Johnlock of Baker Street

How Many Earths Would Fit Inside The Sun

If The Moon Was Replaced By Saturn

Prop Used For Close-Ups In The LOTR Movies

United States Compared To The Moon

Traffic Light

Road Signs

Michaelangelo’s David

Great Pyramid Of Giza Compared To A Human

Size Comparison: Titanic Vs. Modern Cruise Ship

Humpback Whale And Diver

Salt Water Crocodile

Giant African Land Snail

A Full Grown Wombat

Leatherback Sea Turtle

Eagle Talon Vs. Human Hand

Gorilla’s Hand

Source

Not too long ago, my friend Bella came out as aromantic to me, and now I’ve got some things to say.

I was the one who told her what aromantic means, because I was explaining different sexual orientations to her. I remember saying, “Asexualiy is when you have romantic attraction, but no sexual attraction.”

Bella immedently, without missing a beat, asked, “Is there an opposite to that?”

I asked what she meant, and she asked if there was a term for sexual attraction but no romantic attraction. I told her about aromantics. She got weirdly quiet, then excused herself.

Not two weeks later I was heading to my boat. I was supposed to meet Bella and another one of our muteral friends there for a day of fishing.

As soon as I was in earshot, I saw Bella storming off the boat, and our other friend standing there like an idiot. Boi had no idea what was happening.

Anyway, Bella isn’t looking where she’s going and walks smack dab into me. That’s when I realized she was crying. Puffy red eyes, wet cheeks, the whole nine yards… And if you know anything about Bells, she does not cry. Ever.

She’s been through some serious crap in her life, and she does not cry. She’s tough as nails. Bella has a steel core. She does not not cry. I’ve seen her fall off a roof and break her arm before, not a single tear. I can’t stress this enough, Bella. Doesn’t. Cry.

So seeing her in tears shook me. I took her by the shoulders and escorted her somewhere more private where we could talk. We ended up in the women’s restroom, which was weird as fuck for me, because haven’t been in a woman’s rest room for years. Luckily it was empty, and I’m realistic, I know I don’t pass so well, so I don’t think anyone would have said anything anyway.

Before I can even ask her what’s wrong she hugs me around my middle and burys her face in my hoodie. Then, in a voice I can only describe as traumatized, she says, “I think I’m broken.”

I’ve never seen her in so much pain, and Bella and I are CLOSE. She’s one of my dearest friends. She’s like my little sister, but if she’s like my sister, our other muteral friend is like her twin. He and Bella have know each other WAY longer, they’re practically inseparable. They come as a pair. They’re a duo. They’re a package deal.

Appearently, said muteral friend asked Bella out and forcefully kissed her. She shoved him off, and told him she’s aromantic, which she only recently figured out. She wasn’t ready to be out, but this muteral friend left her no choice. She tried telling him no, and he didn’t listen. Bella saw no other option.

Quote on quote, this is what he said to Bella. “That’s okay. You just haven’t dated me yet. We’ve been like, unofficially together for years. You’re probably just freaked out that it’s finally going somewhere.”

After that I’m not 100% clear on what happened, but apparently Bella kept saying no Nd trying to explain herself, but he kept insisting he could ‘fix her.’

Eventudally she started crying and stormed away. That’s when I found her.

Keep in mind, this was her first experience coming out, and her best, closest friend insisted he could fix her and forcefully kissed her. I found out later he also implied corrective rape would ‘solve the problem.’

Bella was traumatized. She’s still traumatized. I tried to make her feel better by buying her an aro pride shirt, and taking her go a local LGBTQ+ hang out. I wanted her to be around like minded people, so she could see she wasn’t broken, and her identity deserved to be respected.

Instead of a warm, welcoming environment… The first thing someone said to her was, “This place is for REAL lgbt people. You don’t belong here.” He also implied she wasn’t human.

Just think about that for a minute. Her first experiences with being an out aromantic have been limited to;

A person she trusted more than anyone forcing himself upon her, claiming she was ill, and needed to be fixed. (Raped.)

Sobbing in my arms in the women’s restroom because she thought she was broken and defective.

Being told she wasn’t welcomed in LGBTQ+ spaces and called inhuman.

This isn’t what I want for her. Bella deserves better than this. She needs a support system, not all this crap. I’ve spent the past week trying to undo all the damage exclusionists, arophobes, and people she trusted did.

I didn’t put up with it as a teenager really into sci-fi, I didn’t put up with it from the dude bros in game and comic shops, and I certainly won’t stand for it in my LGBT+ community.

