This is the center of the universe at this moment

...unless you're looking in another direction or are thinking about something from a long time ago, in which case it will wait quietly right here until you return.

[hickeygenderarchive]

st. george and the dragon (1908-9) - briton rivière / the vigil (1884) - john pettie / vanitas still-life (1705) - evert collier / david garrick as richard iii (1745) - william hogarth / micro sff stories tweet

[ahtokasano]

hello friendly reminder that you do not need a special occasion to use nice things! if you wait long enough your nice bath bomb won't be as fizzy! your favourite fruits will go out of season! candles are meant to be burned, not looked at! you're not enjoying your special tea if it's just sitting in your cupboard! you're allowed to have nice and special things on completely ordinary days! heck, it might just make that day special!!

[maureen2musings]

…

withluke

[guerrillatech]

[satellite-slickers]

No no no no no, do not boycott Kellogg. The strike is counting on the fact that people will continue to buy Kellogg products at the usual rate. Therefor giving the company a deadline to meet their demands before they run out of backlog stock. Which would be super bad for the company.

[127leilas]

i just dont think we were made to look at ourselves

[malaak]

Fernando Pessoa - The Book of Disquiet //  Milan Kundera - Immortality

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

[turing-tested]

[queerdo-mcjewface]

[quicksillver]

Why is accessibility so inaccessible?! by TheSituationalTherapist on TikTok

[video transcript: Why is accessibility so inaccessible? I went to go see the new Venom movie and during the lock down period of coronavirus I finally accepted and acknowledged that the tinnitus I have in my ears is real, it's a problem, and I should probably take steps to accommodate it in my life so that I don't have unnecessary suffering. And I've always felt like I don't want to take away something from someone else and so I hadn't really addressed it and going to the movies just wasn't great for me because i can't hear what's going on like there are fine words that i just cannot hear. So I decided this time if I'm gonna go to the movies at 10:15 on a Saturday when no one is there I'm going to ask for the accommodations that I need. I googled and I found out they have closed captions for people who need them. So I get to the movie theater I walk up I give my ticket, I'm a little nervous, and I ask someone standing there I was like "does this movie have closed captions?" and he goes, "yes, what you have to do is you need to go over to that man over there and you need to tell him that you need the glasses." Now I don't know why he started speaking real low and very slowly to me when I asked for it, but I just, that was fine. So I got my ticket I went over to the man and I said, "hey I need to get the glasses for the closed captions" and he goes, "you need- you need- you need the glasses? okay so just what you need to do is you have to go upstairs and you take a right and then there's a black desk and you stop at the black desk" and as I was walking he gets on his walkie-talkie [mimics walkie-talkie static noise] "uh, we need a supervisor there is someone here who needs the glasses" and so, like, I feel like, did I like ask for the sword of Amun Ra like what, is it really this, like? And so I get up there to get the glasses and the man looks at me and I have to give my first name, my last name, my address, and my phone number to get some glasses? And I was like "what is all this" and he was like "well you know it's really to you know protect the integrity," Regal cinemas, "to protect the integrity of the glasses." Who is going to steal some closed caption glasses for the movies? On top of that, my mans just thrusts me these glasses and this box and says enjoy the show. I'm like, this is my first time asking for something like this. Like could you, what are these buttons do? What's gonna happen when I put the glasses? They died halfway through the movie and I didn't realize that just because I have closed captions at home at the bottom of the screen, you know I spent the first 30 minutes of the movie looking down at the screen cause I didn't realize you could look up and the words would be projected- Anyway, I am so sorry to individuals in the community who need accessibility, I am so sorry, I couldn't even imagine- the burden! i felt like a burden asking for help. So Regal Cinemas, can we do better please? Please? end transcript]

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Relationships get so bananas when you start deciphering the other person’s love language.

Like I thought I was just acquaintances with this person because they never told me details about themselves and we just talked movies and writing . But then they made time to have coffee with me and they showed up out of breath because they ran. Like. RAN to be on time for coffee with me?

And I was like “i don’t mind waiting” cause I never want to run

But they said they wanted every minute they could get because I’m so busy usually

Which is when it clicked that I didn’t get how much they considered me a friend because I just straight away didn’t see MY signs of affection in them and went “cool! Casual buds it is.” But now that I’m seeing their signs of affection, I feel a little silly for dismissing them like that even though I felt like we could be best bros.

Anyway, some people show affection through time or intensity or commitment and not vocally. I really have to remember that!

[madammuffins]

Fyi- just in case you didn’t know.

TOUCH got a bro that likes to give high fives? Back slaps? Are they a hugger? Do they not blink an eye at cuddles?

QUALITY TIME this bro will (as op stated) sprint to spend every minute possible with you. Every second that you guys are together is a declaration of affection.

WORDS does your bro tell you how amazing and great and fantastic and wonderful you are all the time? Guess what…?

