you will not believe the date i just had
I miss this meme
(via geardrops)
“Unfortunately the bulk of American homeless are voluntarily so. “
I guess, if by “voluntarily” you mean “the streets are actually better than this crappy shelter”. If you think the vast majority of homeless, drug-addicted or not, wouldn’t choose a tiny private apartment with climate control and a door they can fucking lock from the inside over sleeping on the streets in a hot second, you’re severely mistaken.
The most horrid filthy secret of human interactions throughout history is that practically anything will be “voluntary” if you can make the alternatives worse enough.
This is the updated version of “Some people would rather die than go to the poor house.”
I once donated to a drive that pledged to give €500 to each homeless person they helped. They filmed the ones who gave permission.
Do you know what each single one did upon receiving that? Get up and get themselves a private room for at least the night. They also all talked to the social worker who handed out the money, but everyone agreed that their immediate concern was a room, a shower and a couple of square meals of their own choosing.
Three Dutch reporters who went onto the streets for three weeks also said they often felt less safe in shelters than outside. People need some basic safety and affordable housing, but those responsible for housing prefer to build ‘upmarket’…
(via bowtie-loving-alien)
Art school critiques 🥴
This sent me back in time so hard I think it took 3 years off my life.
Here’s the new 24 hour comic I drew this year! This one is called THE KING’S FOREST. cw: blood, violence
[image description: a traditionally illustrated comic.
the first panel shows a girl with brown skin and shoulder length black hair, wearing a red and yellow tunic and green pants. she holds a bow and has a quiver on her back. she stands triumphantly on a cliff in the woods. the panel is captioned, “i am a ranger in the king’s forest. it’s a very important job.”
the next panel shows a sparkling purple flower and is captioned, “a magic flower grows only in the forest — and could easily be taken by a —“ the caption breaks off as a hand reaches into the next panel to grab the flower. a speech bubble, coming from the unseen ranger, says, “poacher!!!”
the next panel shows the ranger drawing her bow on a girl with light skin and blond long hair, wearing a frayed white dress and holding the flower. the ranger shouts, “put that back!!” the girl asks, “this?” and calmly eats the flower. the ranger makes a face of cartoonish shock and outrage.
the ranger waves her arms and shouts, “you’re in trouble!! the king says people’ll gobble up all the magic flowers! then there won’t be any left!!” the blond girl responds with a smile, “king’s wrong.” she bends over to a mossy log where the flower was growing and says, “magic flowers like knowing when people need them. if you pick one but leave the root, two more will grow in its place.” the ranger grimaces and replies, “that makes no sense.” the blond girl says, “tell you what — if i come back tomorrow and there aren’t two flowers here, you can put an arrow right through my heart.” the ranger, slightly less angry, asks, “… promise?” the blond girl walks off into the woods and waves, saying, ‘see you tomorrow.”
the next panel shows the ranger sitting in front of a campfire under a red night sky, with her head in her hands. it’s captioned, “i realized too late i’d invited her to trespass again tomorrow.” she says, “i’m the worst ranger.”
the next panel shows the ranger and the blond girl bending by the same log. the ranger looks skeptically at the two sparkly purple flowers growing there. the blond girl smiles back at her. the ranger looks grumpily at her and says, “you’re still breaking the law.” the blond girl, now chewing both of the flowers, responds, “i’m not scared of the law. you know what is scary? the beast of the forest.” she holds up her hands with fingers crooked into mock claws.
the next panel shows her narrating, then various abstract panels of horns, claws, teeth, and blood. they’re captioned, “it’s got a coat the color of blood, and claws as black as tar, and ten sulfur horns on its head, and it hunts children for fun.” the ranger replies, hands on her hips, “that’s stupid. i know everything about the forest. i’d know if there was a beast.” the blond girl looks back at her, dreamily, “but clearly you don’t know everything about the forest.” “see you tomorrow!” she calls, as the ranger storms off.
the next few panels show animal prints in the dirt and are captioned, “the king’s forest has birds, foxes, and deer. (which sometimes come very close to your tent at night.)” the next panel shows the ranger sitting at a campfire again, looking warily over her shoulder at a crunching noise behind her. the next panel returns to the flowers. now there are four of them. the caption reads, “but no beasts.” the next panel shows the grumpy ranger, leaning against the log. she asks the blond girl, who stands over the flowers, “what do you even need the flowers for, anyway?” the blond girl answers her sadly, “i’ve been sick for a long time. the flowers help me feel a little better. do you think the king is sick too?” “what?” asks the ranger. the blond girl holds out the flowers in her hands and asks, “is that why he doesn’t let anyone else take the flowers?” the ranger replies, “i don’t think so. i’ve never actually seen him in here.” “oh,” answers the blond girl, and she looks away.
