[engulfes]

Girl help i clawed my way into the light but the light is just as scary

[warmlantern-deactivated20210502]

Tbh I am an extremely chill person as long as certain things go exactly the way I need and expect them to every single day

[ourladyinshadow-deactivated2023]

i love when you hear a song and you're like “oh id absolutely stumble through the snow bleeding from a knife stuck in my gut to this”

[e-the-village-cryptid]

There’s a particular attitude I often see on the internet that goes something like “If you aren’t part of a particular marginalized group, then you could never understand their experience, so don’t pretend to relate.” And while obviously you’re never going to relate to every aspect of that identity unless you are also of that identity, I feel like this attitude really diminishes opportunities for finding kinship and bonding in similar experiences even if those experiences aren’t exactly the same and/or are the result of different identities.

For example, I’m white and neurodivergent, and I was talking to a Black neurotypical friend about masking, and how I feel like I have to change the entire way I present myself in order to not be considered weird in public. She responded with “Oh, some of that sounds kind of like code-switching— how I have to switch away from using AAVE in white-dominated settings in order to be accepted.” And then we bonded over how frustrating and ridiculous it is that AAVE and stimming are both considered unacceptable in “professional” settings.

Another time, a straight Jewish friend was telling me about a book she had just finished reading, which was written by a Jewish author and had a Jewish main character. She was saying that it was really nice to read a book written by a Jewish author, because even when gentile authors do their research and write a pretty accurate Jewish character, they never quite feel Jewish— you can always tell the author was a gentile. And I said “Oh that sounds kind of like when I read queer characters written by straight authors— you can always tell the author was straight even if they do their research and get things fairly right. So even though I’m happy when any book features queer characters, it’s really especially nice to read queer characters written by queer authors.” And we bonded over this similar experience, and we were both excited that the other understood even if we were coming to this experience from different angles, and then we swapped book recommendations. This conversation is also a great example of when that internet attitude DOES apply— when someone outside of a particular group is trying to understand that group’s entire experience well enough to accurately write the world as seen through their eyes. They’re never quite going to get it right, and that’s ok! It just means it’s important to also have Own Voices authors writing those types of stories also.

Sometimes it seems like people who have been in internet circles exhibiting this attitude for too long are afraid to ever try to relate to the experiences of anyone in any groups other than their own for fear of causing offense, which is honestly pretty counterproductive. Understanding each other and bonding across groups should be the goal! Relating to each other is not a bad thing!

[soul-hammered]

i’d add that these points of what COULD be solidarity are also used AGAINST others by malevolent anti-worker racist forces, and you hate to see it. see: some thumbfaced cop yutz whining about how the irish were slaves* but you don’t see THEM complaining, THEY pulled themselves up and never asked for handouts. :( they could instead be going “hey wow we both got screwed over, and we could have banded together as workers, and yet” *they weren’t but they were discriminated against in other ways i guess

[zephyrzeitgeist]

They certainly were, and that actually adds to the point of this post-

When the Irish were suffering through the potato famine(the English being a major facet to how badly they suffered), the Choctaw sent what they could to help, $170, because they empathized with their plight.

There is a sculpture in Ireland commemorating this, called Kindred Spirits.

And recently Irish donors cited that gesture as they raised $2 million in aid for the Navajo and Hopi tribes for the fight against COVID.

[canadianwheatpirates]

This post is great because goddamn is this a problem in internet social justice stuff, and I wanted to add one of the best takedowns of it that I’ve encountered. It’s from an anthropology paper from the 80s where the author is working through four “pitfalls” of performing materials from a culture other than your own, mostly with an eye to white anthropologists performing materials from nonwhite cultures. One of the “pitfalls” he lays out is exactly this – the refusal to even try and engage with another culture, because you believe you couldn’t possibly understand or relate and so therefore you shouldn’t bother:

Instead of facing up to and struggling with the ethical tensions and moral ambiguities of performing culturally sensitive materials, the skeptic, with chilling aloofness, flatly declares, “I am neither black nor female: I will not perform from The Colour Purple.”

