THAT House, Melbourne, Australia by Austin Maynard Architects | 📷 Tess Kelly

one of my favourite colour schemes

This was the last spread I ever did for 2017. 

gosh but like we spent hundreds of years looking up at the stars and wondering “is there anybody out there” and hoping and guessing and imagining

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe

and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us– we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them

and then

we built robots?

and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image

and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone

but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.

and they told us to tell you hello.

So, I have to say something. 

This is my favorite post on this website. 

I’ve seen this post in screenshots before, and the first time I read it, I cried. Just sat there with tears running down my face. 

Because this, right here, is the best of us, we humans. That we hope, and dream of the stars, and we don’t want to be alone. That this is the best of our technology, not Terminators and Skynet, but our friends, our companions, our legacy. Our message to the stars. 

I’m flat out delighted, and maybe even a little honored, that I get to reblog this.

A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.

this fucks me up every single time

I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class.

After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.

She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.

Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.

The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.

The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.

Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.

I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.

This is so fucking important and I think it’s something I needed right now

In case you guys didn’t know, she published her own book of writings. It’s lovely and you should go buy it.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/taylor-myers/honey-yellow/paperback/product-23371253.html

history fucked me up

oxford was built and operational as a college before the rise of the mayans and cleopatra lived in a time nearer to pizza hut’s invention than to the pyramids being built

I need a noncomprehensive history book that covers Known World History in time periods, like “in this century, all this shit was happening concurrently” and not just all spread out so I have to piece it together like some unpaid uneducated scholar

Mongols were fighting Samurai in Japan and Knights in Europe at the same time. 

Star Wars a New Hope came out the same year as the last execution in France by Guillotine. 

Abraham Lincoln and Edgar Allen Poe were friends in their early 20′s. 

When the Great Pyramids were being built there were areas that still had Woolly Mammoths roaming. 

When you are writing a story and refer to a character by a physical trait, occupation, age, or any other attribute, rather than that character’s name, you are bringing the reader’s attention to that particular attribute. That can be used quite effectively to help your reader to focus on key details with just a few words. However, if the fact that the character is “the blond,” “the magician,” “the older woman,” etc. is not relevant to that moment in the story, this will only distract the reader from the purpose of the scene. 

If your only reason for referring to a character this way is to avoid using his or her name or a pronoun too much, don’t do it. You’re fixing a problem that actually isn’t one. Just go ahead and use the name or pronoun again. It’ll be good.

Someone finally spelled out the REASON for using epithets, and the reasons NOT to.

In addition to that:

If the character you are referring to in such a way is THE VIEWPOINT CHARACTER, likewise, don’t do it. I.e. if you’re writing in third person but the narration is through their eyes, or what is also called “third person deep POV”. If the narration is filtered through the character’s perception, then a very external, impersonal description will be jarring. It’s the same, and just as bad, as writing “My bright blue eyes returned his gaze” in first person.

Furthermore, 

if the story is actually told through the eyes of one particular viewpoint character even though it’s in the third person, and in their voice, as is very often the case, then you shouldn’t refer to the characters in ways that character wouldn’t.

In other words, if the third-person narrator is Harry Potter, when Dumbledore appears, it says “Dumbledore appears”, not “Albus appears”. Bucky Barnes would think of Steve Rogers as “Steve”, where another character might think of him as “Cap”. Chekov might think of Kirk as “the captain”, but Bones thinks of him as “Jim”. 

Now, there are real situations where you, I, or anybody might think of another person as “the other man”, “the taller man”, or “the doctor”: usually when you don’t know their names, like when there are two tap-dancers and a ballerina in a routine and one of the men lifts the ballerina and then she reaches out and grabs the other man’s hand; or when there was a group of people talking at the hospital and they all worked there, but the doctor was the one who told them what to do. These are all perfectly natural and normal. Similarly, sometimes I think of my GP as “the doctor” even though I know her name, or one of my coworkers as “the taller man” even though I know his. But I definitely never think of my long-term life partner as “the green-eyed woman” or one of my best friends as “the taller person” or anything like that. It’s not a sensible adjective for your brain to choose in that situation - it’s too impersonal for someone you’re so intimately acquainted with. Also, even if someone was having a one night stand or a drunken hookup with a stranger, they probably wouldn’t think of that person as “the other man”: you only think of ‘other’ when you’re distinguishing two things and you don’t have to go to any special effort to distinguish your partner from yourself to yourself.

This is something that I pretty consistently have to advise for those I beta edit for.  (It doesn’t help that I relied on epithets a lot in the earlier sections of my main fic because I was getting into the swing of things.)  I am reblogging this so fanfic writers can use this as a reference.

A good rule of thumb: a character’s familiarity with another character decreases the need for an epithet (and most times you really don’t need one at all).

Good writing advice.

To add my two cents to this because I love point of view, let’s talk about one of my favourite writing concepts: psychic distance.

