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mediaevalmusereads · 5 months

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Baking Yesteryear. By B. Dylan Hollis. DK, 2023.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: cookbook

Series: N/A

Summary: A decade-by-decade cookbook that highlights the best (and a few of the worst) baking recipes from the 20th century

Friends of baking, are you sick and tired of making the same recipes again and again? Then look no further than this baking blast from the past, as B. Dylan Hollis highlights the most unique tasty treats of yesteryear.

Travel back in time on a delicious decade-by-decade jaunt as Dylan shows you how to bake vintage forgotten greats. With a big pinch of fun and a full cup of humor, you’ll be baking everything from Chocolate Potato Cake from the 1910s to Avocado Pie from the 1960s.

Dylan has baked hundreds of recipes from countless antique cookbooks and selected only the best for this bakebook, sharing the shining stars from each decade. And because some of the recipes Dylan shares on his wildly popular social media channels are spectacular failures, he’s thrown in a few of the most disastrously strange recipes for you to try if you dare.

***Full review below.***

Since this book is non-fiction, my review will be structured a little different from normal.

I've had this book for a while, but I didn't want to post a review before making a few of the recipes myself. I was already a fan of Hollis from his TikToks, so that might introduce some bias into my review - just so you're all aware.

Overall, I found this book to be quirky, easy to follow, and fun. I loved the bright colors and retro-feel to the photo shoots, and I appreciated that almost all of the recipes were accompanied by a picture of the thing you're supposed to be making. I also liked the blurbs written by Hollis himself; they very much felt like his voice, with his characteristic sense of humor balanced by his genuine love for baking and "old things."

Perhaps the most valuable part of this book, however, was the emphasis on lowering barriers to entry. I've read my fair share of baking guides that call for special ingredients or equipment, and there are a lot of recipes out there that are finicky and sure ton dissuade new bakers. Hollis's book, however, emphasizes that most (if not all) of these recipes can be done with basic tools - one does not even need an electric mixer (though it does make some recipes easier). There also aren't many fancy ingredients that aren't readily available at most grocery stores, so that also helps.

I do, however, have some minor criticisms which relate to the usability of this book. For one, the organization makes it rather difficult to find a specific recipe (or even category), particularly if you're like me and don't recall what decade it came from. While organizing the recipes by decade makes sense given the book's premise, it does make it more functionally difficult - you can't flip to the cake section, for example, and browse or put yourself within the general vicinity of the recipe you're looking for. Thus, readers will have to rely on either the TOC or the index a lot more, but this is a minor inconvenience rather than a huge drawback.

I also don't think the majority of the recipes are blow-your-mind good, but honestly, given this book's premise, I don't think that's the worst thing. The recipes are largely taken from sources aimed at home bakers, so you're not going to get professional-level pastries out of them. You will, however, get things that are fun and relatively simple to make, and they taste good enough to me that I'd consider making them multiple times.

TL;DR: Baking Yesteryear is a fine book for fans of Hollis's TikTok, but it goes beyond being mere merch. It not only provides historical recipes that are easy to replicate, but it also does a good job of lowering barriers to entry for new bakers. Experienced bakers might not be overly impressed by the recipes, but engaging with food history is a treat in and of itself, and it's delightful to see someone like Hollis engaging with the past with such enthusiasm and adoration.

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hitomisuzuya · 7 months

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HIII SUZUUU first time requesting kind nervous lol. For once finally ur requests are open when I'm up 😭 I've been thinking abt scummy scara way too much lately like literally basically imagine just going on a cute date with him only for him to fuck you dumb the second u guys arent in public 🤭🤭🤭

Scaramouche x fem!reader. Scummy Scaramouche. Smut. Edging. Teasing. Degradation. Some date fluff. Reader is hinted in having a metal allergy cause I am allergic to gold jewelry.

Have I said how much I love when requests are worded like this 😳😌 No one should feel nervous requesting from me. 🥺

It was no secret that Scaramouche was a trust fund baby. And the one thing he liked to do with that money is spend it on you. He has to spoil his precious girl, after all.

If there was a cute stuffed animal you looked at for even a second in passing, it was yours. You wanted a book, he bought the whole series for you. You commented on how pretty a piece of expensive jewelry was, he bought it without hesitation. Especially if it was silver. Your skin was finicky about certain metals.

Scaramouche thought silver was prettier, anyways. Not prettier than you. How dare a metal even consider coming close to you.

He always touching you in some way as you walked. An arm around your waist, holding your hand, even sitting down somewhere he had his hand on your thigh. You were taken, damn it, and he needed to make the perfectly clear to anyone who looked.

"Scara, you've spent enough money on me already," You fretted, making him chuckle as he stopped in front of a lingerie boutique in town.

"Nonsense, I insist," Scaramouche replied. Oh yeah, he always insisted. Especially if it meant picking out lingerie for him to rip off later.

God, just picturing how you would look in the lacy black, blue, and purple lingerie to picked out for you was starting to make his cock twitch. "If you need any help, I can come in with you," He said, wishing the changing room door had some kind of keyhole.

"No, Scara, it's okay. I can manage," You said, blushing from how enthusiastic he sounded about helping you put everything on.

That wasn't the point. He needed to see how you looked in them. His imagination was starting to drive him a little crazy. His fingers were shaking with need, and the anticipation of getting his hands on you.

