sorry for being annoying [remembers that practicing gratitude instead of shame is better for my mental health and my relationships] thank you for letting me be annoying with you
Stranger Things
occasionally subtle

★

if i look back, i am lost
cherry valley forever
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
dirt enthusiast
RMH

Janaina Medeiros

⁂

shark vs the universe

No title available
Acquired Stardust
Sade Olutola

Discoholic 🪩
Claire Keane

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
we're not kids anymore.
d e v o n
Jules of Nature
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@bintybitches
sorry for being annoying [remembers that practicing gratitude instead of shame is better for my mental health and my relationships] thank you for letting me be annoying with you
What We Owe To Each Other
I must first begin by apologising for catfishing. This piece has nothing to do with the Good Place, barring a slight thematic similarity. I just think Chidi’s video title sums up the piece. Sadly, I have yet to rewatch the Good Place enough to remember the overall point of that part of the show. The overall idea of “keep giving humans chances to be better” stuck with me, however, and that does fit with this piece. But I digress.
“And, slightly better than before, the world will continue to turn.” As always, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is nothing short of a fountain of wisdom. This line, taken from the final pages of Snuff, acts as a rather neat capstone to the overarching philosophy of the series. The actions of the characters have lead to consequences, as actions so often do, which have changed the world. It turns, as it always have, but now slightly better than before.
This is an EXTREMELY blessed post! And accurate! When I first moved out I was so excited for my new place I slept on the floor and had my tv there and that was it. Loved it. You grow and you build and you gain and you lose. I lost that place and everything in it. Now I have a new place with new things and it’s very much home.
In the future, there is a small, quiet room that is just yours, where you are safe and you are free. In that room your shoulders will finally start to come down from around your ears. Nobody can come into that room unless you let them. In that clean quiet place, you will work and you will study. You will love and you will heal.
-Captain Awkward, “Should I Move Away From My Abusive Family?”
Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between
Ask the Bitches: “I Just Turned 18 and My Parents Are Kicking Me Out. How Do I Brace Myself?”
{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need To Know About Living Independently for the First Time
adding to queue so ill hopefully see this when its necessary
really sad a new ice age movie wasn't coming out this summer because we could've had a horrible tweet from some official ice age twitter account declaring it "scrat summer" and potentially turning people off the whole thing. or not. i frequently hit my shin or toes on the really sharp bedframe a lot despite knowing it's there and i worry it's because i no longer have brain elasticity
people misunderstand what ‘gifted kid’ actually means but it’s ok it’s fine it’s cool it’s good
it’s not about actually being gifted, it’s about an initial higher scoring on standardized testing that means little to nothing or being good at learning in the way elementary and middle school wants you to, so you get marked as ‘advanced’. in reality, maybe you had faster development in certain areas, but the issue with being a gifted kid isn’t that “everyone told me I was so cool and special for reading and then I actually wasn’t :(” it’s “I wasn’t properly taught to handle things not coming easily to me, but the adults around me were counting on me not being a ‘difficult’ child in school.”
people who use it as some weird bragging method or interpret it that way are ignoring the way a lot of school systems force certain roles on students to simplify the learning process. If your kid doesn’t need to take notes to understand a science concept bc they get it naturally, well that’s good, but now you’re not teaching them how to take notes and they’re not learning that important soft skill. but because ‘gifted’ kids are easy and don’t show that they’re falling behind in learning in other categories that are harder to quantify, they eventually fall behind after that catches up to them. It’s about the failures of a one size fits all school system trying to compensate in the worst way possible.
And also the thing where ‘gifted’ kids are super likely to also be neuroatypical, which they don’t get screened for because they appear to be doing well in school. Or “You can’t be ADHD/autistic/etc, because you’re doing so well in school!”. Or being shamed for developing mental health issues/generally not being able to keep up with school work later, because you USED TO BE able to do it just fine.
Or the assumption that just because you can read well or you like math class, you’re somehow more EMOTIONALLY mature than your little kid brain is actually capable of being.
Or gifted kids whose parents and teachers put immense pressure on them to Do Great Things and Save The World and you’re like. “I’m 10 and I have no idea how to do that, but everyone is saying that’s my job?”.
This is the best “gifted kid” post out there. I never took notes until college because I didn’t have to, snd when it got challenging I had to literally teach myself note taking at age 18. It also fucks with your perception of asking for help - you’re advanced, you’re competent, you should be able to understand every topic easily. Asking for help/going to office hours/asking for a tutor feels like failing when you were praised in your early years for not needing to do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhekuli_Biya
