some things i notice

some things i think about. i ponder, i wonder, until some else, spills it out. they arents my words, but it makes me want to shout. what people on this earth, say, but not aloud

[allstrangenature]

I can barely contain myself right now

holy shit

HOLY SHIT

[27dragons]

holy CRAP.

Artists, creators, students, and researchers of all types, take note:

Digitized photos and text. 2D and 3D object renders. Music and other sound files. Videos. Research datasets. Collections metadata.

On a Creative Commons Zero license: Take what you want. Use it. No permission or attribution required. Yes, even for commercial use.

There is a lot wrong with the world at the moment, but the Smithsonian… the Smithsonian is right.

[sartorialadventure]

The archive includes fashion images!

[sistertaxon]

why are there so many posts about asexuals being immune to sirens. people. sirens don’t lure you in with sex (necessarily). they sing about whatever it is that you want most. they could sing about mothman or cinnamon toast crunch and guess what then your asexual pirate is fucking dead

[thesylverlining]

this is the only kind of ace discourse i ever want to see on my dash. the only kind. ever again. good job

[kittyknowsthings]

Do you think the sirens would be grateful that they finally get some variety? 

[systlin]

“Oh my god we can finally just sing about pasta thank the fucking gods.” 

[totohoy-blog]

I’m not asexual but I’m fairly certain sirens would do a far better job luring me into the depths with a song about pasta rather than sex…

[systlin]

I mean. 

“WHAT THE FUCK STAY AWAY FROM THE ROCKS.”

“FUCKER THEY SAID THEY HAVE FETTUCCINE CARBONARA AND HOT GARLIC BREAD OVER THERE HANG ON BITCH.” 

[musicalhell]

This is true; Odysseus heard them promising him knowledge of the future.  So the next time you see artwork like this:

Remember those sultry naked chicks are saying “We’ll tell you the winning lotto numbers.”

[fuckstaffposts]

Them: “We have unlimited wifi at incredible speeds~” Me: *diving headfirst into the water*

[rpluvsyj]

This post is a blessing

[wittyusername97]

Congratulations! Odysseus! You’ve been selected as a winner for the free $1000 Amazon Gift Card, Apple iPhone X 256G or Samsung Galaxy S8! Claim your prize now!

[kitvalkyrie]

Oh my god sirens were literally scam websites

[10thingsihateabout-all-yall]

Oh my god they were phishing

[writingwithcolor]

Hello there! I’m currently writing a story that takes place in the future, around 2120, and one of the points (but not really touched upon, mostly bc I feel it's not my place to do so) is that Hawaii is an independent nation. One of the main characters is a Hawaiian scientist, along with her mother, and I gave them both (researched) Hawaiian names. But my question is, how do you feel I should handle this point? JSYK, I’m white (southern european), not Hawaiian.

Hawaii as an independent nation in future

In navigating a very complicated history like that of Native Hawaiians, it is important to ask yourself if you can accurately communicate the nuances of the difficulties Kanaka Maoli face. Especially considering you want to have the Kingdom of Hawai'i regain sovereignty in your story, I would recommend you do further research on the illegal annexation and the history surrounding the end of Hawaiian sovereignty.

As of right now, I do not think you should write this character. As someone who is a part of the Kanaka Maoli community, I don't feel that you fully grasp the severity of the topic and the relevance of it to modern times, as Kanaka Maoli are still fighting for sovereignty to this day. 

- Ren

Echoing Ren, you would need to ponder not only what sovereignty means, but also the geopolitical implications of restoring sovereignty. 

What would have to change about the way our world operates and how nation-states interact with each other not only for sovereignty to be restored but also preserved? 

How did the United States of America benefit from annexation? 

Who are the other stakeholders on a global scale? 

Why does the occupation of Hawai’i continue to this day? 

I don’t think you can dodge addressing such a critical part of the setting, and if you don’t feel it’s your place to do so, then it is probably not your place to utilize this setting.   

