sometimes blooming

Actually, people are good by nature and you’re a fool if you think otherwise.

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:41:01 -0500

phinarei:
prettydumbloverboy:
prettydumbloverboy:
Actually, people are good by nature and you’re a fool if you think otherwise.
When you sneeze in public, strangers will say “bless you”, even though they don’t know you.
When you ask for directions on the street someone will show you the way, even though they have nothing to gain from it.
People squeeze their legs against the chair so you don’t have to hop over them on your way to your seat in the theatre, and make funny faces to make babies laugh, and purposefully step on leaves to hear them scrunch, and hold the door open for someone leaving behind them, and ask what floor you’re heading to when you enter the elevator, and send others photos of things that reminded them of them, and recommend each other songs, and ask if anyone else wants a coffee because they’re getting one, and make videos teaching how to sew a button, and wish on shooting stars, and share fun facts, and listen to others rant about things they don’t even understand, and let you cross the street first, and give a bit of their food to others, and laugh at jokes they don’t find funny to make you feel good, and listen to kids talk for hours about nonsense, and let you know your keys fell from your pocket, and they may be strangers, but with every little gesture they’re saying “I love you, I love you, I love you”.
God, I needed to read this today. Humanity is overwhelmingly full of hope and kindness and it’s very easy to forget that these days.

I will always choose to believe that there is more good in this world than I can ever know.

ARROW (2012–2020) S01E11 | Trust but Verify

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:19:14 -0500

chandlebing:

ARROW (2012–2020)
S01E11 | Trust but Verify

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:17:47 -0500

americanmountainprincess:

Sometimes I think about how I used to answer hundreds of asks a day on tumblr, obsessively analyze a…

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:16:23 -0500

Sometimes I think about how I used to answer hundreds of asks a day on tumblr, obsessively analyze a tv show, be unable to play tag games, and none of you realized I was autistic and adhd.

I mean, I didn’t realize either, but it’s just funny. How people used to tell me to stop using big words or talking like a teacher, or be angry that I was “arrogant” for posting my opinion and disagreeing with others. They’d tell me I wrote too formally, and all this time…

AuDHD.

So! Have you heard about or, might have even already seen, Heated Rivalry? I’d love to just get your opinion in general about it. It’s being very praised from an artistic standpoint, for how well produced and how well it tells the story. I think you’d have a blast narratively speaking.

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:06:51 -0500

I have heard about it. I've heard it's very good. I don't think I'll end up watching it because it doesn't hit my niche interests, which are generally some form of sci-fi, fantasy, historical romance, or a combination of all three. Also, I'm not watching that much TV anymore. I go to bed early and read instead.

I watch TV at dinner with my uncle and my mother, and that's usually sci-fi, fantasy, mystery or comedy. This definitely wouldn't fit with my multi-generational daily watch time. I just don't watch tv anymore, even streaming. I might binge watch something in my niche interests that I can't watch with the folks, like Bridgerton, but I have to disrupt my whole routine for that and that costs me a lot.

I've been pretty busy lately. I guess I haven't been talking about it here because it's totally non fandom, but I ve been painting daily since the quarantine, and joined an art collective like three years ago, and now I'm teaching art classes and am the classroom coordinator for the gallery and do SM and graphic design for them too. I'm also working on upgrading my art business which means doing the stuff I've been thinking about for years, especially with the ME/CFS and all the other chronic illness. I haven't had the bandwidth to get into fandom like I used to, so it's just my daily hour of tv a day, and then reading.

We just finished watching Stranger Things, saw the latest Knives Out and are now back to watching Fringe, which we were in the middle of season one of when Prime dropped it. It's on Hulu so it looks like we're going to be doing that for a while.

I am open to hearing about shows I might like to watch though. I don't always know what's next. Like, we really liked The Residence, Only Murders in the Building, Stranger Things, The Good Place, B99, Fallout (oh we have another season of that!), gosh i can't even remember what we've watched, but it's all in one hour a day, every day. (then I go to bed and read. lol)

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 12:53:50 -0500

novella-november:

willgrahamscock:
[ID: a screenshot of Neo from the Matrix holding his hand out to stop bullets in midair. His hand has been labled “Block!!” And the frozen bullets are labled: “ai search, ai fanfic, ai ads, ai artists, ai ship edits, ai assisted, and character ai.” End ID]

Model jacket — canvas, plastic, wire, acrylic and resin by Daniel del Valle@thevxlley

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 12:53:07 -0500

nyaa:

Model jacket — canvas, plastic, wire, acrylic and resin by Daniel del Valle@thevxlley

Basic Celestial Navigation is Hilariously Easy

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 12:52:11 -0500

life-in-a-monospace-typeface:

Basic Celestial Navigation is Hilariously Easy
I recently learned how to find North using the sky, and it turns out to be so easy that I feel stupid for not learning much earlier. Perhaps you would like to learn too! It could save your life in some unlikely scenario, I guess, but actually in everyday situations it’s just pretty handy to be able to look at the sky for a couple of seconds and tell which direction you’re facing.
I’m not any kind of expert at this, I just learned how to do it recently. I don’t know the proper names for things, and lots of the things I say are going to be technically not quite correct. But I’m not trying to teach astronomy, I just want to quickly find which way I’m facing, and these simplifications work very well for that.
Also, this whole thing will assume you’re at a moderate northern latitude, which you very likely are if you’re in Europe or the USA.
How to start
Say you’ve got a clear night with a half moon in the sky.
Getting a rough direction with the Moon is extremely easy - all you need to know is that the terminator (the line between light and dark) points south. So you just take that terminator line and mentally extend it down to where it hits the horizon, and that’s approximately South.
That’s close enough for the girls I go out with.
If it’s not a perfect half moon, so the terminator line isn’t straight, you just kind of take the direction that the curved line is facing, overall. You basically want the tangent at the middle of the terminator. Or if you prefer, you can draw the line connecting the top and the bottom of the terminator, which ends up being the same angle. These images show both options:
With a crescent moon this is even easier, you can just take the line between the “tips of the horns” of the crescent.
Extend that line down to the horizon, and that’s approximately South.
Now, if the moon is very low in the sky, so the terminator is at a steep angle, then this method will be extra inaccurate. But that’s ok, because if the moon is that low, you don’t really need to trace the terminator line to find south, because you know that the Moon just rose or is about to set, so the moon itself is basically East or basically West, and you can tell which by looking at the terminator.
If that doesn’t feel obvious, that’s perhaps to be expected, and I should tell you about The Ecliptic.
Basically all the big stuff in the solar system is always on more or less the same plane. So the Sun, the Moon, and all the planets are always found close to a single line, which crosses the sky from East to West. If you’re near the equator it goes almost straight overhead, but at moderate northern latitudes, like you probably live at, it’s tilted over pretty far to the south. So the Sun and the Moon will rise more or less due East, be more or less due South at their highest point, and set more or less due West.
That means if the Moon is just above the horizon, like in this example, we can look at the angle of the terminator and see it’s tilted way over to the right, so we know South is to our left, and the Moon must be about to set in the West.
(In fact I got this from sky visualisation software, so it’s helpfully showing us where West is anyway)
Another way to think about this is: The Moon moves through the sky in a direction roughly perpendicular to the terminator. So we can take our terminator line and draw a line at right angles to that, and that’s roughly the path the Moon is travelling along:
We can follow that line to the horizon and see where the Moon will set, i.e. basically due West. So the Moon’s terminator points South, and kind of acts like the vertical line of a T shape, with the arms of the T pointing towards East and West.
Hopefully you can convince yourself that all this makes sense by thinking about shining lights on basketballs and so on, but you can also just use the method without being able to visualise clearly why it works.
All of this is approximate and simplified - the Moon’s orbit is actually 5 degrees off the Ecliptic, and the Ecliptic is 23 degrees off the Celestial Equator, and so on. None of it really lines up and you’ll often be off by like 40 degrees, but I don’t care. This method is extremely quick and it’s usually good enough, especially in cities laid out on a grid, where you only need to get it to within 90 degrees.
And if you want more accuracy, this is still a good thing to start with, because if you can quickly find roughly-South, that makes it much quicker and easier to look roughly-North and locate the stars necessary to pin down exactly-North.
What about the daytime?
Since the Sun follows basically the same path as the Moon, you can also get rough orientation from its location. If it’s low in the sky, it just rose or is just about to set, so you know it’s East or West. You can’t tell which by looking at the Sun itself, since it doesn’t have a neat terminator line like the Moon (and you shouldn’t really look at it anyway), but the neat thing about the Sun is that, unlike the Moon, it always rises in the morning (East) and sets in the evening (West). If it’s the middle of the day it’ll be to the South.
But also, don’t forget about the Moon during daytime! It’s often out during the day. And in fact, it’s often not out at night! Or sometimes it’s out, but it’s Full or New and you don’t have a terminator line to use. You can’t rely on just the Moon, even for coarse orientation. So let’s talk about stars.
Bold Orion, Mighty Hunter
Orion is a lovely constellation that’s very distinctive and easy to spot, and you can use it to find roughly-South very quickly, just like you can with the Moon.
He’s meant to be a hunter, with a belt of three stars, and a sword hanging from it. You had to make your own fun, back in those days.
It’s a sword, ok? He has a sword on his belt.
The point is, the sword points South just like the Moon’s terminator line does. So if you can’t see the Moon, maybe you can use Orion’s sword.
Now we have two ways to quickly find roughly-South, and therefore roughly-North. Let’s get more accurate.
The North Star
The sky provides us with an improbably convenient star called Polaris, which we call The North Star, because it’s almost perfectly over the North Pole.
This location is unique, in that it makes Polaris essentially the single static point that the whole rest of the sky rotates around. For a given latitude on Earth, Polaris is always exactly the same height above the horizon, in exactly the same direction, and that direction is North, to within less than a degree.
It’s also really bright for its region of the sky - there’s no brighter star within like 30 degrees of it.
Polaris is so extremely convenient that I consider it to be (very weak) evidence of a loving god. Finding the exact strength of that evidence, in bits, is left as an exercise for the reader.
So Polaris is an A+ gold star, now all we need is a way to find it.
First off, because it’s always at exactly the same height above the horizon, once you’ve found it a few times it gets easier, because you know where it is vertically. If you’ve also used the Moon or Orion to narrow your search down to like a quarter of the sky horizontally, you can often spot Polaris very quickly.
But it helps a lot to be able to find it using constellations.
Ursa Major
This is the one everyone knows, the Big Bear. People also call it The Big Dipper, The Drinking Gourd, Big Spoon Energy, or The Plough.
Here’s an image from WaddenSky:
To find Polaris, you find the Big Dipper, take the line between the two stars on the end, and extend that line up by about 5 times its length, and there’s Polaris. Easy enough.
The main thing that can make this tricky is, as I said, Polaris is the fixed spot that the whole night sky rotates around, so the Big Dipper could be dipping bigly all over the place. It could be like it’s shown there, it could be almost directly overhead and upside down, it could even be partly below the horizon, and invisible behind the trees:
So, you don’t want to put all your eggs in the Big Frying Pan.
Cassiopeia
Cassiopeia is basically just as good as The Big Dipper when it comes to finding Polaris. She looks like a big M, or a big 3, or W, or E (Σ, really), depending on what orientation she feels like right now. And the nice thing about her is, she’s on pretty much the opposite side from The Big Dipper, so if you can’t see one, you can see the other. Learn how to spot both, and you’re set.
To find Polaris from Cassiopeia, you basically draw a line between the two ends of the zigzag, and make a right triangle twice as long, from the bottom of the 3 (or the right side of the M, and so on).
That’s really all there is to it: find roughly-South using the Moon or Orion, use that to look roughly-North until you either see Polaris itself, or find it using Ursa Major or Cassiopeia, and now you’ve got North to within one degree. Usually takes something like 5 seconds.
And there you have it! Now you can find your bearings quickly and easily using just the sky, no matter what!
Unless it’s cloudy. If it’s cloudy you’re fucked.