frog polycule to combat climate crisis now
how could they not include the photo of the frogs in their wedding outfits?
Imagine the rain god seeing this shit and just having an absolutely unhinged fandom-brainrot-flavored "FGHJKGHJKGHJK EEEEEEE" moment about The Best Thing He's Ever Seen In His Fucking Life
in case anyone was wondering, these are Hoplobatrachus tigerinus. They live and reproduce in rice paddies and other wetlands, and are seldom found far from water. They are an excellent choice for the practice of Bhekuli Biya to please Lord Indra and summon the rains. Just… be careful what you wish for.
*exit: for clarity, the pictures in the shitty original post are a pair of Trachycephalus resinifictrix from South America and have no bearing whatsoever on this story.
If you're eating naan bread and someone asks you whats going on, u can say something witty like "none of your businaans"
Americans really really need to be less paranoid and more capable of tolerating minor discomfort in public. Not everyone is a pervert/rapist/strangler/fiend. In fact, very few people are. Treating every violation of normal order as though it is a threat is why people are getting shot for turning around in a stranger's driveway. This happens within the frameworks of basically every ideology present in American culture. It is an American illness. If your vision of the world doesn't have room for saying "I'm sure it's nothing" then you really gotta work some shit out.
Hey honestly this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say it happens within the frameworks of basically every ideology present in American culture. This is a talking point I have heard used by feminists many times over the years. I tried to find a source on this. I googled "1 in 6 men sexual assault" and found mostly articles about how 1 in 6 men are victims of sexual assault. Including an organization dedicated to the cause of helping male victims of sexual assault, called 1 in 6. I tried looking for studies on this subject and found three American surveys ranging from 6-14%, with the largest survey having the lowest figure.
Eventually, this poster replied, linking an Australian news article citing a survey of 5000 people between the ages of 18 and 45 which concluded 26.4% of men have committed an act of sexual violence, compared to 17.7% of women doing the same things. The article briefly mentions some of the criteria for sexual violence, some quotes from those conducting the survey, and then links to the article on the Australian Institute of Criminology website. The link goes nowhere. Searching the site for this survey, I can't actually access it. The website doesn't seem to work very well as most links I click have connection issues. I can find an article on the AIC website, seemingly about this survey judging by the date and the content, and it mentions a breakdown of figures as such:
"The study, which is based on a survey of more than 5,000 Australians aged 18 to 45, found that almost a quarter of respondents (22.1%) had perpetrated sexual violence since turning 18, while one in 14 had perpetrated sexual violence in the past 12 months."
"The most common forms of sexual violence perpetrated in the previous 12 months were: pressuring someone for dates or sexual activity (3.8%); emotionally or psychologically manipulating someone to participate in sexual activity (2.7%); non-consensual kissing (2.6%); non-consensual touching (2.4%); pressuring someone to participate in unprotected sexual activity (2.4%); engaging in image-based sexual abuse (2.1%); and non-consensual sexual intercourse (1.8%)."
So. This is mostly interpersonal social pressure to extract sexual contact. We already know the vast majority of sexual violence is conducted by those who already know the victim. It comes in avenues of coercion, drugging, blackmail, that kind of thing. This data includes such things as filming sex without consent. These are all bad things, these are all acts of violence which nobody should experience. These are the kinds of things I personally experienced. They can fuck you up bad.
But here is the problem. This does not say "1 in 6 men admit to committing sexual violence." This does not say "26.4% of men admit to committing sexual violence." This says "Of over 5000 surveyed Australian men and women between the ages of 18 and 45, 26.4% of these men admit to acts which meet our definitions of sexual violence." Those statements are very, very different. The way this information is being interpreted, or, rather, misinterpreted, is being wildly simplified and, frankly, sensationalized to serve paranoid thinking about how one in six random-ass men are sexual predators who will pounce as soon as they get the opportunity. The reality of sexual violence is very, very different. This is a great example of something that sounds convincingly true which doesn't reflect reality. A frightened fantasy where somebody will hear "26.4%" and project that number onto literally every single person they see. Carry it with them on the bus, down the street, into the convenience store. Constantly scanning for large predators. This tints everything.
This is precisely what the fucking problem is. Everyone does this. Conservatives. Liberals. Communists. Feminists. Nazis. Fucking everybody in America yields to these paranoid urges where they and their small group are the only morally upright individuals in a sea of muck and filth. And fucking everyone has stories and half-remembered statistics to back it up.
Fucking cut it out!
obsessed with the little awkard photo shoot every sitcom has for no apparent reason
