cookies 🤤

(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

At Mount fuji

Forget the rest of the fireworks around the world, these are the best. HNY.

The finale HOLY SHIT!!!

This is actually the first time I was impressed by a firework

For anyone interested, the music is by a composer named Thomas Bergersen, and the piece playing is called Homecoming from his Illusions album.  I listen to his music whenever I need to be inspired to write.

The uninhibited dopamine of it all

They didn’t bother to wear a suit or dress to the wedding. This is for my political marriage AU

Awwwww

My sensitive self can’t take this. this is beautiful 😫😢💕

I love Gordon.

She’s blind and he was making all the points about the pie in a way she could respond to: sound. He is an amazing man

Not to mention Christine won Master Chef that year.

I reblog Gordon Ramsey every time he appears

i reblog this every time it comes on my dash and i will until the day i die or this hellsite does

😩😩😩😭😩😭😭

im in awe

So.

The Sound of Silence is probably one of my favorite songs ever. When speaking of the “true” Simon and Garfunkel version (as opposed to the version where they added background music to in post to make it more “pop radio”), it’s a song that gives me chills.

Disturbed is not a band that I really enjoy. I remember in college, my (now) wife gave me a copy of a Disturbed CD, because she had two for some reason. I tried to listen to it, I really did. Didn’t do anything for me.

But this? Holy fuck, this is stunning. This is amazing.

This gives me chills.

Holy shit, you have to listen to the whole sing. 

I have chills. 

Holy SHIT.

This is the band who did “Down With The Sickness”????

UM?????

If you stop before three minutes you’re missing the truly mind-blowing bit

Absolutely beautiful. I had chills.

DUDE!

Ok, it got a reblog out of me there at the end. 

Fhdjf DUDE

The vocal range on this guy. THE VOCAL RANGE ON THIS FUCKING GUY.

I fuckin love Disturbed and always loved it when they did covers. This is amazingggg

i fucking love this video and i fucking love david draiman and his voice

Do you ever think about how sperm don’t work right at body temperature and that’s why males have external testicles? Design-wise that is such a huge risk to take. Your most important organ is swinging free outside your body, vulnerable to injury or attack. All because one (1) type of cell, your fucking gametes for christ’s sake, cannot function at the normal body temperature of the organism they belong to. What the fuck. I never want to hear a man try and say females are biologically inferior ever again.

While I’m at it also they have to share one hole that they both pee and have sex out of. That’s fucking gross and unsanitary. Everytime a man cums in you you’re also getting all the pee that was in his urethra enjoy that thought ladies. You know how many holes birds have? One. They pee, poop and have sex all in the same hole it’s called the cloaca. You know how many holes women have? Three. Because we evolved one. Evolution-wise, men fall somewhere between a chicken and a human female. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

Is just about the most legendary sentence I have ever read in my life in any language..

date a selkie, but don’t hide her cloak. let her go home and visit her family now and then, knowing that she’ll come back and hang her seal cloak in the closet like she always does. trust is important.

The first time she lets the redhead take her home, she’s diligent about hiding her cloak. She folds it carefully against tears and rips and abrasions, and hides it in a sea cave whose entrance is concealed by the tide.

She does the same, the second and third and fourth times, careful, wary, mindful of her mother’s lessons. Remembers the way her mother’s hands had chafed on her soft cheeks, rough with cooking and cleaning for her fisherman husband, the way her mother’s peat-dark eyes had been tense and harsh with the lesson.

“Mind me, Niahm. Never let them find your cloak.”

The way her mother’s mouth had curved, a sickle of dissatisfaction and relief and envy, as she had escaped into the waves.

So she minds her mother’s lesson, and she takes care with her cloak.

Would that she had taken as much care with her heart.

The fifth time, she wears the cloak to the girl’s door, clutched about her throat, dripping along the darkened lanes.

She enters the home, welcomed with soft kisses and gentle touches and kindling passion. She drapes the cloak, artful in her carelessness, across an old wooden chair, the one that creaks and tilts slightly if you don’t sit just right.

When she wakes, in the wee hours of the morning, even before her lover, the cloak still rests, supple and dappled by the sea, on the back of the chair.

She frowns into the softening dawn, dons the cloak, and returns to the sea.

And again, the sixth time. And the seventh.

