thedeadhandofseldon

[thedeadhandofseldon]

Okay look. Stephanie Meyer contributed four (4) cool things to the contemporary fantasy genre, which I shall now list here in the hopes of getting it out of my system. In descending order of importance:

1. Writing a story about a girl who wants something. Plot driven by a woman’s (non-vilified) desire. Truly dreadful execution but still a good idea, sort of a literary incarnation of the “he a little confused but he got the spirit” meme.

2. The fact that when Bella becomes a vampire she can still breathe but “there’s no relief tied to the action” which I remember verbatim because it fucking slapped. The idea of human physical sensations being partially defined by our mortality and the sensations still exist after you become undead but your experience of them is fundamentally different because you no longer need any of it? Extremely cool. The closest Meyer came to taking an interesting stance on vampires being dead.

3. Werewolves are immortal but they can literally stop whenever they want. That shit’s hilarious. Curse of immortality who.

4. The fact that vampires don’t sleep or get tired so their communally-raised baby doesn’t have a crib because she is always in someone’s arms. That was extremely cute and there’s a different, better book contained somewhere in that specific concept.

[thedeadhandofseldon]

I like the expression new-fangled. I don't know what it means for something to be fangled, but I sure as hell know it was recent

#words words words

[thedeadhandofseldon]

Moving house tomorrow

[thedeadhandofseldon]

this sentence makes me hopping mad. WHAT R U TRYING TO TELL ME

#words words words #not the same phenomenon but it reminds me of the Hittite cognate watar

[thedeadhandofseldon]

Suddenly struck with a need to explain to you how boat pronouns work (I work in the marine industry).

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

I hope this has cleared things up so that you may not be in danger of misgendering floating objects.

#words words words #I'll add to this that - at least in my swathe of the Chesapeake dialect spectrum - a kayak or jetski is 'it' #but a comparably sized sailboat - eg an optimist - is 'she'

[thedeadhandofseldon]

So I was reading the Letters Regarding Jeeves tag, and that led me to this site of Wodehouse annotations, and that in turn led me to this, a jokey “Americanization” of Hamlet, apparently from an issue of Punch in the year 1907 and which has only gotten funnier with time:

#shakespeare #hamlet #holy shit

[thedeadhandofseldon]

Also shout-out to the Swedes for just borrowing the French "adieu" into their vocabulary and just spelling it "adjö"

#words words words #lingua franca

[thedeadhandofseldon]

thoroughly enchanted with ammianus marcellinus's description of julian thee apostate's rule where he says that julian attempted to rebuild the temple in jerusalem (possible as a "fuck you" to christians) but had to give up because the workers kept getting exploded by fireballs

[thedeadhandofseldon]

I hate work I should be at the (remembers I don't want to go to the club) the imagination

[thedeadhandofseldon]

#words

[thedeadhandofseldon]

NEVER ever forget to plan for the Minotaur. ALWAYS factor the Minotaur into your plans DO NOT FORGET THIS

[thedeadhandofseldon]

[thedeadhandofseldon]

everyone make sure to set out cheese & crackers for neil tonight <3

[thedeadhandofseldon]

Wordle is running out of words. Only 2,000 five letter words remain. When that supply is exhausted the Creation shall begin. One day the word will be ZHURM, and all shall get it, and all shall understand it to mean "an ache from suddenly remembering a long-ago friend, who meant something to you once, but whose face you can no longer conjure". The next day the word shall be JOROL, and all will get it, and all will know it means "the melancholy confusion of passing by somewhere where you once could have died". The next day it will be GREFT, and all will understand it to be a small brown bird with white streaks found only in South America, and suddenly, it will appear, in the underbrush of the Amazon, in the streets of São Paulo, and all will know that it once was not there, but now, will always be

[thedeadhandofseldon]

hot take incoming: revolt and revolution doesn't create a fair and equitable society. it creates a power vaccum, which is terrifying because it is incredibly fertile ground for all sorts of warlords, aspiring tyrants, paramilitary extremists, and imperial powers to swoop in and start doing atrocities over it. You can put a new society in a power vaccum, but so can anyone else, and most of those potential outcomes are going to be horrifying, not to mention to the hellscape interim period.

To create a fair and equitable society you need to know civics, administration, diplomacy, and yes, statecraft. Yes they're boring and unglamorous and icky and gross. But i promise that you need them. They are mandatory. Not optional.

[thedeadhandofseldon]

House of the Dragon | 1.01 "The Heirs of the Dragon"

#i don't even go here but #this is excellent

[thedeadhandofseldon]

"Sex is what makes us human" is stupid. Almost every species fucks. Humans are the only species that jumps motorcycles over school buses that are on fire. Some other things too probably