pinkuboa:

Seriously my advice to any developer regardless of engine is “don’t trash other developers in the community publicly”. Like, I don’t mean “don’t warn people about working with toxic people” I mean “don’t air petty drama and grievances out on the damn net.” Don’t say “the only reason that x is popular is because of their good graphics they don’t deserve their popularity” or “lmao the graphics in this game are shit why did they even bother”, or even “man this person is a bitch and a terrible writer why do people even like them lol.”

Most people work hard on their games. And the rpg maker community in particular is small enough that when you’re saying bitchy things like that publicly you’re gonna piss off like 1/6 of the community or more because they know the person you’re trashing and will not want to interact with you more, and word will spread. Do yourself a favor and keep it to yourself or your irl friends if you’re that upset. You don’t win over people in video game development by being the biggest trash talker around. You do that on a team and you probably won’t be on another team for a long time.

backupstardust:

cazort:

montmorillionite:

binghsien:

lrb i am increasingly just telling people who profess to having no internal sense of gender and never had had one and find the idea of having one kinda alienating “you’re agender.”

technically what i should be saying is “you might be agender, maybe explore that?” but there are like a billion cis people and a million trans people telling them “if you don’t care about your gender at all that means you’re cis” which it absolutely doesn’t not so i feel the need to be a counter-weight.

if you are one of those billion cis people or million trans people: please stop saying that “not caring about your gender means you’re cis.” particularly when someone says “but i’ve never really had a sense of gender.”

not having an internal sense of gender does not mean that you are cis. it has never meant that you are cis! cis people care a lot about their gender! not caring about your gender means (very likely) that you are agender.

you don’t have to do anything with that information. it doesn’t compel you to start using specific pronouns or identifying in specific ways or joining specific support groups or communities. what it means is those things are there if you need them. what it means is you’re more like us than you are like them.

I think that there may be an important and likely easily missed difference between not having any internal sense of gender and thinking you don’t care about gender because you haven’t really had to confront it. If your gender aligns well with societal expectations, many of the ways gender and gender roles affect your life (and the ways you care about it) will be invisible to you because you don’t bump into them or strain against them regularly. I think that that’s what a lot of (especially transphobic) cis people are often unintentionally referring to when they say they don’t have a gender. That said, there are likely also a lot of agender folks out there who haven’t really questioned or figured out their gender.

Anyways cheers, good post.

Also, agenderflux person here, being agender or not, isn’t an either-or thing. You can see being agender as a spectrum, and it can also interact with genderfluidity, in the sense of some people, like me, being mostly agender but having some partial attachment to other gender identities that fluctuates over time.

If this stuff seems painfully abstract, it is. Think about it only if you find it empowering to do so. I personally find agenderflux to be a useful term for understanding my own experience of gender, but I recognize it is super esoteric and I don’t expect other people, even other nonbinary people or other genderfluid people, to necessarily understand it.

On that subject, I found this in the gift shop of a museum and basically went “*gasp!* Gender Knife!”

crows-and-gray-morality:

SoC / CK quotes that should be discussed in literature/ philosophy classes

Time heals everything but ….. What if something inside you breaks and it just heals wrong?

“I don’t want it. I just don’t want him to have it.” “What a luxury to turn your back on luxury.

“They fear as I once feared you,” he said. “As you once feared me. We are all someone’s monster, Nina.”

„Suffering is like anything else. Live with it long enough, you learn to like the taste.”

If you don’t care about money, Nina dear, call it by its other names.” “Kruge? Scrub? Kaz’s one true love?” “Freedom, security, retribution.”

„Fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.”

Do you have a different name for killing when you wear a uniform to do it?”

We can endure all kinds of pain. It’s shame that gets us in the end.

„And that was what destroyed you in the end: the longing for something you could never have.”

llleighsmith:

“No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can’t put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.”

— ERIN BOW

jennyslateswife:

Honestly, if you care so much about human suffering, I really recommend just like… helping out locally.

And I’m sure there are ways to frame this like “Maybe the homeless person you help feed at the food kitchen will be the person who figures out how to stop the next global crisis” or some shit but like… really I just mean… if you’re against human suffering, go help some humans.

They might not ever be helpful in a global or even national or statewide or local crisis but… they are suffering and need help, so help them.

The effort to help things at home goes much, much farther than your guess works attempt at help for a crisis brewing elsewhere.

I feel like a lot of y’all hone in on crises that are so large you cannot actually do something because it’s a way to prove you have empathy and care but know you don’t have to actually do any sustained work for. Like you CAN’T help, you can ONLY care.

