Everything AND Nothing

tenthousandand:

strawberryqueen00:

k3yreviewer25:

One of my favorite hobbies is thinking about the fucked up implications of this fantasy world map my parents got me for christmas

[Image ID: photo of a map. On the left side of the map is Middle Earth, with the Shire and Mordor labeled. To the direct right of Mordor is Whoville.]

I FOUND THE FULL ONE AND ITS SO MUCH MORE CHAOTIC.

HYRULE SHOOK ME TO MY CORE!

THIS WORD HAS TWO KINGDOMS RULES BY A BEING IN A TOWER!

The existence of Oz and Neverland is wild too. Does this mean that there is a REAL Earth outside of this? Could Wendy hang out in Westeros?

(via cum-villain)

biverly-switzler:

I’ve never watched a single episode of spn but I’ve been thinking about the implications of being stuck inside a meme

(via cum-villain)

cormancatacombs:

cuntvonkrolock:

reminder that trans men also fought for your rights and refusal to acknowledge this is tantamount to denying historical fact

Some sources for those who may not know:

Lou Sullivan's Diaries Show the Transformative Power of Queer History

The legendary trans activist's personal writing is a radical gift.

Them

Pioneering gay, trans man Lou Sullivan, who died in 1991, in his own words

Lou Sullivan was arguably one of the first publicly gay trans men, known for campaigning for gay trans men to access transition healthcare.

PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news

(via vaspider)

(via mecharose)

officialfist:

(via wizardshark)

marzipanandminutiae:

drst:

arrghigiveup:

TiL (click to go to the thread, which probably has more interesting tidbits I missed).

Bonus:

These are my people.

I’m slightly concerned at the implication that the origins of “cut and paste” aren’t obvious, but most of this is really interesting and seems to check out!

(via randomthingsthatilike1)

Anonymous asked:

So this is a weird ask but I figured an Actual Welsh Person would be the person to go to, and you've been pretty gung-ho about the language thing. So I hope I'm not bothering you with this.

Is there a cultural consensus on foreigners learning Welsh? I'm American and I don't have a single shred of Welsh ancestry. My family is historically German, and we've been here since the English Colony days, so it honestly seems really weird even to try to claim some tie to German heritage.

Anyway, my point is, I have absolutely zero legitimate claim to the Welsh language. I don't plan to travel to Wales in the foreseeable future. I have no reason to learn Welsh except that it sounds pretty and I enjoy a challenge.

Putting aside the issue of "lmao it's gonna be stupid difficult to learn an endangered language if you don't have anyone to speak it with" (I have a loose plan for dealing with that, and the experience of learning two languages to "can read most novels without needing the dictionary" level without anyone to speak them with in person already) entirely, do you reckon it's okay for me to study Welsh? I know Americans are really, really bad about just kinda assuming the whole world belongs to us, and I'm trying not to do that here. Especially because Welsh IS endangered.

I imagine your average Welsh person probably doesn't care what some random American does. But like, for people who care about the language...Would it be considered disrespectful or overstepping for me to study it? I don't expect you to speak for the entire country, of course, but I respect your opinion and I feel like you'd have a grasp on what the general feeling towards a foreigner like me might be.

Thanks for your time.

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

I honestly, truly, do not understand how the discussion around cultural appropriation has been twisted in the cultural zeitgeist to such an extent that people now feel anxiety about learning other languages.

This is not a personal attack on you, Anon - the gods only know that you clearly care and want to do the right thing, and that’s beautiful and wonderful and also I will come back to extolling your personal virtues at the end of this post, so stay tuned. But I do want to take a moment here to talk about the broader issue at play, which I have seen echoed multiple times elsewhere, because fuck me what are we doing to ourselves.

Learn. Languages.

That is what languages are for! To be used for communication. If you don’t learn languages, you are forcing everyone else to use yours. How have we somehow, as a culture, twisted that into being the less selfish option? How have we done that? I posted my favourite Welsh idiom recently, and someone reblogged it and wrote in the tags that they loved the idiom and would start using it, but they would do so in English because their “Welsh pronunciation would make their Welsh grandmother spin in her grave.”

What kind of mental gymnastics is that?

How the fuck do you twist it so badly that you think taking a Welsh idiom for your own and exclusively using it in English is less offensive than saying it in Welsh but maybe a bit wrong? I’ve literally had people proclaim to me that they’re learning Welsh on Duolingo but they never speak it because they’re too self-conscious, and they tell me this not to highlight a massive flaw in themselves that they need to work on, but as though I’m supposed to pat them on the head and thank them for… still making me speak English to them.

There was that post where a Deaf blogger received an anonymous ask saying learning sign language is cultural appropriation, as though Deaf people haven’t been calling for Sign to be taught in schools. As though a Deaf person being entirely isolated in everyday hearing society unless they have an interpreter with them is less offensive than a hearing person being able to use BSL.

