#who comes up with these holidays?

[othmeralia]

January 12th is National Hot Tea Day.

These two letters, both from Eleanor Roosevelt, are all about tea! The letter on the left was sent to Edwin M. Ross by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt accepting Mr. Ross' offer to analyze and duplicate London city water so it could be used to serve tea to the King and Queen of England.

The letter on the right was sent to Betz Laboratories on June 9, 1939, after the English monarchs had visited the White House, as a thank you for fabricating water identical to that found in London.

Take a closer look at the letters in our digital collection: click here and here!

[secretsimpleness]

Sometimes I want to bring Morrigan but then I remember I play as a face-tanking rogue and I bring Wynne. Warden Cousland, Morrigan, Wynne / Dragon Age Origins (c) Bioware

[little-pondhead]

Oops.

While learning to control his powers under the guidance of Clockwork, Danny accidentally curses his own bloodline with the Curse of Sentient Food several centuries in the past. Originally, a witch was supposed to curse his family. Oops. Well, the Fentons were always adapting, and technically, either way, he'd end up battling dino nuggets at three am in his underwear, no matter who the curse came from. So he shrugged and continued on.

Unfortunately, this also means that out of nowhere, the timeline shifted, and some of his very distant relatives are now battling their food into submission at every meal because Danny is ultimately way more powerful than some mortal witch from the 1600s. His version of the curse reached literally everyone he could ever be related to for the last few centuries. Even if they were adopted into the family!

So, returning to the present time after training, Danny is a little startled to see some news clips of people's dinners coming to life and beginning revolutions. Wow, John Fentonightingale really got around, didn't he? He felt a little uncomfortable that now all these random people had to deal with their share of Fenton luck, but from some of the interviews, everyone seemed to be handling it pretty well!

Especially his so-distant-they're-on-another-tree cousins, the Kents, who contacted his family directly, asking how best to prepare a zombie turkey. Their son was coming for Thanksgiving with his new wife and some coworkers, and they just refused to make the guests fight for their lives on a holiday!

They invited the Fentons to join them, of course.

[expelliarmus]

[aquanutart]

I absolutely LOVE the Squirtle/Wartortle illustrations by kantaro in Pokemon 151!

The Squirtle jumping so joyfully from the rock into the ocean, the colors are STUNNING! I love the contrast of the Squirtle's aqua blue framed in the vivid orange sky, the soft bit of blue reflecting in its shell and its tail just catching the sun, how little and squishy its body looks as it launches itself towards the water with such tremendous excitement!

The lineless style of the background gives me the feel of a travel poster and I sense the tropical environment around it from the rocks and trees framing the corners, the waterfall splashing with as much energy as the Squirtle!

The layered blues on the surface of the water and the bubbles rising at the corner make me FEEL the liquid rising to meet the Squirtle--I can just feel how the next moment it's going to break through and be immersed in a cool island swim!

And the Wartortle running along the sunset beach, this is somehow everything I always imagined for Wartortle! I adore the way the rich purple melts into the warm red/orange sky, the matching purple clouds and shadows in the foreground, and how the dimming sunlight glows red on Wartortle's deep blues!

I love how the yellow and orange of the sky illuminate the lapping waves, I can just feel the gentle motion of the sea at dusk. The aqua color of the ocean matches Wartortle's ears and tail and sets off the red-orange sand, I just love how the colors are here!

Wartortle looks so round and squishy, I love its happiness as it goes frolicking through the shallows, chasing the bubbles caught in the setting sun! The shine and deep shadow on its shell give it an almost jewel texture like real tortoise shell; I love the silhouetted splash Wartortle leaves as it goes running across the shore. It's so full of energy and delight at the end of a gorgeous day! The colors in these are SO vivid and harmonized and the style is so cute and bursting with energy and joy. I just LOVE it (also Squirtle is my starter)

[serpentface]

FAMILY TITLES AMONG THE HILL TRIBES

(ft. various linguistic notes and tangents)

In-universe Brakul’s self-given title of ‘Red-Dog’ is Brakul 'ne-Dainh' in his native language (Bict-Urbinnas dialect of the Highland language group) and Brakul 'Chin-Reyla' in Wardi. Ne-Dainh/Chin-Reyla is not something he treats as or considers an actual surname or identity, just a self-styled nickname. He already has a title.

Family names/surnames are not a native practice among the Hill Tribes (though some clans or individual families have adopted this practice), and all traditionally use titles that designate immediate ancestry, clan and tribe. These full titles are officially given when one comes of age and are spoken aloud in ceremony (with the entire direct male and female lines listed by name, with most traditions expecting 12 generations of each being named).

The function is to cement one’s sense of place in the world, and their place in a direct ancestral line, which puts the person under the full watch and guidance of their ancestors. It's also a critical method of recording lineage- the long held practice of each person memorizing at least 24 total direct ancestors allows for very long, largely accurate records of family history to be kept, with some people able to trace their ancestry all the way back to initial settlement of the Highlands (or even beyond).