Even the lady behind the counter was starting to give him a stern look. He probably looked something like a dog frothing at the mouth.

With many bags in hand, back you headed with Scaramouche to his dorm. No sooner were you a few steps from it, he was making you drop bags right in the hallway, pushing you against the wall. His hands roamed greedily over your body, biting at your lips as he kissed you.

"Mmmm~," He purred, hooking his fingers through your panties, "you wore the one I hoped you would out of the store." He could hardly wait when you had given him only a price tag to take up to the counter with everything else.

Throwing open his dorm room door, Scaramouche stumbled inside with you, his lips never leaving yours. His hands pawed at your clothes, standing behind you in front of his mirror so he could watch himself remove the lacy purple lingerie. "Purple always looks so pretty on your skin," He kissed and bit at your shoulder as he unhooked your bra, groping your breasts before tugging it off.

Guiding you over to his bed, he pushed you down on it, spreading your legs as he licked a long the inside of your thighs. You squirmed, his spit rolling down the inside of your thighs to soak against the fabric.

"Ha, getting wound already. What a needy slut you are," He purred excitedly, hastily tugging your panties off. His eyes drank in your form spread out before him, just as hastily taking off his clothes. "Can't wait for me to fuck you dumb on my cock, hm?"

You whimpered, grinding needily against him as he pressed the tip of his aching cock on your clit. It sounded so fucking sweet to him that he had to hear it over and over again.

Scaramouche groaned every time he heard you whimper, relentlessly teasing the tip of his cock against your entrance. The way you squirmed on desperation, your walls fluttering and clenching around it was a drool worthy sight to him. His mouth said as much, drool dripping down onto your chest.

"Scara, please, put your cock all the way in me. I can't take much more," You pleaded, reaching down to grasp his cock to try and urge it inside of you. "Cum inside of me."

That sent him feral. Folding your body, and throwing your legs over his shoulder, his slid his cock slowly inside of you. Groaning, he cursed when his cock rested against your sweet spot. Pulling out to the tip, he slowly pushed himself back inside so he could feel your walls clench tight around his cock as he bottomed out again.

Every thrust made you see stars, your eyes rolling closed. Wrapping your arms around him, you clung to him. Scaramouche was determined for the entire campus to hear how good he was fucking you.

"Fuck, look at me when you cum, slut," Scaramouche hissed, pounding himself inside of you, his entire body quivering, his cock throbbing with his approaching orgasm.

Your eyes snapped open, tears welling in them as his lips captured yours to swallow your moans. He bit at your lips, pulling away when your legs started to tremble in pleasure.

"Scream it, whore. Who's fucking you this good, hm?" Scaramouche pushed your legs farther up towards your head, his husky moans only rose in octave as he drove he cock deeper inside of you.

"Scaramouche! Scaramouche! Scaramouche!" The way you chanted his name like mantra, your release flooding around his cock made him cum suddenly inside of you. He left his cock resting deep into your sweet spot, his warm cum ribboning inside of you. You felt every throb of his cock.

Panting, Scaramouche pulled out of you after a few long minutes of feverishly fucking his cum back inside of you. Rolling off of you, he latched one of his lips around your nipple, sucking on it as he scooped some of his cum onto his fingers.

Your back arched off the bed, gasping when he rubbed and hooked his fingers over your sweet spot. You still hadn't entirely come down from your orgasm.

Scaramouche only wanted to continue to make his precious girl feel as good you made him feel. By cumming again all over his fingers.

#genshin impact #genshin smut #fem!reader #genshin imagines #scaramouche #scummy scara #scaramouche smut #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche x y/n #scaramouche x you #scaramouche imagines #yandere scaramouche #modern au

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thelampisaflashlight · 2 months

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A thought for this evening; Ghouls are kind of like cattle dogs.

By all means, they live among the clergy and would never do them any direct harm, but if someone, or something, else came along and tried to hurt them?

Well, there's a reason you don't trespass on the abbey's grounds, ill intentioned or not.

And it's not just the "big ones" that go after people, no.

You have ghouls like Cumulus, Aurora, and Dew stalking the grounds at night, cutting off points of egress, herding their prey towards the rest of the pack.

They're making noises akin to wild dogs, or sounds so out of the range of human ears it's less so something their prey hears and more so something they feel.

And it does not feel good.

Swiss is an exceptionally brilliant hunter, and usually works in tandem with the Aurora to guide their prey along, luring them further and further into the woods...

When Dew's not hunting alongside Cumulus and Aurora, he's usually going it alone, with few exceptions.

However, he has started to join the hunts less and less, largely due to his health being a little finicky these days.

The only members of the pack who don't hunt -or at least don't do it often- are the quintessence ghouls, because their magic is usually needed to maintain protective wards or to heal.

Although, Omega has been known to be a terror when he's let loose to hunt.

He can bite through metal.

It's great and totally not scary at all...

And lastly; No one has seen Mountain or Rain hunt up close before, and frankly everyone's a little scared by what that might mean.

#lamp rambles #shitghosting #nameless ghouls #ghost band #the band ghost #ghost bc #ghost band headcanons #nameless ghoul headcanons

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dragonnarrative-writes · 3 months

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Part 5 - And here's the reward.

Slasher Handler Masterlist

NSFW under the cut.

