sachermorte:

so the thing about english is that people think it’s so divorced from other germanic languages based on like. words. I’ve even heard people try to insist that english is a romance language. because of that whole messy business in 1066 with out-of-wedlock willy and his band of naughty normans. and now a good chunk of the vocabulary is french or whatever and they’re prestigious so not using them makes you sound like a rube and this and that and the other

and yes william the conqueror will never be safe from me. I will have my revenge on him. he fucked up a perfectly good germanic language is what he did. this will be me in hell

but the thing is that most words in, say, german do have a one to one english equivalent. not all hope is lost, for those who still dare to see it. it’s just that you 1066pilled normancels aren’t looking in the right place

dog (en) ≠ der Hund (de) but der Hund (de) -> hound (en)

look with your special eyes. that one was easier. not all of them are this intuitive because of semantic narrowing and broadening and waltzing and hokey-pokeying and whatever else. I’ll give you a few more

animal (en) ≠ das Tier (de)

aha! you think. I’ve got him on the ropes now.

but then

das Tier (de) -> deer (en)

nooooo!! you whine and cry in gay baby jail. the consonants are different!!! listen to me. listen, I say, putting both my hands on your shoulder. /t/and /d/ are the same sound. you just put your voice behind one of them.

nooooooooo!! you wail. deer are animals but not all animals are deer!!! listen to me. LISTEN. they used to be. animals used to be deer. that’s just what we called them. it was a long time ago. it was a weird time in all our lives. it’s okay.

let’s try for a verb this time

to die (en) ≠ sterben (de) but sterben (de) -> to starve

same principle with the consonants, we’re just changing a stop (where we completely stop the airflow and then let it through) for a fricative (where we still let some air go through. idk where it’s going. maybe to its job or something.)

to starve used to mean generally to die, not just to die of malnourishment. we do that a lot. we take one word for a lot of things and make it mean one thing. or take one word for one thing and make it mean a lot of things. this is common and normal.

“okay but roland,” you say, suddenly coming up with an argument. “what about tree? trees are super common. I don’t think we’d fuck around too much with that. the german word is baum! what about THAT?”

“when did you learn german?” I ask, but then decide it isn’t relevant right at this very moment. but fine.

tree (en) ≠ der Baum (de) but der Baum (de) -> beam (en)

beam??? you ask incredulously. beam???? BEAM?????? you continue with the same tone and cadence of captain holt from brooklyn 99.

yes. beam. like the evil beams from my eye I’m going to hit you with if you don’t stop shouting.

but the vowels!!! you howl.

listen. listen to me. the vowels mean nothing. absolutely nothing. they’re fluid like water. it got raised in english.

“WHAT DOES RAISED MEAN”

it doesn’t matter right now. they were raised better than you, at least. stop shouting. open your eyes and see what god has given you. they’re the same word.

“they’re NOT the same word. they mean different things!”

we’ve been over this. they didn’t used to. a beam was (and is) a long solid piece of wood. much like the long solid piece of wood I showed your mother last night.

FAQ:

Q: could english be some kind of germanic-romance hybrid?

A: do you become a sexy thing from the black lagoon just because you dressed up as one for halloween? english may have gotten a lot of vocabulary from norman french, but its history and syntax are distinctly germanic. that’s what we base these things on.

Q: okay but what does it matter? this doesn’t actually affect my day to day life

A: you come into my house? you come into my house, the house of an autistic man living in vienna austria and studying english linguistics and you ask me what does it matter? sit back down. I was going to let you go but now I have powerpoints to show you

Q: you’re stupid and wrong and gay and a bad person

A: I know it’s you, Willy

party-gilmore:

shutyourmoustache:

When my mother forgets a word, she is the queen of coming up with new words. Words that would take a third National Treasure movie to fully decipher. I was talking to her yesterday, and she said this: “You know the time for los jibbities is coming up. You must be so excited!” Oh, is it time for los jibbities already? I must have missed it on my calendar. Are we celebrating something? “Of course! We should all be celebrating, shouldn’t we?” OK, so los jibbities is a happy thing. It’s not like something is giving you the heebie-jeebies, which would have been my one and only guess. “Los heebie-jeebies? Now you’re making things up...and this is my show.” You’re right. The time for los jibbities is coming up. Is this a season? “Yes, the season for love. The season for pride.” OK, los jibbities. “Yeah, sound it out.” Los…jibbities. LGBTs! “Sí, mira cuz you’re gay!” “You couldn’t just say pride season? You couldn’t just… *laughs*

HAPPY LOS JIBBITIES EVERYBODY!!!

