Latest Posts by mattlindel - Page 6

Y’all r wildin OUT

Interviewer: where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Me: I used escapist fantasies as a coping mechanism to get through years of trauma and therefore never learned how to plan for a real life future

nobody ever talks about how saying non-binary genders don’t exist is racist as fuck

:/

Stark Tower has literally got the best wifi in the whole of New York and Tony makes it free as well so sometimes he’ll walk out of the ground floor and just see like a dozen or so people, usually kids, just sat on the doorstep on their phones or laptops and like it’s such a little thing to do but yknow. He’s Ironman. Give the kids some damn fast wifi.

TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN!!!

Notes

I posted this on Reddit HFY but I wanted to share this story here too. I thought people might enjoy it.

We don’t know what happened to them, for several hundred orbits of the local star system we’ve been looking at their ruins trying to decipher their history, culture, science and much more. Much has been discovered but we’ve still only scratched the surface of mountain of knowledge. For example: what we once thought were several separate alien societies turned out to be all one alien culture. How such a wide spread and advanced species vanished without a trace is a mystery.

One of many things that troubled us is that their written language seems to have hundreds of variations, many don’t even seem to relate to each other. In fact, this was the primary reason why their society had been so difficult to comprehend.

One such written language I’ve taken up to decoding looks deceptively simple, and is found across all their territories but for the longest time, I had found no key to decode it. On the surface, it looks incomplex, just circles, dots and lines placed upon a bar of lines going across the width of paper, but I suspected it was vastly elaborate as I have come across various texts that go from a few simple dots across a few bars to hundreds of various dots and lines all stuffed onto several connecting sheets filled with bars; these dots are not even bound to the bars as they can sometimes jump high above it or far below it.

Further, I had found other glyphs and symbols I had no way of discerning why they are placed where they are. The only thing I knew about this script is that it has been paired with other scripts of their written language. I’d even found identical sheets of these scripts paired with different scripts. I was almost sure this was a universal script for them, and if I could decode it; perhaps we’d have a key to decode all the other scripts.

One thing that had given me aid was a discovery a colleague of mine found, an ancient recording he was able to recover. This in its self was a breakthrough since most of their technology holding their nonphysical records is still inert and this small recovery was a miracle. Our fields of study don’t cross but what he discovered, in fact, did.

This colleague decided to wait until more people had the time before it would be viewed. I was among that group with others from various fields. Once we viewed it, what we found on it was the recording was a ritual of some sort. There was a large gathering of the aliens depicted in a room facing a podium, and on the podium, were a few aliens facing the crowd, one held a tool of some sort and the other was dressed in red with floral decorations. Then, all of a sudden, it started. The one in red spoke in soft and somber voice and I was in awe that same moment. The one holding the tool used it to make sounds that complimented the other’s spoken words in a harmony I never before experienced. It was, for lack of a better word, spell binding.

The moment they had started they had me trapped in trance. What I heard was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and it invoked powerful emotions in me. I felt as somber as the alien’s voice and I dearly wished I could hold my life companion in that moment, as if I didn’t do so soon, I never would again. Against all reason that said otherwise I pulled a holo-tab from my pocket and sent him a message telling him I needed to see him that night and that I loved him. There was an aching in my chest that didn’t leave until he finally replied a tic later assuring me he would come and asking if anything was wrong. I didn’t respond because, at that moment, I wasn’t sure. When the ritual finally ended, the emotions it conjured lingered in me. I looked upon the group to find everyone else was similarly affected, one of us even openly wept.

We watched it several more times, out of diligence and study, though we took several tics to recover ourselves and prepare our emotions better for it. One thing I hadn’t noticed before, flowing across the bottom of the recording, was a script being highlighted as the one in red spoke. A script I knew another colleague of mine was translating. Since this was his script, I forwarded the recording to him; with apt warning of its contents of course.

