Me

He/Him 20s INTP English / French

[tiktoks-i-enjoyed]

[storybookprincess]

so back when my little brother was in high school, my mom went as a chaperone for their senior year field trip to an amusement park. which, you know, brave move to volunteer to supervise a bunch of high school seniors let loose in a wonderland of rollercoasters and sugar

my brother and his friends in this field trip group were truly great kids. but they were not above run of the mill teenage boy shenanigans. it’s the end of senior year, you and all your buddies are at the amusement park, you’re naturally going to want to act like a complete moron

there was one kid in the group who was especially prone to goofing around. committed to the bit, some may say. my mom knew that if nonsense was going to break out, he’d likely be at the center of it

so she goes up to this kid at the very start of the trip and says “hey, i’m kinda worried about this chaperoning thing. this might be a lot to ask, but can you help me keep an eye on everyone? you wouldn’t have to do anything big, just be an extra set of eyes for me.”

friends, this kid proceeded to run their field trip group like the fucking us marines. everyone is at the meet up spots at the designated time. everyone waits in line for the rides like a bunch of boy scouts. the second the horseplay gets too out of hand, this kid is getting it back under control

it’s incredible how differently people act based on the expectations you set. instead of going to this kid and saying “hey, i know you’re trouble, so i’ve got my eye on you,” my mom went “hey, i know you have influence in your peer group, so i think you can help me.”

treat someone like a problem, they’ll act like a problem. but give people a chance to help, make them feel important, and they usually rise far above the occasion. it was a stroke of genius that i’m honestly still in awe of

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

I never liked those posts that reduce the Disney princesses to “girl who overacts about something and dramatically flings herself down and bawls” (super popular in the early 10’s and somehow that’s how a shocking majority view the classics now) but after an Aladdin (1992) rewatch, it’s especially egregious that they ever included Jasmine in that.

This part. This is the part I’m talking about

This is not a woman falling to pieces because her father won’t let her marry a man she just met.

This is a woman born to a life she has very little say in. She has never had a genuine friend (besides a tiger). She is facing a marriage to a man she doesn’t know and doesn’t like but duty (and the law) demands it. So she took a risk, ran away, ran to a world she doesn’t know or understand and when she landed in trouble (serious, serious trouble) a stranger came to her aid. She finally (finally!) made a real connection with someone but they didn’t get much time together before the guards showed up and she had to reveal who she was.

This moment when she’s crying her heart out? It comes after she’s been told that the first person she ever connected with, the first person to be genuinely interested in her for who she is and not what she is, the first real friend she has ever made, was executed… because of her.

She believes a good, innocent person has lost their life because of her actions, and what’s more, it brings home the reality for her that she cannot have a normal life or normal relationships, because see the consequences one little attempt wrought?

[notlikeothernurses]

I actually love this trope. People treat crying like some kind of moral failure. Boys shouldn't cry, girls *can* cry, but that's also what makes them inferior. If this is not an example of toxic masculity, I don't know what is.

Crying is normal. Even if it's over something trivial. We all face a lot of struggles in their lives, whether we acknowledge it or not. Something minor might end up breaking the camel's back.

Anyway, here's one of my favorite scenes in Beauty and the Beast:

Belle's reaction is completely understandable. I think Mrs. Potts put it best: "The girl lost her father and her freedom all in one day." That's not overreacting!

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

Thank you so much for adding Belle!

Really, none of the classic princesses deserve the misinterpretation.

Cinderella?

Again, this is not after someone told her “yOu CaN’t MaRrY a MaN yOu JuSt MeT”—this is after she went to great lengths to get ready for the ball, adhering to the intentionally difficult (meant to be impossible) stipulations set by her abusive step-mother for her to be allowed to attend (when really she was invited and had as much right as the others to attend). She made that dress (I can’t recall off the top of my head if the classic animated version was also her mother’s old dress she restyled or not but still, she put in a ton of work on top of all the extra house work) and what did her step-family do? They tore to shreds while she was wearing it. Of course she’s lost hope: it’s the final straw after years and years of doggedly remaining optimistic despite constant harsh treatment.

Let’s go to another favourite: Mulan.

Mulan’s just had the worst day.

She tried her hardest to live up to her family’s and her society’s expectations and vision of a perfect bride but she failed. Not only did it go wrong, but she was publicly humiliated by the Matchmaker—by extension, humiliating her family.

Granted, her family has been kind and sympathetic about the whole thing. Her father even goes to encourage her, assuring her of his unconditional love for her and his confidence that she’ll get it right next time.

She’s just beginning to smile when the drums pound and news of war reaches their village. Her father—her beloved father who’s already a veteran and lives with a disability—is expected as the only male in their family to suit up and head out in the morning.

Mulan can’t help. Nothing she says will be listened to and she can’t take his place (until, of course, she thinks of a way to do so which this moment of crying it out in the rain leads to—score one for having a good cry and clearing your head).

