Ghost train

Running down the dead rails on an abandoned trestle bridge, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest Gothic region of this deeply haunted country…

Tony Thornburg Gif Pack

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Yesterday my dad told me something that I think maybe more people need to hear.

You’re allowed to just do things for fun.

He told me that in this modern society, especially the United States, we seem to have this attitude that we shouldn’t do something unless we’re aiming to be the best at it. If we can’t sing like Beyonce or Frank Sinatra or something there’s no point to singing. If we can’t make the next big breakthrough there’s no point in looking into mechanics and engineering.

But, he tells me, it took him a long time to figure out that life doesn’t have to be a race. If you want to take up the piano when you’re a teenager or later you’re not going to master it. You’re not going to be able to play to huge concert halls, but that also shouldn’t stop you. You can study a language out of curiosity and then drop the ball if you want. You can just get okay at something or even be terrible at it. You can drop it for days or years and then pick it up again and it doesn’t have to be a shameful thing.

I’m really glad he told me that because today I opened my sketchpad for the first time in months and just started drawing. And it looks terrible. But I don’t care. I don’t have the talent or patience or spacial awareness to get anywhere near good at drawing, but it’s fun. It helps me focus my mind and nobody has to see it.

And because of what he told me, I’m thinking maybe someday soon I will take up the bass guitar. And I won’t worry about how well I do, or how fast I learn, or that I haven’t played an instrument since sixth grade, or that I don’t have that much time to practice. I’m just gonna enjoy the experience. Maybe I’ll try swing dancing again and take a class because I’m not the best dancer but damn if it isn’t fun.

Yeah, you don’t have to be good at things. It’s not a requirement. Maybe that seems obvious but it had never occurred to me before. You’re allowed to just enjoy what you’re doing. For me, that feels like a life changing revelation. I don’t have to be good at something to like it. I don’t have to put 100% effort into everything I do. It’s kind of amazing.

i love this post and i love you

The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk. Pass it on.

#this is a good post #also I need an example of hopepunk #bc the name #resonates with me #and I need it #please #if you don’t mind (via @lavender-starling)

So the essence of grimdark is that everyone’s inherently sort of a bad person and does bad things, and that’s awful and disheartening and cynical. It’s looking at human nature and going, “The glass is half empty.” Hopepunk says, “No, I don’t accept that. Go fuck yourself: The glass is half-full.”  YEAH, we’re all a messy mix of good and bad, flaws and virtues. We’ve all been mean and petty and cruel, but (and here’s the important part) we’ve also been soft and forgiving and KIND. Hopepunk says that kindness and softness doesn’t equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion. 

Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts. 

Going to political protests is hopepunk. Calling your senators is hopepunk. But crying is also hopepunk, because crying means you still have feelings, and feelings are how you know you’re alive. The 1% doesn’t want you to have feelings, they just want you to feel resigned. Feeling resigned is not hopepunk.

Examples! THE HANDMAID’S TALE is arguably hopepunk. It’s scary and dark, and at first glance it looks like grimdark because it’s a dystopia… but goddammit she keeps fighting. That’s the key, right there. She fights every single day, because she won’t let them take away meaning from her life. She survives stubbornly in the hope that one day she can live again. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down,” is one of the core tenets of hopepunk, along with, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  Jesus and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Robin Hood and John Lennon were hopepunk. (Remember: Hopepunk isn’t about moral perfection. It’s not about being as pure and innocent as the new-fallen snow. You get grubby when you fight. You make mistakes. You’re sometimes a little bit of an asshole. Maybe you’re as much as 50% an asshole. But the glass is half full, not half empty. You get up, and you keep fighting, and caring, and trying to make the world a little better for the people around you. You get to make mistakes. It’s a process. You get to ask for and earn forgiveness. And you love, and love, and love.) 

And THIS, this is hopepunk: 

Ukrainian pastry shop Musse Confectionery has created these amazing galaxy eclairs featuring aesthetic interstellar icing of various shades of blue, purple, and pink.

@invisible-inkie

so 

This is very much simplified. It’s your starting guide to the character’s arc. keep in mind that this is assuming a positive change arc, and there is more than one way to tell a story. Never follow anyone’s advice off a cliff.

Path of Totality

A solar eclipse has special significance–or perhaps insignificance is a better word–in Islam. On the day the Prophet Muhammad’s infant son, Ibrahim, died of childhood illness, an eclipse covered the Arabian peninsula. The Prophet’s followers assumed that the two must be connected; that the sun itself had gone into hiding to mark the death of such a blessed child. But the Prophet, in his grief, told them something profound: no. “The sun and moon are but two signs amongst the signs of God. They do not eclipse because of someone’s death or life.” Not even the son of a prophet. The profundity of this has always struck me. Of course, such a statement is unremarkable in a secular mindset–we know, from a scientific standpoint, that eclipses occur at regular, calculable intervals–but in a religious one, the implications are immense. How tempting to assume that the order of the stars themselves are somehow connected to our own joy and grief. And how profound to say, in a state of grief: no. God will not move the stars for you, or for me, or for anyone. The stars are the stars and we are very small. But we must kneel in any case. 

Rogues in leather jackets! (Or faux-leather if you prefer)

Warriors in flannel (part 1) Warriors in flannel (part 2) Mages in crop tops Advisors in Kigurumi

I thought nothing could beat the flannel. I was w r o n g.

MYTHOLOGY AROUND THE WORLD → night deities

This is the money birb. Reblog the money birb to have your 2017 filled with money.

It’s Wrensday, and I think sometime we all need to hear “It will be OK.”

Wren thinks you’re wonderful. 

DragonAgeTattoo design I did for a friend. <3 (She wanted a Halla X Dreadwolf Theme to represent her Lavellan/Solas romance)

This is fucking gorgeous holy crispy

They exist!

Cassiopeia, Perseus, Lyra, Cygnus, Lupus, Circinus, Pyxis, Corvus

@invisible-inkie