Latest Posts by wholesomesmith - Page 2

Wait a minute if elves take a hundred years to grow up that has some weird implications.

So… if we say a human comes of age in fantasy worlds at 16, that means it takes an elf 6.25 years to age one human year. If we say the age of maturity is 18 that’s 5.55 years.

So then… okay with people that live a long time have to see their human friends die and probably see them like pets yeah that’s been explored to death. But what about a human just seeing their friend not grow up?

An elf toddler and a human toddler become friends at a playdate. At the time the human is two and the elf is 13. Emotionally the elf is just a little older than the human. But then the human grows up. He grows up and as he grows up his friend doesn’t. Not much, anyways.

She’s still sucking her thumb and throwing tantrums the entire time that he grows up. When he reaches the age where he’d choose a trade or go to an academy he’s earning extra money by babysitting her. During his initiation into adulthood on his 18th birthday she’s there with her parents holding a stuffed animal. Later that afternoon he sees her being shown some colorful flashcards with letters of the elvish alphabet on it by her father.

The human gets older. He learns how to fight, he goes from town to town getting work. At some point he joins the army. Every time he visits his hometown he has at least one more scar and by the time he’s 30 and the elf girl is mentally seven by human standards she starts to understand that something is wrong. Even after he settles down to be a home maker for the local blacksmith something feels wrong.

And she watches him grow old. When she’s in her 80s she babysits his grandchildren for extra cash after school, coming over in her school robes and ruffling his hair. She doesn’t remember why she became friends with this human or when but a strange sense of jealousy fills her heart.

Now she realizes it. She realizes it too late, on the day her friend learns that he is dying. The first day of her 100th year and the start of his last. Humans’ lifetimes may only last for the childhood of an elf if they’re lucky, but they learn so fast. They do so much. They cram their days full of love and hate and learning and wonder.

He knew this was coming. He knew all of this decades before she did, because elves are slow. Not stupid, certainly not stupid, but very very slow. She holds her old friend’s hand as he lays down on his bed. A man that has led such an ordinary life but feels so extraordinary to her. Because he has always, always been there and now he just won’t. Because in her eyes he became so wise so fast and now he’s just gonna be gone.

On an elf’s 100th birthday they are allowed to choose a new name for themselves. It can be important, or not. Usually it will follow them until the end of time. She stands in front of her family’s elders and is asked what name she will be called from now on.

She names herself after him.

Even with the sound off, I can still hear this

Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land Gameboy Advance 2002

Fuck You, Misogynists

Given today's U.S. election results, I can no longer conscience maintaining a kink blog with (fake) misogynist content.

I've previously been ethically uncomfortable about maintaining this blog as I know at least some (hopefully small) percentage of users who engage with this blog truly do believe in misogyny and male superiority, but I justified it as a fun sexy thing for MYSELF and for other women, nonbinary, and trans people who DESERVE to have fun, filthy fantasies.

Now women and other gender minorities are once again in a fight for our lives and not a single goddamn misogynist man deserves to get off on my erotic writing.

In my real life, I am a lawyer and an activist. I have power, I have money, and I am coming for you fucks. I will burn you. I will use every resource at my disposal to strip everything from you and leave you weak, groveling, and dying alone in your cum-stained underwear.

Know that if you've ever messaged me with the serious implication that you are superior to me or other women/gender minorities, I have laughed. I've looked at your lonely, pathetic, poorly-written feeds, cringed at your sins against grammar, and laughed at your braindead delusions.

For non-misogynist men: If you continue engaging in this kink space, please do it responsibly. Please make it known that you do not actually endorse misogyny in any form. In your real lives, donate to women and minority-led causes. Treat your partners with respect. Learn how to engage in dominance/submission play consensually. There are classes, meetups, and kink spaces where you can learn how to engage with dark kinks without being part of the problem.

For women, nonbinary, and trans people: I love you. You are beautiful, smart, and courageous. Your blogs are infinitely more sexy, interesting, and creative than the "real" misogyny blogs. Lean on each other. Know your worth. Don't feed the delusions of pathetic, lonely losers who couldn't dominate their way out of a wet paper bag. If you engage in kink in real life, find supportive feminist kink spaces. You do not have to settle for anything less than your wildest fantasies.

Signing off <3

If your democrat friends start muttering about stolen election conspiracy theories, the time to have a sit down with them and express your concerns is NOW, while you still have a chance to reach them, not 6 months from now when they're fully conspiracy-pilled.

