stardust

"it is our dreams that point to the way of freedom" (audre lorde) – christal

[felipeiv]

[pathos-logical]

[ID: A tweet by Deconstructed Cachapa @/AntiCl... that says, "Very disappointed by the symbolism of last night's dream. Just really obvious, derivative stuff." End ID]

[theunfairfolk]

in elementary school i figured out how to customize the classroom desktop's autocorrect to make Word change whole sentences. this made it appear almost like the computer was responding to you. you could, for example, type in "where did i put my keys", hit enter, and watch it switch to "you put them under the couch". this was before chatbots, and we were all 9 so i considered it closer to a magic trick than a tech one.

i immediately scripted out a dialogue exchange between me and a girl who had died by the swings (classic). i invited another student over and told them i had found a ghost, then proceeded to type out the pre-scripted exchange. i was immediately pulled into the counselors office. the kicker was that none of the adults could figure out how i did it. i had to show them the menu and everything.

[tockthewatchdog]

we need to give this tweet more credit for im pretty sure coining "die mad about it"

[invertprivileges]

checks out, thank you melanie

[seaniepop]

happy "die mad about it" day to those who celebrate

[latinotiktok]

Ainda Estou Aqui (2024) / La memoria - León Gieco / Ausencias (2006) Gustavo Germano / Desapariciones - Rubén Blades

[megthemariner]

@ryebreadgf / The Truth About Grief, Fortesa Latifi / bone deep, m.v.e / Sidewalk, Richard Silken / unknown / 60 hours, m.v.e / @itsblackleader / Salt, Nayyirah Waheed / @heavensghost

[theconcealedweapon]

[yassss-black-diaspora]

The whole notion of being docile around a police officer is an utterly terrifying norm. This isn’t the fucking hunger games. Citizens don’t need to be sweet to you, especially when you’re fucking wrong and they know their rights. They shouldn’t have to cower and fear and put their tails in between their thighs because the police academy has a tendency to accept shit heads who need to make up for their dominance complex. 

[genetic-freak-deactivated201807]

Not to stomp all over this post or anything, but I got pulled over in Los Angeles in 2009. It was after a concert. The police tried to say I squealed my tires at them, which I definitely did not do, don’t know how to do, and besides the fact I had no music on and my windows rolled down so I absolutely knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I did not do it. As a result, I was calm and relaxed, I wasn’t afraid. And it absolutely perplexed them, one of them even got angry and started to yell at me. They kept insisting I must be drunk, I kept saying, “Give me the test then,” but it seemed like that was the last thing they wanted to do. Until finally, one of them was getting so irate that his partner separated him from me, and gave me the test. Finally, I was dismissed, and the arguably nicer (though not by much) officer said to me, “Can I ask you a question? Why aren’t you afraid of us? I think my friend is upset because you’re not afraid of us and usually people are.” And I said, “If I haven’t done anything wrong, why should I be afraid?” 

But after that, it sat with me, that they expected me to be afraid, and they wanted me to be afraid, and it sat with me that they completely made up a reason to pull me over. Since then actually, I’m much more afraid of cops than I ever was before that moment. 

[crabussy]

I'm so serious about being kind above all else. it has genuinely changed the way I interact with the world on a fundamental level and has made me so so much happier.

[crabussy]

the other day, someone said something quite nasty and I patiently and kindly explained to them why I didn't think that was an okay thing to say. I treated them like they were my friend. they apologised! we didn't start arguing, and they reconsidered their stance on the matter. this has happened SO MANY TIMES. this is not a one off experience. every single time I am kind to someone who chose to be mean, it startles them into being kind back to me.

[crabussy]

there are many many times where I thought someone was being abrasive, but I was kind to them anyway, and found out that they just didn't realise that what they were saying was hurtful. it starts a chain reaction and it will make you so much happier in life. please try it? try it just once! be kind to a cruel stranger. you might be surprised.

[crabussy]

also before this has the chance to get big. I swear to god if you willfully misinterpret my post I will EAT YOU. I am not saying "don't be mean to your abusers" I am not saying "be nice to nazis".

I just think kindness is a forgotten tool when it comes to changing minds. if you call someone an idiot and then make a great point, your point won't matter. because considering your point and agreeing with it ALSO means they have to agree that they're an idiot. and people don't like to feel stupid or like they're dumb for thinking something. use kindness to your advantage! make someone feel better while changing minds and inciting positive change. it's worth it

[crabussy]

THIS IS EXACTLY IT!!!! it is VERY hard to be cruel to somebody who is being kind to you. people are so used to others snapping back that kindness absolutely takes them off guard and makes them feel a bit guilty, which usually stops them from being quite so mean. thank you for your tags!

