Summer Stars & Fireflies

A blog of things that make me happy. I am an Orthodox Christian, a musician, a book lover, and enjoy dabbling in martial arts. If you have stumbled upon this page I hope you enjoy what you find here. Have a blessed day!

[clinical-manners]

*places an orange just outside a fairy ring to see what comes out* science is more of an art than a science

[theunfairfolk]

*the orange grows legs and skitters away*

[clinical-manners]

Fascinating results *places a banana in the same spot*

[kingscrown666]

*clawed hand reaches out of the ether and drags it into the ring, leaving ragged claw marks in the soil as it disappears, back into the ether from whence it came*

[numberlover1729]

“let’s go to the extreme.” *places a pineapple in the same spot*

[yallidarityforever]

Real scientists would keep putting an orange in the same spot to make sure the results are consistent before moving on to other fruits or different spots.

[clinical-manners]

The only valid response to this post.

[elodieunderglass]

We’re working up the complexity levels of fruit until we feel there is enough evidence to support the judicious placement of a volunteer twink

[cannibal-cupcakes]

[elodieunderglass]

You sit down, we haven’t seen what’s happened to the pineapple

[keremelcream]

—Lang Leav; from Sea of Strangers

[bamsara]

Something I made while dealing with my own stuff and hoping drawing this would pick me up somehow. Maybe it worked.

FT my cat. His name is Mischief

[loonmartian]

BUT DEBUSSY IS PASSION. DEBUSSY IS EMOTION. DEBUSSY IS DRAMA.

Love your music teachers 💙 they have to endure a lot and they’re the best. We love you. You’re the best.

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[tolerateit]

the tumblr holiday checklist aka the only thing that gets me through the year:

ides of march ✅

oscars ✅

april fool's day ✅

neil banging out the tunes ✅

the perfect date (april 25th)

it's gonna be may

met gala

star wars day

dashcon

dancing pumpkin day

mean girls day

the skeleton war

november 5th

please it's christmas (it's december 10th)

[ultrafacts]

Source: [x]

Click HERE for more facts!

[sindri42]

Imagine you’re 400 kilometres above the ground, hurtling along at eight kilometres per second, you get a short break from your strict work schedule to call up your wife who you haven’t seen for months, and she hangs up on you.

[fthgurdy]

Chris Hadfield: Tell my wife I love her very much…

Ground Control: …she kn- His wife: TAKE ME OFF YOUR CALL LIST. *click*

[tiktoksijustthinkareneat]

[argumate]

okay so that’s at least one person who would have no problem if they got sent back to medieval times, the guild hall absolutely going off to this mashup

[annnmoody]

Shopping sustainably may weaken the fast fashion industry, but it fails to address our compulsion to consume. “Ethical” buying lets us avoid the root of the issue: overidentification with products as indicators of worth and signifiers of our identities. Our self worth should not be built around what we can or cannot buy.

[thesnadger]

Since once in a blue moon I actually discover a decent rule for adulting, and since I know I have followers a few years younger than me who are just entering the workforce, I want to tell you about a very important phrase. 

“I won’t be available.”

Imagine you’re at work and your boss asks you to come in on Saturday. Saturday is usually your day off–coming in Saturdays is not an obligation to keep your job. Maybe you were going to watch a movie with a friend, or maybe you were just going to lie in bed and eat ice cream for eight hours, but either way you really, really don’t want to give up your day off.

If you consider yourself a millennial you’ve probably been raised to believe you need to justify not being constantly at work. And if you’re a gen-Z kid you’re likely getting the same toxic messages that we did. So in a situation like that, you might be inclined to do one of three things:

Tell your boss you’d rather not give up your day off. Cave when they pressure you to come in anyway, since you’re not doing anything important.

Tell your boss you’d rather not give up your day off. Over-apologize and worry that you looked bad/unprofessional.

Lie and say you’ve got a doctor’s appointment or some other activity that feels like an adequate justification for not working.

The fact is, it doesn’t matter to your boss whether you’re having open heart surgery or watching anime in your underwear on Saturday. The only thing that affects them is the fact that you won’t be at work. So telling them why you won’t be at work only gives them reason to try and pressure you to come in anyway.

If you say “I won’t be available,” giving no further information, you’d be surprised how often that’s enough. Be polite and sympathetic in your tone, maybe even say “sorry, but I won’t be available.” But don’t make an excuse. If your boss is a professional individual, they’ll accept that as a ‘no’ and try to find someone else. 

But bosses aren’t always professional. Sometimes they’re whiny little tyrants. So, what if they pressure you further? The answer is–politely and sympathetically give them no further information.

“Are you sure you’re not available?” “Sorry, but yes.”

“Why won’t you be available?” “I have a prior commitment.” (Which you do, even if it’s only to yourself.)

