Don't Let the Dragon Hit You on the Way Out

Abigail, she/her, as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth, rpdr is my safe space, DNI If You're Bad You Know What You Did

[elimentals]

it makes me real fucking emo to think of how Iroh always refers to Zuko as “Prince Zuko”. Not out of some false stuck-up sense of formality or to distance himself emotionally or something, but because Zuko has been kicked out of his home by his own father and stripped of his identity, has lost his birthright and nation and entire sense of self in one terrible blow, and all he really has left is his name and title, as defamed and mocked as it is. Iroh is probably the only person in the world to address Zuko as “Prince” and actually mean it. His nephew needs to believe he can return home, needs to maintain some scrap of hope to keep him going. The only time Iroh slips up is and just calls him “Zuko” is when he thinks Zuko’s been killed in the ship explosion.

similarly, it makes me real fucking emo to think of how Zuko only ever calls Iroh “Uncle”. Not Prince, not General, not the Dragon of the West, not even just Iroh – he calls him uncle. Because Iroh is the only member of his family who Zuko trusts enough to let his guard down completely. He knows he won’t be punished for being informal or vulnerable around him, knows that calling him “uncle” will never be misconstrued as a sign of disrespect. Even at his angriest, Zuko addresses Iroh as “Uncle”. In the end, his uncle is the only person with whom he feels truly safe.

[ryliith]

He likes the blue ones better. The yellow ones are his second favorite. He does not stop eating crayons after this.

Based on this:

[greatestlittlegiant]

always thinking of that “i couldn’t stop wasting time” quote

[greatestlittlegiant]

song of the summer!!

[depsidase]

[do-not-u-dare]

Stole this from somewhere but i think it’s appropriate

[benihana-circumcision]

need a robotic nun to lightly rap me on the knuckles every time i chase temptation out of Compulsion rather than Desire, "if you're gonna Sin, at least do it through Agency and Intention rather than Base Impulse," she would say, "do it because you Want It, not Just because you Don't want to do Whatever You're Currently Doing"

[benihana-circumcision]

"quit refreshing grindr every 40 seconds like a roomba bumping into the same coffee table leg for an hour at a time. go outside. find a man with a ring on his finger. ruin his life through quick wit, decisive action, and a fat ass. Now." - nunbot9k

[benihana-circumcision]

lumpensinner vs. honorable industrial sin prole

[benihana-circumcision]

You understand.

[animentality]

[tuiskuh]

As a woman who is both gender non-conforming and who is planning a pregnancy in the near future AND who works with children, I am very invested in the conversation about the confines of femininity, the complexities of motherhood and the fascistic expectation of women to have children. I also often find it deeply frustrating.

I do not think it should need to be said, but unfortunately it absolutely is, that nobody should ever be forced to become pregnant, be a parent or carry a pregnancy to term. Ever. This requires both complete and total abortion rights & access but also the dismantling of the gendered expectation of women to want and need children. Remaining child free should not only be possible for women, it should also be normal and completely accepted. Anything else is oppressive.

However, I am deeply bothered by how many people who share these views talk about children. I have come across many posts describing children in cruel and dehumanizing ways, emphasizing how gross and terrible children are and how much of a burden they are to their parents. This, I think is also wrong.

Children are a particularly vulnerable population. They often have very little rights and autonomy and are at the whims of adults around them, which makes then particularly vulnerable to abuse. Children are real, fully realized people who have very specific needs and considerations. Constantly discussing how disgusting and terrible children are, means attacking people who have no power and cannot defend themselves, legally or otherwise. These views cannot be separated from calls to remove children from public life, like parks and transportation, the practice of which is both dehumanizing and oppressive. This goes hand in hand with the gendered oppression of women who are unfortunately still often the primary caregivers of children. Forcing children out of the public sphere means forcing mothers out of it too. And the right to not have children needs to go hand in hand with the right to have children. Women need abortion rights and access but they also need the right and access to give birth for free. They need robust childcare and child & family friendly infrastructure. Otherwise the only people who can afford to have children are wealthy elites.

The rights of women to not have children and the rights of children and mothers go hand in hand. They are not contradictory. Being a parent is a complex relationship, one wrought with a long history of violence and oppression of children and women. It is not easy to navigate, and nobody should be expected to do it. Simultaneously, the people who do decide to do it deserve help and support, not scorn or mockery. And most of all, children, all children, even the annoying, dirty and screaming ones deserve a safe loving world that sees their full humanity, respects their perspectives and their bodily autonomy. We are all a part of creating that world for them. Society should be about being good to each other, and that includes children too.

