well howdy

call me kesh. pronouns they/any. 30-something gender freak surviving small town america.

[valend]

Yahhh I have to build Rome. Yup it’s due tomorrow.. noo I haven’t started yet haha is that bad?

[wilwheaton]

[grumpypedant]

I think a lot of people have trouble understanding transgender issues because they try to see themselves as trans, but come at it from the wrong direction. e. g. a cis woman tries to understand transness by going, “what if I felt like/wanted to be a man” when she should be approaching it as “what if I, a woman, was so easily mistaken for a man that I had to pretend to be one”,

And I think this is something to keep in mind and to explain away when trying to get these matters across to people who’re new to the idea.

[odd-birdie]

in 2026 we're putting a stop to the idea that strength is a "manly" quality. women are strong and fast and determined and they are women. women of all races and sizes excel in sports. their excellence is not manly. their strength is not manly. their success is not manly. "manly" is not a compliment to be bestowed on women who succeed. they are women AND they are strong.

[vintagewildlife]

"I can't believe humans would hunt the thylacine to extinction, humans are fundamentally evil" Hey, did you know that extinction was long thought to be impossible, and within 50 years of humans realizing that extinction via overhunting was a possibility it practically stopped happening? Did you know that humans are so desperate to prevent more losses that they're funneling millions of collective hours and billions of euros into helping other species? Hours and euros that could be spent on humans, being spent on species on whom humanity's own survival does not depend? Did you know that due to an accidental introduction of rats, the Lord Howe Island stick insect population was brought down to 24 individuals and now there are tens of thousands of them?

This bug. This bug that, to most humans, is utterly useless, relatively gross, and completely foreign. Humans saved it because humans do not want to cause another extinction ever again if they can avoid it.

[lodgerlodger]

“How dare people read such problematic fiction.”

Idk, Jan. How dare people visit amusement parks and tie themselves to 200 feet drop towers built exclusively to create the illusion of free fall. Surely this is a great disrespect to every person who has ever fallen to their death throughout history, a sickening glorification of gravity related fatalities, and a crime against life itself.

[intosnarkness]

Mutuals if you’re the pope you have to tell me or it’s entrapment

[cowboyhatesithere]

250 years and most native tribal groups continue to not be federally recognized. Embarrassing!

[cowboyhatesithere]

Hey so a small thing that literally everyone who sees this is capable of is correcting any “used to” statements about native people in this country.

“Native people used to live in this National Park” No. They still do.

“Native people used to tell these stories-” No. They still do.

“Native people used to use this plant as a natural remedy-” No. They still do.

Better yet, familiarize yourself with the tribes local to you. Odds are, they do not yet have federal recognition. You can still read the stories they have to share, you can share their ongoing battle for recognition with others, you can sign petitions and spread the word to others to do so as well. But do something.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Just a reminder that the Chinook Indian Nation was one of the very few tribes to be recognized and then have that recognition rescinded. They've been fighting to regain recognition ever since, and you can find out more about how to help them no matter where you are at ChinookJustice.org.

[the-habitat-ring]

70+ tribes have lost their federal recognition since the 1800s for various reasons that mostly boil down to treaties and policies that prioritized termination of tribes and “integration into American society.” Many tribes are also unrecognized as separate from a larger tribe, meaning they can access benefits by enrolling in the recognized tribe but by doing so weaken the chance of their own tribe ever gaining recognition because the government only recognizes one tribal affiliation per person (also screwing over the many people with ancestors in multiple tribes). And since they have no support, they struggle to continue as a community to practice their traditions and consistent community, which is a (hard to prove) requirement for regaining that recognition

Find and learn about the people near you. My closest tribe is one of those that lost their federal recognition thanks to legal nonsense. I regularly hear people around here calling them “pretendians” while at the same time they’re barred from many activities like educating others at schools and public events due to their lack of recognition. Yeah, there are people out there faking things, but there are also many people who have been fighting for recognition for decades, and with a little looking and listening it’s not hard to learn the difference

[pangur-and-grim]

accidentally stayed up until 2. they got so tired waiting for me to go to sleep

[pangur-and-grim]

[anti-parent]

yesterday & today i've been thinking a lot about what it means to take children & teens seriously as knowledge creators. because of course people jump to the "oh so you want me to ask a 5 year old why the sky is blue act like the answer is true"

well no. but we should still be asking 5 year olds why the sky is blue. not just as a precursor to telling them the Right Answer but to encourage them to critically examine the things we take for granted every day. even if they don't know the correct answer immediately, whatever their answer is will tell you a lot about how they view the world. and it gets you as an older person in the practice of asking younger people for information instead of just assuming you have it all and they have none. and then if you ask them a question that you don't know the answer to, and they don't know the answer either, then you get to experience that process of discovery together.

this is something i need to work on. i answer a lot of "why" questions from the kids but i don't ask them many.

