people talk a lot about how public schooling in america is a really fucked up system but i think we should also maybe talk about universities too. like why is being stressed out to a breaking point part of the college experience? why is it accepted and expected that college students will often go without sleep in order to get their work done? i don’t understand why we embrace the idea that college students should be stressed. i think the amount of homework assigned is absurd and unnecessary. it does nothing productive for learning. it just burns students out and makes us lose our drive. and on top of that, we have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for this torment lmao it’s so ridiculous and honestly kind of sickens me
THIS. I took this weekend mostly off from homework because I analytically know that I don’t have too much and it’s making me absolutely sick with anxiety, even though I really needed the break.
Frollo and Mother Gothel convince Quasimodo and Rapunzel that their lives are dependent on them. The two villains claim the outside world is a terrible place even though they know this is not true. They also constantly emotionally abuse their victims by implying their worthlessness and destroying their self-esteems. Quasimodo and Rapunzel sympathize with their captors and even believe their captors are protecting them and treating them with kindness. However, both captors are merely using and manipulating their victims for their own selfish purposes.
Belle does not sympathize with the Beast when she is treated poorly. She becomes angry and leaves the castle, only returning by her own wish so that the Beast (who saves her) does not freeze to death. She does not respond nicely towards the Beast until he treats her with respect. In this situation, Belle has control and is not manipulated into feeling for the Beast, nor does the Beast treat her disrespectfully after the first night. While the Beast does have an underlying motive as to keeping Belle in his castle, he abandons this idea and sets her free to make her happy. If anything, this story is a case of Lima Syndrome where the captor starts to sympathize with the victim.
Check out this post which refocuses the purpose of Beauty and the Beast from merely (and wrongly) being about Stockholm Syndrome to it’s original purpose.
FUCKING FINALLY
I don’t usually reblog stuff like this, but Beauty and the Beast is my favorite movie and I’d like to have this on my page!
this is actually a very good analysis. I take back all the times I’ve called Beauty and the Beast a ‘stockholm syndrome’ romance.
WHAT IS THE TRADITIONAL DANCE OF THE VUVALINI AND THE ANSWER CANNOT BE THE ELECTRIC SLIDE.
WE NEED HELP OKAY
I’m sorry, I know you need a real answer, but I’m just stuck on the fact that apparently y’all thought that the obvious answer was the Electric Slide and I just. I just cannot. Because. I have this beautiful mental image of Keeper (who in this nice happy mental image is motherfuckin’ alive) teaching a bunch of Wretched plus the Sisters, Max, and Furiosa (who already knows the traditional dance but it’s been a long time, a lot of height, and a prosthetic arm since then, so she’s refining her technique) the ELECTRIC SLIDE.
What do I do with that mental image.
What.
Edit: FURIOSA TEACHING SOME EX-WARBOYS THE DANCE AFTER THE MOVIE? AND IT BECOMES LIKE THIS THING? YOU WIN A BATTLE AND BUST OUT THE FUCKIN’ ELECTRIC SLIDE I JUST.
no offense but the whole kissin kate barlow and “i can fix that” sam storyline from holes is quite frankly one of the most gripping and tragic in the history of cinema and i’m still not recovered from it
Today I skipped class instead of arriving two minutes late because my school’s tardy policy is harsher than its absence policy and that’s all you need to know about the American education system.
So today as a prank I made a sheet music print out of Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball but replaced the name with “Christmas Time Meditation” and deleted the words and I’m going to put it in the with church music and see if the pianist notices.
He noticed and I can now add “Yelled at by two priests at once” to my list of accomplishments
Stormi is a 9-year-old Girl Scout from Illinois. She’s also a trans girl who was placed with her family through foster care, so this year, she decided she wanted to donate Girl Scout Cookies to other kids in foster care.
When she went out to sell cookies with her mom, she knocked on the door of a man who told her that “nobody wants to buy cookies from a boy in a dress.”
She and her family were rightfully devastated by the man’s transphobic comments. But Stormi decided she would have the last word – so she shared her story with trans groups, started selling cookies online, and immediately started raking in sales in the thousands.
By Thursday, Stormi had sold over 3,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. She received cookie sales from places as far as Canada and Australia, said Kim [Stormi’s mom].
“It’s just been amazing,” said Kim. “I have not seen Stormi like this in a really long time. It makes me cry because this is something she’ll never forget.”
Stormi now plans to donate cookies to foster kids every year.
“I want kids like me to know they are perfect just the way they are,” said Stormi. “There are people all over the world that love you. Never give up because it does get better.”
do other countries have a groundhog day? do you all gather on February second and watch with bated breathe as a groundhog emerges from its hole? do you forecast the next six weeks of weather based on if the groundhog is frightened by its own shadow and returns to the hole?
is this some kind of thing American tumblr made up to prank us??
groundhog day is real the entire country watches a groundhog predict the weather
People with good parents get so offended when abused children speak negatively of their parents. Like…REALLY offended lol.
They say things like “Your mom would do anything for you” and “Your parents sacrificed a lot for you!” and “I don’t respect anyone who talks down on their parents.”
But just because YOUR parents would do anything for you and sacrificed a lot for you doesn’t mean it applies to all parents. We don’t have the same experience boo. You can’t tell me shit about what my mama would do for me. All moms and dads are not created equal.