[averagefairy]

sick of teeth being so high maintenance. you don’t see any other bones requiring so much care and upkeep they literally just do their job and don’t threaten to rot and fall out of your body?? grow up

[concerningwolves]

A piece of writing advice that i will always kick and scream about because it's annoying but it works is: if you ever feel like you're stuck with your writing, go back to the absolute basics. Like, middle school English creative writing exercises for people who have never done a creative writing in their life. do a character creation exercise. list things you're experiencing with your senses. analyse a bit of someone else's writing that you like. write ten first lines off the top of your head. hell, even if you're not feeling stuck with your writing, going back to the fundamentals is very good for you! it really does remind you about the nuts and bolts of the craft. gets the brain unstuck. you can be a bitch about it and groan and wail if you like while you do it, but unfortunately it is very good advice

[concerningwolves]

Another writing tip that makes me unspeakably angry because it's infuriating but it works is that sometimes wordcount limits are Good, Actually. Sure they make you want to commit atrocities but they teach you how to improve readability by trimming excess words & improving clarity, which in turn makes you think hard about the construction of your sentences/phrases. this is an absolutely invaluable skill and i will continue to be mad about it forever probably

[lizardsister]

[nudityandnerdery]

[programmerhumour]

Once upon a time…

[friendly-neighborhood-ehrhardt]

[thebeanestbad]

[personification-of-anxiety]

I really wish the overused sentence “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” was less relevant but here we are

[triassictriserratops]

[no-one-offical]

‎

[themoonandmyman]

#myshane couldn’t give less of a fuck about queer culture he just likes dick in his ass and he loves a Man. If you asked him about Stonewall he’d think it was the name of a tech startup.

#myilya is a fag and he loves it. him and harris watch queer movies once a month with Harris’ mom and they drink margaritas with little umbrellas in them.

[oatmealdiva]

shane:

[thelawfulchaotic]

hi!! sorry if you've been asked this question before, but as someone who wants to be a lawyer, how do you deal with defending people that morally you really don't agree with? thanks!

I get a lot of versions of this question, and I answer it seriously every time, because it’s both important and not important at all. Anyone who asks respectfully gets my whole ass answer.

It’s just not really about that. My job isn’t about defending the idea of hurting someone else. It’s about stopping the state from inflicting further hurt, torture, pain. It’s about pushing back for some fairness against a monumentally stacked system. And it’s about stuff that’s normal human stuff that counts as crime for some reason.

Yeah, it’s hard to do a sex abuse case. Sometimes the images stick around and it bothers me. But honestly? Mostly those cases have real plausible theories of innocence or they’re cases that I will lose because the evidence is there, and the question is not whether the perpetrator will go to jail but how long.

Those cases are so rare, though. I get so much pointless bullshit. Felony of a teen taking mom’s car without permission. Two kids that try to break into a car and get so scared by the alarm that they run away. Trespassing on dad’s house because his new girlfriend wants you to stop coming around. It’s just human stuff, and the violence of the state is not necessary or helpful.

I also reject the idea of punishment completely. The state has a responsibility to stop people from hurting other people again. But inflicting pain doesn’t do it, we know this by now. So I argue for mercy and for real solutions to real problems. I’m here to build a future, not get caught up with doing violence to someone because of the past.

So yeah, sometimes it’s hard, but mostly my conscience is dead clear: I’m not responsible for the crime. The damage has been done. I want to start the healing process, and I want it for everyone involved. When that’s not possible, I just want to tell the authorities they don’t get to just Do What They Want.

The more I do this job, the more I am a genuine pacifist who is against violence in all forms, and actually I don’t see a contradiction between that and what I do for a living. State violence is a pervasive evil that tears apart families, communities, and countries, and it’s far more damaging and awful than any individual crime. The average prosecutor has more blood on their hands than a serial killer, but it’s invisible: people who died in jail, who froze to death on the street, who were shot in a drug deal. Their violence begets violence.

When I get blood on my hands, it’s because I put my hands over the wounds and try to stop the flow. I’m okay with it.

Also: people don’t ask doctors how they can stand to treat bad people. Why ask me?

[bemusedlybespectacled]

#i find people have such an inherent misunderstanding of the roles of defense attorneys (understandably but still)#in that most people i talk to seem to be envisioning me personally defending the right of people to commit crimes or that like. Crime Is#Good Actually#‘yeah this person did X but they should never face any consequences ever please and thank you judge’#(and people think this would WORK??? a different tangent on a lack of legal education and cop shows being awful etc)#meanwhile i am simply protecting people’s rights. yes even those people’s#idk i could write my own post but op Gets It and also a prosecutor just filed the DUMBEST motion ive ever seen and i need to respond to that#instead lmao (via @anixit26)

The number of people who respond to my post about how even the guiltiest person in the world deserves rights with "but not [crime I think makes you undeserving of rights]!" is truly insane. People really truly think that being accused of a crime makes you irredeemably evil and protecting the rights of those accused means you are also evil.

[jiabisu]

[ilyasmole]

shane hollander absolutely does not know what stonewall is

[loontattoo]

shane:

[byrdiamaa]

Something I feel is not brought up often enough in the discussion of land back and the indigenous genocide of the United States in white spaces especially is that they were running over entire sovereign states. The Cherokee were themselves an industrializing nation that was more literate than the United States itself before Andrew Jackson enacted his genocide, the Haudenosaunee were a state propped up by the west for a long time before they decided them to not be useful anymore, the Lakota were legally recognized as a sovereign nation by the United States government before they tore them down. Reservations today are still technically "sovereign" nations even if you never see them on the map and they're about as sovereign as the West Bank, they still don't get to govern themselves or return to their lands.

Even if they weren't organized as such the settlers still would continue their genocidal campaign, but it also further shows that at its core the United States, and the west as a whole, does not care about the sovereignty of *any nation* that isn't white, no matter their organization or level of wealth or literacy, or even if the United States Constitution was directly ripped from their own.

Idk maybe this isnt news for active indigenous activists but these were real nations with real boundaries that should be allowed to exist as real sovereign nations instead of as dependencies of the evil empire.