There’s of course more. Take any princess’ dramatic crying momentTM and review the context and I’ll bet you’ll see it’s never as trivial as some have framed it. And, yes, like prev pointed out, it’s this awful thing of people believing boys can’t cry and girls can but then they can never be taken seriously.

Crying is healthy. And crying in response to emotional distress is totally normal. Writers and storytellers across the ages have understood it and portrayed it.

[heavensenthearty]

Has anybody added Ariel already?

She didn't deserve to see the things that she held dearly destroyed right before her eyes by her own father. No, it wasn't just about the cute guy she just met. Her family had never approved of her interests and she felt so isolated that she hid them away. Just collecting random stuff that she felt oddly inspired by. Then Triton obliterated it. Her memories, all the care she put into organizing it and keeping it safe—gone. He couldn't accept her passion because it didn't align with his beliefs, so he destroyed it. The ultimate rejection from a parent, the very people who are supposed to love you and make you feel safe.

My girl deserved—which she ultimately got in the end—but still.

[twinklecupcake]

Let's take a sec to mention Aurora.

Or Briar Rose, who she thought she was.

She's not just crying because her aunts/the three fairies told her she couldn't be with this guy she just met. She's crying because she just found out her entire life is a lie. She's not a simple peasant girl living with her eccentric aunties, she's a princess. She's a princess of a kingdom she knows little about, has parents she's never met, she's going to go see them today, they're going to leave their little cottage to go to this castle she doesn't even remember, meet people she can't remember... The 'hunter' she met in the woods? She can't keep visiting him after all, she's a princess and has to leave everything about this life behind her today

and on top of all of that, it is her goddamn birthday when she learns all this.

[twinklecupcake]

Snow White didn't collapse prettily somewhere, she tripped and fell while running for her life and was too scared/exhausted to get back up.

She's a young woman who was reduced to a servant in her own home by her abusive stepmother, and who knows how long the abuse was going on before her father died, and then one day she's told she can wear a nice dress again and go out with the huntsman to pick flowers. Happy day! She's finally being given a day off! She's leaving the castle! She's going to see the flowers, to be among nature! How wonderful! She has a wonderful time, she comforts a baby bird... huh. That's an awfully long shadow behind her........

So she turns around and the huntsman is standing over her with his knife out to stab her. That alone would be traumatizing to anyone, but then even as he can't do it he tells her that her stepmother has ordered her killed. Her stepmom is no longer satisfied with demeaning her and keeping her as a servant, she wants her dead. So he shouts for her to run, run and never come back, and while she's running in a panic through a forest she's never been in before, trying to comprehend and make sense of what she was just told and what nearly happened to her, her own terror makes everything look monstrous, scaring her even worse.

She's completely justified in just lying there and crying after she's finally lost her footing and collapsed, she has had a horrible last half hour on top of years of abuse.

[dogpuppy]

[dragon-in-a-fez]

anon hater just accused me of (among other things) "encouraging kids to install malware on their parents' computers". I don't remember ever doing that but it sounded like a fun concept for a post so here are some ideas for things to install on your parents' computers!

a custom DNS resolver that blocks access to Fox News and other right-wing propaganda outlets

a keylogger to capture the admin password for your router so you can disable parental controls

a VPN or a virtual machine running the Tor browser to bypass access restrictions and age verification checks

your own "parental controls" browser extension, set up to send you notifications if your parents visit websites that indicate they might be spying on you (e.g. Life360)

a userscript that adds a fake virus warning popup to the donation pages of fascist political parties

have fun! make sure to do loads of reading and learn how things work so you can break them safely and effectively!

oh, and anon, my advice to you is never stab a man who collects knives

[starcrier]

and you know what? i am REALLY sick of these ads that are openly mocking people for being concerned about the products they’re selling.

Amazon’s super bowl ad where the Alexa mocks Chris Hemsworth for being worried about giving spy software control over his entire life. Waymo’s ad with the intro “the robots are coming!” mocking people who are rightfully extremely concerned about sharing the road with, or riding in, self-driving cars.

i don’t know, it’s just genuinely insane to me. “Oh, you have legitimate concerns about our shitty product? sounds like you’re just lame!!!” like what kind of “quiet part out loud” marketing is that?

[asteroidtroglodyte]

The President is a Predator

The Executives? Predators.

We’re just Food to them.

[encodedincommotion-deactivated2]

it's crazy how plausible all the shit the corporations do in the murderbot diaries is. that one scene when murderbot was talking to those humans who had signed a 20 year corporate work contract and it asked them if the contract specified 20 years by the standard local calendar or by a proprietary calendar created by the company was downright unsettling 😬 if the ceos of modern earth companies read these books they would probably start crying because the government won't let them do most of this in real life.

