Where on Earth Do I Go?

Pedestrian traffic lights

Starting off with the difference between formerly Eastern German traffic lights (upper images) and formerly Western German traffic lights (lower images):

The city of Erfurt had some additions, like an umbrella or a heart:

Same sex love in Marburg (upper image) and Frankfurt (lower image):

Traffic light lady in Bremen:

Karl Marx light in Trier:

Face of Friedrich Engels in Wuppertal:

Elvis in Friedberg (Hessen):

A sparrow (for the Golden Sparrow film awards) in Gera:

Winemaker in Bad Dürkenheim:

Mainzelmännchen (mascot of the public broadcasting service ZDF) in Mainz:

Otto Waalkes (German Comedian) in Emden:

Town musicians of Bremen in Bremen:

A miner in Pirmasens, Rheinland-Pfalz:

Bishop in Fulda:

Source: Saarbrücker Zeitung

I have a folder of these on my phone... I'm not sure what that says about me!

Terry Pratchett, in a letter to J. R. R. Tolkien, 22 November 1967

Thank you very much for your letter. The first one that I have received with regard to Smith of Wootton Major. You evidently feel about the story very much as I do myself. I can hardly say more.

What if the children go to schools unafraid of tear gas and bullets?

What if the birds come back, and the bees are healed, and every species moves from endangered, to threatened, to thriving?

What if the rainforest ADVANCES?

What if every parking lot had solar panels? What if every structure had solar panels? What if we built climbing gyms and terraced gardens in the skeletons of old coal power plants?

What if you baked your neighbor bread, and they shared their home-grown blackberries?

What if every person who needed a home, had one? What if every person who needed healing was healed?

What if every body was treasured for what it was, not what it should be?

What if every trans child's parents attended their graduation, their wedding, their new-name-day?

What if every warehouse became a closed-circle repair station? Goods flowing out, and back, and out again? What if landfills started to SHRINK?

What if the water and air were clean? What if there was enough public transit that the cars dwindled, leaving the streets safe for kids on bikes, evening deer, midnight cats and foxes?

What if we win?

The condors are back. The whales are saved. The sea turtles are no longer endangered. The cranes are back. The bees are recovering. The air in LA and Tokyo and London is clean again. The aquifers in the LA Basin are refilling.

Children are kinder than previous generations. Parents are stopping the abuse cycle. Being trans and queer is more acceptable than ever on a ground level.

It's hard to see if you're young, if you don't know how to step back from social media and the news. But remember--bad news sells, and the algorithm knows despair keeps you scrolling. It's a skewed lens.

We are fighting and we are winning against this adminstration's bullying. We are coming together against the bullies and they are running away scared because they don't understand that we will do that.

People are working hard every day to find ways to make sure fewer animals get hit by cars and planes and rockets.

Maker spaces are more common than ever. Solar and wind are more common than ever. Coal plants are shutting down every day.

Unprecedented numbers of acres are being bought back or given back to their rightful stewards, and the world heals because of it. People are working hard every day to learn how to help a forest recover faster.

We are not at zero. We are at decades of effort to heal the world. We've come SO far.

In 1982 there were only 22 California Condors left in the world. In 1992, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), with its public and private partners, began reintroducing captive-bred condors to the wild. In 2001 the first wild nesting occurred in Grand Canyon National Park since re-introduction. In 2002 there were only 8 pairs of wild nesting birds population-wide. In 2008, for the first time since the program began, more California condors were flying free in the wild than in captivity. Today there are nearly 500 – more than half of them flying free in Arizona, Utah, California, and Baja Mexico.

When I was born, there were no condors in the wild. I'm 37 now, and there are over 250 condors flying free.

When my mom was born in 1955, there were days when she wasn't allowed to go outside to play, because of the air pollution. When I was born, that never happened anymore.

When I was born, humpback whales were critically endangered, and people thought they were going to go extinct. Today, they've recovered to exceed their recorded numbers. Other whales too!

We fixed it.

Since 1990 extreme poverty has decreased worldwide by over HALF.

"Goddess of Rot" Watercolor, 2026. For @everydayoriginal

Malenia, Blade of Miquella, Goddess of Rot.

The original piece has sold but I put some prints in the shop!

-

portfolio | shop | patreon

i've watched this so many times.

I've seen the collections of favorite tumblr fiction posts; now I'd like to see what your favorite "humans being human" historical posts are. (Because sometimes it is Nice to be reminded that compassion is not something easy for us to lose; we laugh at the same bad jokes; there are entire fossil records of our kindness.)

Here are my favorites-- add on yours.

The story of the RMS Carpathia, with a follow-up (aka one of if not the best pieces of short nonfiction historical writing in the modern age and one that reduces me to tears every goddamn reread)

Bronze-age grave of teenage gamer girl lovingly buried with her sheep ankle bone collection

The 1st-2nd century CE Roman tombstone with a bar joke that reads like a Dril tweet

And even earlier: A 4500-1900 BCE Sumerian bar joke

"Please know that there's an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that's beautiful to you"

Reconstructing Otzi's shoes

The Paleolithic grandmother and the child's fingerprint

Stone-age toddlers had art lessons

Ice-age children played in megafauna-footprint puddles

There once was a little boy who loved ducks

The oldest human burial found in Africa is a toddler; they made a pillow for his head

Henry Kenelm Beste's father loved him very much

"A Timeline of Humanity"

"I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them."

"I got to hold a 500,000 year old hand axe at the museum today. It's right-handed. I am right-handed"

A 3rd century dog carved on a marble tomb; a 1st century dog lovingly described and named for posterity

Patrice, a 1st-2nd century dog, was dearly loved

And: we found a Paleolithic dog, buried with its bone

Humanity, unified across time by everyday experiences

The Golden Record sent into space in the 1970s

Ancient Egypt had archaeologists

Egyptian figurine of a woman waiting for her bread to finish baking

The graffiti of Pompeii

Ancient Greek tourist graffiti at the tomb of Ramses V

Hidden messages on circuit boards

The earliest examples of someone chewing on the end of their pencils

"im having feelings about the uffington white horse again"

The vast relatability of Medieval marginalia (and cats peeing on things)

Potoooooooo

What our ancient ancestors would think, seeing us prosper

Engage with older art; it keeps you from forgetting their humanity

"They were just like you and me. They write don't forget eggs, and wondered if their neighbors secretly hated them or if they are reading into it too much. They loved and were loved and they wondered. They wondered about you."

"Why do you study history" web-weaving

He’s a boy from Novgorod, Russia back in the 13th century, who is remembered by doodles he wrote on his spelling exercises.

He drew himself riding on a horse and defeating an enemy who is presumed to be his teacher.

He wrote “I am a beast” next to a drawing of a creature. The text in the box is a greeting to his friend named Danilo.

My little 3d diorama, based on a painting by Józef Męcina-Krzesz, "Chopin's Last Chords", which I think is one of the gentlest, most beautiful paintings. Done in Maya, ZBrush and Substance Painter and rendered in Blender

Józef Męcina-Krzesz's original painting: