#the foundation of knowledge to do so

[feralparsnip]

there was something about joining xhs + putting in my cell & trying to find my area code and scrolling past +600~ 3 digit numbers & like. I have made international calls b4. but there was something abt scrolling past to get to the +1.

bc i live in the eagleburger goodness index top country at the tip of the imperial extraction machine and like i know that but sometimes it just knocks the wind out of me yk

[mel-hath-no-fury]

Hey Dragon Age friends, I got some freaky trivia for you.

Anyone remember the Disney Channel original movie Don't Look Under the Bed (1999)? It was a Halloween movie about a teenage girl getting harassed by a mysterious figure called "the Boogeyman," who exists because she stopped believing her imaginary friend too early? It's a weird core memory movie for me because it scared the shit out of me as a kid.

Anyways, wanna know who played the Boogeyman?

^^^ This guy? Steve Valentine.

You know who else Steve Valentine played?

ALISTAIR FUCKING THEIRIN.

Alistair "golden retriever incarnate and my first dragon age romance ever" Theirin was played by the main character of my childhood nightmares.

[nauticaltrain]

hey btw if anybody needs any advice on sewing, hit me up. My qualifications are: I am a tailor

[charmac]

x

[faggling]

I love taking care of people omggg 😍😍😍

[megid0nt]

*grooving in my seat to a song in my head*

[ruvviks]

MORE twister valley lore if anyone's interested. it's the first story of the fractured anthology both in the publishing order as well as [current] chronological order :] it doesn't mention calamity much yet because it's still very ~ mysterious ~ about the organization but two of the main characters are in fact part of it. they're the ones who brought the gang back together for "one last gig", because they were assigned the case on account of their history with tornadoes and they thought it would be a good idea to bring the team back together for it since they used to be the best in their field :]

[twilightichor]

𝐂𝐋𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐈. The release of the book collection Perinheri brought a few new details about Khaenri'ah that were mentioned previously one way or another but never specified more in depth as they do in this collection. One of the topics of interest I've found is the existence not only of the black sun and crimson moon as the astronomical phenomenons present there as the norm (solar and lunar eclipse respectively), but the names that the two dynasties take after: Crimson Moon Dynasty as the earliest upon Khaenri'ah's formation and Eclipse (or the old Blacksun) Dynasty, each name taking after the current astronomical phenomenon that Khaenri'ah is exposed.

Simultaneously, these two dynasties have aspects that differentiate them clearly from one another:

Crimson Moon Dynasty → During this period —which goes as far back in time as the times when birds had yet to be split into domestic and wild kindreds—, an orphanage was established in the pursuit of individuals who could transcend gods that came from outside the Kingdom. Said transcendent one never came, not even at the end of the Eclipse Dynasty punctuated by the Cataclysm.

A special command of knights existed that would no longer be present during the Eclipse Dynasty, and that is the Beastmaster Knights which used darksprites (riftwolves and their family of beasts) in order to fight outside sources of danger that poured from the Abyss. These darksprites are said to have been created via alchemy and more precisely yet, their first creator was none other than Gold.

Eclipse Dynasty → The period that came after the Crimson Moon Dynasty, known to be a darker one yet than the previous one. The prospect of using beasts to fight foreign sources that could bring dangers to the kingdom has fallen into disuse and instead, automatons began to be made and used in their stead. Nevertheless, towards the end of the civilization of Khaenri'ah these darksprites were being used in spying operations such as in Sumeru, or as a means of testing dangerous automatons in the making in outside factories.

Furthermore, it's relevant to mention that creation through alchemy continued even if these beasts weren't used anymore as part of the kingdom's military, granted that Gold aimed for bigger creations such as Durin and Elynas among other beasts as well as human creation with Albedo being her finest work of all that is known.

One last thing of interest is that the eclipse and the crimson moon were mentioned together in another instance that is Dain's official introduction:

◜[...] Chalk pursues gold, in this time inopportune, the eclipse is swallowed by the crimson moon. [...]◞

[louisdotmp3]

that pipeline of anti-intellectualism to the worst/most lukewarm political opinions on leftist politics. like actually maybe you guys should know a little bit about what you're talking about and then you won't sound so foolish or have to constantly reinvent theory & discourse that was already covered extensively in the 20th century

[moreaujeans]

holyyy shit

[alexanderwales]

I'm a big fan of wizards-as-programmers, but I think it's so much better when you lean into programming tropes.