With local things, the only way to prove you care… is to actually do work and not just post about it. And it’s sustained work that never quite stops. You can reasonably make a huge difference.

But you just won’t get attention for it. It’s all the work and none of the validation. Whereas posting about world crises is all of the attention and none of the work.

caffeinewitchcraft:

An elderly woman (late 70s, early 80s) came into the coffee shop I work at to order two frappuccinos for her and her granddaughter who was waiting outside. I was working on something else and didn’t take her order, but I thought it was sweet they were on a little outing together.

The problem arose when her order came out and she was upset to find one of her drinks was wrong. She insisted on what she had ordered (a combination of two fraps) but we had made what she asked for. It just wasn’t what she wanted.

Because of my former work, I’ve dealt with a lot of elderly and I realized what was happening. She had ordered her usual order of a caramel frap but then had ordered her granddaughter’s drink as a strawberry-caramel-frap.  Some older folks won’t recall the meaning of words as readily as they used to. To her, her usual order of “caramel frap” justmeant “frap.” So the color was off (because it had coffee in it) and she noticed that it was different than what she wanted. She probably didn’t even realize she was saying “caramel” when ordering the strawberry frap.

A barista made her order for her, a regular strawberry frap, while a few of us chatted with her about her day. By the time she left, the anxiety of receiving the wrong drink was gone and she was laughing.

And it makes me feel great that we were able to give her that experience today. In a fast paced environment like the coffee shop, it can be difficult to really listen to customers, especially those who aren’t able to communicate clearly at times. I’m grateful that my team had the time and space to solve the miscommunication with compassion and understanding so that the customer didn’t have to carry that frustration with her for the rest of the day.

It’s a shame that the way labor is managed in the food/bev industry has changed and is continuing to change in ways that mean we can’toffer that to everyone. When you’re handling 100+ orders per hour, there is no way to reasonably expect a minimum wage employee to have the bandwidth for those sort of conversations.

And, not to talk myself in a circle, but it’s human to want to be compassionate. I’m proud to work with such kind people, but it is absolutelynot their job to extend that to all customers.  So the fact that “good customer service” demands they be understanding and nice to everyoneis actually gross, especially considering the insane volume of work they’re expected to juggle on top of that.

Working in this coffee shop is like going through a villain origin story every single day.

Everybody always gives me shit for not wanting to leave my instrument unattended and are like “BuT wHo’S gOnNa StEaL a BaSs”

But what they’re never expecting is it actually happened to me once.

Waaaay back in middle school (7th grade), I didn’t have my own bass (who would give their kid an expensive and fragile instrument that they’re probably going to lose interest in??) and had to use a school owned bass. There were lots of us across all the grades (10-15 I think) and there were only 8 basses, so there were multiple people using each one.

So it’s concert night and we’re all crowded into this stupid little “multipurpose room”. I need to ask the teacher a question and I leave my bass with some friends, who were only paying half attention. I turn my back for LITERALLY 2 seconds to look the teacher in the eye. I mean what can go wrong in 2 seconds?

Well I turn around and go back and my bass is GONE.

My friends have NO IDEA where it went

Like how do you miss someone stealing a 5 and a half foot (it was a half size) tall instrument?!?! HOW?!

I see the eighth grader that also plays it and he doesn’t have it.

I didn’t start getting panic attacks until 8th grade, but OOOHHHH BOY WAS I CLOSE at that moment. I knew nothing but that I HAD TO FIND IT

So after several minutes of running around in general panic, I find it.

There is this guy. Sitting there all alone. Smiling. In a stupid little Santa hat. And lemme tell you, that innocent smiling face there with his CONTRABAND had me SEEING RED. Looks like nobody told me our bass had another user. And this asshole just up and steals it. Like he just saw it and went “Wonder how my bass got here, better swipe it all sneaky and such” Oh good lord I was so mad.

So obviously I march up there, grab the contraband, and just start SCREAMING at him.

And you know what he does? He’s being all POLITE. And SWEET. And NICE. And PLEASANT. While I’m screaming at him. And it’s PISSING ME THE FUCK OFF. He’s just like “Oh wow, I didn’t know I share this, I thought I was the only one, nice to meet you! :3″ (I swear to God he actually made that face) and I’m that GIF of angry flaming Hades from that Disney movie Hercules.

So after a good few minutes of trying to fucking KILL the personification of a cinnamon roll (Don’t worry, he’s fine, we later put our difference aside and like totally love each other), I finally return to my friends and was like “Jfc I’m never leaving my bass alone again, little bitch in a stupid Santa hat stole my fucking bass!” 

And I kept my word.