CW: Under-negotiated kink, impact play (spanking with hand, impact on vulva), use of gag, brief knife play, fear play, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, forgotten safeword, afab reader, feminine terms used for reader, manual penetration, piv penetration, brief blood mention (not reader's)

Your ass and thighs hurt, in that weird floaty way things tend to hurt when you work out too hard, too fast. You almost let your eyes flutter closed when Simon pets gently over your belly. But then you remember that it’s Simon, so you force yourself to keep your eyes open. The knife he flicks open with his free hand makes you jolt. The aborted flail-freeze you do makes him chuckle.

“Easy, luv,” he coos, still petting, finger dipping into your belly button. He pushes your shirt to bunch up over the top of your bra. “Just gonna get you ready for your reward.”

Not my pants, is all your addled brain can think of, staring at the knife. You’ll be mad if he destroys your shirt and panties. Frustrated as all hell if he slices through your on-its-last-legs bra. But the idea of shopping for jeans is enough to make you tear up all over again. You moan through the gag and shake your head, try to work your pants off with clumsy movements of your feet.

“You’re finicky today,” He hums and skims the flat of the blade from your ribs to your belly button. The sharp tip dips in, and you freeze again. “Used to let me do whatever I want. Now every other thing is a no.”

You force yourself to even out your breathing. It’s so hard to resist the urge to suck in your stomach, but you do. You fight through the fog to try to figure out what to do. There’s a right answer, you know, even if he’s not actually asking you a question. You look up into his face, look between eyes that are flat, but not bored. You wonder how long he could stay here, crouched, blade poised over naked flesh, waiting for you to decide how the night is going to go. You know for a fact he can outlast you.

You slowly reach for his hands with your own. The empty hand, you guide down over your mound. The hand with the blade, you nudge upward. You’re relieved when your trembling doesn’t translate to him at all. The blade maintains its steady, just barely scraping pressure. You guide his hand up past your diaphragm, over your ribs. Up until the blade of it is pressed against your left breast through the thin fabric of your bra. The point presses just enough to dimple the skin of your other breast.

Simon’s eyes are nearly all pupil. The empty hand dips lower, until his fingertips are just between your thighs. His index finger grazes over your clit. He leaves his hand there.

You risk taking a deeper breath. The point of the blade hurts, but rises and falls with you.

Then he chuckles. “Sweet girl. This is supposed to be your reward, not mine.”

And then the knife is gone, too fast for you to track it. Your breath leaves your body all at once. When he twists the hand between your legs, you part them as much as you can. His fingers pet over where you’re wetter than you expected. And for a long few moments, that’s all he does. Just pets you and stares into your face.

“Be honest with me,” he says. You hate when he asks this of you. It’s always a trap, but he only ever tells you to be honest when he means it. “Do you like when I hurt you?”

You start to shake your head, then pause. Do you like it? The obvious answer is hell no. The practical answer is that when he’s hurting you, you know where he is and what he’s doing. You know he’s not going to kill you. The screwed up answer is that whenever he hurts you, you get wet. And he always makes you feel good afterwards.

All of this would be easier to communicate without a gag in your mouth. So you give him a shrug.

“Not a no, but not a yes, hm? That’s fair.” The hand not between your thighs pets over your hair. “Poor thing. ‘S confusing. I don’t make it easy.”

“You’re an asshole,” you try to say. Your message must get across, because he gently raps his knuckles against your cheek.

“Tell you what,” he says, suddenly pushing his middle finger into you. “I’m going to give you your reward, and you can tell me afterward how you like it.”

He presses deep, which forces his fingers against where your ass still stings. The heel of his palm grinds against your clit, too. It’s too much too fast. You try to curl into yourself on instinct. Of course, he doesn’t let you. The hand on top of your head comes down, palm over the gag and fingers hooked under your chin to force your head back.

He stops fingering you grab the pants around your shins and force your feet closer to your ass. When he lets go of your face and gathers your hands between his, over your head, he replaces the hand on your pants with one of his knees. The result is a position that feels more exposed than if he’d stripped you bare. The way he keeps staring down into your eyes somehow makes it worse. And then he slaps at your clit, a sharp, bright sensation that makes you yelp. You twist, knees slamming inward against his hips.

Then he sinks into your body with two fingers. Before everything, you used to be fascinated by his hands. They were so big and broad and dexterous. Now you’re intimately familiar with how much bigger two of his fingers are than even three of yours. The stretch makes you wheeze around the gag. He doesn’t give you time to breathe before he’s rolling his wrist, teasing your clit and fucking into you with a steady intensity. It’s horrible how fast your body gives over to him. It takes embarrassingly little time for him to coax you toward an orgasm.

As soon as you start tightening, he dips his face down to drag his nose against your cheek. “Pretty girl.” And he pulls his fingers out and slaps your clit.

You choke on your scream and jolt as he just. Keeps. Slapping at you, fast and just this side of too hard. He coos and shushes you, but you can barely hear him. The sensation confuses your body. Your hips stutter up into his hand and away.

When his fingers finally plunge deep again, it’s relief and torment in one. Your clit feels like it’s on fire when his palm grinds into it. The pressure of him inside is everything and still not enough. When he hooks his fingers up and in, your right leg tries to kick out as your orgasm rocks through you.

