Spin My Heart Into Gold

Jun 20

minxie413:

Candice Tripp

minxie413:

Candice Tripp

(via darksilenceinsuburbia)

[video]

Jun 19

“Rejection has value. It teaches us when our work or our skillset is not good enough and must be made better. This is a powerful revelation, like the burning UFO wheel seen by the prophet Ezekiel, or like the McRib sandwich shaped like the Virgin Mary seen by the prophet Steve Jenkins. Rejection refines us. Those who fall prey to its enervating soul-sucking tentacles are doomed. Those who persist past it are survivors. Best ask yourself the question: what kind of writer are you? The kind who survives? Or the kind who gets asphyxiated by the tentacles of woe?” – Chuck Wendig
12 Famous Writers on Literary Rejection

“Rejection has value. It teaches us when our work or our skillset is not good enough and must be made better. This is a powerful revelation, like the burning UFO wheel seen by the prophet Ezekiel, or like the McRib sandwich shaped like the Virgin Mary seen by the prophet Steve Jenkins. Rejection refines us. Those who fall prey to its enervating soul-sucking tentacles are doomed. Those who persist past it are survivors. Best ask yourself the question: what kind of writer are you? The kind who survives? Or the kind who gets asphyxiated by the tentacles of woe?” – Chuck Wendig

12 Famous Writers on Literary Rejection

(Source: doingthemath, via itsvondell)

Eh, I don’t want to be too overly critical of Sanaa Hamid’s Cultural Appropriation: A Conversation and I feel like even having the opinion I’m about to share sounds douchey knowing that part of the work’s context is the artist’s neutrality to the work, allowing the subjects to honestly engage with it, 

but I do really feel like faith, in particular Christianity, comes with a certain understanding that its symbols have constantly been shifting on the sliding scale of spiritual significance, and the possession of those symbols are not tied to any understanding of the faith that would be particularly jarring if someone without that understanding partook of the symbols (i.e. the cross isn’t part of a ceremony or ritual in itself so it can’t be disrespectful to Christian culture to use the cross without participating); and that this fact combined with its Eurocentric influences make it really difficult to put a non-believer’s wearing of the cross on the same wavelength as a white woman wearing a bindi.

(God, I sounded like such a pretentious clown back there. No one even asked for my opinion. I am so sorry.)

[video]

the importance of being appropriate

This poem should probably be titled 
You Don’t Have Her Number 
For A Reason 

This poem should probably be titled 
Things You Shouldn’ Do 
At A Club To A Female Stranger 
When She Limin’ Wit’ Her Sistrens 

This poem should probably be titled 
Zelda Got Her Own Fuckin’ Master Sword 
So All You Ganondorf-Ass Punk Boys 
Better Step Da Fuck Back

This poem should probably be titled 
I’m Pretty Sure 
Leave Me Alone Please Isn’t Your Name 
Which Means She Doesn’t Know You 

This poem should probably be titled 
Showing Signs Of Great Fear 
Means No 

This poem should probably be subtitled 
She Knows She’s Fit, 
She Ain’t No Dummy, 
She Doesn’t Need Your Boist’rous Ass Remindin’ Her 

This poem should probably be subtitled 
That Which We Call A Rose 
By Any Other Name 
Still Has Switchblade Thorns and 
The Scent Of OC Spray 
So People Won’t Pick Her Out Of The Ground 

This poem should probably be subtitled 
And No, 
Stop Saying ‘She’s Someone’s Daughter’, 
Because Her Humanity Isn’t Something 
Solely Confined To Having Been A Father’s Child 

This poem should probably be subtitled 
She Doesn’t Need Me 
To Write This Poem For Her

But then again 
I was never that good at writing poems 

so here goes, 

the poem reads thusly: 

Dude. 
Dude, 
what the fuck 
are you doi- 
stop, man. 
Really, 
fuckin’ stop. 
I said stop, man, 
I shouldn’t even have 
to fucking tell you.
Stop.

[video]

I just saw episode 10 of Kakumeiki Valvrave 
and I’m as of this moment not sure 
if it’s the most stellar investigation into the minds (and hormones) of teenagers 
or one of the most emotionally troubling things I’ve ever seen.

The Swan And The Snake: Prologue

pensandperil:

Yeah, I know his editor.

Each letter was a silent death wish into the depths of the dark night that the woman had not foreseen when she pressed the enter key. She just wanted to be cool, one can imagine. After all, The Flavourful Twilight of The Soul was one of the biggest names in the seedy shadows of the web all of a sudden. Everyone knew it, but no one knew what it was. They knew the writer, Derek Merriman - no one didn’t know Merriman, the recluse, the savant, the magician, the genius, even if they didn’t know Merriman. Shadowman was still making so much bank that a lit reviewer for the New York Times joked that their bestseller list would have to make a Number Zero just to accommodate for his unwavering brilliance.