GIFTS do they buy you coffee? Snacks, energy drinks, spot you at the restaurant? Did that one key chain remind them of you? Ding ding!

ACTS are they always doing things for you? Ie: Nah bro, I got this, I can do that, need me to get anything for you, I can help with…?

PRO TIP - The way people show love is often how they receive love as well.

[queerautism]

Can I just say how much I love seeing this applied to friends / platonic relationships, when I’ve only seen it about romantic ones before?

[only-tiktoks]

[cthulhu-with-a-fez]

[nicolauda]

Rhianna Pratchett confirming her father wouldn't be a """gender critical""" activist (whatever the hell those GCs stand for) if he were still alive

[colouritlater]

The GCs are Terfs. A specific type of transphobe. Quite a few British celebrity got recruited to their ranks and they have the money and clout to do a lot of damage unfortunately.

Terry passed away before Rowling started her downward spiral and played a significant role in creating the current toxic atmosphere around Trans rights in England . It is good to see that his daughter ,who is also a writer, stands up for human rights.

[noirandchocolate]

That’s despicable trying to “recruit” someone who’s DEAD. Not to mention there’s NOTHING in Pratchett’s books—including the ones of essays, articles, and speeches—to suggest he join in if he was alive.

And obviously his own kid would know his private opinions so hopefully the assholes will see her tweet and back the fuck off.

[datsderbunnyblog]

(GC stands for “gender critical”, when you see that it usually means that you’re talking to/about terfs who are trying to rebrand their image).

For those of you who are wondering who else the original tweet is referring to, they are talking about Margaret Atwood, a very prominent feminist author (probably best known for The Handmaid’s Tale). Because she is a feminist the terfs assumed that she’d naturally side with them, and it came as a massive shock (for some reason) when she very publicly opposed and humiliated all of  terfdom.

But yeah I don’t know how terfs can possibly get through Discworld books without any kind of self-awareness but apparently they do. I’ve also seen them talking about how the Wives in the Handmaid’s Tale are all trans women (solely based on the fact that they are infertile). If you know anything about the plot or even the basic premise you’ll know how ludicrous that suggestion is.

Terf rhetoric basically revolves around throwing shit at the wall and then crawling around in anything that sticks, but the underlying transphobia is always present.

[datsderbunnyblog]

Rhianna Pratchett is the best.

[officiallordvetinari]

“Terry Pratchett” is now a trending topic on twitter and everyone is just slamming the people who claim he would be transphobic. It’s been really nice to see

Also there’s this

[somethingmissingthiswaycomes]

And this. Bless @neil-gaiman

[coolcurrybooks-deactivated20230]

I’d already seen most of this on Twitter, but the Tom Hatfield tweet was new to me and got some laughs.

Also, this is the one that made me get all teary:

[armedjoy]

[sculptingsuccess]

Look we all want a robo dog but if you kill someone with a sledgehammer to steal theirs, they are going to find you. There's no way a 75k$ dog doesn't have gps

[wotsukai-leftlmao]

we are killing the dog

[purplealchemist]

NO.

ALL DOGS ARE PRECIOUS.

Even robot ones.

[perigeeprincess]

its not a dog, its a machine used and designed for police surveillance and the entire reason they made it dog shaped is so idiots like you would go "awwww robot dog how precious" instead of seeing them as the oppressive tools they are.

we're killing the fucking dog

[bluelivesaintshit]

[tangent101]

That's not a robot dog.

It's a four-legged robot spider.

[riotouseaterofflesh]

It is not a dog, a spider, a chicken, a horse, a fish, a tick, a mosquito, a tapeworm or a baby

It is a weapon

There is nothing morally wrong about breaking weapons that are hurting people for any reason other than to prevent those people from hurting others worse

[roach-works]

the dog robots are fully capable of hurting people, and badly. failsafes that would prevent that have not been installed. the police are deploying a thing out in public that can maim anyone who touches it wrong.

look, when i was a kid i was passionately in love with the idea of robots--that humans would one day create another sort of intelligence to share our world with-- and believed very firmly that we should respect and protect all our robot friends from the start, so there would be no violent humans-against-robots revolution or anything.

anyway it turns out that the people trying to keep end-stage capitalism running are really banking on us feeling more love for the robots than for the kind of people they're going to be using the robots to oppress.

so like. maybe lets all agree right now that if a robot is being used to hurt a person, you need to smash the fucking robot. they're going to make the robots really cute. they're going to show us so many movies about how much robots need to be loved. and then they are going to use robots to hurt people.

let's try not to fall for it, okay?

[kellish]

I've been hip to resisting the AI/robot takeover since I was a kid. Terminator, RoboCop, literally any and all dystopian/scifi fiction warns that this is NOT the way.

[turtlesandfrogs]

Queuing this for January too.

