sodapunk @val-kyrie - Tumblr Blog

Posts

somosinevitables

Fairy Glen - Isle of Skye (Scotland)

wizardshark

99% of queer discourse stops right before they define the true difference between bisexual and pansexual!

saspitite

FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME

BISEXUALS GROW FROM THE GROUND

PANSEXUALS GROW FROM THE CEILING

elizapad

Happy Pride, cave dwellers 🦇

swan2swan

Where's that tweet about how American chants are "let's go [team name] and some other country (Irish?) fans are "I've made up a song about the other team's drinking problem to the tune of London Bridge Is Falling Down one two three"?

translucent fabric sculptures by korean artist do ho suh

teaboot

FABRICCCCCC?!??!?!?

kedreeva

Happy winter solstice! The light begins to return tomorrow!!

kedreeva

Happy summer solstice! The dark begins to return tomorrow!!

rougejaunebleu

Mark Rothko Untitled 1969 Acrylic on paper mounted on canvas 198.8 × 148.6 cm

karrakazz

Ive been saying this for years. You need to understand blue eyeshadow to understand anything at all. Today, blue eyeshadow is regarded as a "choice." Its either trendy or tacky or outdated, depending on the shade and style of application. But for about 30 years in the late 20th century, maybe the 50s through the 80s, blue eyeshadow was regarded as subtle, conservative, middle-of-the-road. Feminine. A "correct" shade to use. Brown or beige eyeshadow was the new thing, too subtle and casual to look like a "full face" of makeup. My grandmother (an enthusiastically conventional woman) has only ever worn blue eyeshadow.

The last 10 or 15 years have seen a real takeover of neutrals, beiges and grays and whites, in consumer goods and interior design. We've all seen the car color chart. Other people smarter than me have discussed the reasons for this, the caution brought on by economic instability. Nobody wants to paint their walls green because their home isnt a place to get comfortable, its an investment that will need to be made palatable for a new buyer (and why give yourself the extra task of repainting when youll have so much else to do when you move).

Neutral overload (and "clean design," with its lack of ornamentation) is aimed at creating a consistent, timeless, elegant look. Its adherents dont understand that this is also a trend. This subtle, conservative, middle-of-the-road design choice will look tacky and ostentatious someday. And necause you value timelessness, this will embarrass you.

bo0zey

i tried to be funny and it backfired miserably

bo0zey

it’s 2014 it’s time we moved on as a nation and stop reblogging this

bo0zey

every person who reblogs this in 2015 is gonna get their ass kicked by yours truly

haunteddollsgeorg

As a society we have benefited so much from successful public health measures that we now have the privilege of declaring that we must not need them anymore

Bitch before enriched flour, neural tube defects like spina bifida were far more common. Even now, spina bifida clinicians and researchers are begging to have salt and maize fortified to reach groups that don’t use as much flour. Before iodized salt, the United States had a fucking GOITER BELT. Eleven years after the introduction of fluoridated water, a city in Michigan found the rate of dental caries among school children dropped a staggering 60%— in an era where tooth decay regularly fucking killed people

I’m literally not even going to start on vaccines, which are among the most successful and robustly studied public health measures in world history

You might say “oh well today we all have access to vitamins and toothpastes and dentists so we don’t need those things in our food supplies” and boy do white people on social media loooove to fucking say that. But here’s the thing: no, people don’t all have easy access to those things. That’s privilege talking yet again

hollowboobtheory

knowing when not to open the comments is a skill

hollowboobtheory

internet soft skills

not opening the comments

letting people be wrong

letting people be wrong about YOU

letting people have a bad impression of you (see above)

knowing when your input isn't needed

spotting bot comments

block button

kunaigirl

just casually leaving this here for no particular reason

kunaigirl

You know what? Fuck it I'm adding more context. Sesame Street has talked about the topic of death more than once and it's done with such gentle carefulness without watering down or censoring the heaviness of the situations. It treats heavy subject matter with respect and dignity and has been for DECADES. From the early 1980s:

To 2025:

Hell, they even cover the devastating heaviness of MASS SHOOTINGS without censoring or watering anything down.

They've been doing this for YEARS, and it's ALWAYS handled with dignity, respect, seriousness, understanding, and love.

Whenever I see people censoring words because it "might offend" someone or the big ad companies that are currently trying to run everything? I just want to say to them: "What? Is Sesame Street too mature for you?" Because really...what the hell are we doing.

pancake-surprise

Mister Roger's Neighborhood also covered difficult topics with respect, age-appropriately, and without pulling a single punch. It's crazy that we've worked ourselves up so much that we're self-censoring like it's always been the norm.