(via thuriweaver)

ryandonato:

A Tiger and His Boy

(via bluroux)

lucarioguy15:

nattousan:

smilepuppydotjpeg:

wowwforever:

They’ll never do a Hitman level set in a Furry Convention because gamers would absolutely ruin it but imagine. like the target isn’t a furry he just owns a hotel that happens to have one every year but you can disguise yourself in a fursuit and some guy will ask you “what species is your sona” and 47 would be like “a wolf. i always felt a connection with…hunters.” and then diana would be like “let’s see if you can sniff out some information, furrty-seven” and then he comes to my house and kills me for writing this

ok but imagine being the fursuit artist that he contracts to make his costume tho

He contacts you via an anonymous email and is very exacting and precise in his request. Money is no object, which isn’t uncommon in your line of business, you’re a professional and more than a few customers have been in the 1% range.

So you ask if he’s local so you can meet and take measurements and he says no but he will meet you at (conveniently close local craft store) tomorrow after work (you did not mention where you live)

You’re a little shaken but you meet him anyways because daddy needs to pay rent, and he’s probably not a serial killer, right?

Right?

You had no idea what kind of person to expect, but a 6'2 bald white guy built like a fucken shit-brickhouse with a “FurCon2023” shirt wrapped around his brolic frame was rather on the shorter end of your list. His cargo shorts and pure white sneakers looked like they’d just been picked up off of the shelf and his glasses looked too small for his massive head.

You jump because you don’t even notice him until he’s tapping you on the shoulder and introducing himself. How did he know it was you?? Alarm bells are going off everywhere but there’s cameras all over, he wouldn’t try something in public right?? You take his measurements and look at fabrics together.

You ask about his fursona and he very seriously produces a laminated folder with several crudely drawn pictures of a polar bear suit. Well, you guess you shouldn’t be mean, they were clearly drawn from references but you could tell this was someone who did not draw often. It didn’t even have any accessories, it was just a normal polar bear… But the notes surrounding them were so neat they looked printed! And so in depth! There was one page solely dedicated to the visibility needs, with advanced notes on the camera and display system he wanted in the head. You’d only seen this sort of thing at the national cons, just who the hell was this guy??

You haltingly ask him if he was sure. You tell him this is really advanced stuff and he was looking at at LEAST 10k with all the specific modifications on it. When you first started making suits you would have never been this firm on pricing, lowballing and trying to make up the difference so as not to upset the customer with a hefty price, but you’d learned eventually that undervaluing your work was a waste of your time and effort so even though you couldn’t gauge his reaction, you figured being upfront about the price would at least be a test to see how serious the guy was.

He nodded silently and reached into the fanny pack around his waist to produce the cleanest stack of hundreds you’d ever seen in your life, like straight printed from the treasury mint. He places it in your palm and you almost drop it out of shock.

“Will this be enough to get you started? I included some extra to compensate for lost wages as I do need this suit fairly quickly” he says, tone unreadable.

You stammer and try to look professional thumbing through the crisply banded notes and would you look at that, you think this will do just fine!

He nods again, shakes your hand and leaves without another word.

You exit the store, just trying to comprehend what in the hell you’d just gotten yourself into, zoning out so hard that you didn’t even realize someone was yelling at you until the word “-fuckin furry faggot” pierced through your thoughts. You were looking at your phone so you didn’t notice the band of truck bros creeping up behind you in their suped up pickup truck. There were three or four in the bed of the truck, dangling out over the side in between giant “TRUMP 2024” and “Lets Go Brandon” flags. They have their phones out, recording you and shouting slurs.