- Marika

Also, just speaking more broadly: If you have restored sovereignty to one place the US is illegally occupying, why have you not mentioned the hundreds of other territories the US is illegally occupying? Both abroad (the number of places the US military has de facto rule) and domestically (Indigenous peoples). 

Why just the US? Why just Hawai’i? When and how did it happen? 

Does the United States still even exist, or has it returned to a collection of sovereign Native peoples? 

What about Canada? The rest of the Americas (Central and South)? 

Does France no longer control a third of Africa? 

The list, sadly, goes on. A long, long way (I am not getting into Asian political dynamics here, but they exist).

I realize this is likely far outside of the scope you were originally asking, but if I, a North American Indigenous Person, were to read that Hawai’i was independent but Canada still existed, I would be yanked right out of the story because the greater implications of colonialism haven’t been addressed and the author just had one pet issue they were trying to champion, without understanding any of the broad-reaching colonialism of North America.

Hearing news stories about Hawai’i’s struggles and deciding “oh, I’ll fix this and return the land to them, this is respectful, it’s in the future so I’ll handwave it” is easy and feels like a quick thing to show you want to respect an unfairly colonized power. But actually genuinely returning land is hard, and most groups who have been fighting for sovereignty have been doing so for centuries already. As Marika said, you have to ask yourself what changed to allow this to even happen, and stay this way.

Until you’re ready to fully look at the concept of nations as they exist now, from why they hoard land to why they colonize, you’re not ready to write a setting where colonized people finally won.

~ Mod Lesya

[fuckyeahchinesegarden]

wisteria blossom in chinese garden by 小飞718

[worshipgifs]

“If the tomb wasn’t empty, I would be. If the tomb wasn’t empty, our hope would be. If the tomb wasn’t empty, our hearts would be. Only because the tomb is empty, can life be fulfilling.”

— Ann Voskamp

[tam--lin]

Must horror be “good”? Is it not enough to experience an Emotion in a dark room and regret it for a week?

[worshipgifs]

Paul D. Washer

[worshipgifs]

[worshipgifs]

“Marriage isn’t just sex, it’s conversation and laughter I mean some spouses barely even like each other, and the marriage seems like a dead end You might share a checkbook and a house, but are you actually friends? I mean, if marriage isn’t a commitment, then what’s the point of the vows we say? “‘Til death do us part” really means “Until the feelings go away” Like, I’ll stay with him, but only until it gets tough and my love shifts But I say imagine if a parent took that perspective with their kids Like can’t you see it? The minute the kid spills something on the floor The mom’s saying, “Forget it, I don’t even love you anymore” No, it’s just like marriage, to last you need the strength from above Because it’s not love that sustains the promise, it’s the promise that sustains the love.”

— Sex, Marriage, & Fairytales // Jefferson Bethke (via worshipgifs)

[taankhsrealhoodoo]

“Someone in a group I’m in asked why black women don’t adopt as much as white women and I was legit appalled. Black women basically invented adoption. We’re the O.G.s of taking care of other folks kids. The difference is, we don’t usually make a big deal out of it like other folks do. We’re not flying to other countries for babie . A lot of times we don’t even go through the courts. But everybody has a cousin who ain’t blood but granny raised them so they’re family. That’s adoption. Everybody knows somebody who got strung out or locked up and left their kids with their sister. That’s adoption. Stop acting like what we do ain’t real just because we don’t do it like you.”

— ​Nikki Vantézze LaRue  

[shencomix]

[ventusvibrio]

Wait, why not?

[charleythehouseplant]

TL;DR: Tattoos are associated with organized crime in Japan.

Longer explanation: While tattoos in Japan may have originally been considered to be a status symbol and have religious importance (we have accounts of tattooed Japanese people from Chinese diplomats during the Yayoi period, 300BC-300AD), during the Kofun period (300-540AD), they became a tool used to mark criminals, coming to a head in 1720 where full-arm tattoos were used exclusively for ‘minor’ offenses instead of cutting off noses and/or ears.