REALLY THIS. And I’ve discovered that…like, it extends past parents. Like, don’t get me wrong, my parents are absolutely as good as it gets, they’re great people and they would support me if I said I wanted to make seashell necklaces for the rest of my life (actually no, I’ve always been ridiculously Type A so they would take me to a hospital if I said that, but the point stands). My extended family? Genuine, bona-fide, abusive train wreck. They spectacularly fucked up my parents, who I can never thank enough for the trouble they’ve taken to protect me as best they can. It’s just…a fact of life in my experience that my grandparents treat me like I’m either worthless because I’m terrible at everything or worthless because I’m a girl. My aunts and uncles and cousins (with VERY few exceptions) have taken the party line my entire life. And that’s behavior that I generally consider benign from them. I get panic attacks when they contact me, and the few people who really push the point about “Oh, but they’re your family, you must love them!” and “But they’re your family, of course they love you” piss me the fuck off. Because it doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes something breaks along the line.
I don’t usually say this, but: you don’t know my life. Similarly, I don’t know yours. You tell me you have issues with your parents? Shit, you tell me that you’re waiting on someone to die so that you can get the fuck out? Cool, bro. I’m still here for you, whatever you need. Treat me well and I’ll back you in anything, because fuck, you know what? I’m waiting on my grandmother to die so that I don’t have to fucking watch my mother worry anymore. I’m waiting on her to die so that I can cry and scream for the kid I should have been. I’m waiting for her to die so that I can go to a funeral in a red dress she would have hated, over combat boots that would have made her furious, wearing red lipstick that would have made me call her a whore. Yeah. Sometimes family is shitty. It doesn’t always pan out nicely and you never get to tell someone what they’re allowed to feel about it.
Details of the campaign (as the formal proposal submitted to Salisbury City Council) are here. The suggested sculptor is (as you might have guessed) Paul Kidby. His notes, as part of the proposal, are worth reading.
There is the possibility to add some Nac Mac Feegles(Scottish-style pixies from Pratchett’s writing)to the sculpture which would add an element of humour and surprise to the piece. I think these Feegles would be best placed behind Terry’s feet so they only visible when walking to the back of the sculpture. I think they should be doing something mischievous such as prising the letters off the base and carrying them off – or similar. These small characters would bring an aspect of his Discworld creation directly into the overall piece.
All in all I would hope the sculpture would be unsentimental and a happy depiction of the author that celebrates his achievements and brings pride to the people of Salisbury.
This would be fabulous: I hope Salisbury City Council agrees.
ETA: It also occurs to me that they’d better cast plenty extra of the Nac Mac Feegles, as people will be constantly stealing them the way they keep stealing the Ugly Duckling off the Hans Christian Andersen statue in Central Park.
not voting isn’t refusing to play the game. You’re in this country, you’re subject to the game whether you like it or not. The only way not to play is to leave, and the vast majority of us don’t have that option.
Not voting is playing the game but saying ‘pass’ every time your turn comes up and then wondering why you lost.
Making young people not vote is actually a tactic used in politics to keep the satus quo. The young vote is always the one for change, so dissuading them from voting at all is actually a political tactic used by the people in charge to keep themselves there.
Voting is rebellion.
Remember the founding fathers were mostly in their early to mid twenties when they sparked the revolution
Also, if you feel like your individual vote doesn’t matter in the national election, remember that there are also a shitton of downticket races where the total number of votes cast is way smaller, but that also have the potential for major impact. MAKE SURE YOU VOTE THE WHOLE TICKET. VOTE IN MIDTERM ELECTIONS, AND OFF-YEAR ELECTIONS, AND SPECIAL ELECTIONS.
Vote for governor, because Rick Snyder poisoned Flint but still got a second term. Vote for Attorney General, because there should have been a whole lot more charges brought in Ferguson. Vote for Secretary of State, because they control voter ID and early voting policies. Vote for state legislatures, because we CAN stop the flood of anti-abortion legislation if we try. Vote for county supervisors and city councils and school boards, because they decide if your library gets shafted in the next local budget, and whether homeless people get social services or arrest warrants, and whether zoning restrictions squeeze affordable housing options out of business.
YOUR VOTE DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE. THE PEOPLE WHO ARE TELLING YOU OTHERWISE HAVE AN AGENDA AND IT’S NOT GOOD FOR YOU.
having a flesh vessel is so annoying?????? like they have to be constantly watered, they have to be in specific temperature range to be comfortable, i’ve had a headache for like seven hours and nothing i do will get rid of it,
physical forms are so inconvenient??????????????
I knocked mine over yesterday and scraped off some of the outer barrier and it keeps sending me really annoying warning messages about it
blood.dll has caused an access violation exception
I still can’t figure off how to turn off the monthly compile time. It goes for like 7 days wrecks all the system and takes so much CPU time.
I got the wrong model, too, and there’s no returns or exchange policy. I’m trying to make do as best I can with aftermarket modifications, but even that’s a real bind. And then I have to deal with all the purists who try to tell me I should be happy with the model I was given.
Mine has a short in the warning and alert sensors, and keeps tripping the alarm system for absolutely no reason. It’s been taken to the mechanic many times, but the best they can do is recommend daily chemical baths for the wiring to keep it from arc-faulting constantly.
My uterus keeps trying to install this shitty bloatware that comes with certain dll processes and I keep refusing the update, then it goes through the whole defrag process deleting all those files.
My histamine system is faulty and triggers for no reason. I keep turning it down but I have to keep reapplying the patches daily.
On the plus side some of the case mods you can do are sick as hell.
Yes, I prefer Bernie Sanders. But if Hillary Clinton’s the nominee, I’m voting for her. I will be damned if I live in a country with a President Cruz or President Trump.
Important to remember. We must vote. If you choose not to vote because you prefer Bernie over Hilary or vice versa, then it essentially becomes a vote for the Republican party. Please vote.
Just remember. There is no such thing as a fake geek girl. There are only fake geek boys. Science fiction was invented by a woman.
Specifically a teenage girl. You know, someone who would be a part of the demographic that some of these boys are violently rejecting.
