Death to Normalcy

 Lizzie | 24 | England she | her | hers Welcome! Welcome to my blog! Before we begin our blogging, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!

[headspace-hotel]

What finally put the nail in the coffin for me on the concept of "biblical inerrancy" was fully realizing how impossible it is for the meaning of any written piece of language to be consistent or even intelligible across times, places and cultures

I have sat through sermons about Jesus's teaching that you have to be "like a little child" to enter the kingdom of heaven that interpreted it as meaning, like, "innocence," or pure unquestioning belief like a child's belief in Santa Claus, but in college I took a 300-level course on Ancient Rome, and realized that being "like a little child" would have meant something totally different for a Roman or Roman-influenced society

The Romans were ridiculously hierarchical. Like, present-day American society is hierarchical but the Romans took it to the next level. Everything was all about your position on the totem pole relative to everyone else.

And children were at the bottom of the bottom. They were completely without legal rights, as in "the head of household can legally just kill his son and it's fine because he's the father."

that class made me realize just how much of the actual teachings of Jesus are centered on subverting social hierarchies, and just how intense they are about it. and this is no exception: it is a statement about upturning society so that the least valued people are most favored by God

[jellyfishinajamjar]

It’s pretty nuts how basically everything in the bible is about how it’s not just moral, but morally required, to subvert unjust systems of oppression and then people have turned around and used it to create and uphold unjust systems of oppression

Die a hero ig

[sixpenceee]

Shakuntala Devi, an Indian mental calculator,was asked to give the 23rd root of a 201-digit number; she answered in 50 seconds. Her answer was confirmed by calculations done at the US Bureau of Standards for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.

[organic-homegrown-boyfriend]

She was also one of the early pioneers of gay rights in India and published a book on homosexuality way back in 1977 calling for the full acceptance and decriminalization of homosexuality. This was after her marriage broke up, due to her husband being a gay man. https://gayrightsindia.wordpress.com/2016/08/20/remembering-shakuntala-devi-the-human-computer-and-the-pioneer-of-gay-rights/amp/

[warriorprincesstramp]

but would your clone fuck YOU. humble yourself

[doubleca5t]

ok but like real talk re: freud "he can't keep getting away with it" it's not that cishet men have some inbuilt desire to fuck their moms it's more that societal expectations around what a "good wife" is supposed to do for her husband (cooking, cleaning, general caretaker, emotional support, unconditional love, asks nothing in return) overlap heavily with what mothers are expected to do for their children and because of that a lot of dudes imagine motherly qualities when envisioning an ideal gf like we've seen those videos of the insane tradwives who have a whole-ass meal plan set out for their husband and have to wake up two hours before him to make sure everything is exactly as it should be like what is that if not treating a dude who could easily be on even footing with you like he's your literal child because society has convinced you he must be waited on hand and foot like the oedipus complex isn't actually about fucking your mom freud just slapped a wacky label on an element of patriarchy

[holyth3firm-deactivated20200430]

i want to shake those two little Victorian girl bitchs hands who faked the pictures of themselves playing with fairies and thank them for paving the way.

[supposedlywizards]

OP can we please see the pictures

[niksfake]

The photos are of (and by) Elsie Wright and Frances Griffith, who were respectively 13 and 11 at the time! Not Victorian, but just after - the pictures were taken around 1920.

[thatsnicebutimmarried]

Something that amazes me about this story is how absolutely bonkers it is that they got away with it for so long, and how if you just read about the story and didn’t see the pictures, you’d be damn near convinced that they actually took photos with actual fairies or something until basically the very end, and even then you might wonder.  Because most written accounts of what happens goes something like this: they took these photos and someone saw them, and BREAKING NEWS! And now suddenly believers and skeptics alike are itching to get ahold of these photos and determine whether or not they are real, because just looking at the photos had them either completely convinced, or else certain that some kind of photographic trickery must have been used. So there were all these experts who examined the photos, the camera, the film/plates, the whatever, to try and find out how they faked these photos (or IF they faked them). Like, expert experts. Like they got the folks at Kodak to examine them. (Over the next few decades they’d also be xrayed and all kinds of stuff.) And they couldn’t find anything. There was no evidence of early 20th century photoshop. They examined the photos, the negatives, everything, and concluded that they hadn’t been tampered with. Arthur Conan Doyle was LOSING HIS SHIT because he thought they were real and this proved it. Whether you believed in fairies or not all the experts were coming to the conclusion that the photos were totally real, and the skeptics were getting really really mad about it. Because there was no way these photos were real! Except they totally seemed to be! And the girls were sticking by their story. (And actually Elsie and Frances were 16 and 9 respectively, when the first two photos were taken in mid-1917, and the photos became public in mid 1919.)

