Hello! We're the Observances. We do local gardening and activism, and post unfunny things on the internet. We have chronic pain & fatigue, autism, and a lot of other stuff wrong with us.
You can call us Observances. It's pretty safe to call us Iris most times unless we correct you, also.
You may also know us from a specific sideblog of ours. If you do not know what that sideblog is, and you're curious about it, why not do some digging around? It might prove interesting for you.
A preemptive warning: since it's pretty dear to our heart and personal genders, we will not be tagging any gore, scopophobia, or horror. Sorry.
You've gotta be good at analyzing both good and bad media btw. You can't just be good at taking something apart to see why it doesn't work, you have to be good at taking something apart to see why it does.
Recognize flaws even in works you adore; be willing to admit when things you think are amazing still had room to be better.
Even more importantly, get good at recognizing what DOES work and what IS done well in media you don't like. In things you think overall are BAD.
Learn to accept that sometimes, in specific areas, bad media you hate can absolutely pull something off better than good media you love. That doesn't have to change their overall rankings. If the good media does 98 things better and 2 thing worse, it's not an insult, as much as it may feel like it, that something like that bad media did one or both of those better. And you are only ever limiting yourself if you refuse to acknowledge a glittering diamond just because it's sitting next to some garbage.
Despite the simplification, there's no such thing as objectively Good Media or Bad Media. There's media that's easier or harder to understand, either via better or worse execution or by intentionally esoteric design. There's media that resonates more with a broader audience and media that appeals to a more niche one. But every story has the potential to be loved by someone, and if you want to consider yourself good at analysis, you have to learn to figure out why.
while you're here hoping to do fucking better by a Black woman you can help me out, a multiply disabled queer Black woman.
I have to pay my car note and my cat is still at the pet hospital. It's $50 a day not including the treatment and I can finally pick her up today. The price they gave me is $637. Please. My gas is still off and the weather is cooling down and that's my form of heating. Also I'm diabetic and can't cook without gas either. Rent is also due in a couple days.
Y'all I still need to pay the gas and power before they are cut off please help. I've gotten $20 towards them in days. It is black history month, please show up for a disabled Black lesbian.
Israel has violated Phase 2 of the ceasefire agreement and has blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza once again during Ramadan. Prices for food and other necessities have skyrocketed. In addition to this, the solar panels that produce the energy that allows Gazans to connect to the internet are still in need of repair.
Simply put: there is a lot for us to do right now.
Please donate and share to the Al-Anqars fundraiser, which supports the lives of 14 people, as well as their community in North Gaza. While the Rafah border crossing is still closed, it is IMPERATIVE that we continue raising funds so that once it opens, the family can cross as quickly as possible.
€14,210/€20,000 – DONATE AND SHARE
A Cry from the Rubble: A Family Torn Apart by War
… ghada alanqar needs your support for Rising from the Ashes: Ghada’s Journey o
tip 1 it's very easy to fake textposts and images online in order to farm engagement. you'll unlock tip 2 sometime in the future, but good luck for now
in 2026 we'll be getting a lot more aloof and reclusive so if you wanna be considered friends you Will have to complete a whole ass quest chain, sorry. we're a high difficulty level tranny
bad news folks!! i just checked our headspace designs for early 2025 and ephet's major change is "gets porcelain fractures upon body centralized around neck/shoulders/wrists/knees/etc.". and like. that's pretty. and then i (your local flesh horror) look at mine and it's just "horrid blood polyps growing out senselessly from the body, internally and externally". what do you even do about that
In only a few days, our next project inspired "Despair Dilemma: A Death Game Mastermind TTRPG" Launches on Backerkit!
If you or someone you know are a fan of Death Games like Danganronpa, Squid Game, and Zero Escape - or if you're just a fan of unique TTRPGs, then I'd really love if you gave our game a look!
Everyone who Signs Up to be notified when we launch will get access to our Free Demo, and everyone who Backs in the First 48 hours will add +1 Community Copy to be made available to TTRPG players in need!
Check it out here, and I hope you'll support us once we launch: https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/900da2c7-32c0-454d-96dc-55168f3c2b7c/landing
In only a few days, our next project inspired "Despair Dilemma: A Death Game Mastermind TTRPG" Launches on Backerkit!
If you or someone you know are a fan of Death Games like Danganronpa, Squid Game, and Zero Escape - or if you're just a fan of unique TTRPGs, then I'd really love if you gave our game a look!
Everyone who Signs Up to be notified when we launch will get access to our Free Demo, and everyone who Backs in the First 48 hours will add +1 Community Copy to be made available to TTRPG players in need!
Check it out here, and I hope you'll support us once we launch: https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/900da2c7-32c0-454d-96dc-55168f3c2b7c/landing
In only a few days, our next project inspired "Despair Dilemma: A Death Game Mastermind TTRPG" Launches on Backerkit!
If you or someone you know are a fan of Death Games like Danganronpa, Squid Game, and Zero Escape - or if you're just a fan of unique TTRPGs, then I'd really love if you gave our game a look!
