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Illustrations from Tales From the House of Baba Yaga by Emory Kjelsberg

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I dont really like making rebloggable posts but I haven’t seen anyone mention them yet: terracotta heaters are really easy and effective DYI heaters for cold emergencies and I think it might be helpful considering, you know

TDLR, place a candle of any size down, and put a terracotta pot (as large as possible preferably) over it, with something non-flammable and balanced to keep the bottom an inch or two off the ground, like bricks. 

The candle will heat the terracotta, which will put off heat, while the space underneath lets smoke out and oxygen in. I’ve used these all 3 times we had outages here in Maine during blizzards to keep my aquariums warm, the weather outside had been easily -20 F with high winds, and not only was I cozy, that shit kept the water 10 degrees above room temperature. If it can heat the aquariums, it’ll heat a small room.

They work so much better than you’d think, the heat they put off is insane. Obviously be careful because smoke and open flame, but they’re very easy to make and just need an eye kept on them on all times.

 Don’t touch the heated pot bare-handed, it’ll burn like a motherfucker, they get VERY hot. Use thick oven mitts or layered rags to remove pot, put the candle out first if you can manage. Don’t do more than one or two in a non-ventilated or closed room, it’s still making smoke and that can make it harder to breathe.

[ID: Two bricks are laid flat, two bricks are stacked on top on their sides. A candle is in a jar inbetween and is lit. A large terracotta pot is balanced on the second, higher set of bricks so it is above the candle and off the ground. End Id]

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For those who lack wood stoves or other alternative means of heating, techniques like this could save your life in winter power outages

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[Image ID: A picture of a bee and a wasp, both labeled. Both are colored yellow and black. Facts are listed about each one in their respective columns.

Bee:

Cute and fuzzy, like a friend

Make honey

Come in pretty colors with different occupations (blue orchard bee, carpenter bee)

Pollinators!

Freeloaders who will come build hives in the walls of your house

Communicate with dancing

According to all known laws of aviatin, honey bees can fly up to 15 mph

Like sweet things

Over 20,000 species--not just honeybees!

Wasp:

Cool and sleek, like a motorcycle

Prey on pests

Come in pretty, iridescent colors (ruby tailed wasp)

Will try to mooch off your drinks (so check your cans!)

Pollinators!

Leave you paper nests that you can sell to collectors

Communicate with smells

Like sweet things

Over 30,000 species--not just [kind I hate]

At the very bottom, in smaller text, is the URL bug-maniac.tumblr.com. /End ID]

NO ANTI-WASP SENTIMENTS ON THIS POST

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J'mon Sa Ord 💛

New quickie of this gorgeous creature, J'mon Sa Ord, the Soul of the Jeweled City, is the ruler of Ank'Harel. Loved the latest season of The Legend of Vox Machina, wish I had more time to draw for myself, but I am currently too overwhelmed with work and charity projects. Still I could not hold back from drawing such a beautiful character, I hope you people like them too.

If you like my art, consider tipping! MY TIP JARS HERE ❤️‍🩹

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Vex: i dont want us be together

Percy: ok, we arent then

Vex: ಠ⁠ಗ⁠ಠ

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Occasionally forget people genuinely think capitalism is thousands of years old

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i never understood what made steampunk punk. romanticizing georgian era england and industrial revolutions are some of the least punk things ever. youre putting gears on a top hat

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One day, Clark is bored at work so he messages Bruce saying as much, hoping they could talk for a bit to help pass the time.

What he did not expect was for Bruce to tweet 'ostriches arn't real'.

The office becomes alive with activity. Perry marches over and tells Clark to write an article about how one of the richest men in the world does not believe a bird exists.

The interview?

Clark Kent: "Would you care to elaborate on what you meant about not believing ostriches exist?"

Bruce Wayne: "No."

Others then ask Bruce what his thoughts on other birds are. Penguins? Real. Flamingos? Not real. Pigeons? Some are, some arn't. It depends.

On the upside Clark's afternoon became a whole lot less boring. On the downside there is now a Twitter account called 'BirdsBruceWThinksArntReal'.

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Pokémon matchbox designs.

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I am becoming aware of the effect a lack of trust in the media has had on people, paired with a dearth of research skills.

