Immunity Serval will protect you and your loved ones from “of you don’t reblog -bad thing will happen-” threat posts. If you see Immunity Serval on your dash then she’s already guarding you.
“Are you really going to vote for Clinton just because she isn’t Trump?”
Yes? I would literally elect Chef Boyardee because he isn’t Trump.
My dear Americans:
When we here in Canada had our last election, we made a massive effort to vote strategically. There were even groups here who (since we don’t elect our PM directly but rather elect a ruling party) were literally going around making sure everyone knew who in their voting area was most likely to beat the Conservative candidate so that we WOULD NOT GET HARPER.
At the time I explained at length to many people how at that point, @tkingfisher‘s beagle Gir would make a better PM than Harper. Then I paused and thought, “hey, she lost a dog … relatively recently? In the last year? Was that the beagle? I can’t remember. … anyway it doesn’t matter, because her beagle would make a better PM than Harper even if said beagle were dead.”
You, my dear Americans, are now in this same position. Gir, all by himself with no advisors, would still make a better President than that POS, even if he were dead (the beagle, not that jerk; I am not sure that life or lack thereof would make much difference to that jerk’s presidency).
You are not voting for anyone at this point. You are voting against Trump.
Do not be a fucking moron and end up with Trump because you didn’t vote against him. Because Gir, even if dead, would make a better president. Do not mistake politics for a lifelong statement on your values. You will not benefit anyone or make any kind of statement by doing something that makes that piece of crap more likely to get elected, and every vote not cast for his best competition (that is, the person most likely to beat him, whoever they are!) is something that makes his election more likely.
Do not do this, my darling Americans.
Ideals are great. But so is long-term strategic thinking, and all of you young Americans reading me have many many years left of voting and doing your best to bring change and improvement to your country … unless you are foolish enough to let that jerk win.
In which case we all lose.
So please don’t be fucking stupid. Whoever the not-Trump nominee is, vote for them. Even if you don’t like them. Because you are not voting for whoever that is; you are voting against That Jerk.
black and asian vikings 100% definitely existed (also, saami vikings)
you know how far you can get into eurasia and africa by sailing up rivers from the baltic and mediterranean seas? pretty fucking far, and that’s what vikings liked to do to trade
then, you know, people are people, so love happens, business happens, and so ppl get married and take spouses back home to the frozen hellscape that is scandinavia (upon which i’m guessing the horrorstruck new spouses went “WHAT THE FUCK??? FUCKING GIVE ME YOUR JACKET???????”)
and sometimes vikings bought thralls and brought them home as well, and i mean, when your indentured service is up after however many years and you’re a free person again, maaaaaaaaaaaaybe it’s a bit hard to get all the way home across the continent, so you make the best out of the situation and you probably get married and raise a gaggle kids
so yeah
viking kingdoms/communities were not uniformly pure white aryan fantasy paradises, so pls stop using my cultural history and ethnic background to excuse your racist discomfort with black ppl playing heimdall and valkyrie
Also we KNOW they got to Asia and Africa.
Why?
Because Asians, Africans, and Vikings TOLD US SO.
I know a fantasy book that actually has a diverse Viking crew sailing to Africa.
The book features a chapter about a Viking voyage, which is set just after a Norman invasion of England. A pair of knights from England head off for retirement, evading capture from Moors and joining up with a Viking captain named Witta. Witta’s crew includes:
“Kitai”, a Viking navigator from China. Kitai is described using stunningly racist terminology, in order to make it really clear that this person is Definitely An Asian Person From Asia.
An African Grey parrot, which originates from the Congo.
Warrior “Thorkild of Borkum,” who was once a slave to a “King in the East”
References to “Hlaf the Woman” who wrote the manual, or Ship-book, that they use to navigate. We are told that she “robbed Egypt.”
Witta’s father traded on the African coast: “Witta told us that his father Guthrum had once in his life rowed along the shores of Africa to a land where naked men sold gold for iron and beads.”