[brionysea]

usamericans, do you remember in the incredibles when syndrome made the robot go haywire just so he could swoop in and 'save the day'

[animentality]

[homunculus-argument]

Have you ever thought of something in your own worldbuilding that you didn't intentionally plan, but just connect the dots afterwards like "wait, that actually checks out"?

Like in the story of the Book I Am Not Working On, there's the fisher folk. They don't fish, actually, they live in diaspora and nobody really knows why they're called that, anymore. They're more known for their numerous, strict and often seemingly random and nonsensical ritual purity rules, and stereotypically having absurdly large numbers of children. The twist is, they don't actually have more children than any other peoples of the Empire, their purity rules just ensure that they maintain higher levels of physical hygiene in everything to do with childbirth and handling infants - and therefore have a lower infant mortality than other peoples.

The "why do these people have huge families" thing also had another side: Fetishisation. The fisher folk's purity rules also involve no sex outside of marriage, and there's a myth on top of the stereotype that the reason why they seem to have a massive amount of kids is because their husbands are so good in bed that their wives cannot turn them down even if they're 100% done having kids. And since fisher folk do not have sexual relations outside of marriage, no outsider has had enough fisher dick to verify this.

But while they are loyal to partners, they are also polygamous, both ways around. A perfectly normal fisher marriage arrangement may feature a man and his two wives, and his second wife's first husband. One household may cover seven married partners, and all their mutual children. It's considered taboo to pry into which kids are "really" whose, paternity is unknowable and unless you were close enough to the family to know which one of the wives gave birth, the biological mother is none of your business either. Every partner in the marriage is equally a parent to each child born within it.

And this is where my own "wait hold on" comes in. Besides the lower mortality, the illusion of fishers having insane amounts of kids may also partially come from the way their families are structured. If you've just met a group of five people you don't know anything about, and they all claim that they have nine children each, it wouldn't cross your mind that they might all be claiming the same nine children.

[homunculus-argument]

One of my favourite parts about autistic people is how you can use other peoples' reflections of them like an echolocation bullshit detector. Like they personally do not need to do shit for this to work, they just passively emit their own autistic vibe that bounces off every surface around them, and you can assess another person's level of self-awareness by how they reflect it back.

"Autistic people do not understand social hierarchy" nope, they understand you're supposed to be an authority here, but they won't politely pretend to respect you if they think you're incompetent.

"Autistic people do not understand humour" nope, they just don't politely pretend to laugh to humour you, and you are simply not funny.

"Autistic people are rude" nope, they just don't think it's polite to lie to you, and don't care about trying to tell you what they think you want to hear instead of telling you what they think.

"Autistic people sometimes have emotional meltdowns for absolutely no reason" nope, you're just insufferable to be around and the person with the lowest tolerance of your shit is simply the canary in the coal mine who breaks first.

[homunculus-argument]

It's fun when you can tell things about people by what colours they like to surround themselves with. Someone who likes wearing and decorating all their stuff with green is usually a calm, chill, down to earth kind of a person. They don't usually even notice how much of all their things are green, they just see a green thing and think "oh, pretty" and don't even put together just how much of their stuff ends up unintentionally being green.

Someone whose clothes and stuff are predominantly purple is something else, that's a Distinct Kind Of Personality who enjoys having a distinct colour scheme and goes out of their way to get it. Purple is too unusual of a colour to just accumulate unintentionally. A person whose belongings are mainly purple enjoys knowing that the people who know them probably first think "oh, That Person would probably like that" whenever they see something purple.

But someone who specifically enjoys the combination of purple and green? Yeah that's a harder than average herb wizard.

[sandersstudies]

Every time a small child starts crying or having a tantrum in my vicinity and I catch the parents glancing at me I’ve started saying “me when…”.

Friend kept trying to tell his crying kindergartener to calm down and relax and the kid growled “I AM relaxed” while visibly tensing every muscle in his body and I was like “oh that’s me at work every day” and we had a chuckle.

Parents look to other adults like “shit are they mad? Do they think my kid is acting like a demon?” And this response is my attempt to say “no. I think your kid is just acting like a human being.”

I WISH I could fling myself on the ground and cry because I experienced a minor inconvenience.

[azpunkdotcom]

[goat-of-departure]

[oof-i-did-it-agaaiiin]

[oof-i-did-it-agaaiiin]

Evolution is a fascinating field of study.

[voxvenati]

[vasira96]

my snowflake opinion is that subtitles should always be on by default, and their incorporation should be considered an essential part of the design process tbh

[vasira96]

damn, some of y'all really could not fathom subtitles/closed captions still being optional under these conditions like :( if u just think about it for a little longer, you can put 2 and 2 together, i believe in you