The Thoughts From The College Gal

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

[castle-engineer-deactivated2019]

This is one of those things that I already knew was true, but seeing it so blatantly displayed makes me feel like like I am finding out about it for the first time.

[pennamites-deactivated20180910]

CIA is getting lazy

[friendly-neighborhood-patriarch]

O.o

[spider-hands-mannos-deactivated]

“It’s just a script whats the problem lol” the problem is that Fox, CNN, CBS, and all the other channels repped here, despite claiming to be different companies with different viewpoints, all had the exact same script, word for word, to push the exact same viewpoint that smaller, independent news outlets are Fake News and “A Threat To Our Democracy.” The fact that they have scripts isn’t the problem. The problem is they all, each and every one, have the exact same script down to the letter and in some cases the fucking inflection, which basically reads “small news stations are untrustworthy and a Threat to your Way Of Life, only trust Us, We Are Verified.”

[invincibleswordprincess]

These channels are all local channels owned by Sinclair broadcasting, a right wing media conglomerate that recently gained control of almost all American local news channels after Ajit Pai’s FCC heavily deregulated telecom companies. This is not some broad spectrum media conspiracy, it is specifically an attempt at a right wing takeover of all American local broadcasting for the purposes of propaganda.

[random2348]

and this is why Twitter is my news

[nonomella-deactivated20171016]

Coraline is a masterfully made film, an amazing piece of art that i would never ever ever show to a child oh my god are you kidding me

[cthullhu-deactivated20170910]

Nothing wrong with a good dose of sheer terror at a young age

[whatthecurtains]

“It was a story, I learned when people began to read it, that children experienced as an adventure, but which gave adults nightmares. It’s the strangest book I’ve written”

-Neil Gaiman on Coraline

[greenbryn]

@nightlovechild

[lierdumoa]

This is a legit psychology phenomenon tho like there’s a stop motion version of Alice and Wonderland that adults find viscerally horrifying, but children think is nbd. It’s like in that ‘toy story’ period of development kids are all kind of high key convinced that their stuffed animals lead secret lives when they’re not looking and that they’re sleeping on top of a child-eating monster every night so they see a movie like Coraline and are just like “Ah, yes. A validation of my normal everyday worldview. Same thing happened to me last Tuesday night. I told mommy and she just smiled and nodded.”

[wahbegan]

Stephen King had this whole spiel i found really interesting about this phenomenon about how kids have like their own culture and their own literally a different way of viewing and interpreting the world with its own rules that’s like secret and removed from adult culture and that you just kinda forget ever existed as you grow up it’s apparently why he writes about kids so much

[12drakon]

An open-ended puzzle often gives parents math anxiety while their kids just happily play with it, explore, and learn. I’ve seen it so many times in math circles. We warn folks about it.

[gokuma]

Neil Gaiman also said that the difference in reactions stems from the fact in “Coraline” adults see a child in danger - while children see themselves facing danger and winning

[sometimesrosy]

i never saw so much push back from adults towards YA literature as when middle aged women started reading The Hunger Games. They were horrified that kids would be given such harsh stories, and I kept trying to point out the NECESSITY of confronting these hard issues in a safe fictional environment.

[jewishdragon]

Also, in an interview, he said that Coraline was partially based on a story his not yet 6 year old daughter would tell him 

SAGAL: No. I mean, for example, your incredibly successful young adult novel “Coraline” is about a young girl in house in which there’s a hole in the wall that leads to a very mysterious and very evil world. So when you were a kid, is that what you imagined?

GAIMAN: When I was a kid, we actually lived in a house that had been divided in two at one point, which meant that one room in our house opened up onto a brick wall. And I was convinced all I had to do was just open it the right way and it wouldn’t be a brick wall. So I’d sidle over to the door and I’d pull it open.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Right.

GAIMAN: And it was always a brick wall.

SAGAL: Right.

GAIMAN: But it was one of those things that as I grew older, I carried it with me and I thought, I want to send somebody through that door. And when I came to write a story for my daughter Holly, at the time she was a 4 or 5-year-old girl. She’d come home from nursery. She’d seen me writing all day. So she’d come and climb on my lap and dictate stories to me. And it’d always be about small girls named Holly.

SAGAL: Right.

GAIMAN: Who would come home to normally find their mother had been kidnapped by a witch and replaced by evil people who wanted to kill her and she’d have to go off and escape. And I thought, great, what a fun kid.