people are always like "Oh a vampire wouldn't get horny while drinking someone's blood, that's like getting horny while eating a sandwich" and like man have you never had a really good fucking sandwich?
The sandwich i had for lunch didnt moan and scream and squirm against my body and then become limp and pliable when i was done now did it
(Via @morganpdf )
You might know this tiny frog.
This is Mini mum (photo by Andolalao Rakotoarison), a species I had the pleasure to name—together with a team of amazing colleagues—back in 2019.
That was the start of a fascination with the process and consequences of miniaturisation for vertebrates. How the hell does this tiny frog manage to fit all of its vital organs—more or less all the same senses and organs that we have—into a package the size of a tic-tac‽ Why and how has it evolved to be so small? And why don't we get frogs that are much smaller?
Well, I just secured 1.5 MILLION Euros (!!!) in the form of a European Research Commission Starting Grant, to answer these and other related questions in the genomes of Mini frogs and other miniaturised vertebrates.
Because it turns out, there are *lots* of miniaturised vertebrates, and they push the boundaries of how small we think it is possible for a vertebrate to be! Here is a little graphic of some of them, scaled to a BIC ballpoint pen.
The project is called GEMINI: The Genomics of Miniaturisation in Vertebrates! You can read more about it on my website here, and in the press release, here!
oh! i should totally tell them about- *glances at my "am i being annoying" meter in the corner of my vision* ...i often find such peace in silent reflection 😌
Something about The Rise of Skywalker feels hollow, but not completely hollow. Solo felt hollow, but I couldn’t figure out why. Rogue One didn’t feel hollow.
Part of that is probably a personal factor. Would I have felt differently about Solo at age 12, or would I have forgotten it as not sufficiently transcendent to be worth that portion of my remaining lifespan? I certainly wouldn’t have phrased it that way, but would I have that as some indescribable feeling?
Rogue One might be the only film since the original trilogy that really understood what, exactly, Star Wars was before it was Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. (Or maybe it didn’t understand these things and just stumbled onto it accidentally.)
Star Wars, as it was released in 1977, was an attempt to science fiction with three other classic film genres:
Westerns
Samurai movies
World War II movies
Everyone sort of understands that Star Wars is a space western (even if you forgot this fact, the recent release of the Mandalorian should have served as a good reminder), and most people get that the Jedi are space samurai. (They have a strict honor code, and at least in the early episodes they held their lightsabers with both hands like a samurai, rather than holding them in one hand like a European medieval sword that was meant to be held with one hand while you held a shield with your other hand.)
However, I think nearly everyone has forgotten the reason that the first 1977 movie was simply titled “Star Wars.” Most Star Wars movies since the original (even Empire and Return of the Jedi) have a third-act action climax that is resolved through some confrontation involving a lightsaber.
Luke didn’t have a lightsaber duel with anyone in the first movie. Instead, he gets together with a bunch of his fighter pilot buddies for a dogfight in space. Luke’s big climactic third act victory is not winning a lightsaber fight, but being the last remaining pilot and, guided by the words of the wise Obi-wan, he trusts in the force and his instincts as a pilot in order to blow up the enemy aircraft carrier death star. And you can’t have an air squadron without ground support, which we frequently cut to on both sides.
“Enemy fighters coming your way.”
We remember the glory and triumph of Luke’s victory. What fewer people seem to remember is that the rebel squadrons were getting picked apart and the battle was nearly lost before Han Solo came in and played a critical role in helping Luke save the day. It is dogfighting in space, using the same language as the World War II cinema that came before it, something that becomes apparent if you look at how the scene is shot: we don’t see just ships from a distance as they blow up in space in a grand spectacle of effects, we see shots of the pilots inside of their cockpits.
Storm Over The Pacific (1960)
Star Wars (1977)
This is a war being fought by individual airmen. They might not have fleshed out backstories, but the mustached Red Three is distinct from the bearded and portly Red Six who is distinct from the clean-shaven Red Ten.
The movie makes a point of introducing us to Luke’s squadmates before they fly into battle: we have a roll call so that everyone can report in. These aren’t just faceless characters: we’re given their callsigns and each of them gets multiple shots that clearly focus on their faces so that we get to know them as individuals before they fly into battle. When an x-wing goes down goes down, we see the pilot reacting inside of his fighter before we cut to the view from space that shows the ship exploding into pieces.
Luke actually gets a very small portion of the screen time during the rebel run on the death star, and when he does, nearly every line of dialog he speaks reinforces the fact that he is part of a team. “Blast it, Biggs, where are you?” “Thanks, Wedge. Good shooting.”
Even in the climactic battle, the movie doesn’t forget one of the most important thing about war, which is that it’s a process that is approximately 1% sheer adrenaline-pounding terror, and 99% grisly anticipation as you wait for things to happen. This is true even when you are in a battle.
