God, this man.
This man when he smiles.
I die.
I hope every media creator who has been killing us off onscreen for shock value and drama comes to terms with the fact that this shit isn’t fictional.
Oh, look, this popped up on my feed again and I have to reblog due to contractual reasons. Honest.
Hot Wheels is making a Spock-leaning-on-a-64-Buick car for Comic-Con
The classic photo of Leonard Nimoy in Spock costume leaning on the 64 Buick Riviera he bought with his Star Trek earnings will be immortalized in dinkycar, thanks to the good offices of the Hot Wheels Corporation.
The limited-edition car-and-figurine combo will cost $20 and go on sale atMatty Collector when San Diego Comic-Con starts.
And within hours will be on Ebay for $200, probably.
My partner loves Stargate. I’ve never watched an episode in my life. So I decided to just watch a random episode completely out of context and document my very important honest reactions as a person going into it for the very first time with no prior knowledge as to what it’s about, who these people are, or what’s going on.
I’m sorry. lol
asmcosplay
@lastsystemlord I don’t know if you ever saw this but this was my very first time watching an episode of Stargate completely out of context and I thought you’d find it funny. lol
omg @asmcosplay I DID see this!! Didn’t realise it was you yes, it was the best! ‘unleash the ba’al’s’ lol and ‘how did ba’al get out of cell’ I was like just wait, theres more(!)
This scene must have inspired so many dirty fanfics
Why, yes. Yes it did.
Stargate Atlantis: Rising
The prettiest spaceship ever.
Do you know why I became a pilot? I don’t, no. For the fun of it. Why else would anyone do anything? (requested by anonymous)
Ameeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelia.
Anonymous asked:
maybe i'm missing something, but why wouldn't you listen to a doctor's opinion of whether you're in pain or fatigue?
Okay, I’ve thought about this question for most of a day, because the obvious answer is “….why would I?”, but it’s clearly not obvious to you.
Now, I know exactly what you’re thinking. They’re a doctor. They’re a professional you’ve gone to for help. And pain and fatigue are, like, medical things, right? Going to a doctor about medical stuff and then saying “LOL NOPE” to what the doctor says is like hiring a plumber and then arguing about how to fix your sink, right? If you’re so smart, why’d you call the plumber over?
Okay.
But now imagine your basement is flooding and you call the plumber. While on the phone, the plumber asks you what the problem is and you say that there’s a pipe in your basement that’s burst and it’s now flooded.
And the plumber—still on the phone—says “LOL NOPE.”
And you say, “Excuse me?”
The plumber says, “Look, a flooded basement is a really severe problem, okay? Usually, these calls, they’re a clogged toilet or a leaky u-bend under the sink. Trust me, this is better. Those are a lot cheaper to fix.”
And you say, “I’m sure they are, but I’m telling you, my basement is flooded. I’m looking down the stairs and I can see the water.”
“I’m just saying, there are other things it could be. It won’t hurt anything to eliminate them first,” the plumber says.
And you say, “But I need my basement fixed! Look, I can’t go down in my basement and do laundry right now, and I have important keepsakes down there in boxes… some of them are already ruined, but maybe I can salvage some if we can just fix the problem.”
“Well, then it will be in your interest for me to check your toilets and your u-bends,” the plumber says.
“The problem is not in my toilets or my sinks,” you say. “I am looking at the problem. I called you because my basement is flooded, and I need you to help me fix that.”
And then… now, I’m not assuming you’re female, but I just want to emphasize that this is a starkly though not exclusively gendered phenomenon, so if you’re not female then imagine you are.
“MA’AM,” the plumber says, in a way you recognize. It’s the voice of putting you in your place, the voice of unearned authority, and with this voice, this word, ma’am, is not a title of respect, it’s a reminder and a command. “MA’AM, if you’ll just calm down. I’m sure what you’re experiencing seems terrible to you, but the truth is, it’s probably not as bad as it looks from where you’re standing. And that’s a good thing! Trust me, have been a plumber for 27 years. Now, when can I come over to check your u-bends?”
“It’s not my u-bends!” you say.
“Ma’am, if you don’t want to be helped, I’ll start to think you’re calling for attention.”
You see?
