Metronome I Hear

For the love of god if your native language is different from the majority language of the country you’re living in don’t raise your baby speaking the local language. Either have each parent speak to them in a different language or only speak your native language at home. The kid will be okay. Get your native language in their head. You may think you’re helping them in the long term giving them the local language but no. When they’re an adult they’ll wonder why you never taught them your language. They can and will learn the local language in school. They’ll be okay. Produce more bilingual children. They are good for society.

And also, being bilingual helps with executive function. Not all kids have to reach the same language development at the same time as everyone else, it’s okay to have your kid speaking in more complex sentences a month or so later than the “normal” kids.

I've studied the science linguistically but I'd like to put that aside. PLEASE teach your kid the native language. It can go so much deeper than "wondering why", it can create a schism-like pain when you know there's a heritage you have but all access has been cut off. Yes, ALL. If you're fortunate enough to visit the country of your native language but dont teach your kid, they will be miserable, quiet, and alone, and go through difficult phases of hating that heritage because the ladders were cut for them.

And in the United States, this starts young. I've seen teachers tell a Kazakhstani parent that she should tell her kid to speak English INSTEAD. The kid was 2 and a half. A friend's five year old told him "Dad this is America we dont speak Chinese". If you don't teach your kid your native language this country will wrest all pride and heritage from them by force. An occasional visit or two to the home country will not stop the bleeding.

The pain of not speaking the language of my heritage is something I don't wish on anyone. And that language is one of the most spoken in the world, imagine if your native language is rarer. What happens? What happens?

I'm Danish. I was born in Denmark and moved to America when i was three years old. I spoke Danish at the time and learned English largely through watching television. But. When I was in preschool, my teacher told me that Danish wasn't a real language and would ignore me if I spoke it. Eventually I stopped speaking it entirely. My parents never insisted that i continue to speak it, so I spoke english pretty much exlusively for most of my life. Now that I'm an adult, I've been left scrambling to try and reclaim that part of my heritage and largely failing. Relearning Danish is a trial, and there's so much context that I'm missing. Not continuing to speak Danish after my teacher told me to stop is and remains one of my greatest regrets.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón (via quotemadness)

americans: fight over soda vs pop

germans: you are like a little baby. watch this 

[list of 57 different yet equally unsettling words for apple core]

in case anyone though this was exaggerated: here is the list. be prepared.

WHAT EVEN

hi Germany excuse me quick question but what the fuck

a freshman year enlightenment of mine

I go to an all girls school

A list of what else to expect at a girl’s school:

GROSS TESTOSTERONE LUMPS

OK SO WHEN I WAS YOUNGER I MOVED TO AN ALL GIRLSCHOOL AFTER BEING IN A COMP FOR MOST OF MY SCHOOL LIFE HERE IS WHAT I LEARNT ABOUT GIRLSCHOOL IN MY YEAR THERE:

-BOUNDARIES DO NOT EXIST, IF YOUR TIGHTS ARE FALLING DOWN, YOU HIKE THAT CROTCH UP NO PROBLEMO IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HALL WAY, GOT CRAMPS? ANNOUNCE IT. NEED A TAMPON? SHOUT DOWN THE HALLWAY SOMEONE WILL GIVE YOU ONE. 

-GIRLS ARE MAGICAL PROBLEM SOLVING CREATURES, WE HAD A NO MAKEUP RULE AND IN THAT YEAR I LEARNT HOW TO USE VASELINE AS MASCARA, HOW TO CREATE A ROCK SOLID HAIRBUN THAT STILL LOOKS POOFY AND CUTE AND HOW TO GET RID OF SPOTS USING NOTHING BUT TOOTHPASTE AND ICE.

-GIRLS HAVE WEIRD TRADITIONS LIKE CLEANING OUT LOCKERS ALL AT ONCE AND TRADING THINGS DOWN BECAUSE UNIFORM AND STUFF IS EXPENSIVE AND PEOPLE LIKE TO TRADE JEWELLERY AND THINGS IDK I NEVER EXPERIENCED THIS.

-GIRLS ARE PACK ANIMALS, IT DIDN’T MATTER IF YOU HATED THAT BITCH IF A GUY CHEATED ON HER OR HURT HER IN ANY WAY HE WAS UNDATABLE TO THE ENTIRE FORM.