A spell the wizard uses to light the group's campfire has an error somewhere in its depths, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. The wizard spends a lot of his time trying to track down the exact conditions that cause the failure.

The wizard is attempting to create a new spell that marries two older spells together, but while they were both written within the context of Zephyrus the Starweaver's foundational work, they each used a slightly different version, and untangling the collisions make a short project take months of work.

The wizard has grown too comfortable reusing old spells, and in particular, his teleportation spell keeps finding its components rearranged and remixed, its parts copied into a dozen different places in the spellbook. This is overall not actually a problem per se, but the party's rogue grows a bit concerned when the wizard's "drying spell" seems to just be a special case of teleportation where you teleport five feet to the left and leave the wetness behind.

A wizard is constantly fiddling with his spells, making minor tweaks and changes, getting them easier to cast, with better effects, adding bells and whistles. The "shelter for the night" spell includes a tea kettle that brings itself to a boil at dawn, which the wizard is inordinately pleased with. He reports on efficiency improvements to the indifference of anyone listening.

A different wizard immediately forgets all details of his spells after he's written them. He could not begin to tell you how any of it works, at least not without sitting down for a few hours or days to figure out how he set things up. The point is that it works, and once it does, the wizard can safely stop thinking about it.

Wizards enjoy each other's company, but you must be circumspect about spellwork. Having another wizard look through your spellbook makes you aware of every minor flaw, and you might not be able to answer questions about why a spell was written in a certain way, if you remember at all.

Wizards all have their own preferences as far as which scripts they write in, the formatting of their spellbook, its dimensions and material quality, and of course which famous wizards they've taken the most foundational knowledge from. The enlightened view is that all approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, but this has never stopped anyone from getting into a protracted argument.

Sometimes a wizard will sit down with an ancient tome attempting to find answers to a complicated problem, and finally find someone from across time who was trying to do the same thing, only for the final note to be "nevermind, fixed it".

[gothamphantomgoat]

[ourladyoftheflytrap]

I'm so excited to actually learn some science this semester bc I kind of struggle with vague notions of ethics & interpersonal communication but I fucking LOVE science

On a related note, I'm so scared for this semester because it's biochemistry specifically related to the movement of fluid in the body 😭 and that was fascinating to learn in A&P but it was easily the most difficult concept

[orcelito]

Actually it is SO weird to me to remember that I was an engineering student and that later on I had been pursuing a minor in statistics

I may be a IT & com person in the end, but I do have the foundations of engineering and statistics in my brain too. Wild !

[eowynstwin]

Price x Reader. Age gap. Divorced Price. Older BF Price. Vaguely smutty. Follow-up to this.

Price realizes you’ve never had a reliable man in your life exactly the second time he discovers you looking up DIY home maintenance for very simple projects.

It missed him the first time because he was deployed. You’d mentioned offhand how you were figuring out how to rebalance a ceiling fan, and he’d just automatically assumed that you were doing it yourself because he wasn’t there, so he simply praised you for your resourcefulness and lived for the next three weeks off of the way you’d absolutely glowed at his words.

But then he gets home, and one evening on the couch he catches you googling “how to fix a leaky sink.”

“What’s that?” he asks you, tamping down on the sudden feeling of masculine inadequacy that reared up almost immediately at the discovery.

“Faucet handle’s leaking all over my counter when I turn it on,” you say, not looking up from your phone. “Landlord’s out of town and can’t fix it.”

“I’m in town, ain’t I?”

You look up at him then, brows raised. You hadn’t even considered asking him, then.

“Oh—I didn’t want to bother you, John, you only just got back, and you’re tired…”

You trail off at the droll expression on his face.

Price has learned a lot of lessons from his previous marriage. The foundational one: just because he hasn’t been asked to help doesn’t mean he is believed to be unreliable. Adding that lesson to his knowledge base about you—young, modern, independent—calculates out an obvious answer that curtails any sour mood that might have sprouted up over the issue.