Also I just now realized that if homeboy can steal a whole bass without anybody noticing, maybe I should take his threats of sneaking through my bedroom window and cutting off my ponytail a little more seriously.

But yeah, bass stealing happens and I’m not taking my chances.

wistfulrat:

wistfulrat:

it’s jokes on here but rly truly genuinely the thing u like abt taika’s core affect has always been his māori-ness. what ur perceiving in his comedy and writing and emotional beats and exploration of masculinity and general clown shit is peak pasifika. not that islanders have the monopoly on his tone but. since 2 cars 1 night, eagle vs shark, flight of the conchords, boy, hunt for the wilderpeople, what we do in the shadows, our flag means death etc. he has never not been a māori eccentric making distinctly happy-sad dramedies born out of māori boyhood and the cadence of nz aoteoroa village kid humor like. that is an islander doing bits at ur aunty’s funeral if i ever saw one

anyway just ensuring the masses. that’s not western hollywood progressive ally it-boy sauce. u know what i mean. like the reason it’s refreshing is bc pasifika masculine tenderness exists outside of That. māori boys traditionally wear skirts and weave and wear flowers in their hair and collectively weep at funerals and kiss the body in the casket and tell self deprecating jokes when grandma is bummed out and learn to carry grief very. absurdly, comedically, softly, openly. grief both personal and historical. colonized islanders navigating the fracturing of our communities via jokes etc. it’s everything that white masculinity is not. so!!! idk there are and will continue to be a trillion essays on taika’s sauce bc he gets written fat checks and has like 7 massive projects out at any given time but the conversation would hugely benefit from not leaving out his. entire artistic ethos as an islander

pr8r:

pr8r:

pr8r:

marisatomay:

thekobrakiddo3:

marisatomay:

the mcu is the “the curtains are just blue” of cinematic experiences

Is that why it’s so good?

YOU

f scott fitzgerald scared to say god himself is watching nick carraway and his band of socialite hedonists so he makes up an optometrist billboard constantly overlooking them (out of fear, hes scared)

michael crichton throwing out a version of jurassic park that just says “science, without restraint, can be dangerous. and dinosaurs are cool”

edgar allen poe’s first draft of telltale heart: “if you kill someone…..you might feel bad about it/:” but he starts trembling looking at it and says “no…..i’m too much of a pussy…to say this”

pervysenpaix:

pervysenpaix:

I love the way some marginalized groups like to marginalize other marginalized groups. It’s comical.

Even taking it a step further how they sometimes bully non marginalized groups because how dare they not identify with and/or believe in whatever we want them to.

It just seems a bit hypocritical to “other” those that don’t fit our tastes/lifestyle/beliefs or whatever you wanna call it. Cause I’d look like a damn fool preaching equality then saying “you can’t sit with us”.

supersizebbws:

Don’t do things half-assed. If you’re going to do it; do it all the way. Everything you have nothing held back!

northwest-by-a-train:

ladymisskvir:

mechsuit:

dingonato:

Begging people to stop infantilizing art

fanfiction brainrot

Tumblr circa 2014-15

David Foster Wallace: But, again, the last twenty years have seen big changes in how writers engage their readers, what readers need to expect from any kind of art.

Larry McCaffrey: The media seems to me to be one thing that has drastically changed this relationship. It’s provided people with this television-processed culture for so long that audiences have forgotten what a relationship to serious art is all about.

DFW: Well, it’s too simple to just wring your hands and claim TV’s ruined readers. Because the U.S.’s television culture didn’t come out of a vacuum. What TV is extremely good at—and realize that this is “all it does”—is discerning what large numbers of people think they want, and supplying it. And since there’s always been a strong and distinctive American distaste for frustration and suffering, TV’s going to avoid these like the plague in favor of something anesthetic and easy.

LM: You really think this distaste is distinctly American?

DFW: It seems distinctly Western-industrial, anyway. In most other cultures, if you hurt, if you have a symptom that’s causing you to suffer, they view this as basically healthy and natural, a sign that your nervous system knows something’s wrong. For these cultures, getting rid of the pain without addressing the deeper cause would be like shutting off a fire alarm while the fire’s still going. But if you just look at the number of ways that we try like hell to alleviate mere symptoms in this country- from fast-fast-fast-relief antacids to the popularity of lighthearted musicals during the Depression—you can see an almost compulsive tendency to regard pain itself as the problem. And so pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It’s probably more Western than U.S. per se. Look at utilitarianism—that most English of contributions to ethics- and you see a whole teleology predicated on the idea that the best human life is one that maximizes the pleasure-to-pain ratio. God, I know this sounds priggish of me. All I’m saying is that it’s shortsighted to blame TV. It’s simply another symptom. TV didn’t invent our aesthetic childishness here any more than the Manhattan Project invented aggression. Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes.

