essaysanddnd - Tumblr blog

[essaysanddnd]

Nayyirah Waheed

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Robert Bly:

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Let go of the idea that things could have happened differently, as if this life is a Choose Your Own Adventure book and you simply turned to the wrong page. You did the best you could with what you knew and felt at the time.

Maggie Smith (via julesofnature)

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This has been making the rounds because it is that good. Tove Lo doesn’t waste a note, gesture, syllable, or beat. Honestly, I wish I could create anything a tenth as good.

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sometimes i think about how the last carolina parakeet and the last passenger pigeon both died, at separate times, in the same cage in the cincinnati zoo

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Relatable. The older I get, the more I find myself needing to think about what maturity is in order to act in any way that’s even remotely adult.

“Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”

— Margaret Atwood (via deather-child)

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Wolf year, illness at the door, our streets scabbed with police.

from Ryan Boyd’s “Wolves,” originally published in Protean. I thought about this poem way too much this week.

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This has been making the rounds on other social media sites, but it really is that good. Billionaires don’t pay taxes because they don’t keep cash on hand. They have large investments that they haven’t cashed in, and they take out loans using those investments as collateral. But the investments aren’t taxed, which is why billionaires are, well, billionaires. Noah makes the point that literally the entire world is being bought while we can’t tax a thing.

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A poem is published. It is posted everywhere. A tree drops its leaves in secret.

“Watchers,” a poem by Victoria Chang

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Needed these words. I know for myself I’m trying to juggle a lot of things right now. Small kindnesses are helping, there is some support, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of suffering and self-doubt. And when you mention the latter, some people think they have every right to kick you when you’re down, as if honesty about struggle should be silenced.

Ismashfizzle on twitter

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I’ve been in a few RP sessions recently where I’ll play out the natural 1. For example, a  perception check--”hey guys, looks clear to me! Everything’s fine! Let’s go!” It’s not a private roll, everyone can see it, and they make their checks too. I’ll just say it can sometimes be tough to get other players to interact based on their rolls. It’s like a lot of us have chosen to interpret the dice rolls as failure or success in the strict sense, as opposed to opportunities to build a story with each other.

*rolls a natural one*

well fuck

*eats the dice before the dm can see*

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Reading Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” slowly right now, trying to figure out why his non-fiction is majestic. He does not struggle to create personal scenes where emotion is heightened and we feel as he feels. He builds from what’s immediately relatable. It’s shocking to realize how many walls we create in prose between our experience and access to that experience. Baldwin makes it look easy when he invites us to reflect with him.

He was tired. […] He wanted to go home and lock his door and sleep. He was tired of the troubles of real people. He wanted to get back to the people he was inventing, whose troubles he could bear.

James Baldwin, from Another Country

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this is magnificent. can get lost in this for hours

I finally got around to finishing this doodle? Line art? Madness? After having it taped to my wall for months unfinished.

And progression pics below.

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it takes a while. took me years to figure out how to feel like i was saying anything worthwhile online

i do not ghost purposely i just have no idea what to say ever

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He was tired. […] He wanted to go home and lock his door and sleep. He was tired of the troubles of real people. He wanted to get back to the people he was inventing, whose troubles he could bear.

James Baldwin, from Another Country

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omg, that photo of the desert--just teeming with life

Please tell us about the desert.

So like. The desert is freezing at night and boiling at day. The elements are just about as savage as they can be and as a result it looks like a whole lot of nothing but dead, unforgiving, hostile emptiness. But that couldn't be further from the truth, deserts have a biodiversity matched only by rainforests and much like rainforest most of it is unique to that specific desert. Most deserts formed from ancient lakes or oceans that dried out, leaving the remaining creatures to adapt to a rapidly changing and ever more hostile environment. It's similar to those endothermic vents miles under the water any niche you can fill or make in a desert is extremely valuable but you can like, realistically go there. A desert is so very alive, despite looking as it does, despite everyone thinking otherwise. If you have never heard all the calls and sounds fill the cooling air as the sun sets as if to say 'I'm here, despite everything, I'm still here and I'm alive' it's an S tier experience.