You raise double birds at them and turn to walk quickly in the opposite way, hoping you wouldn’t see them as you walked home. You’d heard of a couple beatings happening locally and you didn’t want to be around if that’s what they had in mind.

So when you hear tires screeching and and engine roaring behind you, you break out into a run, hoping to make it to the bus terminal across the parking lot.

But they catch up to you before you’d made it halfway. They all get out and one grabs your phone that you held out to record with. He smashes it on the ground and shoves you into the pavement. Hard.

They all stand over you, jeering and laughing and you try to escape but your limbs won’t listen to you. You always figured if something like this happened you’d stand your ground, maybe get in a couple of hits yourself, but in reality you could barely breathe and your chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself, so your attempts to scream for help end up coming out as breathy wheezes. One of them levels a crowbar at you and thats when the screaming starts.

You curl up into a ball to protect your face but the pain never comes. You hear screaming and sneakers skidding across asphalt and oh god, wet crunchy impacts followed by something warm and wet being splattered across your arms and legs.

Its suddenly silent except for the drone of the truck engine but eventually you crack open an eye to get a look around, and for the second time that day you almost lose your lunch.

Its straight up something out of a video game, just absolute carnage surrounds you. All of the tall frat bros are out cold in varying stages of fucked up. You do actually start to hurl a little when you see one with his nose completely sideways like a gory Picasso.

And in the center of the carnage is -no fucking way- your fucking fursuit client, calmly wiping his hands of the blood with some baby wipes from his fannypack.

He looks over at you when he sees you’re up and for a second there you see something, a slip in the mask, something angry, something violent. You flinch as you realize it, but oh fuck, this guys like.. killed people before. like, for fucken sure.

He walks towards you and you suddenly feel like a very small animal being stalked by a tiger. You try to stumble away but the mask is back on and he just looks down at you and offers you a babywipe.

“You alright?” He asks plainly.

Turns out the guy is “ex-military” and he hurt himself so he’s back in the states and bored out of his mind. His daughter is a furry and wanted him to go with her to FurCon and insisted he get a suit as well. You keep on glancing at all the deep scars running up and down his arms and wondering how the hell you didn’t see it before.

He’s saying something to you but you only snap out of it when a phone is being placed into your hands. You look up and suddenly you’re standing outside your apartment building (did you tell him where you lived???)

“This is a secure line, if anything happens to you or you have questions, I’ll answer immediately.” He says, pale blue eyes drilling into your skull with their intensity.

The tears start bubbling up in your eyes before you can stop them and you just lean forward, bumping your head into his chest and choking out a thank you as you clutch the phone to your chest like an amulet.

As you figured, his body is make out of steel and he stiffens at the contact, unsure of what to do.

He just lets you cry it out for a bit before eventually placing a heavy hand on your shoulder, pulling you off but he keeps the hand gentle.

He’s not looking at you this time but he clears his throat and murmurs a quick “Take care” before turning around and disappearing into the night. You unlock your door and collapse into bed.

“What the fuck” you murmur to yourself as you pull out your tablet, and you start to sketch…

I dunno what I expected to find when I logged into tumblr today. Certainly not Hitman furry con fanfic. But I did. And it was glorious.

(via pyracantha14)

jeanjauthor:

darklight-owl:

Uh oh! You are now a were-animal! This means you become a human-sized animal hybrid with uncontrollable bloodlust every night!

Spin this wheel to get your species

How screwed are your loved ones

Not at all! Anyone can fight back against me.

They should be fine with a bit of prep.

Nothing will happen as long as I lock myself in my room.

I’m pretry sure this animal can break down my door, this doesn’t look good…

No chance of survival whatsoever.

I’m were-bald (see results)

See Results

I got Octopus. Which means I am the cryptic Pacific Tree (were)Octopus.

