pondering-the-universe

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me when someone abruptly asks me if i want to go and do something fun together but the fun thing wasn't part of my daily plan:

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The most expected and unexpected union I've ever witnessed

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mb for ztarting the ao3 x tumblr thing on twt...

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I was not expecting to wake up to this...

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On Friendship.

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"I love you , I'm glad we're friends"

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On the Vulcan term “Kaiidth”

Or, “If I see one more person translate ‘Kaiidth’ with ‘Que sera sera’ I’m going to start screaming”

Let me preface this by saying that I am emotionally invested in this. Kaiidth has pulled me out of some pretty dark places in my life, and whenever I see it equated to “Que sera sera” it makes me want to punch something. Because to me, the two sayings have nothing at all to do with each other. This is also going to be long, so you may want to buckle up tight.

My thesis: when you translate the term Kaiidth using “Que sera sera”, you may be encouraged to think that it’s a defeatist term and that it implies that you should accept whatever happens without having feelings about it. Some people also say it means “you shouldn’t work for your future because whatever is meant to happen will happen”. And while I agree that all this could be applied to our human saying, it is not at all what Kaiidth means, even though at first glance, it may appear so.

Let’s look at the original translation. Kaiidth: what is, is.

In the KirShara page on Kaiidth, the saying is compared to the words of Lao-tzu in the 76th verse of the Tao Te Ching: “An army that cannot yield will be defeated. A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind.”

Kaiidth is a very complex word, you see, but at its basis, Kaiidth is acceptance. The beauty of it is that it can be applied to multiple situations, from the smallest to the biggest. The most used example to explain it is the mistake in artistic creation, as Surak’s discussion of Kaiidth shows:

Artists and composers easily grasp the concept of kaiidth. They use it in their creations without conscious thought. Even the best painters experience accidents. Paint is spilled. Water is splashed. Eager fingers leave stains. Some artists weep, believe their work is ruined. But the true artist fits the paint-drip, watermark, or stain into the picture.

This is kaiidth.

“Well,” you might say, “isn’t that the exact definition of ‘you should accept whatever happens without having feelings about it’?”. But really… you expect Vulcans to talk about emotional control in public? Please.

In this infinite rant, I am going to apply Kaiidth to emotional acceptance, which is something Vulcans are not comfortable talking about out loud but is definitely part of the Kaiidth philosophy.  It is doubly important for Vulcans, I may add, because it is a tool of emotional control, which is something fundamental for a telepathic species with very strong feelings. This acceptance works at multiple levels and it only truly works if you let it meet you where you are.

Keep reading

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these are the same picture just on opposite sides of the spectrum

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au where frodo is in rivendale on his way home from gondor, telling bilbo about his quest. he’s explained all the horrible details and then he’s like “but it’s not all been terrible. i have made lifelong friends in the fellowship. and uncle… i also found love.”

and bilbo goes very pale and tells frodo that he’s sure gimli is a lovely lad but relationships between dwarves and hobbits, well, they can be very tricky, see. has frodo thought this through?

and frodo, who had been talking about sam, just stares at his uncle. he thinks about the mithril shirt, a priceless treasure given as a ‘token of friendship.’ he thinks about his uncle's love of storytelling but caginess about the fallen dwarven king in particular. how he had to learn from gimli, who learned from his father, how close bilbo and thorin's friendship had been. and then he thinks about the fact his uncle never married and he thinks Oh. OH.

sam enters moments later. the misunderstanding is cleared up by sam's arm around frodo's waist and sam's earnest, awkward promises to treat Bilbo's newphew right. but there’s a haunted look in bilbo’s eyes even as he congratulates them that frodo does not have the courage to ask his uncle about. and anyway, it seems unkind, somehow, to ask.

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I open Tumblr. I post something that should be a diary entry. I close Tumblr. I open Tumblr after having it closed for 1.2 minutes. I reblog 176 posts in a row. I add tags of absolute gibberish to 7 of those. I close Tumblr. I open Tumblr I post yet another should-be diary entry. I close Tumblr. I open tu

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Eurovision Semi final 1 out of context

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my thoughts on the qualifiers:

norway: that song was so incredibly mid but norway qualifying with mid songs is nothing new i guess.

albania: yeah sure alright! it was fairly unique and scary and the staging was nice.

sweden: i would have killed someone if they didn't qualify. probably my favourite song so far. god bless

iceland: sure yeah it was a fun song, brought good energy when we were starting off. not a winner imo but it's a vibe

netherlands: it tricked me into thinking it was a sad boy ballad. thankfully it wasn't. i mean it wasn't anything super special but it's alright

poland: yep. best song they've had in years (which isn't saying much) and it was deserved

san marino: FINALLY they qualified. there's like 5 people in that country. let them have this

estonia: good. yes. one must get silly with it and estonia has proven they can do it well.

portugal: it is impressive how consistently mid the portuguese eurovision entries are. that is all i will say

ukraine: i mean kind of a shoe-in. them being the last qualifier to be announced wasn't super tense because it was practically a guarantee. it's a nice song and i like the costuming, i hope the vocals will be better in the final though!

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San Marino? Who wants a DJ in Eurovision?

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The first page of The Hobbit in the style of a 16th century medieval illuminated manuscript.

This started as a comfort drawing while I rewatched all the Hobbit films and ended up being a full on artwork that took a long time...

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So, I saw this image on Facebook, and it was supposedly showing what Queen Nefertiti would have looked like in real life:

Now, I thought this AI generated garbage was just truly terrible on a number of levels; first off, she looks wayyyyyy too modern - her makeup is very “Hollywood glamour”, she looks airbrushed and de-aged, and as far as I’m aware, Ancient Egyptians didn’t have mascara, glitter-based eyeshadows and lip gloss. Secondly, her features are exceptionally whitewashed in every sense - this is pretty standard for AI as racial bias is prevalent in feeding AI algorithms, but I genuinely thought a depiction of such a known individual would not exhibit such euro-centric features. Thirdly, the outfit was massively desaturated and didn’t take pigment loss into consideration, and while I *do* like the look of the neck attire, it's not at all accurate (plus, again, AI confusion on the detailing is evident).

So, this inspired me to alter the image on the left to be more accurate based off the sculpture’s features. I looked into Ancient Egyptian makeup and looked at references for kohl eyeliner and clay-based facial pigment (rouge was used on cheeks, charcoal-based powder/paste was used to darken and elongate eyebrows), and I looked at pre-existing images of Nefertiti, both her mummy and other reconstructions. While doing this, I found photos of a 3D scanned sculpture made by scientists at the University of Bristol and chose to collage the neck jewellery over the painting (and edited the lighting and shadows as best as I could).

Something I see a lot of in facial recreations of mummies is maintaining the elongated and skinny facial features as seen on preserved bodies - however, fat, muscle and cartilage shrink/disappear post mortem, regardless of preservation quality; Queen Nefertiti had art created of her in life, and these pieces are invaluable to developing an accurate portrayal of her, whether stylistic or realistic in nature.

And hey, while I don't think my adjustments are perfect (especially the neck area), I *do* believe it is a huge improvement to the original image I chose to work on top of.

I really liked working on this project for the last few days, and I think I may continue to work on it further to perfect it. But, until then, I hope you enjoy!

Remember, likes don't help artists but reblogs do!

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Imagine being JD Vance, who makes such a huge part of his personality being catholic. The pope himself takes time to lecture you on compassion then promptly DIES. The pope uses one of his last hours on earth to tell you that you suck at your religion on EASTER. And then DIES. Anyway RIP Pope Francis