The eighth time, she finally breaks, prickling and hurt with longing, gripping a handful of russet hair in her hand, firm with emphasis.

“Surely you know what I am,” she says to her lover, the cool froth of sea foam and the call of gulls curling around her voice.

“Of course,” her lover responds, soft and tender in the dawnlight, throat arched willingly, pale as the inner whorls of a shell. “You taste of the sea,” the girl whispers, reverently.

She shakes her lover’s head gently, fingers tangled still in russet locks. “Why?” she demands. “Why won’t you keep me?”

A long silence that waits and fills, like a tidepool, stretches between them. Cool as a current. Deep as the Channel.

Her lover’s eyes are dark and tender. “Must I trap you to keep you, my heart? Is that the shape of love that you desire?”

She sinks into the thought, struck and stymied, remembering her mother’s harsh hands, her cold eyes. Her hand eases into russet waves, caresses where her grip had punished. Her lips press cool and damp as the sea against the arching curve of her lover’s shoulder. “What shape of love will you give to me?”

The answer is easy, quick, certain. “Myself. Only myself, whenever you should wish it. Your cloak by the door, your body in my bed, and the freedom to go, whenever you must. As long as you wish.”

It’s not an answer a fisherman could ever give, nor would think to.

The ninth time, she hangs her cloak by the door, draped in careful dappled folds next to a drying oilskin jacket.

Your wife changes her hair color every season and her personality adjusts slightly. You’re secretly only in love with Autumn wife. She just came home sporting her Winter color.

it’s my fault. it’s just that when we met it was autumn; her red-orange hair and crackling laughter. there’s a little spooky in her, a lot of play. and what a better time for falling?

i didn’t realize it for the first few years - something shifting, something so subtle. the winter makes us all cold, the summer makes us all a little out of our minds. i just loved her, because she was incredible, and i was the luckiest person alive.

it’s just that i realized that spring came with sudden bursts of cold. it’s just that summer frequently raged in with fire sprouting from her lips. it’s just that winter was the worst of all, her eyes dead. it’s just that autumn loves me different; throws herself into it without the clingy sweat of summer. i used to love that summer girl, you know? i loved how wild she was, the way in summer she took every risk she could. but i carried her home drunk one too many times, cleaned up one too many of the messes she made for no reason than to enjoy the sensation of burning. and winter was worse; the shutdown, the isolation. how she became distant, a blizzard, caught up in her own head, unable to tell me what was wrong and unable to think i actually wanted to listen.

she comes home, her hair bleached white. a dark smile on her lips. the shadowy parts of her are back. they loom like icicles overhead. she kisses me with her body held at a distance, a peck on my cheek that feels like an iceberg. she makes polite conversation and we go to bed early, our bodies untouching. 

it is a lonely season, i think on the ninth day of this. winter is cold. winter is known for the death of things. when i look at her, i see the girl i fell for, inhabited by an alien. she was the first women i loved so much i felt it would kill me. i can’t leave. when i wake her up with my crying, she tells me to shush and go back to sleep. she’s different like this, quiet, doesn’t eat. 

three days later i stare at myself in the mirror. i wonder if it’s me. if the fat on my body or something in my face or the wrinkles and she doesn’t love me. i try prettier lingerie, lean cuisine, i try different hair, more makeup, try harder. it doesn’t work. she looks at me the same; that empty gaze that neither loves nor condemns my actions. 

somewhere in februrary i lose it. we’re fighting again, from car to restaurant to car to home again. we fight about stupid things, small things; i tell her i feel she doesn’t love me, she says i’m not listening. the circle goes around and around, old pain peeling back, new pain unhealing. i sleep on the couch.

i wake up when i hear her crying, white hair around her all messed up. the kind of sobbing that only comes at two in the morning, heavy and thick and hurting. my winter girl. my heart is breaking. she looks up at me like i’m her anchor. “i’m sorry i’m like this,” she says. and i start saying, it’s okay i’m here we’re married, but she just shakes her head and says, “I know this isn’t the real me.”

i hold her cold hand. she stares at the blankets. “i am different in winter,” she whispers, “i know i am and i’m sorry.” she looks at me. “why do you think i dye my hair? cut it off? get rid of the old me?”

i tell her it’s okay. we’re together and it’s okay, and then she whispers, “i’m sorry you married four of me.”

