the nutcracker aesthetic

Well my dudes

I'm about out of queue. And frankly right now Tumblr is the last thing I can brain for. So I'm probably going to disappear here effectively in the next week or so.

I'm still alive, but I live in the US, and am mother of two school age children under the age of 10, both of which require some forms of extra educational assistance beyond the current "everyone is homeschooling right now" way.

So. My occasional pokes to Tumblr and massive addition to queue sprees are probably done for the next I don't know how long.

If anyone needs me, Tumblr will remain on my phone. I can be reached by ask or message. If you have my email, I can be reached that way as well (though my response time for all the above has a high risk of "see this, put it aside to answer later, forget")

Be good and kind and patient with each other. Take a few deep breaths. Relax your jaw and your shoulders. You are important to more people than you probably know.

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads ancient scrolls written in a forbidden tongue and summons nightmarish beings from beyond the mortal plane.

Mine also advise dragging your favorite toys everywhere with you and the occasional attempted murder of a sibling just to keep things interesting. 

that is some next level knot magic.

 it isn’t though!!! it’s because most relationships aren’t worth the effort. The “sweater curse” is actually most commonly called the “BOYFRIEND sweater curse.” Which=heteronormative, but the curse most often falls on a woman knitting a sweater for a boyfriend. Before she finishes the sweater, they break up - pop culture would have you believe it’s because the boyfriend freaks out do to the weirdness/clinginess of having a sweater made for you, but I think knitters are wiser than that.

It’s because after spending serious £££ on materials, and then HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF LABOR on the creation of the item, with every stitch a prayer of totally focused intent, creating a large display of technical skill - it is then gifted to a non-knitter who does NOT APPRECIATE the work/effort/skill/cost/TIME it took to make it, and in fact thinks you’re a bit weird and making a big deal out of a piece of clothing, and after they go “oh thanks” and shove your creation in the cupboard next to a sweater they got for £15 at an M&S sale, then they never wear your sweater because it’s too tight because when you asked them how their favorite sweaters usually fit they said “I ‘unno” and when you measured them for the fifth time and asked, rather tersely, if they had enough room in the chest, they said “I guess,” and then if pressed they say they don’t really like the sweater design, but then you point out that they were supposed to participate in helping you design it and they say they don’t really care about how things look, and when you say that you tried to match it to their other clothes so how can they hate it, then they say that honestly their mother still buys all their clothes because they hate going shopping, and that they hate all their other clothes too, well. That’s when a sensible knitter goes “Fuck this shit. And you know what? Fuck this man.”

This is what happens when someone posts in a knitting forum “Attack of the sweater curse!” - this is the usual story. It has a rigid plot. It is as old as myth.

That’s when you look at the time you spent and realize, “I could LITERALLY have written the first draft of a novel instead of doing this.” That’s when you go “I could have taken that £200 and bought myself a new wardrobe.” That’s when you go “I could have taken all that intent, all that willpower, all that creative force, and laid down some fucking witchcraft, all right?” That’s when you go “I basically spent 100 hours straight thinking about this bastard while making something amazing for him, and I have no evidence that he ever spent 10 hours of his life thinking about me.”

And “I could spend this time and energy and money in making myself an enormous, intricate heirloom silk shawl with just a touch of cashmere, in elvish twists and leafy lace in all the colors of the night, shot through with subtly glittering stars, warm in winter and cool and summer and light as a lover’s kiss on the shoulders, suitable for draping over my arms at weddings or wrapping myself in to watch the sea, a lace-knotted promise to myself that I will keep for my entire life and gift to my favorite granddaughter when I die, and she will wear it to keep alive my memory - but instead I have this sweater, and this fuckboy.”

The sweater curse is a lesson that the universe gives to a knitter at an important point in their life. It is a gift.

Knitting a sweater for a husband or wife generally doesn’t call down the curse, because the relationship is meant to be stronger than 4-ply.

(Although I say this, but I’ve taken over 5 years to finish a pair of mittens for my husband, because he casually asked me to do something customized with the cables, and I still can’t get the math to work on the right hand.)

this post is so much better with that commentary

Fuck yes.

@knittingcelebs This might be of interest

This was called to my attention by @ziegenprinz . It never occurred to me before that for non-knitters, the Sweater Curse is not A Truth Universally Acknowledged!

