unwinding-dreams

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I worked at a book factory and can confirm.

One time I was assigned to take stacks of collated papers (for a Mo Willems elephant and pig book of all things) that were coming out of a port in one of our oldest machines, flip them upside down, and slide them down a metal table for someone to stack on a wooden pallet.

I did that for like 8 hours a day, for a few days straight. I wore gloves so I wouldn’t get a paper cut.

Those stacks of paper RUBBED AWAY AT THE GLOVE in the webbing between my thumb and index finger.

And I still got paper cuts. IN THE WEBBING BETWEEN MY THUMB AND INDEX FINGER.

I’ve never felt more personally attacked in my life.

it's funny because my job involves a lot of using a box cutter, so you'd think that's the thing I'd accidentally hurt myself with the most

but nooo no no no. the box cutter is my colleague, my ally, my friend. you know what is truly bloodthirsty in a print & signage shop? literally Anything Else that's able to cut but not supposed to. cardboard, sheets of plastic, the humble paper of course, corrugated polypropylene, aluminum composite sheets - i nicked myself on a sheet of magnetic material today?? it bled. kinda profusely.

basically:

box cutter: a trusty companion, might hurt you if you handle it wrong, but that's understandable

stuff you use the box cutter on: they know you as their enemy. they know the rules of this life: kill, or be killed. they know what they have to do.

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Some of you may have heard about Monarch butterflies being added to the Threatened species list in the US and be planning to immediately rush out in spring and buy all the milkweed you can manage to do your part and help the species.

And that's fantastic!! Starting a pollinator garden and/or encouraging people and businesses around you to do the same is an excellent way to help not just Monarchs but many other threatened and at-risk pollinator species!

However.

Please please PLEASE do not obtain Tropical Milkweed for this purpose!

Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica)--also commonly known as bloodflower, Mexican butterflyweed, and scarlet milkweed--will likely be the first species of milkweed you find for sale at most nurseries. It'll be fairly cheap, too, and it grows and propagates so easily you'll just want to grab it! But do not do that!

Tropical milkweed can cause a host of issues that can ultimately harm the butterflies you're trying to help, such as--

Harboring a protozoan parasite called OE (which has been linked to lower migration success, reductions in body mass, lifespan, mating success, and flight ability) for long periods of time

Remaining alive for longer periods, encouraging breeding during migration time/overwintering time as well as keeping monarchs in an area until a hard freeze wherein which they die

Actually becoming toxic to monarch caterpillars when exposed to warmer temperatures associated with climate change

However--do not be discouraged!! There are over 100 species of milkweed native to the United States, and plenty of resources on which are native to your state specifically! From there, you can find the nurseries dedicated to selling native milkweeds, or buy/trade for/collect seeds to grow them yourself!!

The world of native milkweeds is vast and enchanting, and I'm sure you'll soon find a favorite species native to your area that suits your growing space! There's tons of amazing options--whether you choose the beautiful pink vanilla-smelling swamp milkweed, the sophisticated redring milkweed, the elusive purple milkweed, the alluring green antelopehorn milkweed, or the charming heartleaf milkweed, or even something I didn't list!

And there's tons of resources and lots of people willing to help you on your native milkweed journey! Like me! Feel free to shoot me an ask if you have any questions!

Just. PLEASE. Leave the tropical milkweed alone. Stay away.

TLDR: Start a pollinator garden to help the monarchs! Just don't plant tropical milkweed. There's hundreds of other milkweeds to grow instead!

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Hello everyone! I wanted to make something funny for Halloween this year, so I thought about snakes.. and a hairstyle... so this is what came out hahaha. This hairstyle is inspired by gorgon Medusa, but I wanted to mix the snakes with real hair. Hope you like it!

-Maxis match

-Base Game compatible

-Female, teen to elder

-Hat compatible

-All LODs

-Disabled for random

-Restricted for opposite frame

-EA swatches + 1 extra color

-Custom thumbnail

-Curseforge

You can find my complete T.O.U here.

Enjoy!

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☀️ Solar Collection

Last month’s content was quite standard so I had to channel the exxtra somewhere. Everything here makes a statement, and that statement is “look!”

Here is my .:nude bottom:. if you want to use the bodysuits as full-body outfits instead of just tops.

Due to the accessories being very detailed, poly count for the highest LOD is 2.5k for the earrings and 3.6k for each of the armlets.

