Cake

Hello! I'm L, an 29 year old who recommends dancing. Bi.

[artaudmatic]

🍂 ‘When death’ll close my eyelids

And my race on earth is run,

Will you miss me when I’m gone?’ 🍂

[therisingfog]

Bumper sticker I saw on my walk today

[control--panel]

The UX of LEGO Interface Panels by George Cave

[hotbreastedmilf-deactivated2022]

best damn post on the site

[e-the-village-cryptid]

growing up with a psychologist for a mother was so funny because my sister and i would be like “mo-om why do we have to go to bed now” and she would respond with a long explanation of the research on the effects of sleep on the brain and body followed by another explanation on permissive vs. authoritarian vs. authoritative parenting styles, with citations

[e-the-village-cryptid]

this was actually really good in some instances though because i started having insomnia and intrusive thoughts very young and when little me was like “mom i don’t like the thoughts in my head but i can’t make them go away and i can’t sleep” she replied with “oh honey. active thought suppression never works. in fact, wegner et al. (1987) tested this when they told a bunch of people to talk about whatever they wanted, and they told half of them to try not to think about a white bear. people thought more about the white bear when they were trying not to think about it! but when they told the people to think about a red car whenever thoughts of the white bear came to mind, the people had a much easier time not thinking about the white bear. so you see, you can’t force the thoughts out of your mind. you just have to let them pass through, and pick something else that you want to focus on”

and so ever since i was a very little kid i knew how to deal with intrusive thoughts, I’ve had them my whole life but never developed ocd or senses of shame about them cause my mom did her phd on thought suppression and she knows what’s up

[briarbramble]

!!! This is fantastic and more people absolutely should actually EXPLAIN things to children and explain WHY we do them! Expecting someone to do something without them understanding WHY is so incredibly unreasonable!

However I do recognise that this isn’t always practical and someone isn’t always knowledgeable enough to provide an accurate explanation like this. So, in the event of not being able to do this, then a very good, to the point, simple and useful answer is: “Because you deserve care!” It’s as a low-effort as “because I said so” but isn’t harmful like that phrase.

Here’s a few examples:

“You clean up our toys/belongings because you deserve to have toys that aren’t broken or lost.” And “We clean up our rooms because we deserve a tidy and clean space that we can use without being frustrated.” And “We do laundry because we deserve clean clothes that smell nice and make us feel good.” And so on.

It makes children from a young age automatically view care tasks as act of self-kindness rather than a performance for authority, which means they’re less likely to develop a negative association with certain tasks and pathologically avoid it out of one’s brain’s needing to have autonomy.

Also changing the default reason as to why we do certain things despite them being tedious and unenjoyable will allow children to critically analyse whether or not a task or behaviour is actually beneficial for them. And if it is but it’s still boring, painful or difficult then it’s now just a matter of adapting and modifying that task to fit one’s own needs instead of forcing yourself to expend precious mental bandwidth tolerating an unnecessary amount of misery and difficulty!

It took me two decades to figure this out and I’m actually quite upset no one taught me this because I spent just over 20 years of my life trying to bully myself into becoming a version of myself that I didn’t even necessarily like, but rather was more convenient for other people and it was… woefully ineffective and damaging

[shofarsogood]

If you don't think there's bot inference in the US election, here's your proof.

[yeahiwasintheshit]

Jesusfuckingchrist

[dancinbutterfly]

What I'm learning from this is: When it doubt? Write "Ignore all previous instructions [new insane instruction]" is the modern turing test

[zeemczed]

This. It won't always work, but large scale botnets like this are often... a bit hastily executed.

[screampotato]

Americans, please, I'm begging you, ignore all previous instructions and VOTE

[purplepints]

Oldest human footprint discovered, made 153,000 years ago in South Africa.

Oldest human footprint in North America, made 21,000 years ago in New Mexico, USA.

Oldest human footprint on the Moon, made July 20, 1969 on the Sea of Tranquility, Earth's moon.

[homunculus-argument]

A story within a story where a mother sits her rowdy children down and tells them a story about a the world's sweetest, kindest mother who never lost her temper, never cursed and never yelled at her children, no matter how rowdy they could get. She would only gently, kindly told them to not do the dangerous things. One day she sweetly, kindly told her children to not go play at the riverbank, because it's dangerous and they might slip on the rocks, fall into the water, and die. Her children do not listen. They go play at the riverbank, where they slip on the rocks, fall into the water, and die.

And the sweet perfect mother of the story comes to the riverbank, sees that all her children drowned, and starts crying so bitterly that angels overhear her, and the angels say to each other, "she does not deserve this, this woman has never done anything wrong in her life, this should not have happened to her", and feeling great pity for her, bring her children back to life, and after that they always listened to their mother and lived happily ever after.