@elodieunderglass : you are right on!

Same goes with plushies sometimes too.

…That bastard still has that special ork with the realistic axe that makes noise…..

Lol heads up if you try to make a candle with food coloring, the food coloring will just sink to the bottom of the glass, and when the flame eventually reaches the bottom all the food coloring will catch fire and become one giant tall flame that you cannot possibly blow out and the glass will start to crack and then you’ll throw your tea on it in a panic and then the extremely hot food coloring will boil and sizzle horribly and then the glass will shatter. Please take my word on this lmfao

What did you do op?

I wish that ao3 had an option to filter warnings (and tbh certain authors) out like I will never ever want to read it and just seeing it puts me off so much that often I end up closing my browser because that content upsets me so much lmao

There is a way to do this but I can’t recall how to do it. it’s something you type into the box for “other filters” or something, I don’t remember. who knows?? It’s not a great option, and I don’t know if you can sort out authors that way, but it’s better than nothing if someone can reblog this with how to do it!

Alrighty friends! It takes some specificity, but you can do this. Let me show you how!

So I started with going to the Sherlock (TV) section of Ao3. On the right we find this lovely section! ((I know I’m going over things you already probably know, but I figure this post may go to new Ao3 users, so bear with me.))

Underneath this, I chose sort by Kudos, because that’s a quick way to find most popular fics, for the sake of this demonstration. 

With those filters on, we end up with this being our first two results: 

As you can see, we have Nature and Nurture by earlgreytea68, and The Internet Is Not Just For Porn by cyerus. So what if I am utterly sick of seeing earlgreytea68 on my list? Let’s pretend I’ve read all their fics, or that I just don’t like her, or whatever. I want this author out. I go to this section on the right: 

In “Search within results” I type earlgreytea68 into the bar, with a minus sign in front. This gives me the following page, upon hitting the sort and filter button:

There goes earlgreytea68! But now I’ve decided that Crack is just not my thing, I’m sick of that, too, for heaven’s sake, I want something reasonable in my gay slash fanfiction about detectives that solve crimes about glowing dogs and irish megalomaniacs. Heaven forbid this get ridiculous.

Well, then I add this to my search:

Which gets rid of everything with that tag. My results are now:

Performance in a Leading Role is now my first result!

You can do this as many times as you want; the biggest problem I have is trying to filter out multi-worded tags. For example, “Secret Relationship” is hard to filter. Better to go with authors you dislike or with words like “DubCon”. 

I hope this helps! Also remember that googling site:archiveofourown.org and then adding search terms will mean google searches Ao3 for you, and sometimes that works far better. 

Good luck!

An excellent in-depth guide! Thank you!!

omg changed my whole ao3 rarepair game

An excellent guide to filtering on AO3!

You can filter out phrases by enclosing them in quotes. For example, if ABO and Hydra Trash Party are not your things, try:

-“alpha/beta/omega dynamics” -”hydra trash party”

I have more advice!

Say, you’re in your random fandom- I went with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, since I’ve been reading Iron Man stuff recently. Tony Stark is awesome.

But anyway, you’re on the page, and you see that there are 174,774 works! That is way too many for a casual afternoon’s browsing.

And you see that the first one is Peter Parker/Tony Stark and that is not your jam. It doesn’t work for you, or it squicks you, whatever. Wouldn’t life be easier if you could browse without seeing that pairing (or whatever pairing you don’t like)? You can!

First, click on that pairing tag(You may want to open this in another tab, actually.):

and it’ll take you to the page for that pairing tag. Click this button:

and then look at the address bar! The actual page is unimportant. Copy the numbers located here:

and go back to the original search page! Down on the side, in the same place you can get rid of other tags, type -relationship_ids:”the number you just copied”

Then hit ‘sort and filter’ annnd… magic!

The fics with that pairing are gone! You can also do multiple pairings, get rid of any tags you don’t like, and sort it by date or length or kudos, or whatever.

Enjoy.

I’d just like to add that these sorts of search modifiers ALSO WORK IN GOOGLE AND MOST RESEARCH DATABASES. The more you know.

Just a quick reminder that AO3 uses Lucene as a search and index engine.

That means you can pretty much use all the Lucene Query Syntax in the “Seach within result” field.