[somewhereinmalta]

It’s anxious adults who desperately want to “soften” stories. Kids prefer the real thing: with monsters, bloodthirsty ogres and evil murderous stepmothers; where the littlest brother always wins and all the villains are horrendously punished in the end. The world is threatening to the eyes of a child, so they need a fictional universe where the little people have a fair chance against the big and strong.

[shoresoftheshadowlands]

This isn’t specifically about stop motion but it is about how sad or scary parts of movies aren’t really all that bad- IE the 80′s movies, particularly Don Bluth’s films. (X- The Melancholy of Don Bluth, by Meg Shields )

How the children’s animation of the 80’s made room for sadness, and what that taught us. 

There was a time when McDonalds used to give away VHS tapes with happy meals, and by some stroke of luck, one day my mom picked The Land Before Time. It was the first film to etch itself onto me ‐ the way film tends to with kids. I would recreate the plot with stuffed animals and parrot the lines to whoever would listen; I pawed that VHS box until the cardboard went soft.

A couple years ago, I saw that Land Before Time was playing on t.v. and couldn’t remember the last time I’d watched it all the way through. Within five minutes I was completely obliterated and sobbing into a throw pillow. This is a shared experience for children raised with Don Bluth: that as a kid, I could only clock a hazy sense that his films felt different from Disney fare, but that the articulations of this difference, and their ability to emotionally floor me, are something I’ve only become aware of in retrospect.

There was a regime change in animation during the 80’s. Quite literally in the form of Bluth’s official break with Disney in ’79, but in a more elusive sense with the landscape of what children’s animation during that decade felt like. For whatever reason, be it Bluth’s departure or a diseased managerial ethos in the wake of Walt’s passing, the 80’s were a mixed bag for Disney. Don’t get me wrong, they’re amiable and charming films, but The Fox and the Hound and The Great Mouse Detective are not classics. And for all its ambition, The Black Cauldron cannot be redeemed on technical merit. Disney would eventually yank itself out of its slump in ’89 with The Little Mermaid ‐ but animation during the 80’s, along with the childhoods of a slew of millennials, were definitively shaped by Bluth.

That there is a dark tenor to Bluth’s work has been thoroughly, albeit perhaps vaguely, noted, often citing individual moments of terror (cc: Sharptooth, you dick). While I don’t doubt that frightening and disturbing scenes contribute to an overall sense of darkness in Bluth’s work, I’m unconvinced that they’re at the root of what distinguishes his darker tone. There is, I think, a holistic sadness to Bluth films; a pervasive, and fully integrated melancholy that permeates his earlier work.

These stories are full of crystalline moments of narrative sadness; specific story moments at which I inevitably mutter a “fuck you Don Bluth,” and try not to cry. There’s Littlefoot mistaking his own shadow for his dead mother; Fievel sobbing in the rain (a Bluth mainstay) convinced that his family has abandoned him; Mrs. Brisby shuddering helplessly after she and the Shrew temporarily disarm the plow. Other plot points are less tear-jerking so much as objectively miserable: the cruelty of the humans in The Secret of NIMH; An American Tail’s intelligent allegory for Russian Jewish pogroms and immigration; Carface getting Charlie B. Barkin drunk and murdering him at the pier.

You know — FOR KIDS! 

Thematically, there is an ever-present air of death about Bluth’s work that is profoundly sad. Bones litter certain set-pieces; illness and age are veritable threats (shout out to Nicodemus’ gnarly skeleton hands); and characters can and do bleed. Critically, Bluth films don’t gloss over grief, they sit with it. From Littlefoot’s straight up depression following the on-screen death of his mom, to Mrs. Brisby’s soft sorrow at finding out the details of her husband’s death.

There is a space for mourning in Bluth’s stories that feels extra-narrative, and unpretentious. Critically, this is distinct from, say, wallowing. Bluth’s films have a ridiculously productive attitude towards mourning, most lucidly articulated through Land Before Time’s moral mouthpiece Rooter: “you’ll always miss her, but she’ll always be with you as long as you remember the things she taught you.” Disney meanwhile, tends to treat death as a narrative flourish, or worse, a footnote. And in comparison, even notable exceptions like Bambi and The Lion King seem immaturely timid to let palpable grief linger for longer than a scene, let alone throughout a film’s runtime.

Look at all the fun times they’re missing. 

Musically, James Horner and Jerry Goldsmith’s impossibly beautiful scores are laced with a forlorn undercurrent. In particular, Horner’s tonal dissonance in The Land Before Time theme punches the Wagner-lover in me in the throat (admittedly, a good thing). Further to this, the first half of Goldsmith’s “Escape from N.I.M.H,” is reminiscently Tristan and Isolde-y. And while I’m here, I would also like to formally issue a “fuck you for making me cry in public” to American Tail’s “The Great Fire,” which when combined with visuals, is nothing short of devastating.