(Now for bonus points, imagine the plumber refuses to help you until you lose a statistically improbable amount of weight just to rule out that this might be flooding your basement, or is acting on the subconscious but deeply entrenched idea that people with your skin color are less susceptible to flooding and in less need of help, or believes that as a feeeemale you’re more likely to be suffering from emotional distress than a physical problem and suggests the preferable course of action would be for you to take a nap every time the supposed flooding in your basement bothers you.)
As I said in that post, pain and fatigue — like dysphoria — are qualitative experiences. This means they happen in your head and they cannot be directly observed or measured by anyone else (which would make them quantitative phenomena).
The doctor talking to you about dysphoria —or pain or fatigue — is not a plumber in your house, they are a plumber on the phone. The only input they receive about the problem is your account of it.
And if they’re not willing to listen to what you say and aren’t willing to take you at your word, then all the expertise and experience in the world doesn’t matter. You can have the most powerful calculator in the world but if you type the wrong numbers into it it will still give the wrong answers. Someone can be the best doctor in the world but if they’re ignoring the information they’re not going to give you the right answer.
This is so good. I’d add, too, that in my experience, sometimes you are talking to the plumber because, well, your basement is full of water! OBVIOUSLY it’s your plumbing, right? I mean, something in your plumbing has to have ruptured for that to be like that, right?
… except what’s actually happened is that you have a secret aquifer off to one side of your basement, and the wall has exploded inward, and so a thing that no one is even looking at is causing the problem. Or maybe your sump pump failed and your cellar door is leaking water, so it’s a dead sump pump.
But since you’re talking to a plumber, they’re like ‘WELP, I RAN ALL THE TESTS, THE PIPES ARE ALL FINE’ but your basement is still full of water and you’re like ???? But it’s not fine???? and they’re like I hope you don’t want any help with how uncomfortable it is having a basement full of water! Because you are clearly just doing this so that I will give you assistance with the symptoms here.
So you can be telling the truth, but because a plumber is only focused on the plumbing, and the problem is not at all with the plumbing but with some other system within your house, they will miss the problem entirely, aka ‘when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.’
Bless this post seriously. It’s a very good way of describing to healthy people what happens when you’re always sick and how you’re treated by medical professionals.
Like turning up to the ER with chest pains and being sent home with sleeping pills, only to be told two days later by another doctor “shit you’re asthmatic…how did they not see this?!”
But y'know, lets all assume doctors are all competent or even give a shit.
I once had an emergency room doctor say that a toddler who was already running a 104-degree (F) fever (that wasn’t responding to meds) could run a fever even higher and they’d be fine, it wasn’t dangerous to run a fever that high.
Except 107 degrees is fatal.
I told the nurses. I hope they shoved something uncomfortable up his backside and then told him that he’d be fine, there was plenty of stretch, they could fit SO MUCH MORE up there and he needed to hold still.
This anecdote is related to OP’s post for the following reason: DOCTORS CAN BE COMPLETE IMBECILES AND STILL HAVE MEDICAL DEGREES.
Or as the old joke goes:
“What do you call the most academically successful graduate from medical school?
Doctor.
What do you call the person who almost flunked out of medical school but graduated anyway?
…Doctor.”
Yes to all this.
black-to-the-bones-deactivated2
This Lady tells us an awful story of how she was embarrassed , while buying groceries in the store by a racist woman, whose prejudice ruined a day in her and her daughter’s life. Unfortunately, this story is no surprise for black people, they face something like this too often, but there is one thing this story can teach us.
White people, with their “privilege” to be taken as the good ones can break the wall of prejudice and racism teaching others about tolerance and equality.
Instead of getting mad and denying it
^^^^^^^^
That’s what you CAN DO every single day.
Dear white people who respond to white privilege conversations with “Yeah, so? What do you want ME to do about it??”
This story. Yes.
This is part of why I never just “let it go”.
This kind of nonsense hurts EVERYONE. And the more easily we can walk away, the more important it is that we don’t.
A good friend who is black but very light-skinned has an adopted daughter who is very dark. Gorgeous child. She went to a “princess party” and came home crying because she was “too dark” to be a princess.
All the dolls were white.
I told my mother, a doll collector about this, asking if I bought a doll would she have an outfit for her… and Mom pulled a doll off her shelf that had natural-looking puffy pigtails, very dark skin, and the face was nearly an exact match to my friend’s daughter. She already had the princess outfit made (because, doll collector…
Later that day that little girl got her “looks like me” princess doll. Her hair was already up in puffy pigtails. The match was absolutely perfect. Because representation and inclusion matter.
