do u ever cry abt space rovers bc we sent them out there to d i e
Okay, I mean, on the one hand yes.
But on the other hand, like.
Do you ever sit back on your hands and look up at the stars and think about how we put little pieces of ourselves in space rovers and sent them up there to explore.
About how humanity could have named them anything and we called them Curiosity and Voyager and searching-words and traveling-things.
About how we crave exploration and learning and newness so much that we taught them to do the same, to seek knowledge and answers all their lives–because that’s all we do, you know, we have our little batteries going boom in our chests and we learn and grow and travel as much as we can before our batteries run down.
About how we put a Golden Record of information from Earth in a ship and sent it out, just on the random off chance that someone would find it, and people added greetings and kind words and “please come find us, because we’re alone in this endless black and you might be alone too and maybe we can be not-alone with each other,” and then we entrusted it to one of these things that we had made.
About how space rovers are each a message in a bottle, the best and most curious part of humanity, the part of ourselves that we hope is at our core, the part of ourselves that we believe is the most worthy.
About how we filled them up with our souls.
Because sometimes I think about that, and then I really cry.
Sometimes I forget that I am a PORN blog that posts PORN, not animorphs things anymore. But you reblogging my Mcdonalds story just got me like 70 new notes on that post and I'm just scrolling through your blog now, not a care in the world. Lol
This is it, this is my favorite ask that I have ever gotten in my entire life. I hope you’re enjoying Ye Olde Blogge, my buddy, because this ask makes me laugh every time I look at it.
I am really glad about your tags on that mom post you did. Everyone is always ragging on me because I do t talk to my mother, but they don't understand how shitty she is. And things like you said just help me not feel super shitty as well. Thank you.
Listen, honey, let me tell you a story about my family. First of all, my mom and dad are the kindest, most generous, best people I have ever had the privilege to know, and I am grateful every day for their presence in my life.
That being said.
My Yaya, my mom’s mom, used to leave bruises on me and convince me that I was insane, and that’s nothing compared to what she did to my mother. She has caused directly four (five?) nervous breakdowns in my cousins, and drove one to the point where he called his sister to come keep an eye on him in case he tried to kill himself. My Nana, my dad’s mom, is a decent person, or could be if she didn’t stand idly by while her husband turns violent and aggressive. He’s a bitter, cruel, misogynist old man, and the shit they are literally right now putting my father through makes me see red. I could gladly punch any of them in the face. My response to hearing that Yaya has kicked the bucket will be literal tears of relief, followed by copious amounts of alcohol. The best I can hope for is to be ignored, and I have resigned myself to that, but my god am I ready to be done with their shit.
So here’s the point to this unnecessarily personal rant: you’re doing right by yourself, and that’s what matters. You looked at your situation and chose life over limb, and I’m really, really proud of you for it. That is a brave thing to do and the only people who understand that are the people who are in the same situation.
Family isn’t supposed to hurt like this. You are doing the right thing.
I love how it’s “The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and MISTER Hyde” as in, yeah, they are basically two sides of the same person but only ONE has a doctorate
#unless your bitch ass second personality helped you write that thesis it is your fucking doctorate
1. a Specialty, 2. made with love and a complete lack of fucks 3. honestly the most Terrifying substance in existence
Every Jedi has their own particular twist - Kit Fisto uses a hallucinogenic seaweed found on his native planet. Plo Koon’s is literally lethal to non Kel-Dor but is the galaxy’s best known grease remover. Mace’s stash appears relatively tame, but has an aftertaste that kicks in half an hour later when you’ve already drunk half the bottle and cannot be removed by any mouthwash known to civilization. No one knows what Yoda’s tastes like, except possibly Dooku and the only time he was ever asked his eyes went blank, his shoulder twitched compulsively and he he immediately called a retreat - it is therefore the most sought after secret in the temple. Luminara has a variety that tastes of something only describable as “pure regret”. She’s been working on “horrified realisation” for a while now but has only managed “embarassed mortification”. Qui-Gon liked to infuse tea and spices into his brew, and brought back more than a few exotic species to feed his habit. Obi-Wan continues the tradition, however due to the increasing stresses of war the tea varieties he uses have steadily been increasing in both bitterness and caffeine content. It is colloquially known as “the sleepless death” and is banned in eight star systems. Skywalker’s version is surprisingly palatable, does not cause hallucinations and packs a kick stronger than a Dug on steroids. It’s made of bugs.
Executive dysfunction is like all of your abilities are on cooldown and you’re mashing buttons to try to do anything but your brain is just like “i can’t do that yet. that’s still recharging. i can’t do that yet. that spell isn’t ready yet. that’s still recharging.”
Constantly torn between “if I show symptoms I’m real and valid” and “I can’t show any symptoms because then I’ll be a bother so I have to internalize everything.”
Dont forget “if I can control my symptoms are they still valid”
And “if I show symptoms I’m manipulating the people around me”
Also “if I don’t show symptoms at any given moment I’m lying about having a mental illness and everything is an overreaction”
Because this hash tag is SO FUN and thought-provoking.
GENDER: No one can keep up with humans and gender. There are no easy signs to tell who is what, not clothing, not body morphology, not how they paint themselves or their grooming or vestigal hair. The humans themselves argue about how many genders there are. Eventually they quit trying and refer to all humans as ‘they’. Most humans are fine with that, even compliment them on their support (?) and progressive views (??). A few humans are offended, but are shouted down by their other humans. The other beings of the galaxy officially give up.
