Gentle Observations

[peterfromtexas-deactivated20250]

Reenactor throws a spear at a drone

[supapoopa]

What a time to be alive.

[tenthcorner]

“The medieval warrior, realizing the consequences of his impulsive act, immediately approached the owner of the drone and offered to pay for the damage.

The owner of the drone was so impressed by the brilliant attack that he suggested organizing a competition for bringing down “dragons” with short spears next year.

Drone owners have another year to develop a unique “dragon-like” design for their flying machines.” (x)

[kineticpenguin]

I am 100% cooler with this knowing that the spear-thrower realized “oops maybe I shouldn’t have done that” and tried to make it right, and that the guy who the drone belonged to was cool with it

[brunhiddensmusings]

just so everyone knows, this has already been memorialized in a runestone

[stephendann]

Everything about this post blesses those involved with a +4 on their next Today is Good Day roll

[fromaliminalspace]

a rough translation of inscription on the runestone:

On the seventh day of May in the year of 2016 on hither spot the mighty warrior Ulf hath slain a dragon with his spear.

so yeah, happy birthday to this dragon-slaying event and to it only

[egax]

I have been saving this since last year. Happy Earth Day everyone.

[flycoffee]

Happy earth day

[rifa]

Realized I have a naked rat and a small piano

Here's Harry banging out the tunes, April 13th 2023

[rslashrats]

forbidden neil the rat photos

[thezydratevial]

Happy Neil banging out the tunes day

[kateammann]

Happy International Asexuality Day!!! 🖤🩶🤍💜

[anameistoohard]

They may try to pave over us, but we'll always grow back 🏳️‍⚧️

Happy Trans Day of Visibility everyone! 🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵

[ruinedchildhood]

[spaghettioverdose-deactivated20]

Reblog to save a duck

[13faeinapenguinsuit]

Quack quack

[ijustgotherebro]

It’s getting to be that time of year where more people are going outside to parks and stuff so i thought it would a good idea to reblog this again

[theofficialvincenzo]

Once I was feeding some ducks from a bag of birdseed I brought with me, and this woman next to me looked so confused and asked what I was feeding them

When I said it was birdseed she just went “oh- can they actually eat that? Is that safe?”

I didnt know how to respond like, at all, so I just pointed at the duck and said “bird”

She then had a look on her face like a new groove was just forcibly carved in her brain and said softly “oh my fucking god”

[marithlizard]

Something I need to be reminded of often. Yes, I'm very lazy and also have executive problems up the wazoo (the difference? laziness is fun), but the cultural expectation of being productive every waking moment isn't healthy either. And the business of feeding ourselves is especially fraught these days.

[bogleech]

This is the same topic and screenshot that gave some of my chudliest chud haters such a meltdown after I posted it myself once, they raged at me for days and one by one dropped off of Tumblr forever. This subject kills idiots.

[pretty-little-things-from-jay]

DOGS -Ani @toomanypossumsinthistrenchcoat

Dogs are very appreciated friends 🐶

[acreaturecalledgreed]

the concept and idea of “you can always start trying to be a better person” is extremely important to me both in media and irl and i continue to be deeply deeply disturbed by the trend on this site pushing that these ideas in media are bad writing or even morally reprehensible

because theyd rather someone stay terrible or just straight up die than become a better person 

from a compassionate point of view it’s deeply distressing and from a pragmatic point of view it’s outright frustrating

it’s fucked up. 

[falliblefabrial]

What is the most important step a man can take?

The next.

[inklesspen]

[babblingfishes]

I think part of the pushback about this is the idea that, to “redeem” bad people, their victims must first forgive them for unforgivable acts.

This is false. No one is obligated to forgive you. You can learn from your mistakes and become the best, kindest person on earth, and the people you’ve hurt still won’t forgive you, and you’ll have to accept that. And that doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to grow. Because we aren’t just “pure” or “sinful”, we’re complex.

[two-bees-poetry]

so soft it hurts

[babyfoxcollectionthings]

[moniquill]

the father who stepped up.

