shabbytigers

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Plate 14: Mercury standing in a niche playing his pipes, with the severed head of an old man and a sword at his feet, from "Mythological Gods and Goddesses"

Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio Italian

After Rosso Fiorentino Italian

1526

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Aeneas and Mercury (from "The Works of Virgil: Containing his Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis," 1697)

Etcher Wenceslaus Hollar Bohemian

After Franz Cleyn German

Related author Virgil Italian

1654

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Mercury. German Almanac c. 1484

Hans Schönsperger the Elder (German, active Augsburg 1481–1520)

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what's boobies. heheh i'm a visual learner by the way *someone shows me their boobs* jesus christ what the fuck is that

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Ignorance and Mercury (an allegory of Virtue and Vice), Mercury kneeling at right holding a staff and taking the hand of a man who emerges from a pile of naked bodies, at left a tree with the torso and head of a woman (Daphne)

Giovanni Antonio da Brescia Italian

ca. 1490–1525

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Mercury, c. 1581 by Philips Galle

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Venus, c. 1581 by Philips Galle

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getting unzipped has to feel so good for the compressed file

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charles dickens: how can anybody tolerate reading him

it’s not the uncontemporary prose style i object to. i got super into the early novel in college, like samuel richardson and i mean his real doorstoppers, not pamela, which kind of sucks tbh, clarissa and sir charles grandison are much better. i also have a thing for old english. victorian prose still has new-car smell to me, and i like it just fine in general

i will concede the scrooge story but that’s basically one gimmicky short-story-length bit

and that’s the problem

all of dickens reads to me like a bit that’s fine as far as it goes but really should be over in twenty minutes tops. it’s like watching someone act out a comedy routine with hand puppets. there are some nice cutting passages about like socioeconomic shit, and some excellent quips, but i’m not sitting through a novel-length puppet show for that

forster’s distinction between flat vs round characters is the top-level read on what’s “wrong” with dickens: he does a lot of one-dimensional characters. really caricatures, not people. but like, that’s fine, sort of? jane austen also has some flat-ass characters. mr elton, mrs norris. mr collins! a great ‘caricature’ character, very much one long bit play-out. and he’s hilarious. idk though, i should probably try to articulate this better but basically he’s funny in a way that matters. mrs micawber isn’t. i’m done with her after one appearance. why is she still here? because dickens is saying something interesting with the plot twists that are inhabited by caricatures like mrs micawber. well, great: i don’t like that. it’s a puppet show. write me a blistering ass thinkpiece on what’s wrong with the economy or legal system directly, it’ll be more interesting. if you want to write a novel maybe write one where i can be bothered to give literally any kind of a shit what happens

i didn’t like fielding back in my early novel era, either. or candide and rasselas. picaresque is a puppet show too and i can’t live on just plot and atmospherics. i wouldn’t even say character is my biggest thing: what really drives me as a reader is worldbuilding, i read austen as much or maybe more for the window into how social shit and daily life work in this particular milieu as for the character arcs per se. writers in the mode i’m talking about aren’t trying to paint a world at all, a puppet-show stage is plenty sufficient for their purposes. i get it. but it’s excruciatingly boring. to me

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not to be a number nerd on main but 2025 (45^2) will be the only square year most of us ever experience. the last one was 1936 and the next one will be 2116

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Today's Fur Seal Is: Statistical Outlier

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tip for people with chronic pain/fatigue: lay down occasionally. haven't laid down in the past 3-5 hours? do it (if you can) and see how you feel. i've found that i'll lay down in bed just to be in my room, but then i get hit with an instant wave of relief because just sitting on the couch was too much for my body, and i didn't realize it.

when you're in pain or fatigued for a long time, your awareness of your body may get wonky - especially if you already struggle w/interoception due to neurodivergency. so. test it, sometimes. you can apply it to other things too: sit if you're standing. stop doing a task if you've been doing it for a while. have a small snack to see if you're hungry. etc. etc.

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i just feel like you guys should see this thread about foxes

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