SEX: Some humans want to have sex all the time. Others barely can stand to be touched at all, even casually. Some will have sex with their own gender, which does not produce offspring and is confusing to many. Some will have sex only with certain people, some will have sex with anyone. SOME will have sex with other species, occasionally challenging their own safety and everyone else’s. None of this is considered strange. Anyone saying it is strange is again shouted down and shamed into silence. The other beings of the galaxy officially give up.
CATS: Humans adopt small predators as pets and kiss their “widdle faces” and giggle over their clawed toes (???) and fuss and are thrilled when the predators sleep with them (isn’t that UNSAFE? IT IS FULL OF POINTY BITS) and often sport scratches and bite marks inflicted when the animal was ‘playing’. “When were these ‘cats’ domesticated?” “Oh, we never really domesticated them. We just let them move into the house with us. Aren’t they CUUUUUTE? Come here, baby.” -kissy noises- The other beings of the galaxy again give up.
RELIGION: Wars fought. Millions - probably billions, through history - killed. Crew members huffy with each other. Various holidays celebrated, none of which make sense, some of them celebrating events that are physically impossible and could not have happened. All for something that can’t be proved. The other beings of the galaxy would think this was all an elaborate prank if it wasn’t for the body count.
GERMS: Humans get INFECTED and act as if it is a personal affront, and cuss about it. They confine themselves to quarters so they don’t infect the rest of the crew - very kind, in that respect - and otherwise wrap themselves in bedding and bitch about it for three days while doing their work by remote - “It’s fine, just a cold.” followed by horrifying noises they call ‘coughing’ and ‘sneezing’ - and HOW. HOW DO THEY EVEN. The other beings of the galaxy, for whom infection is always life-threatening, boggle from a safe distance. With respirators on.
ALPHA PREDATOR…? They come from a death planet, these naked apes with no armor, no fangs, no speed. They have the ability to conquer the galaxy, if they only agreed with each other long enough that it was their goal. Instead they poke their noses into other death worlds, ‘exploring’, they call it, adopting horrifying creatures and making friends with other predatory beings, brewing poisonous beverages from whatever they can scrounge, which they then drink for fun. The rest of the galaxy is relieved. If humans had an attention span, they would truly be in trouble.
No one wants to know what a ‘shark’ is. Humans seem to be afraid of them, and if it frightens the humans, the rest of the galaxy is, to a being, terrified.
She set out two cups—Alderaanian silver, a gift from those few, miserable and scattered few, who were elsewhere when their world dissolved in fire. Leia’s hands shook badly as she poured out a share of wine into each, and for a moment she was afraid it might spill.
But it didn’t, and the game board stayed immaculately white, pristine as when she had last put it back in its box. Leia set the decanter down, and lowered herself into the chair with a sigh. The games board was not hers either, a gift from Mon Mothma back when they were all holed up on Hoth at close quarters, the abrupt loss of momentum resulting in flashpoint tempers and a restlessness that threatened to drive them all mad. Leia hadn’t touched it in—Force, it would be—
The sound of a chair scraping on the floor startled her out of her reverie.
He was still the same as he had been all those years ago, a young cadet in Imperial grey, handsome and rosy-cheeked. Only his eyes gave him away, the same unholy green as the beam of the Death Star.
There was blood in his teeth when he smiled. “General,” he said, and his voice was the same awful metallic scrape that made Leia shudder. “It’s been some time since you invited me in for a game.”
“It’s been a while since there was something I wanted to wager for.”
“Your brother?” he asked idly, running a long white finger along the rim of the cup nearest him.
“We already played that game,” Leia reminded him coolly, and he grinned.
“Yes, we did. Best of five, if I remember correctly—one for distal, one for phlanages, one for proximal, for metacarpals and carpals. For your brother’s hand.”
Leia swallowed. She only vaguely remembered that strange and dreamlike night on Endor, the board balanced on her knees because there was nowhere else—Shall we keep playing? had asked with her heart in her throat, because if he said, One more round, that meant Luke was all right and the Emperor hadn’t…that meant her brother was alive. (Alderaan had an old tale like that, a woman who told a story, and the story kept her from dying—Leia had always hated it, wanted that long-ago princess to pick up a blaster and fight, but she was older now. She knew that sometimes, all you could do was sit in the dark, and tell a story that will keep you alive.)
He’s watching her. “Han Solo, then. We are almost at the end of our contract with him, I suppose—”
“You said it would protect him as long as my love lasted!” Leia said, her heart suddenly in her throat. There was no question she loved Han, even now—the width of the galaxy between them and an ocean of bad blood (hers, of course, because when had Darth Vader’s blood not been a curse?) but a broken heart was still a heart, and hers was Han’s. There was no question.
“Your affection, General,” he said quietly, and if those sickly green eyes could hold pity, she suspected they would have, then. “We wagered on your affection for Han Solo. And where your love is steadfast…that has cooled.”
Leia exhaled shakily. “I meant love. You know I did. I was—” The white rooms of Cloud City, the sun bright and high and the sky painful-blue to look at; knowing—knowing—what this feeling was, but unwilling to admit it, even to herself. Not ready to use the word that would make it real.
“That was not strictly the agreement,” he said. His nail scraped across the silver cup, his gaze lingering there. “Does that change your wager?”