7 new base game compatible items

female, teen to elder

clothes: 27 colors | accessories: 16 metal colors

LODs, maps, thumbnails, color-tagged

disallowed for random

more of #my cc

Accessory skirts are categorized as follows:

as » hat « - are compatible with everything except hats, the texture is mapped on the space for hats so there is no point changing the category

as » toenail « - are compatible with hats but incompatible with some tops/dresses, category doesn’t mean anything and can be changed to anything that’s more convenient

Download links under the cut - early access (public April 20th, 2023) RELEASED

Keep reading

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Into The Future Lookbook

Take your sims to the future with this lookbook 🚀✨ This was treat #4 during Simblreen 2022.

1) hair | top | acc fishnet top | skirt | tights | boots

2) hair | dress | boots

3) hair | top | pants | shoes

4) hair | dress

5) hair | top, skirt, boots, gloves

6) hair | dress | boots | kiki gloves

7) hair, dress

8) hair | dress | boots

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SCI-FI Lookbook

So far the biggest lookbook I’ve made! Some futuristic-ish/sci-fi looks for your sims. This was one of my treats during Simblreen 2021. 

Hair

1) top | bottom | shoes (Get Together)

2) outfit | leggings (Base Game) | shoes

3) top | skirt | boots

4) outfit + helmet (Get Famous)

5) top | bottom | shoes

6) top | acc top | bottom | boots

7) outfit + shoes

8) outfit (Get Famous) | shoes

9) outfit

10) dress | acc top | leggings | boots

11) top | bottom | boots

12) outfit

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Milwaukee's Twin Reefs

Wauwatosa Reef - National Natural Landmark

"[Wauwatosa] Reef is a 425 million year-old fossil reef that grew during the Silurian Period of Earth's history at a time when much of North America was covered by shallow tropical seas. It occurs stratigraphically within the Racine Dolomite. The reef contains a large variety of marine fossil organisms, for which it is famous, including trilobites, cephalopods, brachiopods, bryozoans, clams, snails, and corals. The reef rock is composed of dolomite, a limestone-like sedimentary rock containing magnesium and calcium carbonate. Unlike most sedimentary rocks, which are found in horizontal layers, most of the reef rock is massive, mound-like, and forms a large erosion-resistant rock hill."

- Dr. Joanne Kluessendorf & Dr. Donald Mikulic, National Historical Landmark Nomination form for Wauwatosa Reef

When I saw this landmark listed as "permanently closed" on Google, I assumed that meant it's status as a former quarry. Unfortunately, the entire formation is fenced off with the only entrance gate padlocked shut, so I was unable to get a closer look at the reef and it's accompanying placards. Nonetheless, to behold such a formation was humbling, and a reminder of the ancient age of this piece of earth that has raised me.

Rocky Point Reef - National Natural Landmark

"[Rocky Point] Reef is a fossil reef that grew approximately 400,000,000 years ago during the Silurian Period of Earth's history when this part of North America was located 20° south of the equator and was covered by shallow tropical seas. The reef is situated within the Racine Dolomite, and contains a variety of marine fossils including trilobites, cephalopods, brachiopods, pelmatozoans, bivalves, bryozoans, and corals."

- Dr. Joanne Kluessendorf & Dr. Donald Mikulic, National Historical Landmark Nomination form for Rocky Point Reef

A ten minute drive from the former reef brings you to it's fraternal twin, Rocky Point. While also fenced off like Wauwatosa, there was an opening at the far end of the fence that allowed me a much closer look at this formation. It was covered virtually top-to-bottom in lichens, mosses, and algae, freeing up mineral nutrients that have been sequestered since before trees existed, to re-enter the cycle of life once more. Turning around from the ancient reef, you'll find yourself literally face-to-face with the home stadium of the Milwaukee Brewers and it's accompanying vast parking lots. It's a stark juxtaposition of a monument to ancient life produced by the processes of the earth itself, and a monument of the artificiality and consumption of our taker culture. There surely something more poetic to be written about the experience by someone better with words.

These twins of the Silurian are a part of our heritage as living organisms on this planet. May they continue to be protected from further development for future generations to behold.

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Baby saiga being nestled in the hands of a scientist.

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since it’s a scary time to be trans: refuge restrooms is an app which maps gender-neutral/single-stall restrooms. it’s community-mapped, so it’s possible you might be the first person to log the restroom locations, but hopefully it’ll help some people.

please reblog this post if you’ve got trans followers. stay safe.

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It is with the deepest frustrations that I must report Microsoft has pushed out Copilot onto Microsoft Word no matter what your previous settings were. If you have Office because you paid for it/are on a family plan/have a work/school account, you can disable it by going to Options -> click on Copilot -> uncheck 'Enable Copilot'.

(Note, you may not see this option if you haven't updated lately, but Copilot will still pop up. Updating should give you this option. I will kill Microsoft with my bare hands.)