Witta decides to repeat this journey. They put in somewhere near equatorial Africa and the locals hire them to kill some gorillas for them (?!) rewarding them with gold. The encounter is successful, and the crew splits up in England, with the knights bringing their share of the gold back to Sussex and the main plot of the book, and Witta going back to Stavanger.
The book also has scenes set on Hadrian’s wall in Scotland, somewhere around the year 400, in which the Roman soldiers
battle the “Winged Hats” from Scandinavia.
The Romans are explicitly described as a multiracial bunch, with men from all over the Roman empire, naturally including soldiers from Africa and Asia. I think a lot of people forget about the interactions between the native Celtic peoples of Britain, the Roman empire, and the Scandinavians.
The book was written by a Nobel Laureate 110 years ago. It is the seminal fantasy novel Puck of Pook’s Hill, by Rudyard Kipling, and it was published in 1906.
It is a problematic text, but it serves to demonstrate that “racist discomfort” is an artifact of more recent colonial history - previously, diversity in fiction was an exciting demonstration of the Rich and Varied Heritage of the Glorious British Empire. Because Kipling was, of course, the definitive Great White Colonialist.
Now, if an imperialist colonial propagandist writing 110 years ago decided he wanted to tell a fantasy story about how African gold brought to England by Vikings was responsible for the signing of the Magna Carta, and he did this by having his Vikings sail to Africa with a Chinese navigator, and his intention in doing so was to show off the might and diversity of the British Empire and how its Ideals of Justice were thus knitted together “as natural as an oak growing,” then I think modern fantasy fans can probably take a seat and listen to their own great-granddaddy.
It’s a brand new day for nonbinary, genderqueer, transgender, and gender nonconforming people all over the nation. In a historic move sure to challenge federal policy, an Oregon circuit court ruled on Friday that a resident could legally change their gender to nonbinary.
the drum is filled with hot steam and then sprayed with cold water. the pressure on the outside of the drum is far more than inside. the pressures try to maintain and find balance taking the drum as a casualty.
“Oh FUCK that’s cold!”
when youre in the shower and someone flushes the toilet
My Chemistry teacher did this the first day of class with a coke can, a hotplate, and a basin of water. I have never forgotten the scientific principles behind it, and here’s why.
There were 20-something of us in the classroom, all dying of sleep deprivation since it was the first day back to school, first class of the day. Mr. Moses was that teacher you weren’t sure how to deal with. I mean, the man’s name was Noah Eugene Moses, for starters. He drove a Harley to school, but also drove the bus. He had giant cokebottle glasses and a doofy mustache with shaggy ex-Beatles hair. He always wore suspenders and a grease-stained t-shirt because he had a potbelly and taught the shop/electrical classes. He wasn’t even really lecturing; he was throwing in tidbits of the syllabus in the midst of bad jokes and fun stories. We were all a bit nervous, because none of us had taken a class from him before, but his tests were legendary—nobody had ever made it out with an A (until I did, but that’s another story for another time and involves a really awesome bet and some hair cutting scissors).
Well, as we were fighting to stay awake, and attempting to take notes of whatever he was talking about, he was pacing around the room from here to there, straightening things and moving stuff. He was very scatterbrained, and it was easy to tell from how he kept forgetting where he put his coke. Turns out, that was just a ruse. He had the can filled with just a tiny bit of water, and the things he was moving around were stacks of papers and books hiding the hot plate and water basin. So he set his coke can down onto the hot plate, continued talking loudly enough so we wouldn’t hear the water boiling, and then knocked it over really fast into the water basin.
BANG!!!!!!!!
Three girls fell out of their seats, one dude swore so violently I’m pretty sure the devil himself cringed, everyone at least jumped and screamed, and I actually broke my pen in half.
See, with rapid decompression comes a vacuum, and with a vacuum comes a rushing of air that creates a massive sound. Think “thunder”. That’s the same principle behind it. His little tiny coke can of steam into a bucket of ice water, and we had a bang so loud the band teacher came in from across the hall to see “what was exploding today.” To which Mr. Moses responded, “Nothing, it imploded. Explosions are chapter 3.”
And that’s when I knew it was going to be the best class ever.