All of this led to tattoos getting hugely stigmatized. Until fairly recently, the only people you could find who did have tattoos were generally part of the yakuza (Japanese mafia), who often chose hugely elaborate tattoos based off of traditional Japanese art. Here’s a few of them:

Tattoos in Japan are still so controversial that in 2012, the then-mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, launched a campaign to get companies to get rid of their employees who had visible tattoos that was very well-received, with many companies siding with him.

Many swimming pools and onsen still ban tattooed people for all of this. During the 2019 rugby championship in Japan, the government effectively begged the foreign players and supporters to please cover up in public because people will react badly, and with the 2020 Olympics in Japan, apparently the government has tried to launch an awareness campaign amongst the public that tattoos on foreigners aren’t considered a sign of criminal conduct in their home countries, because the press backlash would be a nightmare.

[squided]

Athletes: *arrive with tattoo sleeves and openly brandishing it*

The Japanese: “oh my god they just sent us all their murderers”

[jamsradio]

[velocicrafter]

anyone know what this is from?

[baroncaveyeti]

“Judgement Day” by EC Comics. From wikipedia:

The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, one of which has fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut decides that due to the robots’ bigotry, the Galactic Republic should not admit the planet. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing himself to be a black man.

Apparently the Comics Code Authority tried to prevent the author from making the main character black.

[lakidaa]

Boy did they! It took the writer (and the company) threatening the CCA with a lawsuit and telling the guy to fuck off (literally) to get this thing printed: 

Comic Historian Digby Diehl recounted in Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives:

This really made ‘em go bananas in the Code czar’s office. ‘Judge Murphy was off his nut. He was really out to get us’, recalls [EC editor] Feldstein. ‘I went in there with this story and Murphy says, “It can’t be a Black man”. But … but that’s the whole point of the story!’ Feldstein sputtered. When Murphy continued to insist that the Black man had to go, Feldstein put it on the line. ‘Listen’, he told Murphy, ‘you’ve been riding us and making it impossible to put out anything at all because you guys just want us out of business’. [Feldstein] reported the results of his audience with the czar to Gaines, who was furious [and] immediately picked up the phone and called Murphy. ‘This is ridiculous!’ he bellowed. ‘I’m going to call a press conference on this. You have no grounds, no basis, to do this. I’ll sue you’. Murphy made what he surely thought was a gracious concession. ‘All right. Just take off the beads of sweat’. At that, Gaines and Feldstein both went ballistic. ‘Fuck you!’ they shouted into the telephone in unison. Murphy hung up on them, but the story ran in its original form.[18]

[lb-lee-deactivated20180415]

You know, it’s times like this that I am deeply comforted, knowing that history isn’t just everyone being nice and polite and better than the current generation.  Sometimes it really is just people bellowing swear words over the phone to get shit done.

[kaylapocalypse-deactivated20201]

OH WOW

[a-method-in-it]

And by the same token, the past was not a flat, monochrome landscape of bigotry. This comic came out in 1953. That is a full year before the Brown v. Board of Education decision, meaning not only was segregation the law of the land, but the process of dismantling it hadn’t even begun. Integration wasn’t even a political topic yet, because there was no integration actually happening, and as far as everyone in 1953 had reason to believe, there wasn’t going to be any any time soon. 

And yet, in 1953, two white Jewish guys from Brooklyn not only wanted to put out this comic, but were willing to swear at the Comics Code Authority and threaten to hold a press conference – which, by the way, was enough of a threat that the censors did back down; they didn’t laugh and say “Who would care about your press conference?”

And, not only that, but in the end they did put out the comic, this comic that at the time all but explicitly said the United States of the day would not be fit to join the Galactic Republic.

All of which is pretty damn cool.

[sindri42]

A lot of “activists” today will try to convince you that the struggle was between all white people and all black people, and despite only being 12.6% of the population and starting from a position of poverty and oppression, the black people managed to get all the laws changed somehow through sheer determination.

