please remember to take care of yourself 😌💙
the thing that gets me about about barbie is that barbie land wasn’t even purposefully a matriarchy, barbie land came about because of the way little girls were playing with their barbies, it wasn’t created by mattel it was created by the people using the toys, so the fact that the barbies ignored the ken’s and had girls night every night wasn’t because they had some bias against him, it was just an accurate depiction of how kids play with barbies. I had some ken dolls as a child and they were essential to the plot in the sense that of course my barbie has a boyfriend because that represented the world i saw around me, but also he didn’t have any purpose in my dream world because i was only interested in what the girls were doing because they represented me and how i wanted to be, I wanted girls night every night I wanted the girls to be president and austronauts and not because of some inherent feminist idea but because I was a girl and I wasn’t thinking about boys, ken was an accessory. this movie wasn’t made to change the world but it showed a different perspective than what we usually see which I thought was fun. Men don’t have to be the centre of all our stories and its not even because we hate them, sometimes we’re just not thinking about them
maybe if I keep telling the story, it will never have to end. that way I can keep you alive. If the story lasts forever, so will you. yes, you die in the end. yes I am the only one who remembers. yes I am the only one who knows. But if I never say it aloud, maybe you won't die. maybe this time orpheus won't turn around. maybe peter won't deny him. maybe when I reach the end, you will have had time to come up with a clever solution and escape. maybe this time we survive it together. and the next time, you can tell this story with me. maybe everyone survives and we don't have to tell the story at all. maybe they don't. if I never finish, I'll never have to know. let me speak for a little bit longer. let me live in a world that you are also in for just a moment more. sometimes your memory feels like a noose. I'm sorry. I'm not ready for you to die
a little more information regarding the maui wildfires:
- medical workers on the ground are describing finding hundreds of bodies. the current death toll in the media is, unfortunately, only a fraction of the reality
- hospital workers are describing injuries and trauma as if survivors had come out of a warzone
- thousands are still missing
- an apartment complex for the elderly was lost. not everyone could get out. people were saying goodbye to loved ones over the phone
- people who did get out of lahaina were leaving with ashes covering their faces and nothing but the clothes on their backs. people are losing everything.
hotels are still operating. hotels are still operating. they are not the ones offering shelters or housing or food. even bowling alleys are offering shelter, but hotels have the audacity to build on burial sites but not open their doors to local families who have lost everything.
donate to maui united way, the maui food bank, mutual aid, and maui humane society
Sadly it’s true, i think the government and media are trying not to scare people about the extent of the devastation, but it’s way worse than being reported according to official sources I have connections to.
- The government knew after another bad fire in 2018 how vulnerable Lahaina was because there’s really only one way in and out of the city. They drug their feet and in 5 years still failed to build a promised second access road.
- Tourists were evacuated to other islands and yet why weren’t the citizens quicker? Speculation is they didn’t realize just how fast that fire would reach the town and again took too long to order an evacuation. And this was knowing a dying tropical storm passing below the state would be stirring up winds 🤦🏻♀️
- Boat owners are often quick to move their crafts in the event of a storm yet the fire hit so fast like 90+% in the harbor we’re destroyed. People were abandoning cars, jumping into the water, diving off ports, piers, break walls to get away from flames.
- People in the water who couldn’t swim far enough out we’re struggling from oxygen deprivation at the surface because the fires were sucking up all the air. Possible deaths due to asphyxiation/drowning…
- People, whole families dying in their cars because they couldn’t get out, got trapped, lost in the smoke, disoriented. Sadly by keeping the windows all closed, if not the fire the carbon monoxide killed them.
- My hubby’s a cop on the Big island who knows cops on Maui. They’re reporting to him passing by bodies on the roads… other islands will be sending manpower support but they know it’s going to be a lot of just body recovery. Very sad.
- Aside from humans, there’s an untold number of pets and animals as well caught in the fire. Reports from survivors report not having enough to save their pets. It just adds to the devastating effects.
On a nice note, Oprah Winfrey who lives on the island has been seen comforting evacuees at the rescue centers.
The city of Lahaina had pretty much been wiped out. I’m heading at least 80% from homes to businesses and historical sites. Lahaina is a very unique city too because you can still smell the remnants from sugarcane processing decades after they closed. I been there twice, it’s a dry, hot, but quaint place. Their high school, Lahainaluna HS houses the first printing press west of the Rockies, that’s how historic a place it is.
I hope the voters hold their representatives responsible for the lack of foresight and action that led to all the deaths
Tell me a soft memory
we would find out later i had burned off my entire cornea - about 65% of my eye. my doctor told me it is the organ with the highest concentration of nerve endings - i was in an amount of pain that can't be spoken.
and i was blind. for the first time in my life, i was totally blind. i kept thinking about reading, about writing. weirdly, just once, about driving. we had no idea if i would ever see again. just like that - my entire life was different.
it is a strange place to reference for a soft memory, to begin here.
my siblings were taking excellent care of me, but there was a moment in the hospital where, just through bad luck and timing - both of them had to step away for a moment. i was crying at that point; not emotionally. for 3 days after this i would still be crying, my tears, like a mermaid's, a frothy pink with blood.
my brother worried about leaving me. he had another, just-as-bad emergency.
