Small town culture is knowing that there are Old Folks with strange nicknames but never knowing the stories behind them.
Of course, I made the mistake of asking why everyone calls this one guy Brickaday and it turns out that he worked at a brickyard for 40 years, stealing exactly one brick every day and making no particular efforts to conceal the theft. Nobody thought anything of it until years later he was discovered to have built three houses.
His boss is said to have shrugged and made some remarks about the importance of coming up with a plan and sticking to it.
I‘m trying to arrange my face into an appropriate approximation of silent bafflement and failing miserably.
The greatest thing about plaid shirt guy is that he’s a high school student who won the seats in a raffle that morning. He wore a button representing the democratic party on his shirt the whole time and declined wearing the maga hats that they were “required” to wear. He is a hero to us all
shoutout to those random peacocks you find in places that are probably unsuitable for a peacock to inhabit in the first place
what the fuck kinds of lives are you guys leading. i’ve never seen a peacock in my life. where are u guys finding them.
Random neighborhoods in Florida
a gas station in morocco
middle of a busy road in england
middle of the woods in a rural town in Mississippi
Irish farms??
Roof of a house in a tiny English village
Screaming their heads off in abandoned fuel stations in the back-blocks of the Rangitikei
with a group of pheasants in the woods in maryland
Strutting outside the window of an elementary school library in Texas.
Walking down the street of a California suburb on a hot summer afternoon like he owns the place
At a golf club in Long Island
At a strawberry festival in SoCal
Outside a café in Ayia Napa
Walking thru my neighborhood in nebraska
watching over fish near a pond in switzerland
walking around the zoo parking lot
on a car roof pulled over on the interstate on the way to Myrtle Beach
Friend’s neighbor’s yard in suburban Maryland
Stealing the dog food off our back porch in rural Oregon.
There’s a big house on a major road across from a college in Salt Lake. They must own peacocks because I somewhat regularly see them on the sidewalk in front of that property.
A cattle farm in rural Australia.
In a buddy’s back yard fighting with a neighborhood cat in Arizona in the middle of fucking summer.
Walking through Lisbon Castle like a tourist.
Chastising its cat friend while strolling along a reforestation trail in northern Ontario, Canada.
Pub garden in England
At the Los Angeles Zoo. He doesn’t belong to the zoo, he just walks around displaying his plumage and posing for pictures. Occasionally chases small children with snacks.
chasing childhood me in Stanley Park in Vancouver. probably because I had snacks.
A hotel lobby in central Mongolia
The Glendale, Arizona library
Chasing dudes down a country highway in Northwest Washington.
At a campsite in South Carolina
Buddhist temple in West Virginia
My backyard in michigan
My cow field s i t t i n g on a back of one chilling, North Carolina
standing right in the middle of the sidewalk in san diego, like he was waiting for me
a viking village in western norway
Casually strolling through an open-air Celtic Festival just outside of Las Vegas.
They wander around inner city Cincinnati. They escape the zoo, and the keepers have to go with nets and grab them on occasion.
The zoo has officially stopped supporting the population because there are too DAMN MANY of them. They reduced the flock from 40 to 6 in 2008. I think they have more now.
They just LEAVE.
Roosting in our barn in Ohio. Roosting in our trees, roosting in our pool shed, just hanging out on our back porch. Look we just had peafoul everywhere for something like four years, and we’ve no idea why.
A breeding pair or two must’ve made it across the river from Cincinnati because I’ve seen a few wandering around northern Kentucky
Grass farm in Texas
suburban roof in small-town Saskatchewan
Southwestern college back in Chula Vista when I was attending an child development conference. Went outside for some fresh air and there was a couple peacocks chilling in the middle of the quad at 6pm. Guess they had a conference too. 🤷🏾♂️
cow farm in rural southwest virginia. it’s a convenient street to cut through, but they used to charge at cars that went through too slowly so you kinda had to watch yourself–it was a delicate balance between being wary of not wanting to accidentally hit them as you went over a blind hill, and not wanting to be going slow enough to suddenly attract them to risk that happening anyway.
Gibsonton, Florida. aka Gibtown. aka the place where circus performers have, traditionally, lived when not touring.
(they seemed to belong to this REALLY LARGE FANCY HOUSE that was settled between two trailer parks)
Also the phoenix zoo.
Scratching the shit out of a parked maserati outside of the only coffee shop around with a spot to tie a horse up in my home town in a rural-styled former island off the side of Los Angeles.
Some suburb in Seattle.
Bumming treats off of dignitaries at the UN.
The botanical garden adjacent to the UN.
in a tiny, tiny, tiny town outside of Del Rio Texas, screaming their heads off from the top of my parents’ roof at 5am on any given day
and they do not sound as pretty as they look
Neighborhood in Surrey, BC. Pecking at cars and shitting on everything.
At a Girl Scout camp in GA. Waking us up at the crack of dawn with it’s death-bird screeching.
