#and now on to crufts

[fjordfolk]

also fci=/=tkc and while tkc is square and conservative in many ways, fci member clubs may be less. so when commenters say things like smooth and rough collies used to be interbred but aren't anymore, this is true for the UK but not necessarily for neighbouring clubs - which deals with the same stock.

[merosmenagerie]

Hoping for the curly coated retriever to take group tonight for the sake of the actual breed that SHOULD have become popular instead of the doodle and is instead in massive decline <3

[cypr1anlatew00d]

ooo you want to mark my order as shipped so bad.. you will NOT cancel you are a real & legitimate listing for the liquid sky movie tie in novel at a non-ripoff price..

[manyblinkinglights]

It is now time to get a garbage bag and THROW THINGS OUT. >:]

[macksting]

My wife must be having so much trouble. She has this weaving project, right? Like, it's a data visualization thing for her LIS classes. And she chose weaving. But then I got this really fuckin' hot haircut and now I'm walking around the house in tanktops with this dykey haircut just occasionally singing songs to myself and just generally being an autistic butch trans girl. Aphrodite, please, have mercy on her. She has weaving to do.

[max1461]

I remember a really formative interaction I had as a teenager. Well actually it wasn't formative, I was already formed. But it was... vindictory? It was a moment when I realized in a crystal clear fashion something I already implicitly believed.

I was talking to a friend of a friend of my parents, and she had been to Japan a number of times, and I was interested in Japan, and so we were talking about that. And we were talking about Japanese food, and somehow the topic of spicy food came up. And she was saying how it was hard to find spicy food in Japan. And she struggled for a moment to express why this was. She hesitated, and said something like "...I'm not sure how to say this, I don't want to stereotype, but... the Japanese, uh, the Japanese palate is not very, well, it's not very amenable to spicy food, I mean..." and she sort of looked at me expectantly for social approval of this potentially non-PC(?) comment, but instead of accepting or rejecting it, I simply suggested to her "you mean spicy food isn't very popular in Japan?". And as soon as I did she was like, "yes! yes! That's exactly what I'm saying!" and the conversation moved on.

In that moment I realized something like, well. We can chose to see and conceptualize the world in different ways, and there are certain common ways that seem deeply flawed to me, and I have a better way and I'm going to use it. Just, setting all social or political implications aside, you can think about the world in terms of essences or you can think about the world in terms of descriptions. You can add extra features to your model, develop a richer ontology of... classes and types and whatnot, or you can not do that, you can stick to a weak ontology and just describe. What is "the Japanese palate"? I don't know. What you mean to say is that spicy food is not popular in Japan.

And when you do this, you know, when you just describe, when you avoid essences, you also demystify. There's nothing here. I mean, there's something here, there's a fact, but it's not of any more import than it is literally of. Monster truck rallies aren't popular in New York and spicy food isn't popular in Japan. Things are just things, people are just people, events are just events. It's very hard to articulate what I mean here in language, because as all my thoughts this one is principally non-linguistic. I'm not sure I'm doing it justice right now but I'm at least approximating it. You don't have to, like. You can just.

I guess that's what it is. This is also why I don't like the term "the West", unless you're using it in some really circumscribed way. Because, what is this? What is this way of speaking, speaking in terms of essences and needless abstractions and muddled, conceptually loaded narratives when you could just say, you could just describe. You don't need all this cruft. And moreover it does a disservice, it does a disservice to people and the world, both of which are real and actual and not made of cruft and nonsense as you purport them to be. Well anyway.

[mutsukiss]

Fuck I forgot to check crufts were the shibas shown already

[pawsitivevibe]

A Quick Guide to Dog Shows

I tend to see a certain amount of confusion about how dog shows work. So I'm going to break it down here. Note that this is based on the Canadian Kennel Club and might differ based on organization. It is basically the same as the American Kennel Club. If you watched Crufts, some of the classes and awards have different names, but operate in a very similar progression.

There are multiple "stages" in conformation. This is where I see the confusion.

