No thoughts just au with Phil being like “hey btw here’s an invitation to my wedding-“ and neotrio is just like “SINCE WHEN WERE YOU FUCKING ENGAGED???”
This but specifically in like. In a pirate au. For some reason. Not sure why my head is clinging to that but yeah all of sbi being pirates and robbing shit and having silly adventures and Phil sails off for a bit, as he always does, and comes back with cool trinkets from the other side of the world, as he always does, and he also pulls out a letter like “by the way since i’ve got you guys here we should probably start sailing towards the east for my wedding-“ “for your WHAT”
there is a post I want to write about teacher pay but the thing is that if I stray at all from the "teachers don't make any money" thing it's definitely going to be misconstrued as "teachers don't need to be paid any better than they already are" or even "teachers are rich" or some such bullshit so. I shan't say...
okay yay that's enough encouragement for me to yap. :)
Sometimes I kind of feel like the way people talk about teacher pay crosses the line from "teachers deserve better (comfortable living wages) and they do not get that"- which is true- into like, frankly, fearmongering at people who might otherwise be interested in working in education.
Here's the thing: it's so much fucking better than retail and shit. It's so much better than like... looking for jobs in front desk or low level admin type stuff or whatever. It's WAY better than cobbling shit together between seasonal or part time or remote asynch type work.
Teachers have a specific skill set and a somewhat reliable pool of jobs, especially if they are certified (and depending on where they are), and they get a steady income that is, depending on where you live and who you work for (public pays so much better than private) pretty okay. If your choices are between no degree and a degree in education with a teaching certification, you will be SO MUCH BETTER OFF as a teacher. I cannot stress this enough.
The pay scale doesn't have a super high ceiling, there is technically a lot of unpaid labor that goes into the work (especially in your first 5 years of teaching) and, depending on your actual state/district/school/classes/students, the work itself can often be hard, emotionally intense, and generally very unsustainable.
Will you be making tech bro money? No. But will you have a steady income and benefits and a union (if you're at a public school) and possibly even options? Yeah, dude.
As someone who has been kind of a broke college student and/or working weird seasonal and part time stuff for the last decade or so, I feel fucking awesome right now. I have the summer off and I'm still getting paid. And I get a raise next year. And I have benefits.
It needs to be so much better, but if you're thinking about it and you're afraid of the paycheck situation, do some research about the actual pay at actual schools you might end up working for before you freak yourself out too bad. That's all.
Thinking about techno dying his hair with redstone. Theres no other thought process here i just think thats a funny way for him to get his specific pink hue he’s just straight up pouring redstone into his bleach
I mean like its always fun when people brainstorm reasons his hair is pink sometimes its like ya thats just the side effect of being a demigod or like ya its dyed with the blood of his enemies but im raising a new one to the table fellas hes putting redstone into his hair. He also has a faint redstone signal because of this
Wilbur knowing he would ask Phil to kill him (i know its a stretch shh) weaves technos hair and some of Tommy's hair symbolically so that their whole family can, in a way, burn together
Yes. Alternatively silly. You hold a torch up to his hair or play with it and it lights up rapunzel style or like redstone ore thats been stepped on.
Sometimes in the darkest corners of pogtopia, you can see a slight glow, illuminating a haunted revolutionary. His fingers are entangled in his brother’s hair as he messily braids it. It’s nothing compared to the elegant braids Wilbur once adorned him with. Instead it bares the hallmarks of a man not completely there anymore, fingers following listlessly in habit more than anything intentional.
Warmth reminds him of techno, as the piglin is a living furnace. Wilbur remembers crawling in Techno’s lap and falling asleep there as a toddler. It’s one of his earliest memories. It was also one of his last memories, a fuzzy, hard to grip thing, more like a dream than anything is substance. But he could have sworn that at least once in Pogtopia he’d briefly stirred to find himself curled up against a soft cape, or even perhaps a particular piglin’s lap.