From “The Review of Contemporary Fiction,” Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2

gender-nightvale:

They have never seen God’s genitals yet use He/Him

“o.k. atheisty”

The text of a man who has never seen his god’s balls.

dankmemeuniversity:

Day 9

The word is “manipulation”.

I looked up how many types of manipulators are there because why not. Apparently there are quite a few.

Next thing i looked up is the process of most manipulation situations: choosing the target, becoming friendly, getting to the trustworthy/love stage if that’s the case, abusive.

Day 10

The theme: psychology.

I like to read about psychology but i feel like this is one topic people can’t comprehend fully regardless if they’re specialists or not.

I’m quite curious what people will discover in the future regarding this theme because psychology is quite a new science in comparison to others.

Day 11

Crows

My goal is to befriend a few.

Day 12

Unknown

One thing that makes me giggle is when i hear “specialists don’t agree with this” (yes anon, I’m referring to you right now).

So many people call themselves specialists because they studied the past experiences but shouldn’t a specialist know everything about something? Otherwise they’re just an advanced learner.

There are new discoveries daily and looking back, there were many plot twists over time, in history, that rearranged entire industries and sciences so i think the unknown is in everything, even if it’s something that people are so sure of in the present.

Perhaps that’s why there are terms loke experts, specialists, masters etc because we seek comfort. The unknown is pretty scary usually.

Day 13

Embroidery

Such an easy hobby that can make things unique. I think it’s quite a lovely skill.

Day 14

Emotions

I learned the definition of “unconscious” today and the girl who said it in the video said that you’re unconscious when you start acting as your emotions and thoughts and you don’t realize it and I’m here, since lunch, asking myself “isn’t that what a human is though? A big bag of emotions and thoughts?”

I don’t know, this theme is really not something I can talk about much.

Day 15

Goals

Now this is a topic i know a few things about.

By a few things, i mean nothing.

I spent the last 2 weeks, in a thought hibernation state regarding goals. (Not my goals, the concept of goals)

I asked a couple of friends and coworkers some existential crisis questions and the more i tried to figure out how people choose goals and plans for them and so on, the more lost i became.

In theory, goals are easy. You want a thing. You make a plan for the thing. You work for the thing. You get the thing.

However, practically, ain’t that easy apparently. We don’t talk about half burnout sessions either. People actually can’t start working for a goal, even before choosing the goal. Some things that caught my attention for these past 2 weeks:

• Fear and doubts stop a lot of people from even trying.
• Your environment that you live in, sets your energy level.
• People choose a vibe, an aesthetic they want but don’t think further. No plan, no direction, no idea how to achieve that vibe.
• Not having the guarantee that it will work. This could be paired with fear and doubts but that’s something that caught my attention: that even if they look the same in my eyes, they are perceived differently by some people.

So really, all i can say is, find your own way and see your own holes on your approach because very few people could make a customizable plan for your goals.

Most articles will look the same. Goals aren’t a one size all thing though.

Day 16

Spirituality

Some time ago I heard this quote “spirituality and religion aren’t the same thing” and it haunts me ever since.

Pretty great quote.

Here are the previous topics.

@sayitaliano posts daily about these themes too and unlike me, they really post daily and don’t speedrun through an entire week of themes.

I got more Travelers gifs/gifsets coming, stay tuned…….

I thought I would start out with something that is rarely shown in the show and for a good reason because it’s not exactly the main focus and even though they come from a futuristic world, I like that the writers of the show still leave it up to our imagination to think what the future “was” like, or their past is our future (that is a really interesting perspective to think on) so they throw in a couple of human features from the futuristic world for us to contemplate on if we like: a drifting memory that manifests as a hallucination for a brief moment and Simon’s art expresses the emotion of a grey colorless world. The AI and their technology are other pieces they bring into the show but it does not obstruct too much and we don’t get too sci-fi like that we start straying from the 21st century. We don’t have two different worlds colliding all the time, meaning that we are always in the present (we don’t have constant flashbacks). We get the Traveler’s internal perspectives on the 21st century and their passion to fulfill the purpose and missions that they were sent for. There are always interesting details to note like Trevor and Grace obsessing over how delicious food is or how beautiful the trees are and that there are animals (remember the bear/dog debate). This is why we need a s3. We need to know why Traveler 0001 is so against the Director. And why 0001 is so against changing the future if he/she knows how bleak it is. And I also want to know if Trevor, being the oldest Traveler has ever run into 0001 before and if he might have a memory of what must have gone wrong. Anyway lots of questions unanswered. So I am looking forward to having this show renewed. I also want to know why they live in a system where people have numbers as names, and the fact that the number also has a lot to do with their age.  

the fact that the setting of the show takes place in Washington makes it all the more appealing to me since I live in the PNW. Makes me feel even more at home with this show

Interest has been shown and the thought won’t leave my brain so I’m putting this on the table for discussion.