endless clarke griffin: 73/???

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:46:19 -0500

scarringstars:

endless clarke griffin: 73/???

BEST OF BTVS: Buffy & Giles — Season Four

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:43:08 -0500

clarkgriffon:

BEST OF BTVS:
Buffy & Giles — Season Four

Of course, Coogler isn’t just vaguely gesturing toward the inequities of a country built on them….

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:34:41 -0500

divers-wife:

Of course, Coogler isn’t just vaguely gesturing toward the inequities of a country built on them. Sinners is after something more specific about how white America covets and exploits Black art. What are the vampires, really, but relentless culture vultures, like the musicians and label honchos who absorbed the sounds of the blues, homogenizing it for a white audience? Coogler’s personal touch on this material is plain enough in the deep love for music running through its plump veins. More than that, though, Sinners announces itself as an allegory of Black artists fighting for ownership—of their work, of their spaces, of their futures. It’s a resonant topic for a filmmaker still navigating the challenges of making big-studio art (sometimes for Disney, no less) without surrendering your soul.
-The Hit Hollywood Didn’t Want, The American Prospect

reioka: hamotzi: happy hanukkah!!!! gasp hanukkats

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:14:06 -0500

reioka:

hamotzi:

happy hanukkah!!!!

*gasp* hanukkats

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993) dir. Nora Ephron

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:04:43 -0500

asystolle:

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993) dir. Nora Ephron

stranger things s5 vol. 1 ending scene - without background music

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:01:41 -0500

stranger things s5 vol. 1 ending scene - without background music

Chuck Jones is the best counterexample to “the curtains are just blue” because you would not believe…

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 16:55:52 -0500

party-gilmore:

candyspider-deactivated20230731:
memecucker:
memecucker:
Chuck Jones is the best counterexample to “the curtains are just blue” because you would not believe the amount of thought and art theory he put into his silly little cartoons
I need to dig out my Chuck Jones books but one time he was talking about the Wile E Coyote gag where he runs off a cliff and continues running for a little bit before noticing there’s no ground underneath him and then turns to the camera and holds up a sign saying “Help!” before plummeting and Jones said the reason Coyote does that instead of immediately trying to get back to the cliff edge is bc Coyote embodies anxiety and in that particular moment represents the fear and worry about the judgement of others over and above the desire for self-preservation.
Like, if someone was told that interpretation without knowing any better they’d think it came from some pretentious academic or whatever but nope! It’s literally the creator like those are the thoughts he had in his head when he was creating the cartoons
the Nine Rules of the Roadrunner cartoons always sticks with me. Rule 3 especially

ariaste: aphony-cree: just-shower-thoughts: Wut-In-Tarnation is really What-In-The-Entire-Nation...

