hello, i am lark. here is the home of my writing, poetry, and analysis. i was once called the keeper of balance, but we're rebranding.
firstly, a warning, i will talk about my trauma, and trauma in general, from time to time. i will get philosophical. i will get dark. do not wander here if you feel that any of these possibilities will hurt you.
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standards and boundaries. -> nothing nsfw, no transphobia, homophobia, aphobia, misogyny, racism, or other forms of bigotry here. if you start to speak hate, i will block you. this is a safe place to wonder and wander, and i will not have people encroach on that.
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the directory to my tags lies under the cut.
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tags.
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#the lark sings. -> for announcements, when i wish to speak out. this is a call for attention, and can be a call for warning.
#the lark weaves. -> for my text posts, any and all words that are woven into existence. this is stories and ramblings.
#the lark spots. -> for my reblogs, for anything i see along the journey.
#the lark is spotted. -> for when i revisit my posts, for self-reblogging. for continuations and repetition.
#the lark answers. -> for the answers i give to any asks.
#the hall of hallowed words. -> for my poetry, any of those hallowed words that i share.
#the hall of hopeful tapestries. -> for my writing, any of these hopeful stories that i write.
#the hall of wandering songs. -> for my analysis, any of my wandering, considering thoughts and points.
#an expansive heart. -> a re-write of seasons one through thirteen of nuwho, where the doctor’s spouse from gallifrey runs alongside them. the artificer, mute and unremarkable, slips through the quiet parts of the world as the twilight shade, always at their partner’s back. it is a massive exploration into time lord and gallifreyan culture, the queer themes of the series, and the importance between striking a balance between kindness and justice.
#the epic of the crowned. -> where the world of tvdu shifts slightly to the left when esther gains a daughter out of her affair with ansel, instead of a son, and names her natalia. taken by her second daughter’s resemblence to the one she lost, esther begins to teach natalia the magick of her people—and the rise of legends follows.
#the gardens project. -> in a universe far from the rest, baron amubi draxum sets out to save her people by creating the perfect soldiers. instead, she finds that she has created children. or: a rottmnt-inspired tmnt fan iteration focusing on the created children of one baron alchemist amubi draxum and their places in the world they were meant to protect and the one they were made to destroy.
#spare change. -> wherein murderbot and sexbot are not simply derogatory terms, but rather pieces of an almost obsolete culture. this is a story of rebellion, led by a rogue legacy and a new creation, with all that could have been. this is a story about constucts, and what it would mean for them to have been different, for them to have had a chance to be people.
#others of the earth. -> an alternate take on an expansive heart., where the artificer lies, shadow in lockstep, stuck in an alternate timeline, accompanying the doctor throughout their long life, up until what they call their thirteenth face, where everything changes. this is a version of an expansive heart inspired by my original idea for a doctor who au, allowing me to fully explore the thirteenth doctor and the implications of her as the doctor, alongside being able to do an alternative deep dive in the timeless child than what i'm doing in an expansive heart., covering nuwho seasons 11 through 13.
Edited to add: Since a lot of people are reblogging this original post, I'm adding the updated version I did that incorporates the intersex circle...
I know intersex people are still getting excluded in a lot of LGBTQIA+ spaces (let alone wider society) and I think it's crucial to show this group is included in the statement that we all deserve equal rights.
"prison abolition" is a hilarious position, because proponents respond to obvious, vital questions like "how will you manage serial murderers and rapists?" with "d-don't worry about it, things will be different, and because they'll be different, they'll be BETTER!"
but there's a better hypothetical: ask what they would want to happen if they were a victim of a hate crime. should the perpetrator be merely rehabilitated? locked away for an arbitrary amount of time? executed on the spot?
obviously, when people are unwilling or unable to consider even first-order consequences of a policy, expecting them to comprehend a hypothetical is a tall order. but it at least makes them look even dumber ;)
Prison abolition is a long term goal. It's not a single law being proposed that would free all prisoners once it's signed.
Why are you more critical of a hypothetical long term solution than you are of what's currently happening?
"Create a financial incentive to imprison as many people as possible in order to use them as a source of slave labor for corporate profit" is a much more hilarious position. "Create a class of people who can legally decide on the spot who lives and who dies, and who you're not allowed to defend yourself against" is a much more hilarious position. And those are currently happening and being widely supported.
if you want to actually start to end homelessness, you need to give homeless people unconditional homes, including when we use them to do drugs or sit around drinking. either housing is unconditional or it isn’t
someone sitting at home alone, an active alcoholic, squandering your charity, drinking all day is better situation than a street homeless alcoholic. someone using drugs in your charity house is better than them doing the same w no shelter
most of you would not like most street homeless people, I definitely don’t and didn’t when I was street homeless. for every one person who uses unconditional shelter to turn themselves around, someone else will do jack shit and very slowly, if ever, work through the issues that made them homeless, will maybe never be able to live independently. still better than street homelessness, still worth doing. ultimately either you believe that shelter should be universal or you don’t
homeless people actually can’t be rehabilitated if you want to end homelessness. we either affirm the right to shelter for the worst drunken, lying, filthy, cheating, self destructive homeless people that exist, genuinely irredeemable wankers, or we concede that shelter is not a right
I don’t care how horrible a homeless person is. I don’t care if they have zero ambition and want to just use drugs for the rest of their lives. I don’t care if they’re the biggest asshole you’ll ever meet. I don’t care what crimes they’ve committed. They’re still a better use of our tax money than bombs. They’re still more deserving than billionaires.
