carmex

i have been here forever and truly believe putting my name and age here is creepy and unnecessary. i like things, though icon and banner by @warsche

[hellenhighwater]

Should I be saving my money for a down payment on a house and getting rid of furniture so I have less to move? Yes. And also yes.

But consider:

She's $300 and I need her

[hellenhighwater]

You guys are a terrible influence.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

This phrase has already entered my vocabulary re: media criticism where like. The viewer has a concrete view of what they expect a story to be based on the tropes and cliches they're used to seeing together, and when that doesn't happen, they judge it as a failed depiction of what they assumed it was going to be instead of judging it as what it actually is.

"This show is problematic because the hero didn't kill the villain at the end": When does he steal the bread?

"These two characters who were close friends throughout the series don't kiss at the end! What the fuck?": When does he steal the bread?

"This feels like it's missing a conclusion! Like, the protagonist does bad stuff and because of a critical decision he makes as a result of his major character flaws, meets tragedy in the end! Where's the part where he learns better and brings is love back from the dead and becomes a good guy and gets a happy ending?": When does he steal the fucking bread??

[thetetra]

I heard this out as "When criticizing something, you must judge it for what it is, not what it isn't"

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#this is why so many of us urge people to get a wider diet of stories

[pukicho]

felt like making some gay drum and bass for pride month

[megaera-ily]

you're so cool

[pukicho]

Lgbtq

[microsff]

Every morning, the queen asked her magic mirror to show her the most beautiful person in the world.

The mirror replied "To whom?"

"The miller who made the flour for my bread," the queen would say, or "Whoever spun the thread my shawl was made of".

The mirror would show her, and she'd be amazed.

[nullen-void]

The first time, she says "To me," and the mirror dutifully shows her her reflection. And she is pleased.

The second time, she says "To the King," and she is pleased to see herself once more.

The third time, she says "To the Royal Advisor," and is once more satisfied to see herself.

The fourth time, she says "To the scribe who takes the King's letters." She is shown the man's wife. And she seethes, but quiets herself, for it is only right that a man loves his wife.

The fifth time, she says "To the Court Wizard," and is shown the man's departed mother as he remembers her from his youth, radiant and smiling and warm and larger than life.

The tenth time, she says "To the Stable Master," and is shown the fastest horse in the stable, majestic and free as the wind even in captivity

"To the baker," she is shown the man's daughter, young and adorable and full of joy and laughter.

"To the artist who did my portrait," she is shown a painting of a woman done by the man's teacher, who he still looks up to now that he is well established himself.

"To the Royal Knight," she is surprised but not displeased to see the castle's entire guard force in the middle of doing drills.

The one hundredth time she asks the mirror, and it asks her "to whom?" she once again says, "To me." And she does the same the one hundred and second, and again and again and again.

It is a different person each time, and they are all beautiful.

[curioscurio]

i dont have the strengrh to finish coloring the rest of the comic rn (3am) but i need everyone to know that the last panel is the best kiss ive drawn in awhile. so prepare

Zzzzz

[curioscurio]

completion

[starwarsheritageposts]

star wars heritage post

[trekheritageposts]

star trek heritage post (May 13th, 2021)

[magicratfingers]

oh well i guess ill just be fat and hot

[magicratfingers]

guess ill be fat and hot and hot

[justagingerwithredhair]

Happy Coelacanth Saturday, everyone!

[prinnay]

Quick art

[partywithponies]

Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???

[urlocalpyshcopan]

as a black gay person real like where y'all be finding this stuff pass the name

[brainsforbabyjesus]

for real though, those DO NOT WATCH OR YOU'LL CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN lists put out by conservative christian family groups is where I find all the stellar tv shows. Like, shit I didn't know half of those existed, thanks for finding them for me, gonna go watch 30 hours of gay tv now!

[infamousbrad]

I think I know how this works.

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Same as the journalists describing Black Rock City as all naked. Same as the right-wing religious culture warriors describing television as entirely mixed-race and gender non-conforming. Not because it's even vaguely true, we know that, but because they haven't gotten over their discomfort over the last one by the time the next one comes along. The anger, not the stimulus, is the part that's continuous, so their mind lies to them that it's "all" the thing they can't get over.

[kagedtiger]

Similar effect for the presence/proportion of women in things, by the way: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/how-17-equals-496-the-amazing-multiplying-women.htm

[jayalaw]

What’s the solution then? Or if there’s no solution, should we make things even queerer and more diverse?

[babyanimalgifs]

[archivedbarfblog]

1-800-ARE-YOU-SLAPPIN

[trochaic-mutant-ninja-tetrameter]

🎶Birdy with the loud steps! Noisy talons!🎵

[hellenhighwater]

What is a cat if not a silly little guy that follows you around 24/7, making funny faces and shedding on your clean clothes?

[hellenhighwater]

Mayhem. What is that. Is there some tiny, four inch tall prince running shirtless through my house? Where did this come from??

[kuttithevangu]

The other day a neighbor asked if this toy has a name and I didn’t want to admit that my mother calls it “his carcass”

[almyranpine]

really good tiktok

[moklahoma]

Came back from visiting family in Nigeria

[plaguedocboi]

I remember when I was younger, anytime I watched a movie where the characters have to kill a scary monster/alien, I always thought the act of killing it was intended to be part of the horror. Like there’s this amazing creature that we’ve never seen before, and maybe under different circumstances we could’ve coexisted with it, but it’s trying to attack you and you have to defend yourself, but by destroying it you also destroy the ability to ever understand it and that’s sad and is supposed to make you feel conflicted.

It was not until well into my adulthood that I realized most people do not have complicated feelings about movies where people have to kill a scary alien monster, nor is that necessarily meant to be part of the narrative (unless it very obviously is). They just want the scary thing to die because it’s scary. I don’t have a real conclusion to this I just started thinking about it for some reason.

[bogleech]

I always felt I couldn't possibly be upset about dying to an alien monster because proof of otherwordly life is exactly what it'd take for me to die happy

[wordfather]

idk if this is an usamerican thing or not but it always blows my mind as a small european country resident that yall have many names and types of apples???? what do you mean its not just red yellow or green??? why is it so complicated??? who is granny smith????

[wordfather]

'whats your favorite apple' 'red' 'no i mean like what type' '??????' actual conversatiom i've had with a mutual from usa

[wordfather]

THIRTY TWO??????

[phillyphillyphilly]

Listen that doesn’t even account for all the weird shit local farmers are getting up to.

May I present the best apple:

[wordfather]

the world is so big and beautiful

[madtechnomage]

Look! Look! You have to understand! Apples have CRAZY genetics! You’ll never plant a seed and get the same type of apples!

All these apple varieties have to be graphed. They have universities trying to find the “perfect” apple varieties.

AND this doesn’t even account for things like cider apples, which you do NOT want to eat.