“I—no,” Leia said. She had summoned him for a reason, she had to stay faithful to her battle plan.
The awful green eyes flick up, and to her. “Your son, then.”
Leia swallowed. The wine looked tempting, just to steady her nerves, but she could not drink it yet. “Yes. He—left us. I want him back.”
“That is not within my power to grant.”
Leia shot him a withering look. “I want him to be alive long enough to get him back, then.”
“Hm. What terms?”
“You can’t come for him until he is as old as I am.”
“A son will never be as old as his mother, General. I am too wise to fall for word tricks.”
“You can’t come for him until he is returned to the Light.”
“I will not come for him until you hold him in your arms again.”
“No,” Leia snapped, choked with sudden awful fury. She was wiser than these games too; she could easily picture her son bleeding out in her arms, the terms of the contract fulfilled. “I refuse. That’s not enough, I want—”
“I cannot offer more, not without more consideration.”
“Then come for me first.”
He threw his head back and laughed, blood trickling out of the corners of his mouth as he shook. (His laughter was a howl, was the sound of wet flesh and metal, and awful—Leia made a soft noise, resisting the urge to clap her hands to her ears like a child frightened of thunder.)
“Oh, General,” he finally wheezed. “Thank you for that.”
“I am serious,” Leia said, in the voice she had used mostly to frighten senators and lower-ranked officers. “Those are my terms—you have to come for me before you come for Ben.”
His eyes flashed dangerously. When he spoke, his voice was soft too, almost gentle. “You know I will not come for you until you ask me, Princess. We played that game too.”
Leia knew. No board or pieces then, just her in that narrow Imperial cell, shaking, almost delirious from the torture droid. A handsome young cadet with eyes of green fire crouching down beside her. Stroking her hair, and saying, come with me, I can take you away from this place.
He had reached out to grab her wrists and Leia had fought him, clawing at his terrible eyes and snarling, kicking. You get that from your father! he had laughed delightedly, cradling her against him even as she struggled, close enough that Leia had been able to smell the stink on his breath.
I will make you a deal, the cadet had finally said, and Leia’s skin had crawled at the fondness in his voice. I will not come for you until you ask. Say yes?
Please let me go, Leia had whispered, half-sobbing, tired and—Please.
Death had kissed her, and his mouth was cold. Deal.
Leia looked at the Imperial cadet, youthful and bloody-mouthed with his eyes like the fire of the Death Star. “Then let him decide.”
“What?”
“You have to come for me before you come for Ben, but Ben can decide when that is. I give the deal over to him. I give—him that choice.”
The green eyes flickered. “You would let your son kill you?”
That didn’t deserve an answer. “Do we have a wager?” Leia asked coolly, picking up her silver cup and holding it out in a silent toast. The wine sloshed, looking like blood.
“If I go to him, there is no telling what games we we will play,” Death said. “There is a reason we had that game so long ago, where you played to keep me hidden from him.”
“I lost that round,” Leia gritted out. “Do we have a deal?”
He looked at her, then picked up the other silver goblet. They drank, and Leia exhaled. She set down her goblet again, letting the tartness of the wine linger on her tongue. “I assume I am the black and you the white?” Death asked, tapping one of the pieces scattered across the board..
“As we always have been,” Leia said, and Death smiled.
If you’re suffering from depression and are looking for a sign to notgo through with ending your life, this is it. This is the sign. We care.
If you see this on your dash, reblog it. You could save a life.
Just in case you don’t think it can actually save a life, this is a message I got in my inbox after reblogging this post
I don’t care what the theme of your blog is. Reblog this.
will always reblog this.
My dudes if you’re EVER thinking about suicide, please come talk to me. I don’t know how much I can help but I really do care and I’m here to listen, okay?
Hey, if any of you— ANY OF YOU, no matter what— ever need someone to talk to (even if it isn’t as urgent as suicide, and you just need a friend to get you through something) I promise I’m always here for you.
I wanna believe that dragons existed, due to seeing them in all cultures, but I also want to believe that humanity all looked at a lizard and simultaneously said
“Can I get that in a large?”
Going through your comments on Fight Club is reminding me that I was actually fascinated by this story before I fell violently out of love with it because of...well, the kind of guy who tells people his favorite movie is Fight Club, you know what I mean?
god i know exactly what you mean i spend more time around that kind of person than i ever wanted to be (context: i am a film student)
i’m mostly able to retain my love of fight club because 1) it’s just REALLY GOOD OKAY 2) i’m utterly fascinated by gay fiction of this particular stripe (gay men writing about masculinity, personal identity, and self-hatred, preferably framed in a relatively surrealist manner)) and i’ll shove anything i can find directly into my awful maw; fight club just happens to hit every single one of my weak points
there’s a lot of good meaty subtext to fight club and a whole mess of subtext to unpack so it’s VERY fascinating to really delve into but of course i am saying that as a person who is balls deep in love for this work
i resent how bad Those Kind of Guys have ruined fight club every damn day of my life and hope that in another world fight club is recognized as the seminal gay lit masterpiece it should have been hailed as
Well out of the blue I just remembered today the time I accidentally joined the cast of a production of The Princess Bride….in the middle of the production.