Isaac Asimov.
yo mary shelley wrote frankenstein in 1818 and isaac asimov was born in 1920 so you kinda get my point
If you want to push it back even further Margaret Cavendish, the duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) wrote The Blazing World in 1666, about a young woman who discovers a Utopian world that can only be accessed via the North Pole - oft credited as one of the first scifi novels
Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms)was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it
even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?
PbbBFFTTBBBTBTTBBTBTTT so desperate to discredit the idea of Mary Shelly as the mother of modern science fiction you didn’t even do a frickin google search For Shame
And if you want to go back even further, the first named, identified author in history was Enheduanna of Akkad, a Sumerian high priestess.
Kinda funny, considering this Isaac Asimov quote on the subject:
Mary Shelley was the first to make use of a new finding of science which she advanced further to a logical extreme, and it is that which makes Frankenstein the first true science fiction story.
Even Isaac Asimov ain’t having none of your shit, not even posthumously.
Fun fact about “fake it til you make it” as a strategy of living, okay:
For the past two years or so I’ve been doing it. Like, wearing clothes I like and agreeing with people telling me I’m pretty and taking loads of selfies and telling myself (and others, loudly) ‘damn I look good today!’
So this summer, my little brother noticed. He’s very sweet and cuddly, so he often tells me I’m beautiful/pretty/cute and a few weeks ago he said to me, “You always agree with me now, you didn’t before.”
Because it’s true, I always used to reply to him things like, ‘that’s not true’ or ‘you’re cuter’ or ‘shhhh noooo’ while now I’m usually like ‘damn right’ or ‘yes i’m super hot.’
So I explained to him the ‘fake it til you make it’ approach.
Now, my brother is really pretty handsome. Like, he could be a model. Like, he’s tall and has dimples, and a dashing smile and great hair and he wears glasses and he’s damn cute and I tell him so all the time, and he always replies like, ‘wtf no I’m ugly’ or ‘no you’re the hotter sibling’ or ‘it’s not true.’
Except, in the past few weeks, after I’ve explained this to him, I noticed he’s starting to answer me with ‘yeah I’m the cutest’ or saying, spontaneously, ‘well we’re the most attractive couple of siblings ever, huh?’
He doesn’t do it all the time, but he’s starting to.
Which I’m starting to realise might be an after effect of what I’ve been doing and showing him.
Bottom line: ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ works and makes you feel better about yourself, and self-love is amazing, and the thing is, it sets an example for the younger people around you, and the people that you love.
So help the world, tell yourself you’re fucking hot.
• Make a fist with your thumb outside, not tucked inside. If it’s tucked inside your fist, when you punch someone, you might break your thumb. The thumb goes across your fingers, not on the side.
• Don’t be like in the movies—don’t aim for the face. Face punches don’t usually stop people, and you can miss when they duck their head or break your hand on their jaw. If you want to get away quickly, or end a fight, aim for the chest, or the ribs. If you really want to do some damage, e.g., you’re being attacked, aim for the throat, which will make it hard for your attacker to breathe for a hot minute.
• When you punch, you want to aim and hit with your first two knuckles. Not the flats of your fingers, and not your ring or pinky knuckles, which can break more easily. You can use your weight, if you’re on your feet, to add wallop, and spring into a punch with your feet and torso.
Useful information, esp. if you haven’t taken self defense.
I reblogged this once before to add this and I’ll do it again…
keep your wrist straight.
You can also risk breaking your wrist if you allow it to bend. I actually can’t believe this isn’t in there.
Other good pointers:
if your attacker is male, go for his junk - especially if he’s wearing loose pants. There’s no sportsmanship when it comes to assault so fuck them balls UP
punching pretty much ANYWHERE in the face is going to actually hurt you a LOT (just think - you’re punching your bones into their bones and ow). If you’re going for the face, my suggestion is to strick upwards with your palm.
see that meaty portion highlighted in red? There’s a lot of muscle and fat right there which makes it excellent for striking. Hold your hand as shown and aim for the nose or chin (though I’ve been told in extreme circumstances, doing this to the nose can be fatal but I’ve never really heard if this is true or not) and just aim upwards
other delicate areas:
the shin (hurts like a bitch if you kick it right - also, you can hit this spot if you’re being held in a choke-hold and if your attacker has to move in order to stop you from kicking him, he’ll have to angle his body so as to expose his stomach and crotch to the wild spastic jabbings of your elbows)
the solar plexus (either jab while holding your hand in a sort of spear position or use your elbows - unless you’re super strong, your punch probably won’t wind your attacker. Your elbow or a spear hand will, however)
Originally in (most) martial arts, you hit the solar plexus because it supposedly contained an important chakra. Now we know that it actually also contains like a bunch of necessary organs that are exposed just below your ribs and is also (roughly) where your diaphragm lives so getting punched there is not pleasant.
the clavicle (from experience, getting hit in your clavicle HURTS LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER. If you strike downwards with your knuckles, the person might just cry. Like I did.)
the ear (this is probably the best place to punch besides the throat. It’s all cartilage so it probably won’t hurt you all that much and most people will be like “DUDE YOU PUNCHED ME IN THE EAR WHAT THE HELL”)
the kidneys (this is harder to hit without training but if you somehow get your attacker’s back to face you, try to hit’em in the kidneys. Again, from experience, this FUCKING HURTS. You can’t really hit the kidneys from the front with any effect but from the back it is super painful)
if you’re held in a choke-hold, try turning your head so the forearm isn’t pressed into your throat. If you can position yourself right, you can sort of force your chin into the crook of the elbow, making you able to still receive (limited) oxygen and provide time for you to kick some shins or elbow some spleens and shit
-Also, remember that a guy’s junk is not an off-button. Don’t think that you can rely on a swift kick to the balls to immediately incapacitate him in an emergency. Adrenaline and anger can keep somebody going for a long time even through extreme pain, and if you expect to end a fight with a single groin-attack you might be caught off-guard when he doesn’t drop. Certainly go for it if you get the chance, but keep hitting him until the fight is over.