Another friend, a white woman who married a black man, says that when her son plays out on the sidewalk, the police drive by slowly. He’s an amazing kid. Never doing anything wrong. This happened less than a mile from my house. I can’t walk away. Not when a child who helped load my groceries is afraid to play outside because the police are openly suspicious of him.
Silence doesn’t just hurt, it kills. It isn’t about who people are, it is about how they are treated. We cannot be innocent bystanders. There are no innocent bystanders. Standing by is not innocent.
“There’s a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that’s all some people have? It isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan.”
ink-fever
Ohohoh. So much love. *hugs it tight* Yes. This. Yes.
Female sci fi authors are marginalised, our voices drowned and deemed unimportant, so there’s Hurley and Leckie and pretty much every [fabulous] winner of the Hugos this year writing Important, Edgy fiction that deals with sexism and identity and so on.
And then there’s me, writing sci fi romance that’s fluffy and sexy and not Remarkable or Ground Changing. This reminds me that fluffy and sexy is okay, that not every book needs to be challenging. That being lighthearted and fun is an escape.
Dealing with creative burn-out
It’s usually easier to start creative work than it is to finish it.
As creativity expert Mihaly Csikszentmihaly writes in his stellar book Finding Flow:
“The world is absolutely full of interesting things to do. Only lack of imagination, or lack of energy, stand in the way.”
So why do we occasionally end up stuck when we’ve already begun the work?
There are a number of possible reasons: as we approach the finish line we begin to question what we were doing in the first place, or we start to feel that our perception of the work isn’t aligning with what we’re actually producing. All of the various nicks and cracks of the work begin to make themselves visible.
But what’s more likely is that we’ve simply run out of steam, and understandably so.
Creative work takes a lot of energy and uses multiple mental resources.
The initial excitement of starting something new, of turning an idea into something real and tangible, eventually burns off. The flash of insight or an energizing spark of motivation fades.
Unlike computers, humans don’t have a system monitor where you can check what’s using up space or hogging resources. In-fact: more often than to we don’t have complete control over what our minds are burning energy on.
All we have is the sudden feeling of burning out, of wanting to do something—anything—else.
Energy and attention are limited resources, both which influence our willpower and creativity. If we’re smart and optimize our energy and resources, we can control the burn out. We can maintain our momentum. Dilbert creator and author Scott Adams puts this elegantly for us:
“Make choices that maximize you personal energy because that makes it easier to manage all of the other priorities.”
So what can we do to ensure we’re making better choices to help optimize how we use our energy?
Take a nap
I will often use a quick fifteen to twenty minute power nap to restart my mental processes.
At times when I can’t rest (like at the office), I do a quick 15 minute meditation session or just listen to classical music while focusing on my breathing. Each seems to provide just enough space from the actual work and worries of the day to help reset and refocus my energy.
Clear your work space
Another surprisingly effective way of refocusing energies is to take a few minutes to clean up my work space.
“A clean workspace clears our mind, just as a cluttered, disorganized workspace confuses us and slows us down,” Dale Carnegie once wrote.
Our brain seems to unconsciously pay attention to every object in our surroundings. Cleaning up and making sure that our mind is clear enables our ideas to flow more freely.
Free write
Often taking a few minutes to free write (about the work, how I’m feeling, or even capturing notes in my personal journal) helps bring clarity to my mind and rejuvenates my creative energy.
The benefits of free writing whenever feeling stuck are numerous: they break your typical work flow while also allowing you to capture and explore your thoughts in a more tangible flow.
While taking a nap or cleaning your work space are effect ways of re-energizing yourself, they can take away from the actual productive work. Whereas free writing doesn’t have to. If you free write about the work or why you may be feeling stuck, you’re still making progress.
Consider this…
If you consider each of the ways we revitalize our mental states and re-orient ourselves around a creative spark, what you’ll notice is each entails two primary things: time and perspective.
And really a breath of fresh air is what we need when we encounter a fear of the critical finish line or when we begin to second-guess the work we’re doing.
If you feel yourself burning out, or losing motivation, or wondering if what you’re doing is right to begin with: take a step back, give yourself a few minutes to acknowledge what you’re doing, remember that done is better than perfect, and get back to work.
