Just shouting into the void about the Bee Gees

[headspace-hotel]

So I wanted to know what kind of crystal could go in a wizard staff, right? so I googled “big crystal,” as one does, and got an Etsy ad for This

And as you all know I Am currently taking a geology class, so I am probably more emotionally invested in minerals than usual. But that is...very obviously not a natural crystal.

So I did some looking around on Etsy.

Now, these shops all seem to advertise to the “witchy”/“spiritual healing” type of person. And there are a lot of them. Crystals are a Big Thing on Etsy. And ALMOST ALL of them are obviously artificially cut into the same sort of prism with a triangular pyramid top, regardless of the actual sort of crystal it is supposed to be.

Even like, fucking, obsidian. Obsidian is volcanic glass, it doesn’t form crystals at all, it is not a crystal

I’m not throwing any shade at people who are into crystals for like witchy reasons, but it really seems like if crystals are spiritually important to you, you should know what a crystal is...right...?

[headspace-hotel]

So there I am. Caught in the helpless anger and distaste of looking at geologically inaccurate Etsy crystals.

And as I scroll, I start to see items in...interesting shapes:

“Oh,” I think to myself. “Oh no.”

But it is too late. I have heard the siren’s song, singing to me of knowledge that will destroy me, but that I cannot help but seek.

These...elongated objects are almost always ambiguously described as “massage wands,” “crystal healing wands,” and other such innocuous things. The egg-shaped objects are, um, “yoni eggs.”

...Right. Okay.

Maintain the youthfulness of my sacred organ.

IT’S A SEX TOY. SAY IT. BITCH, IT’S A SEX TOY, IT’S OKAY, SERIOUSLY, THERE’S NO SHAME IN IT, SAY IT WITH PRIDE, SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST,

OKAY.

Okay. I’m good. I’m fine.

Actually, you know what, never mind. There is shame in this and I want it to be never acknowledged again.

Additionally, I am not fine.

Why the fuck are there so many of these—

At this point I stop and start googling.

Now, Selenite is the crystalline form of gypsum. It is also known as satin spar. Selenite is brittle and breaks easily, and has a Mohs hardness scale of 2.

For those unfamiliar with the Mohs hardness scale, a mineral with a hardness of 2 is soft enough that it can be easily scratched with a fingernail. It also is dissolved by moisture.

NO. DON’T PUT THAT IN YOUR BODY???? DON’T PUT THE GYPSUM, WHICH HAS A MOHS HARDNESS SCALE OF 2, IS BRITTLE AND BREAKS EASILY, AND IS WATER SOLUBLE, INSIDE YOUR LITERAL ACTUAL VAGINA??????????

I try to reassure myself with the fact that these things are probably not actually selenite, because making a dildo out of such a soft mineral in the first place would be very difficult. Having seen fluorite before, I feel pretty certain that the fluorite yoni eggs are probably actually just glass.

I google fluorite.

Okay.

Further exploring online shows me that fluorite is soluble in various strong acids.

Some guys on a forum in 2004 have strong contradictory opinions on this.

(I google the pH of the vagina.)

I don’t understand how pH works. I give up on the solubility question and google the toxicity of fluorite:

I now know at least one orifice fluorite does not go inside.

Science.

[headspace-hotel]

No, dear followers, my journey did not end here.

I have opened Pandora’s box, except Pandora’s box is filled with minerals God did not intend to be anywhere near the vagina carved into the shape of dildos. Etsy is advertising me sex toys I wish I could forget.

And vaginal steam herbs.

It seems that there is potentially a correlation between wanting to steam your vagina and wanting to put rocks in it. I know, groundbreaking discovery.

Okay, so we’re talking therapy substitute therapy substitute.

(I begin to think about how desperately we need universal health care. Maybe I just need someone, something, to blame.)

At this point, I realize that I haven’t done any googling on whether dildos made of rocks are a good idea at all. So, very tentatively, as if typing it more slowly will make it any less observed by the FBI, I google whether quartz should be used...internally.

First result that pops up:

That’s, uh. That’s reassuring.

I decide I’m incapable of unpacking this particular suitcase.

There are, of course, a small handful of articles debating the safety of rose quartz sex toys. But I’m getting the feeling that this is not a normal question to have in the first place. I close the tab with little relief.

Etsy is still enthusiastically recommending me things that hurt me psychologically.

...pleasure chalk?

How can I describe the fear that this image struck in me, reader?

Pleasure Chalk? What could that be?

Is knowing worse, or is not knowing? I scarcely have a choice:

I check in with my emotions.