we lay there like that, her head on my chest. she falls asleep. i stare at the ceiling, thinking of the way she sounded when she was crying. how i helped put her in that pain. how i promised in sickness and in health and everything in between.

the next day i spend at the library. there aren’t enough books on how to love someone with seasonal affective disorder so i make my own, notes and pages and little ideas on post-its. and i take a deep breath and make myself a promise.

she comes home to her favorite dinner and we kiss and she’s uneasy but that’s okay. the next day i bring home flowers and the next day she finds little love notes in her pockets. i love her quiet, the way winter demands, understand her sex drive is faltering; spend more time just cuddling. we drink wine and we kiss and some part of her starts relaxing. 

the truth is there is no loving someone out of their mental illness. the truth is that you can love someone in despite of it; love them loud enough to give them an excuse to believe they can make their way out of it.

and i learn. i remember the rebirth of spring, when she starts thawing. we kiss and have picnics in pretty dresses. i remember her joy at little birds and her rain dancing. i fall in love with the flowers in her cheeks and the little bursts of cleaning. i fall in love with summer’s slow walks and milkshakes and shouting to music playing too loud on the speakers. i fall in love with her dancing, with the sunfire energy. and when winter comes; i am ready. i remember that snow used to look pretty. i fall in love with the hearth of her, with the holiday, with the slow smile that spreads across her face so shyly. i fall in love with how she looks in boots and mittens and every day i find another reason to love her the way she deserves - they way i always should have.

she comes home with her white hair and dark smile and a package in her hands. i ask to see what it is and that small shy grin comes creeping out. it’s a sunlamp packed in with medication. she looks at me with those wide eyes and that beautiful winter blush. “i’m trying to get better,” she whispers, “i promise.”

recovery doesn’t look immediate. sometimes it isn’t neat. i can’t say we never fight or that we’re suddenly complete. but each day, that tiny girl’s strength gives me another reason. i love her. i love her while she tames the roller coaster of spring; i love her for reigning in the summer storms; i love her for taking her winter and trying to be warm. it is hard, because everything worth it is hard. she spreads out her autumn leaves; mixes the best parts of her into everything. learns to take winter’s silence for a moment before yelling in summer. learns to take autumn’s spice and give it to spring. we are both learning.

one day she comes home and her hair is different, but it’s a style i don’t know. i kiss it and tell her that she’s beautiful and the inside of me swells like a flood. i’m so glad that she’s mine. every part of her. the whole. i am the luckiest person on earth. and i always have been. but she’s hugging me and saying, “thank you for helping me,” and i can’t explain why i’m crying.

this is what love is; not always an emotion but rather your actions. the choices we make when we realize our lives would be empty if the other was absent. this is what love is: letting them grow, helping them find their way in out of the cold. this is what love is: sometimes it takes work to see how the thing you planted together actually grows.

this is what love looks like in an autumn girl: it is winter and she glows.

I’m actually sobbing jesus christ

my heart is aching??? this is gorgeous

Wow. Worth the read, don’t scroll.

This is everything.

Everything about how to love.

I was not prepared

Nor was I.

“this is what love is; not always an emotion but rather your actions. the choices we make when we realize our lives would be empty if the other was absent. this is what love is: letting them grow, helping them find their way in out of the cold. this is what love is: sometimes it takes work to see how the thing you planted together actually grows.”

Honestly, if you scrolled… Go back up and read it.

I’ve read this again and again, and it just wrecks me every time.

This is beyond beautiful. Thanks for doing this prompt @inkskinned

PLEASE READ THIS!!’

When people are born, they have a streak of hair the same color and texture as their soulmate’s natural hair. You are born with a blue streak that floats in the air, and no matter what you do you can’t get it to lay flat on your head.

It’s your first day of kindergarten, and you are screaming. Tears are running down your face, and the day couldn’t get any worse. Your mother is trying to gel your soul streak down, but now it’s just a goopy spike, still sticking straight up, as always. You don’t understand why it’s a problem - your blue spike is super cool. Everyone else’s is black and kinky, blonde and wavy, or brown and bone straight. Yours is blue, and it floats. Your mother has tried everything: barrettes, bobby pins, even the dreaded tight bun, but nothing works. It always wiggles it’s way out, and back into the air. Eventually, she gives up. Thankfully, you have just enough time to rinse the disgusting goop out of your hair, but you have to go to school with it wet. She braids it down your back and leaves the blue streak sticking up, sighing heavily. You’re not sure why she thought she could make it go down today, she never has before.