[gingerly-writing]

write for the audience you want, not the one you’re afraid of

[headspace-hotel]

write to delight the audience you want and piss off the one you’re afraid of

[fireblight-ao3]

Oh I like this. I like the spite.

[luulapants]

Story time:

In middle school biology, we did an experiment. We were given yams, which we would sprout in cups of water. We then had to make hypotheses about how the yams would grow, based on descriptions of yam plants in our books, and make notes of our observations as they grew.

Here’s what was supposed to happen: we were supposed to see that the actual growth of the plant did not resemble our hypotheses. We were then supposed to figure out that these were, in fact, sweet potatoes.

What actually happened was that every single student in every single class lied in their notes so that their observations perfectly matched their hypotheses. See, everyone assumed the mismatch meant they had done something wrong in the process of growing the plant or that they had misunderstood the dichotomous key or the plant identification terminology. And, thanks to the wonders of a public school education, everyone assumed the wrong results would get us a failing grade. We were trying to pass. We didn’t want to get bitched out by the teacher. Curiosity, learning, science - that had nothing to do with why we were sitting in that classroom. So we all lied.

The teacher was furious. She tried to fail every student, but the administration stepped in and told her she wasn’t allowed to because a 100% fail rate is recognized as a failure of the teacher, not the class. It wasn’t even her fault, really, though her being a notorious hard-ass didn’t help. It was a failure of the entire educational system.

So whenever I see crap like Elizabeth Holmes’s blood test scam or pharmaceutical trials which are unable to be replicated or industry-funded research that reaches wildly unscientific conclusions, I just remember those fucking sweet potatoes. I remember that curiosity dies when people are just trying to give their superiors the “right” answers, so they can get the grade, get the job, get the paycheck. It’s not about truth when it’s about paying rent. There’s no scientific integrity if you can’t control for human desperation.

[thedailypositivityblog]

Redditors crashed the website with donations over $25k and 0 wishes left. via /r/MadeMeSmile

Click here and follow to get more daily positivity on your dash!

[no-mere-mortals]

In response to this event, some redditors created r/charityraid, with the goal of concentrating the power of thousands of users into a single charity at a time to hopefully break a few more sites.

[sae-something]

A lot of people with childhood trauma (and, from my experience, especially attachment trauma) find themselves yearning for a parent figure. A mother, a savior - someone to hold you and love you in all the ways you needed when you were a child. Someone to hold you while you break into a million pieces.

At some point in recovery/therapy you will have to face the harsh reality: there will never be anyone. Not like that, not anymore. And mourning that? That’s too much, that feels like a pain that cannot be survived. A pain that will swallow you whole, a pain that will drown you.

Therapists can offer a lot of support, but not like that. So maybe you want to switch therapists in hopes of finding someone who can (even though, if they are a good therapist, they can’t), or you would rather be without therapists because then at least they won’t have to suffer the pain of “someone’s here but they’re not enough”. 

Getting a little support, a little of everything we missed, a little of everything we want… Getting a little is worse, in some ways. Because getting a little bit activates the pain; it triggers the feelings of what we miss. Dripping a couple drops of water in an empty bucket makes you feel how devastatingly empty that bucket is.

Getting nothing and being absolutely alone is dull. It’s a drag of depression and darkness. But getting a little bit but not everything? That’s sharp and flashing pain, it’s dry heaving from the heavy crying. It’s intrusive thoughts and self-destructive thoughts. It’s breaking apart again and again and again.

[jhscdood]

liSTEN my therapist warned me about this and then she told me THERE IS A SOLUTION

you DO NOT HAVE TO FEEL THIS WAY FOREVER

the solution is reparenting yourself

YOU be the parent you wish you’d had. 

YOU give yourself comfort and love and acceptance (and ice cream and stuffed animals).

YOU talk to yourself the way a good parent would – tell yourself “it’s okay” and “everybody makes mistakes” and “you will feel better soon”. 

YOU can change the voices in your head. listen to those thoughts and hear whose voice they’re speaking with. your parents programmed those intrusive thoughts. and then ARGUE with them the way you were never allowed to before. tell yourself “YOU DESERVE NICE THINGS” and “YOU DESERVE TO BE HAPPY” until someday someday someday with enough time you CHANGE your programming into something BETTER.

It’s a process. it’s a looooooooooong process. I’m still going at it. BUT. it can really really help to know that the way you feel right now is not forever, and that you can re-parent yourself and start to feel better. that you have power now that you didn’t have before, and you can use that power to reinforce your programming and you can use that power to change that programming, and it’s all up to you.

OP is right that no one else can do it for you. you can’t get adopted by a new perfect family. your therapist / partner / BFF can’t do it.

but YOU CAN.

(p.s. https://www.outofthestorm.website/ is a really really great resource from anyone suffering from complex ptsd due to relational trauma, A++ highly recommend)