Psychic distance is how close the reader feels to the character. In first person this is usually very close, but depending on how open, honest, or relatable the 1st person narrator is, this can still shift.

However, 3rd person opens the door for a very wide range of psychic distances. It can be very distant, or so close it’s almost 1st person. A very, very close 3rd person that is so seamless it is almost 1st person and where the POV takes on all the characteristics of the narrator is usually called Free Indirect Narration in academia or Deep POV in the writing blogosphere. In this close 3rd, all the thoughts are integrated seamlessly into the narrative (i.e no thoughts in italics, that’s distant), filters are eliminated, the point of view is strictly limited to the character’s knowledge and experience, and the language is the language of the character (epithets are usually not in the character’s language if there is familiarity).

A 3rd person POV can be very close, but it distances more and more if you use language or terms the character wouldn’t use. Lots of examples are mentioned above. If the character’s mother walks in, the psychic distance can shift depending on if you use “the tall woman”, “Melinda”, “her mother”, or “mom.” 

Sometimes you want a distant POV though! Close is often great, but there are cases where a more distant POV benefits the story. This is just something that should  be done purposefully, because what is jarring are sudden shifts in physic distance, or a POV that’s distant in a story where it should be close. 

POV is cool.

History wants so badly for Cleopatra to be beautiful. Like they can’t conceive of Rome being intimidated by anything less

because being a linguist, fleet commander, and powerful ruler doesn’t matter, only her looks

Her Arab contemporaries raved about her being very interested and knowledgeable in the sciences.

She completely reformed the system in Alexandria, and Egypt at large; making it much more of a functional powerhouse. 

She did what 300 years of her ancestors couldn’t: Managed to get the support of both the Greek AND Egyptian subjects she ruled.

There is a sculpture that has been identified as her, through comparisons to coins minted under her rule, that proves beyond a doubt that she wasn’t particularly beautiful.

It isn’t that people just happen to believe it by mistake. Rome was fucking terrified of her and painted her as a vapid, scheming, beautiful, sex obsessed queen to discredit her to their people. She was a threat, and that was how they handled it. The unfortunate thing is that that is the most surviving record of her. A smear campaign against one of the smartest, most powerful women in human history. 

This is a woman who became her father’s co-ruler at nearly 14 years old in order to train for her actual ascension to the throne, who was forced to marry her own siblings in order to keep her power, and it’s widely believed that she poisoned them so she could rule alone. She’s a Pharaoh who led Egypt into a new era of wealth, who went fearlessly into war to protect her rule and Egypt’s independence from the Roman empire, a woman who took her own life rather than face being raped and tortured by her conquerors, knowing full well that she was leaving her surviving children in their uncertain mercy. Cleopatra is one of the most interesting, morally ambiguous, complexing historical figures we have and the media has turned her into a tantalizing sex object for the male gaze.

Even after Cleopatra died her influence on those around her lived on: her daughter, Cleopatra Selene, was the only child of Cleopatra’s to live to adulthood, and she became queen of Mauretania along with her husband Juba and it’s believed they married for love, which was extremely rare for that time period, especially among nobles/the upper class. Not only did she grow up in the house of her mother’s worst enemy and technical murderer, but she still went on to become a queen who possessed an equal amount of political power as her husband, even having her face minted on coins on the opposite side of his likeness, showing they were equal rulers.

Cleopatra and her influence on history, and her daughter’s legacy, have both been brushed aside in favour of the sexy Cleopatra visage. It’s bullshit. Egyptian mythology is interesting and vivid, and full of powerful women and it’s bullshit that we take some of the most powerful women in Africa’s history and try to turn them into fashion icons or sluts who only ruled through toying with men. 

I LIVE FOR PEOPLE TO KNOW THIS, people still refuse to believe that a woman can/could have achieved anything without beauty or fucking magical powers  

Proving a point to my boyfriend.

PLEASE REBLOG if you (male or female) believe it is perfectly okay and natural for a guy of any age to cry

I’ve never hit reblog faster or harder.

Same here omg

Just an experiment. Reblog if you actually give a fuck about male victims of domestic violence and rape.

Of fucking course

What sick bastard doesn’t

“You’d be surprised”, said Xaldien, who just lost four followers and received a lovely “men can’t be raped” anon shortly after reblogging this the first time.

Yowch, disgusting.

If I don’t reblog this, assume I’m dead.

Always reblog this

If you Dont reblog this if u see it then i cant call u my friend

IF ANYONE TELLS ME THAT MEN CAN’T BE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND RAPE, I AM SICKENED BY THEIR MERE PRESENCE ON MY BLOG.

If you disagree with me, unfollow my blog, block me and never look at my blog again.

If you want to debate about this or send anon’s about this, I will reply but your actions have consequences.