-I AM HELLA GAY.

that last bullet tho

You remember that post about the homestuck t-shirt design contest collaborating with hot topic? And how Hot Topic are the biggest art thieves?  This is recent.  As you can see above, I stumbled upon Hot Topic’s website and they are selling a very popular fan art put on a t-shirt, and did not ask permission from the original artist (rismo).

This shows Hot Topic still continues their art thievery.  Hot Topic are still taking art from artists without their permission.  This is disrespectful and appalling.

EXCEPT YOU DID GIVE THEM YOUR PERMISSION.

BY AGREEING TO TERMS AND CONDITIONS ON DEVIANT ART.

THEY SOLD IT TO A THIRD PARTY ROYALTY-FREE.

http://www.deviantart.com/submit/agree

woah oops deleting my deviantart account

*instantly puts logo on my best pictures*

6. Payment Unless otherwise agreed between Artist and deviantART in a writing from deviantART, the license granted to deviantART under this Agreement is royalty-free.

DeviantArt you literal piece of shit

Uh what

That’s not okay

yo okay this is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT and imma be deleting my DA very soon because of it.

are you fucking for real

Just a heads up for people hosting their designs on DA

Okay. I just read through the “agreement” that DA has implemented, and it is truly heinous. I will not be posting on DA anymore.

———

3. License To Use Artist Materials. As and when Artist Materials are uploaded to the DeviantArt Site(s), Artist grants to DeviantArt a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to do the following things during the Term:

a) to prepare and encode Artist Materials or any part of them for digital or analog transmission, manipulation and exhibition in any format and by any means now known or not yet known or invented; (DA  can post them on their website and edit them in any way they see fit)

b) to display, copy, reproduce, exhibit, publicly perform, broadcast, rebroadcast, transmit, retransmit, distribute through any electronic means (including analog and digital) or other means, and electronically or otherwise publish any or all of the Artist Materials, including any part of them, and to include them in compilations for publication, by any and all means and media now known or not yet known or invented ; (They can publish your art in any media, use it to showcase their website or even promote certain groups without your knowledge. For all you know, your art could be promoting the KKK.)

c) to modify, adapt, change or otherwise alter the Artist Materials (e.g., change the size) and use the Artist Materials as described in Section 3(b); and

d) the right to sublicense to any other person or company any of the licensed rights in the Artist Materials, or any part of them, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement. (They can edit, change, or otherwise modify your artwork in any way they want, as well as sublicensing it  to third parties, such as Hot Topic.)

e) Artist acknowledges that Artist will not have any right, title, or interest in any other materials with which Artist Materials may be combined or into which all or any portion of Artist Materials may be incorporated. (By posting on FA, you forfeit your right to dispute any third party profits or copyright infringements upon your art.)

f) During the Term, DeviantArt’s licenses under this Agreement include the right to use any part of the Artist Materials in the promotion, advertising or marketing of the DeviantART Sites. (DeviantArt can use your art to advertise anything they want.)

g) As used in this Agreement, the term “Artist Materials” means any content uploaded to the DeviantArt Site(s) which may include without limitation Artist’s name(s) (including professional names), trademarks, trade names, likenesses, photographs, biographical materials, audio-visual materials, artwork, liner notes, and other graphical, textual, video, film or audio materials and any and all “skins,” computer-generated images or other artwork or images that Artist submits to DeviantArt in any medium or format whatsoever. (ANYTHING you submit to DeviantArt belongs to DeviantArt now. Including  your drawings, your photos, videos, your stock materials, your music/audio, your written stories, and your artist name.)

Yes. THEY CAN EVEN USE YOUR ACTUAL ARTIST NAME. THEY OWN IT NOW,  IF YOU ARE PART OF DA.

Fuck DA. 

Burn them to the ground

Pass it around

That’s why I deleted months ago.It’s a terrible website and I hate it

Passing on the PSA. I stopped using that site years ago. If you still use it, it’s not too late! Trash that shit.

@everybery You should water mark the shit out of your stuff dear! I’ve had my designs on shirts without permission quite a few times !