CLASS:

So, you sign up your dog for a dog show. They are going to be entered under their BREED. Within their breed, they will be entered in a CLASS. A class is basically just a category under which they are judged. The main classes are usually:

6-9 month old dog (often called Junior Puppy)

6-9 month old bitch

9-12 month old dog (often called Senior Puppy)

9-12 month old bitch

12-18 month old dog

12-18 month old bitch

Open dog

Open bitch

Canadian bred dog (the dog was born in Canada)

Canadian bred bitch

Bred by exhibitor dog (the dog's breeder is also the dog's handler)

Bred by exhibitor bitch

These additional classes are also common:

Veteran dog (7+ years old)

Veteran bitch

3-6 month old dog ("Baby Puppy" does not compete for points, but may compete for "Best Baby Puppy")

3-6 month old bitch

Dogs within the classes will be judged based on the breed standard, but in the age based classes the judge will be keeping in mind that they are still puppies. Your dog may be eligible for multiple classes, so you choose the one you think your dog has the best chance of winning. For example, I have a 20 month old English Cocker Spaniel dog. He is eligible to compete in Open dog, because dogs of any age can compete in Open. He was bred in Canada, but I did not breed him, so I could enter him in Canadian bred, but not bred by exhibitor. I choose ONE class to enter.

Alright we're in our CLASS. Each class is then judged based on the breed standard. Each class will be judged for 1st through 4th place. The 1st place dog or bitch in each class will then move on to the WINNERS ring.

WINNERS:

The winners of the dog classes will compete for WINNERS DOG. The winners of the bitch classes will compete for WINNERS BITCH. There will also be a Reserve Winners Dog (2nd place) and a Reserve Winners Bitch. Note that the winners dog and bitch may be puppies.

BEST OF BREED:

The Winners Dog and Winners Bitch will then go on to the BEST OF BREED ring. They will be joined by dogs and bitches of their breed who are already show champions. Champions have already won enough "points" in previous shows to receive the title of champion, and do not have to compete in the CLASS or WINNERS stages. The judge will now look at the winners dog and bitch and all the champions, and choose 1 to be awarded BEST OF BREED, meaning they are the best dog or bitch overall. The judge will then choose a BEST OF OPPOSITE SEX, meaning the best dog of the opposite sex to the best of breed winner. If the BOB is a bitch, then all the male dogs will be judged for BOS. The judge will also look at the Winners Bitch and the Winners Dog to choose a BEST OF WINNERS between the two. The judge will also choose a SELECT DOG and SELECT BITCH, for the best champion dogs after BOB and BOS. Sometimes the judge will also choose dogs to be given an AWARD OF MERIT, to recognize exceptional quality in dogs who did not receive BOB, BOS, or Select.

BEST PUPPY IN BREED:

The judge will then call in all the puppies, dog or bitch, that were not defeated by another puppy. These puppies may have been entered in any CLASS, not just the puppy classes, because you can also enter puppies in Open, Canadian bred, or any other non-age-restricted class. The judge will choose an overall BEST PUPPY. However, if the BEST OF BREED dog was already a puppy, that dog will automatically be awarded Best Puppy as well.

GROUP:

Now there are many many dog breeds, and the breeds are divided into "groups", which is usually indicative of their function. Groups have different names and divisions in different organizations, but the CKC has 7 groups: Sporting, Hound, Working, Terrier, Toy, Non-Sporting, and Herding. Spaniels, setters, pointers, and retrievers are in the Sporting Group. Sighthounds and scent hounds are in the Hound group. Herding dogs are in Herding, and so on. Every breed within a group will have the BEST OF BREED sent to the BEST OF GROUP ring. Each of the BOBs of the different breeds will be judged against their own breed standard to determine which of them is the best. There will be a top 4 dogs awarded in each group.

There will also be a separate competition for BEST PUPPY IN GROUP. All of the BEST PUPPY IN BREED winners will compete for this. If a puppy was also the BEST OF BREED winner in a particular breed, they will compete in the group and puppy group.

BEST IN SHOW:

The 7 BEST OF GROUP winners will go on to compete in the Best in Show competition. Remember, they are being judged based on their own breed standard, and if they fit their own standard better than the other dogs fit theirs. So the best in show judge is looking to see if this Cocker Spaniel is a better Cocker Spaniel than this Shetland Sheepdog is a good Shetland Sheepdog. It's not a "this breed is better than this breed" competition. This is why you will sometimes unfortunately see an unsound dog win BIS, like a German Shepherd with bad hips or a Pekingese. The judge doesn't think they're actually the prettiest dog ever and what a pretty dog should look like, just that they best fit their breed standard. Unfortunately some breed standards emphasize traits that are unhealthy. A RESERVE BEST IN SHOW winner is also awarded for the "2nd place" dog.

