The optimal dashtributor

At least according to some (me). Kiro, e/em/eir, ace, Danish, major (or at least not a minor). I reblog whatever posts I like, I think I would be happy if my dash was just the posts I reblog. I use queue almost all the time. Ask away if you want to. [Avatar ID: a spectrum view of a sound that looks like a screaming pineapple. Cover ID: a picture of pink and yellow Russel lupines at night. End ID]

[chaoskiro]

Halløj! I'm Kiro and while I mostly reblog stuff (the uplifting reblogs go in the tag "pick me up", so look there if you want to be cheered up, that's what I do ; ), I will sometimes make original posts and they are mostly all tagged with kirokiro.

I spend a great deal of time podficcing and my various adventures into that go into the tag "podkiro". You can see what I recorded this summer here and I am, as of posting this, in my 10th month of working my way through podficcing @hppjmxrgosg's amazing story Vertical limit it is fun and I talk about it in the tag "vertical limit pod" (and podkiro of course).

I am kinda trying to stream line my tags by making them all somethingkiro, we will see if it'll work. So far we have podkiro, craftkiro and I think artkiro might be added when I finally sit down and do something visual again. Since this tagging system is new, if you for some reason want to go digging in my old posts you will have to look under "personlig", have fun I guess!

[fishpondfish]

it is impossible to watch a movie. every night i think i want to watch a movie. no movie gets watched. because it's not possible

[softlyfiercely]

i love how weird kids are. they make up the most bizarre stuff when left to their own devices and it's never what an adult would naively predict a kid would do in their imaginative play

my friend's 5 year old recently got a toy veterinary medicine set - it's super cool, like one of those mini play kitchens a lot of kids have, but it's set up to pretend to be a vet (it's this thing) - it has stuffed animals and things to weigh them, give them medicine, take x-rays, write on their charts, etc.

so this kid, who is five and to my knowledge has no experience in the administrative bureaucracy of modern healthcare, puts a stuffed pig named Piggy on the exam table. she pretends to draw blood from Piggy using a fake syringe, and the blood goes into a toy test tube vial that she calls "the resulter"

i'm playing with her, right, so i'm like, awesome, what are the results of Piggy's blood test? and she says "we have to send it to the scientists." so we send the vial to the scientists (put it in her bedroom) and when we get back to the vet playset i'm like awesome what did the scientists say? and she says they have not gotten back to us yet

so she rolls her eyes, exasperated, and says we have to call the scientists. she pretends to call them. apparently, they tell her that Piggy's blood test is "at the bottom of the list" and "we have to WAIT." she frowns. we wait a bit longer and call them back. they tell us it will be a while! she says we should go ask the scientists in person so we go back to her bedroom and she inquires at this imaginary lab, at which point the scientists yell at her and tell her now they will make us wait even longer!

keep in mind she is 100% directing this play. she is making all this up. she is fully in control of this game, and she has decided that what we are going to pretend is that we are dealing with this exhausting nonsense, not actually treating Piggy.

finally the blood tests come back. they are inconclusive. the scientists do not know what is wrong with Piggy. the little girl walks back to the stuffed pig on the exam table, sighs deeply, and says in a very serious voice "we can never help you."

i'm obsessed with this kid. when given complete control over a make believe scenario, instead of becoming the heroic rescuer administering effective cures, she is instead a beleaguered vet making multiple calls to an overworked lab only to be left unable to help her patient.

10/10 no notes. kids are amazing

[dogwoodbite]

i need a minimum 15 year ban on the semi-biographical jukebox musical. i know it gets old people butts in seats but we just cannot keep doing this it NEEDS to end we have spiraled so far past the point of any of these being anything at all.

[dogwoodbite]

actually i may have one exception which would be eartha kitt. eartha kitt could actually be interesting and fun. after that though it has to be over Forever

[arotechno]

I've been thinking a lot lately, and I think something gets lost in the conversation when it comes to the whole "ID-ing as aspec because of trauma" conversation.

Yes, it is wrong to conflate aspec identities with trauma, and it is wrong to say to an aspec person something along the lines of "what happened to make you this way." But it's not wrong because the idea of orientation and trauma being related is absurd and harmful. It's wrong because (1) that's just a deeply inconsiderate thing to say to a person, whether it's true or not, and (2) it implies that aromanticism and asexuality are an affliction that you acquire and something to be fixed, not a neutral or natural state of being and a part of one's identity.

I think in addition to those points, though, and perhaps most crucially: (3) it suggests that "healing" from one's trauma is about reverting back to baseline, back to "normal", back to who you were before, and that just isn't how it works. We already know that trauma and other experiences can rewire how your brain and body work, sometimes permanently; why should one's orientation be exempt from that?

If someone has had experiences, negative or otherwise, that lead them to feel most comfortable using an aspec label, or being in aspec spaces, and they don't feel any need to change that or go back to how they "used" to be, who am I to begrudge them the language and community that helps them make sense of their reality? Who am I to judge someone's reasons for putting a label on something as nebulous and individual and socially constructed as their sexuality, just because I feel I was "born" this way? If someone's reasons for identifying this way make you uncomfortable, why? And why should your comfort dictate what language others can use for themselves?