Brakul’s full title is:

“Brakul virsum Kuligan et Borunil an Briyonis ne-Taig an Bict-Urbinnas”

Which dead literally translates to “Brakul son of Kuligan and Borunil of the Foothills (of) Red-Cattle, of the North (Urbin/Erubin) River Valley” but has a much richer meaning in the original language.

"BRAKUL VIRSUM KULIGAN ET BORUNIL"

The actual meaning here is closer to ‘Brakul, son of Kuligan and his father’s fathers, and Borunil and her mother’s mothers’.

“Virsum” means ‘child (son/daughter) of’ (the gender is contextual), but implies the person’s status as a descendant of a full male and female line of ancestors. A different word is used if you’re just saying ‘I’m so and so’s son”. The title describes him as a son of his father Kuligan and of Kuligan’s male line, and of his mother Borunil and Borunil's female line.

All ancestors (within this particular system of kinship, divided into one direct male line from the father and one direct female line from the mother, and not including husbands from the female line or wives from the male line) are invoked and credited with the word ‘virsum’. Speaking it as part of the personal title is part of the routine and necessary honoring of one’s ancestors, who watch over their descendants from the afterlife and can temporarily return to the land to guide and protect (and sometimes punish, or teach sharp lessons to) the living.

"AN BRIYONIS NE-TAIG"

The actual meaning here would be understood as ‘clan/people of the foothills where cattle are lit red by the setting sun'.

‘Briyonis’ is the word for ‘foothill’, citing his clan’s specific location being the foothills that form the slopes of the north Urbin river valley. He is of a lesser clan within the powerful North Urbin River tribe. His clan benefits from close affiliation to their more powerful ruling clans located directly in the river valley, which grants them access to a greater variety of cultivated foods, but their actual position in the foothills still renders them predominantly reliant on cattle for subsistence. Clan names referencing cattle or horses are very common, given their frequent centrality to life.

The ‘ne-Taig’ literally means ‘red cattle’, but the ‘ne’ color word for red specifically invokes shades of red seen in and cast by a rising/setting sun. This red cast is culturally regarded as a unique beauty and evocative (and part of the name) of the solar god Hraighne. The foothills his clan is physically located on are a vantage point from which the western horizon is not fully obscured by mountains, and they experience very striking sunsets and are directly touched by the light. This is fairly unique to this location, and is invoked in the clan name and identity. ‘Ne-Taig’ here suggests a visual of grazing cattle illuminated red by the sun as it crosses the horizon.

‘Ne-Dainh’ carries the same implication, a dog illuminated red by setting sunlight. The Wardi language does not have a comparable word for a sunlit red and ‘Chin-Reyla’ really does just mean ‘(orangeish) red dog’ (‘reyla’ is specific to orangey-red colors, which is the closest match he could get. There’s no way to impart the meaning of ‘sunlit-red dog’ in Wardi that is non-clunky enough to be appropriate for a name).

"AN BICT-URBINNAS"

‘an Bict-Urbinnas’ is fairly simple, Bict means ‘north’, and 'Urbin' is the name of the specific river that stems from a northern and eastern tributary. This river has a very ancient name (or a derivative of one) that predates settlement by the Hill Tribes, and its exact meaning is lost.

The root -(n)nas designates a river valley, but has strong implications of being an esteemed and bountiful place, rather than solely a literal geographical descriptor (as the river valleys are centers of power and trade in the highlands). It may be a loanword from the Wardi language family, as its usage is VERY similar in form and function to the Wardi -(n)nos, which also suggests a place of esteem and bounty (more specifically having connotations of a kingdom).

’An’ literally means ‘of’, but in the specific sense of describing the place and identity of a collection of people. ‘an Bict Urbinnas’ would be understood in speech as ‘of the north Urbin River Valley (people)’. The clans historically settled in and around the valley of the North Urbin River form the totality of the Bict-Urbinnas tribe.

The ‘Urbin’ word predates the contemporary Wardi name ‘Erubin’ for the river, the latter of which invokes the semi-mythological founding figure Erub, who himself was of a Wardi tribe located downriver to the south of the Highlands. The real historically extant ‘Erub’ was most likely named Urub after the river, with his cited name shifting over the centuries in folklore, and the Wardi name for the river shifting with it.

‘Erubin’ as a corruption of ‘Urbin’ functions very well in Wardi language due to ‘-bi/bin’ denoting something as a ‘gift’, usually in a more metaphorical sense. ‘Erubin’ is understood as meaning ‘(The river that is) Erub’s gift’, and the Erubin/Urbin river is a key tributary to the much larger Black river, one of the key rivers that feeds the region's wetter and more fertile west. This 'gift' meaning also occurs in the name of the southeastern Imperial Wardi city-state Erubinnos, which is understood as meaning ’((The kingdom that is) Erub’s gift’. He is considered to have conquered and taken the land (from the core city's actual founders, the Wogan people) and established a kingdom there in the early days of warring Wardi tribal monarchies.

[skibasyndrome]

.