Simon almost seems to take your orgasm personally. His breath is hot on the side of your face when he growls something else you can’t quite hear. His hand doesn’t slow down or soften. Your peak stretches on and on as you whimper and whine back at him. After the barest dip in pleasure, he brings you right back to the edge again faster than you feel should be possible.

The second orgasm is overwhelming for a split second, and then Simon’s hand is gone again. Your hips chase him before your brain catches up. So your legs are spread even farther apart when his fingers slap down again. Where his fingers had been focused on your clit before, these strikes hit your whole labia. He doesn’t let you close yourself off at all, and something about the whole experience brings the pleasure roaring to the surface again. It’s the best-worst orgasm of your life.

Next thing you know, Simon is carrying you. You ragdoll a bit in his arms, dizzy and weak, but try to make your feet cooperate. It’s not much help, since he barely lets your toes touch the floor. So you try to focus on breathing and not choking on your own spit.

You’re not surprised when you’re dropped unceremoniously onto the side of your bed. Your knees knock a bit against the bed frame, which shakes some of the haze from your head. Before you can drag yourself up, his hand pushes your chest back down to the bed. With one hand, he unhooks your bra and tugs at your shirt. You cooperate as much as you can, proud when you get the shirt over your head and shake it free from your arms. You get your elbows under yourself and and try to make your feet figure out how to work with a floor again. But then Simon’s foot is standing on your pants. You have a moment of slow confusion with the top of one foot stuck to the floor.

He slaps your thighs apart, and you spread your still tender legs with a hiss. Then you yelp and try to escape up the bed as Simon slaps at your pussy. A part of you recognizes that it’s not as hard as it could be. The rest of you is overstimulated and overwhelmed. You kick and squeal. You reach around to grab at his wrist where he’s braced against your shoulder. He cracks his hand down on your ass twice.

When he finally hauls you onto the bed by the shoulder and one of your thighs, you yowl like an offended cat. He digs his nails in to make you do it again, then positions you so your hips are higher than your shoulders. Three fingers get pushed into you as he clamps his hand down on the back of your neck. You flail your feet, relieved to realize that you’re finally free of your pants.

Simon pulls his fingers free and drapes himself over your back, and you have a moment to wonder when he took off all of his clothes before he’s notching his cock at your entrance. It hurts, sore and stinging in a way you’ve never felt before. As he sinks in, you can’t help but moan. The stretch and fullness is everything you wanted five minutes ago. The usual too much of him is amplified by how puffy and swollen you must be.

“Drop it,” he growls in your ear. His fingers squeeze into the hinge of your jaw. You gasp as the gag falls to the bed, can’t help the way your spit drools from your mouth.

“Oh, god,” you moan, lips clumsy.

He snarls against the side of your face. “Say my name.”

“Oh, god,” you moan again. He chuckles and jostles his hips forward, pushing just a little bit deeper. “Oh, fuck! Simon!”

“That’s it,” he says, tilting your face so he can bite at your lips.

The pace he sets is slower than you expected, but hard. Now that your mouth is free, you whimper and whine as he grinds into your sore ass and thighs. The feeling of him pushing in and out is so intense that you claw a hand into his hair with a gasp. Suddenly, you jolt as his finger grinds into your clit and makes you sob.

And then he turns on the vibrator.

You shriek against the hand he slaps over your mouth. You aren’t sure you don’t levitate both of you off the bed trying to get away. There’s no escape. The orgasm is ripped from you before you can catch your breath. He rides out your shaking with a growl of his own, grinding deep. You shake and clench and flutter around him with a sob. And then another orgasm rocks through you.

It’s like your peak never ends. You’re strung from one orgasm to the next, until your limbs can do nothing but quake. You’re sobbing, begging, calling Simon’s name helplessly around the fingers he’s dipped into your mouth. It’s barely a relief when he finally pulls the vibrator away because that’s when he really starts driving his hips into yours.

“Please,” you gasp, nonsensically. Can’t find your fingers to snap once, let alone twice. “Simon, I can’t, please let-! I can’t. Please let me-”

“Oh, sunshine, of course,” he coos between grunts of effort. “’S your reward. Take it.”

“I can’t,” you sob.

His arm wraps around your throat, flexes to almost cut off your air supply. “You will. Because I say you will.”

The next orgasm is a full body contraction that whites out your vision. You’re distantly aware of your wheezing cries and digging your fingernails wherever they can get purchase. You feel Simon stiffen over you, snarling something under his breath. You have just a moment to realize what’s about to happen before you pass out.

When you wake up, you groan. Everything from your diaphragm down is sore. You’re flat on your belly. Simon is on his side beside you, petting up and down your spine in long strokes. When you flutter your eyes open, he leans down to press a long kiss to your eyebrow.

There’s a lot you want to say, but English fails you. “Guh-uh.”

“’S ‘at so? Interestin’,” Simon answers. He cocks his head and you realize there’s blood in his hair.

“Muh?” You want to reach up to touch it, see where your fingernails damaged him. Your arms aren’t cooperating.

“Made a mess of me,” Simon confirms with an easy grin. “Got a towel, but we’ll need to change the sheets.”

A towel? How bad did you get him? You try to sit up, with mixed success. “That much?”

He makes an affirming noise. “Surprised me.”