"i got her," someone said. "don't worry."
a soft hand held mine, and then she started talking.
her name was jess. she has a wife named clyde. they live a few blocks up the street. clyde fell down, but the x-rays seem to be coming back better than expected. jess says she's got long dark hair and "more wrinkles than an elephant". jess describes every chair in the room and every person. she talks about her two kids and her cats and her favorite memories from college.
a doctor came. i had to switch to a different waiting room. i tried to stand up to follow the voice - i found jess's hand, following me. she didn't let go. she kept talking the whole way: lamp to your left, just a few more steps, okay to your right is the ugliest painting, good, now a little more walking straight, you got it baby
in the new silence of the next room she sat me down and called my brother for me, telling him where we'd gone to. and she stayed there for a bit, just chatting, her voice echoing in the eerie quiet. gently describing the room to me. and then someone was rude. from the sound of the voice, a kid, i think.
"why is she crying?"
"she just lost her vision," jess said. "she can't see."
"oh." said the kid. "that's scary."
the kid tells me he is here because he has peas stuck up his nose. that makes me laugh, his mom (?) groans. she tells me about the kid (he's 6, he likes paw patrol and eating cheese), about herself, about moving from cali.
jess says she's sorry, but she has to leave now, she's gotta go check on her wife.
"don't worry," says the mom. "i got her." and then i felt her hand press into mine.
for hours like that: i am taken care of by strangers. each person just talking with whatever comes to their head - not for any reward or celebrity or real reason, i guess. just because i am scared and alone and in the hospital and blinded and need to be distracted. not everyone even got told the story - they would just pick up in the silence with - oh by the way the television is playing HGTV - do you like that kind of a thing? yeah, me too, but could never quite get into those open-floor plans, i'll tell you -
by the time my brother is able to come back, the room is buzzing. we talk to each other like old friends, laughing, cracking jokes about if you don't like hospital food wait until you get on an airplane and can't believe i'm up past two in the morning what a party animal i'm becoming. i am holding the hands of someone named drew, who likes my crow tattoo and making crochet snails.
there are many dark moments full of pain in this world. this - in the low of absolute-dark, absolute-pain: people find a way to paint in it anyway. the color splash of their voices: this triumphant, radiating kindness of - let's be here together, let me help you, let's keep going.
i never saw their faces. i can't remember many of their names. but i think about them often, and the way we all took a deep breath - and did something gentle amongst the pain.
Honestly be pretentious as fuck about the stuff you create. Do a press release for your fanfic updates. Do a Q&A about your webcomic. Make fake merch designs for your OCs. Commission "official" book covers. Very few of us will ever get to a stage where something we've created Makes It Big but even if you have an audience of 5 people plus a shoelace fucking indulge yourself and pretend!! It's the only way to live!!
me constantly releasing press junkets about my OCs like they are actual celebrities and i am their PR agent
Its obvious to me when people who post about canaries in mines have never met a canary. Like yeah the miners had a special device to revive the canary because canaries are one of the most adorable creatures on the planet and they make adorable little chirping sounds and honestly probably loved the sounds of machinery and people talking so it was probably loud and friendly with the workers. Whatever though maybe meet a canary sometime and youd understand
If you see this animal every day at work, and it sings to you during your hardest bouts of labor, you will be distraught if it dies. Even if you know this creature is meant to die in lieu of you, you still hear it when the labor is at its hardest and your muscles are struggling against the weight of your work. It is so small, smaller than your soot-stained hands and louder than the death that follows you. You dont want it to die. The same as a woman does not want her candle to run out ; she knows that is the point, its flame is meant to burn the wick and melt the wax ; but she is not indifferent to its wasting away. She may even save her favorite candle as not to burn it too quickly. Now imagine you are that woman, and there is a way to rebuild your favorite candle that you love the smell of and the way it flickers. Would she rather throw her candle out? Or would she rebuild it? That is a canary to these miners. Would you allow an animal to just die when it has been singing for you? It reminds you that it is alive, and you are too. Its stop of song signifies the lethal danger you are in. Why abandon it? Is the miners' love for a little bird really that surprising?
Why does this read as though written by a coal miner of the era in which a canary was needed.
Because time is an illusion and love is infinite
It always upsets me so much when I see interpretations/illustrations of the two headed calf poem that show a living calf being torn away from its mother and killed to sell to a museum and framing the poem as being "humanity kills beautiful things for being different".
Two headed cows almost never survive more than a few hours after their birth. The farmer finds the *body* the next day. The calf was destined to die, and that's a tragedy, but for the time it was alive, it had a beautiful and unique experience.