Doyle was still losing his goddamn mind and so to put the matter to rest, another believer went to them in 1920, bringing cameras and stuff for them to photograph fairies with. The thinking was that if they were using equipment that had been examined and everything beforehand, and then developed not by the girls, then the opportunity for fakery was cut out and they could determine the truth. And lo and behold, the three pictures they girls took (alone, because “the fairies won’t show up if we’re not alone”), were also verified as being real!!! Okay, okay, you don’t believe in fairies, and believe the photos have to be fake, but still, there is the mystery of how did they do it???

And if that is what you read it’s understandable to be thinking that woah, what did these girls capture on film? Were these children just on to some advanced af photo trickery? What advanced technique did these kids figure out that fooled all the experts? Did they really actually capture pictures of something supernatural?

No. They fuckin cut some drawings of fairies out of paper and took pictures with them.  There was no trickery detected with the photos or photo equipment because they didn’t have to fake that part. They were genuine photographs....of little girls with propped up drawings. Elsie copied some drawings from a book, added wings, cut them out, and propped them up. You look at these photos today and they look fake as fuck. These are obviously little drawings. They do not look the slightest bit realistic. There are people out there TODAY who will argue that it’s totally possible that these girls took pictures of actual fairies. Because that’s a better story, I guess. But if you hear that version of the story and then see the photos it’s just laughable. 

I can only assume that the reason anybody fell for it at all is the same reason that people praised the special effects in old movies that now look ridiculous. 

But at the same time....nobody noticed that these fairies looked like children’s book illustrations???? Like it took another fifty years for this to be put to rest, because even if you didn’t believe they were real, NO ONE COULD FIGURE OUT HOW THEY COULD HAVE FAKED THEM. It wasn’t until the fricken 80s when someone tracked down the girls that they admitted to having faked the photos by using little drawings. And even with that admission and the actual book they copied from, plus computer examination revealing that there were little strings and stuff holding the cutouts in place, there are STILL people who will maintain that these photos were real.  For their parts Elsie and Frances disagreed over the veracity of the fifth photogragh (not pictured here). Both claimed to have taken it, and Elsie said it was fake while Frances said it was real. (Even in the 80′s.) The truth is most likely that it was a double exposure and so both girls did take it. Also they apparently kept up the lie because once they had fooled Arthur Conan Doyle they felt too weird about telling the truth. Seriously, EVEN THEY DIDN’T UNDERSTAND HOW THEY HAD FOOLED SO MANY GROWNUPS. THEY WEREN’T EVEN TRYING TO PULL A HOAX. 

Read that last sentence again. They really weren’t. They were just trying to take some fun little photos. And ALL THESE GODDAMN ADULTS WERE FREAKING THE FUCK OUT THINKING THAT THEY HAD PHOTOGRAPHED ACTUAL FAIRIES. AND IT WAS SUCH AN AWKWARD SITUATION THAT THE GIRLS JUST WENT WITH IT.  They didn’t keep it up for money or fame or pride, they kept up the hoax because it would be too awkward to tell the grownups they’d fooled them. 

THEY CREATED A MYSTERY THAT LASTED LIKE 50 YEARS BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO IN AN AWKWARD SITUATION. 

Frances straight up said: “I never even thought of it as being a fraud – it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun and I can't understand to this day why they were taken in – they wanted to be taken in.” 

TL;DR: Two kids were dicking around with a camera and some fairy drawings, accidentally fool top experts in the world with super fake looking photos, feel too awkward at having fooled so many smart people to admit that it was all fake until a few years before their deaths. True. Icons.

[urlocalllama]

if I could ask God anything and get the real, genuine answer, I'd ask him why He commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. He knew He was going to stop him. He knew that He'd never truly ask him to do it. He knew that if he went through with it then His promise would be frustrated.

The thing is... the story has led parents to think it's okay to sacrifice their children, metaphorically and sometimes literally, for a false sense of moral superiority. How many LGBT+ children have been sacrificed in the supposed name of Christianity? How many autistic children? How many orphaned children? How many abused children?

Maybe it was the right lesson for Abraham, especially about how it paralleled Christ's atonement. But it's not a story that has translated well into modern times.

[relatablemormonmoments]

do you want the Jewish answer? It was to challenge him to think critically about commandments from g-d (and translating to religion as an institution, rulings from religious leaders and scripture), and it's a challenge he failed. He was supposed to, theoretically, fight g-d and say "no, by no means am I going to do this. I don't care that you created everything, that is my child and my world, and I'm not going to do it just because you said so."

Instead, Abraham royally screws up, traumatises his son, and in doing so, loses his son, loses g-d's will and favor, and in the Tanakh we never really hear from Abraham again after this point, because he failed.

It's a story about someone blindly following in faith, and losing the most important things to them because they never stopped to think "Wait, did I hear this right? And if I did hear this right, am I so sure that this is something I want to follow?"

Isaac was Abraham's only son at the time, and the child he had fought so hard to have. Him following an order blindly without thinking of the consequences is not supposed to be a good thing (It just kind of benefits the feudal society that eventually embraced Christianity, which is why the understanding was changed in Christian worldviews.)