There's also a separate BEST PUPPY IN SHOW competition for the BEST PUPPY IN GROUP winners to compete in. A puppy who already competed in the BIS ring might also compete in BPIS. However, if a puppy won Best in Show already, they will be automatically awarded Best Puppy in Show as well.

There may also be a Best Baby Puppy in Show competition, for the 3-6 month old puppies. They would have also had a group competition. The Baby Puppy category is meant to prepare future show dogs for the ring, so it is focused more on fun and providing a good experience for the babies.

A RECAP:

A dog will compete under their breed in a CLASS

Class winners will compete for WINNERS DOG and WINNERS BITCH

The 2 Winners will compete against the Champions for BEST OF BREED and BEST OF OPPOSITE SEX. The Winners will also be judged against each other for BEST OF WINNERS.

The Best of Breed for each breed in a group will compete for BEST OF GROUP. There are placings for 1st through 4th place.

The Best of Group of each of the 7 groups compete for BEST IN SHOW and RESERVE BEST IN SHOW.

[txttletale]

now i do think that d&d 5e is a bad ttrpg, like, generally. i would never recommend it to anybody in a world where pathfinder 2e exists with the sole design philosophy of 'doing d&d's thing but without 40 years of useless accumulated cruft and grandfathered in makework'. but i think that it's more specifically uniquely bad as someone's first TTRPG, a role into which it's basically been forced to by its cultural hegemony over the space

[seat-safety-switch]

"Hold on there, pardner. This here's a cognition hazard." said the holographic cowboy in the corner of my vision. He then took a series of poses that the designer must have thought looked heroic and protective, before flickering back to his original position and repeating the process. My artificial ranch-hand was not incorrect: the thing I was attempting to do would cause me unpredictable amounts of psychic damage, likely impacting my relationships with those around me and even my mental state at rest. Even so, I pushed the button and waited.

Software development used to be a sort of reckless task, undergone without care. Decades ago, hundreds of folks would cram themselves into a single building and then work hard on their computers to develop computer programs. Originally, these programs performed useful but difficult tasks, speeding them up dramatically for the varied needs of government and industry. At first, life improved. And then, as with every prior machine in human history, we looked for harder jobs for it to do.

A funny thing happens when a computer program gets longer than about a page of typewritten code. You have to hold a lot of it in your head. The best programmers could commit an entire system to memory, gliding through it like barracuda through a disreputable motel's swimming pool. We didn't know then how much trauma it caused. The doctors had no idea what was happening with all those isolated burnouts freaking out, moving into the woods, and hunting men for sport.

Watching the old newsreels now, seeing the 20th-century equivalent of coal miners delving willingly into fold-out charts of MFC inheritance diagrams, it's a little hard to stomach. It only took about twenty years of continued exposure to this kind of thing before the human mind rebelled, the manmade logical constructs providing a kind of sharp edge that ripped through sanity like a hot wire. Thing is, it still had to be done, and the folks who did it seemed to enjoy it up until The Void caught up to them too. So the government did what the government does best, and compromise. We'd all have warnings that what we were doing was insanely dangerous and life-shortening, and our employers would keep demanding that we heap more complexity atop ever-increasing mountains of irreducible cruft.

A good deal for all involved, especially the folks who got the contract to make the warning holograms about fifteen years ago. They must have loved their jobs, putting the little cowboy hats on them. You can tell in all the little complex details of his haunted face, begging me to turn back from my route to oblivion. One day I'd like to make something cool like that.

[fjordfolk]

i mean also the reason why i didn't want the cavalier to win is that that's a breed with a LOT of work to do and that really wouldn't be helped by a popularity boost rn

but lagotto is a breed i really wish more people were aware of

[skaruresonic]

Spinning telling me about Netflixavania's impact on how CV is viewed by the mainstream reminds me of the fact that video games, for all of their advancements, still carry something of a stigma.

Particularly old games. Call me a crotchety old lady, but there's no respect for them. Not their history, their context, their legacy, or their preservation.