-Draw blood if you can, especially if you can draw it from the face or the eyes. Blood in the eyes is not just a good way to impair your attacker’s vision, it’s also a really good way to freak them out and let them know that they might be getting more than they bargained for by picking a fight with you.
-Elbows and knees are really powerful weapons. Elbows are very sharp and very strong and if you are in close-range they are often more effective than trying to throw a punch.
-Yelling and shouting makes you scary.
Nothing much to add to this, it’s pretty much all there. So. Reblog. Oh, also, it’s really easy to break a nose - go for the eyes too. All it takes to avoid a shot to the throat is tucking your chin.
Also, that part about the ear - don’t punch. An open hand over the ear hurts a lot.
Tumblr teaching me how to fuck a bitch up
Also if you fuck up their face it’ll be easier for police to identify the attacker.
If someone gets you from behind and you cant punch them, go for the underside of the upper-arm. A bad pinch there is legit so painful because that skin is super sensitive. Also this cant be stressed enough, if the attacker is a guy then fucking rip his junk off.
And try your best to stay off the ground!! Keep a wider stance, bend your knees- do what ever you can to stay balanced
A couple other tips!
Even if your attacker is female, a solid knee or kick to the crotch will hurt.
Tip for chokeholds: if you can force your chin into the crook of their elbow (like described above), you’re right next to some sensitive tissue. A hard bite will be unpleasant for you, but REAL PAINFUL for them.
Aim for joints if you can–slamming a kick into the outside of their knee can rip tendons, pop ligaments, and damage bone. If you have a corner at hand, try to slam their arm across it at the elbow. Grab a finger if you can and try to snap it at the bottom knuckle–this is also a good trick for pushy guys at bars/parties/whatever–by jerking it back at hard as you possibly can.
Try to use your environment! This can be hard in the heat of the moment, but trust me, if you can slam their head into a wall or hit them with something heavy, they’re going to need a minute before they can come at you again. That minute can be unspeakable valuable.
There’s no such thing as a dirty move when you’re fighting to protect yourself: yes, kick that guy in the balls, nail that girl with a headbutt to the nose, kick them while they’re down, bite, scratch, rip out hair, stab your fingers into their eyes.
It is not a crime or a failure to get help. If you’re being attacked on the street, scream ‘fire’–unfortunately more effective than most other things. If you’re being attacked in a building, try to break a window or get into a hallway, and then scream. If you have the option to get someone to back you up, take it.
Nor is it a crime or a failure to run. If you manage to put your attacker on the ground, or somehow mildly incapacitate them, don’t assume the fight is over. As someone so astutely pointed out before, adrenaline can work wonders, so they might be able to get up even if you’ve done damage. If you’re close enough to a crowded area or a locking door to get there fast, sprint. Your best bet is to either render yourself inaccessible (locking door) or render the witness count unacceptable (crowd).
If you’re not close to a crowded area or another ‘safe’ location, take the moment when your attacker is incapacitated to kick them as hard as you can. I’d recommend the back to avoid the risk of them grabbing your ankle and taking you down with them. Aim for the kidneys (just below the end of the ribs), but barring that, stomp on them. I’m serious, stomp the shit out of them. Use your heel, put as much of your weight into it as you can, and try to shatter a hand or break their ribs. (Warning about stomping someone’s ribs: this may cause complications including fractured ribs, punctured lung, pneumothorax, etc, and those can be lethal, so…like…be aware. Relatedly, yes, a palm strike to the nose can cause the bone of the nose to damage the brain, causing death and death-like symptoms, but it’s sort of unlikely that you could manage it by accident.)
In the event that your attacker gets you on the ground beneath them: this is the most tactically disastrous position you could be in. You WANT to be on top, where you have the freedom of movement to punch them in the throat/nose/solar plexus and then get back up. First, you need to limit your attacker’s movement, which means going against your instinct to escape. The best way to keep someone limited in this position is to lock your legs around their waist as tightly as you can, just above the hips–the thigh muscles are insanely strong, so they’re unlikely to be able to just shrug you off. This brings your attacker closer to you, and you can further immobilize them by hooking one arm around their neck if you’re strong enough. Once you have them trapped like this (having someone locked into this position, with your legs around their waits, is called having them in your guard), you have a degree of control, and they’re too close to punch you. I recommend (from experience) jamming a thumb into their trachea (windpipe, right at the hollow of their throat). Alternatively, clap both hands over their ears as hard as you can. If you’re not lucky, this will be incredibly disorienting and rather painful to boot. If you ARE lucky, you might blow their eardrum. Slam your forehead into their nose, try to break it. Use your close range to try to stab a finger into their eye (like I said, fight dirty). The ultimate goal is to make your attacker disoriented enough to scramble out from underneath them, roll them so that you’re on top, or get up and beat them to a vertical position. Anything that will accomplish that goal is fair game.
Aaaaaand that’s what I’ve got off the top of my head for actual combat, if anyone wants tips for avoiding combat in the first place message me. It’s possible that I might be a little paranoid, but hey…who’s judging.