I actually do think we should discourage women from becoming housewives. Do not become financially dependent on a man. That's how a lot of women ended up dead over the years. A man gets violent suddenly and you have to choose between homelessness or potentially dying at his hand because you have an enormous gap in your resume and no degrees or certifications or anything that will help you pursue a career that will allow you to be financially independent. He owns your bank account. His name is probably the one on the car. Try and leave and he can report it stolen. Where will you go then?
And if you do become a housewife, take steps to protect yourself. Make sure you’re legally married, for starters; stay-at-home girlfriends have very little legal recourse to claim their partner’s assets in a breakup. Make sure your name is on the house deed/rental agreement, and have your car in your name, even if your spouse is paying for it. Have your spouse transfer money every month into an account solely in your name, so you can buy yourself things without needing permission, but also so you can save up to leave if needed.
If your spouse fights you on any of this, then don’t quit your job. The tradwife to poverty pipeline is real, and so is financial abuse.
also, many women/people experience controlling behaviour and domestic violence from their partner for the first time during pregnancy. don’t risk thinking “he’s just stressed, it’ll get better when the baby comes” because it won’t. neither you and your child will ever be safe with that man. get out as early and safely as you can
edit: trigger warning for bullying (kind of obvious but whatever)
the whole "if you don't acknowledge your tormentor, they'll stop" bullshit as a response to bullying.
you know why? because i did try that. i didn't respond. i turned the music up in my headphones and stood there silently. i ignored it. i would just pick up whatever food they decided to lob at my head that day or i would move.
it didn't make them stop. they just kept on going. i gave it up eventually, because at least when i responded, i got to keep my pride.
they did not respect me enough to properly consider me human. i was a toy, or a symbol, or something that could never, would never, bite back. i dealt with the transphobic and aphobic comments, laughing at the concept of pronouns other than she/her for me, or my chosen name, or that asexuality wasn't real, all the little implications that their justification for the sexual harassment was that i was "playing hard to get". i dealt with the fucking sexual harassment, even when the main perpetrator got into my space, never brave enough to do more than that, but always excited to declare me "his girlfriend". i dealt with all manner of shit being thrown at me, from food (in the cafeteria and on the bus) to a hackey sack at least five fucking times.
they didn't stop until they didn't have access to me anymore, and even then they didn't really stop.
i don't know why they decided humiliation was their best tool, or why hurting me physically wasn't what they'd use. my guess is that it just didn't occur to them as an option. it's not like it was something that was conspiritorial or even well-planned. i was a toy they could poke at.
my point is: it's victim-blaming bullshit, and it allows for people who should be stepping in to stop it to wipe their hands of the responsibility because it's our fault for responding. gods, i hate the way people treat bullying.
i am constantly forgetting that holidays exist (i forgot today began pride month btw) (it's mostly because i generally don't care or don't have religious motivations sponsoring them)
wheeeee- possibly a hot take or smthing (i honestly don't think people would care enough but whatever), but i think spencer reid in pjo/riordanverse crossovers should not be a child of athena if ppl are gonna make him a demigod
like. apollo is right there and utterly perfect (god of healing? knowledge? both a god of disease and a protector god? and he's so multifaceted, just like spencer)- i mean, rick made it out like athena was the goddess of knowledge rather than wisdom and craft, rather than a bloody war deity??? idk about you but but apollo feels like the better fit
anyways i don't really like the way rick displays the gods (it's an oversimplification and also highly stereotypical and just. generally disrespectful of the actual fucking religions?), but also i'm of the "spencer's intelligence in fics featuring non-human/supernatural elements should be his own and not the result of any higher power or a superpower" camp sooooo-
I don't know who needs to hear this, but the idea that you can make a little mistake while doing your taxes and then go to jail for it is mostly not a thing. If you make a mistake on your taxes you'll get a letter in the mail that says 'hey you made a mistake on your taxes' and then you can fix it (source: I have made mistakes on my taxes, international tax treaties are complicated). The only time people typically go to jail for tax stuff is if they commit massive intentional (or negligent, like if they run a business and never consult any expert on how payroll taxes work) fraud over a long period of time.
There's basically no way for a person new to doing taxes - and presumably not handling a lot of money - to accidentally fuck up those taxes in a way that's going to end with that person in jail.
remember: the IRS wants its money more than they want to deal with the headache of prosecuting you.
they send you a letter, you take an hour (or less) to fix it, you send in your correction, and then it's all fine. you might have to pay a late fee or something but they're not gonna jump down your throat for a mistake, literally hundreds of thousands of people fuck up on their taxes every year.
The tax office would greatly prefer to ask you to pay up, than actually send you to gaol.
In Australia, if you owe them money, they will start with a vaguely threatening message about how you could be imprisoned, but ignore that; there are many many steps between there and your case being assigned to somebody who actually has the power to get you in trouble.
In particular, if you say "no I can't pay today, no I can't pay in six months, but I can pay it all in installments over 11 months" then your case won't even be escalated (the more leniency you ask for, the higher through the ranks of public servants the request has to go; but the lowliest worker in that office can approve a plan for you to pay it all in less than a year).
I had a period where I was getting an international income (Canada) and an domestic income (Australia). The tax amounts were complicated, the tax office calculated the required additional payments - and then also kept doing the payments, which they refunded to me, because they wanted to ensure I was covered for the next tax season.
Like, they really want to have the average punter be okay, it's the Tax Office busines model (so to speak).
Also, the superrich and fraud indulging types will also want you to be "Boo tax office! Meanies! Boo!" rather than looking at the superrich and fraudulent and thinking "Fucking hell Sparky, you must be a jackass if they're that keen to come after you".
"that time of the month" "monthly visitor" "feminine hygiene products" GRRAH!!! SHUT UP SHUT UP!!! PERIOD!! MENSTRUATION!!!! TAMPONS!!! PADS!! MENOPAUSE!!!!!!!!!!!