In addition to the revisionist narrative that "Sonic was always inconsistent" people invented in order to elevate spinoff media over the games, I'm reminded of how Silent Hill fans are now pushing this erroneous narrative that James shows little emotion because of "technical constraints," therefore erasing Team Silent's deliberate creative decisions. (Sato stated otherwise in a 2001 interview, fyi)

People will invent narratives to ingratiate their love of viddy games to the mainstream because in some capacity, games are still considered #cringe. It doesn't matter if it's an ongoing series (Sonic), a dead series (Castlevania) or a seminal work in its genre (Silent Hill), folks will still make absolute steaming horse shit up to devalue previously-lauded works. Suddenly Sonic is no longer good and has never been good. Suddenly Silent Hill 2 isn't a masterpiece or a giant of the survival horror genre; no, it's old, and therefore outdated, and the devs were only doing the best they could with what little they had, uwu poor lambs.

I literally had to stop watching a Silent Hill analyst because she too fell prey to the "technical limitations" cruft, suddenly making up flaws she'd never pointed out before for absolute bullshit reasons because she had decided to agree with the mainstream opinion that SH2 is now "obsolete" as a work of art.

I hate the ahistoricity, the revisionism. And it's so fucking xenophobic patronizing to the game devs, sending the message that despite their best efforts, they only made silly viddy games, while others are now taking the same material and elevating it to the status of Art(tm).

[blueboyluca]

I've turned off reblogs on my original post about the agility spaniel in pain and it's ironic really because this sort of thing is why Crufts as an organisation probably doesn't address stuff like this.

Quickly the narrative shifts to, "This is abuse and only bad people would do this." But that's not true.

All of us with dogs are capable of and do hurt our animals without consciously choosing, "I think I will commit abuse today". We may be ignorant, we may be distracted, we may be under social pressure. People aren't perfect, nobody's dog is cared for perfectly.

The comments, reblogs and tags on that post show that a lot of people only think the dog was stressed. And, I concede, I can't say for sure the dog was in pain because I am not at Crufts and I don't have hands on the dog, but that dog was displaying signs of pain specifically, not just stress. Other dogs ran before and after this spaniel that also displayed signs of stress, but none of them displayed signs of pain. It's important to be able to notice both types of discomfort and yet so many people can't see pain in dogs.

I believe that participating in dog sports is actually more likely to make you aware of your dog's behaviour. Usually you need to train them to do very specific things, so you become very observant of small movements and changes. The pressures of competing in a dog sport can and have blinded many people to the true plight of their dogs, but that's not inherent to all dog sports competitors, nor is it absent in dog owners who don't participate in dog sports.

If your dog is in pain and you can't see it yet, that doesn't make you a bad person. If you choose not to learn what pain can look like in dogs, however, you are making the choice to not provide the best possible care for your dog that you can. That goes for people who do agility and it goes for people who don't.

The woman who competed with her spaniel in the Novice Cup yesterday at Crufts isn't an inherently bad person. Her dog is the victim of a puppy farm that was raided by the RSPCA and it has suffered abuse before. It was not being abused by running around the agility ring on that one day. It was showing signs of pain though, and despite being surrounded by the best agility athletes in the UK, the handler still ended up running that dog. It was probably the dog's first time at Crufts and it might have been the handler's as well. It's not hard to see how it happened, it's just disappointing that it did. And if it becomes a consistent pattern with this handler, then I perhaps would consider it a kind of abuse.

But what it is right now is an opportunity for all of us to think about our own choices and how they affect our dogs, even if we aren't being streamed online to an international audience of people who are going to make multiple Tumblr posts about us.

[finniestoncrane]

KTJL!Boomer x Fem!Reader, word count: 850 sooooo long ago i was discussing with some people how disgustingly hot boomer would find beer if it was involved in sex, so... yeah. i'm not a beer person, so i'm pretending this is a wee can of tennents lmao💙 request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist minors DNI!! 🔞 cw: beer drinking, beer play/food play, suggestive flirting, reader has tits (kind of ample ones i guess!)

"Wanna see my party trick?"

It was all George could do to act cool. Underneath his seemingly permanent smirk, crooked smile, slightly upturned nose, raised eyebrow, you could almost make out the faint blush on his freckled cheeks, a little bit of a tremble on his bottom lip as he wondered what that party trick might be.