“’M sorry,” you slur. Words are so hard. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Simon’s eyes crinkle. His eyes aren’t warm, but they’re as close as they ever get. “Go to sleep, Precious.”

You hum. With effort, you work a hand out from under yourself and get your fingers up to his collarbones before you’re too weak to go any further. “Stay.”

He chuckles as your eyes slip closed. “You’ll never be rid of me, luv.”

#dragonnarrativewrites fanfiction #cod #fanfiction #simon ghost riley #dark fic #simon riley x you #slasher handler #simon riley x you smut #manic pixie dream ghost

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tragedynoir · 7 months

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— introducing 010: ORIGINS / FIRST ISSUE + [ link ]

a google doc template heavily inspired by comic books and visual novels! the comic panes provide a place for you to include visual snippets of your muse's interactions or inner thoughts, and can be customized through google drawings within google docs. it also provides plenty of space for your character lore! this template also comes with PSDs for you to edit your photos in this visual novel style. the template and a page-by-page preview can be found in the link above or in the source code.

features:

6 unique 8.5" x 11" pages with space for statistics, a few short and long sections, and plenty of space for pictures

comic panes whose text and image positions can be edited through google drawings

3 PSD templates for you to edit your images into the graphic novel style in the previews — one for settings, one for close-ups and one for the connections page

a connections/muses page that can be easily duplicated for more

you may edit to your heart’s desire. Change the colours, replace, add or remove elements and images etc.

you may remix pages with pages from my other templates.

you may not remove the credit from the templates.

you may not copy, sell or redistribute my templates whether wholesale, in part (i.e. taking out certain pages) or remixed (i.e. modified).

you will also receive an additional guide with images on how to use and edit google doc templates! the template itself should be straightforward to edit, but the google drawings might be a little finicky if you move things around too much. if you have any problems or issues, feel free to leave an ask or join our discord server and I'd be happy to help!

I hope you enjoy this template that I absolutely adore! likes + reblogs are always appreciated and go a long way in supporting me. ♡

#rp resource #google doc template #google docs template #muse template #rp doc template #m #fave #m pr

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afinickyguide · 1 month

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episode 134: hot river crab bites 🦀🥖🌊

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noctilin · 8 months

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I'm a fairly young artist(in my teens) and i've recently gotten carpal tunnel syndrome, is there any advice you have to avoid worsening my condition?

hi there! i'm sorry to hear about the cts. it's such a finicky thing but it's manageable with the proper attention. what makes it rather difficult is that cts is usually a case-to-case basis and not all treatment methods work the same for each person. so take this with caution.

that said, before anything else, I recommend that you keep in touch with your doctor and follow any medication prescribed. it's better if you have a hand specialist (orthopaedic) to look at it if you haven't yet. ask them anything you're curious about such as things that involve your regular activities.

another thing, you should know that my cts has gotten severe to the point that my orthopaedist recommended I take surgery, but at the time, my mother was vehemently against it and I was in no position to disobey her so I had to find my own way to live with the strain. I do find myself lucky that I was able to live my life a little normally after a bit of research and trial and error. just know that I'm not encouraging going against what doctors recommend, but if you find yourself in the same situation as me, then hopefully you'll be lucky.

these are what i found that worked for me and my lifestyle:

before you do anything else, do NOT do any stretches, exercise, or any activity if it causes you PAIN. it's normal to feel a bit of tension while doing stretches and exercises but you are NOT supposed to feel PAIN. stop immediately if you do and ask your doctor for advice. until then, avoid any activity and just rest your hands and wrists.

if you only have cts on one wrist (unlike me I have both,) I still recommend doing these things for both! just to keep things balanced. it'll be good prevention for the other wrist too anyways :)

you should also ask your doctor for vitamins for your cts! i took some for a while, I'm pretty sure it was vitamin B12. BUT please ask your doctor first!

stretches and exercises

for stretches, what i did was a routine of doing them before and after i get out of bed. this is very important especially if you tend to sleep with your wrists curled or under pressure, like putting it under your head. when you sleep, you are likely to hold a position for at least a couple or so hours before you move and toss and turn (sometimes not at all) this causes stress on your wrists for a prolonged time so it's important to stretch them before and after you sleep.

i also stretch before and after working/drawing. if you know you're going to be on the computer or workspace for a while, be sure to do this and do it every hour or so. your cts is more likely to give you problems if you keep doing repetitive activities such as drawing and typing without stretching.

you're going to see these things everywhere and your doctor might give you a diagram too, like mine did. but this is almost the same one I got from my ortho.

i like to do these as a break from work, but you can also do them before and after sleeping and/or working. just do each for about 15-20 seconds and make sure to relax your hand for about 5 seconds after each one to give your wrists a breather, so to speak. put on a lil silly youtube video while you do them! makes them less of a drag to do :-3

here are some great videos that helped me a lot as well! i mainly do these before and after sleeping/working but after a while I just start to do them randomly when I'm not particularly doing anything with my hands too.

youtube

what's great about these videos is that it's not sped up or skipped around, so you can do this "with" them. i personally find it hard to follow diagrams or sped up videos so it's nice to have a real time guide, if that makes sense. eventually, you'll remember these routines enough to not rely on the videos anymore. ^^

there's another exercise i like to do that I can't seem to find a video or diagram of but basically just do push-ups on the wall for about 20 times. this is also good for your back!

here is another easy one to do whenever you're idle or just want an easy stretch (old ladies taught me this lol)

when your wrists are feeling better, you can do some wrist strengthening. you can do this with a simple water bottle. don't use anything too heavy, you wouldn't want to strain. i'd say around 300~500g plastic water bottle is enough but, of course, find what works best for you! you're not here to body build, you just want some strength back on your wrists. do this upside too. about 15-20 times each.

tools

now that i've suggested the water bottle, here are some other helpful things!

