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Studio Ghibli crossover anyone? I haven’t seen anyone do this yet so here you go ❤

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“I hated going out with them because something would always happen.  It was usually on birthdays and special occasions.  I was painfully shy, but they weren’t shy at all.  They’d scream at each other in restaurants.  He’d never hit her in public because he was smarter than that.  He’d save that until we got home.  I felt like a soldier growing up.  Even the quiet times were stressful, because things could go wrong at any moment.  One time he chased her around the house with a knife.  Another time he broke her finger.  We’d always go to my grandmother’s house after the big incidents.  Those were the calmest times of my life.  But after a few weeks he’d always show up with flowers, and Mom would say: ‘OK, we’re going back.’  I tried to tell her that it wasn’t just her.  That we were suffering too.  But her answer was always the same:  ‘We can’t survive on our own.  And he doesn’t do it to you.’  Things changed once I started going to college.  I became more confident.  I felt powerful for the first time in my life.  I packed his bags.  I took his house keys.  I went to court, filed the forms, and served him myself.  Mom’s doing much better now.  She looks twenty years younger. She’s going out with friends again.  She’s taking theater classes.  And I just finished my first year of law school.” (Toronto, Canada)

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the only thing i knew about sex at the age of nine was that

1) it was for mommies and daddies who were married;

2) it made me, my five year old sister, and my baby brother.

i learned everything i knew about sex from the internet while secretly browsing grownup sites on my 4th generation ipod touch i earned for doing so well at a piano recital. because of the nature of, you know, men and their internet porn, i learned that my sexual role as a woman was to be slapped and pissed on and tied up. i didn’t know what healthy sex was. i didn’t know it should be mutually consensual, or that it was okay to want sex with girls. i didn’t know that sex should be good for both people. i learned that sex would hurt, and that sex was about men and men only, and that i would be forced into sex whether i liked it or not, and that it was normal to have sex with big, burly, grown men as a teenager. i learned it was normal to cry during sex. i was scared of sex for so many years because of that, and the way i was exposed to sex at a young age led to the inappropriate and traumatic sexual encounters i had (occasionally with older people) later on in my teen years.

the day i got my first period, i was ten-and-a-half. i was swimming in the river with my best friend, and when i got out to go to the bathroom, i noticed brown blood on the inside of my mint-green tankini bottom. i knew what a period was, but i hid it from my mother in shame. she found out, eventually, of course. she told me, you have a woman’s body now, and if you have sex, you could have a baby. all i heard was, you have a woman’s body.

i started shaving my vulva when i was eleven, because i saw memes on memegenerator about how disgusting “hairy pussy” was. i wanted to be sexy. i was eleven years old, and all i wanted was to be sexy. it hurt, and it itched, and it made me uncomfortable, and i’d sometimes nick my labia with the razor, but i did it anyway, because i didn’t want to have a nasty, “hairy pussy.”

eleven was the age i first started getting pinched on the EL. i was an early bloomer: i had B-cup breasts already, and my menstrual cycle was regular enough that i could keep a calendar. i started wearing a full face of makeup to school and buying shorts that rode all the way up my skinny twelve-year-old thighs. i remember the day i stopped jumping off the swings the summer after fifth grade. skinned knees weren’t sexy. smooth, flawless legs were sexy, and i was a sexy girl. i was probably the sexiest little girl in the whole world. my parents hated it. they told me i was too young, but i knew the truth. my body was older, maybe 17 or 18, so my brain must be, too.

when i was twelve, i had a secret kik account that my parents didn’t know about. i used it to message strangers. i made all sorts of friends. i wasn’t stupid. i used a fake name. never showed my face. one of my friends asked me for a bra picture. i was a cool girl, right, i was sexy, so i sent him a picture of me in front of my bedroom mirror in my little white training bra with the blue butterflies.

sexy, he said.

that was all i wanted.

i’m not typing out all this bullshit because i think it’s something special. i’m typing it out because it’s not. i’m typing it out because i see the same thing happening to my little sister. i’m typing it out because i see the same thing happening to that little millie bobbie brown, sexiest actress at thirteen. i’m typing it out because i’m sixteen years old now, a girl in the eyes of the law and a woman in the eyes of men.

mothers, talk to your daughters. tell them to jump off the swingset and skin their knees. tell them to get dirt on their dresses. tell them that they’re a woman on their 18th birthday, not at ten-and-a-half on the first day of their menstrual cycle. the world is confused. the world is sick. if your daughters don’t hear about how to treat their bodies from you, they’ll hear it from the sick, sick world, and they’ll do the things i did.

let girls be girls.

don’t force womanhood on little girls.