After the discovery of the recording, more attempts were made to recover the nonphysical information with some success but nothing new for my field came up after a cycle and my translation attempts still turned up nothing. Until my colleague whom I sent the first recording to had sent me back a few scripts with some additional notes he made. He had found a script sheet containing the words the alien in red had spoken; that was not all however. This script he sent had also contained the language I was trying to decipher, and another he was sure it was paired with. He couldn’t understand how they were related at all, so he jotted down his hypothesizes and sent it back to me. One script of mine was paired with his, yet the other wasn’t paired with any other type of written script. This wasn’t all that unusual, since half the time, my script came unpaired with others, but his notes insisted they went together. What puzzled me was that we only heard the one alien speak. If he was correct then I was missing something.

Cautiously and after long emotional preparation, I had returned to that recording of the alien ritual to review it with the scripts I received, hoping to glean any sort of incite. When it began again, I still felt a twinge in my chest, but I was able to focus. I had followed along as it spoke, both upon the recording and the sheet I pressed my primary digit to. Following my colleagues notes I could vaguely see relations from his script to its spoken words, I also saw a connection between his script and mine as it spoke but I could still not see how they translated. In the end, all I ended up with was frustration, I was still no closer to figuring out my script or how it was used.

I knew in the back of my mind there was a connection. Something in me saw it, but I just wasn’t sure what it was. My eyes drifted over my script once more, I had noticed that the dots and lines corresponded to timing along the bar, I didn’t know why. I saw each word the alien had spoken had also ran along with that timing but it didn’t make sense. I was at my wits end and about to throw everything off the table until my eyes landed upon the second unpaired yet related script.

My colleague was sure they were all together for a reason, and I had no other lead to go upon, so once more did I watch the recording, following the untranslated script. There were more dots and circles to follow but somehow, they fell in with the timing of the spoken words. Not wholly, but I could agree with my colleague now that they all did belong together, though I was still unsure why. When the spoken words had paused, this script had continued and at first, I couldn’t understand. Nothing was being spoken but as my digit steadily continued along the script something else was still keeping pace with each dot.

The realization hit me like a wave. The sounds coming from the tool the other alien was using, corresponded with each circle, dot and line on the page. As the tone of the tool grew and fell, so did the dots and circles rise and fall across the bar. This script didn’t translate words, it translated sound, and from this sound was the emotion imbedded in the ritual.

I jumped to my other untranslated scripts sitting upon shelves and shelves dedicated to holding them and took the nearest one to me. It was a short script and simple compared to the one I was currently reading. It took several re-watches of the video to gauge what the script said, but with a little focus, I could hear it in my imagination. It was humble in comparison, yet a happy sound, childlike. The next wasn’t as easy to imagine, but it was exciting and vibrant, and yet another was entrancing, and another soothing, and another fear inducing. I felt so many things just reading these scripts.

Then I stumbled upon two copies of the same sheet, but each was paired with different spoken scripts, one belonging to the same colleague as before, the other belonging to someone working upon the other side of the planet, and I was struck by another realization. It was a universal language. It conveyed emotions, emotions that we could relate to. They had paired these emotions with the words to speak them and they shared these emotions across their languages.

This…

This is how we came to understand a bit more of what they left behind. This script for sound, for raw emotion, changed everything. It’s imprecise but if we can translate something from one spoken script and find it pared with mine and another untranslated spoken script we can learn more of what we don’t understand.

I don’t only mean it’s changed our understanding of them, it’s also changed us. Thanks to my discovery, my people have eagerly embraced a part of an alien culture long since lost. We have adopted this script they created and have begun writing our own sounds. We have embraced the tools they used to make resonate. We have poured our voices into their echoes and made our own. We’ve become a little bit like them. This sound, this…music, we can’t escape it now, it’s a part of us.

Now, like a line in that first song.

