The World from Below

Regular antics from an irregular point of view. Ray/Remy. He/him.  21 y/o

[switchbladesounds-deactivated20]

Drinking stolen wine in a stall in Whole Foods while people are waiting to piss so they can go back to buying overpriced bell peppers for their weekend dinner party that they hope their ex will come to but not really because they’re independent now and if alex wants to come he can , it won’t make a difference because they’re focusing on themselves now and this party is going to prove that.

[dingusmcdougall-deactivated2023]

The Adventure Zone but with Percy Jackson style episode titles

Merle Studies His Cantrips

We Have Tea With a Bugbear

Taako Steals Some Shoes

We Meet Magic Brian

Taako Tries to Eat a Robe

We Hide in a Well

We Drink Magic Jellyfish Shit

Magnus Takes up Arms

We Shop At Fantasy Costco

Magnus Gets Naked

We Get Hosed By Tom Bodett

Jenkins Saves a Spell Slot

We Get Crabs

Merle Plays Diarrhea Cop

Magnus Gains a Lot of Weight

Taako Steals Some Silverware

Magnus Eats Unicorn Dick

Merle Seduces a Plant

Magnus Chops a Treant’s Butt Off

We Fight Weeds on Floor Twenty

Merle Finds Some Extreme Teens

Can You Nonlethally Cleave an NPC in Twain?

We Create Our Fursonas

Merle Swims With the Fishes

We Meet Garyl, the Phantom Binicorn

Taako Enlarges a Motorcycle

Hurley Drives Off a Cliff

Johann and the Voidfish Have a Jam Session

Lucretia’s Necklace Ruins Candlenights

We Are Serenaded By a Rock

Taako Eats a Sandwich

We Quiz a Robot

We Meet the Hugbears

God Lies

Merle Gets Wood

Taako Invents Hentai

Merle Unmakes Some Souls

Magnus Eats the Philosopher’s Stone

We Create a Spiral Mantube

Magnus Goes Rogue

We Get a Shopping Montage

We Die

Taako Meets a Fan

We Blow Up a Locker Room

We Have a Talk With a Skeleton

We Rob a Bank

We Receive a Ball, a Sack, and a Tool

We Chat With the Dishware of Christmas Past

We Flee the Worm

Taako Accessorizes

Magnus Packs a Box of Shrunken Boys

We Play Monster Factory

We Find a Severed Head

We Try to Date a Mannequin

Merle Does Some Healing

Magnus is Skinjacked by the Marketing Department

We Discover Some Very Familiar Pants

We Visit Garfield’s Secret Evil Lab

Merle and Taako Trip Balls

Magnus Wrassles the Power Bear

Griffin Breaks Travis’s Universe

We Get a Beach Episode

Merle Plays Chess With the Final Boss

Taako Does Inspirational Plagiarism

Lup Burns Down the DMV

We Create the Seven McGuffins of Doom

We Have a Family Reunion

Taako Gets in a Foodtruck Explosion

We Found the Cult of Jeffandrew

Epilogue: Magnus Gets a Dog

[stoned-levi-deactivated20150901]

ppl who are like “hm I think the last time I cried was like 2 years ago at my grandpas funeral” are surreal to me like they’re just on a different plane of existence that I cannot achieve like if I’m in the cafeteria and they don’t have cinnamon toast crunch that day I might/will start snifflin

[mojav]

British people be saying “I fink” and “me neifer”

[sailorbrazil]

im not bovered

[frawgs]

ello yewchube

[weird-at-last]

If I don’t say “I’m gay” at least once a day Elton John will come to my house and confiscate my Gay Card

[grawly]

[retroactivebakeries]

grawly:

someone gave me the context behind that infamous “is this a pigeon?” meme but this isnt helping

[yesterdaysprint]

The Courier-News, Bridgewater, New Jersey, June 2, 1930

[thewightknight]

A British graffiti artist’s year-long battle with a local council – and how that squabble transformed an otherwise unremarkable brick building – has been recorded in a gloriously amusing photo series.

(x)

[nothingbutthedreams]

This kind of thing always makes me feel weirdly patriotic.

[moniquill]

So I’m a phlebotomist. And sometimes, I work at a site that is directly adjacent to an endocrinologist. Which means I see and take blood from a lot of folks that are trans, or nonbinary, or gender nonconforming.

Do you have any fucking idea how easy it is, in customer-service speak, to respect someone’s gender?

I mean, I’ve had super awkward situations where I have to say things like ‘I’m sorry, that name isn’t coming up in our system. Is there another name…“ And without fail they provide their deadname and I plug it in and I say ‘Ok, that came up, do you want me to fix that in our system?” And they say ‘Yes’ and then I ADD IT AS A SYNOMYMOUS NAME. Same as I would for someone recently married or divorced. The end.

I have never experienced a situation in which I have felt motivated to ask someone’s pronouns.