Now, the Pacific Tree Octopus isn’t actually all that bit–it’s technically at most only 40% of the fully underwater ones lurking in Puget Sound…which get pretty damn big. The small size of the cryptid is due to the fact that bigger weights would break the small tree branches they swing between, which would lead to a fall from the treetops involving roughly half of the words in the phrase “terminal velocity.”

So I’d be a smol wereOctopus. But I’m still an octopus. Those fuckers can squeeze through tiny holes, they’re very smart, and they can absolutely wrestle with a strongman type. (Ivar’s Restaurants of Seattle held a “wrestle an octopus” event back in the mid 20th century, so yes, there are facts to back up the wrestling claim.) (…Remember, as a cryptid werecreature, I’d be several times stronger than my natural-animal counterpart.)

So…my family would be in danger. If I wanted to harm them.

Except Pacific Tree Octopi prefer to eat squirrels, various nuts, flower buds, insects, mice, small birds, etc. Humans just don’t even show up on the taste-o-meter. (Apemeat, ew, ugh.) So unless you go around smelling like pine nuts all the time, you probably won’t even catch our attention.

We will, however, absolutely rifle through your collections of stuff and leave it all out of order…and possibly take a few pieces with us back to our lairs. So you’ll still have to suffer from great distress!

jeanjauthor:

meteor-anarchy:

ewebie:

ansonmount:

STAR TREK: VOYAGER
Critical Care | 7x05

#shout out to janeway who like vulcan french kissed on the bridge#and shout out to tuvok who went with it

Tuvok is that friend who would no questions asked make out with you as part of your cover story and I think that’s very cash money of him

I love how Paris’ expression is shocked, but Kim’s is just, “don’t smile don’t laugh don’t…oh good, I didn’t…”

covington-shenanigans:

roach-works:

seananmcguire:

einaudis:

Question: What is the greatest magic of all?
Answer: Friendship, right?

[B]: The greatest magic of all is not friendship, it’s chronomancy, the ability to control and warp time. If friendship were the greatest magic, look, it’s a pet peeve of mine (...)

DUNGEON MASTER BRENNAN LEE MULLIGAN ANSWERS DnD QUESTIONS (TECH SUPPORT | WIRED)

This is exactly why I hate most cancer charity outreach. They always lead with “this person got the BEST CARE and had the BEST SUPPORT NETWORK, and so they got the miracle. Don’t you want the miracle for your loved ones?”

I wanted the miracle so badly I damn near killed myself trying to get it. I spent every cent I could. I loved her harder than I have ever loved anything in my life.

And we got no miracle.

“You just didn’t love enough” is cruel and unfair.

my mom was incredibly loved. friends, family, neighbors. she had an incredible support team. pancreatic cancer did not respond to the power of love, and it didn’t respond to the power of chemotherapy, either. ironically, one of the most loving people i’ve ever known died of a heart attack. her literal, actual heart just wore out.

investing in medical research and advocating for universal healthcare is, i think, probably going to save more moms than what i managed to do with my own heart.

I probably took a decade off my own life caring for her and I’d do it again but like. she still died. the way you know “the power of love” isn’t enough is because I’m still alive and she isn’t. if ~love~ was enough to save someone she’d be immortal.

(via thuriweaver)

hmantegazzi:

bokonomnomnom:

For context: Ukrainians took to the streets in 2013 to oust pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and restore 2004 amendments to their constitution that weakened presidential power over their parliament. They blocked up the streets of Kyiv with tires (as well as bricks and anything else they could get their hands on), building barriers that prevented the military from removing protestors.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

And the tires can also be lit on fire, for further effect.

For legal reasons, this is only documentary.

(via jeanjauthor)

bairnsidhe:

son-of-drogo:

seagull-wizard:

wuh2k:

bando–grand-scamyon:

saurons-optometrist:

captain-rez:

solarpunkcast:

anarchistcuddles:

ineversurrender:

Kent State University

“The Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre)[3][4][5] were the shootings on May 4, 1970 of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio during a mass protest against the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces. Twenty-eight guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[6][7]”

“There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of 4 million students,[10] and the event further affected public opinion, at an already socially contentious time, over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.[11]”

Student strike of 4 million students! Let’s do that again lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

Don’t forget that basically half the country thought the students deserved it…

Another picture from Kent State.

