My empty space.

Hi, I'm Claire. 25 years old, living in France. I work as a programmer, and draw stuff (mostly pokemon) in my free time.

[retrogamingblog]

Nest of Pikachu by Diane Özdamar

[trash-supernova]

Baby…. Pikachus… So cute…

[wordcubed]

Rare to see naturalistic-style Pokemon fanart that’s not meant to be scary. I like it!

[whysperingwoods]

I grew up hearing the phrase “you never stick with anything, what’s the point” a lot. I’ve always been attracted towards seemingly disconnected interests, and gone through phases of being really into something. But eventually my interest would fade and I would move onto something else. 

Or at least that’s always how it’s been phrased for me, by others. Now I realize that my interest for the old thing didn’t fade so much as my interest for something new outshined it, and that’s vastly different. 

I was always made to feel bad about it, with every abandoned endeavour I was told I needed to stop starting things if I wasn’t going to stick with them. I was told I was wasting time and money picking up these random interests and abandoning them after a year. 

So eventually, I stopped picking things up. I told myself “what’s the point, I’m going to give up in a year anyway”. Even worse, I started dismissing every new interest, because I had no way of knowing if my interest was “real” enough or just another passing phase. I stopped trying new things, I stopped looking up stuff that piqued my curiosity, and having chronic depression made it really easy to leave everything on the dirty floor of neglected ideas. The more they piled up, the more depressing it was. All these things that could be nice, but I just can’t take care of them. 

I realize now how bullshit that kind of thinking is. So what if I stopped doing karate after a year? That’s one more year of karate than most people I know. And in that year I learned discipline, I learned to listen to a teacher, something I had never done before in all my years of private education. I learned the true meaning of respect, that it’s something you do out of faith at first and maintain as it’s reciprocated, not something you to blindly and regardless of how you’re treated. 

It gave me the foundation for the determination and grounding I needed to practice yoga. Another year. Not enough to be good at it maybe, but again a year more than most people I know and a year that is not lost, but gained. I learned balance, I learned to listen to my body, I learned how to let go of emotional tightness through physical stretching. 

And then iaido, only a few weeks because I couldn’t afford to keep going. The year of yoga I had done a couple years previous had given me a better starting point than the other newcomers to the class. I already had balance, I had strength in my legs and I had better posture. In those months I learned the importance of precision, the true definition of efficacy, the zen state that is incessant repetition. 

Did I practice long enough to get good at iaido, and yoga, and karate? No. Of course not. It takes years to become proficient and decades to master any of those things, but I learned other skills and those skills were an invaluable part of my growth both spiritually and emotionally. Likewise for my forays into painting, sewing, graphic design, film. I’m a photography student now heading into my second year of school, and every single second of practice I have in those other disciplines has given me more experience in those areas and made learning easier. 

Skills carry over. They intersect and connect in ways that are sometimes unexpected. Nothing is ever lost, experience is never a waste of time or worthless or stupid. Allow your focus to wander, reflect on what you learn, and consider how you can keep using it in other aspects of your life. Stop telling people their interests aren’t worth their time. 

[humofnight]

i love one (1) disaster wizard

[curlicuecal]

It’s a good metaphor tho, because the situation is never going to get better if you don’t eventually pull the door. And afterwards, no matter what the damage was, you’ll have a working cabinet, whatever plates you could salvage, and a place to start putting new plates.

[artbymoga-deactivated20200516]

Reblogging for that comment ^

[absolutely-walnuts]

another good post

[queeranarchism]

Cash

This isn’t something that gets talked about a lot, and I have no idea how far the problem extends geographically, but if you care about poor people, if you care about sex workers, if you care about activists, if you care about privacy,

you should consider resisting the transition from cash to card-only payments that is happening in shops in some bigger cities. Including shops where only one register in a long row still accepts cash payments so anyone paying with cash needs to wait in line and sticks out.

Cash is how poor people help keep each other alive without immediately worrying about their benefit cuts, cash is what people get when they do a bit of work or sell some old stuff to feed their kids that week. Cash is how most sex workers get paid. A lot of people need to be able to make cash payments to feed their kids, pay their rent and basically to live.

Cash is also what activists use whenever they need protest supplies and don’t want their full name and address attached to the protest. Cash is how we buy any item we want to keep out of our digital footprint. But whether you’re buying a megaphone or  a dildo, you can’t do so privately if you can’t spend cash.

Banks are eager to work towards a post-cash economy because it makes our spending habits so much easier to track. States want the same because it makes people so much easier to track and control. We should not want a post-cash economy and we should resist attempts to create it.