Oh. Forgot one thing. If someone’s pinning you to a wall and you have their face close to your face, take as deep a breath as you possibly can, get close, and scream like a goddamn banshee. Embrace your inner fire alarm. Remarkably alarming at close quarters, they’ll probably let you go or at least loosen their grip for long enough to get a good hit in.
here is an idea: normalise the idea that adopting kids is a valid option even for parents who could conceive a child themselves, and not just an inferior backup option for parents who can’t
Is there a word in literally any language for “person who is protected”? Hebrew or another Middle Eastern language would be ideal, but I’ll take just about anything. Anybody wanna do a writer a solid and help me out?
the weirdest thing about 2016 is that there’s a chance we could actually have our first female president…and i’m praying to god that we elect an old white dude instead
DUNKLEOSTEUS WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE TERRIFYING PREHISTORIC SEA CREATURES. BECAUSE LOOK AT THAT FEROCIOUS MOTHERFUCKER. BUT I RAISE YOU THIS MAGNIFICENT BASTARD:
THIS EVOLUTIONARY TRAIN WRECK WAS CALLED ALBERTONECTES, PART OF THE ELASMOSAUR FAMILY. SEE HOW THE BAD DUDE UP TOP IS BASICALLY 80% BONE? APPARENTLY THAT WAS A THEME, BECAUSE POOR FUCKING ALBERTONECTES HAD 76 NECK VERTEBRAE (A GRAND TOTAL OF 132). WHY? BECAUSE EVOLUTION AND NATURAL SELECTION WENT OUT AND GOT BLASTED TOGETHER, AND THE MESOZOIC ERA WAS THE RESULT.
LOOK AT THIS BULLSHIT.
“LOWER ESTIMATE,” IT SAYS.
WHAT THE FUCK, EVOLUTION. GO HOME. YOU’RE DRUNK.
(PS: IN RELATIVE SERIOUSNESS, THOUGH, GOOGLE A SCALE PICTURE OF MEGALODON. I DARE YOU. I’LL WAIT. YEAH, GO SWIMMING IN THE OCEAN WITH THAT MONSTER AND I BET YOU’LL EVOLVE SOME WEIRD SHIT TOO.)
Who wants to hear how I rekted a straight boys ego in gym class today? Because in really fucking proud rn
*is waiting*
*cracks knuckles* okay nerds listen the fuck up.
So I’m in a special gym class for the swim team, so it’s coed with the boys and girls swim team for my school. It’s leg day, and I was setting up my rack for squats. Now I don’t usually go hard in gym because I don’t fucking care and I’m a 3 season athlete, I don’t actually need extra fuxking exercise. I only put maybe 10 pounds on the bar, and this fucking twig looking punk ass comes from fucking nowhere and starts laughing. Mind you I’m taller than fucking everyone in this class, I towered over this twerp. I ask him why he’s laughing, and he says, WITH A STRAIGHT FACE, “Women are so weak” and I almost decked his ass right then but I bite my tongue. For no fucking reason he decided to continue, “Why are women even in sports, they can’t do anything! What’s your max, 50 pounds?” And all his friends are laughing and telling him how cool this he is. So I challenge him to a squatting challenge, I want to see how much weight he can squat. He’s all reluctant now, saying how that wasn’t safe for me, how I might hurt myself, but my swim coach comes from behind and says she would like to see it so he’s like “Fine, whatever, if you get hurt it ain’t my fault.”
He proceeds to put fucking 100 pounds on, my ass is trying not to laugh because wow that’s “a lot”, and the whole time he is struggling, groaning and making gross ass male noises, and only got 4 reps in. He sets it back on the rack and looks at me with this fucking smirk, surrounded by his douche group, and omg I’m about to just drop kick his ass, and he does that stupid hand motion towards the rack.
I walk over and my team members ask me how much I want. I tell them to double it. Everyone stops and my coach is smiling cause she knows how much I can squat. My teammates are like “… Are you sure?” And I tell them how I’m fucking ready. So they put 100 more pounds on, making it now 200 pounds, and I tell them to back off. I then walk over and add 50 more pounds, the whole time looking at this white trash. He looks like a dead man, crusty lookin ass about to pass out. The bar now has 250 pounds, and I get 15 reps in. I set it down and I walk up to him, not having broken a sweat, and just pat him on the cheek before continuing on with my workout. My teammates are all freaking out, telling me how cool that was and how they never knew, but the boys team looks like they’re going to cry. I’m really fucking sore but I regret nothing.
That’s the story how I went up in weight for my squat with the pure determination of breaking up fuckbois dreams @ask-elizabeth-holly-hamilton
Okay I was looking back on this because we were maxing today and my coach said that wasn’t my max and I’m like??? What, and I realized I never accounted for the bar, so that makes total weight was 295.
I’m relieved beyond belief that I’m not the only person who pulled this kind of stunt in gym class. You fucking go, honey, I’m proud as shit, this story was fucking glorious.
‘WHY HAS THAT WIP I’M FOLLOWING NOT BEEN UPDATED?’ ROULETTE!
Author got little to no feedback on previous chapter, thinks nobody cares and/or everyone hates the story
Author received negative feedback and thinks everyone hates the story
Author started another story in order to get rid of writer’s block brought on by WIP and is now totally consumed by new story, keeps staring guiltily at WIP reminding his/herself to continue it
Author’s real life suddenly got TOO REAL.
Author got seduced by another fandom
Author doesn’t use sofware that autosaves and lost most of the next chapter, is too lazy to rewrite
Author has sudden case of believing everything they write is absolute shit and doesn’t want to subject you to sub-par work
The story has been pretty much leading up to the next chapter and Author is now procrastinating out of fear and self doubt because they’re pretty sure they’re gonna mess it up
Author thought it was okay to lead into this one plot point, but due to feedback/further reflection, has now realised that they need to write another 3000 words to get there and is not emotionally ready
I had a realization the other day that seems obvious in retrospect, but I hadn’t put these two things together before.