"Well?"

"Alright then, Sheila. Show us what you've got."

As you excitedly jumped up from the sofa and headed to the kitchen, he let his mind wander. He was an optimist, after all. Of course, he knew you were only trying to break the awkward silence between you as you lazed on his sofa. It wasn't the best date he'd ever taken someone on. But it was difficult to think of something romantic to do when his idea of a good time was getting too drunk to move and then having someone else jump onto his lap and do all the work. Three beers in and you didn't look like you were going to start jumping any time soon. So he would take excitement where he could. If that meant pretending that your party trick was unhinging your jaw like a python and taking all of him in it, then he was content to live in that daydream.

It would have been impossible for him to know you were feeling as tense and desperate as he was. Mostly, because it seemed impossible for anyone to ever be as desperate as George Harkness. You'd expected a bit more when he'd invited you over to his place for drinks, and you were determined to get it. A bit of overtly seductive flirting was what the situation called for, and you knew exactly what kind of trick would get him drooling.

You returned from the small, messy kitchenette with a bottle of beer in hand.

"That's your trick? Fetching a beer? It's not bad, but you're not winning Crufts any time soon, girl."

As you walked to the sofa you rolled your eyes, stopping in front of him with a half-hearted smile.

"It's a bit more impressive than that, actually. I need you to stand up though."

"Aw, what? I have to do something? It's hardly your trick then, is it?"

"George. Stand up. I promise, it'll be worth it."

The way your lips curled into a knowing grin sent a tingle of electricity over him, quickly travelling down his length. He was standing up, a move so quick you barely registered it. Ready for anything. And once he was there in front of you, you sank to your knees.

George's mind began racing as he stared down at you, catching your eyes looking back up at him from your position on the floor at his feet. Maybe he was right. Maybe your party trick would be unveiling an up to now hidden ability to take all of his impressive girth and length in your mouth at one time. Down to the balls, something no one else had ever been able to do before out of the very limited few who were actually willing to try.

Your fingers took hold of his belt buckle, working at it to undo it. But as he braced himself for you to undo his fly and free his cock, you stopped, instead gripping the buckle with one hand and reaching for the bottle of beer with the other.

Much to his amusement, you placed the cool bottle between your breasts, grimacing and shivering at the sensation of the cold, wet glass on your skin. And then, leaning in to him, pulling the buckle down and undoing the beer. As you sank back down onto your heels, the beer frothed up and foamed over the lip, liquid spilling out over the spout and onto your breasts. Without even realising it, George licked his lips.

Trying to stop the overflow of foam, you leaned forward and closed your lips around the long neck of the bottle, letting your mouth sink a little. He'd never considered before how entirely arousing it would be to bring beer into the bedroom, but you were inspiring him. His mind was racing, his face flushing with heat as his cock twitched against his underwear.

You sucked the neck of the bottle a little longer, removing your mouth with a pop. A quick glance down showed you the mess you had made. Your chest glistening with slightly sticky liquid. Once you had placed the bottle on the table, you lifted your hands to cup at your breasts, lifting your gaze to George, finding him focused on your body.

"Look at the mess I've made. If only there was someone who enjoyed beer who could clean it up for me."

He wiggled with excitement, like an enthusiastic puppy. If he'd had ears, they would have perked up, his tail would have been wagging. His tongue... well, his tongue actually was out, panting in anticipation of getting to lap at your breasts.

With a quick flit of his eyes to yours, you caught the mischievous glint as he moved to you.

"That was a good trick, Sheila. Now let me show you mine."

[eblu3]

this is really cool and a feature that firefox was sorely lacking (chrome/safari/etc has had this for a while): installing websites as apps. I've got tumblr running in its own window without any of the browser cruft right now

[queenlua]

what would you recommend as a first Fire Emblem game to play? do i just pick up the latest one, or does an older one capture the True Fire Emblem Experience(tm) better? sorta like Super Metroid still being my absolute favorite of that series…

iiiiiinteresting question, huh! it probably depends somewhat on what you think you'll like / care about the most in a Fire Emblem game?