Something you might have forgotten from that movie: Luke’s squadron was not tasked with making the first trench run. Their job was simply to draw fire, making strafing runs on the enemy’s stationary guns while the gold squadron made the first attack run to try to blow up the death star. The first shot we see of the trench comes from the gold squadron’s perspective.
There’s a moment of sheer terror during the trench run when the death star’s stationary guns stop firing on them. Why would they stop firing on us? Answer: because the empire doesn’t want to hit their own ships. The question doesn’t even need to be asked; the pilots immediately realize as the stationary guns stop that the empire must have ships on their tail, and immediately give the order to stabilize rear deflectors and watch for ships on their tail. Including a face that you might recognize.
Darth Vadar has scarier weapons at his disposal than a mere laser sword. A lightsaber can remove your arm from your torso, but his TIE fighter can remove your pilot friends from the skies. Of course, even the terrifying Darth Vadar can’t fly solo: he, too, is part of an army, just one of several TIE fighters who are on their tail.
The Rebels’ first trench run ends in loss and failure as the gold squadron of Y-wings is picked off, one by one. They have to regroup and come up with a new plan: Red leader will make the trench run with the help of Red Ten and Red Twelve, with Luke, Wedge, and Biggs flying support.
“Just hold them off for a few seconds. Almost there…”
During the final moments of the second trench run, the tension is so thick that the pilot’s face is wet with sweat.
The second trench run scores a hit! But…wait, the death star suffers a shock, yet is still standing? “Negative, negative. It didn’t go in.” The look on everyone’s face is pure devastation.
The Rebels have only one remaining contingency: with Red Ten and Red Twelve gone, it falls on Luke to lead the third trench run, with his old friend Biggs and his new friend Wedge joining him. But their final attempt seems futile: during the first two trench runs, they had been the ones providing support. With Luke, Wedge, and Biggs all down in the trench, who will fly support for them and take care of the TIE fighters on their tail? What’s to stop Darth Vadar from following right behind them and picking them to pieces, just like he already did to the other Rebel pilots? And indeed, he and the other TIE fighters start to do exactly that. “We can’t hold them.” They’re on the precipice of defeat. The John Williams score turns from optimistic and hopeful to to dark and despairing. After several shots on his fellow pilots, Luke is the only one remaining in the trench, and we watch in horror as Darth Vadar lines up the shot on Luke, the one remaining Rebel fighter.
“I have you now.”
Red Five, the man we know as Luke Skywalker, is the Rebels’ last remaining hope, and with no support, he is dead to rights. In order for this to work, they need a miracle. And indeed, a miracle comes.
“You’re all clear, kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!”
In the prequel movies, the Jedi seem like invincible warriors. Their lightsabers cut through battle droids like hot knives through butter. They make it look easy. But when Luke and Han are recognized as heroes, it’s not because what they did was easy. It’s because what they did was hard. They survived incredible danger. Their companions made incredible sacrifices. And in the day, their side won the battle at an incredible cost.
This is what Star Wars was about. By the end of the original trilogy, it had become something else: a heroic epic about a boy with a special gift who was part of a grand legacy. That is the legacy that is carried forward into the other parts of what is now known as “The Skywalker Saga.” But in 1977, Luke was the farm boy with a knack for piloting who joined the Rebel army and won the war. Sure, he had adventures along the way, and he even was in touch with the force, but this was the third act climax: dogfights in space.
In my mind, Rogue One is the only other Star Wars movie to even try to do anything close to this. There’s a moment some time during the third act when every viewer realizes, “Oh wow, this is actually how things are going down. I suddenly know how this movie is going to end, and yet I can’t believe they’re really doing this. Are they really going to let a Star Wars movie end like this?”
Of course, Rogue One echoes the original not just in the fact that it is a war film, but that it is a cocktail blend of several genres. Star Wars (1977) pulls influence from war films, samurai films, and westerns. Rogue One pulls influence from war films, Hong Kong martial arts films, and heist movies, replacing the outlaws of the frontier with the outlaws of the heist movie, and replacing the laser sword-wielding space samurai Jedi with a force-sensitive monk played by Donnie Yen, who you might remember from many martial arts movies, including Ip Man.
Whether it was by intention or happy accident, Rogue One might be the Star Wars movie that is best at making me feel the same way I did the first time I watched the 1977 movie that released under the title Star Wars.
yeah
anyone here know what a fractal is?
text from my dad (2021) - my dad
“i’ll admit that my main problem with this is that i haven’t asked”
submitted by @cornandcoconutsoup
Original text for context
op this provides no context
are you nornal or have you still not gotten over "it's not a game for me, troy. i'm seeing real lava because you're leaving. it's embarassing. and i don't wanna be crazy but i am crazy so i made a game that made you and everyone else see what i see."