This clip is from 1968 and discussed assassination after Bobby Kennedy died.

I'm not sure when this clip originally aired, but it was likely sometime in the 1980s. They talk about murder and, incredibly by today's standards, what sort of emotions (anger, fear, loneliness) might drive someone to hurt or kill other people + how we can manage our own difficult or painful feelings.

fishdetective

really really awesome image

fishdetective

WAIT i went back to actually read the article. fifteen more frog hands

batmanisagatewaydrug

bringing a sort of "slavery is still alive and well in US prisons" vibe to the office Juneteenth post that my higher ups don't really like

hunter-gratzner

From what I understand slavery was never actually abolished in the us. It is still legal and all.

batmanisagatewaydrug

the amendment that "ended" slavery specifically left permission for slave labor as punishment for convinced criminals and our inmates have been legally exploited ever since, yes

batmanisagatewaydrug

not a bummer, say it louder

i-suggest-prison-abolition

📣I've got a suggestion 📣

gallusrostromegalus

I may be turning into my Grandfather.

You know, the one who brought home an inordinate number of animals over the course of my mom's childhood.

Longtime followers might have noticed it's been quiet here lately and that's because I've added several dozen animals to my household. Our beloved Ginger cat Mochi passed away in March from a kidney infection and it was. Emotionally devastating. Since there was a cat-shaped hole in my home, I talked with with several rescue agencies, and drove to Texas on Easter Weekend to collect my beautiful daughter Selene:

Selene is three apples tall, weighs less than a gallon of milk, and sits comfortably at the top of the animal dominance hierarchy. Selene's hobbies are Rodent Destruction Simulator (toys), Reptile Pursuit Simulator (String on a flypole), and wedging herself into crevices. The dogs instinctively fear her, but lately Herschel the Corgi has started to be brave about playing string with her, and she makes a point of greeting Charlie the Yes when he comes in from the yard.

Since Selene is a very energetic baby with a healthy appetite for recreational violence, we did have a bit of a problem with her deciding that the humans were he favorite toys and playing with us a little too hard. On the recommendation of our vet, we got her a Playmate:

Helios (actually answers to Sunny) is approximately 5years old, and has the Size, Sweetness and Intellectual Fortitude of a Honeybaked Ham. He has the proportions of Johnny Bravo and none of his executives are functioning. Sunny's Hobbies are watching TV (His favorite movie is Fantasia 1940, specifically the Toccata and Fugue In D Minor), getting in the way of D&D, and demanding we all go to bed at 9PM.

He's about 5, but had a rough start- his former owners surrendered him when they moved, didn't do a good job box-training him, and declawed his front paws. He is extremely spoiled now, but does have to live with an inexplicably heavily armed teenager who wants to play Violence with him.

Neither of these cats Meows. Selene beeps and trills like some sort of adorable futuristic robot and Sunny very quietly honks and quacks like a very polite goose. I also decided to manifest a dream I've had since I was about 7:

If you've never kept fish before some notes:

Fishkeeping is a TERRIBLE introduction to pet ownership, but a GREAT introduction if you want to learn Ecology, Chemistry, Zoology, Structural Engineering, Botany, Interior Design and Economics all at once

Which perhaps sounds daunting but if you also need something that is intellectually engaging, forces you to learn time management and budgeting skills, and will alleviate your depression by giving you a project that rewards you with actual, literal growth, I cannot recommend a better hobby against The Current Miasma

I am not kidding about the Interior Design and Structural Engineering. 1 gallon of water weighs about 10lbs so the smallest acceptable tanks weigh at least 50lbs when full, usually more, and more than say, an Ikea Bookshelf can reliably bear. The GOOD tanks start at 200lbs and need to be placed where they can be filled and drained for water changes, near an outlet for lights/filtering/heat/air pump, and on a floor that can handle the weight of both the tank and the stand

Prices and product quality control being what they are, you might need to build your own stand so add Carpentry to that list too

Fishkeeping can be ...expensive

It can be a lot less expensive if you casually mention you're interested in the hobby, because half a dozen fishkeepers will pop out of the woodwork and start offering you their old tanks and equipment as well as excess plants and livestock, but this will also make you Beholden To Your Local Fishkeeping Community

which is not necessarily Bad

...but it may mean needing to rapidly set up an emergency tank for a Surprise Betta your friend who does hazardous building cleanup found in the back of an abandoned trap house, for instance

If you do not already have one, you will develop a deep and profound hatred for the pet industry and how they will outright lie to people about fish, especially bettas.