Is this relief? Am I relieved that they are eating the dirt instead of fucking it? One review complains about the taste. I don’t know what they expected.

I try in vain to struggle against the tide, to return to the relatively normal side of Etsy. I begin to resent, no, hate, these deceptively aesthetically pleasing hippie shops eagerly spreading medical misinformation and things as yet unknown.

This, unlike the other “crystals” I have shown, appears to show naturally grown crystals. They are, of course, quartz crystals, and $45 comes off as extremely overpriced. I have a quartz crystal I got for a dollar at an Eastern Kentucky rock festival, about the size and quality of the ones in the photo.

Quartz is the most common mineral in the Earth’s crust. But at least this is regular levels of annoying.

Then I see this:

Well, I see the photo and the price, and I think, that looks like a regular quartz crystal. There’s no way a regular quartz crystal is $1,347.

I read the description:

I am crying. I don’t want to google any of this. I am beyond googling. I no longer desire knowledge.

THATS A QUARTZ CRYSTAL. MOTHERFUCKER THAT’S QUARTZ. SIO2, MOST COMMON MINERAL IN THE EARTH’S CRUST. ITS FUCKING QUARTZ IM—

I click on a malachite.

The malachite promises to protect me from emails. And at this, darkest hour, I want to be protected.

I have been broken. I have been lured to my demise.

Big Brother: loved.

Geology lab I’m supposed to be doing: incomplete.

God: unmerciful.

[headspace-hotel]

@teddybear-kin @queen-cryptic I regret to inform you that, regardless of the intended usage of wands, people are absolutely putting them in their bodies and the labeling is not always clear and distinguishing. Objects that are very clearly dildos are described as "massage wands."

Many of them are still dubiously presenting themselves as items for health practices, blurring the lines between masturbation and "yoni massage."

It's really unclear where the line between "this goes in your vagina" and more normal items is in general. Some of the items are very clearly in the "please don't" category, but some of them are just like "This is a Massage Wand. Up to you which of your holes you shove it into."

"insert the wand slowly and try to massage inside of your Yoni (Vulva)."

Kill me.

[headspace-hotel]

Are You Sure

[headspace-hotel]

Wait I think @icanfuckthescalenetriangle is onto something

[the-drunk-game-master-deactivat]

Okay but where are the reviews that are like "This crystal dildo shattered in my ass like a Halo Needler, then turned to acid and melted my organs, 3 stars"?

[blueboxbeagle]

By LabradoriteKing on Pinterest

[fuckyeahdwarffortress]

A handy guide for your Jewellers and Gem Cutters.

I accept payment in trillion-cut black diamonds.

Chop chop.

[writing-prompt-s]

Useful!

[the-drunk-game-master-deactivat]

Someone line them up from red to purple!

[pupperduck]

Barry laughing soothes my soul (especially when it’s Robin’s fault)

[edgeofthegibbuniverse]

A few more soul- soothing laughing Barry for @pupperduck

[number999nine]

These kind of posts give me life

[pupperduck]

People just keep adding more laughing barries and my heart is *so full*

[dy3rs3v3]

hope you don’t mind, I just had to join in cos it’s the sweetest thing

[pupperduck]

Mind? Never!!! Give me ALL THE LAUGHING BARRIES!!!!

[number999nine]

Did someone ask for more?

[pupperduck]

y’all. Y’ALL. I can’t exactly explain why this has reduced me to tears, but it has. 

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

I *think* i have a few more ;)

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

oh why not sprinkle in a few more :3c

[pupperduck]

We are blessed that in the year 2024 there are still new Laughing Barries to be had

[reparrishcomics]

( Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / RedBubble / Buy Me A Coffee )

[msquay]

A little Hobbit home for a dear friend.

[pupperduck]

my bestie is an embroidery genius!!💜💜💜

[msquay]

TW past suicidal ideation

There should be some sort of spark notes situation for the girlies who were rocking all the suicidal ideation through their late teens/early twenties and now have to figure out a retirement plan? Like damn Merrill Lynch I didn’t bother paying attention because I had assumed I would have yeeted the moral coil, but instead I got meds and therapy and now have to workout a stupid Roth IRA.