In addition, Google has forced a roll-out of it's Gemini AI on all American accounts of users over 18 (these settings are turned off by default for EU, Japan, Switzerland, and UK, but it doesn't hurt to check).

To remove this garbage, you must go to Manage Workspace smart feature settings for all your Gmail/Drive/Chat and turn them off. Go to Settings -> See all settings -> find under "Genera" the "Google Workspace smart features" -> turn smart feature setting off for both Google Workspace and all other Google products and hit save. (If you turned off the smart settings in your Gmail, it never hurts to open Drive and double-check that they're set to off there too.)

Quick Edit: I found the easiest way to get to the Smart Feature settings following the instructions above was to do it through Drive. Try that route first.

Now is the time to consider switching to Libre Office if you haven't already.

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BEST PICTURE WINNER, 1985: AMADEUS (Milos Forman)

As a musician, this is probably my favorite film about music and about the greatest composer of all time. It’s a stunning film that is sweeping in scope yet nuanced and so personal at the same time. Tom Hulce and F Murray Abraham give some of the best performances ever captured on screen. I don’t really have much to say, because this I just watched this and, like always, I’m really speechless. This film is fun, powerful, emotional, epic, and tragic. If you haven’t seen it, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND! Oh yeah, and the score fucking slaps. 

[unwinding-dreams]

had a dream that there was this new tiktok trend called "scrubbing" where people would take images of fictional characters and put them in images of bathtubs and drag around transparent pngs of soap and brushes with their tiktok art tablets and like liquify tool their hair down to mimic giving them a shower. and people would get into flamewars in the comments of every single video over the types of soap they picked and if the images had decently removed backgrounds and if they got soap in their eyes. and it got onto the news because it turned out everyone doing the trend was doing it compulsively like they physically couldn't stop and each video was a solid few minutes long because they were just collectively obsessively recording themselves fake-showering these fictional characters and arguing about it online

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Another selection of some of the better names I've come across in Regency era newspapers recently.

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❄️ JOYFUL JANUARY ❄️ a CAS challenge

I adore CAS challenges, and I've challenged (lol) myself to make one for every month this year! Introducing the first one━Joyful January! This challenge is focused around happy things, since January is a difficult month for me mental health wise (and I know is for many others as well). So I figured this would be a nice way to focus on the more joyful things in life, and start the year off right! Feel free to skip days, go out of order, etc.━this challenge is meant to be fun! Tag #joyfuljanuarysims or @ me so I can reblog your creations! Happy simming! ❄️

[unwinding-dreams]

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

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A Guide to Historically Accurate Regency-Era Names

I recently received a message from a historical romance writer asking if I knew any good resources for finding historically accurate Regency-era names for their characters.

Not knowing any off the top of my head, I dug around online a bit and found there really isn’t much out there. The vast majority of search results were Buzzfeed-style listicles which range from accurate-adjacent to really, really, really bad.

I did find a few blog posts with fairly decent name lists, but noticed that even these have very little indication as to each name’s relative popularity as those statistical breakdowns really don't exist.

I began writing up a response with this information, but then I (being a research addict who was currently snowed in after a blizzard) thought hey - if there aren’t any good resources out there why not make one myself?

As I lacked any compiled data to work from, I had to do my own data wrangling on this project. Due to this fact, I limited the scope to what I thought would be the most useful for writers who focus on this era, namely - people of a marriageable age living in the wealthiest areas of London.

So with this in mind - I went through period records and compiled the names of 25,000 couples who were married in the City of Westminster (which includes Mayfair, St. James and Hyde Park) between 1804 to 1821.

So let’s see what all that data tells us…

To begin - I think it’s hard for us in the modern world with our wide and varied abundance of first names to conceive of just how POPULAR popular names of the past were.

If you were to take a modern sample of 25-year-old (born in 1998) American women, the most common name would be Emily with 1.35% of the total population. If you were to add the next four most popular names (Hannah, Samantha, Sarah and Ashley) these top five names would bring you to 5.5% of the total population. (source: Social Security Administration)

If you were to do the same survey in Regency London - the most common name would be Mary with 19.2% of the population. Add the next four most popular names (Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane) and with just 5 names you would have covered 62% of all women.

To hit 62% of the population in the modern survey it would take the top 400 names.

The top five Regency men’s names (John, William, Thomas, James and George) have nearly identical statistics as the women’s names.

I struggled for the better part of a week with how to present my findings, as a big list in alphabetical order really fails to get across the popularity factor and also isn’t the most tumblr-compatible format. And then my YouTube homepage recommended a random video of someone ranking all the books they’d read last year - and so I present…

The Regency Name Popularity Tier List

The Tiers

S+ - 10% of the population or greater. There is no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. 52% of the population had one of these 7 names.