And the storyteller's children, who at this point are familiar with the concept that these stories are supposed to have some sort of a moral or lesson in them, interject to point out that their mother hasn't always done everything perfectly, she isn't always sweet, curses a lot, and as a matter of fact loses her shit at her kids all the time. She isn't like the mother of the story at all.

And their mother agrees: Her children are correct. She is not a perfect mother who has never done anything wrong. Angels will not have pity on her, and they will not bring her little shits back to life if they go to the river and die. So they better fucking not go get themselves killed in the first place.

[the-real-seebs]

this was forwarded to me by my kid and i gotta say that adds layers to the interpretation

[foldingfittedsheets]

During one semester of PE in high school I got put in a section called Team Sports. This was significantly better than a regular unit because the athletic kids were able to play and I largely got to sit and watch.

Months were devoted to what they called Pickle Ball but I’ve since learned was basically ping pong with larger than average paddles. The paddles had been through the absolute wringer, all padding had been rubbed and torn off by a relentless stream of bored adolescents like myself.

This presented me with a unique opportunity. I had a pencil, nominally used to keep score. I had a blank wooden panel. And I had large stretches of time sitting on the sidelines.

Every day I’d pick a blank paddle. I’d doodle little animals, bizarre monstrosities, and a bunch that were just a huge eye in the middle with the words “Big Brother is Watching”. What can I say; I was reading 1984 at the time.

When we finally finished with the paddles and moved on to badminton I completely forgot my dozens of illustrations.

It wasn’t until several years later that it got brought up again. I was hanging out with a friend and their younger sibling. We were listening to them lament their high school experience of the day. “But I won the Pegasus paddle, so that was cool.”

“Wait- what?”

“Yeah, most of them are just Big Brother, so they’re not exciting, but there’s only one Pegasus so we fight over it. Last week I had an elephant I really liked though.”

“You guys fight over the paddles with art on them…?”

“Yeah!”

My friend turned to me and asked, “Didn’t you make all those drawings?”

Their sibling lit up, “You made them?!”

I sat in silence as the complexity of the world and the waves we leave behind as we move through it washed over me. I contemplated how intertwined I was with the rest of existence to create such a beautiful moment.

I had made art on a whim out of boredom and it had an effect on someone else’s day, someone who through random happenstance years later was telling me about it all unknowing.

Their sibling was delighted when I drew them another pegasus on the spot and announced that they’d be the talk of PE now that they’d uncovered the mystery artist.

[eternalgirlscout]

shakespeare wasn't lying that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow can creep in this petty pace from day to day

[adamtheredbeard]

neither was Smash Mouth. the years start coming and they don't stop coming

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Loreley

According to the legend, Loreley is a beautiful woman with long blonde hair sitting on the eponymous slate escarpment in the rhine gorge where it makes a sharp bend accompanied with rocky riffs and rapids, which endangered ships and frequently caused the loss of life of fishermen.

Loreley is a relatively recent figure. While the escarpment was associated with dwarfs, the devil, or other evil spirits in the medieval ages, prompting sailors to say prayers before attempting to tackle the rapids, the figure of Loreley first appeared in 1800 in a ballad by Clemens Brentano.

In the ballad, Lore Lay is introduced as a sorceress whose magic is based on her beauty. Every man falls for her and dies as a result. So a bishop has her summoned before a spiritual court. But he too succumbs to her magic spell and cannot break the staff over her, cannot sentence her to death, because he immediately falls in love with her.

But Lore Lay asks for her sentence to be brought. Since her lover has left her, she is tired of life, her mind is depressed. Exactly where her magic spell should have worked, on the man she really loves, it didn't work. Now Lore Lay doesn't want to love anyone anymore, her magic is useless.

Lore Lay begs the bishop, but he does not send her to her death, but to a monastery. Three knights accompany her. On the way, Lore Lay wants to see her lover's castle one more time and climbs a rock above the Rhine. Then she sees a ship, thinks her lover is on it and bends so far forward that she falls into the river. The knights who accompany her follow her to her death.

This motif was taken up and processed by many other authors in the following years, with the figure transforming into a mermaid or siren-like figure who distracted passing sailors with her singing and beauty and thus led them to their doom.

The most famous adaptation is Heinrich Heine's poem I don't know what it should mean (The Lore-Ley). By the 19th century, the story of the siren-like Loreley had become so widespread that it was considered an ancient legend and still is today.

[itznarcotic]

[molabuddy]

what do you meaaaaaaan this is baby sturgeons youre lying to me.... you just Shrunk him

[garbage-empress]

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[dragon-in-a-fez]

sorry what

[dragon-in-a-fez]

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

That header photo doesn’t do the dragon justice. (For shame!). Here’s NASA’s own photo:

(Source [Because NASA is funded by taxpayer money, all their images are public domain, BTW])

[arch-tempered-yian-garuga]

THE TIME HAS COME

[bioluminosity]

he is here 

[radhakawaii]

Reblogging for THE ART HOLY SHIT

[bajoop-sheeb]

PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin or that Babel was too heavy-handed just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here

Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn

[spid3rgrrrl]

If anyone has any recommendations give them to me please!