1. wrist splint

to me, this is a MUST. please get anything like this whenever you can. i got mine from sports shops but you can also find them in medical supplies and pharmacies sometimes. i wore this when my wrists were still inflamed for 2 weeks. after the inflammation had subsided, I switched to using them every time I went to sleep. remember when I said how we tend to strain our wrists during sleep? this helps prevent that. don't use it when you're doing something though like being on the computer and drawing, I found it horribly uncomfortable!! using it when i was sleeping was enough for me.

2. ergonomic vertical mouse and keyboard

this mouse will help lessen the pressure on your cts while you're on the computer. some of them can get pretty expensive but honestly I just used a cheap 10$ one. it broke every 6 months but as long as it does its job!! if you have the budget for it, throw in an ergonomic keyboard as well. if not, you can opt for at least a cushioned wrist pad. also, try to get a mechanical keyboard with red switch keys. it makes them easier to click and use! membrane keyboards tend to have some resistance so I really do not recommend them.

3. stress ball

in the first exercise diagram you'll see one of them requires a stress ball. honestly just having one in general is pretty useful. squeeze it whenever you're not doing anything in particular.

lifestyle changes

here's where most of the trial error comes from. aside from drawing, I do a lot of things every day that require my hands, oftentimes straining them. chores such as cleaning, cooking, lifting groceries and whatnot. this made it difficult for me to recover during the time my cts was at its worst because BOTH of my hands were unavailable.

it was at this time my siblings didn't know how to cook either so I had to still move but with a lot of help from them. i asked them to chop anything harder than leafy vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots for me because I couldn't. i asked them to lift groceries for me and casseroles filled with water because I couldn't. the point is, if you have people around you who can help you, it's best to ask for it before hurting yourself even more. even now when my cts is more manageable, I still ask my siblings to do these things because admittedly my wrists are still weak.

some other changes i had to make was go from ceramic plating to plastic ones. this is because ceramic was too heavy for my wrists as well. i also changed from carrying grocery bags to buying a portable grocery cart. i also changed certain ways I draw and found myself more comfortable in using tools that help me. stuff like that, yknow? so it really depends on what your lifestyle is. but the rule of thumb is, don't make things harder than it should be!

speaking of ease of drawing, if you draw digitally, I highly recommend setting your hotkeys into something easier to reach. for example, my current hotkeys are like this so I don't strain my wrist and fingers from stretching so often.

this takes a while to get used to but I promise that it's worth it. :)

be careful as well of video games that put too much strain on your wrists. when I was recovering I couldn't play games like bayonetta because it was just too much button mashing and it made my wrists go nuts lol (I can't play skullgirls anymore </3)

i also play on a controller instead of a keyboard these days because it's less strain on my wrists. i use a ps4 controller so idk how other controllers would perform. also, if your game has controller vibration, TURN THAT OFF lol this thing makes my wrists go stupid every time.

i think it also is pretty obvious but, invest in a spacious and comfortable workspace! one that you have enough room to rest your arm comfortably while you draw or type or do anything for long hours. the reason I even got cts was because I had such a shitty makeshift table. you don't need to invest so much as to burn hundreds of dollars (but if you have the means, go for it!) I was able to make do with a simple desk chair and a spacious desk that was the right level for me.

remember, the goal is to lessen the strain on the wrists as much as possible. this includes pressing it onto hard surfaces and corners! big no-no! if your wrists hurt, stop everything, put the splint on and rest!

that's all i can think of to tell you. hopefully, you can find your way to manage things :) cts can be scary but with the right care, you'll still be able to draw and do things you like so long as you don't push it. take care!

#asks #Anonymous #art help

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copperbadge · 10 months

Note

Hello, hello, could you please say more about how you use Microsoft OneNote in your professional life? I need all the help I can get to stay organized & on top of things, so I would love to know.

Sure! I use it less than previous because there's less randomized stuff I need to do now, so I don't need such robust management, but I can talk about how my use began/evolved. I started using OneNote because it was less finicky than Word but still had an autosave function and basic formatting, so it was useful for initial drafts of documents, taking notes on meetings, and keeping track of information I needed at my fingertips frequently.

OneNote's largest "unit" is the Notebook. You can have multiple Notebooks but I've never bothered; still I can see how if your screen was public a lot, you'd want to put some things in a separate Notebook. The Notebook then breaks down into Sections which look like tabs, which I would assign to broad things like "Meeting Notes", "Assignments", "Templates", "Personal" and "Excel Hacks". Sections break down further into "Pages"; each page is a document stuck into place, which you can title so that you can have a list of "pages" on the sidebar and find the one you want easily. Text in Pages can be formatted to some degree, and if you copypaste from websites, it'll tag on the URL of the site you pasted from, although you can also turn that off if you want. You can drag and drop Pages from one Section to another pretty easily.