[radioorpheus]

hey fun fact this has absolutely happened before. part of the push to standardize time/timezones was because factory employers had clocks set to the pace of their machinery. meaning of the workers were not doing enough, time would run slower until they had reached their goal. there is historical precedent.

[duckbunny]

[flameraven]

Yup. All the shit modern Capitalism is pulling is mostly a rework of the shit Capitalism did in the 1800s. This is WHY people fought and died to unionize and pass labor laws. Now those labor laws have been weakened or companies found loopholes (ie, gig workers are contract workers and not protected by many labor laws) so they're pulling the same shit again. The Corporation Rim, of course, HAS no labor laws so the companies have been able to crank up their evil to 11 because nothing is stopping them. It is genuinely a really good bit of worldbuilding on Martha Well's part, she's done a great job projecting the tech bro bullshit of our times into the future that Musk, Zuckerberg etc would build if they could.

[future-crab]

My favorite running bit in btvs season 2 is Oz’s unparalleled ability to roll with the punches. Vampires are real? Ok that explains a lot. We’re stealing weapons from the U.S. military? Cool I’ll bring my van. Buffy’s a rat now can you help us look for her? I’m on it. Unfazed. Incapable of being fazed.

[depsidase]

[theaceofwords]

It's called the Global Justice Report, it is here. This is an actionable plan which can be sent to legislators and demanded of political parties. We could save the world within our lifetimes.

It has always been possible. It is still possible.

[kaomojiloser]

grace after every time eva asks him to do something:

[assignedmale]

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[redstonedust]

it's usually morally correct to make fun of the usa but whenever i hear british people do it it feels kinda tone deaf. idk if we have the high ground here guys. its like your mom making fun of your mental illness like ma'am where do you think i got it from.

[flowerbobatea]

[onlytiktoks]

[tilthat]

TIL in 1896 a temporary, one-day city was named in Texas called Crush, where two locomotives were to be smashed head-on for purposes of spectacle. It was, for a few hours, the 2nd largest city in TX with 40k attendees. The collision caused engine boilers to explode, resulting in death and injuries.

via reddit.com

[justthesource]

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush,_Texas

[mangonetics]

you could just do shit back then

[pyomorphic]

texas is still like this

[tyrannosaurus-rex]

[snowriddenwolf]

[infizero]

bringing back my too woke opinion that you should be allowed to change labels without the previous one being incorrect

[infizero]

i think you should be allowed to identify as trans without retroactively saying you were also trans in the past. i think the "born this way" rhetoric is limiting and you should be able say stuff like "i was fully a girl when i was a kid and now im a boy" without it invalidating your current identity but maybe that's just me

[lightweightkate]

I’ve been cackling about this for like five minutes now

[uncharacter-istically]

[Video caption:

O-okay, let’s get into this, shall we?

*grumbling* Would you rather work for Lex Luthor or the Joker- *shouting* Lex Luthor, by like, a fucking mile!

Yes, yes, working for Lex Luthor is basically like being an Amazon employee that makes weapons of mass destruction, which is bad. Lex is like Donald Trump mixed with Mark Zuckerberg mixed with Jeffrey fucking Bezos, it’s not a great mix. He does not treat his henchmen well. Their lives still suck, and they are probably monitored on how long they take piss breaks for.

But let’s analyze what working for Lex Luthor is like versus the fucking Joker. With Lex you probably get a dental plan, a health plan, a paycheck, and the guy that you’re fighting really cares about human life. Superman will hit you just long enough to knock you out, so you’re not a treat, so he can stop the problem.

If you work for the Joker, your payment is you’re not fucking dead. You say one wrong thing? Bang. You don’t laugh at his jokes? Bang! You do laugh at his jokes? Bang! You think Joker gives a fuck about a henchman?

Who’s Lex Luthor’s right-hand-man? It’s a woman, you sexist, her name is Mercy, she’s awesome. Who’s Joker’s right-hand-man? Bob? Nah, he’s dead. Harley? Tried to kill her multiple times. Slappy? Who the fuck is Slappy?

The best case scenario of working for the Joker is that you fight the fucking Batman! And that presents its own fucking list of problems. If you stop Superman as a Lex Luthor henchman, Lex’ll be pissed, but he’ll be at least happy that Superman was caught. If you stop Batman as a Joker henchman, you better have a fucking coffin picked out yesterday.

This isn’t a fun hypothetical question, this is a screening technique that the doctors at Arkham use to determine your mental health! There is a right and a wrong answer to this question, and the correct one is Lex fucking Luthor. Thank you for coming to my fucking Ted Talk, have a nice day.

End caption.]

[loveitorreblogit]

Bitch neither I work for Wayne Industries, they got better offers than work these clowns:

[gandalfsbignaturals]

batmans secret special attack is offering all of his enemys henchmen a living wage and guaranteed healthcare