First let me be transparent: if allowed I will talk for ages about how people aren’t taught critical thinking and media analysis and if they are that they aren’t applying those tools where it counts. It’s something I see so frequently and I’ll get so driven up the wall about and I’ll lament for ages the way that educational systems have failed to teach these tools or how little push there actually is on a widespread scale to learn and implement them.

But over the last 24 hours with instances on several fronts and in several fandoms, an additional thought has repeatedly been popping up that I think needs to coexist with this discussion.

And that is that there is a human being behind every take you disagree with.

It’s easy to focus on the frustration and the issue and wanting to push for ways to improve the situation to the point I think sometimes it’s easy to forget the individual people.

While I don’t intend to point fingers to any one example (because again, I’ve been seeing this sort of issue in multiple fandom spaces on multiple platforms over the past day,) I feel like it’s still something to bring up. Just hear me out on this. Fandom isn’t necessarily a space where the intent is to always analyze and think critically about what we consume, but utilizing those tools can provide a more enriching experience with the source material, open up new discussions with other fans, and allow for a greater understanding of the source material and its creators and its impact(s).

But just as much as that, fandom isn’t necessarily intended for that level of engagement, at least not as a mandatory requirement. Many fans don’t consume a thing they enjoy for the sake of deeper thought and analysis, and this means that many times their opinions, headcanons, elements they enjoy, and understanding of the source material is going to differ drastically from that of a person who does those deeper dives.

And that’s fine.*

There is a caveat there and I’ll get to it, but I really would like to see this point as the main one for consideration in this discussion. Not everyone consumes movies, shows, books, podcasts, games, etc. with an automatic need or desire to analyze the media on a deeper level. Heck, even people who DO have that tendency are going to encounter things that they just engage with on a level of trying to simply enjoy it.

And that’s okay. Not everyone has had the opportunity to learn those things. Not everyone wants to always dissect everything they engage with, and trying to do that anyway is exhausting. (And if you’re trying to do that with the intent of seeking media purity, it’s doubly exhausting because you’re chasing something that cannot exist, and I would like to suggest that you reevaluate this because it WILL rob you of your ability to enjoy ANYTHING.)

And I think it’s important to remember that when we hit that point. That there’s another person. That no matter how much it may cause us frustration when we encounter people who show signs of not knowing or understanding the same things we do about something we’ve taken the time to really break down and understand, there’s still another person and we don’t know the circumstances behind why their experience is different nor are we entitled to know. I mean, YEAH, it’s frustrating when prevailing ideas about the source material within a fandom become commonplace and are either blatantly wrong/ignorant or don’t show enough analysis. But I feel like we also need to remember to be mindful of individual people even when expressing our frustrations and dislikes of ideas or attitudes that lack understanding.

Now. Here’s that *caveat.

When someone’s lack of understanding, lack of thinking, lack of being willing to go beyond the surface and understand the impacts of themes and ideas in media, lead to that someone causing harm to themselves and others, then there is a greater issue that I think should be addressed.

I’m not talking about “this person has a headcanon about this character that is ignorant of character history and I don’t like it so I’m going to get on their case about it”. I’m talking about, someone isn’t taking the time to listen and think about and do some sleuthing on any media that they’re engaging with that has real life negative consequences and impacts on other people, and they’re unlikely to stop and reevaluate their engagement and behavior unless someone who does have a better understanding of those issues says something. Additionally, do they have individual opinions of their own in their lack of understanding that they’re causing harm with, whether intentionally or unintentionally? Because I see that happen too, where something gets misconstrued or misunderstood in a harmful way and the person with that misunderstanding can go on to harm others with it.

For many, a positive change can be made by asking the question(s) “are you aware that this thing contains harmful ideas that have real-world impacts?” “Are you aware that your engagement with this material supports a creator(s) who is weaponizing their platform?” “These harmful opinions and thought processes are baked into the source of the media you’re consuming and they have real life impacts; have you been taking the time to see if it is also working its way into your opinions and treatment of others?”