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By sheer chance I found your Mass Effect posts and can I say, after YEARS of a hellscape of everyone constantly delighting in playing ultra racist Renegade Shepards it is SUCH a breath of fresh air to see Paragon Earthborn Shepards that defend batarians

I pretty much exclusively play Colonist in part BECAUSE with all of a colonist Shepard's history, I think that her choosing not to hate all batarians because of it hits in exactly the best way.

(I've also got some fic if you're interested! If you like the exploration of a paragon Shepard's compassion for the batarian people, Aren't You Supposed To Be-- is probably a good place to start)

I think at its core ME is about.... People aren't perfect. Sometimes they're not even all that good. Pretty much every single character in Mass Effect starts as kind of a shitty person. Garrus is shitty copaganda made flesh, Ash sucks, Kaidan has never met a moral stance he wouldn't compromise instantly if he met literally any pushback at all, Tali is horrifying about the geth, Wrex is a jaded misanthrope lashing out at the world... the list goes on. Jack started out viewing you as her ticket to a nice long vacation as a serial killer on the way to dying bloody and mean in her 20s. I mean, look at Miranda. Christ.

And what ME is about, in the end, is..........who can we become, we imperfect kind of shitty people shaped by the way the world has failed us and the way we've failed the world? Who can we become with a little bit of time, a little bit of patience, a single second chance? Just a little bit of guidance, a little bit of challenge, a well-timed "you did good"? A support system? One person who looks us in the eye and says "you're better than this" and believes it when we can't? Who acknowledges that sometimes people don't earn that faith, but when they don't, well, we'll deal with it then--we're not going to break faith first.

I won't let fear compromise who I am.

What can we become, when someone it would be justified to give up on is met with an open hand, and a promise that there's a future if they have the courage to believe it's not a trick?

Mass Effect is about how cruelty is easy. It's not "making the hard choice", it's not "doing what has to be done when no one else is willing to". Being cruel and petty and short-sighted is easy. It's so, so easy. It's easy to see a possible threat and kill it, right now, immediately, so it can't hurt you. It's easy. It feels safe. It feels like you're taking control, taking matters into your own hands, being strong and decisive, but it's not. It's weak, it's fear-based, it's lazy, it's cowardice, it's easy. It's so easy. It destroys the galaxy.

Compassion is so fucking hard. Making yourself vulnerable on purpose, showing good faith that a lot of people don't earn, that backfires sometimes, that can get you hurt--showing mercy without knowing whether that mercy will help or hurt you in the long run--that's scary. It doesn't feel safe, it doesn't feel strong, it feels like giving up control because that's true; controlling someone isn't compassion, and trust requires you to let go of control.

Mass Effect is about how a thousand tiny moments of the courage to be kind save the world. It's about how people become better when they're allowed to--given an exit ramp from a dark path, reminded of the person they once wanted to be. It's about gripping someone by the hand and telling them you are better than this until they, too, start to believe it.

Except for Liara. Liara gets like exponentially worse on every possible moral level and that is, to be clear, a compliment made with deep affection.

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part of the fun of the original alien is the horror of the nostromo itself imo. it’s a cell of corporate greed ferrying narrowly-trained workers across barren space. it’s huge and yet claustrophobic, cockpits crammed with machinery giving way to yawning berths dripping chains and water. the supercomputer is named mother in a stroke of human anthropomorphization, but instead of providing comfort or protection, it’s only a courier between its creator and its wailing brood. ripley yells “mother! mother!” at a matronly-voiced computer that speaks calmly over her helplessness. the ship is full of endless details and patterns and unlabeled buttons and dials the audience can’t entirely make sense of; to do anything on the ship is a rigorous, technical process, and we must depend on the characters to know it. the internal mechanics of the ship are so alien that a literal alien can hide among the bits and bobs and not be noticed. it’s great.

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Zoozve, my beloved

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"sex scenes have no narrative purpose" is such a funny take on so many levels. people will really believe that the whole human experience is valuable to portray artistically except sex, which of course has never held emotional weight or significance for anybody

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the funniest part of the jason x sex scene post is actually watching jason x and finding out that the sex scene was plot relevant because jason revives at the very same time they were having sex in the room next door and it's implied that jason could sense them having sex while he was cryogenically frozen and it pissed him so much (because he hates sex) that it revived him. if you removed it you would make the movie less funny.

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i think mass effect should have a cut scene where Shepard is failing miserably at assembly a spaceship model. Nothing else happens it's just like two minutes of you accdientally super gluing mini spaceship parts to your fingers