And you’re gonna just leave us there
I mean, if you guys wanna hear the story, it is a pretty fun one
Some years ago (6? 7 years ago, I think?) there was a pirate exhibit at the state museum. We had actual artifacts from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, creepy wax dummies, historical costumes etc, it was awesome.
I was really into Pirates of the Caribbean at the time, because I played the mmorpg with some high school friends of mine (and some of their parents sometimes, who also got addicted to it), so of course when they announced “Pirate Night at the Museum”, in which visitors were encouraged to dress up, I was over the moon. So I’m there with my friends, my parents, and my sisters, running around the exhibits after the museum is technically closed.
They replaced the creepy wax dummies with people in costume at this point, and it was pretty epic.
The highlight of the night would be a showing of The Princess Bride. The movie would play on the big screen while actors would be on a stage below, acting the whole thing out word for word and shot for shot as it happened. Any audience members who knew lines were encouraged to shout them out as they heard them.
Here’s the thing. My parents love that movie. Like you don’t understand they were quoting it to us in its entirety when we were still in highchairs. I could reenact the battle of wits scene before I ever actually watched it. So my family sits in the front row, behind the railing, quoting everything right along with the actors and film.
And then comes the part in the Pit of Despair with the Albino. And the cast didn’t have anyone on the stage with Wesley. I don’t know if the Albino couldn’t make it that night, or if they’d never cast him, but it was really weird to see Wesley just lying on the stage awkwardly while the Albino is supposed to be treating his injuries.
I started twitching. My mom and sister look at me and they’re like “do it.” And one of the ushers is like “you know the part? do it”
So I launch over the railing, run up onto the stage, and take over from there, doing my best impression of the character. Being that I was a 5′2″ blonde girl in a corset and puffy sleeves, Wesley had some trouble keeping a straight face.
Then they got to the scene with Humperdink telling the guard to clear out the Thieves’ Forest, and…they didn’t have the guard either. So my twin sister up in the audience is like “hang on, I got this” and then she launches over the railing to make sure Humperdink isn’t just sitting awkwardly talking to thin air.
This meant that yes, I got bopped on the noggin by Fezzik, and yes, my sister got to do the “Give us the key.” “What key?” “Fezzik, tear his arms off.” “Oh, you mean this key!”
They made up stay on stage and take a bow with the cast when it was over, it was hilarious. Then the next year, since they still had the exhibit, the museum called my sister and was like, “So….that was super fun last year. Do you and your sister want to be audience plants and do it again this year?”
The answer, naturally, was heck yes. Since we had new volunteers playing Count Rugen and Inigo this time, this also led to my sister actually choreographing their fight scene herself. Which was awesome.
It’s a very similar situation to the one the US was in last year. One “ugh a boring politician they’re not exciting and has ties to the big banks and voting for them won’t change anything god i hate the system” candidate versus one “oh look a charismatic fascist who will probably literally kill us all and throw the country, if not the continent, into utter chaos” candidate.
do you know what waking up every single morning in America is like since the Trump inauguration? C'est un fucking cauchemar, is what it’s like. Don’t live like us. YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE US.
Are medical professionals biased against the mentally ill?
THE first time it was an ear, nose and throat doctor. I had an emergency visit for an ear infection, which was causing a level of pain I hadn’t experienced since giving birth. He looked at the list of drugs I was taking for my bipolar disorder and closed my chart.
“I don’t feel comfortable prescribing anything,” he said. “Not with everything else you’re on.” He said it was probably safe to take Tylenol and politely but firmly indicated it was time for me to go. The next day my eardrum ruptured and I was left with minor but permanent hearing loss.
Another time I was lying on the examining table when a gastroenterologist I was seeing for the first time looked at my list of drugs and shook her finger in my face. “You better get yourself together psychologically,” she said, “or your stomach is never going to get any better.”
If you met me, you’d never know I was mentally ill. In fact, I’ve gone through most of my adult life without anyone ever knowing — except when I’ve had to reveal it to a doctor. And that revelation changes everything. It wipes clean the rest of my résumé, my education, my accomplishments, reduces me to a diagnosis.
I was surprised when, after one of these run-ins, my psychopharmacologist said this sort of behavior was all too common. At least 14 studies have shown that patients with a serious mental illness receive worse medical care than “normal” people. Last year the World Health Organization called the stigma and discrimination endured by people with mental health conditions “a hidden human rights emergency.”
I never knew it until I started poking around, but this particular kind of discriminatory doctoring has a name. It’s called “diagnostic overshadowing.”
According to a review of studies done by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, London, it happens a lot. As a result, people with a serious mental illness — including bipolar disorder, major depression, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder — end up with wrong diagnoses and are under-treated.
That is a problem, because if you are given one of these diagnoses you probably also suffer from one or more chronic physical conditions: though no one quite knows why, migraines, irritable bowel syndrome and mitral valve prolapse often go hand in hand with bipolar disorder.
Less mysterious is the weight gain associated with most of the drugs used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which can easily snowball into diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease. The drugs can also sedate you into a state of zombiedom, which can make going to the gym — or even getting off your couch — virtually impossible.
It’s little wonder that many people with a serious mental illness don’t seek medical attention when they need it. As a result, many of us end up in emergency rooms — where doctors, confronted with an endless stream of drug addicts who come to their door looking for an easy fix — are often all too willing to equate mental illness with drug-seeking behavior and refuse to prescribe pain medication.
