Life like a train station rush

The ramblings and eccentricities of a writer who dreams larger than life. (And, regrettably, forgets to live on the ground.)

[hopefulstarfire]

YuGiOh OC Ship Aesthetic

Trouvailleshipping (Alister/Iris)

[lightrobber]

I did not know I needed this ship in my life, but now I do askdfsjslksjsk

[chongoblog]

Visit Original Link

Caught in a rather good romance

[slightlyfrumiousbandersnatch-de]

It sounds like I’m playing a video game and someone is trying to sell me potions. :D

[ailurinae]

…that is exactly what it sounds like

[kieu-silly-world]

[naminegg]

four horsemen of the apocalypse

[t-hy-lla]

someone just gave me this

[renegadecupcake]

I need 500 of these.

[ilmarin]

I have been awake since before the breaking of the first silence. 

im still obsessed with this scene 

[miyukiko]

[YGO] I like Change of Heart Bakura so much i drew it 3 times so far

[bellybuttonblue-deactivated2021]

[sentientcitizen]

Here’s the opposite story, though. With apologies because I don’t have the book in front of me, so I may get some details wrong, but I read this “Irena’s Children“ by Tilar J. Mazzeo.

Irena lived in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation, and dedicated her life to rescuing Jewish children from the Ghetto, and her story is complicated in a lot of ways but - well, this story isn’t actually about Irena, per se.

It’s about a bus driver.

It’s about a day when she’s traveling across town by bus with a very young Jewish child, and partway to their destination the child looks up and asks a question - in Yiddish. and the whole bus goes quiet, because everyone knows what that means. And Irena thinks, okay, we’re going to die here today.

And she’s running through her options - all of them bad - and suddenly the bus stops, and the bus driver announces that there’s been a mechanical failure and the bus needs to return to the depot immediately. Everyone off, please.

And she stands and goes to get off the bus and the driver says - not you two. Sit down. So she sits down as everyone else leaves, because, well, what else is she going to do? the options are all still bad, at this point.

and when the bus is empty the bus driver says,

“Where do you need to go?”

And then he drives them as close to their destination as he can, and lets them off, and drives away. And Irena lives, and the kid lives, and they never cross paths again.

So a janitor got three people killed, and a bus driver saved two lives - not to mention all the other lives indirectly saved because Irena was able to continue her work.

I think about that almost every day now, to be honest.

We can’t all be Irena. I couldn’t be Irena. She was in a unique place with very specific skills and connections that let her do what she did. I am just one mentally ill librarian. I can’t be her. But - I can be the bus driver. Or I could be the janitor. Because it doesn’t matter what your job is. It doesn’t matter who you are. In a world like this, every single one of us has the opportunity to do massive harm or massive good. We can save lives or end them.

And that’s scary. but it’s also very comforting? at least for me. Because at the end of the day it means this: no matter of how small and helpless and unimportant you feel, you’re never powerless in the face of great evil.

You can choose to be the bus driver.

[writting-in-blood-archive]

Creating a magical system is sooo hard 😭 Does anyone have any advice that can help me?

[ellatholmes]

I remember seeing a tweet about it somewhere that has stuck with me for a long time. Since then, I have built my own list of points, and I always use them as building blocks for my magic systems. Hopefully they’ll be of help to you!

♤ The main foundations:

What can be done with magic?

What can’t your magic do.

Is there a price/cost of using said magic?

What does it feel like to use magic?

For conflict reasons: What can go wrong by using or having said magic?

♤ I also expanded these points to write down the following:

Who does magic affect?

What can/can’t magic affect?

Can everyone do magic?

Does magic have a feeling even when not being used?

Do people have to learn magic or is it intuitive?

Who teaches magic?

Is magic inherited by blood?

Does the magic tie in with the religion of my world and if so, how?

Do people need instruments through which to use magic? ie. a talisman or wand

Is magic a thing a person has or is it acquired? ie. do they just have magic they can access at any time or do they need to drink magic juice™️ for a quick burst of power?

How is magic used in daily life?

Can anything stop a person’s magic?

Can magic be found anywhere?

For an extra bit of pizzazz, I sometimes like to write down different scenarios using the answers to these questions, and that helps me decide on whether I like the way I’ve set up the magic system!

You can also look at the worldbuilding and characterization you’ve already down to see how your system would affect and be affected by said magic system.

I hope this helps, and good luck!

[kcsmall]

Sanderson’s First Law

Introduction I like magic systems. That's probably evident to those of you who have read my work. A solid, interesting and innovative system

This has helped me a lot with building my magic system. I think Brandon Sanderson does a really great job of explaining here how he goes about creating magic in his worlds.