Maopopo kuʻu ʻike i ka nani

[I realize your beauty]

Excuse my poorly written idea, it was just stuck in my head all morning and I had to get it out. It should be simple to figure out what the first song is, but if anyone is wondering what I had in mind for the second song discovered, I was thinking Twinkle, twinkle little star. The rest I didn’t give much thought to.

if u like this u are gay if u reblog this u are super deluxe gay

I had a nightmare last night.

I was a reporter.

If you’re one of those people who thinks executive dysfunction only happens for things we don’t like (school, cleaning,) then please consider the fact that I’ve been meaning to plug my phone in for 20 minutes and I’m now at 2% and still putting it off to write this post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hey, uh, just another reason why you should google what to avoid while on a medication:

I’ve been taking Viibryd, an antidepressant, for awhile now, and nobody told me to avoid eating grapefruit while on this. But apparently eating grapefruit while on Viibryd increases its potency. Here’s the thing that gets to me about this though: I know herbs, alcohol, and other medications can cause reactions when taken with any medication, but fruit? I’m supposed to avoid a specific fruit while on this and nobody told me? And it’s not even something rare that you probably wouldn’t find except at Whole Foods, it’s a standard breakfast fruit. A little heads up “hey grapefruit can do some shit while you’re on this so avoid it” would’ve been nice. But no, they don’t tell you this.

So, yeah. A quick Google search. Go do it.

tag yourself im macerate

(wakes up at reasonable hour) (stays in bed for two more hours)

This is the lucky clover cat. reblog this in 30 seconds & he will bring u good luck and fortune.

Don't kill yourself, please.

If you’re suffering from depression and are looking for a sign to not go through with ending your life, this is it. This is the sign. We care.

If you see this on your dash, reblog it. You could save a life.

Ne, Ne, by 追川うそ

Just an experiment. Reblog if you actually give a fuck about male victims of domestic violence and rape.

This is important.

Knowing that trans women of color started the movement in the united states and were literally immediately erased and excluded from what they started is the most deeply jading knowledge.

It is the original sin of the so-called queer community and it damns it from the cradle.

TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN!!!

u dont understand how disappointed i am that this dog didnt appear on my dash this year and how hard i tried to find a post that included both pictures

Princess Kaguya of the Moon

so while i was in japan i stumbled upon a pop up alien and space museum/art gallery (if you can’t find a thing in tokyo, it probably doesn’t exist) and there were these gorgeous feudal paintings of the tale of the bamboo cutter and it’s a very good story but

what if

it went

a little

differently?

kaguya is the princess of the moon. she is a young child, gangly thin limbs and a plump mouth permanently set in a stubborn pout. she is a beautiful child, even by the moon’s standards, with her cold opal eyes and hair the same deep black as the void of space. she is an unruly, irritable child. she runs from the priestesses who attempt to teach her her duties, and steps on the feet of little princes from far away stars that her parents parade in front of her. she can’t be soothed by sweets, by soft toys, by pretty songs. she is a being of constant want, and nothing in the whole of space seems to satisfy her.

kaguya does not love the moon as she should. she does not find beauty in it’s silvery, iridescent ground, nor in the pools beneath its surface that glint like mercury. she finds her citizens stuffy and annoying, and all the people from the stars think they’re better than them just because they shine a little brighter. it makes kaguya cross – the sun shines brightest of all, and the only beings that still reside on it is a great monster of a dragon that no one dares cross.

the priestesses try to entice her to learn this portion of her duties at least, but she runs from them and plugs her ears and does not listen. there are times when the sun and moon cross paths, and when they do the great dragon of the sun attempts to gobble them up whole. it is only by praying to the god tsukuyomi and erecting a barrier that the royal family can protect their home from the sun dragon.

it is kaguya’s most sacred duty, and she has no interest in it.

she’s simultaneously bored by her home and insulted when others find it lacking, and this contrary rational might be distressing to the logic of an adult, but kaguya is not an adult. she is a child, and being contrary is her prerogative.

she is walking through in the courtyard behind a palace when a shooting star passes her by, then circles back again. it’s s such a little thing, it must have been traveling for a very long time, because it’s burned down so it’s only about half as big as kaguya. this means the star is very old. “child,” the falling star says, voice ancient and crackling, “why are you sad?”