It's not a poem about the cruelty of man. It's a poem about the beauty of life in an indifferent universe. It's about purpose and beauty being able to exist even in an existence doomed to come to an end, as all our lives are. It's not a poem about how a calf dies, but how, even for only a brief moment, it was alive.
And, for that moment, because of that life, however fleeting, the sky had twice as many stars.
I’m posting the links here because the link keeps on a loop with adfly
IF YOU DRAW OR DESIGN Instead of PHOTOSHOP, try GIMP Instead of LIGHTROOM, try PAINT.DOT.NET Instead of ILLUSTRATOR, try INKSCAPE Instead of INDESIGN, try CANVA or SCRIBUS
IF YOU MAKE PICTURES MOVE Instead of PREMIERE, try DAVINCI RESOLVE Instead of ANIMATE/FLASH, try OPENTOONZ or BLENDER Instead of AFTER EFFECTS, try WAX, BLENDER or FUSION
IF YOU BUILD WEBSITES OR SOFTWARE Instead of DREAMWAVER, SPARK or XD, try WIX, WEEBLY, or WORDPRESS.COM or WORDPRESS.ORG
IF YOU DO STUFF THAT REQUIRES THESE OTHER PROGRAMS Instead of AUDITION, try AUDACITY Instead of ACROBAT PRO, try FOXIT READER or PDF ESCAPE Instead of INCOPY, try LOVING YOURSELF AND USING LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE (WHO USES THIS???)
IF YOU NEED STOCK PHOTOS OR FONTS Instead of ADOBE STOCK, try PEXELS, UNSPLASH, or PIXABAY Instead of ADOBE PHONTS, try GOOGLE FONTS or DAFONT
BONUS: If you need FREE MUSIC OR SOUND EFFECTS, try YOUTUBE AUDIO LIBRARY or SOUNDBIBLE
My bonuses:
IF YOU DRAW OR DESIGN Instead of PHOTOSHOP, try FIREALPACA , SAI , SKETCHBOOK or KRITA (these latter two are great!) Instead of LIGHTROOM, try PHOTOSCAPE
IF YOU MAKE PICTURES MOVE Instead of PREMIERE, try SHOTCUT Instead of ANIMATE/FLASH, try PENCIL2D ANIMATION, LIVE2D, OR E-MOTE
IF YOU NEED STOCK PHOTOS Instead of ADOBE STOCK, try MORGUEFILE.COM
The problem with illustrator specifically is that .ai files is the industry standard, and inkscape just cant open them right enough.
Photopea is a very decent photoshop alternative that can do basically most of simple editing, but if I want to open an .ai file for a client, I cant use inkscape because the layers are a mess and it’s impossible to scope through all hundreds of unlabeled layers to find that one shadow in the back.
I really wish there were better alternatives for it but alas. I’m gonna have to power through these absurd prices.
I don’t think we give medieval Muslims enough credit. Like medieval math was a categorical mess with the majority of it containing random bases with damn near no theory or cohesive understanding of what it is outside of “I have this much grain and that can, theoretically, be worth this much which is marginally more than what I have right now I think?”
These dudes loved Allah so much that they essentially invented math just so that they could continue to worship and pray - that’s honestly one of the most beautiful act of worship and devotion in history and I don’t think it’s given nearly enough credit.
Also, they made a specialty compass:
like, sure, they invented a ton of math in the process, but also, they hacked the earth's magnetic field to locate Mecca. Let's revel in that over-achievement for a bit.
what are you even supposed to do when youre angry. cant scream at anyone cos im not a dick. cant break anything cos i paid money for that. cant rip my hair out cos i need it on my head. literally what now
what if i told you there was one user on the russian social network/ video sharing website odnoklassniki/oднокла́ссники that has uploaded nearly every movie ever from 1896 to the current day, mostly with subtitles. and including that has uploaded every criterion collection film in full hd with subtitles. for free. all hail ok.ru user fleurinna guta
they keep their films in unlisted folders so you cant just see them all on their profile unfortunately but ill provide links. also don't ask me why this user separates their films in this way, i don't know and frankly it confuses me too.
- EUROPEAN FILMS (sometimes includes west asian films?)
- JAPANESE FILMS
- CLASSIC FILMS (aka american and British films)
- "MISC FILMS" (aka films from everywhere that isn't the usa, europe, japan. sometimes films from the GDR are in here which is confusing again because communist germany was still part of europe)
this is a much better alternative to stuff like 123movies or bflix because there are no hot singles in your area or games that you wont last 5 minutes playing. hope u enjoy and let us all praise and embrace user fleurinna guta
oh heck yeah
ok.ru is always my go to for safer film finding and is great for hard to find gems
so just verifying for anyone hesitant that it’s an alright site to use and you can use it without logging in as long as you don’t mind either hitting skip on the login prompt regularly OR just fullscreen a video to avoid seeing it entirely.
Happy watching!