I have had situations in which I have thought to myself ‘I have no idea if this person is ‘sir’ or ‘ma'am’ and instead have gone ‘Next patient please?’ or ‘I can help who’s next’ or ‘I can help you now’ while looking directly at them.

I have had situations where I’ve gone ‘I’m like 90% certain that I’ve been given a record with this person’s deadname because this name does not match at all the gender presentation of the person I’m looking at’ And I say ‘Ok, can you spell your last name for me? Ok, spell your first name? And your date of birth?’

and then I quietly write ‘preferred name [the name they just spelled] on the top of thier record.

THIS IS NOT HARD.

And if this is not hard for me, as a person working in medicine who has to make certain that the person I’m talking to is the same person on the medical record that I’m looking up, how much easier must it be for, say, a barista who doesn’t give half a fuck who you are? I’ve BEEN a barista in the past. If a Barista is asking your pronouns, that person is an asshole.

[naamahdarling]

This just gave me so much hope, thank you.

[citizenshipandsocialjustice]

[calystarose]

Because treating people fairly often means treating them differently.

[tigerach-isnt-here-anymore]

hi. why is child abuse so systemically normalized and why are children not trusted when they say their home life is bad

[harlivy]

A lot of the time, it’s not that children aren’t trusted (although this is certainly something that happens) it’s that abuse is treated as a privacy issue, at least in the US.

The concept of a right to privacy began with Griswold v. Connecticut which legalized birth control and this was followed by Eisenstadt v. Baird, Roe v. Wade, and Lawrence v. Texas (extended Griswold, abortion, activities in the bedroom). These established a precedent for privacy: a person has a right to privacy regarding what happens in their own home.

DeShaney v. Winnebago County is where child abuse became an issue of privacy. The premise of the case is that a father had abused his child to the point the child was permanently disabled. Clearly, something had to be done, but the supreme court’s ruling declared that the 14th amendment does not require the government to protect its citizens from “private violence”. So essentially, they decided the US constitution does not require the state take action in instances of child abuse. Of course, this was on the federal level, so individual states can institute policy that requires intervention, but the reality is that state policy is an inconsistent patchwork that leaves children unprotected and without rights.

Because there isn’t uniform policy across the states, child abuse goes largely unchecked. For example, all teachers are mandated reporters, which means they must file abuse reports if they know about it or suspect it, but this doesn’t necessarily mean an investigation follows, and rarely means the child is removed from the abuser’s care. Abuse reports are available in every state, but in many (if not most) cases nothing is done in response to a report being filed. In states without a statute allowing interference, there is nothing CPS or the police can do.

Furthermore, in states where interference in “private violence” is allowed, there are requirements for interference. Proof of abuse is a big one. Verbal/emotional abuse is rarely pursued because it is incredibly hard to prove. And cases of physical abuse are the same. In many states physical abuse is allowed as long as no foreign objects are used. So beating a child with a chair or stick isn’t allowed, but punching/slapping is. It falls under the idea of a person’s right to discipline their children how they see fit. So here, in terms of children not being believed, they aren’t being ignored, it’s just that there’s nothing the state can do on their behalf.

Its all really fucked, but there is a history of children not having rights that can be explicitly traced through policy.

[pheldinecormier-deactivated2018]

(Also in the US) There’s a lot of anti-big-government sentiment in general so people tend to freak out and wildly exaggerate lots of laws but especially related to kids. E.g. making claims that “the government owns your children!!” when it comes to pretty common sense things like mandating vaccines or homeschool supervision, and resisting those. 

So when it comes to when the government can search your home and/or remove your children, there’s going to be a lot of resistance to establishing more laws about that, unfortunately, due to the culture. As is there has to be pretty strong evidence that things are wrong to even get social services to look into things (both so that they are allowed to act and so that they can prioritize the worst cases), let alone to actually get kids out, plus there needs to be resources and funding for foster care etc. for them to have somewhere to go. And there’s not much there either. 

[uwiguwi]

if you’re reading this

a lump sum of money is on the way to you

[uwiguwi]

it happened today, damn that was like 3 days maybe?

It Works the money is on its way!

[goodluckrob-deactivated20221110]

Need this.

[taylordraws]

the original faves

[tastefullyoffensive]

Worth it. (via sweatingalready)

[mattelektras]

i can’t believe i, personally, wrote this comic

[lgbt-history-archive]

“MY SON IS BI…I DON’T ASK WHY.” – “MY MOTHER IS STRAIGHT…BUT SHE DON’T HATE.,” Michael Szymansky and his mother, March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, Washington, D.C., April 25, 1993. Photo by Lynn Harris Ballen (@lynnharrisb), c/o @onearchives. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #CrystalPepsi (at Washington, District of Columbia)

[ourstrangeduet]

me at 14: I cant wait till im in college I have so many plans for life and nothing can stop me :)

Me now: Mm. Me hungey. Me eat macdonal. French frie. Frenchffrie. French frie.