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“I’m ninety-six years old.  I’d rather just take a pill and get it over with.  Whenever I tell that to my wife, she pretends to slap me in the face.  But I’m ready to go.  And I’d like it to be sudden.  I’ve had a good run.  I was lucky enough to share my life with someone.  She’s ninety now.  We’ve had a lot of time together.  We have seven grandchildren.  Eight great-grandchildren.  But there are just so many things I can’t do anymore.  I have the money.  I have the time.  Just not the ability.  Whenever I walk, everything hurts. I enjoy sitting here in the park.  I think about all the friends that I’ve lost.  People come talk to me.  Time passes by.  But I’m ready.  I’m not scared of it.  I’d like my soul to go to wherever the souls go.” (Barcelona, Spain)

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“I had the usual anxieties when I was younger.  Making good grades.  Keeping my parents happy.  So there were elements of my personality that were drawn to being a rabbi.  I thought it would give me a platform to guide people and make them happy.  Pleasing people in exchange for adoration was a very convenient arrangement for me.  But I forgot that if you’re in a position to please people, you’re also in a position to disappoint.  In many ways the rabbi is a symbol.  People see you as a symbol of how God thinks.  Or feels towards them.  Or acts toward them.  And that’s a lot of pressure.  There’s pressure to be fully present for everyone, even at the supermarket or Sunday soccer games.  You always want to give comfort.  Or a thoughtful response. Or at the very least your undivided attention.  And that can be exhausting.  Especially in the age of the iPhone.  I had a wild dream one night that all eight hundred families at my synagogue were lined up outside my office.  And everyone needed me at the exact same time.”

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The “I Love You” scene without the background music.

Damn you pick up a lot more in Loo and Ben’s acting without the music.

Still have trouble making out if he does shout “I love you” again there towards the end as he smashes up the coffin.

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“I’m on my fifth job in eleven years.  It’s not that I don’t do good work.  The layoffs have always been tied to company performance, or just being in the wrong position at the time.  But the instability has caused me to rethink my relationship to work.  My first job out of college, I lived and breathed work.  I managed a team.  I was always available.  I’d answer emails at midnight.  I took work calls on my wedding day.  And I never minded.  I felt like the magical cog that kept everything going, and that indispensability was a big part of my confidence.  So I took it pretty personally when I got laid off.  Dozens of people lost their job that day, but I still saw it as a personal failure.  After that I was forced to separate my identity from work.  I’m trying to measure myself on how I interact with friends and family.  Or how well I support my husband.  I’m not checking emails right before bed anymore.  Or right when I wake up.  I’m offline during the holidays.  Because I know the company will be perfectly fine without me.  And the work will always be there when I get back.”

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“I want to be a musical theater actor.  I have six auditions tomorrow.  Five the next day.  Everyone says this, but you really do hear ‘no’ everyday.  It’s not even a ‘no,’ actually.  It’s just silence.  They never tell you that you didn’t get a part.  You just hear nothing at all.  There’s a website called Audition Update where people post if they’ve gotten a job offer or callback.  It’s a way to let everyone else know that they haven’t been chosen.  I used to be on the site all the time.  I kept refreshing the page for each of my auditions, waiting for someone to post about a callback.  Then I’d check my email to see if I’d gotten one.  All I ever wanted was to finally be the person who was able to post.  It was pretty toxic.  It made me feel inept.  I could actually see the people who were getting all the jobs I wanted, and rejection became this tangible thing.  I’ve stopped going on the site.  I’m trying to focus more on the process and less on the outcome.  I’m taking all the energy that I put into my phone, and putting it into my journal instead.  I write things that I love about myself.  I write everything I can remember about each audition: who was in the room, what was said, things I did well, things I could have done differently.  But once it’s on the paper, I let go of it.  It helps me stay in the moment.  And it helps remind me that the whole reason I’m acting is because I love it.“

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I remember being around thirteen and thinking romance was stupid, that there was always something “better” or “more important/complex” than it. There was always something “more,” as if romantic love couldn’t have its own depth and significance.

