Terrible, Beautiful Sparks in Space

Talk shit get bit. ey/em they/them Ao3 link

[animentality]

[enki2]

[kuttithevangu]

Gentle notice that “highbrow” and “lowbrow” are eugenics/race science terms and it may be better to just quietly retire them in casual discussions of art

[elamarth-calmagol]

Oh my god, are we actually talking about the height of actual eyebrows? That never even occurred to me.

[kuttithevangu]

The eyebrows and forehead yeah

Highbrow - Wikipedia

Highbrow - Wikipedia

[thenewloverofbeauty]

“Horses of Saint Marc, Venice.”  Bronze  attributed to the Greek sculptor Lysippos (4th c. BC)

[seymour-butz-stuff]

Time to feed unprofessional managers what they’ve been dishing out for far too long.

[beaniebaneenie]

Couple things here, for when you do this to people: 

1. if you get the “answer my call” text, NEVER ANSWER THE CALL. 

They are calling you because they want to have the conversation verbally, and be able to lie later about what they said or didn’t say. Force them to continue via text or email- force them to continue the conversation in writing or not at all. 

2. “Lack of 2 weeks notice is unprofessional!” or the other version, “Not providing notice is illegal!”

No it isn’t. Neither is true. 

And in the US, all states except Montana are “at will” employment (though you may hear an employer refer to it as “right to work” to make it sound better, it’s the same thing). Sure, at-will employment means they can fire you without cause, BUT! It also means that you are not legally required to give a reason for quitting, or to give notice of any kind. 

Is it polite to give notice when you can? Sure. Do bosses expect it? Absolutely. But that does not make you legally required to provide it. 

3. The only thing I would change in the worker’s interaction here was their response when initially asked to come in. 

Employee: “Hey Mark. Sorry I’m unable to cover the shift tonight because I’m studying for my exam tomorrow.” 

Don’t give a reason for your lack of availability. It may be tempting to. You may feel rude if you don’t. 

DON’T DO IT.

You do not owe your boss any information about what you do off the clock, and any reason you give will only ever be used against you. 

Boss: “Hey I need you to cover Jasper’s shift tonight.”

Employee: “Sorry, I’m not available.”

And leave it at that. 

Do not elaborate. 

Do not offer additional information. 

When you boss asks you to elaborate, because they will, be polite but firm. “With respect, that’s personal. I’m sorry, but I’m unavailable to cover this shift/work late/come in early/etc.”

Be a broken record- you’re unavailable. That’s the only information they need to know, and it’s the only information they have a LEGAL RIGHT to know. 

Please stop giving your bosses information they don’t need to know and don’t get to have, because they’re only going to try and use it to fuck you over later. 

[reasonandempathy]

My job is HR. The above is completely accurate.

[ijustwannawritepls]

How to Write When You Don't Feel Like Yourself

There are going to be days (or weeks, or months) where you sit down to write and feel... disconnected. From your voice, from your characters, from your ideas. Like the person who used to write your stories just packed up and left.

They didn't. They're just tired. Here's how to keep writing anyway:

Lower the bar (Until it's on the floor) You are not here to write something brilliant. You are here to write something. A paragraph. A sentence. A single line of dialogue. Movement matters way more than quality.

Write around the story Don't force it. If you can't write the scene, try: ⋆ A character ramble / journal entry ⋆ A conversation that won't be included in the final draft ⋆ A list of things the character would never admit out loud ⋆ A messy summary of what should happen Engage with the story from a different angle.

Borrow a voice until yours comes back No, not with AI. Read something that feels close to what you want to write, or watch a scene that captures the tone, then write immediately after. Not to copy, to reignite your instincts.

Write the emotion, not the plot. What is your character feeling in this moment? What are they afraid of? What do they want but won't say? What's being kept from them? The emotion leads, the plot catches up later.

Stop trying to "feel like a writer" first. You don't write when you feel like a writer. You feel like a writer because you write.

You are still a writer, even on the days it feels distant. Especially then.

[memorycycle]

hush little baby dont you cry. mamas gonna buy you a big horse fly. and if that big horse fly dont fly. mamas gonna buy you another horse fly

[memorycycle]

[club mix] another horse fly. another horse fly

[hypokeimena]

#baby post only 2 years old but it was such an instant classic #i think the first time i read it the experience traveled back in time and wrote itself in as an earlier memory (via @corvidable)

[hypersensationalism]

cream cheese bagel ending explained

[hypersensationalism]

i love when redditors try to explain posts i dreamed up and posted right after my alarm went off when i was still half asleep

[astronomifier]

cream cheese bagel ending explained explained

[vaults-of-zin]

I refused to leave when the experiment was over and bargained my way up to three marshmallows.

[aletheyass]

the fact that the verb to boycott in so many languages comes from the name of an english dude called charles boycott is so inspiring thank you to the gorgeous and proud nation of ireland never stop hating

[disaster-magnet]

Theres currently some crows nesting on the building opposite us, and they still remember that we used to put out bird food years ago (had to stop because of too many neighbour complaints of loud jackdaws in the garden), and have managed to work out that they need a sneaky way to get food without alerting all the other birds.

