I present to you the work of another painter of fish plates. Y’know how you use ‘scare quotes’ for various purposes, including indicating that you’re not actually sure about The Thing?
Well, this guy was so bad at whatever he was painting that we call him…
The ‘tadpole’ painter:
Here’s another example:
This one was sold as part of the Graham Geddes collection at Bonham’s auction house in 2008 for £2,040.
They describe it as ‘three fish including a wrasse with dorsal spines, an angler-fish, the rounded body with multiple black dots, two large round eyes with pupils, an open mouth with teeth bared, and a ray with pointed face, the body with multiple black dots’.
Which like… bold fucking move missing out the fact that they have legs. Though I can’t say I envy whoever had to write the description.
804 notes
·
View notes
2023 reads
The Deep Sky
scifi mystery thriller
on a deep space mission traveling from an environmentally devastated earth with hope to restart humanity elsewhere
when they’re halfway, an explosion kills 3 crew and pushes them off course
the only witness is the Alternate who has no specific role, and she has to figure out who caused it & if they might continue to sabotage, while they're figuring out a way to get back on course with limited resources
flips between present and the past: of her childhood and training for the mission, her identity struggles, and relationship with her mother
questions the ethics of ‘restarting’ humanity elsewhere vs putting resources into fixing earth
79 notes
·
View notes
brb watching the people in charge of my local egl community continue to ask for more than two weeks to handle the loss of a loved one before they can go up to someone and say "we banned you for x", after forcing a 19-year-old to deal with these people creating the situation and specifically targeting her, less than an hour after said community member came down from a health episode that almost ended her life.
When someone demands a concession from you that they did not grant you, take note.
125 notes
·
View notes
It's honestly pretty frustrating sometimes how I feel like so many people say they love Martha, but mostly what I actually see people saying about Martha is how much she probably does/should hate the Doctor for not returning her crush, or sometimes how much people hate Blink/Family of Blood/Last of the Time Lords because they were hard for her.
And like, the former of those is frustrating because a) Nobody is obligated to return someone's romantic feelings, b) Being oblivious to someone having a crush on you might suck for the other person but is not actually a moral failing and c) Martha was sad about it but like. She didn't leave because she was furious at the Doctor for not returning her crush? She left because she knew her crush wasn't reciprocated and wasn't going to be, but couldn't get over it on her end while travelling with the Doctor. And also because the past year had been pretty traumatizing for everyone, including her and also the Doctor and also everyone else who was on that ship thing.
Anyways
I just wanted to talk for a bit about the things I like about Martha, or that are interesting, that are unrelated to those points above.
I think she's the first companion in New Who to join Unit, and I think still the only one to be a medical doctor with a strong scientific backing. Which is cool!
I think it's interesting that in the first episode she appears in, her family is shown to be kind of messy and kind of frustrating, and it feels like that's something she's a little glad to be getting away from for a bit when she travels with the Doctor (though it's not the reason she travels with them). And then, at the end of the season when her family is in danger she prioritizes their wellbeing enough to snap at the Doctor about it. If I remember correctly their phones were tapped or something and it wound up making things a bit worse, but I appreciate the nuances of her relationship with them and how important they are to her despite the messiness.
Despite all the ado made about her crush on the Doctor, I really loved how she really seemed to get the point of travelling with the Doctor. I think that she nailed both the joy and excitement of the unknown, and the compassion and sense of care that motivates the Doctor's travels, and which I think is vital to all of my favourite companions.
It also contrasts in interesting ways with how her personality shifts after she stops travelling with the Doctor - she still cares about people's wellbeing and seems to value the things she learned while travelling, but working with Unit and Torchwood does make her more military, and then of course doing freelance alien fighting (? or something?) in the End of Time.
I think Martha and the Doctor are an interesting duo because they contrast each other in interesting ways. They're both compassionate, hopeful but practical, and good at what they do, but they reflect those qualities in ways that almost, but don't quite, fit together nicely. They don't conflict, really, but they're not quite sustainable either.
They work well together and care about each other, but they're too similar in some ways and too different in others to ever quite see eye to eye, which is why they end up going in different directions. And I think that's not anyone's fault, or indicative of any deep flaws in either of them. Or even really a tragedy, because Martha seems to be doing new and interesting things every time we see her, with plenty of options available and a decent rapport with the Doctor whenever they show up.
Anyway this got way longer than I meant it to. Tldr: There are so many more interesting things to say about Martha than just "She must hate the Doctor". Here are some of them.
24 notes
·
View notes
arc 8 ottosuba and mutually assured destruction (devotion)
basically i wanna talk about this again but more Specifically bc they are gonna fuck each other over so fucking bad. like this is the most disastrous combo of all time. you got natsuki subaru who has rbd AND a suicide pill in his fucking mouth that he can use at any time AND he will die as many times as it takes to save Anyone he cares about. and then you pair him with otto suwen, aka a devoted little freak whos willing to let entire countries and millions of people, including people subaru cares about, die to save subaru. and otto has died for subaru twice now and will gladly do so again on top of that. they are the absolute worst combo of all time bc natsuki "ill save you no matter how many times i die" subaru and otto "i would let anyone and anything die to save you" suwen are inevitably going to come into conflict. otto wont let subaru die at any cost but subaru having rbd means that hes gonna win no matter what. hes gonna get what he wants. hes gonna die and theres nothing otto can do to stop it. and even if otto does stop subaru, its a lose lose bc either subaru dies and uses the info he got to beat otto next time, or subaru and otto end up having more fights with each other anyway, or otto does end up stopping subaru in some way (example: otto wanting louis to die) and subaru gets pissed at him over it, or all the otto permadeath flags end up being real and otto dies permanently and subarus gonna be destroyed and i bet ottos still gonna be like "i told you we shouldve left vollachia when we had the chance" on his literal deathbed bc him permadying proves his literal point this whole arc. and subaru can save otto all he wants but if otto ever figures out this hurts subaru in any way ottos never going to get over it. hes gonna be upset and pissed forever. there is no winning with these two. their devotion is violent and theyve literally found their match in each other. bc their devotion strips the other person of their own free will and choice in the manner bc they keep saying "no. i have to save you no matter what, even if you get upset at what im doing and even if i do all of this behind your back without ever telling you." and if they keep being stubborn theyre just gonna end up dragging each other down - which is the exact opposite of their goals to save each other. they are likely going to kill each other by the end of this, metaphorically or not. and its going to be because of love. do you understand. how do you save someone who wants to save you first. how do you save someone whos devoted themselves to you, body and soul, in the most violent way possible.
also if otto manages to read the tome once its restored... he's gonna figure out rbd.
52 notes
·
View notes
Young adult contemporary coming-of-age story (releases 4/16, I read an early copy from Netgalley)
Follows two first-year students at Wellesley College who run dueling anonymous advice columns and befriend each other in real life as they bonded over both being aroace, unaware of the other's internet identity
Platonic love story
Explores themes like aroace identity, finding community, being the queer child of immigrants, and trying to find your place in the world as a young adult looking towards the future
Love letter to platonic/familial love and finding community
Aromantic asexual Chinese American protagonist; aromantic asexual gender-questioning/nonbinary (she/they) protagonist; lots of QPOC side characters
18 notes
·
View notes