School is mostly awful. You sit on the bus by yourself, because everyone looks scared of you. The moment you walk in, boys flock to pull your streak. You’ve always drawn extra attention, but nobody’s ever hurt you. Most of the girls want to feel it, and you let them. They’re being gentle and they all think it’s super soft. There were a few in the corner whispering about something though, and at lunch they come tell you that you’re a freak, that you’re destined to be forever alone and die right before your cats eat you, because people don’t have floating blue hair. They just don’t.

Your new friend Sam sticks up for you, and you know then you’ll be friends forever. She screams that your soulmate is gonna be the coolest, prettiest person anyone’s ever seen! She gets in trouble for using her outside voice inside, but she says it was worth it. Those girls were meanies. You really like Sam, even if you don’t understand why she’s sticking up for you. She’s normal. She has pretty black hair styled into poofy pigtails that look like pompoms, and she has a soft blonde streak. No one looks at her funny, no one calls her police car.

Elementary school comes and goes, and you and Sam are as inseparable as the day you met. One of your favorite games is seeing what kinds of stuff you can balance and hand on your hair. The only thing that’s made it sink so far is a dictionary, and it was super heavy. Most of the girls decide Sam is too weird to hang out with too, but she doesn’t mind. It’s way too fun to braid your streak into your hair and watch it all stick up. People are mean every now and then, but Sam has your back.

In middle school, though, something changes. A blonde boy named Nathan asks Sam out, and she says yes. Their streaks match up, so they must be soulmates. Nathan doesn’t like you. He thinks you’re a freak and you’re clingy, and he asks Sam to stop hanging out with you so much. She tells you she won’t, but she does. You understand. She shouldn’t put her soulmate at risk for you, but it still hurts. You sit next to her in class, and she avoids your gaze. She doesn’t sit next to you next year.

You decide it’s time to get rid of the blue streak. That’s what makes you a freak right? You buy some hair dye, it looks close enough to your color, and you pray the dye weighs it down some too. It doesn’t. The dye doesn’t even stay in. When you wash it out, it’s the same menacing electric blue it’s always been, so you make a decision. You cut it off. Your streak is on the top of your head, so it isnt like it’s an easily hideable bald spot. The rest of middle school is filled with beanies and high buns, and for the first time, you get a few friends. They arent great, they plan sleepovers and don’t invite you, but they let you sit with them at lunch and sometimes they even go to the mall with you.

Around 8th grade, you realize that other girls like boys. Like, they like them a lot more than you do. The only thing you’ve noticed about them is they’re rude and forget deodorant most days. You don’t understand why the other girls are so obsessed, but to each their own, you guess. It’s confusing, and you don’t like to think about it, so you don’t.

High school starts, and you’re more alone than ever. Sam broke up with Nathan, but now she’s hanging out with another girl. They’re always holding hands and whispering, and you feel so jealous. One day, you snap. You march right over to her locker, right in front of mystery girl, and ask her. You ask her what happened, why she’s replaced you. You make a pretty big scene in the hallway, but you can’t bring yourself to care. Sam squeezes mystery girl’s hand tighter and it clicks. Mystery girl is her soulmate. You finally see the lock of frizzy black hair right above the girls temple. You run away, tears in your eyes, and you hear someone run after you, but you dont stop. Not until you’re locked safely in a bathroom stall. Sam knocks on the door and asks if you’re alright. You tell her to go away. She doesn’t, she’s always been too stubborn to listen to you. She tells you about your middle school friends, how she thought you’d left her for them. She tells you about the nights she spent crying over her sexuality, and how she didn’t even have her best friend to talk to about it. You unlock the stall door, and step out, a little unsure, but immediately, Sam squeezes the life out of you, wrapping you in the best hug of your life. She missed you as much as you missed her.

After that, you officially meet Mallory - Sam’s soulmate - and you really like her. She’s charming and funny, and she wants to be around you. She doesn’t push you away like Nathan did. She and Sam convince you to grow your soul streak back out, and the rest of high school is so much better. The three of you are attached at the hip, and you don’t even feel like you’re 3rd wheeling.