I am very tired of the narrative that there is a sexuality/romantic orientation/gender/whatever else that you are inherently born as and if something "happens" to make you something else then it should be fixed. I already hear enough that my aromanticism and asexuality are things to be fixed, and this is how I've always been. Why would I ever want to project such an idea onto other aspec people, just because their reasons for identifying as aspec are different or perhaps even transient? It is of no material threat to me whatsoever. In fact, I think people having the language and the support to make sense of their lives and to build a life without romance and/or sex, if that's what they want, can only ever be a good thing, regardless of why they want it. They're all welcome on my shores.

When I hear "you can't ID as aro/ace because of trauma" what I actually hear is "YOUR aromanticism and asexuality are begrudgingly acceptable because you were born that way and can't help it, if you could fix it then you should, and if you weren't born that way then this is a tragedy that has befallen you and you should fix it." Maybe some people's journey with trauma does not involve "fixing" their sexuality but instead embracing what their life looks like now and being content with that. If they're okay with that, why do you care? There are people with trauma in your community who can't extricate that trauma from their identity. How is that a threat to you? How would eliminating those people from your community magically make society more understanding of aspec identities? I promise you it wouldn't. Confront your own discomfort. Your discomfort is not harm.

[arotechno]

been getting a lot of very insightful and thoughtful responses to this post lately and i really appreciate that, both from the standpoint of building community and deeper understanding of one another and of the diversity of queer experiences, and from the standpoint of feeling validated/comforted by the notion that my thoughts on this are not as niche as they felt like they were in the moment when i was being told off elsewhere for such an idea. thanks y'all 💚

[revizyonist]

med people are so annoying "This family's 8 year old child who was about to go through a major surgery and kept crying that she was hungry so they pitied her and gave her food, she then had a heart attack in the surgery. They're so stupid 😒" girl they didn't know that could happen or why it happens. it takes so little time to explain to them that will happen instead of telling them "no food" with no explanation 10 times

[revizyonist]

"Before surgery, your body’s reflexes that protect your airway are relaxed by anesthesia. If there’s food or liquid in your stomach, it will near certainly come back up and go into your lungs, which can cause choking, a severe lung / heart infection or even a heart attack. That’s called aspiration, and it is life-threatening. It's hard, but it's only a single day to prevent near certain death. Not eating or drinking beforehand massively lowers the risk and helps prevent these life threatening situations under anesthesia." <- TIP: patients have brains which allows them to receive information just like you

[ancelineonline]

I have four kids. I’ve had one or another of them need some kind of surgical procedure that requires anesthesia four or five times over the past 15 years.

This Tumblr post is the first time someone has explained to me *why* I couldn’t feed them before those instances.

I’m not stupid. I understood that just fine. Hell, my kids would have understood that just fine. But no one bothered to tell us.

[bowditch]

i did know this before having kids (i have six). we have a kid that's needed multiple procedures requiring anesthesia. and every single time, i am asked multiple times if i'm sure he was not given any food or water after a certain point.

every single time i have had to say, "i understand that if he had food or water, he could aspirate it into his lungs under anesthesia. i am not lying to you." THEN someone would make a little note and i would stop being repeatedly asked.

not a single time was that risk explained to me. the only reason it came up was because i already knew. i still don't understand why it isn't standard pre-op counseling or pre-op check information, when me as a parent acknowledging the actual risk also put THE MEDICAL STAFF at ease because i conveyed that i had informed understanding as reason to not lie about giving my kid food.

"maybe some people will get nervous and refuse surgery" okay so they need more counseling about risks and anxiety, not less information in a way that actually does endanger their child or themselves!

[arctic-turtle-cassiopeia]

Reblogging to save a life and teach medical professionals basic communication skills

[storybookprincess]

so today a group of 8-9 year old kiddos approaches my desk and goes “hey. we want to go to the downstairs part of the library.”

i’m like “you can totally go downstairs, but just so you know, right now the only thing down there is the genealogy department. that’s like the history of this area and the people who lived here a long time ago.”

i’m expecting them to lose interest, but to my surprise, they go “we want to see the genealogy department!!!!!!”

so i’m like “alright let’s do it!!!!” and lead this group of maybe six elementary school kids across the library make way for ducklings style and downstairs to our extremely not kid friendly genealogy room. our genealogy librarian is super cool, though, and he pulls out a few interesting things for them to look at & they ask a lot of questions and try to find where they live on maps from the 1800s

after about fifteen minutes, their curiosity has been sated, so we go back upstairs and over to the children’s department in that same duckling parade style

truly wish i could render this little scene artistically for you all it was a delight

[reprintedatg115]

It's not about the genealogy department

It's about kids learning that they can go where they want to go, it's about kids seeing what the world (library) has to offer and expanding the range of options in their minds

I love this so much

[the-zenith-calls]

My favorite scenes in the LotR books are the ones where Legolas has vital information and just decides it's not important to share.

Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??

Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??

Legolas please gain a sense of urgency

[knives-in-the-dishwater]

It's because legolas hasn't spent enough time with non-elves to remember that they don't know what he knows.

gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"

"I wonder what aragorn is listening for? must be hard to hear, what with all of the horses. How many horses are there, actually? 1... 2... 3..."

[taavicleric]

"What do your elvish eyes see?" is Aragorn saying, as politely as possible, "Because the REST OF US are at a significant disadvantage, Prince Dipshit."

[tpwrtrmnky]

"Net zero information post" is funny and all but I really like when a false claim is debunked and then supplemented with an explanation of where the error came from and like, extra information that helps inoculate against future misinfo

[headspace-hotel]

and you may say, "Spacey, there are lots of characters who have the dehumanized living weapon thing going on. you can diversify and you can enter into a larger number of fandom envrionments that could benefit from your sicko genius brain. maybe even fandoms where the source material doesn't suck unbelievable amoutns of ass!"

but no. is not. the SAME.

is there another character with the sexy murder strut of the Winter Soldier. no. is there another character with such a cool and badass and iconic design who is inhabited with such phsyicality and swagger. NO. THERES NOT. is there another character whose appearance is framed with such Paralyzing dread like a looming revenant or horror movie monster whose motif in the score is an eerie shrilling created by stretching and warping the sound of human screams into something metallic and mechanical??? and whose combat gear includes a chest harness and leather straps and a muzzle-like mask hinting at his characterization as a violent animal in need of domination and control??? and who rips cars to pieces and throws a guy into a jet engine???

he's the mutilated undead corpse of a human being whose personhood and identity have been brutally torn and scraped out of what's left of his body and he has an adorable emo pout and the biggest wettest saddest eyes in existence because he is so confused about everything except how to kill large numbers of people incredibly violently

Bucky Barnes is The poor little meow meow. No one does it like him. No one can do it like him. No one will EVER do it like him.

He is the Protoblorbo

[headspace-hotel]

I have been known to love a good "raised in the lab and groomed into a violent purpose" type of living weapon character, but Bucky is made all the more compelling by the fact that he had a whole life before he was turned into a killing machine. He was a sociable, charming, sweet, sharply dressed gentleman. He was a loyal friend who loved to laugh. We get the impression that he would have taken pride in his appearance and how he carried himself and presented himself to others.

And you take this guy and you turn him into a gaping pit where a human used to be, a thing. A cold, utilitarian, pitiless machine grafted horrifyingly together with the mangled leftovers of a filthy, terrified animal.

There's a Special Something about the combination of the clean, smooth, efficient functioning of the living weapon with the utter debasement of their human parts. Humanity, dissolved down to the basic animality of flesh that doesn't want to die, all the grossness and suffering that comes with.

One of many reasons why Bucky's canon sucks! because it's so much more compelling if he doesn't remember "who he was!" What if he has to piece together personhood from scratch? If he has to build his humanity on top of nothing but body-fear and instinct and pain?

It's about the synthesis of the disgusting nasty bitey creature and the cold, competent machine and the haunted, undead corpse

It's about how he dies and he Becomes Death, a kind of Grim Reaper, a thing that brings death, and in a way Bucky was the first person that he killed, and in a way he had to kill Bucky to save him from the horror that would become of his body, and in a way the Winter Soldier is an ongoing desecration of Bucky's corpse

He is dead and he should be dead and he can't die and he wants to die and he is death

Don't expect me to be normal about him. You can't. It just isn't fair.

[headspace-hotel]

And also he gets medically tortured. good. thumb

[tpwrtrmnky]

"Net zero information post" is funny and all but I really like when a false claim is debunked and then supplemented with an explanation of where the error came from and like, extra information that helps inoculate against future misinfo

[hadesisqueer]

"Tattoos are becoming unpopular", "piercings are unpopular again", "keep your hair natural never dye it again, it's the trend now" literally fuck off I know what y'all are doing

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

Please admire the throw pillow I hyperfocused on making at the expense of all else this weekend

I had to hand sew the pillow to go inside out of black fabric I had left over from halloween. This will match the blanket I’ve been working on so that’s fun.

“How are finals going?” “I made a pillow”

[chaoskiro]

[Image description: photos of both sides of a pillow with a crocheted pillowcase. One side is mostly dark blue with a yellow sun in the middle and yellow accents. The other side the colours are reversed. End ID]

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[hypokeimena]

#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)

[paperandpencilsandskips]

We all need that one frail looking girl with a giant fuckoff hammer, sharp teeth and crazy anime girl eyes in the friend group

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[runawaymarbles]

Swerved around an Amazon delivery van while riding one of those pay-by-the-minute e-scooters and had the sudden feeling that I was in the opening credits of some nostalgia-bait movie from 2052