S - 2-10%. There is still no modern equivalent to this level of popularity. Names in this percentage range in the past have included Mary and William in the 1880s and Jennifer in the late 1970s (topped out at 4%).

A - 1-2%. The top five modern names usually fall in this range. Kids with these names would probably include their last initial in class to avoid confusion. (1998 examples: Emily, Sarah, Ashley, Michael, Christopher, Brandon.)

B - .3-1%. Very common names. Would fall in the top 50 modern names. You would most likely know at least 1 person with these names. (1998 examples: Jessica, Megan, Allison, Justin, Ryan, Eric)

C - .17-.3%. Common names. Would fall in the modern top 100. You would probably know someone with these names, or at least know of them. (1998 examples: Chloe, Grace, Vanessa, Sean, Spencer, Seth)

D - .06-.17%. Less common names. In the modern top 250. You may not personally know someone with these names, but you’re aware of them. (1998 examples: Faith, Cassidy, Summer, Griffin, Dustin, Colby)

E - .02-.06%. Uncommon names. You’re aware these are names, but they are not common. Unusual enough they may be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Calista, Skye, Precious, Fabian, Justice, Lorenzo)

F - .01-.02%. Rare names. You may have heard of these names, but you probably don’t know anyone with one. Extremely unusual, and would likely be remarked upon. (1998 examples: Emerald, Lourdes, Serenity, Dario, Tavian, Adonis)

G - Very rare names. There are only a handful of people with these names in the entire country. You’ve never met anyone with this name.

H - Virtually non-existent. Names that theoretically could have existed in the Regency period (their original source pre-dates the early 19th century) but I found fewer than five (and often no) period examples of them being used in Regency England. (Example names taken from romance novels and online Regency name lists.)

Just to once again reinforce how POPULAR popular names were before we get to the tier lists - statistically, in a ballroom of 100 people in Regency London: 80 would have names from tiers S+/S. An additional 15 people would have names from tiers A/B and C. 4 of the remaining 5 would have names from D/E. Only one would have a name from below tier E.

Women's Names

S+ Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah      

S - Jane, Mary Ann+, Hannah, Susannah, Margaret, Catherine, Martha, Charlotte, Maria

A - Frances, Harriet, Sophia, Eleanor, Rebecca

B - Alice, Amelia, Bridget~, Caroline, Eliza, Esther, Isabella, Louisa, Lucy, Lydia, Phoebe, Rachel, Susan

C - Ellen, Fanny*, Grace, Henrietta, Hester, Jemima, Matilda, Priscilla

D - Abigail, Agnes, Amy, Augusta, Barbara, Betsy*, Betty*, Cecilia, Christiana, Clarissa, Deborah, Diana, Dinah, Dorothy, Emily, Emma, Georgiana, Helen, Janet^, Joanna, Johanna, Judith, Julia, Kezia, Kitty*, Letitia, Nancy*, Ruth, Winifred>

E - Arabella, Celia, Charity, Clara, Cordelia, Dorcas, Eve, Georgina, Honor, Honora, Jennet^, Jessie*^, Joan, Joyce, Juliana, Juliet, Lavinia, Leah, Margery, Marian, Marianne, Marie, Mercy, Miriam, Naomi, Patience, Penelope, Philadelphia, Phillis, Prudence, Rhoda, Rosanna, Rose, Rosetta, Rosina, Sabina, Selina, Sylvia, Theodosia, Theresa

F - (selected) Alicia, Bethia, Euphemia, Frederica, Helena, Leonora, Mariana, Millicent, Mirah, Olivia, Philippa, Rosamund, Sybella, Tabitha, Temperance, Theophila, Thomasin, Tryphena, Ursula, Virtue, Wilhelmina

G - (selected) Adelaide, Alethia, Angelina, Cassandra, Cherry, Constance, Delilah, Dorinda, Drusilla, Eva, Happy, Jessica, Josephine, Laura, Minerva, Octavia, Parthenia, Theodora, Violet, Zipporah

H - Alberta, Alexandra, Amber, Ashley, Calliope, Calpurnia, Chloe, Cressida, Cynthia, Daisy, Daphne, Elaine, Eloise, Estella, Lilian, Lilias, Francesca, Gabriella, Genevieve, Gwendoline, Hermione, Hyacinth, Inez, Iris, Kathleen, Madeline, Maude, Melody, Portia, Seabright, Seraphina, Sienna, Verity