When those questions get asked, it can lead to changes that are positive or it can lead to an understanding that that individual may willfully choose not to reevaluate how they may be causing harm because they won’t let go of whatever caused those harmful ideas to take root in them. And that is a different discussion entirely, but it’s important to remember that this is a caveat to consider.

But ultimately, TL;DR— I think the complaint of “none of these people are using critical thinking or analyzing media is frustrating and it needs to change” can and does need to begin coexisting with the idea “an individual person may not know how or choose to engage critically with the media they consume some or all of the time and that’s okay and I can respect and consider them even if I disagree with their takes on it.”

Is it just me or, funnily enough, was Remus actually the most helpful one in the whole video?

Not to Thomas no, but to Logan. His “All by myself” rendition had him changing part of the lyrics to “Won’t fix this guy all by yourself” which is what he tells Logan.

Now he could just be doing the most at being annoying and petulant and pushing Logan’s buttons, however, this could also be a warning of sorts to Logan that his attempts at solo authority over Thomas are going nowhere and nowhere fast.

And if anything, him getting Logan to the dreaded “DON’T IGNORE ME” bit followed by “But who do you really want to scream that at?” is another ‘take the hint’ moment from Remus. Logan’s plans and attempts don’t work because they aren’t flexible enough for that. We see Logan doing his very best at trying to be accommodating with all the different mishaps during the day, and bless his heart he really did try, but also still being very adamant about sticking to the schedule and to-do list when all was said and done.

Call me crazy but maybe, just maybe, Remus was trying to soften the blow and prepare Logan for disappointment. Because I’d wager you that Thomas wouldn’t have finished everything Logan had planned regardless of Remus’ meddling. Sure Thomas might’ve gotten more things done and not felt as gloomy, but he would’ve still bailed on the schedule the second he got the call from Nico. One way or another Logan was going to be faced with being put on the back burner.

Remus reminded Logan that no matter how much Logan cares about Thomas and helping him be his best self, Thomas doesn’t exactly return that level of care and respect, at least definitely not in this video where he completely brushed Logan off as he bumped the box and ran out the door.

Of course this could just all be part of Janus’ big scheme, but still, food for thought.

Something occurred to me on this reread that I haven’t thought of before. While I would never dream of suggesting that Katniss led a “comfortable” life before her father died, I can’t help noting that she grew up with a world of advantages not shared by her Seam neighbors (or even some of the merchants!), and it’s interesting when you start to pull it all together.

Her father was a skilled (maybe expert) hunter and forager, so she certainly ate better than the rest of the Seam (especially that all-precious protein - including fresh fish for brain and vision health - as well as fruit, wild greens, nuts). Her mother was a trained apothecary/herbalist, so she had some of the best available medical care (Since no one can afford doctors, apothecaries are our healers - p.8) under her own roof for injuries and illnesses, and her mother probably taught her good hygiene practices from the start. 

Her mother knew the herbs to use for everything and her father could and would go beyond the fence to retrieve them. However Mrs. Everdeen ended things with her parents, she still ended up with their priceless handwritten materia medica.

Aaaaaaand, now I need a Jack/Alys/Raisa Rapunzel retelling where pregnant Alys desperately wants her katniss tubers (actually, didn’t I tease that much in an aside in WtM a loooooong time ago??) and Raisa is the unloved witch with three little sons and no daughter/no hopes of having one. Jack adamantly refuses to give up their baby but desperate, miserable third-trimester Alys is willing to broker any deal (heck, maybe witch!Raisa even shows up to serve as midwife because Alys is struggling). Raisa disappears with Katniss, and Jack, assuming the worst, goes to the ends of the earth in search of his daughter, only to find her her cherished and adored by her stepmama in Milk-Daughter fashion…

Katniss’s father took her to the woods, occasionally giving her lungs a reprieve from the sooty air of Twelve, and gave her expert survival instruction that would have served her well even if she’d never gone to the Games. He taught her to swim - something I doubt anyone else in Twelve had the opportunity to learn, let alone practice (unless they were sneaking off to the woods as well) - a very beneficial form of exercise for her little body, and to climb trees. 

She mentions that both her parents sang (though we know less about her mother’s voice than her father’s). Believe it or not, there was once music in my house. Music that I helped make. My father pulled me in with that remarkable voice… (p. 234) That voice was, in my humble opinion, the nearest thing Twelve had to real magic. …whenever my father sang, all the birds in the area would fall silent and listen. His voice was that beautiful, high and clear and so filled with life it made you want to laugh and cry at the same time. (p. 43) And we know this isn’t just Katniss idealizing his memory because we get almost a verbatim account in Mr. Mellark’s “Because when he sings…even the birds stop to listen” (p.300). This may be more of a personal headcanon, but I’m willing to bet her father filled that house with breathtaking tales as well as songs. 

