you know what gets me about lord of the rings? evil is defeated by people who choose to fight against it without possessing absolute, or even very much, conviction that they can actually win. all the converging story threads that lead to the happy ending are carried out by people who are far, far more convinced that they will fail than that they will succeed, who had only the frailest, most foolish hope, who had blind faith and frequently wavering hearts not peace or ease or certainty.
middle earth isn’t saved because no one faltered or came close to despairing or who sank to their knees in weary defeat. it’s not saved by pride or conviction or even strength. it’s saved because enough people do what they have to do even if they have to do it in the darkness. in the dust. with the ashes of hopelessness and bitterness in their mouths. because enough people took another step. Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Theoden, Boromir, Faramir, Merry, Pippin. And many don’t. For every hero there is someone who gives into the “reasonableness” of despair—Saruman, Denethor, Grima, even Gollum—but enough. Enough people said “it doesn’t matter if we lose, I will keep fighting” and then they do.
And that GETS me. It is the most hopeful thing about the lord of the rings to me. There is so much that sums up its spirit, so many beautiful quotes and moments, but to me it’s never been the most famous of the quotes about hope and love that hit me hardest but a line from the films. Before the battle for minas tirith, one of the soldiers says “we cannot defeat the armies of Mordor” and Theoden answers “no. but we will meet them in battle nonetheless.”
And I—That is the spirit that leads to the conquering of evil when it comes down to it, when we’re talking about the part played by humanity alone in the fight against evil. Not the conviction you’re going to win, not farsightedness into a perfect future, not perfect inner peace or certainty. But acceptance of the real possibility of defeat, of that defeat being more the reality, the future, of your life than the victory, and then doing the damn thing anyway because goodness is worth fighting for even if you lose.
I was on the subway today, and when the train got delayed, this little kid was like, “fuck,” and a literal chorus of grown-ups went: “HEY.”
let him say fuck
I was at a crossing once and a kid’s dad said ‘and we have to wait for the green man’ and the 30 people on this crossing all stood waiting for the green man just to prove to this kid that that’s what you do. I’ve never seen anyone wait for the green man on this crossing before you just go when its clear. But Everyone Waited.
Corollary to “it takes a village” is that you’re gonna get a village whether you ask for it or not.
IDK who needs to hear this but if there’s something in your life that makes you feel better, but you never stick to it,
it’s still actually perfectly fine to do it
and you shouldn’t stop yourself from starting just because it won’t be a permanent change.
Like if starting a new daily planner gives you an amazing afternoon of planning and four days where you feel in charge of your life,
why not do it?
It doesn’t matter that it won’t be a permanent change - 4 good days is still worth it.
If you ever catch yourself thinking, “I wish I could pray/stretch/prep/plan/do the thing, but I always get started on that and it never lasts more than a couple of days,”
what this really means is, “hey, I can feel better for a couple of days.”
if this post is making you think of things in your own life that you wish you could stick to because of how good they make you feel,
just be aware:
you’re not thinking of a list of ways you’ve failed to commit
you’re thinking of a list of things that make you happy, and you should give yourself permission to start doing them as often as you want to
I want to say this bc it does not get said enough: most grief you experience in your life will have NOTHING to do with death.
This is not talked about enough and as a result ppl struggle to process grief bc the world is telling them that grief is something else.
Grief is about loss, and IF you’d like to define it as a loss of life it is not restricted to loss of life via death. Even then I’d implore you to not view grief as about death or life but again, just loss.
Grief is also about having a shitty childhood that nothing can fix even if you have healed from it as an adult; your childhood was shitty and there’s nothing retroactively you can do about it. You grieve the loss of thriving your past self was denied.
Grief is about friendships that ended abruptly, confusingly and again, there’s nothing you can do to change that. You just have to sit with it. This is the only way grief can ultimately be processed and all it wants by the way: to be accepted and sat with. That’s it.
Grief is about opportunities that have passed, experiences you can’t have because of the way situations have ended up, and having to accept that while you do have your whole future ahead of you, there were some things you wanted to be a certain way then and they weren’t, aren’t and will never be.
Grief is being estranged from your family and missing family closeness even though you do not want to be closer to your parents, because you’re grieving the fact that there is a healthy part of human life you will not experience through them.
Grief can be the job you lost, the plans that fell through, the events that spiraled out of your control
If grief is strictly about life and death, understand that it includes grieving the life you never had and the death of who you used to be, too.
But moreover, grief is about loss.