Speaking of visuals, backdrops of grim and vast indifference dot Bluth’s work; from the twisted Giger-esque caverns of the rats’ rosebush, to the urban rot of a thoroughly unglamorous New York and New Orleans. That these landscapes are in a state of decay is particularly dismal; there is a tangible barrenness, a lack of the warmth our characters are desperately hoping to find by their film’s end. These are depressed and morose spaces ‐ and that they are so seemingly unnavigable and foreboding makes them all the more compelling, and narratively resonant.

The way Bluth uses color is also notable, with dark, earthy tones prevailing throughout only to be blown out quite literally with the golden light characteristic of Bluth’s hard-earned happy endings. Before Littlefoot and friends reach The Great Valley, an event marked by gradually illuminating god-rays, they must slug it out through the parched browns, blues and pitch of their prehistoric hellscape. Like Charlie’s final ascendance into heaven, Fievel must endure similarly muted shades until he is finally (finally) reunited with his family and soaked in glitter ‐ a level of Don Bluth conclusion-sparkles perhaps only rivaled by the radiance of Mrs. Brisby’s amulet as she Jean Grey’s her homestead to safety at the end of NIMH. Because Bluth leans into darker, less saturated tones, these effervescent conclusions are all the more impactful, which speaks in part to the methodology of Bluth’s melancholy.

The plucky leads of Bluth’s early films are all fighting for the same thing: family. From Mrs. Brisby’s persistence to protect her children, to Charlie’s (eventually) selfless love for Anne-Marie, these are characters in search of home. Invariably, each of these characters gets their happy ending, but they have to go through hell to get there, literally in Charlie’s case. In a recent interview, critic Doug Walker asked Bluth if there was any truth to the rumor that he thinks you can show children anything so long as there’s a happy ending, to which Bluth replied:

“[If] you don’t show the darkness, you don’t appreciate the light. If it weren’t for December no one would appreciate May. It’s just important that you see both sides of that. As far as a happy ending…when you walk out of the theatre there’s [got to be] something that you have that you get to take home. What did it teach me? Am I a better person for having watched it?”

Melancholy isn’t just a narrative device for Bluth, it’s a natural part of navigating life, of searching for wholeness, and becoming a better person. Bluth acknowledges sadness in a way that never diminishes or minimizes its existence; he invites melancholy in, confesses its power, and lets it rest. Sadness is, for Bluth, an essential characteristic of the world and living in it. That is a wholly edifying message for kids, delivered in a vessel that is both palatable and unpatronizing. For this reason, among innumerable others, Bluth’s work has immense value as children’s entertainment…even if it means crying into a throw pillow twenty years later.

[kamikaze-kumquat]

Bluth kept it real. I mean, just NIMH alone was like how every child feels, small against giants who can uproot the whole world.

Children KNOW there are dark times in life. They KNOW there is struggle. They may not be able to define it clearly, but they see it all around them. As kids, I feel like we were able to connect with Bluth’s creations simply because we could understand the strife. We were scared of the dark in all its incarnations, but Bluth showed us that the dark can be fought and we can win. It is not a pretty or easy fight and we may come out with burnt hands or other scars but we CAN do it.

Even little mice can face their fear and find safety from the giants. So could we.

[unicornempire]

For as much as I loved Disney growing up, I always felt like Don Bluth films were made for me, somehow. Not me specifically, but kids like me; the kids that were not living great childhoods and were very acutely aware of it. I dunno, there was something really comforting about knowing that not all ‘kid stuff’ had to be fun, bright and colorful, because that wasn’t my life at the time and to only see Disney and ‘Kid-friendly’ playschool stuff would have, I think, only made me feel even more othered than I already was. When I watched any Bluth film that darkness and sorrow felt familiar; sad, sure, but I knew I wasn’t alone.

[random2348]

Thanks for always getting me the good guns even when I suck 😘

Oh and also for encouraging me to keep playing even though I suck and get angry

[transtarks]

“you have to stop buying every mug you think is cute” what’s that? i can’t hear you over the sound of all my mugs clinking together in the cabinet as i try to find space for this new mug i bought

[random2348]

I’m all official and stuff

[teathattast]

credit: [chanbanhi]

[random2348]

Why does everyone keep saying that this world is so great when id rather be in the world of my books?