[anghraine]

Hello Future Me/Tim Hickson on YouTube has some videos about creating hard and soft magic systems that I thought were pretty cool (a bit old, visual quality-wise, but cool). They incorporate Sanderson’s takes without being completely reliant on him.

For those who aren’t familiar with the terms, fantasy writers often discuss magic systems in terms of a scale from the mystical and mysterious (soft) to the strict and rule-based (hard). Both (and the fuzzy areas between them) have their advantages and disadvantages, but they can operate pretty differently, and the two videos dig into qualities that can be particularly important for softer and harder systems.

[quasi-normalcy]

What I can tell you as a transgender woman is that occasionally I will read trans woman characters written by cisgender authors. And I can pretty much always tell when the author is cis, even if the character is portrayed respectfully, because they get some details wrong or something. But I certainly don’t think that they shouldn’t be allowed to take a stab at it, and I actually appreciate any representation that isn’t egregiously harmful. And I certainly don’t think that only transgender women should be allowed to write transgender women because then it falls on me, and that’s rather tokenizing, isn’t it?

[quasi-normalcy]

Also it seems like demanding that only #OwnVoices authors should be allowed to write certain characters is an excellent way to enforce a situation where most books are about cishet white people.

[quasi-normalcy]

And no: you probably won’t get all of the specific details of someone else’s lived experience correct, in much the same way that most authors don’t get all of the specific details about how, say, nuclear reactors or space work. But so long as your character passes as realistically human and not a one-dimensional caricature of what you think that other types of people are like, then I think that that’s reasonable.

[deep-dark-fears]

I’m drawing portraits to help raise funds for the defense of Ukraine. I’ll make a drawing of you, your friend, your dog, your other dog. Let’s help. Check out this page for more information: deepdarkfears.com/ukraine

[re-lmayer]

please help a disabled abuse survivor (and her cats) move

hello everyone! i have exciting news! a dear friend wants me to move in with him! he said he’s sick of me being in a toxic environment where i’m abused due to ableism

so, i got the housing lined up! but… how do i get there? this would be a 400+ mile move for me. things are…. a lil’ expensive, especially right now. i need any help i can get to make this move go as smoothly as possible

click here to go to my gofundme

alternately, you can help me via paypal by avoiding gfm fees sending donations directly! i also have a wishlist of things for the move! every little bit helps!

thanks for much for reading! i don’t say this to try and guilt trip anyone, but likes don’t give much reach on this platform, so reblogs are helpful to get word out! i’d really appreciate reblogs!

some more info under the cut in case i need to change/update it in the future

Keep reading

[hiki-777]

This is an irl friend of mine and can vouch for

As sad as I am going to be for her to move so far away I want her out of and away from her shitty ‘family’!

She is a very sweet girl and I love her to bits and if we can get her the funds to move someplace safe then I can at least see her off with a smile.

[momentia]

i’ve known op since 2013.  i have wanted so much to be able to magically whisk her away to somewhere better than the places she’s landed, for the most part, over the past decade.  this is an amazing opportunity

i know things are tight all around right now, but i would love it if someone who is able to could help her out, either by donating or reblogging

[rennskye]

I also know and can vouch for Erin - she’s deeply kind and has been stuck in a very bad situation for a very long time now that just continues to get worse by not-so-small increments. If I could afford to safely spirit her away somewhere kinder all on my own I would but since I can’t this is our next best option for her!

If you can help and/or share it’d be greatly appreciated!

[re-lmayer]

i’m so sorry to be negative, but i also have to share my reality my dad is basically trying to cut off my transportation. he made me spend $100 for a half tank of gas, for example. then proceeded to scream at me about it in front of two witnesses my mental health is declining. i’ve developed a stress induced stutter, for example. i need to expedite my move for my wellbeing. i still desperately need some supplies, and now i have to rely on things being delivered to me for another fee please reblog this post to get word out

[hiki-777]

Went down to help her pack and the moment we walked in the door he was already being a shit hole. He was drinking and being very antagonistic to her from the get go. Even with me standing next to her he didn’t give a shit and kept hurling more and more at her. It took everything in me to not stab that fucker

She really needs this money to get out of there, I’d take her in myself but I do not have any say and my own income issues taking forever I am struggling to find ways to be of help to her.

Please help ;A; I’ll do writing commissions if it’ll get her more money so she can get somewhere safe so she can heal and live her life happy for once

[re-lmayer]

my dad has proceeded to up his ante. today alone he has accused me of conspiracy, plotting grand theft auto, tax evasion/fraud, and snap fraud. he has told me i have 3 weeks to leave. he said he intends to cut my phone off. the only reason i have my phone on his plan is bc he broke three of my phones before. he has taken away access to transportation

i will not survive here until june. i am sorry but that’s become apparent. i desperately need help to expedite this move asap. please share my post to get word out

[fandomsandfeminism]

“What? Like, a disabled protagonist? How would that even work? How could someone with a disability be the hero in an action show?” local anime trash boy wonders while sitting next to his box sets of Full Metal Alchemist, showing no hint of irony or self awareness. 

