Where will you wander? Hither and yonder.

Elpunt • late 20s • UK • she/her

[crownsspades]

grace’s hierarchy of needs:

[normal-creature]

oughh..... thinking about.... grace believing that he'd volunteered for the mission until right near the end of the story. rocky saying "we're good people", and grace smiling and agreeing that they are, allowing the knowledge to sit with him and warm him. throughout all the flashbacks, grace carries this sort of lingering self-hatred with him. he lets everyone know that he's a coward and an awkward loser and a volatile academic right from the start, as an excuse to stop people from getting too close. he doesn't want anyone to get close enough to touch, because he doesn't want anyone to see him for who he truly is. deep down, he can't stand himself, so he sets himself up for constant failure to soften the blow. when he tells stratt he's not brave and he's not an astronaut, he's not just telling her, he's telling himself as well. he doesn't want to disappoint himself by trying.

then he spends months on the ship with rocky, slowly coming to terms with the fact that yes, he did volunteer for a suicide mission to save the world. he may be deeply scared and clearly not the first choice for the job, but he chose to do it. for the first time in years, he allows himself to sit with the self-evident reality that he is a good person, someone who is brave, someone who can rise to the occasion. the way he blossoms into a happier person while aboard the hail mary is due to his meeting with his soulmate, but it's also because his self-image is gradually reshaping itself for the first time in years.

then, of course, he finds out he didn't volunteer after all. he was forced onto the ship crying and screaming, a coward until the end. and of course, that's devastating.

but he's already reshaped himself.

he spent all that time believing he was brave and good, acting as though he were someone who made that choice. if he hadn't spent all that time allowing himself to believe that he was someone capable of being brave, if he had known from the start that he hadn't volunteered, he might not have had the courage to go back and save rocky. but he did. because if he'd done it before, he can do it again. even when it turns out that what he the thought he'd done wasn't what truly happened, he'd already lived with the reality too long to be unchanged by it.

[unwrapping]

Tumblr’s Dashboard logo celebrates marriage equality on June 26, 2015.

[3liza]

why is pjackk back unbanned?

Post by @3liza · 1 image

💬 1  🔁 0  ❤️ 60 · reference post about the "phantom report bug" · this post is not rebloggable because i need to be able to update it and ed

^^^ i spent all night and yesterday compiling information about a "phantom report bug", where people are getting emails from tumblr support about TOS reports they did not file. pjackk was banned off one of these phantom reports, i told tumblr support about it, and now he's unbanned. i think @garaks-padded-bra was also banned erroneously off a phantom report, so hopefully that will get reversed soon as well

PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL FOR PHANTOM REPORT EMAILS. if you spot any, even if theyre old, tell me about them so i can add them to the list (linked above), and report them to tumblr support. POLITELY. tumblr support wants to fix this.

[3liza]

PJACKK BANNED/DEACTIVATED AGAIN. I HAVE NO INFORMATION ABOUT THIS

[3liza]

we are learning a lot about tumblr today

[sreegs]

today:

pjackk was unbanned because @3liza finally got through to staff about a fucking weird bug with the support form that got the metal bastard banned because it claimed he posted some Bulgarian nationalist shit (this was not a real post that pjackk ever posted). other high-profile bans like @garaks-padded-bra was hit with the same bug and its being investigated

there was a new feature added that lets people see your comments on your blog page in a tab like your likes or followers. everyone was mad that it was not toggle-able. it was actually toggle-able.

pjackk was either banned again or he deactivated and we'll know in 30 days when the deactivation grace period is up and his blog is renamed

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[batshit-auspol]

Here's our most requested item: Bob Katter's same-sex marriage speech, in all its unhinged glory

Follow for more Batshit Moments in Australian politics!

[willgrahamscock]

Oh here we go. What new fucking gender is that flag in your bio

THE HUNGARIAN FLAG???

[willgrahamscock]

happy pride hungary

[calware]

the other day i showed my friend this tweet:

and they were like "it's kind of sad that it's just cosmetic and your miis can't interact with it" and i went "wait but what if the miis were the checkers... OR going back to the original idea, making miis based off of chess pieces" and they were like "omg an entire chessboard island?!" and at that moment i had to be like. okay we need to stop because this is homestuck now. we're reinventing homestuck

[antigyro]

just because a concept happened once in a large piece of media doesn’t mean that piece of media owns that concept

[calware]

homestuck owns every concept ever

[animusbell]

celestia is such a funny character like she's constantly manipulating twilight and friends to do shit instead of just asking and you could arguably frame that as being bc she's a "god" and pushing fate to her design or whatever, except that she engages with the group like a normal and relatable person, which makes it more like villainous machinations, except 90% of this manipulation goes towards things like "I don't want my party to be boring shit again. put my little country girl blorbos in there with zero prep so they fuck it up bad"

[animusbell]

you think you've fucked anything up around princess celestia and she's like heh. no worries. all according to keikaku

[jukashi]

Celestia instantly makes more sense as a character when you ignore the princess stuff and remember that she's a 1000+ years old wizard. Of course she does manipulative trickster stuff to teach moral lessons and/or cause chaos to amuse herself, that's classic wizard behavior. Of course sometimes she's actually socially awkward and bad at personal relationships and has bad ideas that she thought were good that result in her eating shit embarrassing style, that's classic wizard behavior. Of course she lets the aristocrats and nobles run around being assholes she's still running on wizard advisor programming, she's basically trying to merlin the entire upper class of equestria instead of just a king and some knights. "Yeah uuhhh we'll release the incarnation of chaos himself from his ancient prison because we think this shy girl can be friends with him", terrible plan if you're thinking like a ruler, amazing plan if you're thinking like a wizard. Just look at Canterlot 'Castle' for five seconds and ask yourself if that's in any way a castle. No. Wizard tower, yes. Wizard.