I should know: a few years ago I had a persistent migraine, and after weeks trying to get an appointment with any of the handful of headache specialists in New York City, I broke down and went to the E.R. My husband filled out paperwork and gave the nurse my list of drugs. The doctors finally agreed to give me something stronger than what my psychopharmacologist could prescribe for the pain and hooked me up to an IV.
I lay there for hours wearing sunglasses to block out the fluorescent light, waiting for the pain relievers to kick in. But the headache continued. “They gave you saline and electrolytes,” my psychopharmacologist said later. “Welcome to being bipolar.”
When I finally saw the specialist two weeks later (during which time my symptoms included numbness and muscle weakness), she accused me of being “a serious cocaine user” (I don’t touch the stuff) and of displaying symptoms of “la belle indifference,” a 19th-century term for a kind of hysteria in which the patient converts emotional symptoms into physical ones — i.e., it was all in my head.
Indeed, given my experience over the last two decades, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the statistics I found in the exhaustive report “Morbidity and Mortality in People with Serious Mental Illness,” a review of studies published in 2006 that provides an overview of recommendations and general call to arms by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. The take-away: people who suffer from a serious mental illness and use the public health care system die 25 years earlier than those without one.
True, suicide is a big factor, accounting for 30 to 40 percent of early deaths. But 60 percent die of preventable or treatable conditions. First on the list is, unsurprisingly, cardiovascular disease. Two studies showed that patients with both a mental illness and a cardiovascular condition received about half the number of follow-up interventions, like bypass surgery or cardiac catheterization, after having a heart attack than did the “normal” cardiac patients.
The report also contains a list of policy recommendations, including designating patients with serious mental illnesses as a high-priority population; coordinating and integrating mental and physical health care for such people; education for health care workers and patients; and a quality-improvement process that supports increased access to physical health care and ensures appropriate prevention, screening and treatment services.
Such changes, if implemented, might make a real difference. And after seven years of no change, signs of movement are popping up, particularly among academic programs aimed at increasing awareness of mental health issues. Several major medical schools now have programs in the medical humanities, an emerging field that draws on diverse disciplines including the visual arts, humanities, music and science to make medical students think differently about their patients. And Johns Hopkins offers a doctor of public health with a specialization in mental health.
Perhaps the most notable of these efforts — and so far the only one of its kind — is the narrative medicine program at Columbia University Medical Center, which starts with the premise that there is a disconnect between health care and patients and that health care workers need to start listening to what their patients are telling them, and not just looking at what’s written on their charts.
According to the program’s mission statement, “The effective practice of health care requires the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others. Medicine practiced with narrative competence is a model for humane and effective medical practice.”
We can only hope that humanizing programs like this one become a requirement for all health care workers. Maybe then “first, do no harm” will apply to everyone, even the mentally ill.
By JULIANN GAREYPublished: August 10, 2013
The author of the novel “Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See” and a co-editor of “Voices of Bipolar Disorder: The Healing Companion.”
Reblogging because this is the sort of thing that needs signal boosting the heck out of it. Probably many of the people who see this in my Tumblr are people who already know from first-hand experience as a patient. Probably most of the people who even know my Tumblr exists are not in a position to perpetuate this problem (because they aren’t doctors). But I figure if more people get info like this circulating, maybe eventually someone in a better position to reach more doctors with this kind of information and open serious dialogue about how to address the problem will come across this.
Until then, at least a better informed patient population can, I hope, be in a better position to advocate for themselves—if not always as individuals then perhaps as groups.
tony totally does have a superpower. its just that his superpower is not dying of caffeine overdose which only rarely comes in handy when fighting supervillians
#the other half of his superpower is the ability to locate coffee anywhere #which is how he knew what direction to start walking when he was in afghanistan #‘the nearest pot of coffee is 23 miles east’ #and then he started walking through the desert #honestly that’d be kind of a fun plot device #somebody write it I’m too lazy (via @buckykingofmemes)
There is a reason Tony never mentions that he’s a mutant. It’s not that he’s ashamed, or even that he’s afraid of the negative impact the news would have on the Stark name and his business.
It’s that he got such a fucking lame power.
The X-men can fly, control the weather, shoot lasers from their eyes, and make things go boom. Tony? Tony get’s the amazing ability to metabolize caffeine extra well (okay, on a level that would kill ten average people) and sense it for miles.
He’s one of those mutants whose powers fall into a category all their own. teeeechnically, he’s actually an alpha level mutant, given the complex way his body processes caffeine and the nearly fifty mile range on the sensor aspect of his talent, plus the degree of sensitivity. But in practice? The few people in the know mostly consider him to be a beta mutant, since his power isn’t really applicable as a defence or offense.
At any given moment he can tell you with pinpoint accuracy what things within a block of him have caffeine and what they are, even managing to differentiate between different kinds of coffee. He can even tell you who made it, if he’s met the person.
(He tries to explain it to Pepper and Rhodey, once. Tries to explain that it’s not that he’s measuring the level of caffeine in a pot of coffee really, it’s that everyone makes coffee differently. If he focuses, he can tell that the pot of coffee down in the accounting break room was made by Margery, not Cole, or Clarke, or Franchesca, because it feels like her. Numbers and irritation and impatience coupled with the peppermint sticks she likes to swirl in a cup of black. He knows he doesn’t manage it well when all he gets are indulgently confused smiles from his two friends.