I just really want to write a book (in fact, I think that I’m going to) where the protagonist is in a wheelchair. And they live in a city where there’s a group of superheroes. And there’s a big, magical, villain because of course there is.
And since they were a young child, this protagonist has wanted nothing more than to join the group of superheroes. Like they’re a huge fan of the group and they just know that it’s their destiny to join.
And one day, when wheeling through the city, they see the group of heroes fighting the villain. And they quickly wheel over and cry, “Let me help!”
But the ‘heroes’ laugh and instead make a whole bunch of ableist remarks.
And so the protagonist has to prove themselves.
And the villain is trying to warn them to stop.
But the protagonist ends up taking their footrest off of their wheelchair and they swing it. And it hits the villain in the side of the face and the villain collapses and groans in pain.
And so the protagonist proudly smiles and turns to the group of heroes.
Because they just proved that they are strong and worthy enough.
But the group of ‘heroes’ still keeps making ableist remarks.
And the protagonist is shocked.
And meanwhile, the ‘villain’ staggers to their feet and is standing next to the protagonist’ wheelchair.
And one of the ‘heroes’ goes too far when calling the protagonist the R word.
And the protagonist and the ‘villain’ just sort of glance at one another.
And the ‘villain’ is just like, “You know…I can zap them for you…if you want.”
And the protagonist hesitates and says, “Yeah, alright!”
One fried group of heroes later, the ‘villain’ says, “Why do you think that I’m always fighting them? They’re all a bunch of assholes.”
And the protagonist sadly nods and starts to wheel away.
Then:
“Hey, do you want a job?”
The protagonist turns at the villain’s remark. And the protagonist mumbles something like, “Oh, come on. I don’t need your pity.”
And the ‘villain’ is like, “Pity!? Do I look like someone who hands out pity!? I don’t pity you! I’m kind of afraid of you, to be honest! I mean…I’m going to have a giant bruise on my face because of you.”
“Yeah…sorry…”
“Water under the bridge! So, what do you say? Do you want a job?”
And the protagonist thinks about it for a minute before shrugging.
And the ‘villain’ is all excited because they’ve wanted someone to work with them for years but no mortal is allowed to ‘step into’ their lair.
And then the ‘villain’ stops and is like, “Hang on…you can’t work with me in that.”
And they gesture to the protagonist’s wheelchair.
And the protagonist is all embarrassed.
And then the villain goes, “Because we can get you a much better wheelchair! It’ll look great! And it’ll be indestructible! And it’ll have all sorts of weapons and gadgets! Hey, how do you feel about flying…?”
And all of that is literally in the first chapter and then the rest of the story follows the two going around the city like BAMFs, forcing people to stop being ableist, one way or another. And maybe it’ll have some commentary on the scale of morality and what it truly means to be a hero and what it truly means to be a villain.
Would anyone be interested in this!?
Because I really want to write it!?
endurement
YESSSSS. ALL MY YES PLS WRITE IT
I’D READ THE SHIT OUT OF THAT YES PLEASE
OP HERE!
Man, it’s so surreal to look at this.
BECAUSE I ACTUALLY WROTE IT!
AND IT WAS JUST PUBLISHED TONIGHT!
Of course, there are some differences between the final book and this original idea. The most notable difference is that all of this takes place in the first book (it’s going to be a series!) and the whole ‘superhero’ thing is just going to be a front. There’s a few other differences as well (such as a huge plotline involving Merlin and immortal characters!)
BUT I WROTE IT!
AND IT’S PUBLISHED!
AND IF YOU’RE INTERESTED, YOU CAN BUY IT HERE:
AND IF YOU WANT TO HELP ME OUT, YOU CAN REVIEW IT!
AND IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HELP ME OUT, YOU CAN SIGNAL BOOST THIS POST WITH THIS REPLY SO THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY KNOW THAT THE BOOK NOW EXISTS!
Quick And Dirty Tips For Creating Subplots
– Not everyone should love the hero.
– The more antagonists you have the more conflicts you create.
– Real life should happen to the characters, even if they are saving the world they have jobs and responsibilities.
– Give the character interests and friends outside of work.
– Multiple point of views aren’t a bad thing if you know how to juggle them.
– It all needs to come together at the end.
– Not every antagonist needs to be vanquished at the end.
– – Give us more than one character to love– (from Diantha)
— Make each and every character count — (from Diantha)
Stories need subplots. Make sure yours has one.