[artifactoftoday-deactivated2018]

but is Ed really disabled? sure I get he lost his arm and leg

but he’s still able to move and do things perfectly

[fandomsandfeminism]

He has prosthetics. Having prosthetic limbs (that more than once break amd need repair) doesnt make him not disabled

[ladyloveandjustice]

It should also be noted that Ed:

-had to undergo very painful surgery to get automail

-had to relearn how to write because of his prosthesis (there’s a post going around showing he had to switch hands etc) and his handwriting is likely a lot worse due to that. This means automail isn’t super good for delicate work, unsurprising, considering what it’s made of. 

-experiences phantom limb pain and therefore other associated stuff (this was only really shown in the manga)

-cannot go anywhere too cold without changing his automail or he’ll get really bad frost bite and it will stop working

-cannot go anywhere too hot, period, because the metal attached and under his skin will overheat and he will be badly burned

-Reattachment is painful, but needs to be done frequently if he breaks or outgrows his automail

- it’s HEAVY so much so that the strain has the potential to cause stress on his body, enough that it’s even theorized as possibly stunting his growth.

-it requires regular maintenance or it will break down, as shown when he forgets to do that and it…breaks down

-when it does need to be repaired, it takes time to do that, during which Ed uses regular prosthetics (that usually don’t quite fit him).

-costs a lot of money (not a problem for Ed due to high state alchemist salary/having mechanics as surrogate family, but explicitly noted to being the reason why most people in the fmaverse stick to regular prosthetics along with the painful surgery)

So Ed can’t actually do everything perfectly and experiences a lot of extra hassle, problems and pain people without automail don’t have to deal with!  And any advantages he does have are more suited to fighting than day to day life (being able to incorporate weapons/fake out people who want to blow up his arm). 

Arakawa did her research and thought it through. Automail is by no means a magic cure that solves all problems associated with losing a limb.

[cruisinforarubberman]

I’m kinda sad these two might not count.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Why wouldn’t they? Hiccup is missing a leg

[cruisinforarubberman]

But he doesn’t struggle.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Disability isn’t defined by” struggle” or suffering. Having a useful prosthetic doesn’t make them not disabled. Get the fuck out of here with that. 

[ultravioletcrumble]

DISABILITY ISN’T DEFINED BY SUFFERING OR STRUGGLE

[lovethemfiercely]

I will also point out (quietly, because that last point was SO important) that choosing not to show it on screen does not necessarily indicate a lack of either adaptation or difficulty.  It might simply be none of our business.

[saturninefeline-deactivated2019]

Reblogging for that last comment…it’s really creepy how voyeuristic people act about it sometimes. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean they’re not struggling…and their apparent struggle or lack thereof isn’t what “grants” them disabled status. It’s the fact of having a disability.

[barlowstreet]

Also that’s just… not true. Hiccup DOES struggle sometimes and there’s a couple instances of them showing it. The Christmas special Gift of the Night Fury (which I am not even kidding, is canon, they reference it in the third movie) shows him having trouble on ice (you know, metal leg) and the movies do occasionally show him having a little trouble getting around.

A struggle because of a disability doesn’t have to be the most extreme thing. It can be a little extra annoyance that just makes things a little harder, or makes someone not able to do things like others would. Like a movie not having captions so a Dead/HoH person can’t watch it.

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

“But they have functional prosthetics so are they really disabled?”

Do you know the definition of the word disabled. Have you ever looked up what a disability is.

What the fuck is even happening here.

[birger-wuvs-elsa]

Also, Toothless very much does count as a disabled character as well, since he legitimately cannot fly without a prosthetic fin on his tail.

Plus, in HTTYD 2, Valka proceeds to introduce her son to several dragons who became disabled as a result of injuries from traps: one with a torn wing, one with a missing foot, and another that’s entirely blind. Plus, there’s Gobber, who’s missing two whole limbs! He has a gangling walk from his peg leg, and has to deliberately switch “hands” with his other and cannot always be properly equipped. We need not get into Drago, but the point remains that Hiccup, Gobber, and these dragons very much are disabled characters.

One could easily call Sol Regem of The Dragon Prince disabled as well, since the burns on his face completely and utterly ruined his sight. He can go by smell and hearing only, which was the saving grace of two beings that he normally would’ve been able to kill within moments. Plus, there’s the ever lovely General Amaya…who is deaf and communicates predominantly by sign and lip reading.

Plus, there’s the ever famous Toph, who while she greatly improved her life when she mastered vibration sight, it’s still imperfect. She still would rely on her friends when she couldn’t properly see (read, during the airship fight during the finale, or when they were putting up Appa’s Lost posters). Plenty of other disabled characters were also shown there.

