I do love the phrase executive dysfunction bc the image it conjures is of a bunch of people wearing business suits around a long oval conference table arguing with each other to the point where they’re getting into physical fights, but in the background there’s just a big empty whiteboard with a To Do list with one item on it and that item is “take shower”
want to add that he didn't take a game. It wasn't close.
you know what they say - best not miss
tumblr puritans have never spoken to a kinky person and you can tell this because they talk about ~scary~ kinks like a child who thinks their teacher sleeps at school. they have a 1700s "actors cannot be trusted for they engage in obscene behavior" mindset. yes lil buddy people can in fact roleplay situations and then exit that roleplay and have different thoughts and actions 🤗 adding sex to performance does not actually cast a magic spell that turns you into a monster incapable of morality <3
Kink is just LARP that makes you cum.
...Hear me out.
If I say "Nooooo don't kill me!!!" while LARPing, my friend is still gonna whack me on the head with their foam battle axe bc that's what I want them to do. If I actually didn't want to get hit on the head, I'd say "WHOA WHOA WHOA TIME OUT TIME OUT" so they'd know I'm serious.
In the same way, if I say "Nooooo don't spank me!!!" and my partner still spanks me, THAT'S FINE. I want to get spanked, and I'm just playing along. It would only be a real problem if I were to say the agreed-upon safe word, the word that actually means no, and still get spanked.
See? LARP that makes you cum.
& to add on to that:
Your friend enjoying pretending to kill you in a safe and consensual enviroment where they know you are also having a good time does not mean they actually want to axe murder people.
And in the same way, your partner enjoying safely spanking you in a safe and consensual enviroment where they know you are also having a good time does not mean they actually want to beat you up
spiny, long-legged, and armored, Polyrhachis ants are a common sight in Singapore as they forage for their colonies in a perpetual breakneck sprint. but this creature is no Polyrhachis: this is a jumping spider that looks and moves exactly like one!
he is Toxeus maxillosus*, one of the finest ant mimics I’ve seen.
an elongated first set of legs mime questing antennae while the rest are perfectly sized to match Polyrhachis’ gait. his enlarged chelicerae appear like an ant’s head, and the illusion is completed by pedipalps slung beneath like ant mandibles.
unfortunately I didn’t get a good still photo of the red-rumped Polyrhachis armata that he mimicked. however, a neighboring shrub housed another T. maxillosus who sported a shiny coat of gold hair in the style of Polyrhachis illaudata, a worker of which was also sitting there. side-by side, the mimicry is simply exquisite.
*at least, I think the black and red form is also considered T. maxillosus. the gold-haired form seems to be the most commonly observed type.
oh, and in case the ant mimicry wasn't enough, at least one species of Toxeus lactates.
T. magnus females produce nutritious milk-like fluid to feed their young in the nest for six weeks, even after the babies leave their nests to hunt for themselves.
not to do a "coconuts" thing but... hair, milk, that's a mammal I'd say
The United Auto Workers are also negotiating new contracts with the big three US car manufacturers and have announced that they're prepared to strike if they can't get a fair deal.
Jon Favreau saying Din Djarin was never meant to be Star Wars Aragorn is dumb on many levels, but primarily because no one saw him as Aragorn!
Aragorn was born to be a king and knew this his entire life. He struggled with it, rebelled against it, and then finally realized it was his destiny. No one in Star Wars is an Aragorn.
Din Djarin was never born to be a king, and he never considered that he would be one. If Din is anyone, he is King Arthur, a person who performed an extraordinary task to win a powerful sword.
The idea that the story was not setting Din up to be a leader is ridiculous, though, because in all three seasons and The Book of Boba Fett, we see Din as an effective leader. In several episodes and across the story arc, Din brings people together to fight and win unlikely battles. He manages to diplomatically get different groups to work together. He comes up with the plans that will take advantage of everyone's best skills. He puts himself in positions of extreme vulnerability because he knows it's what they need to win. He also manages to pull off some incredible moves of his own that just make everyone go. "Wow! That dude is awesome!" Din does all this while still being respectful and kind to the point where at the end of the battle, the people in the group are willing to follow him anywhere if he asks.
Then you have the audacity to sit there and tell me you didn't create a king.