[ducktollers]

kill yourself 👍

[moistvonlipwig]

9 10 16 please? :D (cwsg, i’m sorry)

aye aye cap'n 🫡 under the cut for length

9. worst part of canon

I think it has to be Mon-El, who is so very terrible that even now he is stealing my ability to kvetch about other things. ...Luckily, this is my blog, so I can do what I want. So the other worst part of canon was the demonization and eventual murder of Manchester Black at J'onn's hands in the same season that saw James cozying up to the Children of Liberty (WHY) and the Superfriends insisting that killing them (the neo-Nazi analogues), even to prevent them from killing their marginalized alien targets, was Wrong and Bad.

(Crisis on Earth-X was pretty bad, too. Not sure how it didn't occur to any of the higher-ups that putting their heroes in Nazi uniforms in order to make them ~Cool Villains~ was maybe kind of a super fucking antisemitic thing to do.)

10. worst part of fanon

I was sorely tempted to just answer this with "el problema es el racismo," but thinking on it further that is technically the worst part of fandom, whereas fanon is generally understood to mean (a) post-colonial Marxist philosopher Frantz Fanon or (b) fan-constructed canon, i.e. headcanons that have become popular and widely accepted by many people in a fandom (sometimes to the point where people mistakenly believe that these headcanons are canon). I've already talked about my problems with the "Kara is a genius"/"Krypton is Advanced™ and Earth is Primitive™" take, as well as the "Lena never really cared about James" take; other popular fanon ideas I can't stand include "Clark is an asshole" (no >:( I like Clark), "J'onn is Alex and Kara's space dad" (citation needed), and "Eliza Danvers is the best mom ever" (when, lest we forget, Alex's whole Deal is a direct result of her Not being the best mom ever lol). Um...there's probably more but to be honest I'm blanking on what they would be.

16. you can’t understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Hm, well, I could talk about general fanfic tropes I don't get but I prefer to stay fandom-specific in order to maximize damage from my biting and maiming. So I'll just expand on what I commented on your earlier post: I don't understand the appeal of the trope where Kara shows Lena Disney movies or imparts upon her the True Meaning of Christmas and thus transforms her life from one of forever sadness to one of joyful bliss. I'm not saying I don't like fics where Kara's presence in Lena's life improves her life -- ideally, I would imagine that both of them improve each other's lives. But the specific trope of "OMG, Lena had an abnormally wealthy and abusive childhood and thus has never done [normative thing for American (Christian) children to do that there is no canon evidence she hasn't done and also that is not necessary for healthy childhood psychological development], we must rectify this immediately!!!" baffles me.

[iguessitsjustme]

2023 End of Year QL Ask Game

I created an End of Year QL Ask Game last year and thought I’d update it for this year. Some of the questions are the same, but some are changed. Have fun and enjoy our last few days of QL this year!

1. What are your top 10 QL this year?

2. What show surprised you the most?

3. What show did you have high expectations for, but ended up disappointing you?

4. Who are your top 5 favorite characters this year?

5. Who are your top 5 favorite pairings this year?

6. What show had the best opening song?

7. Best soundtrack in a show?

8. Best single song in a show?

9. Did you create anything for the fandom this year (gifs, fics, etc)? What’s one of your favorite things that you created? Link to it if you can.

10. What’s a show that didn’t air this year, but you watched this year that you enjoyed?

11. If you had to recommend just one QL from this year to someone, what would you recommend?

12. Best kiss of the year?

13. What are your 5 least favorite tropes used this year?

14. What are your top 5 favorite tropes used this year?

15. What is your favorite scene from a QL this year?

16.. What show do you wish had been longer?

17. What show should have been shorter?

18. Did you drop any shows this year?

19. What character had the best fashion sense? What character had the worst?

20. What show from this year do you love that wasn’t popular?

21. Who was the softest character/pairing in QL this year? Which pairing had the best communication?

22. Who was your favorite side couple this year?

23. Who was the best side character not involved in a couple?

24. Which character deserved better than what they got?

25. Did you have any fun fandom experiences this year?

[possiblyfunny]

With all the Missing Numbers Doodles popping up today, I finally found it in me to actually doodle and not care about how it looked. Anyways—

Here is Aster’s Halloween Costume! I didn’t color it, but Aster is Little Red Riding Hood and Del is the Werewolf. He’s not trick-or-treating, by the way—he’s just handing out king-sized chocolate bars to everyone he passes while walking around!

It’s not much- Just a goofy little thing to celebrate the holiday. Happy Halloween, everyone!

(Psst-! Hey, @100nebulas ! Starry! I know it’s not a lot, but I promised! Here’s your small dose of Aster content :])

[cranberrymoons]

.

[hotasfahrenheit]

What are you doing?

I'm resting at home, alone.

No. I hate that.

[NCT 127 - Home Together]

[Home Together gifsets 1 | 2]

[todayisafridaynight]

i’m pretty surprised that you can be in a fandom without really checking the tags regularly for new content or discussions that’s pretty impressive

ive got twitter for that and twitter has shown me enough as is

[llycaons]

my haterisms are back bc what the fuck does this mean and what does 'going wrong' even entail

[brothfan1997]

the problem with working a job where u interact with like 1500 people per day & u are supposed to be charming and informative the whole time is that sometimes you are so weird on accident?? and u say something that is so weird to say to another person out loud ?? and u just have to be like :) lets pretend that was normal. do you have any other questions