Charles Xavier prattled a bit about possible subconscious empathic or telepathic impressions, but honestly Tony doesn’t really care. He just does what he does. It’s not like the mechanics really matter with a useless power like his. He doesn’t stay at Xavier’s long. Hanging with the X-men makes him feel like a toaster hanging out with sports cars.)
It’s not until he’s kneeling in scorchingly hot sand, an unforgivingly bright sun high in the sky above him and bits of scattered metal around him, that he’s thankful for the power evolution gave him. Because when he reaches out with that strange other sense of his, he can feel all the distant pinpricks of sensation that mean, ‘Here! There be coffee here!’. Most carry the notes of people who feel like the land around him, but one….. Smiling grimly, he heaves himself to his feet and looks east, towards the distant call that carries with it a taste of foreigntiredordersyessirdutythiscoffeeSUCKSman that tells him there are american soldiers that-a-way.
The fun thing about smutty fanfic is that kinks are weird and nonsensical and often impossible to predict based on someone’s public-facing persona, so most of the time it’s basically impossible to be out of character. Is Batman into petplay? Does Hans from Frozen get off on being beaten with sacks of oranges? Go for it - it’d make as much sense as anything else!
Batman fights crime in a borderline-daddy leather fursuit with only his eyes and mouth visible and you’re wondering if he might be into weird shit.
To be fair, Batman lives in a world where that sort of thing seems to be regarded as normal.
Are you implying that Batman’s outrageous kink would be vanilla sex?
Well, kinks are defined in relation to societal norms.
sometimes you fight, not because you think you can win, but because you need to be able to look back later and say, “i fought.”
“In King Lear (III:vii) there is a man who is such a minor
character that Shakespeare has not given him even a name: he is merely
“First Servant.” All the characters around him – Regan, Cornwall, and
Edmund – have fine long-term plans. They think they know how the story
is going to end, and they are quite wrong. The servant has no such
delusions. He has no notion of how the play is going to go. But he
understands the present scene. He sees an abomination (the blinding of
old Gloucester) taking place. He will not stand it.
His sword is out and pointed at his master’s breast in a
moment: then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part:
eight lines all told. But if it were real life and not a play, that is
the part it would be best to have acted.”
– C.S. Lewis, “The World’s Last Night”
So Stanford professor Ken Taylor has a whole lecture on this in Hamlet, and the role of defiant resignation (citing Kierkegaard’s concept of resignation) where you are urged to act despite understanding that it won’t change anything, simply to demonstrate your dissatisfaction with the world as it stands, and your belief in what it should be. But Steve demonstrates a lot of this.
When nothing you do matters, all that matters is what you do.
Prince Geoffrey: My you chivalric fool… as if the way one fell down mattered.
Prince Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters a great deal.
there’s a lot of evidence that the iliad and the odyssey were actually composed by a variety of poets through an oral tradition rather than just by one poet, so what if the homeric texts are actually just a very long game of D&D
homer, the dm: okay achilles, agamemnon has just taken away your war prize, what do you want to do achilles’ player: i roll to have a diplomatic conversation with agamemnon achilles’ player: *rolls a 1* homer: you throw the staff of speaking at agamemnon’s face and storm off to sulk with your boyfriend
Homer, the DM: Your beautiful Patroclus is dead. What do you do? Achilles’ player: I fight everyone. Homer, the DM: You can’t fight everyone. How would you even– Achilles’ player: *rolls a 20* I fight everyone. Homer, the DM: *sighs* Fine. You cut a path through the Trojan army, enemy dead strewn in your wake. Achilles’ player: How many? Homer, the DM: …lots. Enough to clog the friggin’ river with bodies. Achilles’ player: I fight the river. Homer, the DM: You. can. not. fight. the. river. Achilles’ player: *reaches for dice*
Homer, the DM: Okay guys, so the war’s over, you had a bunch of losses but you won in the end. Time to go home, let’s roll to see who gets there firs—
Odysseus’s player: I got a critical failure.
Homer: The cyclops asks you who you are. What do you do?
Odysseus’s player: I say, “Who me? I’m nobody.”
Homer: Roll for deception.
Odysseus’s player: I got a natural 20.
Homer: The cyclops now completely believes that your name is Nobody. He shouts for help from the other cyclops but they ignore him because he’s telling them that “Nobody hurt him.”
@fairkid-forever this is the Aragorn/Arwen fic and it’s super short but DELIGHTFUL and also I might write a version because I am madly in love with it.
They were used to bleed patients, back when virtually every illness–mental and physical–was treated with bloodletting, purging, and blistering. It punctures the skin at many points and draws the blood like a syringe, so the doctors could measure how much blood they were taking. It was considered more scientific and more humane than a knife, a blood stick, or a real leech, which were also in use. They were used at Bethlehem Royal Hospital in the 1700s. They were, of course, medically useless, although no one knew that at the time.
There are pink starbursts on the inside of Thomas’s elbows. The scars trail up the vulnerable skin of his inner arms in perfectly even rows.
“You weren’t sick,” James grinds out, fingers digging into that tender skin.
Thomas looks utterly vacant for a moment, his breath slow and steady. “They believed they were helping me,” he says after a while.
It’s often been remarked that Spider-Man’s schtick wouldn’t work nearly so well if he didn’t live in a town with so many tall buildings, but consider: how well would Batman’s “I am the night” routine work if he was operating out of a normal city where people actually live, rather than a perpetually twilit urban hellscape that looks like the Art Deco movement had a one-night stand with Soviet Brutalism in a wrought-iron-and-gargoyle factory?