By the end of freshman year, you understand why you didn’t chase after boys. You’re as gay as Sam, which is to say, incredibly gay. Still you worry. Who in hell would have blue floaty hair? Almost no one dates outside of soul streak matches, because there’s just no reason to. The problem is, no one matches you. Maybe you really are destined to be alone.

In sophomore year, you take an astronomy class, and you fall in love. The stars are beautiful, and you beg your parents for a telescope. Christmas morning, your wish comes true, and you spend night after night staring into the sky, memorizing constellations.

Junior year, the biggest meteor shower in 50 years happens (and it’s right in your neighborhood!). You plan sit until the sun comes up just watching. You forced Sam and Mallory to come too, but they got bored by 11:30 and went home. There was only a meteor every 15 minutes or so, but it was the most exhilarated you’d ever felt. Around 3 am, one meteor looks like it’s getting a little too close for comfort. The sensible part of you is scared - that thing might hit you, or the house - but there was another part that prayed it landed in your yard, even though it’d probably burn up before ever getting here. The thought of an actual meteorite, in your yard was just too exciting. It didn’t land in your yard, but it definitely landed. You felt it in the ground. Naturally, you drove toward the smoke.

It doesn’t take long to find your meteorite, and you hop out of the car, just parking on the curb. You arent really sure how to handle this, and you certainly dont have the proper safety equipment, but you dont care. Off into the field you go, coughing and waving smoke out of your face. After what feels like weeks, you find your meteorite. Well, meteorite isn’t the right word. Whatever the thing was, it wasn’t natural. You stare at it in confusion for a bit, before something pops out. A girl (you think) with blue skin, and blue hair. Floaty blue hair. The only thing out of place is a single lock of brown, behaving itself just as it should. She tumbles out of the spacecraft (?) and shouts “catch me!” as she floats towards you, and you do. “Your planet is so tiny. How do you even handle such a lack of gravity here?”

I knew what would happen from about 4 sentences in, but I don’t friggin’ care!

I need fanart, merch, everything!!!! 

@yellow-sandwich Tried my best:

Made a hoodie, mug, sweatshirt and tee. You can check it out here [x]

omg this is so cuteeeee

Look at those teeth! Vampire cat, I'm sure of it.

You know what I think is really cool about language (English in this case)? It’s the way you can express “I don’t know” without opening your mouth. All you have to do is hum a low note, a high note, then another lower note. The same goes for yes and no. Does anyone know what this is called?

These are called vocables, a form of non-lexical utterance - that is, wordlike sounds that aren’t strictly words, have flexible meaning depending on context, and reflect the speakers emotional reaction to the context rather than stating something specific. They also include uh-oh! (that’s not good!), uh-huh and mm-hmm (yes), uhn-uhn (no), huh? (what?), huh… (oh, I see…), hmmn… (I wonder… / maybe…), awww! (that’s cute!), aww… (darn it…), um? (excuse me; that doesn’t seem right?), ugh and guh (expressions of alarm, disgust, or sympathy toward somebody else’s displeasure or distress), etc.

Every natural human language has at least a few vocables in it, and filler words like “um” and “erm” are also part of this overall class of utterances. Technically “vocable” itself refers to a wider category of utterances, but these types of sounds are the ones most frequently being referred to, when the word is used.

Reblog if u just hummed all of these out loud as you read them

WATCH: Rare corpse flower blooming at Tucson Botanical Gardens

TUCSON, AZ - For the first time in its history, Tucson Botanical Gardens has a blooming corpse flower.

The corpse flower, which gets its name from the “rotting flesh” odor it emits, is extremely rare and unpredictable.

“Corpse flowers are considered rare in the world of botanic gardens,” said Michelle Conklin, executive director of TBG. “There have been about 100 recorded cultivated corpse flowers around the world. The first recorded flowering in the United States was at the New York Botanical Gardens in 1937.”

The plants can take up to a decade to bloom for the first time and the bloom only lasts for 24-48 hours.

@wake-forest

I fed Bart some crickets yesterday and suddenly something in his lizard brain glitched and he sat like this. He sat like a dog.

Error 404: Geck not found. 

Booting program file: Dog.