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Relationships are not transactional. My mama always said they were more like a dance. This friendship is a foxtrot, all light feet and laughter. A waltz of old friends, the tango of the unspoken almost-something, the maybe-modern maybe-classic ballet/rhumba variation of best friends that simply see a movement and fall in step.

It is important, is all, to notice how often you extend a hand and lead the waltz. How often they leave you, hand out, hurting. Would they pick you up from the sidelines. Would they make some fragile excuses. Is this person your dance partner or are they your ruin. Do they care about you, baby. Will they cross the floor backwards on heels. Will they be there when you falter. How quickly do they forget you. What do you feel.

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oh i am ABSOLUTELY messed up but it did make me funny

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Me: reblogs cute picture Me: the government is corrupt and wants nothing more than to kill you Me: reblogs funny post

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Hey now, you’re an all star

listen to what I orchestrated

SoundCloud

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“Sweet dreams are made of this. Who am I to disagree?“

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idk lately been thinking about racism, people, the government, etc. it’s crazy how racism is connected to literally everything like the police (who you’d think protect you), and the government (who you’d think care for you, serve you, etc). like there’s just so much corruption in every corner of everything, and capitalism just fuels this. we talked about this in my sociology class where in capitalism, only a few make it to the top while every one else is just left to fend for themselves. in capitalism, we literally sell ourselves to work for people so that we can afford food, housing clothes, etc… but aren’t those things natural human rights? people are literally profiting off of the things every one should have. why are there people who are worrying about if they’ll eat tonight? capitalism. why are there people who are afraid they’ll get kicked out of their apartment because they can’t pay rent? capitalism. 

it’s like we’re slaves. we grow up, are forced to go to school where the government tries to dumb us down, we are pressured to go to college (which costs thousands of dollars), and we get jobs because we not only need to pay off college debt, but we also have to pay for food, clothing, and shelter. we are literally alive, we are here on this planet existing, and there are people controlling how we live, what we do, what we have to pay for, these people who are supposed to be protecting us are deciding our value. why does life have to be exactly this way? 

in school, they teach you communism is this horrible thing, all people are poor, every one will go hungry, they teach you that everyone gets paid the same. they teach you that being equal and just is wrong. in true communism, every one gets what they need, they don’t get more they don’t get less, they get what they need. people are like “Well in communism, if everyone has what they need, then people won’t want to work.” you’re wrong. if every one has what they need, they don’t need to be worried about working for money. they can work for passion because every body really wants to do something. for example, you really want to become a doctor? why? most people would say “because I want to help people,” not because they want money. you want to become a vet? why? you want to help animals. you want to create music? why? because you want to help others feel good and understand themselves. 

the most important thing Marx said about capitalism is that it will eventually collapse in on itself because the workers will be so poor that they can’t buy anything, the businesses will cease to exist, etc. Another thing he said is that communism will overcome capitalism through the use of violence. I believe we are already there, and I hope that there is a positive change to the world.

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status: still mourning the lost library of Alexandria

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This one is for you: For the person who never lets anyone see their demons or the battle they are fighting inside their head; for the person who gives everything to help those in need but does not seem to get the same care back; for the person who is hurting inside but hiding it with a smile on the outside even though what fills their nights are dark thoughts and cries; this one is for you, my love. I want you to know that I see you. I see right through the mask you are putting on every day and I am here to tell you that you can put it down. Drop it. Finally let those feelings out. It is okay. It is okay. I am here. I will not judge. I will support you as you heal in your own way.

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“Those working-class Londoners sheltering in tube stations during World War II? They weren’t supposed to be there. In fact, the British government of the late 1930s built far too few municipal shelters, preferring to leave that to private companies, local government councils, and individuals and when the first bombs first fell, the hardest hit areas were poor, immigrant, and working-class communities in the East End with nowhere to go. Elite clubs and hotels dug out their own bomb shelters, but the London Underground was barricaded. On the second night of the Blitz, with the flimsy, unhygienic East End shelters overflowing, hundreds of people entered the Liverpool Street Station and refused to leave. By the time the government officially changed its position and “allowed” working-class Londoners to take shelter down among the trains, thousands were already doing so — 177,000 people at its most packed. Eventually it was adopted into the propaganda effort and became part of the official mythos of the Blitz, but the official story leaves out the struggle. It leaves out the part about desperate people, abandoned by their government, in fear of their lives, doing what they had to — and what should have been done from the start — to take care of each other.”