[traumabrained]

ive said it before and i’ll say it again, raising your kid in a strict, fear-controlled environment where all rules are enforced only through fear of pain, will not lead to the nice, intelligent, well-behaved children that you’re looking for. it will lead to your child taking one of two tacts:

a) lying and sneaking around so that they can circumvent the rules you have put in place (even like, the good important ones like “don’t talk to strangers” because you probably didn’t think it was important to tell them why and so since they’re already ‘disrespecting authority’ or whatever, there is no reason for them not to break that rule as well, if they need to), and only thinking of the consequences of their actions in terms of pain/punishment, instead of like, “this will hurt my friend” or “this will mess up my future big-time” because odds are, you didn’t bother to instill any foundations of morality or compassion or foresight in them because why bother, right? 

b) turning into a terrified doormat because you taught them that questioning orders/having emotions/needing things/wanting things/having a personality is a punishable offense, and now they can’t make their own decisions without mortal terror because when they tried to do that as kids, you threatened and punished them, nor can they easily think beyond “if i do this i’ll be punished/hated/disbelieved/threatened/abandoned” because thats how you reacted to everything

or some mix of the two wherein they are a doormat when they should stand up for themself and a rebellious, calloused asshole when they should stop to consider the other person’s point of view.

and it is hard as shit to break out of that

[lodepeeters-art]

Stevonnie with facial hair! I am so here for it

[pettyrevenge-base]

I absolutely LOVE people who pay with pennies!

Seriously. 4 years ago, I’m cashiering at a whacky mart on a register that holds all the smokes and alcohol. It’s 10pm and these two young men (early 20s) come up to the counter. They have three random novelty items (I don’t remember they were), but it was strange and unusual to get odd items this late at night. Maybe it was for some fraternity, I don’t know. It’s a college town so I get weird stuff from frats a lot. I scan the items and tell them their total is $22.xx.

Grinning at each other, they reach into their jackets and slam down two gallon zip-lock bags, full of only pennies. I stare them in the eye, but they didn’t even look back at me. Everyone else in line groan and went to other registers. These two kids knew what they were doing, but they didn’t know what they were in for because I prepared for this; I knew this was going to inevitably happen. I grinned with them, because I was gonna get paid during this. These pranksters are here for recreation. This convo occurs between Me, Ringleader (the other guy was silent and awkward), and a friendly coworker of mine.

Me: Is this $22.xx?

Ringleader: …

Me: Did you count it?

Ringleader: Nope.

Me: Are you going to?

Ringleader: Nope.

Me: Is it at least $22.xx?

Ringleader: Don’t know.

Me: Nice.

Coworker: Hey! You guys can use the self checkout. It can take all of your coins at once.

Me: Oh, don’t worry about it Cowor–

Ringleader: Nope, don’t trust them lady.  (Partner laughs)

Coworker: What? Why!?

Ringleader: Doesn’t count all your change right.

Coworker: I’ve used them before. It really works!

Me: (to Coworker) I got this.

I unpacked the ziplocks and threw all the pennies on the counter. It was a beautiful, massive shitstorm of a mess. And I digged in it. I was Frank in a dumpster in ‘It’s Always Sunny’. The two, still averting my gaze, start chuckling as if they were taking away my dignity. They whisper to each other “Dude oh my God,” “Dude yeah,” “Dude, hilarious.” I counted each penny, one by one. My coworker comes up to me.

Coworker: Guess I’ll help you count this.

Me: Don’t worry about it.

(She looks at me confused. Then she puts on her ‘get down to busy’ look.)

Coworker: I got your back.

Me: Oh…ok.

We worked up a system where we counted ten, put them in a pile, then with ten stacks of ten pennies we separated them, making $1 piles. We made progress slowly but surely. Some customers came to the line, but we advised them to get to another line. Some of them looked at us confused, but when they saw the counter full of pennies they understood. Some decided to wait, but when they realized it wasn’t going to take just a few minutes they took their leave. Another register in the liquor department opened so it wasn’t too bad for other customers. We get to about $12 (about 10min in) until I “knocked” over the piles.

Coworker: Neontonsil!

Me: Oops. Sorry.

(Coworker looks at my grin. I give her a wink and tilt my head, motioning her to leave)

Coworker: You know what, I think I better let you do this.

Me: Ha, alright.

(Coworker leaves. I look at the two guys. They are absolutely stunned at the fallen piles of pennies.)

Me: (To Ringleader) Yeah, I’m going to have to count all of this again.

Ringleader: ….Ok.

I started from zero. I count slower then ever, and made my way back up. The duo is entirely silent. I get to about $7, when suddenly I say:

Me: Drats. I lost count. I better start all over again.

Ringleader: Really?

Me: Oh yeah man.

Ringleader: Why!?

Me: I lost count, sir. I could be in trouble if my register doesn’t have the right amount of cash, and I don’t want to rip you off.

Ringleader: …

It’s about an hour later. My manager walks past, looks at me. I smile at him, and he looks at the counter. He walks away without a word. I eventually count all the change and surprisingly they had only $18!

Me: Hmm, I think that this is $18.

(The duo has been dead silent. They look done for the night.)

Me: I’ll recount it.

I fucking recounted it.

Me: I think this is actually $19.xx.

(Without a word, the Ringleader whips out a $5)

Me: Seriously? You had cash?

Ringleader: Needed to get rid of my change.

