#thoughts and things

[forevercryingoverdccharacters]

Stop making solo Batman movies and give this man his children!!

[xiaq]

I remember the first pride I ever attended: seventeen, half terrified, half bolstered by reckless bravery. In the parking lot, I painted my eyes in pink-purple-blue using the review mirror. On the walk to the parade route, I purchased a flag with cash and tied it around my neck like a cape.

I remember crawling up onto a metal electrical box on a street corner--violently hot against my bare skin in the Texas sun. I remember the heat didn't matter once the parade started, once I caught a handful of thrown beads, a crown, a fan. Someone passed me a bottle of bubbles and I blew them out over the crowd as not one, not two, but three church floats bedecked in crosses and rainbows marched past. I remember feeling like I could breathe for the first time maybe ever. But I also remember walking back to my car at the end. Giving away my crown, my fan, and my flag to two kids in a wagon, trying not to let my pathetic envy show as I met the eyes of their smiling parents. I cleaned the paint off my face in the same parking lot I applied it.

I kept the necklace--cheap and plastic and dangerous. I kept it for the first fifteen minutes of my drive until my anxiety demanded I pull into a gas station and throw it away.

I went to work: a four hour shift I'd said was eight. It was one of the few times I ever lied to my parents unless you counted the pervasive, quiet, lie of omission that lasted another decade.

Today, I got ready for another pride with my husband. I wore my denim vest with its collection of queer enamel pins. We walked together from our house to the parade route. At the end, we walked back together in a crowd of other pride-goers.

I texted my parents pictures without fear.

And this time, I took my beads home.

[bluelinksno1fan]

Shadow being incharge of the baby announcement..

Og without overlay

[illfoldthelaundry]

as a tumblr user, my dream is to have one of my posts show up on pinterest or some shit

[ilovenir]

on hawks and twice

it’s complex because hawks knew twice personally and the narrative hints that at one point they were almost friends, and hawks did see a chance of redemption in the guy. It was only when hawks was cornered by both dabi and twice, with twice refusing to back down and heading towards the battlefield with his powerhouse of a quirk that hawks pulled the last resort — killing him. and i mean, the show has already built up a lot showing that hawks had been professionally trained as a hero since he was like 6, and, to borrow stories from lived experiences, veterans of war have spoken about how military training does desensitize you to killing in a combat situation so as to prevent moral injuries. But the difference here is that hawks is also within the (fictional) narrative context of him being a hero, and the moral ramifications of his actions exceed beyond his own mental landscape. heroes aren’t called heroes for no reason; in the bnha universe, and often in other media as well, heroes as a group represent some moral ideology (i.e., batman refusing to kill any of his enemies). It gets even more complex because hawks is also an agent of the government. the show also presents to us hawks formally apologizing for the killing of twice on a televised broadcast, and i mean, i think everyone can somewhat agree that killing twice definitely didn’t feel like a moment of triumph for hawks (as some soldiers mention in their own experiences of taking down the enemy in combat). But the thing is, i don’t think hawks *regrets* what he did, nor do i think it’s fair to request/expect that of him. It was an impossible situation. Though people do argue that hawks killed twice on the assumption that twice would do something, and how that correlates to the police state taking an individual down on mere assumptions — i feel like the conditions of the situation hawks was put in — twice being a villain associated with a terrorist organization, the active war and combat that was taking place, and twice and dabi hinting at carrying out their plan to aid shigaraki in their vocalizations — make the whole thing a bit unfair to compare to a police state taking down an individual based on generalized data(most of the times when the individual is actually without the intent to cause harm, which is mainly what creates the problem in those scenarios). 

idk, maybe this is where the fictional narrative surrounding individual "heroes" falls apart? because i cant think of how, realistically, in this situation, you can continue to balance those burdens that originate from the original meaning of "hero" onto the shoulders of a single individual. of a person.

[the-song-not-sung-in-vain]

Now, I'm by no means an expert on children, but with the experience that I do have, I think some of the best rules of thumb for dealing with each age group are as follows:

Toddlers (age 1.5-4)-- want to be treated like human beings. They're not babies anymore, and they don't want to be handed around like a brainless potato (which babies aren't, either, but that's another post)-- they want to walk, even if they have to hold your hand; they want you to show interest in what they're showing you, even if it's strange to you; they want someone to listen and engage when they talk, even if you can't entirely understand them.

Primary-school kids (age 5-10)-- want to be treated like grown-ups. That is-- they want to be included in the conversation, regarded as actually having a brain and being capable of reasoning, and treated as if what they have to say is of value.

Middle-school kids/tweens (age 11-14)-- want to be treated their age. The problem is, neither they nor anyone else knows exactly what that means all of the time. They'll oscillate wildly between great maturity and utter childishness, and you really just have to tread carefully and read them as well as you can.

High-school teenagers (age 15-18)-- want to be treated like kids, honestly, because they only have so much time left to be kids. That does not, for goodness' sake, mean that you should infantilise them-- but it does mean that they generally don't want to be the adult in the room.

There are exceptions to every rule, of course, and wants aren't always needs-- that is, they're not always what's good for one, and sometimes a little discomfort is required for growth-- but I've found that these tend to be true of most kiddos.

(Parents, feel free to chip in/offer insight!)

[black-water-lagoon]

There's something poetic about the fact that Luo Binghe's most prized possession is a fake jade Guanyin pendant--objectively a counterfeit, cheaper version of the original, yes, but something that holds immense emotional value to him because of the kind and loving memories of his mother that he associates with it.

His first and only love is his Shizun, who is, in a sense, similar--a counterfeit, not actually a lofty immortal master, but just a guy who got transported into the body of one. A knockoff, but one that Luo Binghe cherishes dearly because unlike the original, he was kind and loving. He made Binghe feel cared for, once upon a time.

And, at the end of it all, Binghe, after years upon years of having thought he lost his mother's pendant, his Shizun's care, is told that both have been nearer than he ever could have imagined. Shen Qingqiu gives him back the pendant, and says, "stop saying that no one would ever want you," because the pendant is proof, he is proof, that Luo Binghe is loved in this world.