Middle of the woods in Central Florida. There were some wild boar nearby, I thought it was one of them and I stopped the car so that I wouldn’t accidentally hit one, but out strutted a peacock instead!
University cafeteria 2,150 m above sea level.
Cornfield in Indiana
Windsor castle in England
Atlanta Zoo Parking Lot
Industrial/commercially zoned area of San Diego walking down the sidewalk next to a busy construction site.
waltzing down random residential streets in the middle of pittsburgh, acting like they own the damn place
screaming in an old industrial neighborhood in Warsaw, Poland
Squabbling with a flock of turkeys on my front lawn last month.
Hanging out on a tennis court in a little town in central Scotland.
A henhouse in a cotton field in a north Louisiana town with thirty-six inhabitants and two churches.
Videogames:you can choose from twenty different eyelashes!!!! oh but you can’t be fat
Yeah, whine about how you can’t have a fat character that can scale walls, or sprint. Please whine more.
you’re so right kiddo….. games are very realistic……. like the parts where you die and then come back again? classic realism.
but we can’t have fat people in videogames because fat people are the real fantasy creatures and not like… the dragons. and of course, every thin person can scale a wall. sure sure.
Y’know what, here’s something that’s been pissing me off for a while.
Fat? Easy to gain. So so easy. Our bodies want to keep fat around, because we’re designed not to starve.
Dropping fat? NOT so easy. When people talk about “losing fat,” what they’re saying is “I need to override millions of years of genetics to convince my body I’m not dying and it doesn’t need this carefully-stored fuel.” Dieting? Your body thinks it’s starving. Work out like crazy? Your body thinks it’s in a situation where it needs to bring the hammer down on the regular, and that means you need more fuel – speaking just for myself, I want to eat the world after I lift. That shit doesn’t melt away, even if you’ve been training like a motherfucking monster for months and eating right, because the body wants to keep it.
So yeah, the “eat less move more” doctrine can fuck itself right in the face.
There are very, very active fat people, fat people who are experts at every sport and physical activity you can imagine. But because fat rests on top of the muscle, you don’t know when we’re jacked. Oh, sure, sometimes you can get a idea, if a person is WILDLY active, like for a fucking living. Here’s Samoa Joe, the NXT pro wrestling champion who was literally dethroned last night:
Yeah, you can see there’s a lot of power there.
But a lot of times you can’t. Here’s Vince Wilfork, two-time Superbowl tackling champion:
And here’s Holley Mangold, 2012 superheavyweight division Olympian:
These are people who fight (and flip, and do all kinds of crazy shit in Joe’s case), and run, and lift for a living.
And they’re not unusual, as much as you’d like to think so. The world is full of fat powerhouses, of fat runners, of fat Crossfitters, and they’re just as good at doing the thing as their smaller counterparts.
So realism? Fuck off. The only reason we don’t have fat game characters is because society is fatphobic as fuck.
Also? Saints Row lets you be fat, *and hot,* so don’t even come at me with “nobody wants that.”
“fat people can’t climb though”
(Exhibit A: Fezzik carrying 3 people up a cliff)
“yeah but that’s fictional!”
and video games aren’t?
Apparently weight weighs differently if it’s fat instead of, like, eight different machine guns and a rocket launcher?
Video games let you carry all sorts of shit, they can let you carry your own body.
(This got better) -V
I love whenever people are like “ugh, fat people can’t climb a wall”.
Cool story, quick question: can you?
Because plenty of people aren’t into climbing. Being skinny isn’t what allows people to climb. Training is.
While I think it’s great seeing all the excitement and press coverage about India legalizing gay sex, I think it’s really important to remember that this is NOT India progressing due to Western influence. This is India decolonizing.
The homophobic statute that was overturned is a product of British colonialism in India. Prior to that, India had a rich and vibrant queer community that played important functions in society. There were queer Hindu gods and hijras serve as an example of how queerness in society was venerated. This is not something to patronize India over and congratulate ourselves in the West for. This is a victory for India reclaiming their culture.
Oh my god. If i see one more of these posts in my dash I will murder someone.
Okay, let’s see:
“The homophobic statute that was overturned is a product of British colonialism in India.”
True. Section 377 was implemented by British Raj in India, possibly as an effort to safeguard Victorian mores.
“Prior to that, India had a rich and vibrant queer community that played important functions in society.”
Say, what??????
Can you please tell me what the “important functions in society” were, my dear fella? Contrary to tumblr’s belief, homophobia was not a western (or christian) invention. We were plenty homophobic on our own, thanks. Literally, the only acceptable ‘queerness’ in society was a laundebaaz (aka, one who does it to men/boys) whereas the gandu (aka the one who takes it up the ass) was considered the lowest of low in society.Even now, gandu is a derogatory word similar to faggot. Does that sound like “venerating queerness” to you dear?
Also, lesbians? LOL. What lesbians?? Funnily enough, even in “a society venerating queerness" lesbianism is practically unheard of. Furthermore, the ‘celebration of queerness” in these cultures is mostly male receiving partners being pushed to the margins of society.