in the next panel, the two stand next to each other in silence for a moment. the ranger turns to the blond girl with a soft expression and says, “do you think it makes you pretty too?” the blond girl is surprised for a moment, then responds with a grin, “what?” the ranger turns away, blushing, and yells, “NOTHING.”
the next few panels show more purple flowers blowing in the wind, more animal tracks, and more red night sky. they’re captioned, “days passed, and magic flowers grew all over the forest. on patrols, i looked for claw marks in the soil. but saw no signs of a beast.”
the next panel shows the girls walking down a rocky riverbed. the ranger says, “i don’t think there is a beast.” the blond girl answers, “there is.” in the next panel, they’re lying in a field of magic flowers. the ranger says, “i would’ve found its tracks if it was real.” the blond girl answers, “it’s tricky. it can disguise itself as other animals.” the ranger sits up, frustrated. “what does it even want?” she asks. the blond girl, still lying down, answers with a concerned expression, “i think… it’s greedy. it likes when people are sick. it’ll be angry when it finds out i’ve been taking so many flowers.” the ranger points into the distance and asks, “why don’t you just leave then? take your flowers and run!” “some things are worth a little risk,” says the blond girl, and puts a flower behind the ranger’s ear. the ranger blushes and looks back at her.
the next panel is blank, with the caption, “the next day, i found a new set of tracks.”
the next panel shows the ranger crouching over hoofprints in the dirt. it’s captioned, “horses — many horses.” she runs off confidently, saying, “not a beast at all!” she peers over a bush and says proudly,
“it’s just the —“
the next panel shows the king on horseback, flanked by other people riding horses. the ranger stares at him and at the blond girl, who lies curled in a pool of blood at the feet of the king’s horse.
the next panels show the king’s black gloves holding the reins of his horse, then his red cloak, and his head, topped with a yellow spiky crown. he is a light skinned man with white hair and a mustache and he wears a calm expression when he says, “ah, good. ranger. please remove this beast from my forest.” the next panel shows the blond girl curled on the ground, bloody and shaking. the next shows the ranger, drawing her bow with a blank expression. she says, “i will.” the final panel shows her arrow flying through the air.]
(via kimabutch)
I know the Geneva convention don’t exist in like the faerie realm or whatever, but sometimes I’ll look at the actions of “good guys” in a fantasy book and go like ok so this is definitely a war crime
(via the-ladyguinevere)
The reason the heroes are always so easily able to infiltrate the bad guy’s secret base isn’t because evil minions are stupid. I mean, they may well be, but that’s not why.
Rather, it’s because effective operational security depends on establishing and enforcing norms. No behaviour is suspicious in the abstract; that judgment can only be made with reference to some accepted code of conduct.
And if you’re a minion? You basically have no point of reference, because working for an evil overlord is, scientifically speaking, weird as hell.
You had to fight a giant squid as part of your orientation. You’re pretty sure Alice over in engineering is a version of you from a parallel universe, but neither of you have ever had the guts to bring it up. Your supervisor wears a horned helmet in the goddamn break room.
So when you’re confronted with that “new hire” who’s really, really obviously three raccoons in a trenchcoat, you’ve gotta ask yourself: is this… normal? Should I be reporting this to someone?
More importantly, do I want to make this my problem?
And for those who make it as minions, the answer very quickly becomes no, no I do not.
(via danielxdagaz)
TIL astronaut Jack Schmidt discovered he was allergic to moon dust, which is a thing millions of other people have probably gone their whole lives never knowing.
Imagine being one of only twelve guys ever to have the honour of walking on the moon and then when you get there you’re allergic to it.
NASA scientist: you’re back early
Jack Schmidt: moon’s an allergen
NASA scientist: …what?
Jack Schmidt, loading an epipen and climbing back into the shuttle: moon’s an allergen
if one in twelve humans who have been on the moon was allergic to moon dust, that’s either a one-in-a-million chance or a VERY common allergy
The fact that it’s such a statistically useless sample is DEFINITELY driving a handful of very specialized scientists absolutely crazy
(via bowtie-loving-alien)
Love people who have interests or hyperfixations in morbid or depressing or scary fields because they’re trying so hard to balance “ho boy am I excited to talk about all this information I know” and “I recognize that this is very bad and I’m trying to be a little somber about it.”
Watching a documentary about poisonings during the Victorian era and this historian clearly knows so much about arsenic and is trying really hard to be chill.
(via geardrops)
