ahh yes earth day where we pretend that the reason human beings are fucking the earth over is because your mom doesn’t recycle and not because global corporations are ducking national regulations and then calling their products “green” because they donate to an organization to save cute animals in your name
It’s been a while since a big election and this is the first time some Tumblrites are voting so here’s a quick warning:
Please Don’t Snapchat, Instagram, take a selfie with, etc, your vote in the voting booth! There are laws in almost every state forbidding sharing your vote, especially if polls haven’t closer yet. If any officials get wind of it they can invalidate your vote, basically throw it away. This was actually a thing during Obama’s election.
So make sure you get out and vote, and make sure it counts! Keep your phone in your pocket for this one.
One of my biggest fears about this election is that all the millennials are gonna come out and vote for Bernie Sanders and forget to vote for anybody else. Every seat in the House of Representatives is up for reelection and a bunch of Senate seats are up as well. Most states do their governor and state legislature during mid-terms (which means we’re all gonna need to go out again in 2018), but a few are open in this cycle and people living in those states need to know about that too.
There are two things about American politics that nobody seems to know and everyone should: republicans only win when people don’t vote and local politics affect you at least as much as national level shit. Vote for your favorite Presidential candidate, but also vote for like, city council and state representative and stuff. It’s all important and if we as a generation want to make real change we need to flex our voting power at every level of government and show our country that we are a political force to be reckoned with. I want to see us out, in force, in every election until we’re all goddamned dead. Because that’s how shit gets done in a democracy.
this generation gets dragged so much and insulted so much and called conceited and careless and lazy and stupid and yet we’re just taking selfies when we think we look nice and complimenting each other and educating ourselves and un-learning internalized prejudices and we care so much about the world and the future and we’re so tolerant and passionate and perseverant and i love it. i love it so much. everyone hated us and we just didn’t care. everyone hated us so we learned to love ourselves
this generation gets dragged so much and insulted so much and called conceited and careless and lazy and stupid and yet we’re just taking selfies when we think we look nice and complimenting each other and educating ourselves and un-learning internalized prejudices and we care so much about the world and the future and we’re so tolerant and passionate and perseverant and i love it. i love it so much. everyone hated us and we just didn’t care. everyone hated us so we learned to love ourselves
the worst thing about writing is that you aren’t just a writer. you have to be a thousand things. a poet, a flirt, a weapons expert, a bleeding heart, a scholar, a legendary cook, a theorist, an engineer, a reckless teenage girl, a dying god. you have to be able to write monologues and speeches and heartfelt confessions, and you have to make them believable. writing is putting yourself into someone else’s shoes.
I remember all the Doctor Who fanfics I used to read where Rose often got badly stereotyped as a damsel in distress whom the Doctor had to swoop in and save and smooch but the way I remember Doctor Who 90% of their relationship was the Doctor just setting Rose loose on people who had done something to offend them and sitting back giggling in the corner as she shouted
there were more tags and tumblr CUT THEM OFF @ tumblr the fuck, anyway its out in the open now and the point is that eventually she has to leave, and when she leaves she says “take care of finn” but also “take care of yourself” bc she’s seen his dark nights and they aren’t good, aren’t what he deserves, and then when she finally comes BACK well of course finn & poe have had months and months to settle in w/e its very gross, anyway she comes back and she and finn bounce off one another and collide and spark and run to each other across the tarmac fly into each others arms etc, but poe has an old soul and something in rey is ancient, so after a long moment of finn she turns around & she and poe simply fold themselves around each other right there in front of the general & everyone
bc w finn there’s the loud ecstatic outpouring of love and joy but w poe rey finds something quieter, w poe rey has silence, bc poe is still like a lake in the jungle of yavin 4, a lake in the jungle beneath the moons, and finn is the of course the bubbling noise of the water
anyway! NOT that i have thought about this at length
I think people who don’t menstruate overall just don’t understand that we cannot stop the blood. If there’s nothing to collect it, it’s going everywhere. Most people can hold a shit, can hold a piss, and can hold back sex, until it’s convenient. When we bleed there is just no stopping it. It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing to catch the blood, it will keep coming.
That’s why this free-tampon discussion is over your heads. You don’t get it. You can compare it to toilet paper or condoms all you want but most of us have control over those things. When we bleed, we keep bleeding until it’s done. There’s no clenching or muscle training that will keep us from bleeding everywhere.