Yep. Deleted over 400 drawings and photos from DA over an year ago. I used the site for over 8 years not knowing these terms of service since they don’t actually show them to you when you make an account. Sure you can find them if you do some digging but they don’t shove it to your face. Also it doesn’t matter if your art has a watermark or whatever. Like it says above they have the right to edit and modify your pics so they can just remove your useless watermarks and signatures and then use your art freely and you can’t complain because you have agreed to all of this. There is no reason whatsoever to use Deviantart (maybe if you are a stockartist that gives their shit for free lol). Leave this piece of shit site before they use you like the arrogant asshats they are.

For anyone who still uses DA, please read this.

This is relevant now more then ever because I see alot of people debating going back to DA

Lolokaynevermind.

Ver important in the light of tumblr purge. Many of you wold like to move to the DA and here is why it isn’t a good idea.

Deleting my DA account as well, even if i haven’t posted in years. Not gonna let em.

Holy shit okay then

Oh shit, alright, welp time to delete my account! Never really used it anyways.

HEY- IF YOU USE DA: DONT

Same energy

one time i texted my fireman dad saying something was “lit” and he responded “please dont say that”

—

The Boy Who Lived Forever | Time Magazine

This is probably the best, non-judgmental description of fan fiction I’ve ever heard of in main stream media. (via concerninghumans)

I met my favorite person this weekend.

I have these Native American reenactments in the summer, okay. We dress in authentic Native garb and go teach about our culture and whatnot at historical events. There’s this one on a weekend that housed all reenactors from Ancient Greece to World War II–you can walk through a timeline of living history. It’s cool.

So there are these guys in a tent on the far hill called the Scottish Highlanders. They bring about two to five people to their thing per year. They do all the good medieval Scottish jazz. Kilts, weapons, challenging you to fights.

But theres this one guy that is there every time. I always go visit to hear him give in depth talks about Scottish Reavers and their malitia and weaponry and stuff. He’s fun, so I go talk to him and he’s asking about what school I’m going to, what I want to do, etc.

So I tell him I want to be a history teacher and I like to write. He asks me if I have anything published, and I say no, thinking he means an actual book. But he waves me off and asks, “No, online. Have you ever heard of Fanfiction.net?”

Let me explain a thing. This guy. Is well over six feet. His biceps are bigger than my head, he’s about 45 years old, he has the thickest Scottish accent you’ve ever witnessed, he can wave two axes around like nobody’s business, he usually resolves friendly arguments with full on battle in armor with real weaponry with the scars to prove it, and he kind of has a biker gang.

And this guy starts telling me about the 700 page Doctor Who fanfiction that he’s been writing for six years and still running. 

Shamelessly continues to explain how he gets together with his badass biker buddies and they ride to his house with bottles of Jack Daniels and talk about the next fanfiction that they’re going to write together. (More Doctor Who, Xena Warrior Princess, Agents of Shield, Lord of the Rings…) They dare each other to write crossovers for interesting character interaction. This guy raves with excitement over character development and analysis. 

I cried. 

By the way

Here he is. Mike. In his Scottish glory.

Here he is with his buddy, Bear.

Here he is with his buddy Bear and me.

And here he is holding an ax to my throat.

I LOVE THIS. The perils of a site like Tumblr which is dominated by people under 30 (not on my dash, though, but that’s what demographics insist is true) is they genuinely don’t think anyone older has any interests in common with them. I feel like Livejournal was more varied in this regard, though again, my flist on LJ had all ages on it, so maybe it was just me. The only over 40s they know are the adults in positions of authority like parents and teachers, and surely Mom and Mr. W the Chem teacher have never heard of fan fiction or have the least interest in anything on the interwebs. A kid at work (I work at a university) who I jokingly called a meme lord once told me I needed to stop learning such things from my kid – who is 11 and basically uses the internet to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube, but of course she must be the one teaching me all these modernfangled intertoob things!

I admit though that I have fallen into the stereotype that fandom is all women, because that’s been my experience by far; I think the number of male-identified people I’ve come across in my various fandoms wouldn’t pass the single digits. But that’s probably due to the nature of my reading and the way I curate my dash. Where’s a big ol’ 40 something biker dude who writes Stucky?? Point him out to me and I’ll add him to my dash!