This has had the consequence of me having to inform my flatmate that if he hears a polite knock at the kitchen window he needs to feed the crows or they WILL start trying to steal our cookbooks.

[disaster-magnet]

I wonder who could have done this. Surely not an innocent lil fella like this one

[seobot]

[cipheramnesia]

People get jumpscared by house centipedes because they have like one of the fastest land speeds relative to body size among insects, or a lot of mammals, moving about 16 inches (40.6cm) a second, that's why they sometimes seem to appear out of nowhere. Like if you have a ten foot ceiling, a house centipede can go from the floor behind a bookshelf to the ceiling in the time it takes to catch up on your tumblr feed. And they're pretty harmless but also they are wildly overconfident in their ability to hold onto a ceiling.

[cipheramnesia]

The tags are sending me

If you aren't allergic, house centipede venom is about on par with something like a yellow jacket or garden spider, somewhat painful but zero medical significance. You'll get swelling and that's about it.

But! That's if their stingers can even get through your skin. Very few house centipedes' stingers develop the size and sharpness to get through your skin - if one even wants get close enough to sting. The average human is basically Godzilla to a house centipede, they don't see us as something they can survive, so they would much rather run away or try to be hidden. But they also have kinda dogshit eyesight so we probably look like part of the landscape until we move.

And of course the old addage - venom is expensive. They don't want to waste the calorie cost of making venom on stinging something where the sting won't help survival and won't feed them. They're startling when they appear but they are well and truly harmless. Or if you live in a city and have pest insects, pretty beneficial.

You see them in the shower and bathroom so much because damp environments help them breathe. They have open spiracles to take in air, just holes along the surface of their bodies (you can see them in close ups sometimes). They're a very primitive design by most standards, and if they're somewhere too dry, they can't get air, and might even just dry up and die. Since your bathroom is the wettest, most humid place in the house, if you have them around that's where they'll go to relax and recharge before another night of hunting down every last cockroach in your apartment.

There are some much larger centipedes that can be more dangerous to get bit by, but not the humble house centipede. He's just a little freak tryin to get by, it's not his fault he's clumsy and looks like a facehugger for a barbie doll.

[ao3legendarium]

idiots in love core

[shamebats]

Ngl the panic around HRT happening at the same time as the GLP-1 weight loss craze is some incredible worldbuilding.

[shamebats]

You have all these people just freaking out about the safety of sex hormones being used for the same purpose they have been for decades, meanwhile the same people who didn't even know what GLP-1 was until a few years ago are now eager to get on these medications and nobody cares about possible long-term effects or regret.

[elodieunderglass]

Local Child Extracted From Great Peril Says ‼️

[elodieunderglass]

anniversary of extraction of child

[teathattast]

[tunashei]

I love desire paths. There's something so wonderous about seeing an echo of humanity. Depending on it's location, a desire path can mean so many different things.

In a city, like the pic above, they represent rebellion, and efficiency. The messiness of humanity. We like to imagine we're oh so logical and neat so we design our cities to be logical and neat an then real humans literally trample on that idea. The ego required to think you can design something perfect that checks every box. Life is all about compromise and patching stuff when some new problem arises. Though people have certainly tried! Ohio state univeristy let students carve their desire paths, and then paved them over. It looks pretty artsy.

Some people will try to discourage desire paths, but this is almost always going to fail.

Eventually, people just have to accept them. Humans are too dang stubborn.

Certain desire paths are just adorable. A 0.5 second time saver. You just can't design for maximum efficiency, humans will always find shortcuts!

Though on occasion a desire path can actually be the least efficient way...especially if you're superstitious.

In a wilder area, such as below, they show us the curiosity of humans. A desire path somewhere natural often tells you there's something interesting just ahead. (Though remember some ecosystems are fragile and will suffer if trampled! Stick to paths in these sorts of areas)

And how about desire stairs? I always think these look so cool. We get see humans determination to climb, to traverse every kind of terrain.

And for something really crazy...a desire path used for centuries will create a 'holloway'

All of these pics are off the Desirepath subreddit, check them out for more examples! And many thanks to the users who submitted these photos.

[dduane]

I always wondered if these had a name. Now I know. :)

[o3ak]

This made my day

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

Fieldwork tip: sometimes in the Forest you will find deer desire paths. “Oh!” says your brain, “this will lead me to somewhere cool!”

It will not. The deer wants to go to heavy brush and surge up a steep hill with its powerful hindquarters and presumably collect all the deer ticks living along the deer desire path. Waiting. You are a human, you want to meander along the side of the hill in absolutely no brush at all, thank you. Your desires are not compatible. You must abandon the deer path.

Cow desire paths though: flat as pancakes, always lead you to water or meadows. Useful things.

[traegorn]

Thank god someone else said it. When I saw that path in the woods and it was talking about human curiosity I was like... no. Other animals besides humans make paths.

Sometimes it's a really bad idea to follow them.

Especially if you don't want to get covered in deer ticks.