Out of 19000+ followers I have, only one of you actually reblogged about this issue, yet a lot of you have reblogged and liked a picture by playboy about catcalling and that how men should never do it.

Additionally, I have received abuse in my ask box (which I will be answering when I can) and threats. In particular death threats and rape threats.

I can see the real problem here already. Male domestic violence and rape is just invisible in our society because we don’t want to talk about this because it just damages the status quo of this fucking website.

I’m a male victim of child sexual abuse. We matter. Please, reblog this.

Gavriel babysitting Rowaelin babies

who the FUCK told society that depression and awkwardness is cute and adorable

bad screenwriters

John Green

john green is not the problem john green’s fans are the problem

Reblogging SO fast.

With the added caveat that no author is or will ever be perfect.

Stop Blaming John Green for Stuff He’s Not Guilty Of 2kForever

John Green is the biggest example of “tumblr turning on people it used to love to reach for and literally invent call outs for no reason other than its apparently cool to shit on things that are popular.”

I’ll forever be bitter about what this ignorant ass site did to him after his books had so much fucking impact on my life.

Snuggle Buddies

Kittens Sleeping in Peoples Hands

Sleepy kitten 🐱

Neil deGrasse Tyson on the God of the Gaps.

Mammals both produce milk and have hair. Ergo, a coconut is a mammal.

I know you’re being facetious, but this is an actual issue with morphology-based phylogeny.

*leans over and whispers to person beside me* what are they talking about

*leans over and whispers back*  Human ability to quantify and categorize natural phenomena is sketchy at best and wildly misleading at worst

consider the coconut

this reminds me of that time Plato defined humans as “featherless bipeds” and Diogenes ran in with a plucked chicken screaming “BEHOLD A MAN!”

i love how you say “it reminds me of that time” like you were there.

listen if an immortal feels brave and supported enough to come out we should respect them

This post is a journey

1 Reblog = 1 Respect

I maintain that humans started attempting classify animals, and some god or another made the platypus, and is still laughing.

Zeus: *hits joint* okay so like. It’s gonna have a duck bill right. But an otter body okay? And then a beaver tail. It’s a mammal. But. It lays eggs!

Hades: wait wait dude. Give it. Give it poison. Make it poisonous

Athena: You mean venomous, and make sure the eggs have both reptile and bird traits. Hermes: *takes the joint* Give it extra senses. Poseidon: It should be aquatic.

I MEAN where’s the lie

Demeter: … And where exactly do you expect me to put this? Everyone: Australia.

This thread goes every which way and is a glorious thing begat by Tumblr.

Hestia, who brought the weed and has been quiet this whole time, suddenly, but with forceful conviction: IT DOESNT HAVE TEATS IT JUST SWEATS MILK. she nods sagely before collapsing into giggles

IF YOU NEED TO CALL 911 BUT ARE SCARED TO BECAUSE OF SOMEONE IN THE ROOM, dial and ask for a pepperoni pizza. They will ask if you know you’re calling 911. Say yes, and continue pretending you’re making an order. They’ll ask if there’s someone in the room.

You can ask how long it will take for the pizza to get to you, and they will tell you how far away a dispatcher is.

Here is an example video

Reblog to literally save a life

I’ve done this.  I’m alive because of this. 

My flat-mate’s date for the night was almost as drunk as her.  She had passed out in her room and locked the door.  He refused to leave because he wanted to have sex.  He also demanded food because he was dealing with “whiskey dick”.  He didn’t like the lack of food in the fridge.  I called 911, did the stuff stated above, and he was getting PISSED about how long the “order” was taking.  He took my phone, demanded they “hurry the fuck up”.  Police arrived two minutes later, arrested him, and helped me file a police report.  Pressing charges wasn’t necessary because he had warrants on him from THREE different states for the very thing he planned to do to me.  Several months after this happened one of the officers informed me he was charged with two felonies because he crossed stay lines, and will be serving no less than 35 years in prison.  The officer ripped into my flat-mate about her bringing home complete strangers, while drunk, knowing full well this shit could happen. 

This was 14 years ago.  

Do the pizza order, do it as calmly as you can.  The dispatcher I spoke to said things like this:

“If he’s drunk say you want mushrooms.”  I said I want extra mushrooms.

“If he’s threatening you with sexual assault say you want onions.”  I said I want onions.

She went like this with different toppings and sauces for a description of him, like pineapple if he’s blonde, black olives if he’s tall, extra large if he’s tall, etc.

They’ve heard this sort of coded call before.  They’re trained for it.  They will understand what you’re saying.  Order the pizza.

Really though. I’m in training for dispatch and this was one of the first things they taught us. Pretend you’re talking to a friend or relative, pretend you’re ordering pizza, we’ll figure it out. We’ll word questions so you can answer in an easy, casual way. Please, just make the call and we will do everything we can to help you.

Reblog to save a life

Why the fuck is this not more widely known?

I thank the Lord that this is a thing.