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Totally . After my girlfriend died a lot of my friends said ‘I don’t know what you’re going through because I’ve never experienced this. As one friend said: ‘You have gone to a country I have never been to’
But later on, they would talk about their divorce, or their loss of jobs or trauma or other kinds of loss, and what it did to them. The grief, saying goodbye to a life you would’ve loved to have, deep sadness, anger. And I recognized so much.
And yes, parts of dealing with death are quite unique to it, in my experience. And they can maybe only be shared with people who have gone through something similar. But a lot of it is not so alien. 
actually supervillains with kid hero nemeses are hysterical bc if i was a billionaire and i found out the kid who was also my nemesis was a preteen orphan i would simply adopt them. oh you’re going to stop my nefarious schemes? how when you’re grounded. go to your room
the trick is be a good parent so they don’t wanna fight you. son if you topple my criminal empire how will i pay for your college? reverse batmanning
Weaponized guilt. Son you’re out on a school night? When you have that big science test tomorrow? I thought you’d be studying…getti g some rest…no I’m not mad I’m just. Well a little disappointed I guess. What do you mean this wouldn’t be happening if I’d stop robbing banks their insurance covers it son money isn’t real
Who’s this guy is he your “sidekick”? That’s so cute when are you having him over for dinner. I’m not teasing I think it’s sweet I’m glad you’re making friends. Side note how durable is he I’m about to throw a car at you
i think star trek should write an in universe reason why some series don’t have swearing and some do. make it a universal translator glitch or something.
the captain of each ship can turn the swears on or off when they want to
Kirk would have kept the swears on but any ship carrying Dr. Leonard McCoy is required by Starfleet regulations to turn them off
Her name is Katalin Karikó. Hungarian. Daughter of a butcher. Her thesis work became the basis of the mRNA vaccine technology. Read the article here.
My favorite bits from the article include how Dr. Kariko celebrated the fact that the vaccines that used her mRNA research worked
“On Nov. 8, the first results of the Pfizer-BioNTech study came in, showing that the mRNA vaccine offered powerful immunity to the new virus. Dr. Kariko turned to her husband. “Oh, it works,” she said. “I thought so.”
To celebrate, she ate an entire box of Goobers chocolate-covered peanuts. By herself.”
Everyone say thank you to Doctor Kariko since she literally saved all our lives
I’m kinda surprised at how many ‘likes-but-did-not-blogs’ there are on this post….there are absolutely no downsides to not sharing it, regardless of whether or not it fits your aesthetic or even if your page isn’t sexual in nature.
Unfortunately, many guys still need to see this….. (but ovviously it applies to everyone).
Consent is paramount, and the ability to remove consent at any time (yes even after sex has started, if it hurts or you get cold feet or whatev)
Remember when Jeff Bezos, who is worth 181 billion USD donated 690k to stopping Australian fires? Yeah, me too.
McKenzie Scott is literally proof that these fuckers can donate HUGE sums of money to EVERYTHING and still live a comfortable life…. But nooO someone HAS to justify the pitifully small donations the richest men on earth make every year for their tax write-off
You are allowed to mourn what this pandemic took from you
It is not petty or selfish to be upset about the little things, especially when those little things add up
Whether it was your last college spring break, prom, graduation, a study abroad program, a proper farewell, that loss has effected you, and it is okay to mourn it
Really do not get the arguments about who the strongest avatar is. Like, the answer is clearly Szeto. Dude canonically worked as court bureaucrat, meaning he not only mastered the four elements but on top of that also administrative law. Administrative law. This is a man to fear.
Wait I just realised this makes a scene like this possible:
Zuko: I really want to pass this law but that one nobleman on the council keeps blocking me and I know no way around him Aang: *Enters avatar state* Aang: So actually there are 3 ways on how to make this work legally
For about seven-eights of the Earth’s history, its oceans were extremely rich in sulfides. This would have prevented animals and plants from surviving in 70% of the planet. But it was a great habitat for photosynthetic bacteria that require sulfides and sunlight to live. Known as purple and green sulfur bacteria (because those are the two colors it comes in) these single-celled microbes can only live in environments where they simultaneously have access to sulfides and sunlight.
That they thrived in the sulfide-rich ocean has been confirmed with the finding of fossilized pigments of purple sulfur bacteria in 1.6 billion-year-old rocks from the McArthur Basin in Northern Australia.
i looked up purple sulfur bacteria and now i’m laughing bc the ocean must’ve looked like a giant glass of grape juice, these things really are purple