But nothing else I can say can better enunciate the point than: Disability isn’t defined by” struggle” or suffering.

[latent-thoughts]

Bless this post…

[aliceliddellsmirror]

anyone who says a disabled person doesn’t struggle, doesn’t know the fucking meaning of struggling. We hide more from the world than you could ever imagine. 

[crazyrichxplainr]

Actors of color often get typecast. Two photographers asked them to depict their dream roles instead.

How Hollywood Sees Me … And How I Want to Be Seen

[ampervadasz]

Pink

[theryanproject]

Pink ain’t come to play wit you hoes!

[official-sokka]

[lananiscorner]

This is also an excellent example of providing breed-adequate enrichment, because Border Collies are herding dogs. They were bred to run a lot and do multiple quick and sharp turns, so if you can’t provide your collie with an actual herd of animals to… well… herd, an obstacle course like this is a great alternative. That dog is having the time of her life.

[silksweets]

bring back the habits that made you happy as a child. there’s no reason you should ever have to give up harmless things that bring you joy. you don’t have to age out of having fun. finger paint. write mediocre fanfiction and questionable poetry. put chocolate chips in your waffles. sing in the bath, and while working in the yard, and while washing your hands. hammer tunelessly on a piano. spin in circles until you fall down. climb a tree. just because you’re now in charge of your life doesn’t mean you’re expected to give up on the things that make life feel worth living

[aroarolibrary]

Things people should worry about and should probably fight against in a post-Covid world: the phasing out of physical money.

Even before all of this started a lot of restaurants in my area were already going ‘paperless’ aka: refusing to take anything but cards in order to buy food.

I hope that people understand just how terrible this is. How the movement to doing this was specifically a move against poor and homeless people. Against people who could not open a bank account. Who could not get a credit card. How it was a move by restaurants to not-so-subtlety ensure that the only people coming in through their doors were ‘desirable’ clients.

In a post-COVID world this is only going to get worse because now companies will have has a ‘societally acceptabile’ reason for refusing paper money. They will create an environment that is hostile towards the poor and homeless under the guise of public health.

I do not have all the answers for how to address this. I do not have answers for how to fix this or combat it. I do not know how to keep both workers safe in a public health aspect and also keep businesses accessible to people without bank accounts. I don’t have the answers but We need to be aware of this. We need to understand how terrible it is. We need to see it for what it is and how disproportionately such a move will hurt those around us.

[argumate]

seems that Chrome has around 60-65% market share, so it’s not totally dominating the market yet but it’s worrying that we’re basically reliant on Apple and Microsoft to hold the line.

[th4nkyoub3n]

Does Firefox not count for anything?

[argumate]

about 10% and falling, but perhaps that can change, I just don’t see how.

[argumate]

Chrome edging towards 70% on desktop, Microsoft has thrown in the towel, Safari obviously rules iOS, Firefox exists only as insurance for Chrome.

[ms-demeanor]

Please, please I’m begging you, use firefox.

PLEASE install firefox as a mobile browser and then run adblock on your mobile browser it’s so good I promise.

Look.

Look.

I know I’m a total grind about open source stuff but browsers are the PERFECT place to learn to love open source software and for so long FireFox was a major part of the browser market and sometimes if you want to see what kind of fuckery google is up to it helps to see the kinds of things they block in firefox and just

There’s an organization that makes free, excellent, safe software that doesn’t collect and market your data but for some reason two thirds of the world uses a google product and most of the leftover population uses apple and just

I promise, firefox is so good - the extensions are incredible look - I can use lightbeam to see what sites I use and how they connect to other sites (bottom right should give you an idea how much time I spend on tumblr)

or I can look at ublock origin and see that it’s blocked over 2 million requests since I installed it or I can run the facebook container extension and stop facebook from tracking me and you know what I bet you can do a lot of that on chrome too but you’re doing that while chrome itself is tracking you and gobbling up your activity for google and

firefox is so fuckin great and it’s such a great ambassador for other open source projects please be a big old fuckin nerd with me and use firefox and run a bunch of funky extensions and customize the fuck out of your web experience.

Wanna be a hacker? Firefox.

Wanna use instagram on desktop? Firefox.

Wanna be a killer researcher? Firefox.

Wanna properly credit artists? Firefox.

Wanna read a whole shitload of books? Firefox.

Wanna make video responses to shitlord youtubers?

Wanna shoot cat lasers at bugs?

Wanna use youtube as a music streaming service?

FIREFOX.

I just love firefox okay.

[salamencerobot]

IT ALSO RUNS ECOSIA!!! SO YOU CAN PLANT THOSE TREES!!!

look I went to firefox and never looked back