Existence @rainy-wallflower - Tumblr Blog

I don't have ms paint but just pretend it is bc no one knows paintbrush for mac but i can assure you it was just as hellish if not worse since theres technically no brushes other than a pixel round brush and the worst looking freaking spray paint

unsound-satyr

SCROLL BACK!!

IT'S A PAINTING!!!

lord-kitschener

I mean the whole damn point of the Nativity story is that the supposed son of God (interpret Jesus how you fucking want, of course) was born to a couple of poor, exhausted peasants in the stable for the inn, and his first bed was a feeding trough for animals. That would nowadays be like a poor couple where the mother gives birth in a parking garage behind the motel because they couldn’t find a better place and nobody else would take them in. It’s a pretty gritty setting, and the idea is that God was reborn in some of the rock-bottom lowest circumstances. The only thing majestic was all the angels and shit, and of course motherly love

I get that a lot of the art portraying Madonna and Child as fabulously wealthy europeans in splendid robes and golden light was meant to glorify God + whichever nobility was sponsoring the artist, and while of course it’s genuinely beautiful art, it just always struck me as horribly missing the point, which is that the supposed son of God started in incredibly humble circumstances, among the kind of people that everyone else looks down on

‘Massacre des Innocents’ by Leon Cogniét, 1824. Although the Feast of the Holy Innocents is in a couple of days time, this painting is still really relevant in that it portrays Mary as how She really was: a scared refugee mum, so fearful that Her son was going to be one of the Innocents killed by King Herod.

durnesque-esque

My new favorite mordern interpretation is this work, José y Maria by Everett Patterson (http://www.everettpatterson.com)

I had to look at this like FIVE TIMES to register all the layers of symbolism going into the piece by Patterson.

The hoodie as a veil.

Weisman cigarettes

Each of them is haloed by an advertisement sticker.

No Vacancy sign on the motel.

Dove sticker over Maria’s head.

Neon sign with a star symbol also over Maria’s head.

The crown over the ‘Dave’s City Motel’ sign. “New Manger.”

The sign behind Jose’s elbow likely says ‘Herod.’

The wee little plant growing through the cracks at their feet.

It’s like a New Testament ‘I Spy.’ I love it!

Ugh.

New favorite interpretation of the nativity.

alextheraven

Ezekiel 34 15-16 on the phone

clockworkvulpine

Good news sticker above José

Maria sitting on a donkey

Shepherd Watches advertisement in the newspaper

Gloria sticker on the payphone

bending-sickle

from an exhibit of nativity sets in barcelona (2023), with jesus born next to atm machines (top), in a war-destroyed movie theater (middle), and in an alley (bottom, featuring graffiti saying “coronavirus”, “no human being is illegal”, and the anarchist symbol)

determinedapathy

@apocrypals

apocrypals

Reblogging to share art without inviting “actually it wasn’t a stable” correction discourse

anarchistmemedistro

Researchers analyzed data from almost 3,000 trans women.

Objective To compare body composition and physical fitness between transgender and cisgender individuals. Design Systematic review with met

rudjedet

Controversial Truths About Ancient Egypt Masterpost

The pyramids were built by contemporary workers who received wages and were fed and taken care of during construction

The Dendera “lightbulb” is a representation of the creation myth and has nothing to do with electricity

We didn’t find “““copper wiring””” in the great pyramid either

Hatshepsut wasn’t transgender

The gods didn’t actually have animal heads

Hieroglyphs aren’t mysteriously magical; they’re just a language (seriously we have shopping lists and work rosters and even ancient erotica)

The ancient Egyptian ethnicity wasn’t homogeneous

Noses (and ears, and arms) broke off statues and reliefs for a variety of reasons, none of which are “there is a widespread archaeological conspiracy to hide the Egyptian ethnicity”

thatlittleegyptologist

The carvings at Abydos aren’t modern machines but recarvings over old carvings. Sure they look like them but if you can read hieroglyphs and know that Ramesses II will even usurp the carvings of his own father just to be a little shit

rudjedet

‘No soot on the ceilings and walls of the Dendera temple!’ is actually because of extensive restoration works and not because Egyptians were in on shit like Baghdad “batteries”

While the Egyptians were fine-ass astronomers they didn’t align any of their enormous and/or important buildings to modern star constellations, because constellations look very different now than they did ~5000 years ago

The pyramid is the simplest, sturdiest shape with which to build and many different cultures discovered this in their own time. There were never any weird fish humans/aliens involved

rudjedet

The sphinx of Gizah is only an approximate 5000 years old; the 10,000 year/rain erosion nonsense is proven hokum

Speaking of that particular sphinx, the Napoleonic expedition is not responsible for its missing nose

Akhenaten was not a “heretic” by contemporary standards

Ramses II appropriated a lot of his predecessors’ buildings/reliefs and isn’t really deserving of the epithet “the Great”

The Battle of Kadesh ended in a stalemate (twice)

rudjedet

While they had feline deities throughout their history, Egyptians didn’t actually worship cats themselves. This was a later Greek/Ptolemaeic addition

It was not, in fact, practice to shave off eyebrows after cats died; Herodotus lied about that

Herodotus lied about a lot of things and many misconceptions about ancient Egypt can be traced back to his Greek ass

rudjedet

I can’t believe I forgot my favourite Hill to Die On

Seth was not the god of “evil”, and despite his chaos providing a foil to order, he wasn’t completely villified until very late in Egyptian history, when he became associated with despised foreign enemies

rudjedet

Hats off to the few of you who’re reblogging this with tags saying you’re going to check my claims later. You make me not entirely despair of this hellhole.

Here are some vetted Egyptological books/sources (that are by and large appropriate for a lay-audience) you can find most, if not all of the above:

Lehner, M., The Complete Pyramids

Wilkinson, R. H., The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt

Hornung, E., The One and the Many: Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt

Dunand, F. & Zivie-Coche, C., Gods and Men in Egypt

Kemp, B., Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization

Bard, K., An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt

Stevenson Smith, W., The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt

Kitchen, K. A., The Life and Times of Ramesses II, King of Egypt

Sweeney, D., Sex and Gender (in Ancient Egypt)

McDowell, A. G., Village Life in Ancient Egypt: Laundry Lists and Love Songs

Te Velde, H., Seth, God of Confusion

rudjedet

Guys do me a solid and reblog this version instead of continuously asking for sources on the other versions thanks

chronic-backpain

Excuse me please post ancient erotica link

rudjedet

hey it’s not my fault people keep reblogging the version without it!

hjartasalt

Mods are asleep post forbidden tits

Huh

Huh

Huh

Hhhhhhh

Perfectly balanced as all things should be…

0v9

lexeirikrleif

fruitloopghosty

offbrandbeethoven-blog

immortalcheesewedge

balance

qua-qua-qua

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

as a younger person I'd sometimes get overwhelmed with the violence of the world, not just human violence but the violence done to animals and by animals, the innate violence of being an animal. because an animal is, by definition, an organism that must consume other organisms to live. and this would lodge in my spiraling young adult mind, the tragedy that to live, to be a creature, is to cause harm. that life is sustained by consuming life.

eventually I got older (and medicated), but in the meantime spending time in woodland really helped. it comforted me to be around plantlife, which feeds not on life but on sunlight, and therefore causes no harm.

anyway now I'm reading The Hidden Life Of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (incredible book) and it turns out that was a big fat LIE. forests are violent as FUCK

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

life as a tree is fucking BRUTAL. ok no they don't actually eat each other (well, not until they've been broken down and digested by microorganisms first) but competition is FIERCE. sunlight and water are finite resources. survival rates are dismal. a tree can release a million seeds in a lifetime and have only one offspring live to maturity. some species evolved ways of stealing sunlight from trees who got there first, bidding their time as a sapling then shooting out from under older canopies to hog as as much light as possible. next-door neighbors? fuck em, let em starve.

then you get shit like epiphytes that decided to just grow on top of other plants. strangler fig vines, for instance, which decided well fuck, im just gonna cling to this tree trunk and let it do the support work. maybe entangle our roots and envelope my host completely over time. oopsie my host died? that's ok I'll just cling to its corpse for eternity

equally horrifying is the honeysuckle, which preys on young trees boa-constrictor style, squeezing the life out of saplings, which grow with permanent deformities before dying prematurely (makes for a neat walking stick though)

then you get out and proud parasites like mistletoe who are happy to attach themselves to tree canopies and suck their blood extract water and nutrients. so yeah some plants do eat each other actually. gives ya some perspective on the old christmas tradition of hunting mistletoe with guns (yes that's a thing, shooting them down out of trees like squirrels. yes, unlike squirrels they deserve it). as for the romance angle, who doesn't want to kiss a lover beneath the dying corpse of a parasitic trophy kill? sexy as heck.

in conclusion, PLANTS ARE VIOLENT AS FUCK, and that's not even getting into the eternal chemical warfare they are forced to wage against insects, fungi, microbes and other enemies.

one day soon the forests will turn on us, and when that day comes I'm cheerfully betraying humanity and skipping away to cross enemy lines 🫡

kofi

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

to those who thought this post was heading in a heartwarming direction, i do NOT apologize and i DO hope the forest and its creeping mycelium tendrils crawl their way into your nightmares

onenicebugperday

Orache moth, Trachea atriplicis, Noctuidae

Photographed in France by Matthieu Berroneau

Shared with permission; do not remove credit or re-post!

necronatural

Compiled some basic information I know about drawing fat characters for beginners since I've been seeing more talk about absence of really basic traits in a lot of art lately.