He puts his hand over your phone screen and lowers it down to your lap. “I’m fixin’ the sink,” he says simply.

He enjoys the way your eyes dilate at the assertion.

The next day, he shows up at your flat wearing old work clothes and carrying his heavy toolbox in his hand.

(You don’t live together yet—something he’s keen to rectify—but he has a toothbrush in your bathroom and permanent space in your bedroom drawers. He can be content for now.)

And you—you answer the door in the filmiest of sundresses, the ribbon tie on one shoulder hanging at a loose angle.

“Heard you need some plumbing done,” he says in the gruffest of voices, already understanding the game.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here,” you say, barely able to hide your giggle, “I’ve been so worried.”

He steps in close to you, close enough to feel the heat of your body radiating off of your bare skin. He has half a mind to put the charade aside and lift your skirt here and now, but another lesson helpfully springs to mind: anticipation of the act makes the finale all the sweeter.

“I’ll show you to the kitchen,” you murmur, looking up at him with warm, dreamy eyes.

When he gets under the sink, he finds the problem easy enough to fix—the cold water supply line simple isn’t screwed in tight enough, and when he wiggles the whole contraption by the valves he finds that nothing has been tightened up to standard. A couple of years knocking the thing around had probably loosened up the locknut.

He elects to fix the whole problem in one go, while in the meantime you stand off to the side, watching him. He feels your eyes on his legs, trailing up to the hair on his belly exposed by his shirt riding up.

“Sir, I’m sorry, I should’ve said before,” you simper, “but I’m not really sure how I’m gonna pay for this.”

His cock jumps in his jeans, and he feels your gaze move to it as if it’s a physical touch.

He levers himself out a little and meets your eyes, keeping a stern expression on his face.

“I’m sure you’re gonna figure it out,” he says. Looking down at his groin and then back up at your face might be a touch unsubtle, but clear communication had been the most important lesson of all.

He slides himself back under, and pretends he doesn’t feel you approach, or lower to your knees between his spread legs. He ignores your gentle hands falling on the closure of his jeans, the pop of the button coming undone, the parting of the zipper as you pull it down.

“Of course, sir,” you say, “I’m sure I will.”

The softness of your hand meets his growing erection, caressing the head of his cock with your thumb—followed very close behind by the wet, liquid heat of your mouth.

next

[caffeinewitchcraft]

AITA for going no contact with my brother after he pulled a scare on my husband?

EDIT: For those of you coming here from my brother’s post (X) to shit on me, you look like idiots. Try to have an original thought and really contemplate who’s telling the truth after hearing both sides.

I (32f) am one of three siblings. We come from a very well off family. My dad is a former Cryptid and he pioneered the Hook Man in the 70s, so he still gets residuals off of that. We grew up very comfortable and with the ability to do anything we wanted in life. My older brother went to a very prestigious school and my dad gave him the money for tuition. Because my older brother got scholarships, he was able to save some of that money. Right now he works in human tech (very lucrative), but his long-term plan is to use the money to start a Cyber Spook business once he is satisfied with his knowledge foundation.

I ended up taking a gap year before going to community college, but I never felt anything click. I worked part-time jobs spinning out scarer costumes and even did some part-time work as a slasher before deciding it wasn’t for me. I finally found my calling when I offered to help cater for my high school reunion, and now I run a fairly successful catering business.

When it came time for my younger brother, “Steve,” to get his money, he didn’t tell anyone what he was going to use it for. He was working as a Slasher at a small firm in town. We all assumed he’d either go to Scare School or invest the money to start a business like our older brother did.

So when Steve showed up to Halloween dinner one day, six feet taller with extra joints in his arms and legs, we were all shocked.

Dad was furious. He gave us all the same talk about the scare industry when we got our first part-time jobs documenting missions at his company. He told us that scare work was hard and backbreaking. We couldn’t buy our way into it or use his connections to become successful. If we were interested in it, we had to work our way up from the ground like he did. If we didn’t, we’d more than likely end up dead at the hands of a final girl.

He especially emphasized that mods had to be considered carefully and were NOT a substitute for skill.