Which is, as you might’ve guessed, completely wrong.

I remember being nineteen and talking to a nontraditional student friend who was in her thirties. We somehow ended up on this topic and laughed about it. Of course, by then I was starting to shed that pretentious, know-it-all mentality, though I still out of habit dropped that “more” line regarding two characters from a show we both watched and she laughed out loud. She looked me right in the eye and said, “Honey, we’re at very different points in our lives.”

I’m in my mid-twenties now, and I still occasionally catch myself giving that same knee-jerk reaction when I can tell it’s what someone’s pushing, and do you know what? I feel like a dishonest idiot every time I do. I think some of us just get so used to having that narrative shoved down our throats that we automatically regurgitate it any time the question comes up. 

You’re allowed to love love. You’re allowed to get excited about the idea of it. You’re allowed enjoy your silly fics and fan art and films. You’re allowed to care entirely too much about that tiny little romantic subplot in the fantastical adventure epic. You’re allowed to enjoy those cliched novels with the cheesy Fabio-esque covers at the grocery store.

Don’t let condescending people put down your tastes or interests. There certainly are a lot of them who try these days, and the reality is we’re all free to read and enjoy the types of content we please. I mean, good lord, I’ve visited a local bookstore twice and the girl working the counter has been loudly complaining about women who read romance both times. I’ll admit it gave me quite a few flashbacks of the girl who hissed–as in actually hissed–at me during a class discussion when I said writers should write whatever they damn well please (referring to romance, as it was the topic).

I’m a graduate student. My BA is in English. I’m tired of the books that always have to have some sort of agenda or have to “say” or “mean” something. Sometimes, I want to read about the girl who moves to a lazy little beach town and has an amazing summer fling, makes new friends, and gets a fresh outlook on life through it all. I want to pick up the racy fic with that pairing that I’ve been crazy about for ages. Sometimes, I just want to sit back and enjoy things and not overthink them. 

Just let people read in peace. 

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uhh >__> so I was reading this shoujo romance manga.. and there was a scene kind of like this xD so I couldn’t help myself xD I had to draw Arnold and helga like that xD  so.. yeah xD here you go >__< 

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Goodnight #OpportunityRover, we’ll see you again. ✨❤️

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“When the kids were young I was living in the moment.  I was just trying to get them through the day: homework projects, sleepovers, keeping the food coming.  Taking this one to a band concert.  That one to a track meet.  There were plenty of worries, but they always seemed manageable.  I could usually intervene if one of the kids had a problem.  And I thought: ‘Once they’re out of high school, I’m done.  I’ll finally be able to relax.’ But all my children are adults now, and I’m worrying more than ever.  Because their problems didn’t stop. They just became adult problems.  And there’s not much I can do anymore.  One of my sons has depression.  I began to notice during our Sunday night phone calls,  his voice was flat, the answers were short. Then I asked the right questions and it all came out.  He said:  ‘I’m depressed. And I don’t know why. And I don’t know how to fix it.’  One night he just wept on the phone, quiet weeping, which is the worst. Because there’s nothing to address. Just lots of dead space, and: ‘Are you still there?’  There wasn’t much I could say to cheer him up.  Mothers tend to lose their credibility after a lifetime of praise.  So I’m just left to worry if it will ever resolve.  I worry if he’ll ever be happy.  I urged him to see a professional, but there’s not much else I can do but pray.  I’m not sure if prayer helps, but I get on my knees and do it anyway.”

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Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.