This Is Super Cute But Like...cartography??? Why Is One Of Catra’s Productive Hobbies Map-making? I

this is terrifying and beautiful

Crystal clear ice of the frozen Baikal Lake

Draw nigh, come through the press to grips with me, so shall ye learn what might wells up in breasts of Amazons. With my blood is mingled war!

Queen Penthesilea, in Quintus Smyrnaeus’ The Fall of Troy

Quoted in Wonder Woman: Warbringer

so my great-aunt (or whatever else one calls one’s grandmother’s brother’s wife’s sister) is trying to send me something in the mail, only she realized that she doesn’t have my address on hand. so she called me and I just spent about fifteen minutes trying to spell the name of the town I live in out to her over the phone. she doesn’t use text or email, so I couldn’t send it to her that way; and her hearing can be a bit troublesome and also English isn’t her first language. you can imagine that this phone call was a bit of a mess. I’m still not sure if she got the address down correctly or not, but I suppose I’ll find out eventually

Apparently it’s going to be raining all week... so here’s a rainy day photo!

“No small thing, a bee’s sting, when it enters the heart.”

- Shannon Hale

Floral triceratops by Vallavica

Worshippers trapped inside Al-Aqsa are now being subjected to explosives, gas, stun grenades, and bullets. This video shows heavily armed soldiers throwing grenades, point blank, into a group of women and children trapped inside.

Women and children are being targeted, specifically.

Palestinians are being run down on the street in broad daylight. I chose to share screenshots instead of the video because it was too violent. Police and Military are protecting and endorsing this.

This woman was arrested after she fainted from exhaustion watching over her own home and trying to protect it. Then they arrested her entire family, too. Another woman was arrested for intervening and attempting to stop a soldier from kicking a little girl.

In further retaliation from the government, airstrikes in Gaza. The Arabic captions mention that women and children were the victims, among 9 others martyred.

These aren't "clashes" between two equal parties. This is a targeted campaign of violence and ethnic cleansing by an apartheid government funded by the USA and enabled by cowardly countries in the Middle East who have decided to turn a blind eye. If you pay taxes in the USA - know that over three billion dollars a year get sent in aid, which is used to fund this terrorism.

Media organizations only continue the colonialism by whitewashing the rhetoric and blocking hashtags and silencing voices.

One of our holiest sites is being desecrated in the holiest days of the year. The blood of the innocent is being shed. Children have been slaughtered, homes taken, bombs dropped, sexual violence runs rampant, and the western world continues to look the other way.

Do not be silent.

I’ve gotten in trouble at almost every Thanksgiving family gathering starting from the time I reached about thirteen because I kept calling out my uncles for being racist, homophobic, or sexist. 

(And then everyone got mad at me for starting arguments. Um??? I??? Never?? started it?? I just refused to let it go when they said horrible things.) 

One time I flat-out told one of my uncles he was a bigot and he got super super offended. Insisted that he was not a bigot, and that I must never call him that again. I was fourteen at the time and I was cowed enough to apologize for saying that and to agree to not do it again. Still regret how I folded, sometimes, but at least I made it clear I still believed he was wrong.

Several times it’s been me debating against four or five of my uncles at once. Four adult men, one teenage girl. Everyone else always refuses to get involved, standing around with these uncomfortable looks on their faces. One of my aunts thinks it’s disgraceful, how much I’ll argue with ‘the men of the family’. It doesn’t feel like I ever accomplish much of anything by doing this, but I can’t just do nothing.

It’s hard because I’m close to my extended family, particularly some of my cousins who are my age, and I know that they all love me. But I cannot stand the things that they (my uncles and a couple of my aunts especially) believe. My mom agrees with me that they’re wrong, but always gets angry with me when I argue with them about it. ‘You don’t talk about politics with family,’ she says. ‘Family’s what will be there for you when everyone else leaves you, don’t alienate them.’ ‘Let it go, you’re never going to change their minds.’ ‘You’re embarrassing me.’ I’m always the one in the wrong for daring to speak up. 

I don’t think my mom really understands that I cannot be silent about these things. If I am silent, I am complicit. If I say nothing, then it’s as good as agreeing. I can’t do that. I just can’t, even if she thinks I’m starting drama without good reason and punishes me for it.

Sometimes I think that I should cut contact with my extended family entirely, for some of the horrible things they believe - if any of them openly advocated for violence, I would. But they don’t go that far, and I love them too much to erase them from my life right now. (Also, my mom thinks I’m insane for even contemplating that maybe I should. Cut contact, that is. Because in our family, where our parents and grandparents were refugees and immigrants when they arrived here and had only each other to rely on, family is everything. To her, family matters more than politics, every time. I don’t quite agree with her on that.) But if I am to continue keeping them in my life, the very least I can do is to speak up when I know something is wrong, and to refuse to be silent, no matter how many people get angry with me for it. 

I’m always glad to see people saying that yes, it’s right to call your family out when they do something racist/homophobic etc., because everyone in my immediate life says that I’m childish and immature for doing it, and that there’s no point in doing it. I hope though that maybe some of the things I say will get through to my uncles’ children, at least, if not my uncles themselves.

So, my family is Greek, and my grandmother, who grew up in Athens, was named Urania. And funnily enough, I’m now in university majoring in Astrophysics. I’ve always found that coincidence kind of funny and this is a cool aesthetic!

(Also, Urania is pronounced like Oo-rah-nee-uh, if anyone wonders)

Urania

[unrelated] This is a restaurant in vietnam and its so cool??