[animusbell]

You are so right actually

[creekfiend]

the beautyful couple

[despazito]

[thefaustaesthetic]

i’m no breeder—I know some amount of linebreeding isn’t uncommon in purebred animals, but—

But like this seems. Like a lot?

[despazito]

using 4 generations of pedigree data his coefficient of inbreeding is 14.06%. but pedigree calculation assumes that any prior ancestors have zero blood relation which is rarely the case, so it's very likely this dog could even be a few points higher on a genetic COI test

for reference 12.5% would be the same as a half-sibling mating and 25% would be a full sibling mating. definitely not ideal but acceptable to some old school breeders, attitudes are steadily changing and there's absolutely health-minded breeders out there that would never breed this close.

deleterious effects of inbreeding generally begin after 5% and many livestock farmers try to set a limit of 6%, however most purebred dogs circle around 24% and even <40% isn't unheard of in some breeds.

[creekfiend]

sorry for the dog bölls but he is dead buggin it on the couch with me rn and he's ZONKED totally asleep in this position

[twogundogonesighthound]

Can confirm. Here are my two completely unrelated pharaoh hounds.

[imalayla]

The roaching roachers...

[elodieunderglass]

Bear, aged 9, had an assignment in school.

“Inspired by The Hobbit or other books containing maps, create a map that could support a story. Include obstacles, geographical features labelled in cursive, and conflict relating to people or place”

Bear dreamily produced a map and proceeded to think of something else, until time was called and the children were told to present their maps to each other, justify, and grade them on the criteria. Flicking quickly through the criteria, Bear realised they’d forgotten to add any conflict.

So Bear improvised. The Goblin Kingdom and the Territorial Giants dislike each other heartily, but are thankfully separated by a mountain range, limiting their ability to be offended or aggressive.

In the mountain range is a cave network inhabited by a furtive and unpleasant (family? Species? Political affiliation?) of gollums, with one Gollum per cave.

The policy of the Goblins and Giants are to pay the gollums to prevent each other from crossing the mountains. The gollums do this effectively and it is a known barrier. In addition to not wanting to tangle with the Gollums by crossing, the factions do not want to offend them, as then the Gollums won’t block the other faction.

However, the factions cannot resist provoking each other, and so they pay the Gollums an even larger retainer to receive, remember and pass on verbal abuse aimed at the other side.

Thus, when you march up the mountain to visit the Gollums, you will be met with a delivery of abusive verbal messages from the other faction. You pay the Gollums and leave your own abusive messages to the other faction. You may not copy the content of any messages or cheat by asking the Gollum to repeat them to the other side; you have to accept your verbal messages and produce new ones. but that’s okay, as the malicious pleasure of creating your own is half the reason the factions are in conflict. If you’re drawing a blank, you can commission a gollum to simply hurl verbal abuse, but it isn’t as good.

Bear’s partner heard them out and ticked the criteria. Bear immediately forgot it, until I asked politely about their map, and their expression went totally blank, and they said “Mummy! I made all that up!”

I love that this is their idea of conflict, though.

[elodieunderglass]

Thinking about it further, it really is a good example of how exploring a fucked-up situation makes an interesting story.

You wonder how this was set up, politically.

You wonder if individual members of warring factions, in the process of leaving messages, have ever fallen in love.

Or if they’ve fallen in love with a Gollum.

What do the Gollums do with all the money?

How do the Gollums repel invasions so effectively?

What goes into the construction of a really good hatemail?

Does trade also happen across the barrier? Do the Gollums run a black market on the side?

Bear envisions the goblins as being gleefully quarrelsome and enjoying it. They pictured ‘giants’ as being only slightly larger than ordinary people, territorial, slow-moving and quite shy, which in addition to reminding me a bit of Diana Wynne Jones’ The Power of Three makes me wonder what this quietly obscure strand of humanity has within itself that is so continuously provoked by the goblins.

Because I do wonder what KIND of insults they trade, and why it’s so compelling to continue over long years of conflict. I expect the giants just don’t want to let the goblins have the last word.

The City of Wizards right spang in the middle of the mountain range is the only pass across the mountains accessible to everyone else, so I do wonder what the heck they think of it.

It’s just interesting to show how you can start asking questions and build a little story out of a throwaway conflict

[sayatsugu]

When You Look at Dr. Grace

part 1/2 (part 2)

[moghedien]

I feel like I need to share this because idk if Europeans are familiar with the presence of Aldi in the US, but at least especially in my area they’ve been growing a lot recently. Like Aldi bought out some local failing grocery chains where I live (Louisiana) and have opened Aldis in all these somewhat rural communities and small towns, which for the record I’m fine with

But as a result of this they are advertising a lot more in my area and also in many cases, the people in these areas have never been confronted with Aldi or any European grocery store. So the ads that Aldi is pushing out to its new US customer base feature a cowboy shopping at Aldi who is explaining to new Aldi customers how Aldi works. Like this cowboy is explaining you gotta put a quarter in the shopping cart and why there are very little name brands. A cowboy is how they want to reach their American customer base. They gave us a cowboy

[moghedien]

Here he is, the Aldi Cowboy

[meburgers]

I like the idea of Grace and Rocky trading pronouns after meeting each other.

Grace using He/Him for Rocky, and Rocky being like, “How quaint, the weird flesh bag alien is referring to me with social concepts unique to its species. I will wear it like a badge of honor.”

Meanwhile, when Grace gets to Erid and everyone refers to it with It/Its pronouns, Grace is thinking, “Finally. I was so tired of gender conformity. Now I’m just me.”