And yet here is this book, this alleged masterpiece, his magnum opus, and everyone’s talking about it, but no one’s seen it. Dozens of people in a chat room talking about a book that they can’t actually prove the existence of.

And she was about to jump on their bandwagon for kicks.

Read More

Just felt like sharing this one… really violent thing I wrote a long time ago.

fishingboatproceeds:

reuters:

Thousands of Brazilians have protested in several cities over the past ten days, and organizers are planning for another march in Sao Paulo on Monday night.Rising prices for public transportation was the original cause of the the protests, organized by Movimento Passe Livre. Since then, Brazilians have joined protests for various other reasons, including rising crime, income inequality, and corruption. The protests are quickly becoming a sign of a weakening public confidence for Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The protest’s nickname “Salad Uprising” was coined in response to the arrests of those who carried vinegar with them as an aide against police tear gas. 
Tumblr blog Salad Uprising is reporting to collect stories and pictures from demonstrations across Brazil (Reuters cannot confirm individual posts on external blogs; please message the Reuters on Tumblr if you seek more information on any news).When police tried to disperse the crowd on Thursday in Sao Paulo, violence erupted, injuring dozens and leading to nearly 200 arrests.Photo: posters read, “Dilma, we are the ones who pay for your housing” and “Communities exist.” REUTERS/Alex Almeida

Many people have asked me about this, because 1. there are a lot of Brazilian nerdfighters, 2. I am a huge fan of Brazil and see the last 20 years of its history as a model for other nations in the developing world, and 3. I like soccer a lot.
My honest opinions may be unpopular with Brazilian nerdfighters, and that’s okay. I might be wrong. I’ve been wrong before. Also, I don’t know much about Brazil, and I don’t want to pretend otherwise. But since you’re all asking:
1. 100% of the protesters’ concerns are legitimate.
2. I think the World Cup (and the Olympics) will happen regardless of whether they are a net economic good for Brazil. (I think they’ll be a net negative, but it’ll be closer than many people are saying.) Brazil has already spent more than 3 billion reals to prepare for the World Cup; yes, that is a ridiculous number, but making the World Cup a failure will not make it a less ridiculous number.
2a. Given that, I think non-Brazilians who are planning to go should go and spend a lot of money. The time to have the conversation about whether it was a bad idea to host the World Cup has passed: The cost of abandoning the World Cup (or the Olympics) at this point would be prohibitive and more damaging to the Brazilian economy than going through with it and hopefully getting a reasonable windfall from foreign tourists spending a lot of money.
3. I understand that money spent by tourists will be unevenly distributed, but that’s been the case for decades, and in Brazil at least, the rising tide really has lifted all boats: after decades of rampant inflation and extremely high poverty rates, absolute poverty has fallen by half since 1994. 
3a. That said, poverty is still much higher in Brazil than it should be, and corruption remains a huge problem. (Compare Brazil’s corruption levels to Chile’s, for instance.) Income inequality is extremely high. Crime is a vexing problem, and a very complicated one. Public transportation costs should not have gone up (for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it amounts to a tax on non-rich workers, who are exactly the wrong people to tax). 
4. HOWEVER: It is important to note that real and important economic progress had been made in Brazil in the last 20 years. For that progress to continue, corruption, income inequality, and crime must decrease. These protests are important because they remind the government that all is not well and that progress is fragile and only counts if it continues. They hold the government accountable to the people. But as far as the World Cup goes: Most of the money that will be spent on the World Cup has already been spent. It is gone. Let us hope that the crowds are large and that most of that money can be recouped.

I more or less agree with this… except for my (probably ignorant) thoughts on Article 2.
I do agree that it is too late in the game to say to abandon the World Cup ideal, but I do want it to be clear that FIFA as an organization does not care about the financial state of the country or any country it hosts in, and while I am not at all necessarily saying ‘do not go to the World Cup 2014 Brazil’ (because that puts them in a far worse position, considering, than going), I am saying that you should go and make sure to spend as little money as possible on actual FIFA World Cup merchandise. 
I dunno. Go to a sports bar there and watch the game on their telly. Buy a shit-ton of souvenirs. Spend a lot of time enjoying local cuisine (trust me, you’ll be the better for that, I think). But FIFA’s actual presence has, in my opinion, already affected the Brazilian economy in ways they have to deal with the consequences of years into the future (people have to upkeep those new fields now, for instance, and find ways to use them after the World Cup is over), and I think finding ways to put as much of your money as possible directly into Brazil is far more ideal than giving it to an organization that will just jump back on their private jets and count their earnings.

fishingboatproceeds:

reuters:

Thousands of Brazilians have protested in several cities over the past ten days, and organizers are planning for another march in Sao Paulo on Monday night.