I don’t think AO3 indexes the whole fic for searching but definitely it’s meta data. Combined with Lucenes awesome query syntax you can do pretty much every search you heart desires.

Addtional Lucene Query Syntax that has not been mentioned yet and you might find useful:

Wildcard Searches

You can use wildcard searches within single terms. For a single character wildcard search use the “?” symbol. For a multiple character wildcard search use the “*” symbol.

AND/OR

Lucene allows you to combin terms through logic operators. You’re looking for fics that are either “reunion” or “enemies to lovers”?

Just put in >“reunion” OR “enemies to lovers”< into the field

and you end up with all the stories that are either or but not both.

But wait, now you’re looking for fics that are both “reunion” and “enemies to lovers” at the same time? Now worries Lucene got you covered.

Just change it into >“"reunion” AND “enemies to lovers”“<

and you’ll get all the fics that mention both “reunion” and “enemies to lovers” somewhere in their meta data (note: it’s not just tags. It’s also title, summary …)

Boosting

You can also boost specific terms when doing a multi term search.

You can use the “^” Operator followed by a number to boost a specific term.

Say you’re interested in fics that are either “first kiss” or “bed sharing” but you’re much more interested in “bed sharing” fics and feel they are more relevant.

You can use the search >“first kiss” “bed sharing”^5<

to manipulate the order of your results in a matter that the score of every fic that contains beg sharing is multiplied by 5. Therefore all fics containing that term are given priority and shown at the top of the list.

You can also combine all of the above, target specifc fields (that’s what you did with the “relationsship_id:xxx”) and many more things.

For more info about the Lucene query syntax check out Apache’s Lucene Query doc.

^ sharing this because we all love fanfics and @itsmajel is a freaking nerd 👌

I’m not sure why it’s missing, BUT you usually don’t have to do an exclude “search within results” for characters, ships, or popular tags, etc when you’re on a tag? Because of this:

I don’t know if the original guide is old or what, but when you’re sorting within a tag/canon/ship/etc, there is an “include” which you could do to sort for only M or E rated fic with the “Steve Rogers” tag (in marvel, that is), but you can specifically exclude any fics that are, say, “Steve Rogers/Tony Stark” or are tagged with the “non-con” archive warning.

Very important to know.

Yeah, I think the “exclude” feature is fairly recent (and awesome). Still this is a good guide to database search 101. Also if you don’t want to have to type in all of your squicks and NOTPs everytime you do a search you can bookmark the page with your “exclude” search settings and then modify the rest of the search as needed.

that story where you challenge the fairy queen to a match of wit and skill to win back your loved one. and it goes … fine, you think? probably.

adapted from this very short Elsewhere University piece, changed slightly to be a little more self-contained.

other comics//tapastic//patreon//ko-fi

Rule one of fandom: there are some things that only exist for us.

Don’t send actors fics

Don’t give them explicit art ever

Don’t tag them in rpf questions or theories

Don’t try to bring them into fandom drama of any kind

Don’t hold them responsible for what the producers and writers decide

They’re still people.  They have private lives, which do not include fandom.

louder for the people in the back!

For fandoms that don’t have actors? Don’t do this to the content creators either.

Don’t bring them your discourse about characters.

Don’t bring them into your shipping wars.

No matter how much interaction they have with fans, they aren’t your friend. They are the content creator and you are the fan.

Yes, hold the people responsible for writing and creating content responsible for things that are racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, classist, etc. And encourage them to do better.

Do not expect them to cater to your desires regarding character arcs and canon ships.

There are actors and some content creators, especially in film, who adore fandom and think it’s all wonderful.

THEY WILL FIND US.

You don’t have to send things to them. The fact that fanfic and fanart exist are no longer fringe-group secrets. Everyone in the entertainment industries know that fanworks exist. You don’t have to tell them. You don’t have to tell them that some of it is explicit; you don’t have to tell them that a lot is not. You don’t have to show them that some is adorably cute.

If they’re interested, they’ll seek it out. Don’t inflict fanworks and fandom drama on them; you don’t know what squicks them, what reminds them of some personal trauma - and what they are contractually, legally required not to acknowledge. (Or what they are legally required to report to someone else, which is worse.)