That is my favorite description of the Batman aesthetic ever.
OMDFG that’s a perfect description.
Imagine Spiderman ballooning in wide open areas. No, sorry, can’t get to that crime, its against the prevailing wind.
Also, Batman brooding on top of a Wafflehouse.
Batman: God, this stupid city with its sufficient lighting and lack of crumbling infrastructure to shoot grappling hooks into
Superman: Everyone for miles has lead poisoning, I’ve spent the entire night stopping crossword puzzle museum robberies and heists at the Second National Bank of Gotham on the corner of second street and second avenue, and earlier the wall of…clouds? smog?…cleared up for a minute and I’m pretty sure the sky was literally blood red
As an entry-level DnD player can someone explain to me in the simplest possible way how to differentiate wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers from each other?
wizards is imbued with magic, you just need to prepare mentally your spells.
sorcerer studied magic, you need to physically prepare your spells and often need materials.
warlock has magic because of demon, you have access to mainly dark magic as well as eldritch blast as a free unlimited cantrip.
to be honest, play-wise wizards & sorcerers are very similar as they tend to have a lot of shared spells. sorcerers get to specialize in a school of magic more than wizards though. and warlock its pretty much just dark magic.
this, except reverse wizards and sorcerers.
sorcerers innately have their magic (usually because someone fucked a magic being. often a dragon)
wizards studied magic and learned accordingly. they also tend to be older, but not always.
warlocks get their magic from pacts with magic beings (which i don’t think necessarily have to be demons).
Wizard: … I’m ninety, live in a tower, and read all day. where the fuck do you think? (Alternate answer: Basically radically experimental guerilla chemists)
Sorcerer/ess: Natural ability and a stupid amount of work!
Druid: The plants love me! I love the plants! Have you met my wife she is a shrub! T H E P L A N T S E M P O W E R M E
Cleric: I am a literal saint back the fuck off and do your job if you want heals.
Bard: IDK i was in a rap battle and the other guy literally caught fire so like…. yeah.
Reblogging again for the Druid, Cleric, and that bard line.
As an entry-level DnD player can someone explain to me in the simplest possible way how to differentiate wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers from each other?
wizards is imbued with magic, you just need to prepare mentally your spells.
sorcerer studied magic, you need to physically prepare your spells and often need materials.
warlock has magic because of demon, you have access to mainly dark magic as well as eldritch blast as a free unlimited cantrip.
to be honest, play-wise wizards & sorcerers are very similar as they tend to have a lot of shared spells. sorcerers get to specialize in a school of magic more than wizards though. and warlock its pretty much just dark magic.
this, except reverse wizards and sorcerers.
sorcerers innately have their magic (usually because someone fucked a magic being. often a dragon)
wizards studied magic and learned accordingly. they also tend to be older, but not always.
warlocks get their magic from pacts with magic beings (which i don’t think necessarily have to be demons).
Wizard: … I’m ninety, live in a tower, and read all day. where the fuck do you think? (Alternate answer: Basically radically experimental guerilla chemists)
Sorcerer/ess: Natural ability and a stupid amount of work!
Druid: The plants love me! I love the plants! Have you met my wife she is a shrub! T H E P L A N T S E M P O W E R M E
Cleric: I am a literal saint back the fuck off and do your job if you want heals.
Bard: IDK i was in a rap battle and the other guy literally caught fire so like…. yeah.
Reblogging again for the Druid, Cleric, and that bard line.
Actually you know what. Just don’t mow. Get rid of your lawnmower. Turn your whole yard into a wildflower field or an edible garden. Lawns are the invention of the upper class to show wealth through wasted plots of grass that is meticulously tended for no reason other than to be grass. It’s literally an empty plot of land they kept because they had so much money they didn’t need it to grow food. Not using a yard as just a yard is an act of rebellion.
One of the main industries still supporting lawns is chemical pest control companies, and they’re also responsible for the insecticides that crashed the bird populations in the 40s and 50s as well as a lot of what’s killing bees and butterflies now. The herbicides they produce specifically targets “bad” plants like dandelions, buttercups, and clovers, which are plants bees rely on for early spring feeding. Grass is just grass; it would be great for feeding small mammals if people would let it grow more than three inches, but they won’t.
So, yeah. Kill lawnmower culture. Plant some native flowers. Grow some vegetables and fruit trees. Put out bird feeders and bee sugar spots and homes for both. Be kind to bugs and birds and rabbits and opossums and whoever else might wander by. Make your neighborhood a lot more beautiful.
I can be evicted for not mowing, so my alternative is to tear out the grass (itself an invasive species planted by the owner) and replace it with low growing native ground covers. In my area, that means certain species of white clover, and alpine strawberries.
Lawn tearing is a hugely involved project that has pressed my entire household to the limits of our disabilities, however.
For most people, the best choice is “overseeding.”
This is a technique wherein you acquire enough seed for the replacement ground cover to do the entire space 2-3 times, and seed the lawn area thoroughly enough that the grass simply cannot compete with the sheer number of other plants.
To learn about local ground covers and flower mixes for your area, try contacting the farmers associations and agricultural boards nearby. FFA and the 4H are both happy to provide this info.