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:29:12 -0500

ariaste:

aphony-cree:

just-shower-thoughts:

Wut-In-Tarnation is really What-In-The-Entire-Nation with southern accent

It’s time for the fascinating history of the word tarnation, which has nothing to do with the word nation

In 18th century America there was a trend of finding nicer ways to say curse words so they could shout exclamations without committing blasphemy. “Heck” and “gosh” originated at this time. “What in Sam Hill” was just a censored way of saying “What the hell?”

Damn and damnation became darn and darnation

At the time the word eternal was mostly associated with God and heaven, so the slang term “tarnal” was created to speak about eternity without invoking God

The new soft-curse word darnation sounded a bit like the slang word tarnal so people mashed them into tarnation (source)

“What in tarnation” means “What in eternal damnation” which also means “What the hell” which also means “What in Sam Hill” thanks to a bunch of Americans in the 1700s wanting to say bad words without incurring the Lord’s wrath

And the linguistic term for this is a minced oath! “Jeez”, “Zounds” and “Egad” are a couple other examples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minced_oath

Lasers ceased to exist that day

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:22:26 -0500

labelleizzy:

everythingfox:
Lasers ceased to exist that day
Delicious dot

affirmations for writers: i know how to write. i have seen sentences before, and i know how to make…

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:20:02 -0500

podcastwizard:

affirmations for writers: i know how to write. i have seen sentences before, and i know how to make one. i can identify up to several words and their meanings. i am not afraid of semicolons.

im asking you to stay here. i cannot tell you why, i dont have any other reason except i want to see…

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:52:55 -0500

nuclearfaggot:

im asking you to stay here. i cannot tell you why, i dont have any other reason except i want to see you here. i want to see you as happy as you can be. please, do what you can to stay. to find happiness wherever you can. i know that it is selfish of my to ask this. but i’m asking you anyway. take care of yourself. if not for yourself, then for me

through gritted teeth the world is GOOD. people are kind. Humans are NOT inherently selfish. you…

Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:49:28 -0500

ghostwithoutagrave:

*through gritted teeth* the world is GOOD. people are kind. Humans are NOT inherently selfish. you will make it through this year. recovery is possible. people you don’t know yet will love you. You are going to do things you can’t even imagine right now. You are going to read a rlly good book. You are going to eat some rlly good food. You are going to experience joy again. Things can get better. Situations can change. You can choose to be kinder. The world can change for the better.

sometimes blooming

Actually, people are good by nature and you’re a fool if you think otherwise.

ARROW (2012–2020) S01E11 | Trust but Verify

Sometimes I think about how I used to answer hundreds of asks a day on tumblr, obsessively analyze a…

So! Have you heard about or, might have even already seen, Heated Rivalry? I’d love to just get your opinion in general about it. It’s being very praised from an artistic standpoint, for how well produced and how well it tells the story. I think you’d have a blast narratively speaking.

Model jacket — canvas, plastic, wire, acrylic and resin by Daniel del Valle@thevxlley

Basic Celestial Navigation is Hilariously Easy

Basic Celestial Navigation is Hilariously Easy

How to start

What about the daytime?

Bold Orion, Mighty Hunter

The North Star

Ursa Major

Cassiopeia

endless clarke griffin: 73/???

BEST OF BTVS: Buffy & Giles — Season Four

Of course, Coogler isn’t just vaguely gesturing toward the inequities of a country built on them….

reioka: hamotzi: happy hanukkah!!!! *gasp* hanukkats

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993) dir. Nora Ephron

stranger things s5 vol. 1 ending scene - without background music

Chuck Jones is the best counterexample to “the curtains are just blue” because you would not believe…

ariaste: aphony-cree: just-shower-thoughts: Wut-In-Tarnation is really What-In-The-Entire-Nation...

Lasers ceased to exist that day

affirmations for writers: i know how to write. i have seen sentences before, and i know how to make…

im asking you to stay here. i cannot tell you why, i dont have any other reason except i want to see…

*through gritted teeth* the world is GOOD. people are kind. Humans are NOT inherently selfish. you…

reioka: hamotzi: happy hanukkah!!!! gasp hanukkats

through gritted teeth the world is GOOD. people are kind. Humans are NOT inherently selfish. you…