“i am not sad,” she answers, but as soon as she says that she knows it’s a lie, and tears prick at her eyes. “i am always lonely, though i am surrounded by people. i am always bored, though there are many things to entertain me. i am always angry, though there is nothing wrong. i am sad because i am a piece that does not fit.”

“maybe you are simply a piece that belongs to a different puzzle,” the falling star says, “come, climb onto me, and i will i take you somewhere new.”

“will it be better?” she asks.

if a falling star could shrug this one would, but it can’t so it doesn’t. “it will be different.”

different sounds better to kaguya. she agrees, not bothering to say goodbye to her parents or her people, does not take one last look at the beauty of the moon’s surface. instead she climbs onto the falling star, her skin thick enough that she does not feel its burn, and rides it all the way down, until it is a star no longer and only a falling rock, until she goes tumbling onto a whole new planet, and as she falls she thinks that this new planet looks very green.

~

there is an old man called taketori no okina. he lives alone in a great bamboo field, and every day he wakes up at dawn and cuts bamboo until dusk, then he goes home and eats and sleeps and wakes up in the morning to do it all again. when he was a young man, taketori no okina fell in love with a samurai who had laughter lines around his mouth and strong hands, who taught him how to wield blades with a strength and skill that could cut down the strongest soldiers. but taketori no okina only uses it to harvest bamboo. the samurai was engaged to the daughter of a respectable family, and so he left. he left his village not long after the samurai, unable to be there alone in the place where they used to be together.  taketori no okina’s heart was so full of love for his samurai that he could not bear to love another, and so he never did.

he is awoken in the middle of the night by a bang that shakes his home and nearly deafens him. he stumbles outside, and a couple miles into his field he sees smoke. he goes running for it, concerns about fire and war – they’re in a time of peace now, but they weren’t always – rushing through his mind as he stumbles through. when he reaches the source, it’s to find his bamboo flattened in a ten foot wide circle and a little girl lying in the center. he falls to his knees beside her and carefully picks her up, cradling her in his arms. she’s pale, like she doesn’t spend enough time in the sun, and has long black hair. her thin chest rises and falls with her deep breaths, and he is relieved that she’s alive. “little girl,” he says, “you must wake up and tell me if you are all right.”

she opens her eyes, two pearls set in her delicate face. “i am well,” she says, and smiles at him. she curls into him, setting her head against his chest, “you are warm. i will stay with you, for you are warm and have a kind face.”

she falls asleep once more, a hand clutching something laying across her stomach and her other hand fisted into his robe. taketori no okina looks at this little girl and feels his heart expand, until it’s straining against his rib cage. he loves his samurai as much as he always has, but now his heart is bigger. it’s made room so he can fill it with love for this little girl, and so he does.

he carries her to his home and settles her into his bed. it’s a small bed, meant only for one, and she is a little thing, but he does not wish to crowd her, so takes the floor. tomorrow he will build her a bed and take her to market and show her the hot springs near the mountain. for now he falls asleep listening to her soft breathing with a smile.

the next morning he wakes up to her sitting on the floor by his side, running her fingers over a pockmarked stone. “what is that?”

“it is all that is left of my friend. she was once a great star but she fell, as all great stars must. she carried me here because i was sad. but now i am sad that she is gone.”

“that’s all right,” taketori no okina says, and she blinks down at him. no one had ever told her that it was okay that she was sad before. “she was very special, so we must put her in a very special place.”

he gets up and builds a ledge across the window with a platform just big enough for the stone to fit. he lifts her up so that she can set what’s left of her friend on it herself. “now she can see you and sky she came from at the same time, and you will always be able to see her.”