I'm so tired of this misunderstanding of what a reluctant hero arc is, like you got it totally right here. Aragorn's story is not about accepting that he grew to be a man capable of being a leader. Aragorn's story was about coming to understand that accepting the fate he was born to does not mean he is destined to make the same mistakes.
Aragorn's story isnt just a man who doesnt want to be king. Aragorn's story is about realizing he can do better then the kings and men who failed before him. Arwen summarizes his story arc perfectly when she tells him "You are Isildur's heir, not Isildur himself." He isn't unwilling to become King, he is afraid he will fail at defeating the darkness like those before him.
Din, was never born for any great fate. He was born a normal boy to normal parents, and even as he grew up never was expected for greatness.
It wasn't until he meets Grogu does something in him begin to change and grow, and we see that in order for Din to truly protect him as a father he ends up having to become a leader.
What makes a good reluctant leader arc, is when a character recognizes he doesn't want to be a leader, but realizes that he is meant to be. That the people aroung them already look to him as a leader and that he has to learn to want it. He has to learn to want this as a duty because everyone else already is looking to him like he is.
Everyone follows Din. In season 2 especially Din is the one who everyone follows to rescue Grogu. No one would or could have ever done this without him, and even though the plan sounds insane? They trust him.
Mayfield is the perfect example of why Din already is seen as a leader. These two have no reason to get along and Mayfield has every right to tell Din to go to hell since he is the reason he's in prison. But by the end of the episode, Mayfield not only followed Din to success, but actively change his mind about him and killed the men in that room trying to almost atone for the fact that everyone had to see his face for this to work. Mayfield doesn't end this episode bantering about how this almost didn't work or this was stupid hope its worth it. No he just ends it with respect for Din and willingly accepts going back to prison because ultimately he feels like following Din was a worthy thing to do for a once bad man like himself.
Din getting the darksaber through a fight with a man who multiple times tried to kidnap and murder his son, is the reason we all saw this as a sign he deserves to be a leader. He didn't do it for glory or gain, he triumphed on his own merit as a man and the audience understands that its that which is the quality of a leader people want to follow.
Din works as a reluctant leader eventually finding himself as the leader of Mandalore because he didn't seek it out. He naturally proved himself and gained this position through nothing but pure emotional merit that exemplifies everything good Mandalorians stand for.
Aragorn is not a relucent hero. Aragorn is a born hero terrified of making the same mistakes as his ancestors and runs from his fate in fear until he realizes he is not like them. He becomes the King he was always born to be, because his entire arc is about breaking that cycle of fearing becoming what Isildur failed at.
Dins entire story is about a normal man through his own sweat and blood, fighting soley for the rights of the people he loves coming into power. Soley beacuse his own merit as an individual is a greater leader then those who presume to rule in the first place.
Din is meant to be a King because he grew to have qualities that make a great King without ever seeking it. Aragorn is meant to be a King because he was born to become a a King.
And by refusing to allow Din the story of growing to accept a role he once never wanted, you have crippled him of the development of realizing WHY these people believe in him, and this now Din will never truly believe in himself. Beacuse he now has no duty to fufill for the good of his people that would develop those traits.
Din giving that up without ever accepting he was becoming a leader in the first place is NOT just letting Din chose the path he wants. The best hero characters didn't get to choose their path because most often great heros never thought they would be anything of greatness. It isn't just giving Din what he thinks he wants.
It's actively taking away any chance of future character development, because now you have put him in a stagnant cycle where nothing about him ever has to change ever again.
I'm not just saying this as someone who personally wanted to see Mandalor Din, I am saying this as a writer who has spent many years studying narrative themes and character development structure. Who realizes that you have completely crippled any ability to explore a very large part of Din's seasom 2 development, by refusing him any way of growing those traits he developed.
Din shouldn't have been Mandalor because he had won the Darksaber. Din should have been Mandalor because everyone already looked to him as their leader before he ever defeated Moff Gideon in the first place.
You have not given Din what he wants, you have ruined an extremely effective method of character development by taking away all that was worked up towards. You have made Din hand leadership over to a woman who sought to use that power to corrupt in the first place. And even worse, you ruined his valiant character by making him do it willingly.
You have given Aragorn an ending where he justs his sword to Saruman, and tells him "you lead the orcs into war against us, you're already sort of like a King, you defeat the great evil and I shall go back to being a ranger hiding in the woods."
I write fanficiton. I should not be better at understanding your story and characters then you are paid to do, Jon.