[anderswasrightt]

don't use "ftm" it's outdated and offensive. it implies that the trans person was their agab, which we never were. i was always a boy, never a girl who became a boy.

i'm 35 years old. i've been IDing as trans or something similar to trans for nearly 20 years. i was probably calling myself FTM while you were playing tag during recess, anon.

i WAS a girl. i IDed as a girl early in my life. i recognized myself as a girl, called myself a girl, lived as a girl, and was a girl. who then IDed as a man. hence, F t M.

spend more time worrying about yourself instead of strangers on the internet, anon.

sorry not sorry if this comes off as needlessly hostile, but i've been getting a lot of shit from a lot of teenage trans kids about the language i use to describe my own goddamn experience, and i'm growing real fuckin weary of it.

i have elder trans friends who call themselves transsexuals and transvestites and trannies. are you going to seriously go to a 60-year-old trans person who survived the reagan years and tell her she's not allowed to use certain language to describe herself because it might offend the delicate sensibilities of some teenager on the internet?

do yourself a favor and log off, find some real-life trans people who are over the age of 20 or 25, and spend time talking to them instead of getting all holier-than-thou at random strangers on tumblr.

[femmefurina-deactivated20240814]

It may be weird to encounter because it's not the trans narrative that the media sells to us as 'the only valid way to be trans', but the 'I always knew I was x' is not all-encompassing.

Anon there are more people than you think who were girls who grew up into men, or boys who grew up into women, or girls or boys who grew up to be nonbinary. There is a rather obscure theory that girl and boy are distinct genders from man and woman and while the most common trajectory is that boys grow into men and girls grow into women it's not the rule.

Let people define themselves.

[phoenixtawnyflower]

also if you think genderfluid people are real and you're not just humoring us, you by definition have to allow that gender can change over time. I was a girl once. I am not a girl now.

[theleakypen]

Chiming in with solidarity to OP.

I feel very protective of my former identity BECAUSE there's so little room in the Mainstream Trans Narrative ™️ for allowing gender to change.

I was a girl. Now I'm genderqueer. Maybe later I will find different words for myself.

There has to be room for all of us in the trans community or there's no point to any of this.

[mirrepp]

Ive been here long enough to see words like ftm/mtf, afab/amab, transmale/female, trans man/woman all go through the cycle of ppl telling you to “Dont use X word its out dated. Now use this Y word”. Only for a year or two pass and suddenly “Y word is outdated. Now use Z word” like yall this is exhausting. Just because a word is old doesn’t automatically make it a slur or offensive.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

They're pulling high school clique bullshit out and just replacing 'uncool' with 'problematic' and pretending it's activism somehow. We're trying to get work done here not everybody is going to keep up with the ever-rotating lexicon of words.

[hedwig-dordt]

I used to be a member of the commentariat where I learned the phrase

THERE IS NO QUEER REVIEW BOARD

Which has kinda helped me be a bit better at being decent

[fandomsandfeminism]

I'm begging people to not be afraid of OTC pain meds.

OTC pain meds are not a devil’s bargain or a moral failing. They are a tool to reduce unneeded suffering. They do not destroy your organs if taken correctly, and there is no reward for the people who take the fewest pills in life.

Take what helps, and take it safely! If you have prescription meds or other health issues, always check for possible interactions/adverse effects. 

Edit: the upper limit for paracetamol/acetaminophen is actually more like 4g for most people! :)

[pupperduck]

The edit at the end of this post is terrible advice. The problem with acetaminophen is that the distance between “helpful” and “oops now your liver is fucked” is shockingly small. I am all about not being to proud or tough for pain meds (there real is no prize for toughing out pain) but be cautious with Tylenol/acetaminophen. And remember to check what’s in any other pills you’re taking at the same time! Many OTC cold and flu meds contain it so it’s a bad plan to take those and then follow it up with Tylenol. Also, don’t drink more than one or two a day while you’re taking it, ok? Please. It works, it’s good at its job, but you don’t want liver failure. Trust me.

[edgeofthegibbuniverse]

The Bugs Bunny tie. That is all. 🥹🐰

[edgeofthegibbuniverse]

Update! This was on Barry’s 49th birthday and during the Radio 1 Roadshow. So, this means that the kids probably gave Barry that tie for his birthday and like the sweet, softy he is, he wore it. 🥺😭

[pupperduck]

He also wore this sweatshirt which clearly has a child’s drawing of him on it. “look, daddy! I drew you as a lion playing tennis with a cup of tea!!” The thing I love is that he didn’t just wear these things around the house to placate his kids, he wore them in public! Yet more evidence that Dad Barry is Best Barry.

[adventurecomics]

Evidence against the argument that Superman's disguise wouldn't fool anyone:

Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton look alike contest to a fucking drag queen.

Charlie Chaplin once failed to even place at a Charlie Chaplin impersonator contest.