I was telling my mom that I’m kind of dreading having a private practice someday because it’ll mean working lots of late nights to accommodate my clients’ schedules and make enough money, and as I know from working 12-8 last year, that’ll wreck my social life. She was like, “So you’ll have a social life on the weekends.” And I’m like, and what, spend every weekday night alone in my apartment because it’s too late to go out and see people? She gave me this knowing look and was like, “Well, hopefully you won’t be *alone*…”
That’s when it hit me that this thing–this whole monogamous couple/nuclear family ideal thing–directly enables work to take over our entire lives. Because, yes, if I had someone living in my house–in my bedroom, even–who prioritizes me higher than anyone else in his (because, let’s face it, it would always be a he in this scenario) life, who doesn’t sleep with or date any other people, who treats his free time as our shared time, who drops plans with friends or family the moment I need him, who convincingly promises to never leave me–if I had someone like that, and if I believed in that fantasy, then yes, I’d be fine working late every night and coming home at 9. I could see my friends on weekends sometimes, but I wouldn’t *need* to because I’d never be lonely or bored.
Because however you look at it, cultivating and maintaining a group of friends and a broader social circle or community takes more effort–especially more *intentional* effort–than cultivating just one person with whom you share your life. When we have to work unreasonable hours just to get by, guess which one’s more likely to fall by the wayside?
No wonder it feels like my like-minded friends and I are constantly wading through waist-deep snowdrifts. It’s not set up to work the way we want it to. Yes, life would be easier if I had someone who is always a few yards (or less) away from me when we’re not at work and who can provide romance, friendship, emotional support, entertainment, household help, financial assistance, AND hot sex (and maybe eventually co-parenting) without me ever needing to seek out other people or even leave the house. But that’s…horrifying.
Remember that the nuclear family ideal (husband/wife/child as the entire family unit) is an aberration of the 20th century. Everyone else in the world for almost all of human history has lived in large groups, either tribes or extended families, usually a blend of both. When a woman married she joined her husband’s family, or he joined hers, but humans have generally always lived in large groups with multiple generations sharing space for all of our history.
Our western experiment with making two people entirely dependent on each other for all of the emotional support normal people get from a large extended family group is part of the reason we’ve got a high divorce rate. One person isn’t enough to sustain another entirely.
I think as well, this is why so many single people (like me!) get so damn LONELY.
I recently bought a house (by myself) and I pay all the bills, buy all the food, ect, because it’s just me that lives here.
And at night, I’m so fucking LONELY. My coupled friends don’t get it, they want some peace and quiet to get away from the kids, or the hubby - and when I say “I’m so bored” they don’t get it.
My ONLY FACE-TO-FACE interaction is at work.
That’s it. If I don’t make the effort to go out at weekends, I see no one.
Sure, I can talk to people on the phone, and I have online friends… but you know, I don’t remember the last time I got a hug?
Yup. I went to a coworker who I’m close to the other day and asked for a hug because I couldn’t remember the last time I touched another human being. Dog cuddles can only take me so far.
Holy shit, it’s what I’ve been saying the whole time. I’m super introverted, but I /need/ people around me. I will go to coffee shops just to talk to the barista and hear people around me, because I get so lonely. I routinely turn into a clingy, touchy-feely person when I’m home because that is the only place I get hugs. Do you know how many times I have become just… absolutely depressed and unhappy, just because I want a fucking hug and there’s no one to hug? There was this admin assistant when I started here and she and I talked a lot and I’d go by her office just to say hi, and she would always, ALWAYS give me a hug. And then she left, and now I don’t get hugs. Which maybe seems like a weird thing to be upset about, but I am, routinely.
People ask me how I put up with having a roommate all the time, and why I don’t just live by myself rather than playing roommate roulette and maybe getting a bad roommate (hasn’t happened so far, though). It’s because I go CRAZY when I live alone. Sure, having the cats around helps, but I seriously DO NOT deal well living by myself. I’ve tried it, and I can handle it for about three weeks to a month, but after that it starts to really wear on me, especially if I’m dealing with a lot of stress or something at school/work. I often joke that I don’t care if I ever get married, but I would be super psyched if someone I really liked (or multiple someones, even better) and got along with wanted to be roommates forever and ever so at least I’d know I wouldn’t be alone.
Right, this. Positive social contact, including friendly touch, is a thing that most-to-all humans very much need. I’m both pretty solitary and pretty good at keeping my chin up even when things aren’t ideal, but when I look back at my life the unhappiest part of it by far was the part where I was most isolated. And I’ve never even had to deal with living alone, so who knows how I’d handle that.
And, honestly, that expectation – on a societal level! – that everyone will find one person and basically build a life around them and only them…like OP said, I find that pretty horrifying. Especially when the dominant socially acceptable alternative is the aforementioned intense loneliness. Good grief.
So to summarise - working full time long hours plays havoc with having a social life.
We need a social life or we get sick and lonely.
Therefore we should stop working long hours and use our free time to cultivate friendships.
Sound freaking excellent idea to me.
If we actually had enough space for all of us I’ve said more than once that I could live with my siblings forever. Right now there’s five people and two emotionally best cats living in our three bedroom house so it’s not great.
But with enough room? Sign me up
My sister and her best friend lived next door to each other in their apartment building for a few years and it was great for them. A few nights a week they’d make dinner together or go out and do something. They watched certain shows together, splitting the cost of cable so it was actually affordable. The rest of the time they had their own space and could hang out with their boyfriends whenever. Even their cats went back and forth between the apartments.
Tl;dr I could happily live in the same apartment building with a few of my friends forever.
@prosthetical and I have continually been talking about a very similar arrangement for years now.