my personal first FE game was Sacred Stones & i think that's still a really good place to start. the spritework is *gorgeous*; i personally think it's the visual peak of the series. it's got the core "old-school" FE gameplay but with lots of nice quality-of-life improvements (as compared to e.g. something like FE4 or FE7), and the story is my second-favorite in the series after the Tellius games—just a good core emotional core with really well-drawn characters and support conversations.

the drawback is that it's on GBA, so if you don't have one of those lying around (or some other handheld to play it on), you're stuck playing it on an emulator on a computer, which i think hampers the enjoyment somewhat—like, i played a lot of that game in "in-between" moments, while on the bus, etc, and it was really excellent for that. also: it's on the easier side! which i didn't mind; i find the FE game loop enjoyable both when i'm just cruising through baddies AND when i'm having to tightly & rigorously strategize every move. but i know a couple people who stopped playing because they found it too easy & got bored

i do think the Gamecube/Wii FEs (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, aka the Tellius games) hold up really well. obviously i am a little insane about them *stares at fanfiction output* and thus clearly biased, but the character writing is shockingly good & rich (sometimes despite itself, lol), and the gameplay's real fun! reasonably challenging while not making you want to throw your controller across the room (unless you opt into lunatic you mad lad!). i do think they're a little ugly though lol. rip. also, if you like PoR enough to play RD, you'll find RD... uneven. it's uneven in ways that mostly delight me, but like, yeah it's suffering a little from "we're telling like four different storylines with a HUGE cast & jerking you around between them a bit" so it interrupts the usual "smooth progression of your carefully-curated army" gameflow for something more like "wow, hope you're looking forward to saying BYE FELICIA to all your old dudes & putting down a random rebellion in Crimea for exactly five chapters & then doing something else entirely."

those games are my personal faves though and. i will always tell people to start with them. in principle. but you should decide if you trust me lol

a WHOLE lot lot of people got started with Awakening, and the core gameplay in that one is VERY fun. about halfway through, if you're sufficiently clever at assigning abilities, the game becomes a little too easy to "break," but it's an enjoyable ride the whole time. it also introduced a LOT of the quality-of-life improvements people now take for granted in modern FEs (you can choose to disable permadeath; UX is much nicer; etc). so if dealing with some old-school cruft is unpalatable to you, you'll definitely want Awakening or newer.

unfortunately the writing in Awakening is, uh, not great, lol. there's two generations of characters you're playing as, and the first generation is just... not very interesting! very one-note and tropey! storyline is nonsense! the second-generation characters are a little more fun but overall i found the main plot's incoherence + the plethora of dull characters meant that i found the story very forgettable.

i think the writing in Conquest/Birthright is similarly weak but i do have to say, if you want to powergame and optimize stats and get REALLY SWEATY GAMEPLAY NERD about it, Conquest can't be beat. best map design in the series, extremely challenging, etc

and then there's the massive fandom juggernaut known as Three Houses lol. of the "modern" FEs, this game contains the most Stuff I Like About Fire Emblem. the storyline's a lil jankier than e.g. the Tellius storyline, but still has plenty of fun stuff to chew on, and even if you don't some of the 3-4 storylines offered, there's a pretty strong chance you'll resonate with at least one of them. and the gameplay is *fun*, lots of QoL improvements, reasonably snappy...

...but it does have a somewhat bloated, "AAA-gamification" feel. visiting the monastery between EVERY SINGLE FUCKING CHAPTER to do "home base"-y stuff gets old fast. and also, the gameplay starts to drag some as you go along... a campaign takes like 40-50hrs iirc, and near the end, i usually find myself going like "jfc i don't WANT to do these three skirmish battles before i go onto the next one... but i need to because it's the Objectively Optimal Thing To Do... why is this game making playing it so annoying," lol. also, the writing, while reasonably solid... could've been reduced by like 50% and probably been *stronger*? most "old-school" FE games only had 3-5 support conversations per unit, and that was generally enough to give a good sense of the character without Overwhelming With Pointless Chatter. but so many characters in Three Houses have *so much more* text than that and it just starts feeling like.. a chore... to go through... especially when in practice i won't even like all those conversations... so yeah idk

tl;dr if you have slightly old-school sensibilities, get Sacred Stones; if you want a "modern" feel, get Awakening or Three Houses; if you want to make Lua Internetperson happy, personally, you should grab Path of Radiance :P