Steve thought they were. When his company didn’t pay him back for his body modification AND didn’t promote him from Slasher to Regional Nightmare, he quit. But the surgeries drained his cash and he couldn’t afford his apartment anymore. He had to move back in with Mom and Dad. As always, Mom totally coddled him. She said that he didn’t have to pay rent and agreed with whatever he said when he’d go on these long tirades about his former company.

I could tell Dad wasn’t happy with the arrangement, but he’s never been able to go against Mom. So he mostly kept his mouth shut though he did try to get Steve a job at his old company. However, last I heard, Steve was set against anything corporate and was spending a dozen hours a day driving around using the app SlashDash to find jobs.

About a year and a half ago, I was over for dinner with Steve, Mom and Dad. Steve was talking about work. He said SlashDash wasn’t working out for him and was taking too many fees out. I offered advice since I’d done Slashing in high school. I recommended sites like Scarework and Midnighterr to get more gigs.

Mom told me I interrupted Steve. She gestured for him to continue and tell me about his exciting new setup.

Steve told me he was beyond the sites I recommended. He said he’d bought a scanner so he could listen to broadcasts of active corporate missions. When those fail, he arrives on scene to kill any straggling humans before the scare company in question can send a cleanup crew. And since he’s a Slasher on their scene, they have to give him emergency pay for doing it. It’s a total ambulance-chaser, bottom-feeder move.

Dad was just staring at his plate, not saying anything, but I could tell he was ashamed of Steve. Steve was bragging about being a vulture in the profession Dad helped build.

I asked Steve if he was proud of himself for living off of leftovers. Steve blew up at me, but so did Mom. She chided me for not respecting my brother’s hard work and that his idea to get a scanner was genius, not predatory.

After that dinner, Steve and I rarely talked. Most of the news I got about him came from our older brother bitching about Steve badgering him for scare connections or Mom bragging about Steve killing and “meeting quota.” She would get very cold with me when I told her he was finishing a quota someone else started and not doing his own work. She told me if I couldn’t respect Steve, then I was welcome to not come over while he lived with her.

(Yes, Steve’s always been the golden child.)

I stopped interfering with Steve and focused on my own life. Shortly after, I met my wonderful fiancé “Reginald” while catering an event at Dad’s old company. Reginald is the head of sanitation and he’s the one who gets sent out to clean up any unexpected events during a Scare (like any magical residue or body parts that can’t be explained away through human means). He used to want to be a Cryptid, but he’s got a heart condition that prevents him from working in the field. He says that he’s happy being the “janitor” and happier being with me 😊

Reginald and I got engaged after only eight months of dating. Dad always says that when you know, you know. I invited everyone in my family to an engagement party. Steve didn’t bother answering the invitation. Even though Steve and I weren’t on good terms, I was still hurt when he didn’t show.

When I confronted him about it afterwards, he said that he’d been promoted to Regional Nightmare and he was patrolling his territory, and that’s why he couldn’t come. I asked him what company he was working for, and he said he was still using the scanner.

I pointed out that he couldn’t be a Regional Nightmare without a state license since only the state can assign territories. He started going on and on about being his own “Monster” (and let me tell you, extra joints DOESN’T make you a Monster, those guys are way more committed) and that he had passed the state exam.

When I told Reginald about my brother calling himself a Regional Nightmare, he was concerned. He works closely with the legal department, and he said that Steve is opening himself up to lawsuits by declaring public slashing grounds as his “territory.” He offered to talk to Steve.

We went over to Mom and Dad’s house together to confront him. Dad didn’t know he was calling himself a Regional Nightmare and he went pale when I told them why we were there. Reginald explained to Steve and Mom that being certified was different than being licensed. Legally, Steve is a Slasher even if he can control shadows now (which is a VERY expensive talent to acquire if you aren’t born with it. I think Mom may have paid for it).

The conversation didn’t go well. Steve said a lot of nasty things about Reginald not hacking it as Slasher and claimed he was just jealous. He picked on Reginald’s health which I had me seeing red. I asked Steve what there was to be jealous of since he still mooches off of our parents? Mom got involved and it went downhill from there.

All this to say that I didn’t expect Steve to show up at my gender reveal party less than 5 months later.