Here's some of the talking points and why they're bullshit:

'10 million votes don't just disappear!' -> Joe Biden's 81 million votes were a statistical outlier, sparked by the recent experience of the Trump presidency. The democrats failed to maintain that sense of urgency, but Harris still got more votes than Hillary Clinton, more than Obama and more than any previous democratic candidate. These numbers are not weird at all.

'The Republicans tried to infiltrate election- and vote counting organizations!' -> yeah, they did, and yet hundreds of independent legal observers didn't see anything go wrong enough to raise any alarms. Independent exit polls are also very consistently similar to the counted votes. Tons of international organizations specialized in this stuff observed the election and didn't see a reason to raise the alarm.

'But I know a dozen democrats whose mail-in votes were not counted!' -> In any election a certain number of votes are registered as invalid because something was wrong with the ballot. In a country the size of the US, that translates to many thousands of votes. The internet allows these people to find each other, creating the false impression that a suspiciously large group of voted was not valid.

'Musk used Star Link to mess with electronic voting!' -> Electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet and dozens of independent media have already debunked this myth. It is absolutely impossible to use Star Link to fake election results.

'There is voter disenfranchisement!' -> This is true. This has always been true, for every election. It's an issue worth talking about but it's not a special secret conspiracy that's unique to this election.

But just as importantly as the facts: sit down with your friend and talk about the anxiety that's behind their conspiracy leanings. Acknowledge their pain and fear. Help them find ways to feel less powerless and regain their sense of agency. Take them to a mutual aid event, involve them in a fundraising event for a marginalized group, invite them to a local community effort. If they spend more time feeling connection and empowerment and less time doom scrolling online, they're far more likely to stay in reality.

For a while now, I've imagined Hephaestus having his workshop built around the fact that he can't use his legs:

- he sits in a chair that's inside a pit and is able to travel in a circle, allowing him to travel around the perimeter of the pit, letting him touch every station.

- each station has all he needs to work there: grinding status has all his grindstones and files and a vise; he has a pile of materials with a scale for weighing; a vast collection of crucibles with a mold making area next to it; and his furnace with is manned and managed by a couple cyclops.

Once he gets a commission, he figures out what he needs, makes a master of it, wheels himself to the material section with a crucible in hand, weighs it all out, packs it, then turns to the furnace and gets that cooking while he's prepares the mold.

When it's ready, he moves back to the fire with the mold on his lap, puts the mold down, and pours.

This system does get overhauled when Greece transitions to iron; still being in a pit, but it's more compact; he just needs tongs, material, an anvil, his grinding station, and his forge. Any heavy hammering is done via Cyclops.

Any "magic metal stuff" (carbonizing, smelting, etc) os wrotten down and done off-site.

Then I laugh when you realize most of them are going there because they go against yashua's teachings.

Carina

I doubt AI can compare to the years of madness that a writer can go through for the sake of a series.

My universe has permanently altered the way I spend my free time. I've done drawings of just about every character and have plans drawn for every unique item with such detail that I can pick it up years later and build it with much thought.

AI can not imitate that level of devotion to something that's was thought up almost a decade ago.

Oh, I've written books on several topics... they're more like encyclopedias in a tutorial format that read like a super long YouTube video.

I'm a prime example of what happens when autism is allowed to go off and pointed in one direction

req'd by @ironboulderfan

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, START. YOUR. ENGINES.

text: the sheer velocity of my autism is unmatched

Making metal liquid since the late medevial period.

Parade armor of Swedish King Eric XIV demonstrates its flexible sabatons. (made in 1562)

1d8 bludgeon + str. Bludgeoning

If hit, the target is stunned for a round

My view on politics:

1. Trust no one wearing a suit. They're more interested in keeping their external image than doing what they're in the position to do. If they were for us they'd look like us

2. Until you have people from the thing you're governing inside the building to give their input, you're disconnected from them. (E.g. gun owners for gun laws, women for laws about women, LGBT+ for laws regarding LGBT+, etc)

3. Have professionals in the proper seats; someone in the military be in that department, environmental expert in said department, etc. They know more about that field than you do, so listen to them.

4. If 1,2, and 3 aren't met, I'm voting for a Labrador Retriever 9/10 times.

Have "we the people" be for **We the People** not we the rich; they can do all the money exchanges; just shut up and let us have control of us for a change. Else, we can pull a France, and.... we all know how that went.