Rose I am still 1000% serious about this. I want to live in a small queer/trans/neurodivergent commune. Like a duplex or triplex or quadplex or something similar.
Plz come here. I can’t handle living WITH your kids but I would be happy to live near them.
I swear this will be a thing. I mean obviously not now but like.. I for real want this to be a thing.
THIS THIS THIS.
I have to have communal living spaces. Living alone may work for some people but I think it’s toxic for most. Having a partner, if that’s your thing, is wonderful and it provides a much needed level of companionship. But people, coupled or otherwise, they need friends. Human beings can’t do it alone, can’t do it in duos. They need community, they need family and friends.
My dream would be living in a giant house with plenty of space and plenty of people. I’d love to have myself and my partner and then two or three other friends, either with partners or alone, all living together, eating together, hanging out and spending time. We could all work to support the whole house as a group, as a family. Maybe even all raising kids together at a future point. That’s living the dream for me.
I’m really dreading school now that I’m going full time, because all my friends are online. I have few to no real life friends who are more than acquaintances. I have family as roommates, but I’m going to move out next semester with god knows who. I’m terrified.
I find I have the opposite problem?
I love my boyfriend very much and he’s probably my best friend. We have many common interests together. We co-parent. We understand each other’s introversion very well.
But like… that hasn’t stopped me from being lonely. I mean, to an extent, the longer and more committed you are as a couple, the less you NEED a dazzling social life. But you really can’t have just one. I have no one to hang out wth regularly other than my boyfriend and it’s really depressing. Sometimes I just want to talk about girl stuff, or whatever, and my bf is great about a lot of things but he doesn’t satisfy all of my needs, nor should he.
I live in a house with nine people in it (two children, seven adults). I co-own the house with two of my housemates, who have lived with me since the early 1990s; the newest housemate moved in four or five years ago, and most of us have been living in this house at least a decade. There are other friends we’d like to live with, but we never have a vacancy.
Cohousing is the best. There are problems - no living situation is without problems - but the benefit of having other people around, of having a situation in which spontaneous conversations with friends naturally occur, is (cue Donald) YUUUUUGGEE. I’ve lived alone, and it’s exactly as other folks here have described - lonely AF. I have no idea how I would have gotten through life if I didn’t have cohousing.
One thing I’ve noticed - I’m much less desperate to not be single than many of my single friends. Sure, I’d like to have a romance - but it’s not a big driving need with me. And I think that’s because I don’t have the fear of loneliness if I don’t find a girlfriend.
Also, I think this arrangement is much better for the two kids - and for their parents - than living on their own would be. If you want to become a parent, cohousing can be a great situation.
All of this. I can confirm from unpleasant experience that communal living can go REAL BAD REAL FAST (it’s complicated, but it ended with my parents being severely depressed and broke, and baby Moran being about 75% dead from various diseases, I cannot emphasize enough the need for vaccinations when living with a lot of people), but on the other hand, living alone with a very limited social life? I also have experience with that and I can confirm how…horribly, horribly isolating it can be (admittedly, I lived in Middle Of Nowhere, MT, and had other issues at the time, but the point remains that I’ve never been so miserable in my life and that’s actually saying something). My beloved darling roommate and I have been living the dorm life together for over a year and we’ve basically concluded that this will continue indefinitely until we feel comfortable with another arrangement. I recommend the roommate thing whole-heartedly. Shit, if you want to live with a whole bunch of people who you know and trust (I cannot emphasize that last one enough, do not ever live with someone you don’t trust if you can possibly avoid it), you fucking go, just make sure that you know what you’re getting into.
Humans…we’re social animals, you know? Even introverts need people, someone who can hold our hand when we’re in pain or stroke our hair when we’re upset, and it’s not a FLAW that you need a social life outside the internet and your possible significant other. Fuck, that’s normal. Fuck the ‘nuclear family’ shit, the ‘move out and get your own place’ mentality.
Live with roommates. Live a few couples in a big house. Live in an apartment block with a few friends. Touch your people, hug them, watch stupid movies together, cuddle on the couch, sit in the same room doing your own things, whatever. Just…have people. It’s good.
i used to think that a foot of parchment was a lot and feel bad when harry potter characters were assigned to write that much
but then i realized the paper i write on is 8.5 by 11 inches.
so a foot of parchment is the equivalent of like, a page and a half of paper.
they complained SO MUCH about essays that were like
a page and a half
wtf guys
get your shit together
No wonder Hermione always got onto the boys for not doing their homework.
it’s honestly not even a foot and a half it’s just one sheet of paper. a foot is 12 inches. like dang if i had to only write one page long essays in school about cool magic shit then i would have been ecstatic.
also 12pt times new roman— the standard assigned size and font for a lot of essay assignments— produces significantlysmaller text than a muggleborn teenageer with a pen and ink quill would be able to manage on the regular, no matter how dedicated she was. ron and harry are frequently noted to be using large handwriting on unlined paper. their homework would have been about three short paragraphs if they were feeling studious.
no wonder hermione was so fucking exasperated! muggle students their age would have strangled them.
Ultimate security as Harry is the only one capable of opening it.
Myrtle proudly spending her time acting as a guard/lookout.
Later, Harry diligently teaching Ron, Hermione, and a few choice others, like Neville, how to mimic parseltongue so that they can open it too.
Muggleborns experiencing vicious satisfaction that they’re using this chamber as a place of education and defense, reclaiming the very space Slytherin built to rid the school of their presence.
Hermione methodically dismantling the basilisk’s corpse, covertly selling the priceless ingredients to potion masters, using the funds to continue their work - buying books and battle robes and new wands for those who can’t afford it.
(Hermione saving a portion of those ingredients for her own research, straightening in triumph when she learns what basilisk venom does to horcruxes, knowing she has vials of it hidden up in her room).