— Laurie Penny, Tea, Biscuits, and Empire: The Long Con of Britishness

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top 10 tender actions

Fastening clothes/jewlery for someone

'Measuring' your hands

Touching freshly shaven legs to feel the softness

Letting them rest their head on your shoulder

Idly playing with their hands

Brushing a leaf out of their hair

Locking pinkies when you cant hold hands

Rubbing their back when you embrace

Both wearing an item that belongs to the other

Hugging them and feeling like thats where you were always meant to be

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“With every chance that you get, tell yourself something beautiful. Something genuine. Something that reminds you of how special you are to this universe. Whether it be a compliment, a smile, or words of encouragement; take the time to give it to yourself. You deserve it.”

— Nicole Addison (via resqectable)

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So, I’m reading Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium by Anthony Kadellis. It’s well-known, of course, that the Byzantine Empire was the uninterrupted continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire, and many history enthusiasts are also aware that we call it the “Byzantine” Empire because historically, western European scholars viewed it negatively and did not think it really “counted” as Roman, giving it other labels like the “Greek Empire” or the Byzantine Empire.

But Kadellis says that even among professional historians, the “Roman-ness” of Byzantium is still not taken seriously or simply denied. Much of the literature treats the Byzantines’ Roman identity as an “imperial ideology” or a “elite construct”, a distant abstraction used for propagandistic ends that had nothing to do with how most Byzantine people actually viewed themselves. Or it is simply glossed over or ignored.

However, Kadellis provides an enormous wealth of evidence from 1000 years of Roman and Byzantine history, drawing on all kinds of sources by writers of all social classes, showing that this could not be further than the truth. Byzantines of all social classes called themselves Romans, and this was not merely a hollow label, or some political category - it was an ethnicity or nation. The Romans of Byzantium viewed themselves as a distinct people distinguished from their neighbors by a combination of language, customs, dress, religion, biological descent, ties of kinship, and political institutions. One could become a Roman through assimilation, as with ethnic groups throughout history and as with many prominent “nations” today. The Byzantine Empire was thus the nation-state of the Roman people, who called it Romanía (Ρωμανία), and Romanía was an object of patriotic devotion by Romans of all social classes everywhere in the empire.

I won’t try to summarize the entire book, but Kadellis also traces the origins of this Roman identity: It ultimately dates from Caracalla’s extension of Roman citizenship to all subjects of the Roman Empire in 212 CE, after which Roman citizens began to view themselves as part of a single nation, a metaphorical extended kinship group, rather than mere subjects of a distinct imperial authority. It is after this date that written sources in both Latin and Greek begin to refer to the Roman Empire as Romanía.

Some additional illustrative facts that Kadellis brings to light:

The Romans of Byzantium vehemently rejected the label “Greek” (Hellene Ἕλλην or Graikos Γραικός). They did not think of themselves as Greeks who merely “called themselves” Romans

The Romans of Byzantium viewed the Greeks, or Hellenes, as an ancient, extinct people, though they were obviously aware they could trace their ancestry to them, at least in part - much in the same way that the Britons are a vanished people distantly ancestral to the English, or the Babylonians are a vanished people distantly ancestral to Iraqi Arabs

The Romans of Byzantium were of course aware that they spoke Greek, but this was no more a problem for their identity as Romans than it is a problem for the modern-day Irish to speak English. They considered Latin to be their ancestral language, and Latin still maintained a prominent place along Greek, especially in legal and military contexts, to the point that Latin and Greek were often considered the two languages of Rome (this idea actually dates back even to the pre-Christian period).

Eventually, by around 1100 CE, the name “Romaic” (Ῥωμαικός) completely replaced “Greek” (Ἑλληνική) as the name for the Greek language. The Byzantine Romans thus had two languages: Latin, the language of their ancestors, and Romaic, their modern-day language

The Romans of Byzantium viewed the ancient Romans as their ancestors, in both a literal and figurative sense - they were well-aware that many foreigners had assimilated into the Roman nation, but this in no way lessened their ties to their ancient Roman ancestors

The Romans of Byzantium traced their history to ancient Rome, viewing Constantine the Great as a bridge between their more distant Roman ancestors and Christian Rome. Pre-Christian Rome was still a part of Byzantine Roman national identity.

Some nobles and emperors traced their ancestry to ancient Roman figures such as Pompey the Great, even down to the Palaiologan period in the 1300s and 1400s.

In the 500s CE, Roman writer Cosmas Indicopleustes said that Rome was the most blessed of all nations, and would last eternally, because its kingship - i.e. that of Augustus - was born at the same time as Christ, and would partake in all the same honors

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pride desserts and sweet drinks

click here for individual posts with flavour descriptions

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i don’t study to be smarter i study because it’s my personality and i don’t have anything else going for me

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So I know on one hand this is a Very Serious Blog™️ but also...

We need more non-binary memes in the world

Show me the enby memes

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you’re in her dms i’m in her extant lacunal lesbian poetry we are not the same