Hugh Jackman went to comic con as Wolverine, only 2 people noticed him and one told him he was too tall.

Christopher Reeve use to go to a restaurant in costume when filming Superman. When he went in the Superman costume he was mobbed by people all the time. When he went in the Clark Kent costume no one realized he was Christopher Reeve.

[cloudchomps]

Tony Hawk

[pupperduck]

Barry Gibb lost a Barry Gibb look alike contest and had to show ID to prove it was really him. Take him out of the white satin and dress him in Normal Dad clothes and he’s suddenly unrecognizable. And this what when he was a big enough star that this contest would even be held in the first place!

[cryptonature]

I bet octopuses think bones are horrific. I bet all their cosmic horror stories involve rigid-limbs and hinged joints.

[underthehedge]

To an octopus, a human is like a thinking being with blood-stained coral growing inside it.

[naamahdarling]

I need to sit down and breathe into a bag for a while.

[therobotmonster]

Its parts were obscenely limited in their movement. Each hinge could open or close only a small amount before reaching its limit, yet by working in concert they demonstrated unexpected dexterity, moving and manipulating the objects before it with cunning equal to my own. It was more torso than limb, as though a seal had been stretched and warped, given long grasping tentacles filled with bones like bars of coral.  It’s head was most horrid of all, flat and ovoid, jutting out too small from the trunk as though it belonged to a beast half its size.

The thing rose upon its lowermost appendages, two long trunks that ended in flat, protruding flippers that branched into stubby, grasping mockeries of a sucker. It’s triple-hinged uppermost limbs were similar, but the ends branched into five smaller tentacles, each with three hinges of their own.

I froze, as the thing’s gaze fell upon me and it opened its hideous fish-jaw, filled with thick, many-shaped teeth like white shards of stone, and spoke in a shrill, discordant babble. I felt its horrid dry grip on my flesh, as those hinged appendages closed on me like the legs of a crab.

I felt the heat of its body, tasted its noxious, oily flesh through my touch, and prepared for the end, and all went black as a swoon overtook me.

I awoke, some time later, the cold and comforting water, banished back to the comfort of the sea and the dark. I should be grateful I am alive. I should cast aside the experience like a half-remembered dream.

I shall never again go swimming in search of lights above. The last thing I recall before the darkness took me was my right eye popping free of the thing’s grasp enough to see into the distance for one brief moment.

I saw thousands of lights.

[evilkitten3]

ok so it turns out “horror but it’s about something mundane from the perspective of a non-human animal” fucks severely

[pupperduck]

This is the best short fiction I’ve ever read on this hell site 

[deadpeatbogbody]

im dying over this thread of algorithmically-generated/otherwise low-effort Kindle covers

[deadpeatbogbody]

[guildenstern]

don't forget

[yourasshurtdone]

grossly inappropriate copy of animal farm that is on my nightstand at this very moment

[dduane]

...When you're getting ready to design a book cover and you're not sure what you do is going to be good enough.. it's always reassuring to see something like [all of the above].

[edgeofthegibbuniverse]

This photo of Barry is just too beautiful for words. Look at that Bazooka smile. 😍

[pupperduck]

My North Star 💜

[ifthepuppetmakesyousmile]

ASSET. IT SAYS ASSET.

[pupperduck]

I read it as “Ascend to Pound” and was very curious to learn more

[edgeofthegibbuniverse]

I got a bunch of new slides over the weekend and this one was such a standout. The colors!

[pupperduck]

They are so nearly the bi flag colors I am having a heart attack

[msquay]

I’m not saying I’ve solved it (being existence). But I’m pretty sure that eating good cheese and fruit in the garden with the people you love is like, the point.

[pupperduck]

Idk i think maybe you *have* solved it

[edgeofthegibbuniverse]

Today’s daily dose of handsome brothers gives us more epic bedhead and snappy dressing.

[pupperduck]

It’s our favorite Miami Uncles!!! The more responsible uncle is up bright and early on Saturday morning, dressed in an ironed button-down. He has woken up his hungover brother (who is still in the rumpled tennis whites he wore yesterday) well before noon, ostensibly to take him to breakfast. The ulterior motive, however, is to once again talk to him about getting his shit together and maybe coming to work for him at the car dealership. Spoiler alert: He will not get his shit together, nor work at the dealership. 

[edgeofthegibbuniverse]

Hahahaha I love this.

[edgeofthegibbuniverse]

Another photo from this day just showed up! And Barry definitely looks hungover. 😂

[pupperduck]

i had completely forgotten this and it’s a joy to see it resurface