You will also become very emotionally attached to Shrimp

Come join me it's fun I promise :)

Ok this post is already a mile long so read the Alt text for descriptions of my Tank Denizens:

Relatedly, the best place to put a fish tank is the bathroom because the sink is RIGHT THERE for water changes, it's got the water-resistant flooring and outlets, and you're garunteed to be in there a few times a day so you will be checking on the tank.

Also, Premium Ringside Seating! I'm a goddamn Genius.

So this is what I've been doing since March and if you enjoyed this post and want to hear future Creature Adventures or for me to do a Tank Setup Guide, you can support me on Ko-fi or Patreon.

lovely-v

Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”

busket

at the rose city comic con panel this month a fan asked them (sean and elijah) if sam and frodo were in love and they said

Sean: .....yes. absolutely

Elijah: 100 percent.

Sean: dont tell rosie

explorerrowan

Rosie: "This is my husband Sam, and that's his husband, Frodo. Frodo is my husband-in-law. I'm not into him, he's he's a bit too 'elfy' for my taste, but Sam likes him, and that's fine with me. As far as I know, Frodo can't give Sam children, but Frodo looks after ours all the same, so I don't mind sharing Sam if it means another pair of eyes on the wee ones. In all honesty, our family tree is right simple compared to some hobbits. Yes, I'm referrin' to you Lobelia, over there pretendin' you ain't eavesdroppin'. Still bitter you ain't got either of my boys or their house, eh?"

arcaniumagi2

ms-katonic-of-tamriel

Tbh it's canon that Frodo invited Sam and Rosie to move in to Bag End after their wedding and they all lived there for a couple of years until Frodo went to Valinor, so yeah. Running with it.

And once Rosie dies, Sam says his goodbyes and disappears after him.

roach-works

what’s funny is people assuming that rosie would somehow be too dim or naive to KNOW that sam loved frodo, instead of looking at a guy who would loyally follow a beloved friend to hell and then help carry him home again, and not be like ‘oh i can’t not fuck that.’

elodieunderglass

Polyamory, specifically polyandry, would be an interesting solution to the oddball population of the Shire.

The Shire is excellent farming country, with consistently good weather, and only one tough winter in living memory; hobbits like to produce large families; they’re resistant to disease, rarely violent, and encounter few dangers. It is usual for hobbits to produce many children, so that (for example) Bilbo and Frodo are unusual in both being only children, with no siblings, and not having children of their own. All of this should point to a population that increases every generation if not doubling outright. Young people (and their ideologies!) should rapidly outnumber the old with an ever-increasing effect and impact on society. However, the Shire has a surprisingly stable history; it never seems to increase or decrease greatly in population, and the bell curve of age seems… demographically balanced? There certainly isn’t a conflict from rising young bloods challenging the middle-aged reactionaries; there’s no unemployment; there are no housing crises or waves of emigration, or even a tendency for young people leaving home to marry. Meanwhile, not only does the Shire not suffer from internal pressures, but it remains obscure and hardly noticed in global politics.

What makes sense here is that adult hobbits form a loose group. Four parents in a polycule, between them all, may produce four children. All four parents claim to have four children. An outsider would assume this meant the adults had eight children.

Hobbits therefore are not especially fertile or fecund. They simply have large families. Much of their interest in genealogy is due to the complex relationships of blood-kin, hearth-kin, love-kin and pledge-kin, who must all be carefully tracked and measured - not just because you need to make sure that you don’t climb into bed with an un-permitted degree of blood-kin, but to track family alliances and carefully quantify the precise level of thoughtfulness to put into the proper present to gift your father’s lover’s lover (too much implies a degree of intimacy that might upset the polycule.)

Thus, while a hobbit matron may tell a startled dwarf that she has seven sons, she might only have borne five of them herself, and have one hearth-son by her wife, and a pledge-son of her first husband’s. There are between three and four fathers involved at various stages of production, from conception to pledge-duty, but there is debate about the precise number of fathers, as one child was festival-conceived and therefore provisionally pledged to the Brandybucks until more distinctive paternal traits should materialise. It’s expected that four of the sons will be uninterested in women, and their contribution to family life will be in raising hearth-children and pledge-duty. However, this level of detail is normally negotiated later in conversation, as a mutual overture of friendship. So she’s just clear and simple: yes, certainly, she has seven sons. Yes, they’re all hers. Yes, that’s fairly normal - yes, hobbits like big families. How big? That’s really hard to say! Well, about thirteen hobbits live in her house… er, she has forty-three nieces and nephews. Yes! She has nine siblings, that’s correct, but some of them are still babies themselves..