Though that was likely simple wishful thinking. After all, he had called for The Blood God, not the brother he remembered.
YES ive already posted this idea and YES im talking about it again- AU with Tommy flinching at sunlight because he’s used to it being sun = that thing that usually burns his family, Tommy baring his teeth when upset even though he doesn’t have any fangs to show, Tommy having on more than one occasion having tried to drink blood just so that he’s a little like them
Tommy putting his full energy into the play fights that techno or wilbur start up, snarling and hissing all the same, but he’s actually being handled very gently in terms of play fighting and his snarling is seen as just merely adorable than anything near intimidating. He would absolutely scare the shit out of a random normal human person with his attempts though. Baby to the other vampires. Odd little fucking creature to all the other humans.
But also vampire sire!Phil being intimidating to other covens by glaring and looking mean and theres tommy next to him. Like a mini-me just also >:( in an attempt to also be intimidating. Its not working
In a way though it probably would help Phil in the sense that any time anyone looks at Tommy, Phil’s fury becomes physically felt through his gaze. Like the equivalent of meeting a bear cub out in the wild. Awww. Oh shit wait where is your mother oh my god im so dead
i enjoy that theres a lot of dog imagery in the trans community but it seems to vary wildly between "I AM A CAGED WOLF I NEED TO TEAR OFF MY SKIN I NEED YOU TO SEE MY TEETH AND KNOW WHO I TRULY AM INSIDE" and "im ouuppyyy i need . pets on my head :) "
i have to ask actually. what happens when you go in someone's inbox and go "omg you should try being a girl i bet you're actually a closeted girl" and it's a trans man. does that ever happen. what then
Was dying a few shirts, which involves stiring the shirt in a huge pot of dye and my muscle memory decided it was my time and fed me a little sip of dye.
first incidence of good writing advice i've seen in 10+ years on this platform and it's in the notes of a mustelid wreaking absolute havoc in a german grocery store
having a best friend who meets your level of freak is unmatched. you present them with the most unhinged, deeply buried thought from the depths of your psyche and instead of blinking blankly they just go "oh absolutely"—and I think that mutual brain rot like that is the highest form of intimacy actually.
Someone on my town's local facebook chat is asking if anyone knows a good private local GP and we're all like "literally anyone who has time to slot you in is our 'good local GP'" and she's all like "nono they're not good enough, I need specialised care, the couple of local bulk billing places are too rushed, I need to know who the good local private clinics with lots of free time are" and we're all like. "You are not understanding us. This is a country town. If you can get a fifteen minute appointment in one of those 'bulk bulling places' then you are very lucky and need to jump on that opportunity immediately. The doctors you are seeking are all in the capital city six hours away."
My GP moved away very suddenly for a 'family emergency' about six months ago, claiming he would be back at Some Unspecified Time, and it's been a topic of ongoing gossip and speculation ever since. Everyone is obsessed with this guy and when he's coming back. Not because his life is at all interesting or even because he was a particularly great doctor (he was mostly fine I guess), but because he was one quarter of our local non-emergency healthcare system and some people are holding out a desperate hope that we might get that quarter back at some point.
For those of you who aren't familiar, I live in an exceptionally flammable part of the United States, and despite the fact that every goddamn year multiple parts of my state catch fire, destroy homes and kill people, the local assholes insist on getting drunk and setting fire to a bunch of illegal explosives anyway.
In 2023, God granted me a Miracle that prevented my house from burning down.
Last year, I had to resort to Psychological and Chemical Warfare to keep the patriotic arsonists at bay.
This year is apparently An Important Birthday for the clusterfuck we have the nerve to call a nation, so despite the fact there is so much smoke in the air that the sun has literally been blood red for the last week, the pyrotechnic fetishists are out in force.
Last year, I hit upon the concept that if my neighbors were going to act like problem animals, it would make sense to use the management techniques on them that you might use on say, a Bear that was doing serious property damage. Thusly, I created The Stench, a nontoxic but FOUL smelling concoction that I could discretely spray around the flammable gatherings and render the area extremely uncomfortable to occupy for the rest of the night, forcing them to give up or move on.
If this seems harsh:
There is no story from 2024 because a grass fire was started by fireworks less than 12 miles from me and the high winds put me in the evacuation zone in under an hour.
Over fifty people lost their homes.
Errant fireworks burning my house down is a very real possibility, and I pay the price in anxiety and insurance premiums.
The Stench is noxious but harmless, and also very effective at building a buffer zone around my home. But sneaking up to parties on foot in this heat is both exhausting and nerve-wracking. There have to be more effective ways to do this
-And there is!
It involves Weeds and Business Cards :)
All of this spring, I've been battling Bindweed and my City Code Enforcement Officers.
The city code people have been professional, but the truth is that one of my neighbors is calling them on use because one of my housemates is transgender. It's extremely grating to get these notices, having to explain repeatedly that I *AM* working on the weed situation, I just have a heart condition and No Money. It's also deeply paranoia-inducing to know that the city is regularly coming by and photographing my house.
The Solution to the Bindweed is 1 gallon of high-concentration vinegar, half a cup of Borax, a quarter cup of salt, and a couple tablespoons of dish soap. Get one of those weed sprayers from a hardware store and mix it up in there. Spray it on your thistles, bindweed, kudzu, garlic mustard or whatever your local herbaceous invasive is on a day with bright sunlight, and in a few hours the entire part of the plant above the soil is Deceased. It's non-toxic to insects, pets and wildlife (just wait a few months before trying to plant anything in the area for the traces to wash out).
The only real downside to this stuff is that it smells HEINOUS.
Sure, The Stench is nauseating, but WeedFucker 5000 is genuinely painful to inhale. Again, it wont hurt people- even my asthmatic housemates can use the stuff- but boy howdy it sure smells toxic. I've got the ingredients for about 40 gallons of WeedFucker 5000 prepared and ready to go.
I've also got a disposable hazmat suit, rubber boots and gloves, respirator, goggles and a shitty little golf cart from the free section of craigslist to haul my shit around in.
I also have Business Cards!
See, the very nice officers from the City Code department left some Very Nice business cards so that I may contact them about "the fucking bindweed is gone, get off my back".
So I scanned the business card into my computer, fired up Clip Studio, and made my own business cards. I've turned my City's Abstract Triangle Logo into an Eye of Providence and the slogan of "E Pluribus Unum" to "E Plurbis Anus", Changed my city's name to a dumb pun, and stated the card originates from "The Department Of Public Nuisances".
Crucially, where the name and contact information of the real city employee has been replaced with the name and business email of the neighbor who has been bragging on facebook about calling the city code department on my home because he hates my housemate :)
It looks, at a glance, very much like the business cards of city employees. If you look at it for like 5 seconds though, there's no way it could be mistaken for the real thing.
I've printed out 500 of these bad boys and will have them on hand as I, a put-upon employee, am forced to work overtime on a national holiday doing weed mitigation, because my boss can't manage deadlines for shit.
You're mad about it? I've been out here since 5 AM! But if we don't finish by the deadline we lose the contract and I could get fired. You know what the economy is.
Here, this is my Boss's Business card- how about you send him an email about how this has ruined your barbecue?
It's golden hour now, so I'm Suiting Up and preparing to embark on some civil service in the form of Noxious Weed Eradication, and by coincidence, Fire Mitigation.
I'll report back later Tonight🫡
(If you'd like to support your local disabled storyteller in their Acts Of Public Service, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or supporting me on Patreon)
Well.
It's not quite an hour into July 5th.
I am very tired, may have destroyed my sense of smell, and am not sure if I'm proud of or VERY disappointed in my fellow citizens.
On one hand: FAR fewer fireworks parties this year!
- Only nine to last year's thirteen
- three of them had the good sense to be firing their recreational explosives out over the local reservoir
- That's far from foolproof
- and really bad for the fish
- also y'all are RIGHT NEXT to where the Bald Eagles are nesting
- but congratulations on at least attempting some risk mitigation!
On the other hand.
Absolutely NOBODY questioned why the hell I was out spraying weeds.
- In a Hazmat Suit (technically it's a coverall for painting rooms, which is much more breathable, but looks the part)
- In a Residential Area
- After Dark
- On a Federal Holiday
Like I'm glad I didn't get into a fight or something, but like.
I was Ready.
I had that conversation locked and loaded.
I MADE BUSINESS CARDS.
...But instead of Very Reasonably asking What The Fuck I Was Doing, the crowds at these parties saw me (5'0" flat, potato-shaped, sweating profusely) trundling up on the slowest and least-intimidating motor vehicle in the county*, hanging a bit out the side to spray thistles and bindweed on the streets and sidewalks**, and instead of raising a rival stink, I was instead greeted by some derisive muttering and a couple of "OH COME ON!"s, but the groups dispersed and retreated indoors or at least away from the general direction of my home.
*Like genuinely, I think Barbie's Dream Car has more horsepower than this golf cart. This thing doesn't have horsepower. It doesn't even have ponypower. It's running on duckpower. It waddles, something I didn't know a wheeled vehicle could do.
**Actually completely legal and a welcome community service in my city. Thank you Neighbor Barbara for telling me the exact part of city code that details what civilians are allowed to do about weeds on public roads, which is apparently "LOTS". Theoretically I could bill the city for my time tonight.
Do people not know how to Make A Scene anymore?
I was absolutely sure I was going to get filmed and shit thrown at me, or someone would call the cops. My beloved was terrified I was going to get shot. I at least had ONE woman shout "YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!" at me, which isn't quite as good as being told I'm ruining Christmas, but she said it with a genuinely heartwarming anguish while gesturing to a homemade "HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!" banner, with an attempt at rendering The Evil Orange that as so enthusiastically yet talentlessly executed I almost stopped to get a picture of it. He looked like he'd been put in a wafflemaker.
I promised my beloved that I would turn around and come home at midnight, and I did, having eliminated every fireworks party and Scottish thistle in a five-block radius despite the lackadaisical maximum speed of my Steel Steed.
The complete lack of protest is honestly shocking to me. My flabbers are completely gasted. I waddled home on the golf cart in a sort of stunned silence that this HAS worked so well. The whole world is almost eerily quiet, and reeking of vinegar.
...Which is maybe why I didn't notice the cop pulling up beside me at a red light until he rolled down his window and leaned out at me.
"WHAT'RE YOU DOIN'?" He asked, in a voice that could be used as a foghorn in emergencies.
I probably would have jumped were I not currently melting into a semblance of the Chernobyl Elephant's Foot in the heat, which was the first thing that saved me.
The second was the voice of my Grandfather, coming to my aid through decades of generational memory, to tell me his words of wisdom, usually spoken right before doing something wildly inadvisable:
The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over.
"Weed Mitigation!" I called back.
"CHRIST ON A BIKE, THEY GOT YOU GUYS WORKING THE HOLIDAY TOO?" He said, in the same fontissimo as before. Apparently Officer Foghorn just talks like this.
"Yep." I nodded.
"SHIT." He blared in solidarity. "WHEN DO YOU GET OFF?"
"Just finished."
"MOTHERFUCKER. THEY GOT ME OUT HERE UNTIL GODDAMN 5 AM." Officer Foghorn whined in THX.
"Shit." I commiserated.
The light turned green.
"ALRIGHT YOU GET HOME SAFE! GOD BLESS!" He waved, and drove off at something significantly above the speed limit, and I trundled on home.
I must have still looked shocked when I came in, because My Beloved immediately got up to hug me and ask if I was alright.
"The Age Of Miracles Is Not Yet Over." I nodded slowly as the animals all battered me about the legs for attention. "...For real though, absolutely nothing happened."
"What?" he squints, wobbling slightly as Charlie tries to shove him aside for better access to me. "That's... Is it weird to say I'm almost disappointed?"
"I mean, I confirmed that I inherited my Grandfather's supernatural ability to get out of trouble for no good reason, but we knew that from the code enforcement people." I shrugged. Selene finally noticed the smell of vinegar and retched in disapproval.
"How about a shower and some Ice cream?" My Beloved suggests.
So now it is July the 5th.
- My house is not ablaze
- There are four medium-sized carnivores sleeping on me
- I am freshly bathed
- and I have a pint of Americone Dream all to myself
Here's to you, your health and your happiness, and a reminder to go make good trouble. Goodnight all.
---
(If you enjoy reading about my adventures (and the occasional curious non-adventure) I'd appreciate it if you could tip me on Ko-Fi. Apparently my Patreon link is fucked but it's basically 1 in the morning and I can't be arsed.)
90% of age gaps don’t matter when you’re a grown adult as long as you don’t have a repeated pattern of dating people barely legal. I would date someone 30 years older than me if I liked them who gaf
This entire conversation is somehow 90% people infantilizing themselves and 10% actually people talking about the issue of men who never grow out of dating 18/19 year olds. No it is not a big deal when a 25 year old dates a 35 year old please get a grip
Chimes with a thought I've had for a while, actually; sleep deprivation might mean I explain this badly, but:
What a red flag actually means: something here is an indicator of a potential problem (but might be fine with a reasonable explanation)
What people have now decided it means: abuse
I've lost count of the number of times I've now had to read variants of "My partner takes all my money and gives me back an allowance because he says it's a man's job to control finances, but he's racking up gambling debts" being met with "Wow this man is a walking red flag" no Becky that is abuse. That is not an indicator. He is an abuser. Call the police. We have lost the concept of a proxy: a thing that indicates a more important thing. And it's relevant to this conversation because I'm actually going to go out on a limb here:
With the obvious exception of paedophilia, age gaps themselves aren't a problem at all - they are a proxy for the actual harmful phenomenon. Hea me out, let me explain
The reason we don't like age gaps is because of the implied power dynamic. If one partner, usually male, is older than other - particularly if the other is still quite young - the risk is that what we're seeing is a worldly wise predator who is exploiting the lack of life experience of a young beautiful woman by mentally abusing her until she's no longer young and pretty enough to satisfy, at which point he'll move on to the next. There have been enough examples of this in human history. It's unfortunately not an uncommon pattern. Genders can also be diverse in this scenario
We can't necessarily see that dynamic from the outside. But we CAN see an inherent element of it: the ages of the people involved. So age becomes a proxy for the abuse. And, hey, it's often correct.
But here's the thing: the ages themselves are not causing harm.
The power dynamic is. The abuse is.
Plenty of age gap relationships are loving, healthy and steadfast. Two people met and genuinely fell in love regardless of the outer packaging, and have a relationship with all the highs and lows and challenges and rewards as any more traditional pairing. This happens all the time
Is the age gap a red flag? Sure! It indicates a potential issue.
Is it inherently abusive? Absolutely fucking not.
OP is right - we need to stop focusing just on the numbers and twisting the facts to fit by infantilising the younger partners, and start focusing on the actual harms. The DiCaprio Pattern of only dating under 24s repeatedly is itself a proxy, too, actually - but a much stronger one than the simple presence of an age gap.
(Even so, in DiCaprio's case, until any of his former partners come forward and describe him as abusive, actually, even that is up in the air - my personal interpretation, given how strong a pattern it is, is that he's a loser who views women as trophies (consciously or not). If any have come forward and I don't know about it, of course, fair enough. But those women were adults capable of making their own decisions, even if they might later come to regret it. And regretting poor decisions is part of life! That's how it goes, particularly with relationships. As long as they weren't abused, there's no biggie. And just as he was looking for young-and-beautiful, there's no way they weren't, on some level, looking for rich-and-famous; it goes both ways.)
Also, another element of this: I think a lot of modern extreme puritan discourse on this is actually ironically down to the age of those taking part. Up until your late 20s, ten years is actually a huge span of time to you, because in your own life you were in a completely different developmental phase ten years ago (teenager), and a completely different phase again ten years before that (child). That skews your sense of what a ten-year gap means. Whereas once you're in your 30s and beyond, ten years is like. Yeah I was an adult ten years ago, and I still am now. That's two adults. Who cares.
(Anyway I am hoping and praying I explained that well enough, and also that Tumblr's famous reading comprehension skills are solid enough to follow)
Every single person I know who did football in high school, without exception, has a chronic injury. Many regret what it's done to their knees and back, even major organs like the brain.
There is no serious legislative push to ban high school football.
Also, like, if you want to talk about social pressure on minors to undertake activities that will result in regrettable, irreversible damage to their bodies:
No one, *ever*, tried to persuade me to transition.
My gym teacher tried to persuade me to try out for the football team almost every single day that I was in junior high.
#i firmly believe that the reason why concussions and brain damage in general#are not taken nearly as seriously as they should be#is because of football#if we take concussions and brain trauma seriously then we have to acknowledge the risks that children are undertaking at even#high school level football#but we can't do that#because the kids need to play football in high school so they can play football in college so they can join the NFL#This time I'm really gonna queue it.
Not a single one of my wife's fingers is completely straight. If you look at them closely -- which I have, many times, over the past 22 years -- you can see where they were broken, over and over, taped in place, and where she just kept fucking playing.
When I first met her, she used to joke about how her coach said, "I could get more than that out of a pig if I kicked it hard enough," and that was the nicest fucking thing he said. Two decades later, she's like, "Yeah, that man verbally and physically abused all of us for years."
There is at least one football game she played in high school that she simply doesn't remember, because she was a linebacker. She got a concussion. She got up and kept playing... or so she's told. She doesn't remember, because she had a fucking concussion and they let her keep playing.
I hate football so much. It ruined her back, her knees, fucked up her hands... everyone was so obsessed with how tall she was, how broad-shouldered. No one ever pushed her to transition, but I fucking wish someone had at least suggested it. That would have hurt her so much less than FUCKING FOOTBALL. Like, it would have been actually beneficial to her.
I heard that one of the actual reasons that organizations like the NFL have tried so hard to downplay CTE and other injuries like it is because they’re terrified that moms will refuse to let their children play football anymore and that entire massive industry will come collapsing down because of it.
Online spaces have almost always been where asexual and aromantic people meet each other and organize. This is why the major online campaigns against us around ten years ago were so destructive.
It’s easy to say that cyber bullying doesn’t matter in the real world or whatever but targeted online bullying campaigns have the power to wreck entire communities and support networks.
It’s difficult to just turn off your computer when all the people who relate to this aspect of your life are in there.
I’ve definitely met other asexual and arospec people irl but it’s quite rare. And real life queer spaces are in fact often bars or kink spaces. And like bully for you if you like kink or alcohol or romance but when your entire identity is based around not feeling the feelings often associated with romance and/or sex that’s not always super fun.
And people got relentlessly mocked for bringing up this issue. Shut down. Called childish. Like okay. Fuck us for wanting a sober non sexual spot to meet other queers, right? So childish for wanting options.
I’ve been involved in the online asexual community and doing education about asexuality and aromanticism in both irl and online queer spaces for almost fourteen years now and that short period of time around 2016-2018 took a wrecking ball to my people that I feel like we’ve still barely recovered from and I’m still angry about it.
I think asexual pirates should come back. This time they’re here for your ass. And not sexually.
They killed our dragon and cake memes. The aro and ace dragon hoards are dead. But you know what? I survived and I’m the online version of a cockroach after a nuclear blast. I never forget.