When this strange coupling of naive empiricism and sociobiology – only blacks can understand and perform black literature, only while males John Cheever’s short stories – is deconstructed to expose the absurdity of the major premise, then the “No Trespassing” disclaimer is unmasked as cowardice or imperialism of the worst kind.

[…]

In my view, the “Skeptic’s Cop-Out is the most morally reprehensible corner of the map because it forecloses dialogue. […] The skeptic, however, shuts down the very idea of entering into conversation with the other before the attempt, however problematic, begins.

[…]

The skeptic, detached and estranged, with no sense of the other, sits alone in an echo chamber of his own making, with only the sound of his own scoffing laughter ringing in his ears.

– Dwight Conquergood, Performance As A Moral Act (1985)

(I would also generally recommend this paper for anyone who’s trying to talk to anxious white liberals, because I think the framework is really useful for people who’ve never had to think about intercultural communication before and are worried about fucking up. Showing them the major ways of fucking up, including that refusing to try is fucking up, means that they can direct that anxiety to looking for whether they’re falling into the pitfalls.)

[aevios]

[ID= sculpture of multiple large metal feathers /end ID]

[justqueenthoughts]

Bohemian Rhapsody. We Will Rock You. Somebody To Love. All hit singles, and all the direct product of a band that was formed when an astrophysicist and a dentistry major found a new friend in an art college, who then went on to recruit a fourth member from the electronics school. Based on this alliance I propose the rift in society between Arts and STEM students was fabricated to keep us separated so as to dilute our true power - and fabricated by who, you may ask? The business major, the only member of society who reaps no reward from art and science and thus must weaken us so as to stay ahead. In this essay I will

[transhumanist-viking-deactivate]

wheres the essay op

[ruffboi-mags]

the business majors silenced them

[queenie435]

[dysaniadisorder]

[ID: several digital drawings of black girls in a 90's anime art style.

The first drawing is of a girl with medium brown dark skin wearing a cream colored sweater and her hair tied back in a large ponytail. Shes standing in front of a window in a restaurant booth looking frustrated and saying; "What? Of course black girls love anime!"

The second is of a girl with medium brown skin and freckles wearing a pink sweater crop top, and long hair pulled back with a scrunchie with her hair falling over her shoulders. Shes sitting in front of a similar looking window with a drink in front of her, and a backpack next to her with a trans pin on it. She looks slightly bored and is gesturing with her hands as she talks; "and they were like, 'black girls can't be gamers', so naturally, I beat his---"

The third is a chubby girl with dark skin and large afro hair, wearing glasses, star earrings, and a ruffly blue shirt with puffy sleeves. Shes sitting in the corner of the booth, smiling and resting her cheek in on her hand. She says; "People are always so surprised at my extensive manga collection. No idea why that could be."

The fourth is a girl with medium brown skin and long flowy blonde hair, wearing a dark teal t shirt with a heart boob window. Shes leaning against the seat and posing with her hand tucked under her chin in a dramatic position and saying; "and then I said, 'Well, honey, your faves with always be black when I cosplay them, so choke on that."

The last is a chubby girl with light brown skin and shaved pink hair, wearing piercings, a white t shirt with a spiderman heart on the chest, and two bracelets, one black and one in the lesbian flag. Shes sitting with a drink in front of her, a neutral expression and resting the heel of both her hands on her chin. She says; "Like... I don't need anyone to explain comics to me. I literally majored in sequential art." /end ID]

[theonlinemuse]

And here's the link to the artist's Instagram.

[etakeh]

NIGHTJARS

You heard me.  

Nightjars.

They are the BEST birds.  Don’t come at me with BUT CORVIDS y’all know Corvids aren’t birds, they’re magic.

Anyway.  Nightjars.  Why nightjars, you might ask.  Well let me tell  you why.

I’ve already told you about the Tawny Frogmouth

But there is also the Great Eared Nightjar

Pennant-winged Nightjar

Standard-winged Nightjar. Yes, those are part of its wings. No, I don’t know WTF.

This oddly shaped stump.  haha tricked you!  It’s a Tawny frogmouth and baby.