[anti-parent]

and then it extends to creative endeavors too. i'm a classically trained pianist & flautist and i really like that i got that experience growing up. it was one of the main ways that i got to enjoy being really good at something at a young age. but it took me a good 5 years of being absolutely miserable in piano lessons before i learned to enjoy it at all. and that was because of LABOR ALIENATION fuck ok i'm putting it all together now. i didn't get to choose what genre to play, what pieces to play, or how much to practice. my job was to reproduce The Greats with whatever little personality flair i could manage to add without bastardizing the work. i learned a lot of music theory but it was mostly so i could understand the pieces i was playing, not so i could use it to create my own work. nobody gave a shit about that.

i know i'm probably just reinventing the suzuki method or whatever but god how different would it have been if i'd been taught how to use music theory as building blocks to interpret my own experience, to create my own work. to have that as the central purpose of music education from the beginning, and then add education about historical movements & artists as a way to further inspire new creations. instead of acting like music composition is a right you have to earn.

what if we treated children's creations seriously as a body of work instead of as practice for the Real Thing. what then.

[radiant-sunlight-angel]

i have a friend doing piano lessons who is working on the exams before ABRSM exams (so shes rlly good at piano basically) and she absolutely hates it. her opinion of composition is that it is a task in her exams, that she has to "prepare" for composition.

on the other hand a family friend who is like 10 is encouraged to write his own songs and rlly finds joy in piano. he wrote this rlly lovely song that isnt the most expressive, beautiful thing ever, sure, but it's rlly lovely. and his family encourages it.

thats the thing i love about jazz. you are supposed to take the thing and make it your own. everything i play contains my soul

[anti-parent]

you got it exactly lmfao this post is based on my experience prepping for ABRSM too! and i LOVE playing jazz piano for the same reason. so exciting & spontaneous & beautiful. playing with a jazz band was such a magical feeling and it was also really hard to get used to after 10+ years of rote learning. i'm really glad your family friend is getting to do that, that's so special :')

[headspace-hotel]

My brother and I have been talking a lot about music (he is a guitarist and I don't play anything) and my friends that played music when i was in highschool made it sound like the most complicated torture labyrinth in the world, but apparently people can and do learn to play by just. picking up an instrument and messing with it until it makes neat sounds.

[raelemond]

blood spray is just another kind of cumshot

[destiel-news-channel]

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'JK Rowling posted upskirt photos of a woman on Twitter' to Cas 'I love you'. /End ID]

No one doing this should be allowed to call themselves a feminist.

JK Rowling deadnamed and posted 'upskirt' photo of trans woman on X

The wealthy author escalated a social media spat that resulted in posting a photo from a 2023 event at the Institute of Economic Affairs in

[solarishashernoseinabook]

Let's not beat around the bush: Children's author JK Rowling sexually harassed someone. In some jurisdictions, this would count as sexual abuse. JK Rowling has committed a sex crime against a woman and fell back on the old rape apologist standby of "she was asking for it".

I hope your nostalgia is worth it

[holy-leapin-splits-batman]

[raptorific]

[poprocksromance]

A cautionary tale about the growing literacy crisis

[yourrottingwife]

SIMPLE GUIDE:

Body Horror: Things that cannot happen in real life. EX: The Thing, stomach mouths, eyes on hands, etc

Gore: Fresh injuries, often severe. EX: Severed leg, gutspill, deep gashes, etc

NEITHER: Healed injuries and burns, congenital differences, missing appendages, etc. If I could theoretically go to the store and see that character browsing the isles- It isn't body horror or gore. That's just a person. *AND the amount of people that tag, not just fictional characters, but real human beings as body horror is staggering. Its not solely a fandom issue, ableism and bigotry against anyone that looks sufficiently "different" is prevalent in real life and has devastating consequences.

(Modified) from my comment left on this post.

[yourrottingwife]

Adding:

Self harm scars are not body horror.

Pregnant people are not body horror.

Burn scars are not body horror, that includes chemical burn scars.

Prosthetics are not body horror.

NOT having prosthetics is also not body horror.

There is no disability aid that is body horror.

Congenital differences + disabilities are not body horror.

AND acquired differences + disabilities are also not body horror.

Real people are not body horror.

If you are uncomfortable or scared because someone looks different than you that is YOUR PROBLEM. It is your responsibility to get over it, or at the very least not make it everyone else's issue. Play the quiet game.

[digitaldiscipline]

This is the 85 year old creator of Roger Rabbit:

[tolerateit]

"i need to get soooo much done today" starter pack