Like, these are not sacred or religious languages. The purpose of Welsh or BSL or what have you is not to perform the Eleusinian mysteries. It’s a living everyday language, same as English -

Except it’s not the same as English. As Anon here so rightly points out, Welsh is endangered. That means we are desperate for people to learn it. That’s how it will survive. That’s how we reversed it from ‘dying language’ to 'living language’, in fact - we managed to get lots of people to learn it. You know what is a threat, though? People not learning it because, like poor Anon here, they’ve been somehow convinced by Western society that you’re only allowed to learn languages if you personally have a historic or cultural connection to them that you can prove via six forms of ID and a letter of recommendation from a druid. Or people never using it because they’re too embarrassed to try and risk losing face by getting it wrong, or maybe sounding a bit silly, and thus forcing us to use English anyway. Those are threats.

Anon. Listen to me, feel the sincerity of my words: we adore you. We adore you. You cannot imagine how appreciated it is when someone learns Welsh. You cannot imagine how touched we are that you wanted to, that you tried, that you respected us enough and considered us valid enough that you made the effort. Our closest neighbours are the very people who are still trying to stamp out Welsh to this very day. Do you know the number 1 reaction I get, by a country mile, when I tell English people that I speak Welsh? It’s some variant on a scoff, and the sentiment “Why? What’s the point? Bit useless, isn’t it?”

By a country mile. That’s the reaction I expect, and brace for, and is overwhelmingly what I get.

So when someone who isn’t Welsh actually chooses to learn Welsh?

Imagine what that feels like! To go from not-even-hidden disgust, from outright mockery and often active suppression campaigns, to a foreigner earnestly telling me that they love and respect my language so much they’re trying to learn it. Imagine how that feels.

Please learn Welsh. Please learn it. We will love you for it. We will build you a statue. We will bake little Welshcakes with your face on in icing sugar. We will write you poems in complex rhyme. We’ll name an Eisteddfod prize after you. We’ll name at least, like, three sheep after you. Thank you, thank you so much for even wanting to learn. You’re a delight and a marvel and a wonder. Your hair looks great today, as it does all days. You’re a strong, independent human being of immense wisdom and compassion. If this were a Welsh myth you’d be a wise salmon the heroes came to for advice. What a fantastic human.

The welcome awaits if you choose to learn

Well I’m not sure which of you GREMLINS dug this post up and started reblogging it again

BUT!

I just want to address the message in these tags quickly:

ALT

(This is not me telling anyone off)

I am a fluent Welsh speaker, and I have met many people who learned Welsh from Duolingo, and they are 100% comprehensible. I do understand that when it doesn’t quite seem to match up with what you personally know and are comfortable with you can get the impression that it’s therefore Wrong, but it’s not true. Duolingo Welsh is absolutely fine. Its method of teaching can be difficult in places, absolutely, but (a) it teaches primarily Cymraeg Byw, which is dialect-mixed learner Welsh anyway; and (b) real Welsh speaking humans also mix dialects. It’s just not true that you aren’t understood if you learn Duolingo Welsh.

I have a Belgian friend who has completed the entire Welsh course, in fact. I can literally just… speak Welsh to her now. She’s not wholly fluent - she needs to go a little more slowly, and still has to translate in her head - but she’s fully conversational. If you choose to use Duolingo as your method of learning, it is perfectly usable, and the Welsh you learn is completely fine.

(Pls learn)

foone:

desert-palm:

It’s not turn-based but there is actually a game that is 100% this. 

It’s called Kingsway, and it’s an active-time-battle roguelite. And it’s designed to look AND PLAY like windows 95. And I don’t mean it plays like a windows 95 game, I mean it plays like the operating system itself. Window management is a key part of the game! Often you have to juggle many windows and pop-ups to avoid getting hit or curses or whatever.

Like, when they cast a curse on you, it pops up as a small dialog box, often behind the main window, and you have only a few seconds to click AVOID to it. 

The game doesn’t pause when you do inventory management, and you often have to manage a lot of bags at once. That’s hard to do in real-time, since each one is a separate window. The game uses the Windows 95 UI as part of the difficulty! 

It’s a lot of fun and I highly recommend trying it out. Currently 10$ on steam, often drops down to like 5$ when there’s a sale. Check it out. 

(via dingdongyouarewrong)

mumblesplash:

alittlewomble:

dingdongyouarewrong:

dingdongyouarewrong:

do you ever form close relationships with people in your dreams and then feel a little sad when you wake up

i had a son in one of my dreams, he was 3 or 4, i loved him so much, i don’t remember his name but i remember loving him so much, and then i woke up and he was gone

Hey um what the FUCk

tldr: boy have i ever

(via troutlawyer)

mostly-funnytwittertweets: