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mharti-mcfly

cleo4u2

THIS. I saw a post the other day that literally said if you do it to a fictional character, you’ll do it in real life.

No. Just NO.

I’m so glad someone put it into words.

decepticonsensual

Lin-Manuel Miranda is a legend, and he’s absolutely right.

And I really feel like there are parts of fandom that don’t get or don’t believe this, and I think that’s troubling. I’ve seen arguments that people shouldn’t have dark fantasies, or that bad impulses in themselves make a bad person. I’ve seen so much shaming over thoughts.

And if you get to a point where it’s bad to have dark thoughts and it’s bad to wonder what something would be like and it’s bad to put yourself in the shoes of anyone who isn’t “pure”, if fiction is no longer a realm where you can confront and explore, but an ongoing test of moral purity… well, maybe not everyone’s brain works like mine, but I feel like that takes away something incredibly important to being human.

athenagray

Purity culture is gonna kill art if y’all let it.

rainbowloliofjustice

Fiction is a safe place to explore whatever fucked up or dark desire that you have. You can write the most vile and fucked up shit in fiction and it be absolutely nothing you desire in real life. You can write about a serial killer who gets away with it. You can write about someone who goes on moral crusades to purge the world of all evils and still be the protagonist. You can write anything in fiction because that’s what it is meant for.

It isn’t meant to be a social commentary unless you create it to be.

It isn’t meant to be educational unless you create it to be.

Sometimes a story can be just that, a story. Entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less.

Not everything has to be deep, or have meaning, etc. unless the creator wants it to be and a lot of the purity types end up forcing something to have deep meaning or social commentary where it isn’t meant to. Is this inherently bad? No, but these people don’t just say “But this is my interpretation of it.” they go as far as trying to force that interpretation onto everyone else, including the creator, as a means of saying “See? It means that they promote/condone xyz so they’re bad and shitty people who should spend the rest of their life in jail with/are the same as people who’ve actually committed acts of violence against other people.”

one-lonely-whumperfly

THANK. YOU.

fangirlofall

@ all the people in the notes saying “yes except u can’t write about (list of immoral things they don’t want to see in fiction)” congrats on missing the point so spectacularly I’m not sure I could create better performance art if I tried

moon-crater

So, I have OCD. Responsibility/harm OCD, in particular. And guys, let me tell you, the hardline stance that having bad thoughts makes you bad is actively harmful to people like me. “Having a thought means you will act on it” goes against everything mental health professionals say and what mental health advocates stand for.

And you know, there are people who have it even worse than me? Religious OCD often focuses on achieving complete moral purity. P-OCD features fears of secretly being a pedophile. Postpartum depression features intrusive, frightening thoughts that sometimes drive new parents to suicide because of the stigma of having those thoughts. There are stories of people actually being investigated by child protective services because they shared their fears with an ignorant health professional who believed thought=action. Many abuse survivors with PTSD live in terror of becoming abusers themselves, and any errant negative thought that floats across their brain can frighten them into thinking they’re becoming monsters.

Perpetuating the idea that thoughts=actions makes it hard for people struggling with intrusive thoughts to reach out for help dealing with them. That makes mentally ill people live in unnecessary misery. It isolates them. Sometimes it even kills them.

Accepting and exploring bad thoughts is actually the basis of exposure and response prevention therapy for OCD. It’s literally part of the treatment for the illness. Discouraging that act, portraying it as evil, can be detrimental to recovery.

“Oh,” you might say if you’re guilty of this, “I don’t mean people like you with bad thoughts, I mean people who write bad thoughts!” Cool. Doesn’t fucking matter. People like me hear and internalize it. People who have these illnesses and don’t yet recognize that hear and internalize it; they may never get help because of it. You can’t lob a bomb at your enemy and un-kill all the bystanders caught in the blast. Not how that works.

Fandom needs to stop being so far up its own ass about fictional content that it’s becoming ableist. There are real world consequences for the ignorant ideas being pushed. Even if you don’t care about fiction as a tool for catharsis, even if you don’t care about the importance of art as free expression, even if you don’t care about censorship, you should still criticize this trend in fandom because it’s ableist as fuck. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

heroofthreefaces

Transcription of the Miranda quote in the images:

“I find that, for me, the work is a safe place to put all the stuff you don’t want to put in your real life. I don’t want to be a crazy, manic asshole. I don’t want to have an affair. I don’t want to have a fucking gunfight. But! There’s a part of your brain that wants to experience everything, and so work’s a safe place to explore it all. Both in the writing and in the performing. I get to write about having an affair. I get to have the guilt and the feeling of that without having to fuck my life up. [laughs] Art is the place to safely explore all those other sides of you, because the side you want to bring home is the side that wants to be a good father and be a good husband and be a good son. In art we can be fucking nuts.”

duamuteffe

mywingsareonwheels

[description of image above: an extract from “Witches Abroad” by Terry Pratchett:-

“You’d have done the same,” said Lily.

“No,” said Granny. I’d have thought the same, but I wouldn’t have done it.”

“What difference does that make, deep down?”

“You mean you don’t know?” said Nanny Ogg.]

roach-works

what matters is how you treat other people. not what you think or what you write or draw or what you read or watch or play or dream. just how you, a person, treat the other people in your life. antis might have the purest thoughts any person has ever managed, but they treat other people like shit, which means they’re assholes.

it’s that simple.

b0ytemper

The idea that having disturbing thoughts or wanting to make art that expresses those thoughts “proves” you’re a bad and dangerous person is so ignorant and ableist. It’s normal for even perfectly healthy, untraumatized people to occasionally have disturbing thoughts or fantasies, not even getting into how common it is for people with mental illness or experiences with trauma and abuse. Art is a beautiful, time-honored, powerful and proven way for people to explore and express those thoughts safely, and SHARING that art (through the proper channels, with proper content warnings) is just as important to many people. It can allow you to communicate complex feelings with people you’re close to in a way that conversation might not be able too, find and bond with people who share and understand your experiences, or raise awareness for complex social issues that might be taboo to talk about.

The role of art is communication.

Not all art needs to be educational, not all art needs to be pleasant or uplifting, not all art needs to be comfortable, not all art needs to be escapist, and not all art needs to be a morality guidebook.

politijohn

ICYMI - Huge news!

marlbororeds100s-deactivated202

The federal government announced that almost all health insurers must cover PrEP with no cost sharing — for the drug itself and for clinic v

^link to the article for further info & accessibility

zevveli

Just so ya'll know. They're gonna loophole this which is why we have to spread this information. I work at a pharmacy and I can tell you that a lot of these insurance companies only "Cover" them. Here's what has been happening: You go to your doctor to get PrEP, they write a prescription and send it to the Pharmacy. When you get there they tell you that insurance isn't covering it. You say that the law says that they have to. They say that it will, but not through THEM. The insurance company says that they'll only cover it through a "specialty pharmacy" (which on the one hand, fair enough, NIOSH standards for drugs state that if you are handling the pills then there are specific forms of PPE you need that we at retail do not have, but on the other hand that doesn't matter if we aren't opening the freaking bottles) which will then either mail it to you or ship it to the pharmacy to take it out of the box, scan it in, and bag it. Which is what we'd do normally anyways except with the added step of making you wait 2-3 business days to get it. And because technically they "cover it" it's not a law violation. But they're hoping that you'll not want to wait and just pay the $3000 out of pocket.

me-myself-and-bi

For any of my US friends out there 👍💡

mharti-mcfly

cleo4u2

THIS. I saw a post the other day that literally said if you do it to a fictional character, you’ll do it in real life.

No. Just NO.

I’m so glad someone put it into words.

sourcefieldmix-deactivated20160

itt ergonomic keyboard

sonicthehedgegod

what in gods name am i looking at

acoolguy

the left side is where i place my typing orb

zenolalia

So not to derail, but this is what’s called a one handed keyboard. Obviously, that means it’s designed to be used with one hand. While this is something that a few professionals who do hella typing and mouse clicking prefer, as it means not switching your right hand back and forth between input devices, the primary purpose is, of course, to allow people with the user of my one hand to have maximal use of their computers. People missing a hand, as well as people with partial paralysis are the primary market.

They come in right and left hand versions, and this itt board is one of the more expensive models, but the curvature really is (according to reviews) excellent for helping prevent fatigue and repetitive strain injuries on the one hand that’s doing the work of two.

Just thought I’d share. Accessible computing is a seriously under appreciated field and while I admit the keyboard is quite striking to look at, the engineering and consideration that has gone into its design really cannot be over stated.

coffee-alien

“Imagine having a child that refuses to hug you or even look you in the eyes”

Imagine being shamed, as a child, for not showing affection in a way that is unnatural or even painful for you. Imagine being forced, as a child, to show affection in a way that is unnatural or even painful for you. Imagine being told, as a child, that your ways of expressing affection weren’t good enough. Imagine being taught, as a child, to associate physical affection with pain and coercion.

samayla

As a preschool special ed para, this is very important to me. All my kids have their own ways of showing affection that are just as meaningful to them as a hug or eye contact is to you or me.

One gently squeezes my hand between both of his palms as he says “squish.” I reciprocate. When he looks like he’s feeling sad or lost, I ask if I can squish him, and he will show me where I can squish him. Sometimes it’s almost like a hug, but most of the time, it’s just a hand or an arm I press between my palms. Then he squishes my hand in return, says “squish,” and moves on. He will come ask for squishes now, when he recognizes that he needs them.

Another boy smiles and sticks his chin out at me, and if he’s really excited, he’ll lean his whole body toward me. The first time he finally won a game at circle time, he got so excited he even ran over and bumped chins with me. He now does it when he sees me outside of school too. I stick out my chin to acknowledge him, and he grins and runs over and I lean down for a chin bump.

Yet another child swings my hand really fast. At a time when another child would be seeking a hug, she stands beside me and holds my hand, and swings it back and forth, with a smile if I’m lucky. The look on her face when I initiate the hand swinging is priceless.

Another one bumps his hip against mine when he walks by in the hallway or on the playground, or when he gets up after I’m done working with him. No eye contact, no words, but he goes out of his way to “crash” into me, and I tell him that it’s good to see him. He now loves to crash into me when I’m least expecting it. He doesn’t want anything, really. Just a bump to say “Hi, I appreciate you’re here.” And when he’s upset and we have to take a break, I’ll bump him, ask if he needs to take a walk, and we just go wander for a bit and discuss whatever’s wrong, and he’s practically glued to my side. Then one more bump before we go back into the room to face the problem.

Moral of the story is, alternative affection is just as valid and vitally important as traditional affection. Reciprocating alternative affection is just as valid and vitally important as returning a hug. That is how you build connections with these children.

brighteyedbadwolf

This is so goddamn important.

I verbally express affection. A LOT.

My husband… doesn’t. I don’t know why. For the longest time part of me wondered if it meant he loved me less.

At some point I told him about a thing I had done as a kid. Holding hands, three squeezes means ‘I Love You’.

Suddenly he’s telling me I Love You all the time.

Holding my hand, obviously, but also randomly.

taptaptap

on my hand, my shoulder, my butt, my knee, whatever body part is closest to him, with whatever part of him is closest to me

All the time.

More often than I ever verbally said it.

It’s an ingrained signal now, I can tap three times on whatever part of him, and get three taps back in his sleep. Apparently I do the same.

It’s made a huge difference for us.

People say things differently.

snugglebearinc

naamahdarling

I’m losing my fucking mind.

kittykat8311

oh my god

cryptid-sighting

my favorite part is that the guys just go along with it in spite of confusion/misgivings because they don’t want to miss out on stickers.

signherepleased

My favorite post

orcnumber1

purple-buddha-project

conop-8888

tiffanarchy

if there was a 6 and a 9 there would be 69 and that’s the sex number

moistnugget

memehumor

Boycotting Whoever Annoys Me

papillonnne

ANNIE HSIAO-CHING WANG

ARTIST

ifebrownsugar

bebemoon

you’re laughing. dalmations pushed cruella de vil’s mother over a cliff.. and you’re laughing

cephalotodd-deactivated20190310

rick riordan off the shits

siderealsandman

rick riordan made his bones with pretty vanilla YA fantasy and then when he was too successful to stop hit em with the Muslim valkyries and the genderfluid homeless teenagers

professorsparklepants

Rick Riordan’s “vanilla YA fantasy” series was written for his son with ADHD and dyslexia because there weren’t any books about kids with learning disorders. He “made his bones” on representation, you just didn’t notice because disabled people don’t count.

squeeful

there is more to representation than queerness and race

lightspeedsound

Not to mention Nico in the first set of books us gay AF, it’s a huge plot point, Apollo is super gay and it’s obvious from the get go, all of the kids are learning disabled, tons of them are very poor/runaways and hazel IS LITERALLY BLACK, DISABLED, AND AN ORPHAN. Who is in love with frank, who is Asian. And AGAIN, LITERALLY ALL SUFFER FROM DYSLEXIA.

But yeah Percy is white and cis and straight. Ok, cool.

lightspeedsound

Side note: percys mom literally stayed in an abusive relationship just to make sure Percy was protected and Percy himself is basically that broken sweet white straight hippy kid who is like “there’s not enough love in this world and fuck the gods for leaving all their kids and unless y’all want another apocalypse you better step up like real parents” which AS AN ATTORNEY IN THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM JFC THATS DEEP

official-lucifers-child

honestly reading about how gabe is abusive and that sort of thing really opened my eyes to my own situation and also reading about more kids with adhd (which i have and had never seen in books until that time) was such a relief because then i felt more normal?? i had people to relate to and yeah maybe it’s not the most diverse in race/gender/sexuality but at least riordan is now trying to do something about it and writing more books with more queer characters like fuck that’s 100000x more than JKR ever did and if you focus solely on the fact that his first couple books were not the most diverse you’re ignoring the clear effort that riordan is putting into his books now

also the fact that he’s including so many religions and ethnicities into his many series and when he himself can’t write the book, he endorses another writer who has more knowledge or experience so that they get all of the publicity and recognition that riordan receives like that’s literally one of the coolest things???he’s admitting that he’s not the best fit to write about certain things but instead of just avoiding that he’s giving other writers the ability and the publicity which is really good for both the authors of those books and the kids now getting representation??????

sorry i just really love riordan and all he’s done to open his mind and books and get representation in them.

lmbi

think about it

gayvian

history is a circle

bgm05

we have 4-5 years before they start selling t shirts with powercry on them at those stores on the boardwalk

it has a name?

I lived and worked in a lighthouse at a previous job. There was a thick line painted in a circle around the shack where the fog signal was kept. The line represented how close you could get to the fog signal without experiencing physical harm in the form of eardrums shattering or worse.

Even in the house it was LOUD. Probably the loudest thing I have ever experienced but at a normal, predictable interval. You would begin to time your sentences with little pauses with the rest of the lighthouse crew so you would talk like this while making your………..HORN…………. tea and then carry on talking because you knew when it would go off. It rattled the walls and the dishes in our cabinet.

At least one girl had died there. They kept photos of her everywhere “in honor of her sacrifice” because she had decided to take the winter watch alone and died in a storm where bounders the size of mini vans had been lifted out of the ocean and left scattered across the island, to say nothing of the ice chunks. People weren’t allowed to be alone on the watch after that.

One day a dead moose washed up on shore and it took my entire crew all day but we managed to rig up a line to hang it up to dry because we thought having a moose skeleton in the house would really spice the living room up a bit. It did. Weird shit happens when six of you are left alone, like ALONE ALONE, no cell reception, no wifi, just a radio to contact the real world and not a lot of reason to do that. People don’t go on lighthouse jobs if they want to stay connected, I’ve found.

That said Id do it all again, I really do treasure those days

glowingghosty

najaaozixxjsiaaiaiia

pigeonpastels

when i started writing this comic, there were courses on duolingo for klingon and dothraki, fictional languages that are only spoken by characters on television shows who don’t exist, but the course for yiddish, a language spoken by jews – real, living, breathing people – for generations, didn’t exist until april 2021.

in 2017 a jewish employee at the anne frank museum was asked to put a baseball cap over his yarmulke. yeah, you read that right – an employee who worked in the house anne frank and her family hid for two years was asked to hide his judaism when he came into work.

what i’m saying is goyim are trying very hard to pretend jewish people don’t exist anymore, and it’s safer for a man to tattoo a swastika on his face than it is for me to wear a necklace with a symbol of my culture on it.

archatlas

Jason Anderson

British artist Jason Anderson creates colorful abstract paintings composed of pixelated swatches of pastel-toned oil paint. Up-close, the artist’s paintings look like blocky layers of shapes and color; but, from afar, his scenes—featuring cityscapes, roads, trains, and marinas—are revealed.

Anderson began his career as a stained glass apprentice, where he worked on restoring the windows of cathedrals. He soon progressed onto designing the glass murals himself, where he learned how to break down subject matter into “jigsaws” of colored sections. This approach still shines through in his paintings today—complex scenes are brought to life with simple shapes and careful consideration to hue and tone.

lastvalyrian

I haven’t seen anyone mention the greatest cultural impact Yahoo Answers made yet

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smiling fights the lonely monster