#plain people

[pneumaticpresence]

Several of the Amish people with whom I spoke dismissed the books on literary grounds. Sitting outside on a warm June evening, holding her son on her lap, a young Amish mother in Ohio who taught school for eight years is eager to chat about her favorite novels by Barbara Kingsolver and James Herriott. When I ask her about Amish romance novels, she talks first about the plot weaknesses of the ones she has read and then tells me her theory of why they're so popular: "They're light reading," she says, then raises her eyebrows significantly and leans forward. "You sure never have to go for the dictionary."

A middle-aged Old Order Amish woman in Pennsylvania, who calls The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx, the greatest book of all time and who loves the novels of Toni Morrison and Richard Russo, also charges the books with being mediocre literature. "I'm very picky about what I read," she tells me; "No Christian fiction holds my interest." When I ask whether her friends and family read Amish novels, she says no. "They're big fans of Karen Kingsbury and Francine Rivers," she says. "My mother reads and reads and reads them. But they don't read Amish." And although she hasn't heard of anyone in her community who loves Amish fiction, she says that her mother and several other older women have begun passing around Danielle Steel novels—a revelation that makes her daughter, who is sipping tea, clap a hand over her mouth and slap the table in silent mirth.

I can't stop smiling at the image of Amish grandmothers sneaking around with Danielle Steel contraband either, and the idea of Amish women reading Toni Morrison I find equally lovely. These revelations underscore that the Amish are diverse enough to include several taste publics, each of which values distinct kinds of literature. One Old Order Amish woman I spoke to in her kitchen in Leola, Pennsylvania, summed up the view of the Amish taste public that has no time for Amish fiction. "I know there has to be a good reason that Amish novels are so popular," she told me bluntly, "and I am not that reason."

Valerie Weaver-Zercher, Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels (2013)

I want to meet this Old Order Amish woman reading E. Annie Proulx and Toni Morrison. it sounds like she reads them openly; how is this possible?! from what I remember, The Shipping News is so sexually explicit that I was afraid to get caught reading it (as a high schooler), and no one ever policed what I read

[nikkiitalks]

Little girl in pink regalia does a Blackfoot & Plains Cree dance celebrating the Prairie Chicken, Source unknown.

[cozylittleartblog]

cant tell you how bad it feels to constantly tell other artists to come to tumblr, because its the last good website that isn't fucked up by spoonfeeding algorithms and AI bullshit and isn't based around meaningless likes

just to watch that all fall apart in the last year or so and especially the last two weeks

there's nowhere good to go anymore for artists.

edit - a lot of people are saying the tags are important so actually, you'll look at my tags.

#please dont delete your accounts because of the AI crap. your art deserves more than being lost like that #if you have a good PC please glaze or nightshade it. if you dont or it doesnt work with your style (like mine) please start watermarking #use a plain-ish font. make it your username. if people can't google what your watermark says and find ur account its not a good watermark #it needs to be central in the image - NOT on the canvas edges - and put it in multiple places if you are compelled #please dont stop posting your art because of this shit. we just have to hope regulations will come slamming down on these shitheads#in the next year or two and you want to have accounts to come back to. the world Needs real art #if we all leave that just makes more room for these scam artists to fill in with their soulless recycled garbage #improvise adapt overcome. it sucks but it is what it is for the moment. safeguard yourself as best you can without making #years of art from thousands of artists lost media. the digital world and art is too temporary to hastily click a Delete button out of spite

[everybody-loves-to-eat]

[batemanofficial]

that smoking in public poll got me thinking. you don't get to waffle about being neutral with these options you gotta choose

i personally like the smell of weed but dislike the smell of cigarette/tobacco smoke, but combing through the notes on that poll indicates that this opinion may be unpopular! idk!