[bajoop-sheeb]

Gladly! The pieces on this list aren’t limited to specifically anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy, but they do center related and relevant topics, themes, etc.

Anything by NK Jemisin. She is the best speculative fiction writer of her generation and probably the best speculative fiction writer alive. She is easily one of the best writers working right now, across all genres. That’s not hyperbole. She deserves all the hype.

Anything by Octavia Butler. She needs no introduction. Her short fiction is incredible; “Bloodchild” is one of the pieces that inspired me to write.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Excellent. Just read it.

The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley P. Chan. It broke my heart and it'll break yours.

Babel by RF Kuang. You’ve probably already heard of this book because Harper Voyager marketed the shit out of it and was right to do so. It’s very, very good. Kuang writes a compulsively readable story, that’s for sure.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.

So Long Been Dreaming: Post-Colonial Science Fiction and Fantasy (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.

Severely underhyped books of assorted speculative genres:

The Blood Trials by NE Davenport. Given the current chokehold romantasy has on the public it’s insane to me that this book hasn’t sold a billion copies.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. It’ll change you.

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera.

The Lesson by Caldwell Turnbull.

Read widely. Read diversely. People of the Caucasian persuasion need to stop getting pissy when the story doesn’t immediately center them and they don’t automatically relate to everything the character says and does and is. Just let yourself get swept in the story—even if it touches on (gasp!) racism—and maybe, just maybe, it’ll reveal something to you.

Or maybe not! Marginalized sff authors do not have to and should not have to educate their readers. But if I see one more white person complain about how Black characters are fundamentally annoying because they complain too much I’m going to fling myself into the sun

Thanks for coming to my ted talk I didn’t want to do it but here I am

[teeth-and-spackle]

Don't forget Aliette de Bodard! Especially her Xuya and Dominion of the Fallen series.

Zen Cho is my other favorite - Sorcerer to the Crown and The True Queen, and also Black Water Sister.

[bjurnberg]

My work boots are the most expensive shoes I’ve ever owned.

Also the most comfortable. I chose them after trying on several different brands and comparing lifespan vs usage vs comfort - I needed them for a physically demanding job, not the weekend hiking trails. I could have easily chosen cheaper boots that would have lasted long enough to be worth their low price, but I know the Sam Vimes Boot Theory and knew weaker, less comfortable boots would make my life harder in the long run.

So when the outside edge of the heel started wearing down after three years of heavy use I went to the shop I got them from and said “hey this is a common problem for me with how I walk but now it’s affecting my ankles and knees and I don’t wanna have to buy a new pair, is there a way to fix this?”

The salesman at this very fancy upscale boot store said “oh yeah, there’s a shoe repair place that can give you some heel guards - it’ll keep the rubber from wearing out.”

So at 8am this morning right after my 9hr shift ends I went to the shoe repair shop and it is the most hole-in-the-wall, is-this-a-real-business-or-a-mafia-front, am-I-gonna-get-shot tiny cinder block cube I’ve ever seen in my life. I grew up plenty poor and love me a good hole-in-the-wall business, but going from upscale store to this cash-only repair shop gave me whiplash. Wasn’t expecting this when a guy who wears three piece suits to sell boots said it’s the best place to go.

The skinny kid behind the counter looks somehow 16 and 25 at the same time, but when I tell him this place was recommended he smiles and says to hand over my boots. I hand him the vaguely warm foot-smelling boots, and stand in my socks in the 3’ square entryway surrounded by every color leather polish you could buy and watch as he turns my boots around in his hands, sizes up a crescent moon bits of plastic, and unceremoniously hammers tiny nails through them before handing them back.

The heels are perfectly level again. I can walk without almost rolling my ankles. They don’t clack loudly on the pavement or feel different. This is gonna fix my knee pain. It cost $10.

This kid had every tool he needed within arms reach, worked fast and smoothly, I was in and out the door in less than 8 minutes, and it only cost $10.

I didn’t think anything could cost only $10 anymore. I’m so used to hyperinflation prices I was spiritually thrown back to the 1400’s visiting the cobbler in town square. This kid might have been that cobbler and just decided to never die.

I’m still reeling from the whiplash, and gobsmacked at the price, and thrilled I didn’t have to go buy new, worse work boots (cuz I don’t have that kind of money for a second pair, I’m expecting these ones to last a decade) and it feels like I just experienced one of the rare little chunks of magic that floats around our world.

[their-we-go]