Rising prices for public transportation was the original cause of the the protests, organized by Movimento Passe Livre. Since then, Brazilians have joined protests for various other reasons, including rising crime, income inequality, and corruption. 

The protests are quickly becoming a sign of a weakening public confidence for Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. 

The protest’s nickname “Salad Uprising” was coined in response to the arrests of those who carried vinegar with them as an aide against police tear gas. 

Tumblr blog Salad Uprising is reporting to collect stories and pictures from demonstrations across Brazil (Reuters cannot confirm individual posts on external blogs; please message the Reuters on Tumblr if you seek more information on any news).

When police tried to disperse the crowd on Thursday in Sao Paulo, violence erupted, injuring dozens and leading to nearly 200 arrests.

Photo: posters read, “Dilma, we are the ones who pay for your housing” and “Communities exist.” REUTERS/Alex Almeida

Many people have asked me about this, because 1. there are a lot of Brazilian nerdfighters, 2. I am a huge fan of Brazil and see the last 20 years of its history as a model for other nations in the developing world, and 3. I like soccer a lot.

My honest opinions may be unpopular with Brazilian nerdfighters, and that’s okay. I might be wrong. I’ve been wrong before. Also, I don’t know much about Brazil, and I don’t want to pretend otherwise. But since you’re all asking:

1. 100% of the protesters’ concerns are legitimate.

2. I think the World Cup (and the Olympics) will happen regardless of whether they are a net economic good for Brazil. (I think they’ll be a net negative, but it’ll be closer than many people are saying.) Brazil has already spent more than 3 billion reals to prepare for the World Cup; yes, that is a ridiculous number, but making the World Cup a failure will not make it a less ridiculous number.

2a. Given that, I think non-Brazilians who are planning to go should go and spend a lot of money. The time to have the conversation about whether it was a bad idea to host the World Cup has passed: The cost of abandoning the World Cup (or the Olympics) at this point would be prohibitive and more damaging to the Brazilian economy than going through with it and hopefully getting a reasonable windfall from foreign tourists spending a lot of money.

3. I understand that money spent by tourists will be unevenly distributed, but that’s been the case for decades, and in Brazil at least, the rising tide really has lifted all boats: after decades of rampant inflation and extremely high poverty rates, absolute poverty has fallen by half since 1994

3a. That said, poverty is still much higher in Brazil than it should be, and corruption remains a huge problem. (Compare Brazil’s corruption levels to Chile’s, for instance.) Income inequality is extremely high. Crime is a vexing problem, and a very complicated one. Public transportation costs should not have gone up (for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it amounts to a tax on non-rich workers, who are exactly the wrong people to tax). 

4. HOWEVER: It is important to note that real and important economic progress had been made in Brazil in the last 20 years. For that progress to continue, corruption, income inequality, and crime must decrease. These protests are important because they remind the government that all is not well and that progress is fragile and only counts if it continues. They hold the government accountable to the people. But as far as the World Cup goes: Most of the money that will be spent on the World Cup has already been spent. It is gone. Let us hope that the crowds are large and that most of that money can be recouped.

I more or less agree with this… except for my (probably ignorant) thoughts on Article 2.

I do agree that it is too late in the game to say to abandon the World Cup ideal, but I do want it to be clear that FIFA as an organization does not care about the financial state of the country or any country it hosts in, and while I am not at all necessarily saying ‘do not go to the World Cup 2014 Brazil’ (because that puts them in a far worse position, considering, than going), I am saying that you should go and make sure to spend as little money as possible on actual FIFA World Cup merchandise. 

I dunno. Go to a sports bar there and watch the game on their telly. Buy a shit-ton of souvenirs. Spend a lot of time enjoying local cuisine (trust me, you’ll be the better for that, I think). But FIFA’s actual presence has, in my opinion, already affected the Brazilian economy in ways they have to deal with the consequences of years into the future (people have to upkeep those new fields now, for instance, and find ways to use them after the World Cup is over), and I think finding ways to put as much of your money as possible directly into Brazil is far more ideal than giving it to an organization that will just jump back on their private jets and count their earnings.

I now have Anime City feels.

Excuse me if I intermittently start sharing moments from them.