[inkskinned]

hey btw if you're in the USA at  2:20 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Oct. 4, they're testing the emergency broadcast system. your phone is probably going to make a really loud noise, even if it's on silent. there's a backup date on the 11th if they need to postpone it.

if you're not in a safe situation and have an extra phone, you should turn that phone completely off beforehand.

additionally, if you're like me, and are easily startled; i recommend treating it like a party. have a countdown or something. be surrounded by your loved ones. take the actions you personally need to take to make yourself safe.

i have already seen mockery towards any person who feels nervous about this. for the record, it completely, completely valid to have "emergency broadcast sounds" be an anxiety trigger. do not let other people make fun of you for that. emergency sounds are legitimately engineered to make us take action; those of us with high levels of anxiety and/or neurodivergence are already pre-disposed to have a Bad Time. sometimes it is best to acknowledge that the situation will be triggering for some, and to prepare for that; rather than just saying "well that's stupid, it's just a test."

"loud scary sound time" isn't like, my favorite thing, but we can at least try to prevent some additional anxiety by preparing for it. maybe get yourself a cake? noise cancelling headphones? the new hozier album? whatever helps. love u, hope you're okay. we are gonna ride it out together.

[spitedemon]

i really don’t think it’s “typical dragon age fandom nonsense” for people to be genuinely upset about the world state choices. combat, level design, art direction, gameplay gimmicks, those have all varied across each dragon age game. the one thing that’s remained constant are nods to our previous choices.

i wasn’t expecting my HoF to come riding in on a griffon, but i can’t find a monument dedicated to warden tabris somewhere around the anderfels? lucanis couldn’t have some lines about the time that one arainai boy was stirring up trouble in antiva city? you’re gonna tell me that making a mage the new divine wouldn’t have some impact on nevarra and antiva? on the anderfels, the supposed most devout militant andrastian nation in thedas? you’re saying nobody in the north is paying attention to who rules orlais or ferelden? come on.

[sonsoroi]

I think about the possibility of simple modest living being an outward visible sign of Christian faith all the time because I live near Amish people, who do exactly that every day. But I am saddened every time I go over that way by how hard it seems for non-Amish people, including other Christians, to even understand that practice, much less embrace it.

Literally millions of people visit here every year because of the Amish population. Some are drawn to the scenery for aesthetic reasons, or by nostalgia for a simpler time when the pace of life was slower, but many are attracted by the Amish people’s visible faith. Visitors say they come to be inspired to think more deeply about religion and to live more faithfully. They can see that the Amish stand for something, and they want desperately to have that sense of meaning for themselves, to learn something from the Amish that they can take home with them.

And yet. All that most visitors can think to do about it when they get there is 1. See a buggy and 2. Buy something.

They look and they look, and all around them are people practicing intentional self-denial and voluntary simplicity, and using any extra money to help others instead of indulging themselves. And instead of living a slower paced life, the Amish are typically extremely busy doing all their own daily work, which is made more time consuming by the absence of electricity, and then using any extra time to serve others.

Those are the hallmarks by which we outsiders can tell that the Amish are living for a higher purpose. And yet it never seems to occur to anyone else to imitate this. Instead, tourists say, wow, so inspiring, maybe I should, uhhh… buy a potholder. Or a really well made swing set. Or a wooden cross with an American flag painted on (literally the least Amish thing I have ever seen but okay). Surely a treasured souvenir will bring the meaning that I’m searching for, right?

I feel so bad for them because they’re SO close to what they’re looking for… but they just can’t quite grasp it for themselves. They have been taught by our culture that there is no other way to become happy than by shopping and buying things, so that’s their response to the Amish as well.

I wish other Christians could understand and try voluntary simplicity for themselves! It would be a powerful message to the world.

reclaiming "no buy november 🥰" type stuff but like. For Jesus specifically.

[spikeisawesome456]

I had yet another amazing idea for a poll, so get ready for this super divisive question that WILL tear families and friendships apart.

[vinceaddams]

it's required by law that all jumbled up old button collections must have at least 1 seashell in them

[ssmashley]

How can you call that PLAIN-LOOKING??!??