Men's Names

S+ John, William, Thomas

S - James, George, Joseph, Richard, Robert, Charles, Henry, Edward, Samuel

A - Benjamin, (Mother’s/Grandmother’s maiden name used as first name)#

B - Alexander^, Andrew, Daniel, David>, Edmund, Francis, Frederick, Isaac, Matthew, Michael, Patrick~, Peter, Philip, Stephen, Timothy

C - Abraham, Anthony, Christopher, Hugh>, Jeremiah, Jonathan, Nathaniel, Walter

D - Adam, Arthur, Bartholomew, Cornelius, Dennis, Evan>, Jacob, Job, Josiah, Joshua, Lawrence, Lewis, Luke, Mark, Martin, Moses, Nicholas, Owen>, Paul, Ralph, Simon

E - Aaron, Alfred, Allen, Ambrose, Amos, Archibald, Augustin, Augustus, Barnard, Barney, Bernard, Bryan, Caleb, Christian, Clement, Colin, Duncan^, Ebenezer, Edwin, Emanuel, Felix, Gabriel, Gerard, Gilbert, Giles, Griffith, Harry*, Herbert, Humphrey, Israel, Jabez, Jesse, Joel, Jonas, Lancelot, Matthias, Maurice, Miles, Oliver, Rees, Reuben, Roger, Rowland, Solomon, Theophilus, Valentine, Zachariah

F - (selected) Abel, Barnabus, Benedict, Connor, Elijah, Ernest, Gideon, Godfrey, Gregory, Hector, Horace, Horatio, Isaiah, Jasper, Levi, Marmaduke, Noah, Percival, Shadrach, Vincent

G - (selected) Albion, Darius, Christmas, Cleophas, Enoch, Ethelbert, Gavin, Griffin, Hercules, Hugo, Innocent, Justin, Maximilian, Methuselah, Peregrine, Phineas, Roland, Sebastian, Sylvester, Theodore, Titus, Zephaniah

H - Albinus, Americus, Cassian, Dominic, Eric, Milo, Rollo, Trevor, Tristan, Waldo, Xavier

# Men were sometimes given a family surname (most often their mother's or grandmother's maiden name) as their first name - the most famous example of this being Fitzwilliam Darcy. If you were to combine all surname-based first names as a single 'name' this is where the practice would rank.

*Rank as a given name, not a nickname

+If you count Mary Ann as a separate name from Mary - Mary would remain in S+ even without the Mary Anns included

~Primarily used by people of Irish descent

^Primarily used by people of Scottish descent

>Primarily used by people of Welsh descent

I was going to continue on and write about why Regency-era first names were so uniform, discuss historically accurate surnames, nicknames, and include a little guide to finding 'unique' names that are still historically accurate - but this post is already very, very long, so that will have to wait for a later date.

If anyone has any questions/comments/clarifications in the meantime feel free to message me.

Methodology notes: All data is from marriage records covering six parishes in the City of Westminster between 1804 and 1821. The total sample size was 50,950 individuals.

I chose marriage records rather than births/baptisms as I wanted to focus on individuals who were adults during the Regency era rather than newborns. I think many people make the mistake when researching historical names by using baby name data for the year their story takes place rather than 20 to 30 years prior, and I wanted to avoid that. If you are writing a story that takes place in 1930 you don’t want to research the top names for 1930, you need to be looking at 1910 or earlier if you are naming adult characters.

I combined (for my own sanity) names that are pronounced identically but have minor spelling differences: i.e. the data for Catherine also includes Catharines and Katherines, Susannah includes Susannas, Phoebe includes Phebes, etc.

The compound 'Mother's/Grandmother's maiden name used as first name' designation is an educated guesstimate based on what I recognized as known surnames, as I do not hate myself enough to go through 25,000+ individuals and confirm their mother's maiden names. So if the tally includes any individuals who just happened to be named Fitzroy/Hastings/Townsend/etc. because their parents liked the sound of it and not due to any familial relations - my bad.

I did a small comparative survey of 5,000 individuals in several rural communities in Rutland and Staffordshire (chosen because they had the cleanest data I could find and I was lazy) to see if there were any significant differences between urban and rural naming practices and found the results to be very similar. The most noticeable difference I observed was that the S+ tier names were even MORE popular in rural areas than in London. In Rutland between 1810 and 1820 Elizabeths comprised 21.4% of all brides vs. 15.3% in the London survey. All other S+ names also saw increases of between 1% and 6%. I also observed that the rural communities I surveyed saw a small, but noticeable and fairly consistent, increase in the use of names with Biblical origins.

Sources of the records I used for my survey: 

Ancestry.com. England & Wales Marriages, 1538-1988 [database on-line].

Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935 [database on-line].