So stop talking about what you don’t understand. If condoms can be free, so can tampons.
People in Iowa who support Bernie Sanders: PLEASE GO TO THE CAUCUS.
I know the Democratic caucus procedure is annoying and more complicated than the Republican procedure but Sanders is SO CLOSE to Clinton and who is most successful in this caucus is going to be 100% dependant on turnout. If you want to vote for Sanders in November, you have to show up for Sanders now.
Clinton is more popular in older demographics and Sanders is more popular in younger demographics and the older folks WILL go to the caucus. Young people have to show up too, because if we do, SANDERS WILL WIN THE WHOLE ELECTION but if we don’t show up now, he won’t even get the nomination.
Since and including 2000, the winner of the Democratic caucus in Iowa has gotten the Democratic nomination for President (Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, Obama in 2008 and 2012 - The Republican winner got the nomination in 2000 and 2004 but not 2008 (Huckabee) or 2012 (Santorum) but usually the Democratic winner in Iowa goes to the general election) SO IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO GO, YOUNG DEMOCRATS.
You know what especially pisses me off about people whining about how "Kylo Ren deserves a Redemption Arc because Snoke has been influencing him since he was a baby"? Because you know who ELSE has been surrounded by Evil since he was small? Finn, that's who, and somehow he managed to avoid massacreing people! (And he didn't even have 2 parents and 3 uncles who loved the very air he breathed (and I'm including Luke, Chewie and gay droid-couple 3PO and R2 in that. 4 if you count Lando)) - H.
tumblr friendships are hard to maintain like im sorry i know i havent talked to you in 5 months but you’re still super rad and i still consider us friends im just dumb
natasha romanoff is the kind of person who could kill you with her bare hands if she had to but she is also probably the kind of person who would purposely take the squeaky chair and wobble on it and drive everyone crazy
there has been a pretty far-reaching trend on this website to blog about the effects of mental illness and trauma on emotional regulation and an aggressive campaign to get people to not only understand but accept boundary-crossing behavior from people because it is a reflection of their mental illness/trauma, as far as to imply that you are ableist if you are not able to tactfully handle and accept someone else’s dysfunctional coping mechanisms and behavior despite your own discomfort. i see this most often with posts about bpd but there are other topics as well. i haven’t commented on any of it because it’s not a pie i wanted a finger in, but it has over time led me to develop severe discomfort around people who follow that line of thought to the point that i have disengaged, unfollowed, and unfriended many people who agree with it.
the stuff i’m seeing passed around now about “supporting perpretrators” in addition to survivors is the horrifying track down which that train of thought has sped, because what people don’t seem to understand is that mental illness and trauma do no make you an exception to the boundaries of those around you. it is necessary to be aware of the ways that survivors and mentally ill people may lash out emotionally at those they are close to but it is not actually necessary to be “accepting” to the point that it is harmful to you. your emotional boundaries are important, more important than whatever obligation you feel to “accommodate” someone’s trauma.
it is not “okay” that survivors sometimes display manipulative/abusive behaviors towards the people around them and it is important to handle these situations with tact, sure, but not to the detriment of setting your own boundaries and checking the behaviors in question. when friends i know are mentally ill/ trauma survivors have lashed out at me with emotionally manipulation tactics in times of great distress, i have supported them afterward, but i have always followed this up with a discussion about how these kinds of behaviors can not and will not continue or our relationship will end. this is not “ableist” or refusing to support survivors’ trauma, it is setting strong boundaries within the context of supporting each other and providing the community in which we all can heal. what is important here is that these are isolated incidents – learned defense mechanisms arising in times of panic and stress – and not consistent grabs for power. these are not people following the deliberate, overarching pattern of actions abusers use to isolate and control victims, and their actions are easily distinguishable from such.
my point is that this discourse has allowed people to blur the line between these behaviors and abuse when it comes to community support. we should support abusers in our communities as well, they say, because otherwise we would be isolating vulnerable marginalized people who are just struggling with their own trauma. this is exactly what abusers want. this is not a radical attitude. abusers depicting themselves as helpless victims of emotions and circumstances out of their control has pretty much always been the abuser party line. there is nothing productive or useful or valid about carving out community resources for “accountability” in ways that perpetuate bad abuse politics and logics that have been used to silence survivors for years and years. you cannot support survivors and also support their abusers by continuing to welcome them in the same community spaces, period, and it takes some ridiculous mental gymnastics to pretend otherwise.