Everyone who Signs Up to be notified when we launch will get access to our Free Demo, and everyone who Backs in the First 48 hours will add +1 Community Copy to be made available to TTRPG players in need!
Check it out here, and I hope you'll support us once we launch: https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/900da2c7-32c0-454d-96dc-55168f3c2b7c/landing
In only a few days, our next project inspired "Despair Dilemma: A Death Game Mastermind TTRPG" Launches on Backerkit!
If you or someone you know are a fan of Death Games like Danganronpa, Squid Game, and Zero Escape - or if you're just a fan of unique TTRPGs, then I'd really love if you gave our game a look!
Everyone who Signs Up to be notified when we launch will get access to our Free Demo, and everyone who Backs in the First 48 hours will add +1 Community Copy to be made available to TTRPG players in need!
Check it out here, and I hope you'll support us once we launch: https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/900da2c7-32c0-454d-96dc-55168f3c2b7c/landing
In only a few days, our next project inspired "Despair Dilemma: A Death Game Mastermind TTRPG" Launches on Backerkit!
If you or someone you know are a fan of Death Games like Danganronpa, Squid Game, and Zero Escape - or if you're just a fan of unique TTRPGs, then I'd really love if you gave our game a look!
Everyone who Signs Up to be notified when we launch will get access to our Free Demo, and everyone who Backs in the First 48 hours will add +1 Community Copy to be made available to TTRPG players in need!
Check it out here, and I hope you'll support us once we launch: https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/900da2c7-32c0-454d-96dc-55168f3c2b7c/landing
In only a few days, our next project inspired "Despair Dilemma: A Death Game Mastermind TTRPG" Launches on Backerkit!
If you or someone you know are a fan of Death Games like Danganronpa, Squid Game, and Zero Escape - or if you're just a fan of unique TTRPGs, then I'd really love if you gave our game a look!
Everyone who Signs Up to be notified when we launch will get access to our Free Demo, and everyone who Backs in the First 48 hours will add +1 Community Copy to be made available to TTRPG players in need!
Check it out here, and I hope you'll support us once we launch: https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/900da2c7-32c0-454d-96dc-55168f3c2b7c/landing
In only a few days, our next project inspired "Despair Dilemma: A Death Game Mastermind TTRPG" Launches on Backerkit!
If you or someone you know are a fan of Death Games like Danganronpa, Squid Game, and Zero Escape - or if you're just a fan of unique TTRPGs, then I'd really love if you gave our game a look!
Everyone who Signs Up to be notified when we launch will get access to our Free Demo, and everyone who Backs in the First 48 hours will add +1 Community Copy to be made available to TTRPG players in need!
Check it out here, and I hope you'll support us once we launch: https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/900da2c7-32c0-454d-96dc-55168f3c2b7c/landing
Gum arabic, a vital ingredient used in everything from Coca-Cola to M&M's sweets, is increasingly being trafficked from rebel-held areas of
Gum arabic, a vital ingredient used in everything from Coca-Cola to M&M’s sweets, is increasingly being trafficked from rebel-held areas of war-torn Sudan, traders and industry sources say, complicating Western companies’ efforts to insulate their supply chains from the conflict.
Sudan produces around 80 per cent of the world’s gum arabic, a natural substance harvested from acacia trees that’s used widely to mix, stabilise and thicken ingredients in mass-market products including L’Oreal lipsticks and Nestle pet food.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war since April 2023 with Sudan’s army, seized control late last year of the main gum-harvesting regions of Kordofan and Darfur in western Sudan. Since then the raw product, which can only be marketed by Sudanese traders in return for a fee to the RSF, is making its way to Sudan’s neighbours without proper certification, according to conversations with eight producers and buyers who are directly involved in gum arabic trading or based in Sudan. The gum is also exported through informal border markets, two traders told Reuters.
Asked for comment, an RSF representative said that the militia had protected the gum arabic trade and only collected small fees.[...]
In recent months, traders in countries with lower gum arabic production than Sudan, such as Chad and Senegal, or which barely exported it before the war, like Egypt and South Sudan, have begun to offer the commodity aggressively at cheap prices and without proof that it is conflict-free, two buyers who have been approached by traders told Reuters. While the acacia trees that yield gum arabic grow across Africa’s arid Sahel region — known as the “gum belt” — Sudan has become by far the world’s biggest exporter due to its extensive groves.[...]
Before the Sudanese civil war, the raw gum would be sorted in Khartoum and then trucked to Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, to be shipped via the Suez Canal around the world. Since late last year, however, RSF-affiliated gum arabic started to appear on sale at two informal markets on the border between the Sudanese province of West Kordofan and South Sudan, according to a buyer based in an RSF-controlled area, who declined to be named due to safety concerns.
The buyer, a major trader in the West Kordofan area, said that traders collect gum from Sudanese land owners and sell them to South Sudanese traders in these markets for US dollars.