[random2348]

Don’t tell me tattoos aren’t important because if I was ever murdered that could be the one way to identify my body so that’s my reasoning for getting tattoos that no one can argue with 🤷🏻‍♀️

[vexedtonightmares]

Me every time Vaughn was mentioned in kingdom of ash:

[random2348]

I can’t wait to see a generation full of Aelins, Rowan’s, Celaenas, Chaols, Nehemiah’s, Dorians and Manons, and all the others

[random2348]

Parenting goal: to check my kid out of school every Halloween and binge scary movies then go trick or treating

[dick-winters-blog1]

my masterlist of 'how to life’ tips

Cleaning & Tidying

Make your bed in the morning. It takes seconds, and it’s worth it.

Reset to zero each morning. 

Use the UFYH 20/10 system for clearing your shit. 

Get a reed diffuser and stick it on your windowsill. 

Have a ‘drop-zone’ box where you dump anything and everything. At the beginning/end of the day, clear it out and put that shit away.

Roll your clothes, don’t fold them - or fold them vertically.

Automate your chores. Have a cleaning schedule and assign 15mins daily to do whatever cleaning tasks are set for that day. Set a timer and do it - once the timer is up, finish the task you’re on and leave it for the day. 

Fold your clothes straight out of the tumble dryer (if you use one), whilst they’re still warm. This minimises creases and eliminates the need for ironing. 

Clean your footwear regularly and you’ll feel like a champ. 

Organisation & Productivity

Learn from Eisenhower’s Importance/Urgency matrix. 

Try out the two-minute rule and the Pomodoro technique.

Use. A. Planner. (Or Google Calendar, if that’s more your thing.)

Try bullet journalling.

Keep a notebook/journal/commonplace book to dump your brain contents in on the regular. 

Set morning alarms at two-minute intervals rather than five, and stick your alarm on the other side of the room. It’s brutal, but it works. 

Set three main goals each day, with one of them being your #1 priority. Don’t overload your to-do list or you’ll hit overload paralysis and procrastinate. 

If you’re in a slump, however, don’t be afraid to put things like “shower” on your to do list - that may be a big enough goal in itself, and that’s okay. 

Have a physical inbox - a tray, a folder, whatever. If you get a piece of paper, stick it in there and sort through it at the end of the week.

Consider utilising the GTD System, or a variation of it.

Try timeboxing. 

Have a morning routine, and guard that quiet time ferociously. 

Save interesting-looking shit to instapaper. Have a set time where you read through the stuff you saved to instapaper and save the shit that you like from instapaper to evernote (or bookmark it properly). 

During your working hours, put on your footwear, even if you’re sat on your bed. (Why?)

Have a folder for all your important documents and letters, organised by topic (e.g. medical, bank, university, work, identification). At the front of this folder, have a sheet of paper with all the key information written on it, such as your GP’s details, your passport details, driving licence details, bank account number, insurance number(s), and so on. 

Try using StayFocusd and RescueTime (or similar apps/extensions). (I promise, you’ll find that you’re not as busy as you think you are.)

Schedule working time and down time alike, in the balance that works for you. 

Money

Have. A. God. Damn. Budget. 

Use a money tracker like toshl, mint, or splitwise. Enter all expenses asap! (You will forget, otherwise.)

Have a ‘money date’ each week, where you sort through your finances from the past seven days and then add it to a spreadsheet. This will help you identify your spending patterns and whether your budget is actually working or not. 

Pack your own frickin’ lunch like a grown-up and stop buying so many takeaway coffees. Keep snacks in your bag. 

Go to your bank and take out £100 in £1 coins (or w/e your currency is). That shit will come in useful for all kinds of things and you’ll never be short on change for the bus or the laundry. 

Food & Cooking

Know how to cook the basics: a starch, a protein, a vegetable, and a sauce.

Simple, one-pot meals (“a grain, a green, and a bean”) are a godsend. 

Dried porcini mushrooms make a fantastic stock to cook with. 

Batch cook and freeze. Make your own ‘microwave meals’. 

Buy dried goods to save money - rice and beans are a pittance. (Remember to soak dried beans first, though!) 

Consider Meatless Mondays; it’s healthier, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly.

Learn which fruits and vegetables are cheapest at your store, and build a standard weekly menu around those. (Also remember that frozen vegetables are cheap and healthy.) 

Learn seasoning combinations. Different seasoning, even with the exact same ingredients, can make a dish seem completely new. 

Don’t buy shit for a one-off recipe, especially if you won’t use it all. If you really want to try out a recipe, see if a friend would be interested in making it with you, then pool for the expenses. 