So, for example, I'd have a "Meeting Notes" Section, and when I clicked the tab for that section I'd have a list of Pages, each of which was notes from a meeting I'd attended. Every time I went into a meeting I just made a new page, gave it a meeting title and date, and took notes on the meeting into the page window. The "Meeting Notes" Section thus became a fully searchable record of meetings I'd attended and what was said. When meeting notes were no longer relevant I'd drag them to an archival Section to retire in peace.

Here's an example of my Excel section:

You can see "My Notebook" up in the left top corner, my current Sections as tabs at the top, and the pages list on the left (I think more modern OneNote skins put the pages on the right, I moved mine back). Each line on the left is a separate "page" that tells me how to do something in Excel, something I need to do a lot but can't commit to memory (or couldn't but now have, it's a trifle out of date). So we're in My Notebook, section Excel, page Formatting Stripes, and on the right you can see how to format an Excel sheet so that it has alternating colored rows (there are other ways to do this but this way the stripes always stay alternating no matter what moves where). In theory I could dump all this stuff into one Page and call it "Excel" and put it somewhere else, but I liked having an easily-visible list so I don't have to scroll a single document to find what I want.

There aren't nearly as many tab/sections as there used to be; "Assignments" covers "all work that is not excel formulas" and includes stuff like instructions for how to pull a query in our database, a list of what everyone does at our company, a yearly guide to our events program, a few other things. I don't have a "Personal" section any more but I do have 2-3 pages in the Assignments section that are personal notes.

There's no inbuilt tagging function but because the entire notebook is searchable, if you're really into tagging you can simply add keywords to the top or bottom of a page.

I have OneNote pinned to my taskbar in Windows, and it's basically always open but it autosaves, so adding stuff is super simple; if I find a bug in our database or a quirk I want to remember I just click over to OneNote and add it to the database file, or similar.

I don't use it on my phone or tablet, because if I'm at work I have access to my laptop generally, but OneNote does sync across devices as long as you're logged in, so if you have OneNote and a Microsoft login you should be able to access it in multiple places.

#one note #life hacks #sam has adhd #adhd tools #organization tools

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max1461 · 29 days

Text

I've talked before about how scientific knowledge assumes a robust body of everyday knowledge. When you do a scientific measurement, you need to trust that your instrument is giving you the right reading instead of an error, for instance. You probably don't know the ins and outs of how the instrument works yourself—you're trusting technicians to be able to do their job and make the instrument work. They may use a mixture of formal knowledge and informal knowledge to do this. You hear all kinds of stories of technicians saying things like "this machine's a little finicky, if it doesn't give a reading just give it a couple of whacks" or whatever all the time.

You use everyday, "common sense" reasoning of various sorts to determine if your instruments work and if your technicians are trustworthy and capable and so on. You can bolster this knowledge in other ways—for instance, if another research group on the opposite side of the world gets the same result as you, that's some evidence that your readings weren't a technical error. But trusting this research group requires all sorts of other informal knowledge, which you get through e.g. your professional network as a scientist and so on, about whether they're working in a reputable lab and whether the journal they published in is reputable and so on and so forth.

I'm not saying that this makes scientific knowledge untrustworthy. Far from it, I think scientists' ability to manage these epistemic hurdles is generally quite good, although certainly not flawless. They're an occupational hazard of being a human and trying to collaborate with other humans to figure stuff out about the world, there's no way you can get around it. But I do think it means that if you want to consider yourself, you know... epistemically virtuous, a good skeptic, you need a working model of how everyday knowledge is and should be obtained, an epistemic theory applicable to "folk knowledge" not obtained through the scientific process. Not only because you use folk knowledge all the time in your everyday life and should probably be thoughtful about whether it's bullshit or not, but also because the scientific process itself relies on it in a straightforward way.

Anyway, I can't do a rigorous scientific study to figure out... how I should respond to my friend when they're down, or how to throw them a good birthday party, or whatever. And I would be dubious of any psychology study which claims to answer these questions in a general sense. But that doesn't mean that I don't know how to do these things for my friend! My specific, "folk psychological" understanding of who my friend is as an individual, what they care about, how they respond to things, these are more reliable guides than the psychological literature would be on this issue! That viewpoint is not "anti-science". The alternative view is so patently ridiculous that basically no one hews to it, not even scientists.

On second thought I'm sure there are like, some podcast guys who believe it...

#navel gazing #triv this is not about your psych/antipsych posting this is about a much dumber discourse

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moodymisty · 4 months

Note

Hiya! Could I request some Magnus / GN! Reader shenanigans? Like the reader is trying to learn a spell (to impress Magnus), does it by "The books are just guidelines anyways", and it works. Then they go to show Magnus and confusion hell breaks loose Blease and thankyou <3<3<3

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author's Note: Magnus time! I was actually working on something just like this, so this gave me the motivation to really spruce it up and finish it. But I really apologize because when I reread your request I realized I might've gone a bit less silly than you might've wanted. I hope you still enjoy.

Relationship: Magnus the Red/Gn!Reader

Warnings: None apart from this being my first time writing Magnus so please forgive me figuring him out I'm sorry if he feels off

Word Count: 1220

Sorcery is by it's very nature, finicky.

It has no solid answer, no yes or no. It's not as if it's a machine you can turn on or off, or a star you can see is alive or dead. It's an ebb and flow- something you feel.