Okay, if they wanna make a biopic about Michael Jackson starring a British white dude, you know what, that’s fine. But then I goddamn demand a biopic about Elvis starring John Boyega. And a revolutionary war movie where George Washington is played by Ming-Na Wen with no explanation. And a Beatles movie starring Penelope Cruz and Lupita Nyongo and Oscar Isaac and Stephen Yeun as the Fab Four. And a movie about WWII with Javier Bardem playing Roosevelt and Jackie Chan as Winston Churchill.
tbh people mock harry for going back to rescue fleurs sister in the second triwizard task but harry knows dumbledore better than anyone else. he probably looked at the situation and thought “would dumbledore let an eight year old drown just because fleur couldnt do this bit? yes. yes he would.”
it’s also possible he was acting off of the lessons he learned in the abusive dursley household. that’s why he does a lot of his so-called “hero complex” shit. he takes a lot of personal responsibility for other people bc he learned growing up that “no one’s here for you, no one will help you, you will not catch any breaks”. he helps bc if he didn’t, who would? certainly not the dursleys, and that’s what he grew up with.
he does things by himself and the two people he actually trusts, bc he’s learned that authority figures are no help and will only make things worse. he takes situations at face value bc he’s never seen other options in his life, he’s never HAD other options in his life. speaking very personally, that was a serious marker of abuse that i saw in myself - i never thought abt escape, or what i could do to improve my situation, bc i didn’t even see that as an option. the options were survive or don’t, deal w it or don’t, acclimate or implode.
maybe he wasn’t thinking abt what DUMBLEDORE would do, what anyone at hogwarts would do. maybe he was acting off what he knew the dursleys (his main authority figures) would do. the dursleys would let the girl drown. and harry was there, and harry could do something, and so harry did. he took personal responsibility for fleur’s sister’s safety bc all his life he’s learned that authority figures cannot be trusted to do so.
people characterize these aspects of harry as a “hero complex” or a “stupid nobility” or a “lack of common sense”, but i don’t agree with that. i can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. it’s not completely unhealthy; it’s even very useful and responsible on occasion.
it’s called “complex ptsd” and if you get out of the abusive situation before you’re old enough to understand how fucked up it was, like Harry did, you don’t end up with the classic flashbacks so much, just atypical behavior patterns and a high risk of other shit. That’s why Harry is so fucked up by everything that Umbridge does, it’s because he’s being retraumatized in his safe space.
important.
also, dumbledore would not have let an eight year old drown; harry even has a minute after he finished the task while talking with ron where he feels embarrassed and stupid over his performance during the task explicitly because he knows dumbledore would have never let that happen–and harry feels like he should have remembered that before/during the task
not to mention, dumbledore rewarded harry with high marks during the task for caring about the other hostages and for rescuing fleur’s sister. and this wasn’t the only time he’s rewarded students for demonstrating caring behavior towards other people
seriously the way some of you people talk about dumbledore you’d think he was voldemort or umbridge
I agree, and honestly I wasn’t agreeing with the OP as much as I was with the above comments that the Dursleys, not Dumbledore, are responsible for Harry’s behavioural patterns. And yeah, the idea of coping, and of not letting people come to harm if you can help it, aren’t actually bad things and yet people talk of them as if they’re actually moral failings on Harry’s part, something he should be actively punished for.
This–that Harry, in the heat of the moment, assumed that no one would help the girl if he failed to do so, because of the way the Dursleys treated him–seemed implicit to me when I read it for the first time. In the intervening years it’s come to my attention that my childhood was…atypical, shall we say, but even knowing that most people are more decent than my extended family, I still assume that, if I don’t help someone in trouble, no one will. It’s not a hero complex or a compulsion to play the savior, it’s a bone-shaking certainty that I would be left helpless in their situation and I honestly can’t live with leaving someone else in that position. I remember reading that, reading Harry acting like that, and thinking that it was such a relief to see someone who made “foolish” decisions for the same reasons I did.