Make your own goddamned pasta sauce. Jamie Oliver has a decent recipe here, but the beauty of tomato sauce is that you can totally wing it and adapt the fuck out of it. 

Misc

Have a stock email-writing format. 

Want to start running, but find it boring? Try Zombies, Run!. 

Keep a goddamn first aid kit and learn how to use it. 

Know your OTC pain relief. 

Update your CV regularly. 

Keep a selection of stamps and standard envelopes for unexpected posting needs. (It happens more regularly than you would think!) 

Some final words of advice:

Organisation is not a goal in itself, it is a tool. Don’t get caught up in the illusion of productivity and get distracted from the actual task at hand. 

Routines and habits will help you. Trust in them.

You have the potential to be an organised and productive person, just as much as anybody else. It just takes practice. 

[the-girlygeek]

this is truly excellent 🙌🏻

[random2348]

Sometimes I wish my parents would stop telling me I’m an adult and start treating me like one

[random2348]

Celebrating new growth everyday

[random2348]

Does anyone else every feel like their heart is pumping and going crazy and they are spinning but they also know that why are laying in bed perfectly fine

[random2348]

Woo hoo! Christmas Eve one of the days of the year that parents force their religion down their children’s throat! Yaaayyyy! I love today!

[theauthorlife]

What Is a Gallagher Girl?

A Tribute to Elizabeth Sutton’s Valedictorian speech, by Lexi S.

What is a Gallagher Girl?

When I was 12, I thought I had an answer. In the sixth grade, I was introduced to the ivy walls and the nearly-hallowed halls. I thought a Gallagher Girl was a student at the most intriguing school. I watched Cammie fall for Josh, and I thought the most dangerous thing a Gallagher Girl could face was…love. 

What is a Gallagher Girl?

When I was 13, I thought I knew the answer. I was starting the 7th grade, and I saw myself in those halls, walking and learning with our Sisters. I thought a Gallagher Girl was strong enough to form an alliance with those once seen as a threat. I met the Blackthorne Boys and chased Dr. Steve, and I thought the most dangerous thing a Gallagher Girl could face was… betrayal. 

What is a Gallagher Girl?

When I was 14, I thought I had the answer. In the 8th grade, I watched Macey McHenry be put into various forms of protective serivce. I learned about the Circle of Cavan, and thought they were after her. I searched for her when we thought she’d run away, and I thought the most dangerous thing a Gallagher Girl could face was… the loss of one of our own. 

What is a Gallagher Girl?

When I was 15 I thought I knew the answer. My freshman year, I studied with Cammie as we learned more about the Circle and realized that they were never after Macey after all. I realized with Cammie why the Circle chose that year, and I packed up with her as she left. I thought the most dangerous thing a gallagher girl could face was…the unknown. 

What is a Gallgher Girl?

When I was 17, I thought I had an answer. I watched Cammie come back, and feared we may never have the REAL Cammie again. I fought with her to remember the summer, and cried with her when we realized what really had happened–to her and her father. I was more determined to see the Circle defeated. My heart ached with Cammie, and her family, her sisters, as she hung from the balcony–only the thought of losing Liz strong enough to save her. And I thought the most dangerous thing a Gallagher Girl could face was…herself. 

What is a Gallagher Girl?

When I was 18, I thought I’d never really know the answer. I graduated the same year as 15 girls I’d grown up beside. My resolve to change the world had grown stronger, but I went off the grid for a few years. I became a part of sisterhoods of flesh and blood as near and dear to my heart as this sisterhood of ink and paper. I faced missions and challenges that changed me. I thought the most dangerous thing a Gallagher Girl could face was.. the world. 

What is a Gallagher Girl?

I’m 23 now, and I know I have the answer. I finally was able to catch up, 4 and a half years later, with my Gallagher Sisters. I was finally able to get the closure I had contemplated for so long. I have been and seen the world. I have studied and grown throughout the years. I calculated with Liz. I fought alongside Bex. I survived with Cammie. I grew with Macey. And I learned what a Gallagher Girl truly is. She is you. She is me. She is us. She is every young lady who carries the Sisterhood in her heart. She is every woman who is ready and willing to change the world. And, perhaps even more importantly than learning what a Gallagher Girl is by definition, I have learned the most dangerous thing she can face is…. self-doubt. 

So if you’re reading this now, thank you for being my Sister. Thank you for being a Gallagher Girl. Thank you for showing me what grace and strength look like in action. Keep the sisterhood in your heart, and never, ever give up on your self. 

How long will we strive? All the days of our lives.