Mike the Doctor Who Scottish badass fills me with hope and love. <3

okay but what’s his username I want to read a 700 page Doctor Who fan fiction

seriously tho, where’s the fic

today i got some columbian food in the back of a haunted mall how was everyone else’s day

ok i will tell the tale

so im taking this spanish class, spanish professor wanted us to go out to eat to practice. im all prepared, i punch in the address and drive 2 the place. turns out this place isnt really a restaurant so much as it is a small habitable zone at the back of a vast, empty mall

there was dead silence and darkness. 90% of the outlets were shut down and blocked off

it was 2 o’clock on a Saturday, but this mall was COMPLETELY barren. an air of powerful curses hung in the air. none of the escalators were working, i had to hike up one like stairs

of course once i got to the restaurant i had a nice time and some p good food and a guy with a saxophone serenaded us with covers of pop hits

my freinds, it was surreal

so my plans got really mixed up today and i decided to revisit the cursed mall while i was in the area! it seems things have gotten even stranger

for the most part, it is still the creepy empty mall it has always been. but this time even less stores were open, even the columbian restaurant was closed.

the food court, which was slightly open before, was utterly barren, and for some reason slightly sped-up mexican sounding music played over the completely empty venue

this was a particularly strange outlet, where instead of the remains of a store, there was a neatly set up classroom in the display window

oh

you’ve crossed into a place untouched by mortals and you need to avoid this place, or else the next time you enter that place, you may never return

the most life-changing customer i’ve ever had at work was a guy who came up to me and my coworker when we were at cash and said ‘hey kids…. wanna see something?’

and I said sure because why the fuck not, i’m here for a good time not a long time, and this motherfucker pulled a railroad spike out of his pocket.

A GODDAMN

ANTIQUE

RAILROAD

SPIKE

It was a fucking foot long chunk of steel that weighed about five pounds on its own so i was like ‘huh….. neat’

and he said ‘wait. there’s more’ and he took out a screwdriver. inlaid into the head of the spike. ‘things aren’t always as they appear’ he said as he unscrewed the bit and pulled out of this goddamn railroad spike

a statue

a tiny, tiny golden statue stood on the base of this flathead screw. it was a tiny golden man standing next to a tiny golden flower with gemstones in the petals. the whole thing was smaller than my thumbnail is tall. it was detailed enough that the tiny man had facial features. it was amazing.

‘oh my god,’ i said. ‘how long did it take you to make that?’

‘here’s a word of advice,’ he said, ‘never answer that question when people ask it. it devalues your work. you’ll get faster and better at things, and be able to make more art in less time. they don’t need to know about the process, just the product’.

and he left and that’s the one artistic piece of advice i definitely wanna hold to.

don’t tell people how long it takes to make shit.

Has anyone else noticed how, when you have a chronic condition of some kind, that there’s always the basic assumption from people around you that you’re not already doing everything you can?

It’s all about the illusion of control. People who are healthy like to believe they can always keep being healthy if they do the right things. They don’t want to think about how good people get struck with terrible circumstances for no reason. So they keep assuming that if they got sick, they could do something to make it better. And if you’re still sick, that must mean you’ve done something wrong or not done enough.

Nail. Head. The same attitude can be seen in how a lot of people talk about poverty.

And sexual assault. All they have to do is not go there not drink that not wear that not date them and they’ll be fine, right?

The Just World theory - that as long as I do everything right, I’m safe, and everybody who isn’t safe is at fault for not doing everything right - is perhaps the most harmful and widespread mindset today

if you ever see a conservative and wonder just how in the world they have so little compassion?  they are genuinely convinced that most - not all, but most - bad things that happen are the fault of the person affected, because then they don’t have to feel bad

somebody explaining this to me as a young adult was, quite literally, the start of me seeing the world in a new way and moving considerably to the left politically. by letting go of the just world mindset my conception of reality shifted considerably

It’s that time of year to say no to the Salvation Army.

Never forget they let a Trans woman die instead of helping her.

Never forget they have tossed entire families on the street for having an LGBT child.

Never forget they tell non Christian families that unless they convert they will not help them.

Never forget that the Salvation Army is bigoted and hateful, many of the bell ringers routinely heckle and harass LGBT couples.

Annual reblog.

In case you’re worried about being rude by ignoring the bell ringers. 

Fuck the Starvation Army. Give them nothing.

NEVER DONATE TO THE SALVATION ARMY

Reblogging so that people dont accidentally donate to a hate group

who keeps giving her these things

she ends up condemned too D:

damn bitch get it together

She’s a Darklord now too

I love this campaign. All members of the LGBT community deserve to feel safe and that includes senior citizens

This is beyond amazing.