The reality is simultaneously much more hopeful and much more disgusting. It wasn’t 12% being oppressed and 72% doing the oppressing. It was something like 5, maybe 10% of the population that was actually super racist, while 60-70% of the population didn’t care. The problem in the story above for example, was not that everybody was like that asshole from the Comics Code Authority, but that the rest of the world let that asshole keep making the decisions for them. The best, if not only, way to fight against racism is to call that damn press conference. To take all the neutral bystanders and shove the issue in their faces, to force them to give a shit instead of treating it like somebody else’s problem. If you convince all the apathetic observers that your cause is right, and that they actually need to do the bare minimum to support it, you’ve won because suddenly you outnumber the actual racists by a factor of ten to one. And they know it! The CCA jackass was terrified of that press conference happening, because of the general public knew what he was doing he would have been shit-canned instantly! If you try to stand alone, you’re just a handful of upstarts against all the power and privilege that your enemies have been amassing for centuries. And if you treat the neutrals like enemies, if you convince them that your oppressors were right all along, you’re completely doomed.

The terrible truth about being an oppressed minority is that you need allies to get anything done, but the people who are available to recruit for your cause are people who are currently just fine with allowing you to keep being oppressed as long as it doesn’t affect their lives. Activism is a balancing act between being impossible to ignore, a constant thorn in the side of anybody who tries to stand by so they have to treat your problems as their problems, but also acting sweet and endearing enough that you can’t be painted as the villain of the piece by the assholes who want to keep the oppression going for their own interests.

[jamsradio]

[velocicrafter]

anyone know what this is from?

[baroncaveyeti]

“Judgement Day” by EC Comics. From wikipedia:

The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, one of which has fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut decides that due to the robots’ bigotry, the Galactic Republic should not admit the planet. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing himself to be a black man.

Apparently the Comics Code Authority tried to prevent the author from making the main character black.

[lakidaa]

Boy did they! It took the writer (and the company) threatening the CCA with a lawsuit and telling the guy to fuck off (literally) to get this thing printed: 

Comic Historian Digby Diehl recounted in Tales from the Crypt: The Official Archives:

This really made ‘em go bananas in the Code czar’s office. ‘Judge Murphy was off his nut. He was really out to get us’, recalls [EC editor] Feldstein. ‘I went in there with this story and Murphy says, “It can’t be a Black man”. But … but that’s the whole point of the story!’ Feldstein sputtered. When Murphy continued to insist that the Black man had to go, Feldstein put it on the line. ‘Listen’, he told Murphy, ‘you’ve been riding us and making it impossible to put out anything at all because you guys just want us out of business’. [Feldstein] reported the results of his audience with the czar to Gaines, who was furious [and] immediately picked up the phone and called Murphy. ‘This is ridiculous!’ he bellowed. ‘I’m going to call a press conference on this. You have no grounds, no basis, to do this. I’ll sue you’. Murphy made what he surely thought was a gracious concession. ‘All right. Just take off the beads of sweat’. At that, Gaines and Feldstein both went ballistic. ‘Fuck you!’ they shouted into the telephone in unison. Murphy hung up on them, but the story ran in its original form.[18]

[lb-lee-deactivated20180415]

You know, it’s times like this that I am deeply comforted, knowing that history isn’t just everyone being nice and polite and better than the current generation.  Sometimes it really is just people bellowing swear words over the phone to get shit done.

[kaylapocalypse-deactivated20201]

OH WOW

[a-method-in-it]

And by the same token, the past was not a flat, monochrome landscape of bigotry. This comic came out in 1953. That is a full year before the Brown v. Board of Education decision, meaning not only was segregation the law of the land, but the process of dismantling it hadn’t even begun. Integration wasn’t even a political topic yet, because there was no integration actually happening, and as far as everyone in 1953 had reason to believe, there wasn’t going to be any any time soon. 