But it was not just Kent State, eleven days later Mississippi Police fired 150 rounds into a dormitory at Jackson State College, killing 2 and wounding 15 black protesters.

Btw half of the students killed at Kent State weren’t even protesting, they were just there

What in the absolute fuck

When the Irish guy has known about this since he was like 8, but it’s suspiciously hard for Americans to learn about…

Some of the most famous musicians in the country wrote songs about it, and it’s still obscure.

https://youtu.be/6FpakQiF2Jk?si=1m7oJRgVaTmUYm9N

The only reason I know is because I’m from Ohio, my dad was born that day, and my great uncle was going to college there when it happened.

He said he woke up to a fucking tank outside his door and called his parents to take him home. I’m pretty sure he knew one of the students who was killed.

My high school also did band camp there and we regularly walked by the memorials.

Do not forget, and do not let others forget.

the-prophesied-disco-gay:

depsidase:

This isn’t just your granny. This was your mom too. And it many ways it’s absolutely still going.

Marital rape became illegal in 1993 but is still not prosecuted in many places.

Roe v Wade is dead and women’s rights to their own bodies is not codified in law.

Almost all medical testing and development testing is done on men, usually cisgender white men of average build. This has far reaching consequences and thousands of women die every year because the treatments being applied were not designed for them. Artificial hearts fit men about 80% of the time. For women that number is 20%. There are so many examples of ways this type of testing and development harms people, take a moment to read up on it when you can.

Women are more likely to get custody in a separation, but not support. Unless the spouse she is getting away from can and will follow support arrangements, she is on her own. Same for new mothers of any variety. No paid leave, no childcare, no real mental health support despite alarming rates of ppd and related conditions. Nada. You will be heavily criticized and possibly have your child taken from you if you fail to thrive in these circumstances.

Women are still regularly fired for getting pregnant/having a baby. Is it illegal? Well yes and no, states like mine with at-will employment don’t have to provide a reason for the termination, or will just make one up. Performance issues, attendance, attitude, whatever. There is little to no recourse.

The list goes on. There is so much to it. Social dynamics, what is considered normal, legal loopholes and straight-up discriminatory laws still on the books and more being added. I can’t enumerate it all here but it is worth knowing about.

And this all includes everyone socially and/or legally perceived as a woman btw. They will assign you “woman” based on what they are trying to do. Trans women, intersex people, trans men, nonbinary people, GNC people, absolutely anyone and everyone under the queer umbrella, they will call a man to paint as a predator and deny support, and a woman to paint as weak and deny rights. It’s nuanced, it’s complicated, there’s a lot to it, but it is a very real and still existing problem. For all of us, regardless of identity.

Celebrate the progress, celebrate the wins, celebrate how far we’ve come. But don’t speak of it like it’s a thing of the past. Posts like this are a call to keep moving forward, not just a glimpse at life in the past to observe like a museum exhibit.

*this is from the perspective of a USAmerican and the laws and social structures described apply to the USA, dynamics and laws are obviously different elsewhere

(via jeanjauthor)

shower-thoughts-last-responder:

quillingmesoftly:

oldshrewsburyian:

wizardnuke:

chilewithcarnage:

halfheldsky:

papayajuan2019:

cruelty is so easy. youre not special for choosing it

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”

-Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

“Evil is boring. Right? I kinda believe in the banality and mundaneness of evil. Evil is just selfish impulses, which at the end of the day are really easy to understand. It’s easy to understand why people do bad things. It’s like “yeah, ok, you’re selfish and scared and cruel, I get it”. Being good is complex and beautiful and hard.” - Brennan Lee Mulligan

“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.” –C.S. Lewis

“Now being righteous – that requires imagination! But sin? It’s a dull business.” – Gerald Morris, The Legend of the King

“Down there,” he said, “are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no”

Terry Pratchette, Gaurds! Guards!