She knew what velvet was - granted, from a small sample on the collar of one of her mother’s dresses, but it’s a unique little snippet of luxury for a Seam child to have been exposed to. (This always brings back a fond memory from my own childhood: my mother had a “Sunday sweater” with narrow white stripes of angora every couple of inches, which I loved to trace with a fingertip when I was in her lap.) And as far as I can tell, Katniss had a (largely) stay-at-home mother, since Mrs. Everdeen was “expected to get a job” (p. 26) within a month of her husband’s death - not that she couldn’t have been running her Seam apothecary business before Mr. Everdeen died, but she definitely wasn’t on a time clock and was probably/primarily working from home, which certainly benefited the girls more than having both parents gone for up to twelve hours a day.

Those parents had a tender, loving relationship, and as Katniss remarks in the bread flashback, My parents never hit us. I couldn’t even imagine it. (p. 31) This topic is worth an entire post of its own. I suspect that hitting one’s children in Twelve was a fairly (sadly) common practice, but it’s so foreign to eleven-year-old Katniss that she can’t even imagine it. 

As I said earlier, I would never begin to describe Katniss’s childhood as luxurious, but until her father’s death, I’m inclined to think she led a much nicer life than a lot of her fellow district citizens. Thoughts?

imsobadatnicknames2:

clone-bar-79s:

If you’ve been thinking about writing or drawing or creating in any manner but repeatedly think about your lack of reach or followers let me stop you. Once you put a bit of your efforts out there you will find people who like what you do. Its a fact. Those few will encourage you to publish more of your work and you’ll grow and improve and eventually get over being popular. You’ll start to create regularly for yourself, which is the whole point of creating at times.

joebidenfanclub:

it seems so strange to me that the only people it is socially acceptable to live with (once you reach a certain stage in life) are sexual partners? like why can’t i live with my best friend? why can’t i raise a child with them? why do i need to have sex with someone in order to live with them? why do we put certain relationships on a pedestal? why don’t we value non-sexual relationships enough? why do life partners always have to be sexual partners?

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel: A sci-fi film where three friends discover a rift in time and manage to travel through it, unable to control where they go, but still seeing twisted versions of their own future.

Genre: Comedy/Sci-Fi

Available on: Amazon Prime, Hulu, iTunes, HBO Now, HBO Go

Length: 1h 23m

My Rating: 4.5/5: strange start, ultimately leaves you questioning the events which unfolded.  At least watch just past when Pete goes to the loo.

Brazil: One word: Kafkaesque.  I actually cannot even describe this one.  Not that it’s indescribably good or bad, I simply have no words for it. A gold mine for interpretation.

Genre: Drama/Sci-Fi

Available on: Amazon Prime, Hulu, iTunes

Length: 2h 23m

My Rating: 5/5: Carve out 2h 23m in your schedule and get some movie snacks… MUST be watched in one sitting, no pausing, no breaks

Ripping Yarns: Comedy/parody of pre-war stories, subtle humour, rich with interpretation.

Genre: Comedy

Available on: YouTube (for free)

Length: 2 seasons, 30 min each.

Do mermaids give birth to babies or lay eggs?

So last night I watched iron man 3. I see that the avengers went on before iron man 3. Riddle me this, why didn’t any of the avengers help iron man out in the last movie

Hey folks from Christianized nations?

I know you guys don’t come here for this, but I am ONCE AGAIN begging people to consider the implications of the Santa Claus myth.

Santa knows if little children have been “bad” or “good.” He keeps a record of their behavior all year. Then, when December rolls around, Santa delivers presents ONLY to children on the “nice” list.

That’s very fucked up.

Do you know what that means to kids below the poverty line? Kids in abusive homes, with guardians who withhold gifts as punishment? Kids who are homeless, or in foster care? Kids who don’t celebrate fucking Christmas?

If Santa doesn’t bring you a gift, you were “bad.” Right?

If you aren’t a parent, or you aren’t raising your kids in a religiously diverse area, this has probably never occurred to you. But for our family–who don’t celebrate Christmas, who dolive in an area with a mix of religions–this comes up in conversation among the elementary kids. EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.

And my kids? They lie for you. EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.

My non-Christian kids keep your lie alive. They have never outed the Santa Claus myth to anyone. When their friends insist that Santa is real, that Elf-on-the-Shelf is real, my kids play along.

Why do they do it? We told them to keep your secret. Not out of the goodness of our hearts, but because we are afraidof you. We’re afraid you would be angry at our children. We’re afraid you’ll ostracize us for their honesty.