"Human bodies are wildly unpredictable. Your now-fading memories of the terrifying might and power you recently embodied will make for a depressing comparison to the unreliable form you're now piloting. You might be able to run a mile and feel great, but then somehow dislocate your neck while you're sleeping."

—excerpt from The Demon's Guide to Human Possession

Artwork by: Gusfink🖤

For the trans community 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

Wizard: *casts fireball, exploding a small room of enemies* And I'm out of spells

Barbarian: i can cast magic, too, Ya know

Wiz: really?

Bar: yeah, watch this. Separate! *slits an enemy in half with their ax* it's a cantrip touch spell.

Wiz: but -

Bar: *points to ax* spell focus. Ooh, and it's an occasional ranged, too. *throws ax 10 feet, nailing another enemy in the head* see?

Wiz: have you been reading my books?

Bar: No, just looking at the pictures. You need more pictures in them.

Entry 10-5786:

Since our last entry on entry regarding our human companion (Male), a lot has happened:

Starting the day after our last entry about him, he found the human section in our database and found that we had videos of people doing different types of work. "For studying your kind in their natural states," we told him.

After some time, he seemed to be fascinated with the art of heating metal up with fire and banging it with a hammer into different shapes; a craft that seemed to have been practiced by their species for many of their centires.

After looking into it myself, I discovered that one has to destroy a large quantity of valuable resources and burn the end result just to get the metal hot enough to work.

Telling my finding to Steve (what our human perfers to be called by), he replied with, "Yeah, that seems to be a pattern for my species; a lot of work to make something valuable."

A few weeks later, as we were gathering resources from Planet 115-X-18, we found him bringing in resources of his own into the ship, which was unusual for him. We didn't think much of it.

We should've asked what he was up to that day.

Over a period of several months, he renovated his living quarters to resemble the workshop of the person working metal in our database, fit with forge, chimney, a hunk of metal to hit in and a workbench with tools. His bed seemed to be moved to the neighboring quarters. "It'll be fine," he told us after we asked him why he moved his bed.

We lost seem for several days as we heard repeated banging and the faint smell of something burning coming from that area. Steve seemed to be happy, but he smelled like the burning smell every day.

"You'll appreciate what I'm up to," he told us at meat time.

The day after that, he showed up what he made: a knife

We immediately told him he wasn't allowed a weapon on the ship, but he insured us it wasn't what it was.

"Humans don't have sharp teeth or claws, so when we have time cut something, we need something to do it for us. A knife is one for those things. It's no different than the pencil you let me have," he told us, then demonstrated what it could do by removing a thin curls off the piece of wood he had with him. Where'd he had the desire to do any of this still make us wonder about to this day.

He seemed to make more and more refined knives as time went on; making more tools to help him to do so.

This seemed to both keep him busy and give us the opportunity to see his thinking process.

He seemed to like certain shapes of tools over others and seemed to learn how to shape wood while learning "blacksmithing" (what he called what he was doing).

These days, he's been hourding rocks and stones that were larger than his hand while we are out gathering supplies and seemed to be working them into a useful shape because the metal of the knife he keeps with him now resembles a mirror rather than the dark grey, black or dark orange look we see his tools in on occasion.

He's given us items we never knew we needed until they were in place. Just the other day, he gave me a hanger to hold my hand computer when it's not in use.

He's been staying dirty, but he doesn't seem to mind; he seemed to have found a source of joy in expressing his own species.

End transmission

list of mundane things that feel like ancient human rituals

cleaning or wipe your bare feet

breaking off a piece of bread and handing it to someone

putting the weight of a basket on your hip or head

eating nuts or berries while hunched over close to the ground

seeing something startling just out of your line of sight and very quickly stepping or leaping on to a larger object to get a better view

cupping your hands into running water to wash your face

the unanimous protection of a baby or child in a public space where women are present

when an elderly woman laughs and grips your forearm tightly

I needed this.

Life has been putting a lot of unwanted things into my neglected mind. Mental health is just as important as physical health

Affirmations for Autistic People

Neurodivergent_lou

Hi. Do you have any tips on how to be productive and how to stick to a routine? I create routines but can barely stick to them, and it's stressful trying to stay on top of schoolwork and other extracurricular activities. Thanks!

Hello, been away to focus on my health.

I’ll try to keep it simple: so a lot of the times people with ADHD fail to stick to routine or have difficulty forming habits is mostly due to our object impermanence.

