Ahathonhia is not menacing as in the sense of “spooky,” but it has a wild and slightly eerie quality, when covered by the Sultans of String and Crystal Shawanda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOs6ZH7Yoyk Tense. Extremely Christian. Related to that, the key and beat used in The Huron Carol (’Twas in the Moon of Wintertime) could be perceived as “menacing” if you’re used to European-influenced compositions. Here’s a Heather Dale cover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6IG6F6E5Ac and one by the Prairie Rose Rangers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTlU2jO9VZI Again, tense and serious. Extremely Christian.

Coventry Carol is, again, more eerie and spooky than explicitly threatening. Christian lore includes a passage called the “Massacre of the Innocents,” in which King Herod orders the mass execution of male toddlers and babies, in an attempt to ensure that Baby Jesus is killed. The Coventry Carol takes the form of a lament sung by the parents as they say goodbye to their doomed children, so uhhhh that’s a bit dark! Here’s a nice arrangement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-x-zS9ex58 Eerie. Highly Christian.

Diese kalte Nacht by Faun is not about Christmas, but it’s in my winter playlist so there you go: https://youtu.be/zr8d9sXioj4 Before you ask, it’s NOT menacing because it’s in German, it’s menacing because of the FUCKING pipes. Not Christian.

A lot of people find Walking in the Air to be sentimental. I find it creepy. Throw it in there just in case you do too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb-pX7sIjFY Not Christian.

Dickens’ Dublin by Loreena McKennitt may mostly be menacing because you know that a dark fate is probably surrounding the child-narrator: https://youtu.be/cQNQRpxOHqo The child narrates a Christian story while Loreena sings a lament for its … possible… death?

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a nice menacing tune by Heather Dale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Fa1B7cAGE Heather positions Gawain as a pagan being tested by his deities, and the Green Knight as the Green Man. And yes, it’s Christmassy but not Christian! A good note to end on.

Hopefully you, too, now feel like a bird that flew into a window.

I reviewed a few of these. Always love for “Carol of the Bells”, any version but particularly Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and always love for Coventry Carol.

Why I Write Family Lore

gallusrostromegalus:

I’m really, really, REALLY lucky.  I have a family that loves me, I’m pretty good at words, and for some inexplicable reason hordes of you want to hear all the weird stories that keep happening to us.  And I’m extremely lucky that I’ve made lots of good friends here, and met people who were willing to support me through what has, honestly, been a tough couple years for me.

The thing is, this is very much a journey of discovery for me too.

When I was 19, during my first semester away from home at college, I got sick.  Very sick.  I had a high fever, popping up to 103 at times, for at least two weeks. I was bedridden for close to a month. I lost 16 lbs at a time when I didn’t have 16lbs to lose.  I was “officially” diagnosed with Mono by an over worked school clinic nurse who shooed me out of the office without even a physical exam.  I don’t actually know what I had, but since then my memory has been. Terrible.  

Most of my childhood is a blur. I completely forgot that branches of my family tree existed. I didn’t actually recognize my own mother at the airport when I flew home for christmas. I still have trouble recalling events from 2008 through about 2013. Both my long-tern recall and my short-term memory have been effected.  I’ve been on and off medications, had my brain scanned, been to therapists and specialists and I’ve only seen minor improvements in the last decade.

Until This January.

On January 14th of 2018, I published The 1969 Easter Mass Incident, which turned out to be an amazing success. Not only in terms of notes and the tip jar, but in that the comments and my askbox were FULL of people telling me how much they enjoyed that story, how they read it to thier families, even people telling me it helped them through the death of a loved one.

And that was deeply moving, and so I decided I was going to actively start researching the old family stories.  And in doing so, not only has my depression really improved, so has my memory.  It also helped me stay close to my family while I was on the other side of the state, and support myself with your generous donations.

So here I am almost a year later, at almost 30,000 people who think I’m worth paying attention to, and with a wildly sucessful first month on Patreon, and I am actually For Real Publishing A Book, something I never thought I’d do.

More Importantly, I am able to remember more than I have in years, and no longer feel like I’m Not Real.

So Thank you, all of you who read or liked or reblogged or donated ot the tip jar or took the time to tell me that you enjoyed the story,

You guys gave me my life back, and for that I am eternally grateful.