So very fucked up!

In the USA, people who celebrate Christmas aren’t even awareof how much they rely on the rest of us to maintain this charade. How often we’re asked to play along. How many parental lies we ignore. How often we grin and bear it, even as our own major holidays won’t qualify for a day off work. (If it’s even safe to out yourself as a non-Christian at work.)

And we’ll do it again on Easter, too.

I’m just… tired. It’s a stupid lie. It’s exhausting.

The Santa Claus mythology sucks. Lying to your kids for years about who buys their presents is ridiculous. Telling every child in the country that their “niceness” or “naughtiness” will determine how many gifts they receive on December 25th is just… cruel. It’s cruel.

It also, incidentally, has nothing to do with your religious practice. Plenty of non-Christians celebrate secular Christmas, lies about Santa and all! It’s like people think kids can’t enjoy the holiday without believing in Santa Claus which, logically, we all know isn’t true. Nearly everybody stops believing at some point. Does Christmas just suck from then on? I’m just saying…

You don’t have to do it. So why do you?

Anyway. Happy holidays, I guess.

XOXO, Earnest

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

tomboyjessie13:

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

you know how some parents do that toxic thing where they don’t notice or reward kids for improving their behavior, but every screw-up gets remarked upon and used to inflict shame? so you’re stuck in that awful cycle where there are no rewards, only the inevitability of eventual punishment?

and how that makes it extremely hard to judge your own actions or grow into a better person, because there’s no one to confirm that you actually are doing better, and are capable of improving, and are not doomed to forever be a terrible person incapable of growth?

ok so: I don’t know how to explain to you that we’ve built a social media culture that treats people the same way. with the same abusive cycle.

That sounds like cancel culture

I don’t know what to call it anymore. people get heated about terms like “purity” or “cancel” or “call out” culture, or can’t seem to agree on a meaning. I’m not talking about like. no longer supporting rich and powerful celebrities when their abusive actions come to light. I’m not talking about holding people accountable, or warning people about active abusers. but I am seriously concerned about how we treat social media users once they get even a small amount of attention, even in small niche spaces.

I am concerned about this culture of combing through years of people’s social media accounts, looking for “problematic” shit they’ve done. I am concerned with the whole culture of using “call outs” as a tool to harass and ostracize users large and small. I am concerned about the malice we spread behind people’s backs, in screenshots and posts they aren’t able to see. I am concerned with this culture of demanding apologies for things said years ago, things already outgrown and regretted, and of ignoring those apologies even while pilling on more censure. I’m concerned about this whole culture of accusation and misinformation, where the most outrageous claims and holier-than-thou performances are rewarded with notes and views, even as facts are ignored and context removed. I am concerned about the lack of accountability, the way the accused is given no opportunity to defend themselves from the onslaught, the way their responses and explanations go ignored, the way any charge can be made at any time on any evidence, with no ability to appeal or exonerate. I’m concerned about the way this culture targets minority users andturns their own communities against them. I’m concerned about the actually harmful and predatory behavior that gets lost in the bog, and how we have lost the ability to distinguish between shades of gray with any level of sanity. And I am concerned by the sheer number of people who fail to realize they are perpetuating bullying and harassment.

I am enormouslyconcernedwith the way people who are “called out” are never forgiven, never allowed to make amends, never allowed to grow, how their efforts to learn and do better are ignored even while strangers callously repeat and reblog and retweet the same criticisms ad nauseam.

And I see this everywhere,happening to anyone. And yes, this applies to larger accounts and youtubers and “influencers,” and a bunch of content creators who may or may not be making a decent living off of their work, but who are certainly not “rich and powerful celebrities.” (Because apparently we spend so much time in online microcosms that ya’ll can’t tell the difference???) Christ, my blog isn’t nearly as large as some people seem to think, it’s obscureby most measures, and still I’ve been the target of mass harassment for years. I’ve seen bad and watched others go through worse, seen users with far larger and far smaller followings driven off of this and other platforms—driven off with a violence and bloodthirst that had nothing to do with making a community safer and everything to do with a toxic culture gone wrong. Fucking fix this already.

Abuse is still abuse when it happens online,when done by strangers, when done en masse, when sanctioned by a community, and when done with “good” intentions. Do BETTER.

“Her whole life stretches out before her,

a path of imprecise but multiple directions.

She could be

an astronaut,

a rap star,

an accountant.

She could be happy.”

Lisa Taddeo, Three Women

To all of us, Happy International Women’s Day

brightwanderer:

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.