American actress Winona Ryder states, “I think too much. I think ahead. I think behind. I think sideways. I think it all. If it exists, I’ve f*cking thought of it.” People can overthink themselves to the point of detriment if they don’t carefully monitor it. But, it may be difficult to differentiate between thinking and overthinking, especially if you’re naturally more inclined to be pensive and generally enjoy studying abstract concepts and ideas. So, what does overthinking look like? And how do you know you’re taking part in it?

Overthinking is when you imagine what your future will look like 10 years from now as you hesitate in choosing between two options presented, considering it to be a life or death decision. It’s dwelling on the past long after a relationship has ended. It’s picking apart a situation and creating a problem before it even exists. It’s repeatedly choosing to sit on the sidelines to observe and analyze an event instead of actively participating in it. If you identify strongly with many of these examples, then it may be time to think about how to think less. Psych2Goshares with you 5 ways to help you stop overthinking:

1. Schedule a time to reflect.

It’s impossible to get rid of thoughts altogether and separate your mind from yourself. After all, how you perceive and see the world plays such a large part on your identity. But to give yourself a sense of control over your thoughts, you can start reserving a fixed amount of time for them. You can give yourself five minutes to think, worry, and analyze. Then, once the time is up, you can spend the next ten or twenty minutes reflecting on the situation and write about your concerns. Once that time is also eventually up, you can throw away the piece of paper…

How Do Volcanoes Make Lightning?

“Volcanic lightning appears to occur most frequently around volcanoes with large ash plumes, particularly during active stages of the eruption, where flowing, molten lava creates the largest temperature gradients. The phenomena of lightning has been exquisitely recorded around a number of recent volcanic eruptions, including Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull, Japan’s Sakurajima, Italy’s Mt. Etna, and Chile’s Puyehue, Calbuco and Chaiten volcanoes. But what you may not know is this phenomenon was not only captured during Mt. Vesuvius’ last eruption in 1944, but was accurately described nearly 2,000 years ago when it erupted all the way back in the year 79!”

Volcanoes are some of the most potentially destructive natural phenomena known to occur on our world. The most violent eruptions feature not only lava, but soot, ash, volatile gases, and even enormous chunks of rock hurled great distances. What you might not realize, however, is just how frequently these eruptions are accompanied by another spectacular show: volcanic lightning. Lightning isn’t only found in thunderstorms or other great electrical discharges between the clouds and the ground, but is produced in volcanic eruptions all throughout the world, and throughout history as well. After countless generations, where we wondered what could produce such an unusual but spectacular show, we’ve finally figured it out.

Writing characters of color cannot come from any place other than one of genuine compassion, understanding, and respect. You need to care about, empathize with, and respect our experiences, our stories, our culture, our beliefs, and most importantly, /us/. It’s not enough to slap a few coats of brown on someone, add some rolled R’s to their name, and call it good, and it’s not enough to make cultures into an aesthetic and say that’s appreciation. You have to genuinely give a damn about us as people if you want to write us well- it’s that simple.

Like, let me explain it in a way you might understand: it’s like… you can tell when a movie director is a misogynist because any women in the movies are objectified, written poorly, and treated like props for the men. You can tell they don’t care about women as people, even if they say they do and they don’t honk they’re a bad person! They don’t think of women as having stories worthy of being told or of being treated like complex human beings with their own goals, emotions, dreams, and fears. Women are props, an afterthought, more for the benefit of the men consuming the material and the writer themself than for women. There are countless examples in popular media of this and loads of articles about how this is harmful and bad. That’s not to say men have never written good women characters, but they are few and far between because lbh, they don’t tend to care about women besides as objects.

Now apply the same thought to people of color. We are also people, just as much as you are, and we too have our own thoughts and emotions and all that regular human stuff. But you all don’t treat us that way. You like us as your exotic lovers or aggressive protectors or selfless and ready-to-Die-for-your-white-ass friends. Or maybe you’ve moved past that- maybe you write us because “representation” or for brownie points with your non-white friends. But even from a point of good intent, if you don’t have compassion for us, if you don’t /respect/ us as actual human beings and care about our experiences (and how they’re different and similar to yours), your representation of people of color is going to suck, point blank. Anything but the utmost compassion and empathy for us means you’re writing us for white consumption just like straight men write women for male consumption. And that’s not good representation!

Take those frustrations you feel when men dehumanize you for something you have no control over and try and apply them to yourself in regards to the portrayal of people of color. Look at the little things they do and see how they disregard your complaints and ignore what you say and continue to only care about writing/making/directing things for their own pleasure, then look at yourself and look hard. Examine how you view people of color with the care you would want a man to examine his own prejudices against women. Think about how even if you don’t think you’re racist, you may unconsciously support racism, just like men with wives and daughters and mothers don’t think they’re misogynists even if they’re obviously sexist assholes. Consider how you would like women to be written with respect and empathy and realize that people of color too deserve that same consideration.