#My favorite HIStory!

[respectthepetty]

Because I need y'all to appreciate the man that is HIStory 4: Close to You's Li Cheng and his amazing boyfriend Mu Ren (who is taller than him), so you can make the right decision in the BL Bracket for Bisexual Swag.

"I didn't spam you! I only sent eleven pictures! I took over a hundred photos, but I only chose the best ones."

Li Cheng didn't snag his tall angel while trying to get the girl for nothing.

He put in the work!

VOTE FOR PEDRO LI CHENG!

[choppocco]

to be understood!

[yeoldenews]

Yet another selection of some of the better names I've come across in Regency era newspapers recently.

[deep-space-netwerk]

So Venus is my favorite planet in the solar system - everything about it is just so weird.

It has this extraordinarily dense atmosphere that by all accounts shouldn't exist - Venus is close enough to the sun (and therefore hot enough) that the atmosphere should have literally evaporated away, just like Mercury's. We think Earth manages to keep its atmosphere by virtue of our magnetic field, but Venus doesn't even have that going for it. While Venus is probably volcanically active, it definitely doesn't have an internal magnetic dynamo, so whatever form of volcanism it has going on is very different from ours. And, it spins backwards! For some reason!!

But, for as many mysteries as Venus has, the United States really hasn't spent much time investigating it. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, sent no less than 16 probes to Venus between 1961 and 1984 as part of the Venera program - most of them looked like this!

The Soviet Union had a very different approach to space than the United States. NASA missions are typically extremely risk averse, and the spacecraft we launch are generally very expensive one-offs that have only one chance to succeed or fail.

It's lead to some really amazing science, but to put it into perspective, the Mars Opportunity rover only had to survive on Mars for 90 days for the mission to be declared a complete success. That thing lasted 15 years. I love the Opportunity rover as much as any self-respecting NASA engineer, but how much extra time and money did we spend that we didn't technically "need" to for it to last 60x longer than required?

Anyway, all to say, the Soviet Union took a more incremental approach, where failures were far less devastating. The Venera 9 through 14 probes were designed to land on the surface of Venus, and survive long enough to take a picture with two cameras - not an easy task, but a fairly straightforward goal compared to NASA standards. They had…mixed results.

Venera 9 managed to take a picture with one camera, but the other one's lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 10 also managed to take a picture with one camera, but again the other lens cap didn't deploy.

Venera 11 took no pictures - neither lens cap deployed this time.

Venera 12 also took no pictures - because again, neither lens cap deployed.

Lotta problems with lens caps.

For Venera 13 and 14, in addition to the cameras they sent a device to sample the Venusian "soil". Upon landing, the arm was supposed to swing down and analyze the surface it touched - it was a simple mechanism that couldn't be re-deployed or adjusted after the first go.

This time, both lens caps FINALLY ejected perfectly, and we were treated to these marvelous, eerie pictures of the Venus landscape:

However, when the Venera 14 soil sampler arm deployed, instead of sampling the Venus surface, it managed to swing down and land perfectly on….an ejected lens cap.

[szczekaczz]

Friedrich von Amerling, Liegender Setter (1836)

[sophiathefallen]

I think people underestimate the popularity of Steven Universe because I opened Tumblr today and Steven Universe is trending. So I think to myself, "is it a special day in Steven Universe's history?" Nope, the closest thing is a short was released this day in 2020. Ok, so then I wonder if any news came out about it. I check Rebecca Sugar's and Cartoon Network's social media. No Steven Universe posts. Finally, I decide to just click the tag and...the posts have nothing in common. The captions are all different, no characters dominate more than they normally do, it's just...another day on Tumblr. Steven Universe just be like that

[casualavocados]

Rand al’Thor. In the glass columns you will walk the footsteps of your blood ancestors. Each step forward, a step backward through time. Sometimes dozens of years, sometimes hundreds. To lead is to know where you came from, to understand the blood in your veins.

THE WHEEL OF TIME 3.04 | The Road to the Spear

[cureskies]

i hope we'll stay good friends, pagogo!

[tibli]

i have been trying to figure out why the whole 'fae god' and katniss everdeen things with kendrick lamar on here were bothering me, and i think i finally put it into words.

most posts like that are probably coming from well-meaning white people (i am also partially a White People, to be clear), who otherwise dont really listen to rap. they cannot find a way to 'relate' to this black man who sings largely about issues that affect the black community– and rather than try and meet him where he is, they have to fit him into these little tumblr cultural boxes before he can be 'palatable' to them.

they have to shave off the rougher/more abrasive aspects of his work and activism because it makes them uncomfortable, that way they can pigeonhole him into something that allows them to enjoy his work without the critical analysis that MUST come with it

he is not your fae god, he is not a YA protagonist, he is not a little gremlin or a cinnamon roll or a blorbo. He is a human being with opinions and beliefs that deeply permeate his work, and to ignore that truth is to ignore the entire point. PLEASE try to engage with artists' work outside of the lens of tumblr fandom, and i mean that as nicely as possible. you are doing YOURSELF a disservice

[uh-ohspaghettio]

Bro what sex position is this

[cassandragemini]

its so crazy that for the last 5 years a small but annoyingly vocal online group has been acting like mob movies of all things are pretentious and inaccessible cinema. yeah the godfather is kinda slow but these are movies about criminals who shoot people

[marzipanandminutiae]

we are all going to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston together and I am showing you Ladies Drinking Tea Bitchily by Mary Cassatt

(okay it's called The Tea but you can FEEL the bitchiness. can you feel it. the waves of Petty Bitch. take my hand. together we too can drink tea in the bitchiest of manners)

(and then we are going to Taste Cafe in the contemporary wing for chocolate mousse. they have really good chocolate mousse. ideally it is raining outside)

[iwantoceans]

My brain everyday

[yeoldenews]

A selection of dragons, wyrms and other mythological creatures from various 17th and 18th century calligraphy copybooks which were drawn with single lines to practice (and show off) penmanship strokes.

[atomicradiogirl]

victor lundy’s WWII sketches

[cockroachesunite]

Madhouse Promenade

(inspired by this)