jargonautical

[jargonautical]

I mean, we all knew, but thanks for admitting that you wanna surpress freedom of speech and the spread of information?

[jargonautical]

unsung benefit i think a lot of ppl are sleeping on with using the public library is that i think its a great replacement for the dopamine hit some ppl get from online shopping. it kind of fills that niche of reserving something that you then get to anticipate the arrival of and enjoy when it arrives, but without like, the waste and the money.

[jargonautical]

And if you think that's a lot of themes for one book, you should see my research stack for the sequel :)

#fantasy #fiction #somewhere to be #books #booklr #reading #faerie #storygraph #goodreads #writing a book is like decanting all your special interests on to a page

[jargonautical]

establishing boundaries won’t drive away the people who are good for you

[jargonautical]

It should be a bigger scandal that J.K. Rowling is threatening to sue small accounts for accurately calling her a Holocaust denier. So glad the Streisand effect exists. Now we can all rebuke her reprehensible views more than ever.

[jargonautical]

I didn’t miss that social cue I just thought it was stupid 

[jargonautical]

[jargonautical]

‼️‼️

If you're having trouble keeping up with what's going on in Palestine because of US news coverage of university protests, here are some articles you can read and a video you can watch:

While CNN & all the other mainstream media try to paint the university protests as "pro terrorism" (which they're not, they're literally anti-war protests.) Palestinians are being slaughtered by the minute.

Please don't stop speaking about Palestine.

[jargonautical]

HEYOOO

[jargonautical]

Bodily autonomy begets rights to privacy.

[jargonautical]

Somewhere To Be / A chapter at a time

The chapel and the tinker

ALFRISCOMBE SHRINE, 1654

THE SHRINE HAD been there for as long as anyone could remember, marking the spot where the spring bubbled up through the rocks; a single standing stone as tall as a man with grey-green lichen filling its carved spirals, and a second stone laid flat at its foot like an altar. There used to be a third stone but that was smashed to pieces years ago, its scattered fragments buried somewhere in the weeds.

Some villagers kept to the old ways still. Desiccated posies bore testament, dark splashes of wine in clay cups, and antlers hanging off nearby branches like a particularly gruesome crop. All to be cleared away now at the baron’s command, all of it; the stones, the rotting timber hut behind, and those disgusting relics as well. No superstitious peasant nonsense must remain to sully this holy site.

As the ground was cleared, the remaining stones pushed over and broken down, a wanderer emerged from the forest path. Tall and swarthy with a heavy pack on his back, he looked like any other gypsy the stonemason ever saw; but since he was a decent man at heart he wished him a good day, enquiring after his health and his travels, even offering a cup of water and a bite of his own meal if the man would care to share.

It bore an unexpected dividend, and not just the warming gleam in the tinker’s eyes as he stepped out of the shadows. He accepted the water gratefully but wouldn’t take more than a sip. “Your men will be needing this more.” he said with a glance up at the sun. “As for your meal, let me contribute.” From the depths of his pack he produced a well-wrapped haunch of venison and cheerfully shared it around. “It’ll spoil before I can finish it.” he insisted against their protests. “It’s you who’s doing me the favour, or would you have this go to waste?”

Over the meal they were happy to discuss the chapel’s plans, since the fellow was so polite and so curious. He particularly admired the design for the roof bosses, a rosette with deep-cut petals that the mason was particularly pleased with. Just as well, as four dozen in all would be needed for the ambitious vaulted ceiling before they’re done, and a few gargoyles besides.

“It’ll be a fine chapel indeed.” the tinker said with a lopsided grin, “If it ever gets finished.”

Long afterwards the mason reflected on that day; it seemed from the moment the tinker said those words, nothing went right. Sinking foundations, cracking lintels, and collapsing walls - before too long the men flatly refused to return to work, even for triple pay. Some curse lingers over the site, they agreed, and as soon as other jobs arose they moved on with relief.

The chapel fell to ruin so quickly you’d barely know there’d ever been a structure there at all. Fine dressed stone gradually got robbed away for doorsteps and windowsills and mounting blocks until there was nothing left but a tumbled mossy outline of the tower base. A generation past you’d barely know it was there unless your horse stumbled on one of the hidden stones. The only sign a chapel was ever planned was the jeering stone demon carved by the stonemason after a heavy night drinking the tinker’s ale. Its twisted grin seemed to be mocking the whole endeavour, perched up on the wall where he left it until the brambles eventually claimed it.

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DAY ONE OF the dig dawns on a fine sunny morning. Rain clouds are massing out to sea, but with barely any breeze it’ll be hours before they reach the museum.

The site manager consults her clipboard - mainly for show, since she knows everything is in place, from the permits acquired and carefully entered into the system to the license for the skip out in the drive right through to decades of blueprints consulted in case of underground cables. The interns are busy stacking find trays and hand tools ready beside the paved path bordering the lawn. On the other side of the garden wall a catering truck is dispensing a breakfast fit for people with serious work to do; bacon rolls, crumbling dark fruitcake by the slice, scalding builder’s tea in chipped china mugs. ‘Vegan Option’s Available On Request’ according to a handwritten addition to the menu, but a second bulk pack of bacon is already out to defrost in anticipation of the morning’s bestseller.

Approaching eight thirty the lawn fills with people shouting incomprehensible instructions at each other, collecting cones and pulling up stakes, winding up orange tape as they go to clear the way for the backhoe rumbling along from the main driveway.