(via thuriweaver)

foone:

redcurlzbychoice:

bizships:

catgirlforeskin:

porcupine-girl:

nehirose:

petermorwood:

drst:

arrghigiveup:

TiL (click to go to the thread, which probably has more interesting tidbits I missed).

Bonus:

These are my people.

Betting I’ve reblogged this before. Betting I’ll reblog it when it turns up again.

In addition to the print terminology stuff: the visual shorthand icons and ad graphics for something about writing are still often pen-nibs, fountain pens and typewriters…

…while graphics of a monitor, keyboard and mouse remain visual shorthand for computing…

…even though most writers now use monitor /  keyboard / mouse or even laptop / touchpad.

In addition, headers for “this blog / website is about writing” are often in one of the many imitation typewriter fonts complete with smudges, or just Courier.

The start and end call icons on most / all smartphones is still the handset of a classic desk telephone, and sometimes the open-app icon is a complete phone.

The term “hang up” for “end the call” refers to something even older - one of these…

And of course the Save icon is indeed a 3½ inch floppy disc.

Why it wasn’t a 5¼ floppy is a mystery. The icon version is just as distinctive.

Also, why various OP updates never changed “Save” to the graphic of a CD / DVD or flash drive is another mystery, and nowadays a Save icon should probably be a cartoon cloud.

Graphics and terminology are funny things.

reblogging this again for EVEN MORE information.

I’m mostly entertained by the guy who thinks you need to know that “case” means “box” in French as though that’s not what it means in English.

skeumorphism my beloved

It’s fascinating. This post alternately made me feel old and taught me something. Tumblr is amazing.

And because we continue to use signs of ancient hardware, youngsters come up with questions like “why is the icon for ‘save’ a vending machine with a can of soda?” (One day I’ll find that post and link it)

The reason the save icon is a 3.5" floppy seems to mainly be that 3.5" disks were the most common disk by the time graphical interfaces got popular on PCs. Earlier stuff was more text based so they didn’t have or need icons.

But there are always exceptions. Lotus 1-2-3 for windows uses 5.25" disks for the save and load icons!

(via rosebramblewolf)

reblogbinge:

fluffingfloofs:

mamalibra:

Here’s to 2023, a year of as many little courageous kindnesses as possible. ♥️

To a year of kindness in 2024

Bringing this back for 2025

(via knitpool)

eldritchlittleblackdragon:

epicpseudonym:

rimonoroni:

iheartvelma:

animentality:

It’s Calvinism.

I keep telling people this, but SO much of American culture and particularly the ‘Protestant work ethic’ is derived from Calvin’s view that everything in life is predestined by God - that winners and losers are already chosen.

Those Puritan pilgrims who came here seeking ‘religious liberty?’ Hardcore Calvinists who were so obnoxious they were kicked out of their home countries.

And they use this belief to excuse the worst behaviors in American history: Racism, colonialism, genocide, segregation, patriarchy, prejudice against minorities, slavery, economic disparity, low wages, no public healthcare, systems that punish the poor and disabled while rewarding the already wealthy; attempts to impose theocracy and infiltrate democratic institutions to wreck them from within; the constant stream of made-up moral panics; the parochialism and fear of outsiders.

The belief, common among many conservatives, that humans are inherently evil, is why they distrust anything from government that advances the common good and instead praise church-based charity.

I could go on, but just read this.

Calvinism and the American Conception of Evil

American conservatism has a distinctive character. Here’s why.

Medium

i was literally about to say this. this shit isn’t new by any means

Of course that’s their perspective they’re eugenicists.

Me, Once again being reminded that a lot of America’s woes can be traced back to to Calvinism (ie the Puritans):

(via keltaithecrafty)

maplefiasco:

maplefiasco:

TikToker @bdylanhollis exuding Chaotic Pre-Serum Steve Rogers energy.

Happy “Well THAT Blew Up” to this post. In honor of 20k notes, please enjoy three additional gifs I made for this set, but had to cut to fit Tumblr’s 10-images-per-post limit.

(via scifigrl47)