So taking account object impermanence when forming a routine means :

1. Creating ADHD friendly space at home.

• some people with ADHD have struggles with teeth cleaning / brushing teeth, so what you can do is place it near your bed

• some people with ADHD have problems with misplacing items, so what you need is not to be more vigilant, BUT YOU NEED VISUAL CUES, and place the items where it is EASY TO SEE AND REACH. If putting it in the middle of hallway is easy for you to take it every morning (even if it is odd place), then that’s the routine that works for you!

• same as eating, if you have problems forgetting to eat, having a few snacks/ready to eat food placed in front of you will reduce the amount of energy/spoon you need to take in order to get food.

• some adjustment I made to make my home ADHD-friendly is to have a lot of label stickers (at door, at switches, at kitchen). I also switched to transparent container so my items can be seen and easily found.

2. Your body already has its own routine, you just need to tune in and listen to it.

• What is automatic for you? Observe your one week and track the pattern. What is the best task you have ever completed and why is it so engaging? This is not going to be straightforward, but it shouldn’t be because everyone is different and unique.

• If you have ever felt guilty for playing games while eating, then that’s also how your ADHD brain trying to keep you engaged and focus doing your routine (eating).

• same as if you need to do your homework while watching a documentary or listening to podcast, sometimes adding more distractions can help people with ADHD concentrate better.

• if your body relies and thrives on novelty, then you have to find ways to keep improvising your daily tasks. Don’t feel bad for not being able to stick to routine, you probably thrive more from sticking to your routine from variety of places or working with different people.

3. Always gamify your task and keep it fun.

• this is how I try to keep daily tasks and routine less daunting.

• it sounds weird but do your routine/daily task with the craziest approach you have right now.

• just like in games, it works better if you have a buddy or enemy you need to squash in order to tackle the tasks!

Most important lesson, for me with ADHD, is ACCEPTING THAT I HAVE AN EVER CHANGING ROUTINE.

It is part of how I move, it is part of how I get things done.

So I've been working with chainmail for about a year and a half now and I've gathered knowledge on it:

- making maile isn't for the faint of heart: there's about 1000 rings in my work, and that's SMALL compared to a shirt or coif (hood)

- stained fingers and the smell of metal are normal

- there's more to it than "metal rings go together"; there's math involved, mainly the ratio of the inside diameter of the ring and the diameter of the wire used, which impacts what patterns can be used; there's a lot of uses of triangles, especially with seams; and a whole lot of counting and checking fit

- it's like knitting in some concepts, but it's different in most. Mainly, you're having to handle metal rings that, if dropped, disappear into the aether for a couple of months.

- small and tight doesn't immediately mean it's a good idea. It just means you'll be gaining length at a slower speed.

So the other night during D&D, I had the sudden thoughts that:

1) Binary files are 1s and 0s

2) Knitting has knit stitches and purl stitches

You could represent binary data in knitting, as a pattern of knits and purls…

You can knit Doom.

However, after crunching some more numbers:

The compressed Doom installer binary is 2.93 MB. Assuming you are using sock weight yarn, with 7 stitches per inch, results in knitted doom being…

3322 square feet

Factoring it out…302 people, each knitting a relatively reasonable 11 square feet, could knit Doom.

A duel with swords and bucklers,illustrations from Paulus Hector Mayr's (1517-1579) Athletic Art (1540s).

Duel on combat sickles.

Illustrations depicting knights at a tournament.

The Bavarian State Library in Munich

More medieval dyes for y'all!

We went to MEDIEVAL DAY at the local museum and it was so much but I am so happy

We got to see blacksmithing! Someone was making an armour stand! I chatted to him about butted vs riveted mail! I got to do a little bit of tablet weaving AND got directions to a weaving group that meets at the same place as where the blacksmithing classes are held!! I got to talk about looms and spinning with fibre people!!

We had mulled wine and listened to a flute and nyckelharpa performance AND to top it all off we went to a viewing of the princess bride where we were encouraged to yell lines back at the screen and I got to introduce my friends to a new friend from art school and I want to set up my frame loom for tablet weaving AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (when I get back from dinner)

Ceaser was pronounced kay-sir, not see-zer. The letter C was pronounced like a K, not an S, and neither was S said like Z.

Kay-s'r not Seezer.

The j was also pronounced like an I or Y

Yul-ee-os kay-sir or kie-sir, not jul-ee-us see-z'r.

Post corrections/clarifications are my favorite genre of humor: a compilation