Me. No problem. I’ll just recount this again. I want to make perfectly sure that this is $19, since I counted $18 the first time.

Ringleader: Are you kidding me?

(I shake my head no, completely serious)

He takes out a $20 bill straight out of his pocket and throws it at me. My coworker gives the biggest WHAT THE FUCK face. Internally, I die as well, because they were smart enough to have a backup plan. And the fact that he was touching his cash in his pocket the entire time kinda messed with me. I take the cash, do the transaction, give him his change, thanked him and wished him a good night. The two start to put their pennies back in the ziplock bags and I didn’t help them at all. I watched them just as how they watched me. Lots of pennies dropped to the floor, but they didn’t care to pick them up. It looked like their souls were sucked out of them. It was past midnight and I clocked out way past when I was supposed to. A lot of my coworkers gave me a thumbs up or told me good night. Even my manager told me ‘good job,’ the only two words he ever said to me. Went to bed at the dorms after such a great petty penny night and crashed. Strange to say, but I’d love to count pennies again.

TL;DR I recounted 1900 pennies like 5 times. Was it 5 times? I better count again.

[little-wolf-white-peacock]

This is the kind of spite I live for

[paper-mario-wiki]

would you rather explore...

ancient ruins or a dead mall

deep space or the deep ocean

a fully automated candy factory or an artisan wood carver’s cabin

the past or the future

a perfectly kept greenhouse or a densely packed pine tree forest

[flowersalesman]

you know avatar the last airbender and gravity falls are both thought to be Very Good and one thing they have in common is that they had a set end. atla was meant to last until aang mastered all four elements and defeated the fire lord, and gravity falls was meant to last a summer, and the creators didn’t do more than what they had to do.

[bloodbending]

peter parker in the 2002 movie is fuckin…. incredible. he gets bitten by a fuckin jacked red blue spider and he doesnt say “hey someone should take me to the hospital mayhaps?” he just goes home. then the bite swells to the size of a fuckin jawbreaker but he’s like “nah i just need a nap.” then he wakes up the next day and discovers that he DOESN’T NEED HIS GLASSES ANYMORE and he has a fuckin six pack. does he flip his entire Fuck? no. he says, “cool.” iconic.

[laughingfish]

2002 peter parker had no health insurance

[lierdumoa]

Seriously tho that was the Bush administration he had no health insurance.

[meetingthestoryteller]

[swimming-in-shattered-stars]

:(

[thatdiva]

[mockiato-deactivated20200315]

Honestly, nothing is more absurd about whiteness as the fact that white people will literally vote against their own self interest–as long as they believe people of color, especially black & nw latinos, will be even more harmed by these measures.

It’s why you’ll have poor whites who rely on public assistance for survival repeatedly support politicians looking to defund the very same programs that they themselves rely on, getting worked up in a frenzy about the imagined threat of ‘blacks and illegals’ scamming the system. Even when they themselves fudge the numbers a little in their paperwork to better ensure their own survival–committing the very same fraud they claim to be concerned about.

That level of hatred, so ingrained and unquestioned that addressing it and discussing it feels like a fools’ errand, should be unimaginable. And yet, perhaps the most amazing part of it is that we’ve been known all of this. It’s not even surprising.

[mockiato-deactivated20200315]

This is okay for white people to reblog, but I appreciate y'all asking to be sure!

[elemesy]

IF YOU CAN READ THIS WITHOUT FEELING A WARM BUBBLE OF HUMAN JOY IN YOUR HEART I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO FOR YOU

(Also I was so confused for a while because the OP totally missed a number in the thread but the story is so precious I forgive them)

[hardlyfatal]

This is adorable and hilarious!

[blue-moonlight-flower]

Okay, so I found out more about this story/tale.

First, it is originally an Armenian folktale called “Clever Anaeet”. But I haven’t found more information unfortunately about the original story.

There is a version of it though in “The Fabrics of Fairytales” by Tanya Batt. It is actually a collection of various fairytales and is relatively short (80 pages according to Goodreads).

However, I think this post is referring to the picture-book adaption of the same story, “A Weave Of Words” by Robert D. San Souci.

I hope this helps anyone who wants to read it for themselves or look into this further.

[tinynavajoreads]

@rejectedprincesses don’t you have an entry about this woman in your book or on your website? I feel like I read it somewhere…

[rejectedprincesses]

Yep, right here! It’s based off an Armenian fairytale called Anahit, collected in 1881 by  Ghazaros Aghayan.

This Twitter thread has been going around and I’ve been tagged a couple times – I suspect I need to do tweetstorms like this for RP entries, instead of just a couple pics and a link to the entry.

[toonskribblez]

a little PSA about giving & receiving comments

[faebelina]

I have tried reaaalllly hard to not take “hey this looks like ____, reminds me of ____, or is just like _____” to not always mean a bad thing haha. This is a cool comic that helps everybody involved understand each other, I think : )

[leightum]

[clbluecat]

Trans people: we exist

Terfs: hmmm that's just your opinion though