“What’s your prior commitment?” “Sorry, but that’s kind of personal.”

“Can you reschedule it?” “I’m afraid not. Maybe someone else can come in?”

If you don’t give them anything to work with, they can’t pressure you into going beyond your obligations as an employee. And when they realize that, they’ll also realize they have to find someone else to come in and move on.

[yournewapartment]

IMPORTANT!! PLEASE READ!!

[kagetsukai]

Just like with many other parts of life, learn to say ‘no’ to people. You are important. Don’t kill yourself for another person, esp. if they are your boss.

[shrmptst]

The full set of all of my LOTR pieces! they are currently available at Gallery Nucleus!

[sonateharder]

The Piano: Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731)

”Cristofori was an artful inventor, creating such a sophisticated action for his pianos that, at the instrument’s inception, he solved many of the technical problems that continued to puzzle other piano designers for the next seventy-five years of its evolution. His action was highly complex and thus expensive, causing many of its features to be dropped by subsequent eighteenth-century makers, and then gradually reinvented and reincorporated in later decades. Cristofori’s ingenious innovations included an “escapement” mechanism that enabled the hammer to fall away from the string instantly after striking it, so as not to dampen the string, and allowing the string to be struck harder than on a clavichord; a “check” that kept the fast-moving hammer from bouncing back to re-hit the string; a dampening mechanism on a jack to silence the string when not in use; isolating the soundboard from the tension-bearing parts of the case, so that it could vibrate more freely; and employing thicker strings at higher tensions than on a harpsichord.”

(via The Piano: The Pianofortes of Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)

[alliluyevas]

ten year old girl who loves historical fiction moodboard

[truly-fantastic-me]

“wouldn’t you rather earn something than have it just handed to you?”

Yeah when it comes to actual awards and fancy goods, but when it comes to basic needs, basic human decency, and accomodations, those things should always be handed to people. No one should have to “earn” those things.Value people as people, not base it on how much they produce. 

[mythiass-deactivated20230515]

yeah but that creates a severe dependency that could be exploited easily, and creates a slippery slope @musical-clarity

[thebaconsandwichofregret]

Actually studies show that people who live in places with universal income (who are given money with no strings attached just for being citizens) do far better work than those who don’t and are more enthusiastic to do work.

This is because they still want nice things and will work for those but the part of their energy that was devoted to worrying about if they have enough money to pay the rent and bills this month is now freed up to do other things.

Some people will always be lazy and take advantage of the system, but they are always a tiny percentage and it seems ridiculous to me to punish the majority and severly hamstring their abilities just because a handful of people will simply live of basic income rather than work.

[sapphic-dreams-and-ashes]

It’s been tested a couple times. In Canada, in some European countries, and the results are always the same. There are two groups of people who show a statistically significant (Greater than one half of one percent, or 1 in 200) increase in Not Working and living off the guaranteed income. Parents of Children under school age, and full time students. Among ALL other groups, employment actually INCREASED. Why? Because guaranteed minimum income means that homeless people can get at least a basic low end apartment. It’s hard if not impossible to get an above board job without a permanent fixed address. Also more people were able to have and maintain a BANK ACCOUNT. It is often hard to get a decent job without an account that can accept Direct Deposit for paychecks. Also, lost work time due to illness and injury decreased across the board. It turns out if people are getting a decent amount of money each month they can A> afford to eat better, and B> obtain decent medical attention both preventative and emergency. Crazy right? So why hasn’t it caught on? Because it doesn’t directly benefit the people in power, and it increases THEIR PERSONAL taxes, their CORPORATE TAXES, and thus decreases their PERSONAL INCOME. So, because Jeff Bezos and Alan Greenspan might fall from making 100 billion dollars a year to making 99.8 billion dollars a year, it’s a hard NO and we can all fucking die.. The End.

[mirrorfalls]

tl;dr

[space-is-out-there]

TL;DR : people work better when they are living

[actualmonster]

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs applies to society as a whole,,, you need basic necessities and security in order to do your best

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Capitalist bootlickers are always like “that might create a slippery slope of dependency where people could be exploited, so we should stay on our slippery slope of starvation and homelessness where people definitely are being exploited.”

[kontextmaschine]

Our Japanese class found it funny that in common terminology "food" isn't very distinguished from specifically "rice" until it was pointed out to us that in English "meal" is "loose roughly ground grain"

[karcatgirl-vantas]

humans be like staple crop

[anonsally]

In German a Christmas tree farm is called a “tree-school” and I thought that was very cute and funny until I remembered that we buy our plants at... a nursery.

[guerrillatech]

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[dande-pansy]

[velociraptrix]

[firjii]

here, have an extremely wholesome tiktok to detox your dash