Reginald and I weren’t planning on kids this early, but we knew it was meant to be as soon as I got that pregnancy test back. We decided to put off our wedding so that our baby can be part of the ceremony that makes us a family. That being said, I did still have a lot of things ordered for the wedding so I turned the day into a baby shower/gender reveal instead.

That brings us to the party my lovely brother wrote about. First of all, he wasn’t invited by me. Mom invited him, and when I found out, I wasn’t happy with her, considering he never apologized to Reginald after our last fight.

Reginald was stuck at work (some idiot brought together a whole summer camp of final girls and the aftermath was brutal) so I had to force myself to be a good hostess. It was mostly fine. We have good friends and my older brother was very kind in helping me with some of the baby games we were planning to play when Reginald finally got there.

Steve, however, was NOT helpful.

He was annoying the whole time. He messed with the kitchen and he hounded the guests. I’m PREGNANT and the smell of raw meat triggers my gag reflex. He took the meat off the heat without me noticing and basically prevented me from eating lunch with everyone else.

Additionally, Steve claimed in his post that the party was dying??? Reginald and Dad have a lot of friends in common so the party did NOT die. They were all interested in talking to Dad. Dad’s voice is very quiet and raspy from strain over the years, so everyone was being quiet to hear him better. Steve was the one practically screaming over him to talk about his scummy job. The new Hook Man who succeeded Dad was there and Steve basically treated the poor man like a novice even though he’s a Cryptid.

Reginald finally got home and I could tell he was exhausted when I met him at the door. He still put on a smile for me though and said he didn’t need to miss out even when I told him it would be okay. He wanted to be there in our big moment to celebrate our family. He went upstairs to change.

I went back to the guests to tell them that we would start the games soon. That’s when I heard Reginald scream and fall down the stairs.

I’ll never forget the look on Reginald’s face. He was lying at the base of the stairs and looked like he was dying. He was gasping for breath and clutching at his chest. I was terrified his heart was giving up. I asked Hook Man to call an ambulance.

That’s when Steve started laughing.

I lost it. I screamed at Steve to get out. He told me to calm down, he’d just scared Reginald a little bit as a joke. I told him he knew about Reginald’s heart condition and that it was incredibly disrespectful to scare my fiancé in our own house.

He said he didn’t mean to scare him that bad, but that he was just better at it than he thought. His scares were too powerful. He seemed smug and was still laughing.

I accused him of intentionally hurting Reginald because of the licensing versus certification argument we had. I said he was a bully and an idiot.

Mom jumped in and said it was an accident.

Dad FINALLY said something. He shadow-walked (the first time in YEARS) up the stairs and hooked Steve by the neck. He dragged all twelve feet of him down the stairs and told him to get out.

Steve said, “For what? It’s not my fault that weak-hearted son of a bitch can’t take a joke.”

Dad lost it. He told Steve a REAL scarer wouldn’t use their abilities like that on their own families. He told Mom and Steve it didn’t matter if he meant it as a joke. The fact is he used his scare tactics on a layperson, and he could get blacklisted from the profession for it.

Dad kicked Steve out and told him he wasn’t welcome back into the basement until he got a REAL job. Steve kept arguing, but the paramedics arrived then and I lost track of the rest of it.

I went with Reginald to the hospital where Reginald insisted we both get checked out. The stress wasn’t good for the baby and doctor told me it might be best to go on maternity leave sooner rather than later. Reginald is also going to be taking a leave from work. He had a heart attack because of my brother.

Things could have ended worse, but they didn’t end well. I told my parents that I refuse to have Steve at my wedding or even to see my child after they’re born (and now I STILL don’t know the gender! Only our older brother knows since he got the gender reveal cake).

Mom started to protest, but Dad said he understood. He said that both he and Mom just wanted me to be happy and healthy and that they would take care of Steve.

So now I leave it up to you. Having read both of our posts, who do you think is the real asshole? My brother for being “proud” of scaring my fiancé into a heart attack at our baby’s gender reveal party? Or me for never talking to said brother again for the health of my future family?

AITA?

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This week's story is based on this (x) prompt from Writing-prompt-s:

You are a person who covers your counter space in clutter and inadvertently makes a shrine to a long forgotten god who shows up to thank you.