And yet, in 1953, two white Jewish guys from Brooklyn not only wanted to put out this comic, but were willing to swear at the Comics Code Authority and threaten to hold a press conference – which, by the way, was enough of a threat that the censors did back down; they didn’t laugh and say “Who would care about your press conference?”

And, not only that, but in the end they did put out the comic, this comic that at the time all but explicitly said the United States of the day would not be fit to join the Galactic Republic.

All of which is pretty damn cool.

[unadulteratedsuitphantom]

I don’t know if this is anything, but it stands out to me that the story is about visiting a planet with two groups of different color robots, one of which is being treated as lesser, in a black and white comic where that difference would be largely impossible to see. Further indicating how silly racial discrimination is because we as a third party observer shouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Which seems prudent because it’s acknowledging and encouraging people to not be color blind, but acknowledge that there are systems of oppression in place despite not being able to see a difference in the two disparate groups.

[factumnihil]

"the trauma made you kind" fuck that. no. i am kind because i cannot allow anyone to go through what i did. i am soft because i chose to be.

[peculiar-persephone]

Trauma made me scared, angry, and vulnerable.

I made myself kind.

[tlitookilakin]

“Ten spears go to battle," he whispered, "and nine shatter. Did the war forge the one that remained? No, Amaram. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.” 

- Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer

[spookydaze]

When people can accept dragons, giants and fucking ice zombies in a show but black people is too far for their imagination to stretch 😂😂😂

[expiredpineapplecans]

[dacvntgod]

The show has DRAGONS for fucks sake it shouldnt be hard to throw in more POC

[punkartwantstew]

[lynati]

The primary reason people think there weren’t people of color in those areas in those times is because MEDIA NEVER PORTRAYS THEM AS BEING THERE.

[cloudfreed]

There were black people in medieval Europe. Why wouldn’t they be there?

[elitefourkylewantstobattle]

[slmnbagel]

i just had to draw this because i feel like screaming tbh

[shunliveshere]

This happens way too much for me now but all I can do is smile and nod because if I say something I’m automatically a sjw and my words are dismissed.

[comingouttomyself]

A German book about racism (called Exit Racism) addresses this and calls it „leaving wonderland“, you will probably never be able to go back there, which is hurtful but also an important.

[leoninekelter]

Just a couple days ago, one of my best friends said something in a southern accent and called it her “black voice”. I corrected her, and she shrugged it off a little, but I know she heard me. I love her, and she’s good.

When I was in 4th grade I knew I was at least bi. I told my mom and she said I was too young to know.

Later, about a couple months ago, I told my mom my non binary friend was binding. She thought she had the right o have an opinion.

After I told her I had dysphoria, she said she’d been through it too and compared it to thinspo/eating disorder type of self hate. Not even close.

I told her I was probably neuro divergent, just weeks ago. She interrupted me halfway and said “you’re not” as if she knew anything about it.

Before that, my mom told me that she liked how black people sound and, I agreed. I’m really mad at myself for not talking back, but she never listens to what I say. So I didn’t argue. She claims to be for equal rights but she never looked past her privilege. I did.

A year ago, my grandmother called the Japanese a slur. I told my mom I was mad and my mother said she grew up that way and we should excuse it.

A YouTuber I watch who is a Furry, (if you believe furries are gross, PM me, I’ll give you the real statistics, most hate for furries is misinformed) was told she needed to stop “sounding white” because she didn’t have a southern or African accent.

A week ago, I saw a video on how black people can’t speak out about their problems because theyll get the police called and etc. I never knew that, and I feel so bad about it.

Just yesterday, I was at Bay Beach and there were a couple black families there. I tried my best to look non aggressive, but I knew that even them they’d probably assume I’m racist, for good reason. I took out my pride hat, because while that doesn’t not make me racist, it makes me more likely t o be supportive. I am trying my best, but I know it might not have worked.

privilege and supremacy is everywhere, you just don’t notice until too late.

[cineaesthesia]

Human Being/Insan (Ibrahim Shaddad, 1993)

Watch here