This Saved My Life

war knocks on your door with ironed clothes and clipped greetings, jaws closed around your father’s throat like a noose before he can even try to invite it in. your mother doesn’t tell you much, but you’ve heard the news on the wireless, heard the words your father sent you away for, heard them from your perch atop the stairs, nails digging into your older brother’s shoulder and silent tears begging for your other siblings not to wake.

war shakes your father’s hand and drags him out before he can let go. your mother’s shaking fingers brush down her skirts with care. she asks you to help her with the chores, her smile too wide and eyes too wet. you pretend not to hear her at the kitchen table late at night, trying her hardest not to let you hear her grief. she joins the factory, irons her work clothes with a sigh, and comes home to scrub her hands until the skin is raw. 

war pushes down on your family like lead. your siblings drag their feet, their shoulders curved forward and down in slouches that make your chest ache. you brush down your dress and tell them to straighten up, to take steps with purpose. it doesn’t work often, your voice far different than that of your mother or father. you don’t know how to make them listen. the binding of the book in your lap creaks under your curling hands, your brother rolls his eyes and stomps up the stairs like a wild animal, his shoes a tripping hazard for all that dare come after him. your sister—curled up in that armchair nobody else dares touch in your younger brother’s presence anymore—cries into the bear your father presented her with on her sixth birthday. your older brother stumbles after you all like a shadow with a cracking voice, failing as much as you when it comes to commanding order. he makes your mother tea, carries the laundry, tries his hardest to fix the sink. he yells when things go wrong, as desperate as you to help. it doesn’t make a difference.

war draws shadows under your mother’s eyes as she brushes her thumbs over your cheeks and tells you to be a big girl. your younger brother doesn’t listen and your sister cries. you don’t know how to do this, how to hold yourself like the woman sending you into the unknown to keep war’s blood-stained grip away. you brush down your clothes, straighten your brothers’ jackets even as one flinches under your touch and the other almost crumbles between your shaking fingers. you hold your sister and pray for war to walk away.

war hands you weapons amidst melting snow, your older brother’s hands stain red, your sister sobs into the fur of a lion you can’t help but curse just a little, and your younger brother’s bruised face won’t look at you straight on.

your bow creaks under your curling hands. war greets you with a smile.

17 free and helpful things, that everyone can take advantage of

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library They send an age appropriate book once a month if you have a child younger than 5.

Project Gutenberg Lots of free classic books.

Library Genesis A great place to look for and download college/university textbooks for free, as well as other books.

Scihub Endless Free college books. (and peer-reviewed scientific publications that are otherwise hidden behind a paywall)

Khan Academy Free knowledge that you can use to clep out of university courses, or to simply invest your time in a worthwhile topic.

Openlearn UK’s Open University - free courses for all levels of study, samples of university materials, study skills and tie-ins to BBC documentaries. Everything under Creative Commons licence so you can use it as you see fit.

Duolingo The Green Owl of Languages. There are a few hundred that it teaches and the mobile app makes it easy to do anywhere while waiting (!warning! only good for Spanish, German, French, Dutch, Esperanto, and English. with anything else it gets very low-quality and short.).

Codecademy An awesome site to learn how to use some programming languages. Doesn’t get into the really advanced stuff, but it’s good for a start.

Photopea Completely free Photoshop clone that has all the basic features of Photoshop, using basically the same interface.

Gimp Another free version of Photoshop.

Unsplash Stock of free photos of just about anything, provided by the photographers themselves, to do with what you like.

Futureme You can write letters to yourself (or other people) in the future! You can also make notifications and reminders of a +doctors appointments or anything else important.

Heavens Above You can look up all the satellites flying over your house tonight, including the ISS, Hubble Space Telescope, those pesky Starlink satellites, and whatever else your heart desires, complete with star maps and precise timing. And there is an Android app, but unfortunately no iOS one last I checked. (For iOS you can use “Sputnik!” which is free and tells, when ISS and Hubble passes overhead.)

Night Sky Other astronomy app for iOS. If you hold your phone to the sky the app tells you what you’re looking at (or point it at the ground for a view from the other side of the planet). Zoom in with two fingers and tons of deep space stuff is revealed.

Freecycle its literally people giving away stuff they don’t need/want any more that they can’t/don’t care enough to sell.

Nexus Mods Has thousands of video game mods (for 1,509 PC games), made by independent content creators, available to download at no cost.

Archive The Archive aka Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and so much more… For example a lot of DOS games (classics like Prince of Persia, Oregon Trail, DOOM, Monkey island, Rayman, Turtles), directly playable through the browser.

STOP SCROLLING!

Oka, I plan on following everyone on tumblr

literally everyone

Please reblog so I can make this happen

Oldboy //  The Handmaiden // Sympathy For Lady Vengeance // Decision to Leave // directed by Park Chan-wook

"Hades can't leave the Underworld"

This is me staring into space

"Hades was banished to the Underworld by Zeus/was tricked into ruling it by Zeus (and sometimes Poseidon as well)"

Now I am turning around and staring straight at you, sloooooooowly

"Hades hates everyone else and especially Zeus"

Puts my hand on your face, gentle-like

Look. Shut up. You are very, very wrong. Marinate in how wrong you are and stop talking for a bit.

rober

cucculelli shaheen “supernovae” collection

Queen never CRY. 🖤 (shitpost)

This is your obligatory Hermes love post

Reblog if you really love Hermes, like if you really love Hermes.

You have been visited by the Chan of wealth, reblog this and you will have money come to you!