Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

nerdy things, beautiful things, inspiring things - 30s, queer

[diphowell]

it’s crazy that phil has been taking diabolically sweet photos of dan for almost 17 years now. he loves taking photos of his baby.

[keyfili]

STAR WARS: EPISODE V - THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK / faceless 1980 • dir. Irvin Kershner

[rumismira]

What do you mean this isn’t canon? (12/?)

[beaft]

this website is so funny because every couple years we repeat the discourse of "which marginalised group is it morally okay for us to shit on?" and somehow nobody ever learns from it. we just look back and go, "hey, remember that time when everyone was joking about how ace people should all be put in meat grinders? that was so messed up. we should not have done that. anyway, here's my topical joke about how polyamorous people should all be put in meat grinders."

[beaft]

this post is still getting me anon hate pretty much on the daily btw. in case you were curious about the state of things

[thememedaddy]

[chucktaylorupset]

(via hornedchick)

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.

[ritualday]

we're getting closer to 2030 and what are we supposed to do then. that's not a number for a year to be

[simply-a-dream]

“don’t take it personally” how would you like me to take it then? professionally? romantically? academically?

[creative-anchorage]

[suriandtaal]

[buffycaps]

Rest in peace to the incredible Anthony Stewart Head (20th February 1954 - 1st June 2026)

RUPERT GILES in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003)

[natnormalatall]

roald dahl was antisemitic and misogynistic. george orwell was openly homophobic. edgar allan poe married his 13 year old cousin. dr seuss cheated on his wife (and was racist as well as antisemitic!). hp lovecraft was racist as fuck. anyways they’re fucking dead it’s not like you’re enabling their behaviors in the afterlife or something. then again I think they bleed into the books so uh keep an eye out for that

the difference between these old white guys and jk rowling is that the former group is all dead. jk rowling is alive and using your money to oppress trans people

[tearlessrain]

having anxiety is like being given permanent unwanted custody of a halter arabian. like okay buddy is it panic time again. cool you probably need more exercise and an apple and then maybe you'll calm down.

[tearlessrain]

taking my stupid walks for my stupid mental health with my stupid hypervigilant brain horse

[tearlessrain]

thoroughly enjoying the notes on this post because it's equal parts people with anxiety going "yeah that's what it's like" and people with arabians going "yeah that's what they're like"

[mockva]

This guy's illusions are great

[alexaloraetheris]

[byakuya-mioda]

I like to think this is the story of him breaking out of prison and then going on an extended spree of mischief

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[rohirric-hunter]

"You could get up early and do it before work" I could also wait for a magic beanstalk to start growing in my living room LMAO. Let's focus on things that happen in the real world

[sunflowersosa]

Nigerian Pride 🏳️‍🌈🇳🇬

I meant to have this out yesterday. Happy belated pride. :)

[sunflowersosa]

I'm glad you all like the Nigeria Pride post!

Originally, I went in worried the opposite would happen. Growing up, I've been taught that Nigeria, the country, is homophobic. (I was born in America.) But over time, I learned that there's tons of other queer Nigerians; some are out, and some are in the closet 😭.

I'm also not used to this much attention, lol

Thank you all!

[koobiie]

i feel strongly about this

[ailurinae]

[thefreakmeister]

me: isn’t it funny how captain kirk was supposed to be the sex appeal of star trek but it ended up being spock

my dad: i thought it was bones

me:

my dad: i thought bones was supposed to be the sex appeal

[thefreakmeister]

prev you’re the only person here that gets it

[xenogears]

Shout out to the (many) times I got called an elitist gatekeeper for saying that the only real way to fully understand a work of fiction is to experience it firsthand and that summaries and reviews are not a replacement for that

[the-lincyclopedia]

Me, reading the first 80% of the post: What do you mean, "experience it firsthand"? How am I supposed to join the Hunger Games or go the Odyssey?

Me, reading the final clause of the post: Oh, you literally meant that people have to read the book/listen to the audiobook in order to fully understand it. And people got mad. Oh dear.

[fidgetyhands]

And this doesn't mean you need to read / watch / listen to absolutely everything! (not that that's remotely possible)

It's perfectly reasonable that I have decided, based on ambient cultural information, that Ready Player One will not be my jam and I'm not going to read it. What that means, though, is that I have very little information about Ready Player One. I am not an authority on Ready Player One. If there's a discussion of the character development or worldbuilding or plot structure in Ready Player One, I can listen, but I can't really contribute, because I have not read it and thus am missing quite a lot of information about it.

There are more things in the world that I am not an authority on than there are things that I am an authority on, and that's okay! I should just be honest with myself and others about it.