It's embarrassing.
I honestly think that the lack of non-sexual nudity in public spaces has done horrific damage to American society.
We deeply struggle to understand the natural diversity of bodies because we only see naked bodies in a sexual context. We are taught that seeing nudity is somehow inherently harmful, especially to children. We struggle to differentiate between sexually suggestive and sexually explicit material.
It fucks up the way people think about and talk about sex ed. It fucks up the way people think about and talk about breast feeding. It fucks up the way people think about and talk about queer folks. It feeds into fatphobia and ableism and is all rooted in this deeply harmful puritanism.
Like, I need people to understand that seeing a bare titty in public is not going to hurt a child. Seeing a man in a banana hammock isn’t inherently traumatizing. I would argue, in fact, that adults treating those things as dangerous and gross and scary is going to do way more damage to a kid’s psychology than seeing the nudity in the first place.
My first question to someone who’s like, “You should give up writing and learn to code!” would be to ask, “Is that how you entertained yourself during the pandemic? With long videos of people coding? Or did you read books and watch TV and movies like the rest of us?”
imagine going to a house party and ask to go to the bathroom and like theres a dark souls silver knight guarding a chest in there. and like you ask him to not look but he doesn’t respond at all. He’s not like agro, or staring at you with intent, but he’s FULLY aware of your presence and watching you like you intend to steal
Really enjoying the bathroom knight rp
A little shocked I have to say this but please don't feed my work, my writing or my art, to any AI for generative purposes or otherwise. Generative AI is theft, and innocent intentions are not an excuse. I'm not going to explain why generative AI is bad, many artists and writers have already done that much more eloquently than I ever could. Do your own research. I work professionally in art and have been deeply personally impacted by AI, and seeing AI versions of my characters is deeply upsetting.
Wow everyone is going through it. Hold my hand
reblog to hold the hand of the person you reblogged from
oh this is evil
What is that?
discord is adding parental surveillance. as nerdskii's tags pointed out its a ridiculous measure that doesnt help anyone because apps like Signal exist for actual illegal/sketchy activity and this just hurts lgbt teens looking for somewhere to be themselves and have resources especially with conservative parents
I use android. this is my secure folder, which was built into my phone. it has a customize option, so I've made it look like some bland fitness app. when you open it, it asks you to enter a password or unlock it in any other way you've set it to unlock before it lets you in
inside of this folder is like a 2nd phone almost, I can hide apps in here or have different accounts on apps I've already installed. I have a separate discord and tumblr inside of my secure folder (which I moved this blog to recently)
there are similar third party apps, usually disguised as a calculator that you set a certain number or calculation as the password to unlock. that's a lot more inconspicuous if opened, but also more well known, and parents might be looking out for any suspicious calculator apps
also, be careful what 3rd party apps you download, especially when it's concerning things like your accounts and data! make sure you're downloading something safe and secure
this isn't foolproof, depending on how far your parents are going to track you. if they've installed anything or had you install anything on your phone or computer, or had the chance while you weren't there, be careful for spyware. some apps report how long you look at each app, or can record sound from your phone on demand
also important: a good VPN can secure what you're looking at from the router, which parents may be able to access information from, but this also isn't guaranteed to work if the parental controls are set to block VPNs
another one, if your parents are tracking your location but not your app usage: download a GPS spoofer. you don't necessarily need to root your phone for this, as long as it's supported in developer settings. a lot of them are branded as tools for pokemon go, which can be helpful for plausible deniability
parents reading this: these are things I've learned from constantly having my shit taken and looked through as a teen. you aren't protecting your kids, you're ruining any chance of them trusting you with anything. if something goes wrong, you're going to be the last person they tell, because someone who goes to these lengths to see any little thing isn't going to be chill when something actually bad happens if this is how you act when literally nothing is happening
escapist media in general is an ongoing fascination for me. media written with escapism as a main priority typically requires very little thought from the reader - the whole point is to kick back and live vicariously through a fun story, after all. they're narratives written to prioritize reader comfort.