Lyretail Nightjar.  again, why.  again, no idea.

Australian owlet-nightjar

Swallowtail Nightjar.  Not so fancy?  look again. that mustache.

Not into cute mustaches on birds?

Tell that to this Sickle-winged Nightjar.  

Before it cuts you down with its badass wings.

Hey another stump - wait no it’s a FROGMOUTH

I’m not the first to have come to this conclusion.  

says right there.  BEST BIRD.

Ok whatever Indian Nightjar doesn’t care what you think about it.

If you don’t agree, you can sit over there and be wrong.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

If you change your end goal from "being cured" to "feeling better", it'll be a lot easier to make progress - and each act of self care won't feel as hopeless and insignificant.

[speculative-tuna-sandiwch]

Season 1 of every cartoon series is always like

"hee hoo, I am the teenager protagonist, I will use my newfound superpowers to defeat this evil old man who wants to smooch my mom, hope my dog doesn't eat my homework again!" And then the second season is always like "What if genocide is the only option to maintain peace in our universe? What will I do once I outgrow my comforting sense of eternity and I have to be confronted by the reality that everyone around me might die?"

[yukikaremadesorry-deactivated20]

i have something to say about transgenderism and idk if it's controversial or not but i wanna say it

[yukikaremadesorry-deactivated20]

i feel like gay people that are Terminally Online are really obsessed with finding the perfect wording for their identity and abiding by it like it's law.

specifically when it comes to being trans, i think it's important for people to remember that there's no right way to be trans.

someone could wake up one day and decide they wanna be another gender. there's no criteria they'd have to meet. they don't have to have a Tragic Backstory that's like "oh i was assigned a girl at birth but I Always Knew I Was A Boy" they can just decide to be a boy. they don't have to have surgery or change their name or whatever. they could look back on their childhood spent as a girl and have no ill feelings about it. everyone is different... this is how real life works.

tr*scum/t*rfs/etc die i'm not arguing with y'all. eat rocks.

[yukikaremadesorry-deactivated20]

and i feel like where this stems from is people defining transgenderism as "being born in the wrong body" and while i have no problem with people defining it like that if it works for them, i think it deters people like the ones i mentioned above.

i was born as a girl, raised as a girl, and i'm fine with that! i look back on my former self with love and pride. i don't think i was born in the wrong body at all. at one point i just went "this isn't working for me anymore, i want to be someone else" and that's perfectly acceptable. ❤

[worldlykid]

I found this really important tiktok about what to do if a Jehovah's Witness or Morman missionary comes to your door:

[thefriendlyneighborhoodpervert]

I spent some time in a Jehovah's Witness church. They're exceptionally skilled at recruiting people into their church. (And I was an ATHEIST)

I left after a couple months, I stayed just long enough to see that they explicitly believe women are inferior to men, and of course, that homosexuality is a sin on par with murder.

The whole missionary door to door thing is NOT how Jehovah's Witnesses recruit. That is how they convince their members that the world is out to get them. One of the first things they teach is that Jesus requires you to try to convert non Christians to the faith. (They say non Christian but mean non JW.)

Then they say, "look how people treat us, just for the crime of wanting to save their soul"

They have long time church members tutor the incoming members to smooth the process over. They're trained to smooth away any doubts you may have about the church.

It is a textbook cult but because it's a Christian cult, nobody will do anything about it.

[fischotterkunst]

yall look at this shit ad*be is tryna pull now on ppl who have outdated software:

(note for context: i’m all for piracy, but in this case my copy of CS6 was downloaded years ago when they were giving it away to students. i got it totally legally.)

[fischotterkunst]

so here is what NOT to do if you’re a loyal fan of adobe who has the cash to shell out for a newer and shittier version of the product you already paid for.

1) DON’T use your search bar to find and open the Run app

2) DON’T type in services.msc

3) DON’T find Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Services and right-click to get a dropdown menu, and don’t select ‘properties’

4) if you happen to click properties, DON’T use the startup type dropdown to locate the option to disable the program. be sure you DON’T click apply to finalize that change. 