Harry reverently adding the Chamber of Secrets to the Marauder’s Map, proudly continuing his family’s work and reveling in the difference they’re making.
These students - these kids - choosing to train in a dark, horrifying place that was never meant for them. Learning spells amongst shadows, growing stronger in inches of murky water, the smell of a decomposing corpse in their noses, memories of all that had happened here haunting them. They know this is what war is really like and it helps to push them forward.
Updating this because people have brought up some REALLY GREAT plot-holes and I like trying to flesh out my AUs soooooooo…
Ginny is the one who suggests using the Chamber. Of course she is. Harry isn’t the type to think of that, but for Ginny… for Ginny the Chamber still haunts her dreams, too often, and she’s furious that a part of the castle is restricted to her - a part of her home that she wants to avoid. She suggests the Chamber, partly for the DA’s benefit, mostly for her own.
Visibility is a concern - what if someone sees them going into the girl’s restroom? They think it’s a serious issue until Ron starts laughing. No one comes near that bathroom anymore, he says. Not ever. It was barely an issue while brewing a month long polyjuice potion, Ron and Harry popping in and out to add ingredients or to stir. Now though? Now that Myrtle has stepped up her game (shrieking, flooding the room if someone unwanted comes near), now that Hogwarts is infused with rumors that Harry fought a basilisk rightin there, now that the nearby corridor still has a bloody, horrifying message that even the professors haven’t been able to erase*… well, students avoid the area like the plague.
Even if they didn’t, the House Elves help them out. Dobby did, after all, suggest the Room of Requirement before Ginny brought up the Chamber. Who better than the workers who see but are not seen to help the DA keep watch?
The castle helps too. By now it knows Harry and desperately wants to protect its students. More than once Umbridge follows a DA member, only to find the staircase moving unexpectedly, taking her in another direction entirely. Sometimes there’s even a door directly beside the lavatory - appearing out of nowhere - that students can slip inside if they feel the need…
Getting out is the other concern. At first they think to bring brooms or levitate one another out… but that’s just not practical. Then, one of the Hufflepuffs asks the obvious and yet oddly illusive question: how did Salazar get out? They start a search and by the end of the day they’ve found at least four hidden exits.
One exit leads out into the Forbidden Forest, a space that’s not nearly as terrifying as it once was. Harry speaks quietly to Firenze and secures the help of the centaurs for when they need safe passage late at night. One day they encounter a group of acromantulas… and Harry learns of Hagrid’s strict new rule - friends of Hagrid are never food, no matter how easy the prey. The students don’t realize it, but they’re slowly gaining allies. Those in the forest begin to take notice of the children who walk both bravely and respectfully through their trees.
(And one day when they’re too tired to walk back, a familiar blue car pulls up and throws open its doors. Ron cheers like a maniac. Ginny laughs and threatens to tell their dad).
Though the exists are great, it’s Hermione who realizes the Chamber’s true benefit - it lies outside of Hogwart’s apparition zone. How can it not? Godric, Helga, and Rowena didn’t know of its existence when they first made the wards. So now the DA can go with ease, they just can’t pop in from anywhere else in the castle. Which is, admittedly, perfect. Apparition lessons begin in earnest.
(And during the Battle of Hogwarts, DA members take Slytherin students by the hand - those who wouldn’t, couldn’t, fight their own families. They take them down to the Chamber and tell them to apparate out. Leave while you still can. Keep safe).
Harry realizing that parseltongue is easily imitated and coming up with an actual password that has to be spoken, one linked to a spell too. It helps that the snakes around the entrance are semi-sentient and are loyal to their new master. They know who’s meant to go down there and who’s not.
Neville joking one day that they should be learning how to use swords, considering that’s how the original battle down here was won. Harry takes it seriously. Not the swords bit, but using physical/muggle fighting techniques on wizards who are too reliant on their magic. They begin reading up on hand-to-hand combat and knives.
Harry needing to test their progress and getting a really stupid idea… but honestly, those often work out in his favor. So one sunny, Saturday morning - when everyone else is lounging outside - Harry sneaks the DA into the third floor corridor. Fluffy is gone, as is the mirror, but the rest remains, no doubt left in case Dumbledore ever had to guard something else precious. Hermione, Ron, and Harry spend the day supervising, teaching their peers how to react under pressure, think through situations, and rely on one another’s skills.
And then one day things get weird (because they always do with Harry) when he realizes that the miniature chamber the basilisk was kept in is the only part of their hideout they’d yet to explore. See, given their rarity, it’s unsurprising that wizardkind knows so little about basilisks - not that they reproduce asexually or that only a parseltongue can hatch the egg. So when Harry crawls into the chamber, and finds a strange egg-like object nestled there, that begins pulsing a soft green color in his presence, and when he basically says, “What the hell…?” out loud, and when it comes out in parseltongue because he is surrounded by snake things…well, let’s just say a few minutes later Harry crawls back out, very sheepish, a baby basilisk cooing around his neck. He laughs pretty shakily and mutters something about finding their mascot.
(And they name the beast - because of course they do - and Hermione invents a soft device to cover its eyes and feeding it is an absolute horror… but they do grow to love their ‘mascot.’ And during the Battle - when Harry is off in the forest and Hogwarts is losing badly - no one is more surprised than the Death Eaters when Ron and Hermione come tearing out of the school riding a goddamn fully grown basilisk. Hermione rips off the cover on its eyes and sets to work).
People who perform manual labor should be not only given high and liveable wages, but unlimited access to healthcare and physical therapy to help manage the myriad conditions that come from doing back-breaking work.
Like this is not an absurd concept. It bothers me that people think that it is.