but because they are written to be as unchallenging as possible, they often come with a set of underlying assumptions that can be just fucking fascinating to unpick. like yeah, why IS it assumed to be escapist and indulgent to enjoy colonial wealth without thinking about it in regency fiction. why IS the self inserty female protagonist, who is assumed to be as universally relatable as possible, written to be sweetly naive and sexually inexperienced. why does this "queernorm" contemporary world replicate patriarchial structures exactly but just with Gay People Allowed. why are these ideas assumed to be easy and comforting? can the writers not imagine anything better than the status quo but except maybe with more gay people and poc if you're lucky?
the fact of the matter is that "unchallenging" fiction tends to just simply replicate dominant cultural narratives as a point of comfort. we won't challenge the reader, so we won't think about the way we write certain things. everything we think of as comforting and safe are, of course, universal, and could not be founded on any harmful ideological assumptions. there is nobody who could be alienated by this.
and that's the sticking point to me, in terms of escapist fiction: it's always necessary to ask whose comfort is being prioritized. you've got to interrogate who gets to escape and the mechanisms by which that escape happens. escapism can be good and necessary to survive the current world, but it does not exist in a vacuum separate from the real world, even if it pretends it does!
Ruby Bridges is 68. This is not ancient history. Not even close.
I know Ruby. She's a really nice person. The idea that they would try and write what she did as a girl out of history is shocking to me on so many levels, the simplest of which is just, but don't they know how lovely she is?
Ruby was in Tucson, AZ last Thanksgiving. I wasn't able to attend due to illness, but I appreciated the opportunity.
rare vent art from a few months ago
I feel this!!! Also love how you muted the color along the way, I think it makes it that much more impactful!
This is the thing!
thinking about how old umbrellas are
sometimes a design is so suited to purpose that it lasts for thousands of years
could travel back in time and buy a perfectly good umbrella. could show them my umbrella and they’d recognize what it was.
no matter when we lived we’ve all been subject to the sky
July 10, 2023 - (18:00 UTC)
The Archive is experiencing some issues (as many of you have noticed).
It looks like the Archive is under a DDoS attack causing the servers to fall over. Our volunteer sysadmins are working on countermeasures. Please be patient with us, we'll be back!
A DDoS attack is when an attacker attempts to knock a site offline by overwhelming it with requests. Data is not compromised in a DDoS attack, so there is no need to change your password at this time or worry about your works being lost.
A group presenting themselves as a collective of religiously and politically motivated hackers has claimed responsibility for the DDoS attack. This group has attacked other sites before, including those of government organizations and large corporations. However, cybersecurity experts do not believe the group is honest about their motivation, so we urge caution in believing any reasoning this group provides for targeting AO3.
As part of our efforts to help keep the site up, you might find that you get "Retry later" errors more often when searching or filtering works or bookmarks. Don't worry, just go a little slower, or try again in a few minutes! These are temporary measures. Normal use of the site is fine -- you don't have to avoid using AO3 if it's currently up for you.
Our volunteers are continuing to work hard on this issue! We appreciate your patience and support in the meantime.
Date: 22:43 UTC July 10, 2023
We've changed our approach slightly, so you might now see error messages other than "Retry later," such as 429 (too many requests), 400 (bad request), or 503 (service unavailable).
Please do continue to access the site if it's up for you, and feel free to download some works for offline reading in case of further downtime!
We'd also like to take a moment to reiterate that cybersecurity experts believe the group claiming responsibility for the ongoing DDoS attack is lying about their affiliation and reasons for attacking websites. We strongly encourage you to be skeptical of any statements from this group.
Date: 02:16 UTC July 11, 2023
Can someone please tell me this was a pair that was trying to do the death spiral that mating birds of prey do, and somehow in the process they ended up stuck on a road sign. Because if it is, this is definitely one of the funniest “Okay, maybe we WERE a little bit over our head when we started this…” moments.
I doubt it. One of these birds is a juvenile (the top) while the other is an adult (bottom). The juvenile would have no interest in mating.
Honestly when I see hawks doing stupid stuff 9/10 times its a harris hawk—this seriously just looks like one of those stupid hawks time. They are one of the only social raptors, so this leads to some funny things, like
Stacking
The harris hawk argument for stacking is “your back is less Pokey than a cactus so imma use it”
Not even falconers are safe…
They even hold hands
Please, what are you doing harris hawks, learn how to hawk
Sometimes even raptors can be birbs.
Every pride, you must reblog this. No exceptions
I love that four different people on my feed scheduled this joyous person to reblog by 8am on June 1. I look forward to seeing this a dozen more times today.