In this way, a bewildered dwarf might assume that hobbits are absurdly fertile, producing an average of seven children per couple, at an absurd pace.

When in fact, with about half of hobbits never bearing biological children, the population of hobbits is pretty much always the same.

Tl:dr, hobbit population works perfectly well, both internally and in the perceptions of outsiders, if the majority of the Shire is gay, they’re all polyamorous, and they all firmly claim to be parents of high numbers of children. Of course Frodo fathered Sam’s kids - he named them! They were pledge-kin but not hearth-kin, as Frodo needed a lot of quiet and stability in the home.

No outsider ever parses hobbit genealogy well enough to understand this except for Gandalf, who never explains anything either.

dancingspirals

are you kidding? Gandalf would WEAPONIZE his knowledge of Hobbit genealogy against outsiders

elodieunderglass

Since “pledge” kinships are multidimensional and can occur in different directions, hobbits can form - and formalise - family bonds simply because they choose to. Gandalf doesn’t tell anyone that the formation of Thorin’s Company, the Fellowship of the Ring, and Belladonna Took’s Accidental Troop of Mercenaries* are legal formations of pledge-siblings, a hobbit family structure usually claimed to increase social class and prestige (as high numbers of pledge-kin confer distinction on a hobbit, being a sort of popularity vote/endorsement that adds greatly to their social power. Incidentally, this is partly why Bilbo was both controversial and successful in his pledge-claim of Frodo; outsiders mistook his “bachelor” status as someone living outside of heteronormativity, while the Shire was bewildered and increasingly annoyed by his rejection of pledge and hearth commitments. By rights Bilbo had too few pledge-kin, and too little parenting experience, to claim rights to an orphan, especially one from Brandybuck hearth; but conversely, his social status was high enough that his belated bid for his very first pledge-son couldn’t reasonably be denied by anybody.)

In short, all of the hobbits enjoyed achieving even larger families on their adventures, legally and without argument or debate. It’s free real estate. If nobody else is going to sibling these losers, we will. (The condensation of so many entanglements at once also legally made Pippin his own father-in-law.)

Gandalf never explained.

* see the post about the Old Took’s “enchanted diamond cufflinks” that obeyed the wearer’s commands; which were probably, given the general state of things, two lost silmarils recovered by his Remarkable Daughters and gifted to him because things stay small and safe in the shire

chaosaccountant

@elodieunderglass wouldn't that make pippin both denethor's pledge-son-in-law, and (as pledge-brother to the king) probably outrank him?

elodieunderglass

Only through Boromir while Boromir was alive! Pippin’s familial claim through Boromir technically dissolved on Boromir’s death, as Denethor hadn’t been privy to it, and those bonds rarely stretch to a stranger when the person in the middle has died before introducing them; although Pippin, who was well-brought-up, perfectly and politely rectified the problem at once by simply swearing himself as Denethor’s pledge-son. but through his blood-cousinship to Frodo, who was older than Boromir, his status as the Took double-primarc (don’t ask) and the proximity-enhanced status-doubling effects of having a five-way cousin in Merry, Pippin was demonstrably higher status as a pledge-sibling and was also his own father-in-law and approved of himself. As such, he would have significantly raised Boromir’s social status and marital prospects in the Shire.

Inheritance follows parent-child pledge as the primary consideration, with matrilineal descent as the secondary. Pippin would have been bewildered to gradually understand that Denethor held his two sons in such odd and different standing :-/ hobbits don’t recognise kingship so it would’ve been very upsetting and disappointing to Pippin to understand how Denethor stood in position of sworn-father to a whole city of people without even being slightly fair to his younger hearth-son. Aragorn is demonstrably much better dad-material and therefore had Pippin’s vote. Pippin, by virtue of being an excellent father-in-law to a spectacularly promising young son-in-law, also considered himself a better candidate for king of Gondor than Denethor, by outranking him in Dad Competence - but was too busy by the time he realized this to point this out .

Ironically, the events in which Pippin realized this made Faramir his own hearth-son - so Pippin won in the end and took a great interest in ceremonially approving of Eowyn. Gandalf never explained

elodieunderglass

tkingfisher

I will buy that for a dollar, yup.

deafmangoes

It crossed my dash again! The Hobbit Polyamory Post!

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

sodapunk