Archchancellor Cooper himself has graced the occasion, a forty-something man with the shaved head and solid build of a prop forward and with much the same immovable air. Despite his bulk he’s wearing a beautifully-cut suit in heavy charcoal wool; spotless white cuffs emerge precisely half an inch from his jacket sleeves, no more and no less, and the silk tie around his thick neck displays the colour blocks and badge of the local Rotary Club. He’s not here to dig, obviously; the presence of the local newspaper signals he’s here to be photographed shaking hands and possibly holding a polished silver trowel that’s never touched dirt.

Mainder maintains a low-key brooding presence somewhere on the edge of the action, leaning against the high stone wall that borders the lane on the far side. He wasn’t expecting roll-away-the-stone levels of discovery, but despite the scattered cheers from the assembled crowd it’s distinctly anticlimactic. The driver takes up position and, with a theatrical hand raised high for all to see, brings it down on the lever to lower the bucket. It’s some skill, delicately breaking the surface and cutting a neat strip of turf, that he grudgingly agrees is worthy of applause. But after that it’s just doing the same thing another three times before turning the backhoe in a neat manoeuvre and trundling back across to the driveway. The trench is begun, six feet long and roughly the same wide, and all of three inches deep.

Mainder takes a hint from a sudden unobtrusive bustle, of  multiple people realising there’ll be nothing more to see for several hours, all simultaneously and spontaneously deciding they have something they just need to go and check on and good Lord, is that the time?

He himself has nowhere in particular to be, but there’s no point loitering in this spot until something is uncovered. The office looks to be open for the day already, a suitable haven, and no sign of the girl yet.

Good. He’s more than a little uncomfortable with what it might say about his psyche that he’d be dreaming a half-naked woman-child into his midnight bed. That requires some self-reflection, ideally before he next has to look her in the eye. He claims the couch and stretches out for a power nap, still fuzzy from his pre-dawn waking.

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“Ssshhhh.” Chris mimes as Evie comes through the door. “You’ll wake the baby.”

Confused, she follows his glance to see Mainder stretched out on the couch. “Wow.” she mouths, and moves up the room. “He really made himself at home, didn’t he?”

“I know, right? I keep wanting to fetch him a blanket.”

Sleeping Mainder is a treat to behold, she has to admit. The brooding tension that he usually radiates is entirely absent, with his lean face perfectly relaxed and his long body twisted awkwardly half-on and half-off that much-too-short couch. He looks - there’s that word again, safe, when all the information so far suggests he’s anything but.

#a chapter at a time #fantasy #fiction #somewhere to be #books #booklr #reading #faerie #storygraph #goodreads

[jargonautical]

[jargonautical]

when i came out as trans i had an old friend from my church days message me to congratulate me and ask me for my name and pronouns. and i was shocked tbh cause he was such a head-deep-up-the-church’s ass kind of guy so i was super wary.

and after digging a little deeper i found out that he was very supportive of transness, saying that trans men are men and trans women are women

BUT

he also believed in the church’s gender roles meaning that trans women had to marry men and be submissive wives and trans men had to marry women and be strong christian husbands.

which is like ????

the weirdest and most surreal form of trans inclusive misogyny i’ve ever seen.

[jargonautical]

So the new anti-trans talking point is... *checks notes* that there are not enough detransitioners? sigh

[jargonautical]

Things i learned as a child that probably no one intended to teach me

To grown-ups, being bad at stuff is a sin. Forgetting stuff is the worst sin of all, and also doesn’t exist - it is widely believed (and your behaviour will be interpreted thusly) that in some Freudian sense, it is impossible to forget things if you care about them or their consequences or the people who care about those things.

Your being happy and enjoying what you do doesn’t matter. All that matters is whether you are Fulfilling Your Potential.

Human beings do not require rest outside of sleep. Thinking that you do is called ‘being lazy’.

Who you show physical affection to is a matter of politeness and social protocol, and has nothing to do with your own desires

It is rude to inform people of your preferences, even if they seem to care about catering to them and therefore might find this useful information.

Etiquette centres around doing things in especially awkward, skilful and time-consuming ways in order to demonstrate superiority over people who aren’t able to keep up.

[jargonautical]

Hey everyone, please consider buying the 2024 itch.io Palestinian Relief Bundle- it's 373 games, game-making assets, tabletop roleplaying games, zines, and comics for a minimum of just 8 USD! They have a goal of 100,000 USD, and as of the time I'm writing this post, they have 8 more days to reach it.

Link will be in the reblog!

[jargonautical]

So. While the current arsehole serving as UK PM is currently coming out with all kinds of nasty policies to appeal to the worst of his voter base, I wanted to say two things to fellow disabled and long term sick Brits.

Firstly, Sunak does not believe he or the Conservatives are going to be in power by the end of the year, so most of this shit isn't going to happen. While the alternatives are also not great, they are marginally less horrible.

Secondly, if/when you are forced to go through a Work Capability Assessment, it is your right to demand it be recorded. They will try to dissuade you, but you can refuse an appointment unless and until they agree. You receive a copy of the recording (just put it somewhere safe, don't listen to it unless you need to). Now you have concrete proof of what happened in the assessment, which makes it harder for them to screw you over.

My last WCA was during lockdown, so it was a remote one. It was delayed for 2 months because I demanded a recording. And it was the second time ever in 15 years that I didn't have to go to tribunal. I also was moved from the limited work group to the support group.

Hopefully this helps someone. Hang in there everyone. We are worth it.