[daweyt]

“““You’re not a monster,” I said. But I lied. What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.””

—

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”

[homunculus-argument]

My favourite kind of thing in people learning a second or third language is the sliding scale of formality that you never notice before you hear someone using words that aren't wrong, they very consicely describing the matter at hand, but not in a way that a native person would say it.

Like you've just moved somewhere and are having guests over for the first time, and you know your cat is going to be a pushy little shit, and now you have to figure out how to warn people about that. And you know exactly the words you'd use in your own language, but you've never heard them here, so you pick up a dictionary, look up the exact words, learn how to pronounce them, compose the sentence and tweak it until the grammar is perfectly correct, and then memorise it, so you have it prepared.

And then next day you're letting people in and it's been exactly 30 seconds before little Masha is inside someone's purse, hat, shirt, or altogether managing to be in every single person's personal space at the same time, and you take out the sentence you composed: "Pardon, the cat is inevitable."

[ladychlo]

I wish you all very good sex. if you don't like sex, I wish you a very good romance. if you don't want either of them. I wish you a very good bowl of soup and some bread, mate.

[miracle-vine]

yes my favorite colors are the warm orange of the windows of a house u see on a walk at night and also the deep blue of the night around it

[byrons]

art by suzanne siegel

[lilacandladybugs]

i think tumblr is the only website where the users have to employ the scientific method to figure out how it works

[pharmaicys]

[knightofleo]

Kestrel-dad not sure how to dad but he’s trying his best.

[astarlingdiscovery]

[punished-ned]

Dad loves you and feeds you. But he is also dumb and feeds you a wonderfully done wagyu steak. You are 3 days old.

[systemic-dreams]

[just--space]

From Auriga to Orion : What’s up in the sky from Auriga to Orion? Many of the famous stars and nebulas in this region were captured on 34 separate images, taking over 430 hours of exposure, and digitally combined to reveal the featured image. Starting on the far upper left, toward the constellation of Auriga (the Chariot driver), is the picturesque Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405). Continuing down along the bright arc of our Milky Way Galaxy, from left to right crossing the constellations of the Twins and the Bull, notable appearing nebulas include the Tadpole, Simeis 147, Monkey Head, Jellyfish, Cone and Rosette nebulas. In the upper right quadrant of the image, toward the constellation of Orion (the hunter), you can see Sh2-264, the half-circle of Barnard’s Loop, and the Horsehead and Orion nebulas. Famous stars in and around Orion include, from left to right, orange Betelgeuse (just right of the image center), blue Bellatrix (just above it), the Orion belt stars of Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak, while bright Rigel appears on the far upper right. This stretch of sky won’t be remaining up in the night very long – it will be setting continually earlier in the evening as mid-year approaches. via NASA

[bogleech]

REMINDER: the part of a comb jelly that looks like a mouth is in fact a mouth

[everythingfox]

Golden tortoise beetles

(via)

[subdio]

So pretty! Also fun, apparently (though Wikipedia says citation needed) these beetles play dead when disturbed.

@elodieunderglass

[bogleech]

The gold sheen of these beetles is achieved because at the microscopic level, the shell is made of multiple layers with fluid filling the gaps, so what we’re seeing is the sunlight reflecting off that fluid like the sparkling surface of a lake!

These beetles can “tighten” their shell layers to divert the fluid and instantly reveal their true natural coloration, which is usually a duller red or brown. This confuses predators, who think the shiny beetle has suddenly disappeared, because, interesting fact, most animals are stupid

[comradesaucegay]

every year around christmas me and my grandma play this fun family game called “maybe you want to put jesus in your room instead, sweetie? :)”. now, it’s important to note that the jesus referred to in our game is not actually the real jesus christ, but instead a wooden figure i made in 2011 that has an uncanny resemblance to the lord and savior himself

so what happens is that i place jesus in our living room, and my grandma smiles and asks me if i don’t want to decorate my room with him instead. i ask her in return if she thinks my jesus figure is ugly (which he is), but she reassures me that this is not the case. however, a couple of days later jesus mysteriously disappears from our living room, and appear in my room instead

now, the real jesus christ might have been able to perform a miracle like this, but please remember that the jesus in our story is only a figure made out of wood. he can not move on his own, so i think we can safely say that my grandma is the prime suspect here

the first year i would often confront my grandma about this, but she would always make up an excuse and never straight up tell me she moved him because he’s so ugly it’s an embarrassment to the family

eventually i grew tired of her lies, so now we only move jesus around in silence. one second he’s in the living room, the next he’s back in my room. in a way i think this adds an extra element of excitement to the holiday season, because you never know for sure when jesus is going to be moved again

[comradesaucegay]

and so it begins..

[voxiferous-deactivated20171119]

i was not fucking ready for this photograph

[stimman4000]