But hey, why consider boring things like reality… when you can have Cool-Tumblr-Version-of-Queer-Feminist-Utopia-Before-the-Whiteys-Fucked-Everything-Up™
brand of history?
“There were queer Hindu gods and hijras serve as an example of how queerness in society was venerated”
Firstly, there “were queer Gods”? What happened to them? Did they die when colonialism happened? Did they go, “Ah… those dastardly British have set foot on India and are imposing their Victorian mores, perhaps we should pack up our bags and leave”? I might be a tad bit uninformed in my “queer Gods”, considering the fact that I was born into and practicing Hinduism since my birth and so has all my forefathers, but according to my knowledge those “Queer Gods” still remained in society. Yet, homophobia persisted. Heck, Sabarimala is one of the most pilgrimage sites (that has the son of ‘Queer Gods’ as the deity), and even now “youthful females” (i.e., women of ages from their first menstruation till menopause) are NOT ALLOWED TO ENTER.
Despite being the son of queer gods, Ayyappa still seems to be misogynistic as fuck.
Secondly, you might wanna brush up on those queer gods and legendary figures… almost in all of them one of the couple gets magically changed to other sex and begets a biological child. Biological procreation and production of progeny – it seems as if even the Gods have to perform and conform to heteronormativity.
Now,
“hijras”
I wish I got dollars for every time a White Ally™ misused or misrepresented hijras. Contrary to popular belief, hijras are not transexuals (at least not all of them). There are different types of hijras – those who were born hermaphrodites, those who castrate themselves and proclaim to be neither man nor woman, those who are homosexual men who crossdress, and those who are men who do not perform masculinity to society’s standards. They are literally gender non-conforming men : either their homosexuality is a deviancy that needed to be corrected; or their lack of assertion of heterosexuality was a mistake to be corrected, or they just liked “girly things” too much.
So, these “venerated positions” that they supposedly held was quite literally the only option left to them – they were kicked out of society and jobs. I know a lot of people on tumblr would say “but they were in kings’ courts and all”. Guess why? They were either entertainers (a part of the dance troupe) because that ‘girly’ job was seen apt for them. Generally, dancers were not seen in positive light.
They were considered at best as courtesans and at worst as prostitutes.
Even now, “attakari” (dancer) is a term used to say a woman is a slut.
Second option for them was as guards or companions (sahelis). This was to ensure “the purity of noble woman”. After all, when the “purity of the womb” is of the utmost importance, a king/noble wouldn’t even trust male guards with their women. Heck, there are even legends of gnc men being coerced into castration so as to make guards for ladies. That is why they were the guards of many noble’s harems – not because they were valued for their capabilities, but because they couldn’t “damage the property” (i.e., have penetrative sex with the royal’s women).
Nowadays, most of them cannot get a decent jobs, and literally have to beg in trains and buses to get food on their tables. Oh, this is also a part of the “veneration” : they have no livelihood, so they go and threaten people with curses (their otherness makes them freaky, and according to superstition gives them supernatural powers), so that people will donate some money in fear.
This is not including the young boys and men that were pushed into sex mafia and trafficking.
So, miss me with that “veneration” bullshit.
“This is not something to patronize India over and congratulate ourselves
in the West for. This is a victory for India reclaiming their culture.”
Do you know what I find patronising? White allys
who has read Buzzfeed articles on ‘hijras’ or ‘queerness’ somehow pretending to speak for us. Lauding us for our extremely open/feminist/queer Culture™
that they know of through exoticized magazines and power yoga videos.
I once read an essay on how Indian patriarchial system countered westernization (in an effort to prevent women from going outside their homes) by claiming that
while British might be materialistically more advanced than Indians, ~spiritually Indians are better than British~.
The same exotic bullshit is repackaged here, using liberal buzzwords to please tumblr crowd.
If you’re in need of ‘faith in humanity: restored’ news, a duck suddenly appeared on a remote island in the Pacific and no one’s sure how he even made it (the closest landmass, New Zealand, is about 1700 miles away) but, like, the entire population is now devoted to the duck’s wellbeing and that’s the first duck they’ve ever seen so they named him and Googled what he eats (not bread!) and built him an artificial pond and now ‘there are concerns he might be lonely’, so there’s talk of importing other ducks to keep him company and yeah, the world is still batshit insane but isn’t this the sweetest thing?
the most unrealistic thing in danny phantom was all those girls wearing crop tops that didnt get dress coded
Okay but what if the school board really started cracking down on the school dress code and Sam and Paulina team up out of sheer spit, they make the teachers and board members life hell for the next couple weeks and the final straw is when the entire student body shows up to school in crop tops (many of the guys diy-ing it by cutting their shirts) and refusing to change or leave campus, despite threats of calling the police, because everyone is too terrified of the unholy union that is a determined Sam and Paulina.
Artisan Scribbles 