[huariqueje]

Wave in Backlight - Peter Witt

German , b. 1966 -

Oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm.

[starberry-cupcake]

[inbabylontheywept]

People are so much more sad, and desparate, and lonely than you think. I have had three incidents in the last four months were a technician I was working with was being either dangerously unfocused (we work with high voltage), or just flat out angry with their coworkers, and every time when I just pulled them aside to say hey, this isn't you, you're nice, and you're competent, so something must be up - what can I do to help - they have responded by bursting into tears. One guy was struggling to get his wife moved into a care home, one guy just got served divorce papers, and the other hadn't slept a wink the night before because his daughter had the pukes.

I haven't spent my whole life responding to people being rude, or stupid, or dangerous with knee jerk compassion. It's a new habit. The first time I did that as the lead for my lab, it was because the guy genuinely was so good natured that I knew something had to be off. But the other two times were just me going, alright, lets see if it always goes this well, and so far, it has. I'm almost 30, and I just figured out that the #1 reason people are shitty are because they are going through shit.

I don't think you have, like, a moral obligation to respond to people being jerks with knee jerk compassion. But it has made my life so much easier the last four months that I would recommend trying. For your own sake. Please.

(I'll step off my soapbox now. Enjoy your Sunday.)

[weirdtranssexual]

i mean this in the nicest way possible but some of you need to learn how to be annoyed

[weirdtranssexual]

people are going to annoy you and that’s not a reason to burn bridges or blow up relationships

some people will even annoy you often! some people aren’t good at social cues and will therefore be frequently annoying! still not a reason to blow everything up!

[weirdtranssexual]

part of developing your sense of community is learning how to tolerate people being annoying to you

it’s no great hardship to include even the people you find a bit irritating in your community

[weirdtranssexual]

this post is about everyone who’s kind of annoying (which. everyone is annoying sometimes) but it’s also specifically about neurodivergent people who are just trying to exist in their communities without being ostracized for not doing every social interaction perfectly

[thoodleoo]

classicists will make the ugliest least functional website in the history of html and it will contain the entire library of fragmentary papyri of the works of aeschylus. for free

[no-siema-co-tam]

the best references of bronze age armor and weapons are on a site called salimbeti.com that literally looks like this:

[dukeofankh]

I cannot express how jarring it was after being raised by a "Porn Addiction Coach" to get into a relationship with a woman and come face to face with the fact that she did actually want me to sexually desire her.

Like, in Evangelical Purity Culture, male desire was basically poison. It was a threat. It was this constant temptation that would destroy everything. And even after leaving, in the sort of queer, feminist spaces i spend most of my time in that wasn't something that pretty much anyone was spending time actively dissuading me from feeling.

But my desire is good. It's not something that I'm being accepted in spite of. It's a positive thing. It's a bonus. Not even just vanilla stuff, all the stuff I'd convinced myself were these weird terrible desires that were shameful to have.

It honestly took me over a decade to fully accept that. To stop dissociating during sex and confront that I was, in fact, being a massive perv and that was fantastic and preferable and that I could accept that into my self-image without shame or self hatred.

But it's important to do. It's important to leave relationships that don't welcome that part of you. To know that your sexuality is valuable and valid and worth owning and celebrating. Because the alternative is just...not being. Either existing as yourself and repressing the part of your identity that is sexual or allowing that sexuality to exist but turning off your self while it does.

[dukeofankh]

@kisstheashes

Oh don't worry, I didn't make it out of Evangelical Purity Culture thinking that girls had it peachy or anything. Our experiences are different, but both bad.

I have seen a lot of content about E.P.C. that very firmly centers the ways that purity culture dovetails with rape culture, the ways that women and women's bodies were held responsible for the actions of men, and the ways that their own sexuality was erased under the burden of being cast as the pure, moral, oppositional force to the depredations of male sexuality. This is in no way meant to diminish that.