5) DO NOT do the same thing in order to also disable Adobe Genuine Software Monitor 

if you do all of these things, this WILL disable adobe’s ability to monitor the software, and you will be forced to continue using the same older software that you already paid for instead of having to sign up for a newer, shittier version and pay more for it. so if you have lots of cash to spare and are cool with putting it the pockets of racketeering capitalists, definitely don’t do any of these things. 

however, you SHOULD reblog this to spread the word, as we certainly want to make sure lots of people know what NOT to do :)

[hideousgourd]

I’M SORRY MA'AM. I KNOW YOU’RE UPSET.

Pretend to be upset.

[june-egbert-official]

OP how could you

I hope none of my friends who use Adobe programs find this, follow your detailed instructions, and spread the word. That would be devastating!

[furry-mussels-deactivated202104]

[katakulio]

Transcription below the cut.

Keep reading

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

people make a lot of touch-starved gay jokes about Lush but the truth is it’s not a gay experience, it’s a human experience. no one is safe, no one is immune.

you walk in there for the first time thinkin’ I’m gonna buy some hand soap today and then some dude who smells like something impossible, like he’s being described by a YA author, he smells like lavender, leather, and the steam coming from hot pavement after a short summer rain,

That guy. He comes up to you and he asks if he can help you sample something. He leads you to a small, metal basin of water. It’s so pastoral, it’s so quaint. You can imagine it sitting beside your bed with a porcelain pitcher in your farm cottage for you to use to wash your face in the morning.

He rolls up your sleeve a bit, and you awkwardly apologize for not doing it yourself, and he says it’s fine.

Sir LeatherRain gently rinses your hand in the warm water, and then he dries it off attentively. Then he massages some of the product into your palm. It’s the cinnamon bean massage bar. He says “don’t you love how it feels warm as you rub it in?”

He’s making more direct eye contact with you than you’ve ever made in your entire life.

As he finishes, a woman who smells like coffee beans and pink-skied winter sunrises approaches and says “oh I LOVE that product.”

You know it’s about the sell. It’s transactional, but you’re in love. You can’t help it.

You’re also More uncomfortable than you’ve ever been in your entire life.

As you walk away to the register, you clench your hand and unclench it like Mr. Darcy when he touches Elizabeth Bennet’s hand to help her out of a coach.

[tackywizard]

As someone who’s worked at Lush I assure you it’s just as weirdly intimate to be the one rubbing lotions into other people’s skin

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

oh thank god

[hogwartsaheadcanon]

Lush has some bizarro magic going on i once wore a hat i’d knitted into a lush shop and one of the staff members casually complimented it and i went home and i got half way through knitting them one to take into the shop as a gift before i realised how fucking whacked out a thing that would be to do like i was ensorcelled there was spell work upon me

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

obsessed with this

[ultrafacts]

Source: [x]

Click HERE for more facts!

[fuckrealityihaveablog]

Can you imagine some huge tattooed guy showing up at your job and you think he’s gonna beat the shit out of you but instead he tells all of your coworkers that your kid’s an asshole

[cockyroaches]

That would be even worse actually

[thetygre]

“My dad can beat up your dad” mercenaries.

[candiikismet]

This has me on the floor

[courtneyhatesjane]

[tremulouspoodlet-deactivated201]

this is the best thing in the entire world

she should greet jane as if nothing happened and see how jane reacts

[worthyourweightinfanfiction]

she should avoid school the next day. And the next. Every night, she should put on the exact outfit she had on that day, hose herself down until she’s completely drenched and stand in Jane’s yard. When Jane is home alone, she should approach the window, staring at her. Knock on it if you don’t have her attention. 

That’ll get her back for killing you and trying to hide the evidence.

[fuckyeah-nerdery]

Ease up there, Satan.

[batbirdies]

Ease up? SHE TRIED TO KILL HER

[cwritesfiction]

I’m not revising I’m LEVELING UP my WIP.

Fixed a plot hole? LEVEL UP +5 to storytelling

Cleaned up wordy prose? LEVEL UP +5 to clarity

Expanded a character’s internal monologue? LEVEL UP +5 to characterization