[pneumaticpresence]

turns out the one thing I can claim to have liked before it was popular (not before it was cool--obviously it will never be cool) is Amish fiction, as in the subgenre of Christian inspirational fiction. it already seemed huge in my world from 2004-2008 (and my favorite series was from the 90s) but it apparently exploded after 2009. I had moved on by then. anyway I need to like, start up a correspondence with the author of The Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels bc it is all so fascinating to me and I can't exactly reach out to my estranged cousins (conservative Christians who married their first boyfriends and do not seem very happy) and ask "so how do you think this stuff affected your romantic and sexual expectations?" ... and I don't know anyone else who grew up on it (it was the first adult literature I ever read!) or seems to have any interest in the subject

I haven't even reached the in-depth sections on sexuality -- there is so much else. hypermodernity (the commodification of Amish culture as both a response and a symptom); theories of reading; changes in publishing; evangelicals' identification with the Amish; etc.

[plushiefucker]

its just so fascinating when people go on and on about how adults were always so nasty towards them or how scared and uncomfortable they felt in public or how they always felt so distant and alone from their families, and how they carry this hurt to this very day - only to be nasty to children, complain and mock kids who have meltdowns in public, and to never interact or genuinely love their kid family members. you love the idea of breaking generational curses in theory but lack the actual self-awareness to actually do so. truly, truly fascinating.

[achillesuwu]

I think it would be so neat if merlin, arthur and the knight in legalized magic (I nearly wrote marriage lmao yeah legal same sex marriage = legal magic what are you gonna do about it ANYWAY) post canonish need to go undercover to a kingdom where it isn’t legal yet and it’s just Merlin just saying shit he said in Camelot and having the same attitude that he used to have. Like (crack no really too much angst) just Merlin saying thing like ‘Oh, no, I’m the farthest thing from an ordinary man :)’, merlin walking right after a wall crumbled down like ‘oh, idk what happened anyway let’s go’, Merlin walking around with barely hidden magical object etc and you have just Arthur and the knight sweating bucket in the background and having a heart attack every 2 hours because ‘oh my god he is so reckless how did I never notice all of this shit shit shit SHIT there is no way’

Bonus point if Lancelot is the only one being chill about the whole thing

[spac3d0lls]

“talia was a codename for noel!”

“noel was catfishing mischa!”

don't care. CURSE OF RA 𓀀 𓀁 𓀂 𓀃 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆 𓀇 𓀈 𓀉 𓀊 𓀋 𓀌 𓀍 𓀎 𓀏 𓀐 𓀑 𓀒 𓀓 𓀔 𓀕 𓀖 𓀗 𓀘 𓀙 𓀚 𓀛 𓀜 𓀝 𓀞 𓀟 𓀠 𓀡 𓀢 𓀣 𓀤 𓀥 𓀦 𓀧 𓀨 𓀩 𓀪 𓀫 𓀬 𓀭 𓀮 𓀯 𓀰 𓀱 𓀲 𓀳 𓀴 𓀵 𓀶 𓀷 𓀸 𓀹 𓀺 𓀻 𓀼 𓀽 𓀾 𓀿 𓁀 𓁁 𓁂 𓁃 𓁄 𓁅 𓁆 𓁇 𓁈 𓁉 𓁊 𓁋 𓁌 𓁍 𓁎 𓁏 𓁐 𓁑 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆

[arthursfuckinghat]

Red dead redemption fucks you up man.

You literally can't do anything the same anymore after playing, I'm sitting in work thinking about my horses and wondering which one I'll ride to die with Arthur - I love them all so much that I wish I could save them all.

I even randomly think about the thimble Jack wants, I have no idea where to find it but nobody at hanging dog ranch has had it in all the times I've raided it.

I think about the sun and the stars, the dusty plains of West Elizabeth and the grasslands of New Hanover, I think about Tall Trees and the canyons of New Austin, the mountains, the snow, the peaceful times camping under the night sky.

And you find yourself yearning for it, despite how awful, unforgiving and unfair the time period was.

You can't go back to those days, it's definitely for the best, you'll lose yourself if you focus so much on wanting something from so far in the past.

Whatever you're yearning for, look for it in your future, your present time, find it and run with it. Life is too short to live in the past, live in the time you have now and thrive.