It is meant to focus on a part of this dynamic I don't see commented on nearly as much though. In purity culture, men are perpetrators. A good man doesn't radiate goodness, it's more that he's managed to contain the inherently evil toxicity that is his sexuality and hasn't let it harm everyone around him as it naturally will if unchecked. When I look for other stories like mine, I already see stories by and for women, and a lot of them... haven't really challenged those core assumptions about men. Which means that I can't really find comfort and solidarity there.

The narrative I've run into a fair bit is "I was taught women were responsible for managing men's horrible, evil sexuality, but I've learned that we're not. Men are responsible for managing their own horrible, evil sexuality." I very rarely run into specific positivity for masculine sexuality when I'm in circles discussing purity culture, because frankly, there are plenty of people who feel that masculine sexuality isn't stigmatized enough.

So yeah. I was specific about gender for a reason. Not because I don't understand other people's positions, but because while I do, I don't see so much stuff addressing my specific situation. So I figured I'd make some of the positivity I myself need.

In short: Not dismissing the harm done to women by Evangelical Purity Culture, this one was just more about my experience as a dude.

[fozmeadows]

This is a really important thing to talk about, and I'm going to add that this is a significant way in which TERFism and its attendant dogwhistles dovetail with Evangelical purity culture, ie: the idea that evil bad predatory behaviour is stored in the penis. TERFy fearmongering about trans women being fundamentally dangerous derives from exactly the same toxic, fucked-up view of male sexuality - and of male existence - espoused by Evangelism: that all men are biologically predisposed to predation, violence and other sexual evils, such that they can't ever really be trusted.

It's a difficult thing to talk about, because demonstrably, gender-based violence directed against women by men is a widespread problem! But it doesn't follow that a majority of men are bad by default; rather, it's that many have been trained to entitlement and bad behaviour by patriarchal systems and misogynist ways of thinking, which are both things we have the power to change.

Attemping to affect this change and bring about equality is the core conceit of feminism, and we can see, very demonstrably, that it works. So if you fall into the gender-essentialist trap of believing that men are bad fundamentally, whether because of Evil Biology or Original Sin, then you're not only saying that the long-term goal of feminism is impossible; you're functionally agreeing with every disgusting, sexist rape-apologist who brushes off assault and misogyny as "boys will be boys" and "men are just like that." You cannot hope to hold bad men accountable for their actions without acknowledging the existence of good men; that their misdeeds aren't synonymous with their masculinity, but are rather choices they specifically have made.

So while it's crucial to call out the ways in which women suffer from sexism and gender-based systems of violence and to name the misogyny inherent in their perpetuation, it's also important to show how these systems are unnatural: that, rather than representing some default state of cruelty to which all men naturally revert, misogyny is instead taught - and that the teaching itself, while offering contextual authority to men, can also be harmful to them.

[star-anise]

I haven't been able to get this off my mind, even though I left my job years ago. As a queer woman, I got hired by a Christian organization to provide mental health counselling to a largely-Christian population. I thought I was there to help other LGBTQ+ people, but I also saw clients with other needs and concerns

and the straight cis men who were ashamed of their own desires haunt me

They bought wholeheartedly into the ideas that their sexual desires were inherently sinful and predatory and destined to doom their lives if they slipped up, in a way that forcibly reminded me of when I was trying to be a good Catholic girl and knew that the soft animal of my body absolutely could not be made to run in the correct direction of the treadmill my faith was yoked to

More than once I had to back up any specific discussion and just ask, "According to your conscience and faith, what would a healthy married relationship look like when it comes to sex? How would this desire factor into it?" Because it's totally an enormous question, but it also often produced the facial equivalent to a computer blue screen of death, because they'd been told so often that male desire was ontologically incompatible with a healthy marriage, except also, they were supposed to want sex so much they'd destroy their own marriages over it???

I have feminism and queer culture and Chappell Roan telling me that my desire is good and okay, and I'm slowly getting less ashamed about it. And I just can't help thinking: What about men? How sad would it be to be told your sexuality is inherently aggressive and predatory and exploitative? How do you feel like you're bringing something valuable to a relationship that way?

It's unfair and absolute crap.