At First Glance This Seemed Pretty Outrageous To Me. It Just So Happens That It Was At The Intersection

New to the WNBA, I'll tell *you* who to root for

I noticed a bunch of posts, especially on reddit, from new fans to the league looking for advice on who to support. Luckily I already have years of experience forming snap judgements and comitting to spite and adoration at the drop of a hat, so instead I thought I'd tell you about the teams from the view point of someone who as seen every game this season but also had never seen basketball before last friday. I knows 0 things but I have Opinions. Buckle up ya knuckle puck chuckle fucks let's feel some fucking feelings!!

Villains

Las Vegas Aces: The players for the Aces seem pretty cool and I like how they let the other team have some success in the 1st quarter before they crush them. But STAND UUUUUUP ALL VICTIMS OF OPREEEEEESION FOR THE TYRANTS FEAR YOUR MIGHT! DON'T CLIIIIING SO HARD TO YOUR POSEEEEEESIONS FOR YOU HAVE NOTHING IF YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS!!!. There's no coming back from violating labour protections, you're a cartoonish villain now.

Minnesota Lynx: The Aces were the easy choice for villain, but I've decided based on an inadequate sample size that I don't care for the coach of the Lynx. Spending all your time screaming at the refs instead of talking to your team is gross to me. Especially satisfying to cheer against because her coaching isn't exactly leading to victories.

You could do better

New York Liberty: Such fun basketball to watch but their home court is grey with seafoam accents that screams through the screen into the itchy parts of my brain.

Seattle Storm: The Storm play by play announcer seems like he's watching a stats feed through an old timey teletype instead of being in the same room as people doing shit that's rad as hell. Perhaps he's a mermaid and simulates human speech through sound clips of other boring cis het white dude announcers. The firefox tab I was streaming in warned me about AI generated content every time he spoke.

Respectable Choices

Indiana Fever: Aliyah Boston is cute as a button and good as heck. The Fever seem so young and full of dreams and optimism. A great team to root for if hope still lives in your heart. Sadly I'm a recovering Oilers fan so it's medically inadvisable for me to get invested, but I want nothing but the best for this team.

Chicago Sky: The Chicago Sky sure are a basketball team. I don't have a lot of strong feelings except for Courtney Williams, whom I adore. I do also love Marina Mabrey and the focus faces she makes.

Washington Mystics: I really enjoyed their home opener. They were so coordinated and used the power of friendship to beat a super team. I personally don't love the home fans booing every free throw - then it's less special when you boo a player you really hate or a bad foul call!

Atlanta Dream: This is the team that ousted an openly racist owner. I didn't think it was possible to get justice against ownership like that until they did it, and I will always be pulling for them. Rhyne Howard leading their come back against the Aces was so exciting even if they fell short. Also their home PA sometimes plays the smoothest music I've ever heard in an areana while they're on offence.

LA Sparks: Solid contender for best all around graphic design. The little stars on their shorts! Clarendon will steal your heart and while you're distracted Canada (the player, not the country) will steal the ball and go zoooom.

Dallas Wings: Arike Ogunbowale is small but zooms around the court and then defiantly sinks 3s. It's so fun to watch and her superfan brother agrees. Dangerfield is even tinier and Sabally scores with poise. Super fun to watch.

RIDE OR DIE

Connecticut Sun: I don't know the difference between Connecticut and Cincinatti (Americans please don't explain it to me), but I love this team with all the best parts of my heart. I have actually teared up about the stretch passes between DeWanna Bonner and Alyssa Thomas. The whole team has a deeply endearing earnestness. I have an emotional journey watching them every time.

Phoenix Mercury: I love this team with all the best and worst parts of my heart. It is grounding any time someone else is angry about the same things as you, and healing when they do dope basketball with that anger. Britney Griner is an electrifying prescence and can make me laugh of cry at the drop of a hat. Diana Tuarasi is fun like Arike Ogunbowale except she traded up from being fast to being old. They build a defiant energy that means I hardly notice when they lose because it feels like a victory.

- American conspiracy theorist trying to talk me out of bottom surgery

people who don't wear glasses are so weird like you just wake up and your eyes are pussy fresh??

The ice we skate

Is getting pretty thin

It signifies our youth

And pleasures chucked into the bin

Mercedes and James Hutchinson

HOOKED RUG

1920-1940

Fabric

Fenimore Art Museum

Yeah man it's a huge fucking waste! Rain falling on me and waterlogging all my pretty feathers when I'm just trying to live my little life. The worst and most wasteful part? The fucking seagulls don't even mind! Those smug fucking bullies flap about and get the good garbage while I'm huddling under this tree, the saddest crow that ever lived. At least the fucking owls, may all their flight feathers fall out, take it much worse than I do and are forced to reveal their hideous inner and outer selves to the world. Rain should fall on them but not me. Huge waste tbh.

You Are Not Wasting Time; It Was Given To You As A Gift, Freely and Generously; Is Rain Wasted Because It Falls On Gardens, Grass, Disgruntled Birds, and Umbrellas All The Same?

Great news for you about the Ethiopic Canon

they should put more words in the bible

Book of Hours, Initial, Walters Manuscript W.202, fol. 37r by Walters Art Museum Illuminated Manuscripts http://flic.kr/p/DbvRSn

Codex Callistius, a 12th century “travel guide” to Santiago di Compostela. 

This article does make an assumption that I would like to push back on. My area of passion are manuscripts of the British isles from before the Norman Conquest ("Insular" is the term for this style). I am also not a scholar - I am just a calligrapher.

We have no idea who wrote almost all the manuscripts from this period. We can tell roughly how many people worked on something by comparing stylistic differences, but we know almost nothing about those people. Often we don't even know where they were.

In this case we know a delightful amount about the provenance of the manuscript! The monastic gender roles being discussed are extremely over simplified though. Please make sure you do not assume that any other monastary in any other place or time functions like this. The diversity of monastic traditions is staggering and the time period we're talking about spans more than a millenium.

There is no support for the assumption that all calligraphy and manuscript decoration was done by men. In insular calligraphy I'm not even sure you can assume that that was the norm. It is a painfully common assumption, but it comes from the same kind of science and hisotry that identified the sex of archeological remains in northern Europe by whether or not they had a sword, and then claimed that only men have swords.

medieval parchment repairs

in a psalter, south-western germany, late 12th/early 13th c.

source: Hermetschwil, Benediktinerinnenkloster, Cod. membr. 37, fol. 19r, 53r, and 110r