Morpho Fat and Skin Folds on Archive.org (for free!)

tuttle-did-it

draw more fabulous fat people.

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

fun thing about getting older as a dedicated lifelong non-athlete: i'm as fast and limber as I've ever been! which is not very. technically I'm in the best shape of my life. that is to say, middling

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

actually going from deeply-unwell-teenager to reasonably-functional-adult has inured me to the Common Laments of Aging:

"I can't run as fast as I used to" running is sweaty & gross hard pass

"i miss having stamina" you had STAMINA???

"ugh back pain" my inner teenager-with-scoliosis-and-mysterious-bone-pain is unphased

"ugh neck pain" do most people not spend the majority of their lifecycle hunched over screens from puberty onwards? if not that's my bad

"I used to be able to pull all-nighters" chugging energy drinks and depriving your brain of sleep to perform miserable labor is fucked up actually, and shouldn't be normalizd in or outside of college. given half a chance corporations would have your 60-year-old aunt hopped up on caffeine pills retouching powerpoints at 4am. thank fuck we're not expected to be 21 forever

"I used to be so flexible" why

"my metabolism 😭" kill your inner fatphobe, enjoy the comfy extra padding/circulation, buy a cool new wardrobe, and go forth, eat well, and GIVE NARY A FUCK.

"I miss having young knees" that one's valid

In conclusion my personal fitness goals remain, as always: to be able to carry multiple grocery bags, and go for a nice little walk (not jog!) around the neighborhood.

biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

let me rant for a minute about how fucked up it is that "fitness" gets pushed first on teenagers as 1) school sports/athletics (which cause a statistically enormous amount of lifelong injuries) and then as 2) instagram gym culture aka being skinny+muscular for aesthetics. we pretend this is what "health" looks like, and it's not.

fitness & excercise should be about improving your day-to-day life. which means fitness needs vary a lot by individual, age, medical conditions etc. here are just a few examples of what practical fitness goals can look like:

stretches/exercises to reduce pain in daily life (e.g. carrying groceries up a flight of stairs without being sore the next day)

increase mobility (e.g. walking around a museum with fewer rest periods)

increase stamina (e.g. running to catch a bus)

increase muscle mass e.g. to prepare for your 60s/70s, bc apparently that stuff sticks around and makes getting older waaaaay easier

increase balance/flexibility to prevent falls

build/preserve bone density to prevent osteoporosis

general injury prevention, bc that shit sucks

basic maintenance, to help preserve a lifestyle that works for you

screw this anti-aging bullshit. no one needs to be a professional athlete or permenantly 21. what we deserve is to be able to age comfortably and live long, fulfilling lives. fitness is a tool, not a moral duty. it should work for you, not vice versa.

mizuthe-cat

Make a dirt

rocks

sand

plastic

clay

wet

silt

bug

plant

Voting ended onMay 10

streetlight-spam

it’s monday i’m in the labyrinth

streetlight-spam

it’s tuesday i’m in the evil lab

streetlight-spam

it’s wednesday i’m in the time loop

streetlight-spam

it’s thursday i’m in the medieval torture apparatus

streetlight-spam

🌸it’s friday i’m in love🌸

hcnnibal

hey guys! my little sister is on the research portion of her doctorate and is doing a study on how video game engagement relates to empathy in young adults (18-25). i’d appreciate you guys taking a look at the survey, it takes less than 20 minutes to complete

Dissertation Study

porterr-robinson

nightmare-grass

Why is this the funniest thing I’ve ever seen

wasdplz

can’t remember if i’ve reblogged this before but i stumbled across it again at 9pm and am sitting here cryIN G, SO

ink--poison

How the fuck did the entire internet’s sense of humor make one hell of a 180 in 7 years?

crittizen

Okay but I love how “me and the boys at 2 am looking for BEANS” actually became a meme after this video.

It's been said before and I'll say it again: I love having mutuals who repost things that I know nothing about, because now I'm absolutely in love with the dynamic between these two guys who are definitely not cannonically in love with each other, but really should be.