“she cannot see anything anymore,” she says, but she likes the idea of it, the sentiment. she feels less sad at her loss now, although she can’t say why, since nothing has changed.

once he has set her back on her feet she looks up at him and says, “i am kaguya. what shall i call you?”

“they call me taketori no okina,” he pushes a lock of her dark hair behind her ear, “you may call me whatever you like.”

she wrinkles her nose at that name. it is too long, and too formal. if she is to call him that, then he might as well call her princess kaguya, and she might as well not have left the moon at all. “i will call you oyaji,” she declares, and it’s not a term she’d used even with her father on the moon, but for this old man who built her a shelf and carried her home and had large, rough hands that touch her gently, she thinks it fits.

~

kaguya quite likes the new planet and her new father. he is man who’s spent a lifetime working and doing little else. he has a tidy savings that he cheerfully depletes on her; he buys her colorful kimonos for her to wear when he walks her to market, and functional kosodes for the days she spends playing in the river and darting through the bamboo forests. he tells her stories at night, of his samurai, of the emperor, and when he exhausts his reservoir of stories about this land, he tells her the tales of other ones – the fire-rats of china, the buddha of india, and when he even those run out he tells her of dragons, of a magical island called horai.

she loves these stories, and she loves him. there are days when she is sad and cross, and on those days oyaji kisses her forehead and tucks the blanket around her shoulder and brings her something spicy from the market for dinner. oyaji just lets her be sad or angry when she wants to be, and because of that kaguya finds that now she gets sad less and less, that more often than not she’s …. happy.

she notices the special care oyaji takes when he talks of samurai, and sees the strength and power in his limbs when he cuts bamboo, and decides she would like to be strong like the samurai in his stories, like oyaji is himself. so she asks and asks, and he’s worried that it’s too dangerous for her. but oyaji loves her like she’s his own flesh and blood, and is unable to deny her anything.

kaguya grows up. she grows up on stories of far off lands and magic, she grows up on warm, simple food made by someone who loves her, she grows up learning to wield blades with the same brute efficiency as oyaji. kaguya grows up beautiful. her skin is darker now that she dances in the sun’s rays, her hair is long and fine, and her eyes are as they’ve always been – pale and beautiful, small versions of the moon she was born on. she moves with a steadied grace that only a deadly woman can master and has the whipcord strength of body from days working in the bamboo fields alongside her father, but all the delicate features of the princess she was born as.

they were left alone when she was a child, when oyaji took her hand and guided her to meat stalls and cloth sellers and bought sparkly combs for her to wear in her hair. but kaguya is a child no longer. she is a young woman, and tales of her beauty spread far and wide. just as when she was a child and princes from far off stars came to court her, now princes come from far off lands. as a child she stepped on their feet, and as a woman she wishes to take her shiny blades and cut them from navel to neck. but she is not a princess here, she is the poor daughter of a poor bamboo cutter, and must act accordingly. she can’t go slicing up arrogant suitors who believe they are entitled to her, no matter how much she would like to.

the most persistent are five princes from lands far from here. she requests a betrothal gift from each of them, and says she will marry the first to return.

from the first prince, she requests the stone begging bowl of buddha.

from the second prince, she requests a jeweled branch from horai.

from the third prince, she requests a fire-rat robe.

from the fourth prince, she requests a cowry shell born of swallows.

from the fifth prince, she requests a colored jewel from a dragon’s neck.

off they go to fulfill her impossible requests, and kaguya rests easy knowing that they will not return, or if they do they will return empty handed.

but this is not the end.

Keep reading

gay culture is oversharing and bottling ur emotions up at the same time

reblog if you’re the gay cousin

growing up without a fidget toy moodboard

Ugly Privilege is being the ‘relationship expert’ when your friends are going through relationship issues and you got no experience with romantic relationships

I like to keep my metabolism on her toes.

Like what’s it gonna be today? Complete starvation or 3000 calories? I know as much as you, bitch ;)