To buy the seed in large quantities, be prepared to shop from a farm supply chain. While flowers will usually need to be purchased from a garden supplier, ground covers such as clover and rye are best bought from the fallow field or grazing pasture sections of farmer supplies. This will ensure you get the large quantities needed for over seeding at the lowest possible price.
White clover in particular is native to give swaths of the US and Canada (please check your local area though), and for lawn replacement over seeding, you want 10lbs of seed per acre.
If you have pulled your lawn, you can get away with 5 lbs per acre.
Mix in a local wild flower collection with your cover clover and you’ll have a flower field yard that is truly spectacular in short order.
If you’re not at risk of fines or eviction for having ground cover over 6 inches, then you can simply aerate your yard, throw down the flower seed, and let it go wild.
If you have the time and patience and energy, a more traditional lawn replacement- one more closely reassembling the neighbors lawn and garden rather than a wild lot - will be “xeriscape” areas made with local species. Xeriscape is a style of yard designed to use no irrigation, while still remaining pretty, alive, fertile and active. Most tea and culinary herbs grow very well in xeriscapes, but fruits and vegetables tend not to get enough water to produce well.
If you have a way of irrigating, such as large rain barrels or a cistern, a high water table, a stream spring or pond on your property, or just regular and thorough soaking rain interspersed with strong sunlight and sun exposure, a fruit and vegetable garden is very rewarding as well, but it will require constant maintenance that your xeriscape or flower field will not.
If you get Heritage flowers that will reseed themselves, the flower field will require effectively no maintenance after planting. A xeriscape should be touched up every season, or thoroughly pruned and maintained once a year.
An edible garden, however, is an often daily commitment.
The easiest place to start is local berries. Whatever berries grow (or grew) wild in your area. Berry bushes are extremely low maintenance, but when they fruit, you should try to pick the fruit relatively quickly. Otherwise it will draw ants, flies, and other unpleasantries to your yard and, if the bushes are near the house, into your home too.
The next lowest intensity plants would be fruit trees and fruit vines. Again, these need to be determined by your climate. In Florida, for example, oranges and passionfruit are great choices. In Pennsylvania, apples and grapes will do better.
Run the vines along the property fence if you have one, or trellis them up a sun-facing wall of your home.
Fruit trees need full sun exposure, and have very individual planting requirements based on the age, type and size of the tree. The store where you purchase the tree will provide you with detailed information.
As for more traditional vegetable garden content, all of it will be more work and commitment than the fruits listed through here, but the easiest place to start is with vining vegetables such as cucumber and squash. Leafy greens, tomatoes and tomatillas are also very beginner friendly!
However, greens grow best in the cooler, dimmer early spring and late fall seasons.
Onions and potatoes that went to sprout in your kitchen will grow easily, but getting a good harvest from them is more tricky, so leave that until your second year when you are more confident in your skills. That said, potato and onion flowers are quite pretty, so feel free to let them grow!
If you’re interested in a good reference book for designing and dealing with an eating garden as a yard replacement, Half Acre Homestead is a hugely valuable book.
For xeriscapes, because they vary so hugely by location, you’ll want to stick to local information sources : your local gardeners guild, the future farmers association, 4h, and the local agricultural oversight board. All of these people are hugely passionate about plants and the environment, and will be invaluable resources.
Additionally, they will know who has the best rotten hay and animal manure for mulching and composting.
This for longer than I meant it to, but hopefully it will help you get started on destroying lawn culture and getting more in touch with the local environmental community!
unfortunately, a lot of rental properties won’t let you do that either fuck the lawn culture pushing landlords
also worth noting that overgrown/long grass lawns can really fuck with people with limited mobility (at least the grass where I’m from, it tires me, able bodied, out trying to navigate), and also brings the danger of hidden venomous snakes (i’m australian, enough said). of course, the solution to this would be low growing ground covers.
That’s true. My landlord “misplaced” my security deposit of over $1000 USD and refuses to do any necessary home maintenance tasks like plumbing or replacing a broken kitchen stove, however, so I’m taking a very “well fuck it” attitude towards all this.
For mobility purposes, I find that the best choice is just to make a path. Packed dirt, or paving stones, leading to the kinds of places you might hang out in your yard, and let the rest grow tall. I use a cane, though, not a chair, so I’m not sure how well that will work in all cases.
reblogging for rebellious, disability-friendly botany
I was watching Rogue One the other day and the hammerhead ships are one of the most fantastically human responses to things I've seen in a while.
Admiral Raddus: That goliath of a star destroyer’s been disabled, let’s smash into it with a hammerhead! Profundity Crew: *Looks suitably confused*
Raddus: We can smash one ship onto another and blow up the shield generator in one move! Crew: That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, how would that possibly work? Raddus: Do you know what group pilots the hammerhead? Crew: That’s the Aldeeran Reds, a human cre…. ahh… *Gives the order*
the thing I love most about Kirk’s string of ex lovers across the galaxy is that every time he runs into one he’s like
“!!!!! How are you!! I missed you so much!! How’s your career?? Successful?? I’m so happy for you!! Haha, remember that time we almost got married!! But both of our careers were in the way?? That hasn’t changed but I’m still kinda in love with you and I’m happy you’re doing well!!! Goodbye forever again it’s a shame we never got married but I understand!!”
Bring back this kind of male hero please and thank you.
