A Jar of Starlight

Mollusca 31, Physics Teacher, Exhausted

[mrsmollusca]

love of my life

[monstersovka]

🌱 the peacemaker spirit 🌱

the auction takes place here 🍃

[youtendtoforget-deactivated2025]

I’m ready to be transformed by the ibuprofen . I’m ready to be born again in its purifying light.

[3000s]

we are in truble

[fluffyplushiesworld]

[zoesupreme]

well the thing is that's an extremely reasonable concern

[dailycatsblog]

[byjove]

I feel like every time we did standardized testing in school, we all said “I’m pretty sure I bombed that, that was tough. That was awful.” and I’m sure some of us meant it but I’m pretty sure a not insignificant percentage of the student population felt fine about their performance but didn’t want anyone else to feel bad and did not want to sound like a stuck up dickhead.

[my-dailydreams]

[tyrantisterror]

I was a really soft-hearted little kid who cried a lot and liked to play games about making big families and nurturing things, which, since I was a boy, meant I got the shit kicked out of me a lot by other boys for being girly. Boys were supposed to be tough and fight and compete and try to be the best, you see, that's how our imagination games were supposed to go. And that's what media aimed at boys when I was a kid focused on - heroes who beat the shit out of people and are tough and don't cry et cetera et cetera.

And I learned to like that and see the appeal in that, sure. There are lots of stories that were made for an audience of little boys that I ended up liking. But I always wanted something that told me boys like me, who didn't want to be violent or competitive, who liked nurturing things and making friends, who avoided fights whenever allowed, were valid.

So I was really happy when Steven Universe came around and was exactly that - the kind of show a sensitive little boy like I used to be would have killed to see. And very shortly after that I was crushed when the growing criticism of the show repeated the refrain that it was bad mainly because Steven was a pacifist who cried and didn't want to be violent and liked nurturing things and making friends instead of killing people. I wasn't surprised, no, it made perfect sense people would hate it for being that, but I was crushed all the same.

Our society only accepts a very narrow definition of masculinity, and kindness isn't allowed to play a very big role in it. That's one of the reasons I quit it.

Anyway, I'm a daycare teacher now, and one of the kids in my class is a really sensitive little boy with big feelings and a bigger heart, who acts very nurturing to his little 3-D printed dragons, and gets very upset at how mean and rude the other little boys can be when they're trying to prove they're mature and tough. Recently he's been talking to me about a show he found and has fallen in love with called Steven Universe, and I've been delighted to hear him regale me about how much he loves it. I bet it's doing him some real good to see that it's ok for a little boy like him to have a big heart and to want to make friends instead of fight all the time. He's making up his own crystal gem OC too, isn't that nice?

[memewhore]

[themanwhooncedweltinavault]

[depsidase]

[alvallah]

One of my favorite things about loving someone or developing a closeness or fondness towards someone is also loving and developing a fondness for the things they care about. When you learn to see the world in a new way, or you learn to appreciate the things you’ve previously overlooked, or they become your excuse to get into an interest you always thought was cool but thought you didn’t have time for. When a connection makes your world bigger and warmer and fuller and more beautiful.

[carmelcup2]

[lakevida]

i thought the person in front of me in line at the pharmacy was around my age and then they gave their birth date and i almost fell to the floor who the fuck gets born in 2007 are you out of your mind

[i-post-hilarious-shit]