But how do you feel something you've never felt before?

These tomes are largely nonsensical to you; The scribblings of madmen, words with no translation and sentences backwards.

You'd once again today attempted to make sense of it all, to tempt your better judgement that kept saying it maybe wasn't your most intelligent idea, but nothing has happened yet. So now you sit in bed, flicking through pages of tomes scattered across the blankets; Attempting to perhaps make enough sense of it and not bring anymore embarrassment to yourself than you already have.

In your fussiness you've already given yourself two different paper cuts, licking your wounds both physical and mental. You should probably be sleeping, the stars are out bright, and the wind gently raps against the windows as you study.

Magnus' tower is so ethereal, you look towards the window for a moment and see nothing but the midnight sky illuminating everything underneath it.

After thinking, you look back towards the oversized tome in your lap, lying on your thighs over top of a blanket. You'd picked many of the books not necessarily at random, but attempting to find the most basic of starting places from a collection that puts most others to shame. Magnus has many shelves up here, filled with his personal collection of tomes and scrolls. You sort've wish he was here to help guide you, but at the same time, you wish to surprise him to some degree.

You try just one more time, attempting to light a small ember in your palm. You follow every word exactly as the instructions- if you could call them that, and mange to hold it for only a few moments before it flickers away as if blown out by breath.

"Ugh!"

You drop your head, it coming quite close to hitting the pages of the tome.

"What is this?"

Your head suddenly whips upright, seeing Magnus himself standing in the doorway across the room. You don't know how you hadn't heard his footsteps, though you suppose you were far too distracted for your ears to prick to any other sound than what was right next to you.

Entering the room and closing the massive door behind him, Magnus takes in the scenery he's missed while aboard Photep, traveling the stars. After his quick glances he focuses on you cross legged in his bed, surrounded by opened and unopened books.

"Magnus!" He slowly walks closer to the beside, one finger brushes a tome he's clearly familiar with and opening it to a particular page; Glossing over it before he lets it gently fall back shut.

"Now, what are you concocting in that little mind of yours that requires so many spell tomes?"

Magnus watches amused as you close the book in your lap, legs cross underneath it and look at your slightly burned palm.

"I was trying to call fire. But it seems it's a bit harder than I thought." His smile fades a bit softer, watching your expression. The fabric of his robes is weaved with gold string that shines in the soft candle light.

"You seem to have had it, from what I saw."

You can feel his long red hair brush against your arm as he sits beside you, his massive height and weight difference forcing the appropriately massive bed to dip heavily to his side. It almost makes you roll, but you quickly adjust to prevent that. Now in your atmosphere it's a bit easier to look him in the eye, but you still have to crane your next a decent bit.

"I was following the tomes exactly like they said, and the best I can do is a little baby kindling. I'd have trouble even setting a letter alight."

You look up towards him, hands playing with the edges and filigree of the old, worn tome in your lap. Magnus speaks up, his tone curious and a bit surprised.

"Exactly?"

His eye glances down to the front cover of the tome in your hand, and recognizes that one instantly. With one hand, he gently reaches underneath the covers and gently clamps the tome shut, the top of his hand laying against your thighs before he pulls the tome towards his chest.

"Then you are taking it all far too literally." Perhaps the book shouldn't be written so literally then, you rebelliously think. He lays the tome aside, and uses the same hand to gently cup your jaw between his fingers and look up at him.

"it's far more of a feeling that anything, my love. If you keep just following the tomes, you might end up burning something down. Or as you've noticed, burning nothing at all." He lets out a laugh, feeling your cheeks move under his finger tips.

"I never thought you to be so studious in following directions. Perhaps you'd prefer Primarch Guilliman to myself?" You let out a harsh puff of air through your closed lips, making an insulting noise. Your hand grips his wrist and tries to pull it away, but to no avail, and instead you just grip the massive muscles of his arm and scowl.

"Funny."

He smiles wider. How you speak to him so casually now, compared to months ago. Perhaps his teasing makes it easier for you to forget who he is. He doesn't mind it.

A testament to your determination, you'd been able to cast something despite a lack of knowledge; But you could do well in having someone set you on the right path. Afterall, Magnus knows simply treating something with such an ebb and flow as sorcery as rules you can memorize will never bear any fruit.

Magnus can guide you, and truthfully, he would love for nothing more than to.

His sons don't need to be taught. They learn from his actions, and most are more than capable of progressing on their own and honing their own skills. To be able to teach his beloved something that is such a core part of himself, to guide your hand and your mind to touch something greater- he finds himself almost, dare he say excited.

He's rough on his sons, he knows they can take it. That they're built for sorceries and touching the warp. But with you he'll have to be gentle. The thought of it, to sit with you and show you wondrous things that your home planet kept from your eyes, he would start right now if not for one thing.

Magnus lets go of your jaw. He leans down and gently brushes a kiss against your temple, his fire red hair brushing against your skin again.

"Now, as much as I don't wish to part you from your reading, I have returned from Terra at my absolute wits end and desiring some rest." He smiles and vaguely gestures to the mess you've made of his bed during his absence. He can see other little messes throughout his chambers, as well.

"So my love, perhaps you could move your research, off the bed?"

#magnus the red x reader #primarch x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #reader insert #reader #mywriting

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