If they like fandom, they can find it. You don’t have to let them know it’s here, and you don’t know enough about their tastes to recommend “the good stuff.” 

…I would read the hell out of a series of a chosen eighty-five-year-old woman who goes on epic journeys throughout a dangerous and magical land, armed only with a cane and her stab-tastic knitting needles, accompanied by her six cats and a skittish-yet-devoted orderly who makes sure she takes her pills on time.

Battle Granny Gertrude with Phillip and co.

I’d read the fuck outs this

this looks like the Lawful Good counterpart to Yzma and Kronk

author: sorry I’m jumping on this bandwagon and writing a fic with the same premise as all these other fics

me, has read 500 fics like this one and is prepared to read 500 more: please never apologize for giving the people (me) what they (also me) want

WELL I WOULD READ FIVE HUNDRED FICS

AND I WOULD READ FIVE HUNDRED MORE

JUST TO READ ONE THOUSAND FICS WITH THE SAME

PREMISE AS THE ONES BEFORE

DADA DADA (DADA DADA)

DADA DADA (DADA DADA)

DADADUNdedeledeDUNdedeledeDUN

When I’m reading, well, you know I’m gonna be

I’m gonna be the one who’s reading your AU.

And when I’m finished, well, you know I’m gonna find

I’m gonna find another fic like that one too.

If you write soulmates, well, you know I’m gonna read

I’m gonna read that soulmate fic, that’s what I’ll do.

Then I’ll go back, I’ll go back to AO3

And I will search for soulmate fic the whole night through.

imagine if the oceans were replaced by forests and if you went into the forest the trees would get taller the deeper you went and there’d be thousands of undiscovered species and you could effectively walk across the ocean but the deeper you went, the darker it would be and the animals would get progressively scarier and more dangerous and instead of whales there’d be giant deer and just wow

you have a beautiful imagination

this gave me chills

HOLY SHIT

first of all ^^^ I love this^^^

secondly, I’ve said it before, but 

this is exactly what the Old World was. Off shore there was Ocean, and inland there was Forrest

Here’s an Old World tree still surviving in a modern forrest of “large” trees

That’s just what trees used to be like.

And wandering among those trees, one might have encountered, yes, deer larger than a modern moose, but also, depending on what year, pigs bigger than grizzly bears, beavers the size of modern wolves, ground sloths the size of modern elephants, and bears nearly that big. Not to mention the insects and snakes and shit.

I could keep going, like, you might have crossed paths with a whole herd of these

or a family of these.

Like, 29,000 years ago, the last of the Neanderthal had just died out. Humans and this thing definitely lived at the same time.

And they didn’t live in the Forest, but there is one ice age creature that’s still alive, if you want to see what life was like back in the day. We used to think the Musk Ox was a type of bovine, or cow, which is how it got it’s name. BUT. See this?

that, my friends, is an ice age GOAT. That’s right, that’s a 900 pound GOAT. Here, take another look

anyway, yeah, the wild used to be a lot more Wild. Old Forest was definitely the inland equivalent of Ocean, and everything back in the day was turnt the fuck UP

This post was made by someone’s genetic memory of those scary fuckers

Oliver then proceeded to detail how with $50 and knowledge of the law he was able to successfully apply online to create a debt buying company named “Central Asset Recovery Professionals,” or as Oliver put it, “CARP” named after “a bottom-feeding fish.”

After setting up a rudimentary website for CARP, the satirical, but still real company was offered a $15 million package of medical debt for $60,000.

Oliver explained that the debt was out of statute, which means it is the kind of debt that a collector can only continue to collect, but not sue the debtor for.

Then, instead of chasing down the 9,000 debtors in the debt package as a normal collection agency would, Oliver decided to stage the largest one-time giveaway in television history and work with the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt to forgive the $15 million with no consequences for the debtors.

Okay but now I know what I want to do of I get rich?

where’s that quiz where you choose lke 4 colours u like and 4 u dont and it hands your ass on a plate

thank you @cumleaf @@ http://www.astro.com/cgi/atxgen.cgi?btyp=cf

This hurt my feelings

Well damn okay

yeet the pasta yeet ALL the pasta

Mesmerising 

the quibbler branches out into a video series

quibbler unsolved, starring luna and hermione

Quibbler Unsolved