yo ginny weasley owns a cute fluffy pygmy puff named arnold that she carries around and plays w/ all day and she is feared for making boogers turn into bats that painfully fly out of your nasal passages she’s a fucking inspiration
My therapist and I decided that from now on, when I’m thinking something negative about myself, I’m going to imagine that Donald Trump is saying it, because it’s really easy for me to just tell him to fuck off.
Example:
Trump: “Your thighs are fat.” Me: “Fuck you and your fucking wall.”
I think we’re onto something here.
this is probably the best coping skill I’ve ever seen and I am ten billion percent going to use it too
you know what i don’t get? when like, people write romance stories where two characters are so in love w each other its all magnetism, but they? don’t even have fun together? or are even nice to each other sometimes?
“our love could level a thousand mountains and conquer a million cities”
out of all the aspects of millennial-bashing, i think the one that most confuses me is the “millennials all got trophies as a kid, so now they’re all self-centered narcissists” theory
like— kids are pretty smart, y’all. they can see that every kid on the team gets a trophy and is told they did a good job; they can also see that not every kid on the team deserves a trophy, and not everyone did do a good job
the logical conclusion to draw from this is not “i’m great and i deserve praise”— it’s “no matter how mediocre i am, people will still praise me to make me feel better, so i can’t trust any compliments or accolades i receive”
this is not a recipe for overconfidence and narcissism. it is a recipe for constant self-guessing, low self-esteem, and a distrust of one’s own abilities and skills.
where did this whole “ugh millennials think their so-so work is super great” thing even come from it is a goddamn mystery
what fucking kills me is, yeah, maybe we got the trophies, but who gave them out
this is not a recipe for overconfidence and narcissism. it is a recipe for constant self-guessing, low self-esteem, and a distrust of one’s own abilities and skills.
It’s also what I observed happening as a singing teacher: the older kids literally would not believe a positive word I said until I had proved I would tell them they screwed up/had done badly/etc. I did so in as useful a way as possible (“So this passage. We really need to work on this passage. A lot. This passage is not good yet.”), but with almost every adolescent I taught I had to prove I would give them straight-up criticism before they would parse my praise as anything other than meaningless “the grownups always do this” noise.
Class discussions are fun until u find out ur classmates are racists
class discussions make me cringe.
Class discussions have led to:
the discovery that half my class was racist as fuck
the discovery that half my class was homophobic/transphobic/etc as fuck (I did get a hug from the only out kid in class when I was done taking the ringleader to shreds, though, he was a great kid)
the discovery that my entire class revered Columbus as a good and kind individual who just did So Damn Much for the heathen savages (yeah, that was an ugly revelation for them)
an actual shouting match between two sides of the class over abortion laws/rights, which had to be broken up by the passing vice principal
the discovery that the history teacher was unaware of the fact that no culture EVER thought the world was flat (and certainly not the Greeks???? this is still weird to me????)
the discovery that a few people in my class believed that, if a parent was beating their kid, the kid must have deserved it (I genuinely hope those people got therapy and moved out of their homes)
and last but most certainly not least
the discovery that half the class thought that the way a girl dressed dictated whether or not she ‘deserved’ to get raped, which led straight to
the discovery that the TEACHER thought that if a girl dressed a certain way, she wasn’t a victim, no matter what happened to her, which was directly involved in
me, in my jeans and t-shirt, slamming a kid into a table by the throat for certain ongoing shenanigans
“This is your daily, friendly reminder to use commas instead of periods during the dialogue of your story,” she said with a smile.
“Unless you are following the dialogue with an action and not a dialogue tag.” He took a deep breath and sat back down after making the clarifying statement.
“However,” she added, shifting in her seat, “it’s appropriate to use a comma if there’s action in the middle of a sentence.”
“Maybe you, too, know a handsome upwardly mobile upper-middle class cis dude who is well intentioned and *super progressive.* We’re happy go buy him a locally brewed craft beer and tell him to take a step back instead. We are not the heroes that Gotham needs.”
I don’t think you know how much you really ship something until you see one half of your ship with another character and you can just feel the discomfort rising within you.
I’m slightly in love with the idea of Percy going to college to study Marine Biology and then actually getting a job with it and freaking everyone out with his fish voodoo. Like can you imagine “hey Jackson can see what’s wrong with that seal?”
“he’s lonely Jim”
“what? You didn’t even-”
“I said he’s lonely Jim”
I feel we talk about signs of abuse from the victims standpoint but not from the abusers standpoint. In order to stop emotional abuse and recognize when we engage in unhealthy behaviors I made this list.
Do you react to important people in your life by ignoring them completely and not acknowledging their presence? Especially if they do something you don’t like?
Do you feel that your partner/friends/family members are the cause of your bad moods or frustration?
Does your partner/etc “do things the wrong way”?
Do criticize your partner/etc for being unreliable or a bad person?
Do you feel you have to constantly overlook your partners flaws in order to be around them?
Are you frequently accused of being “moody” or “hard to please”?
Do your partners complain that “nothing they do is good enough?
Do your partners appear to avoid you when you are angry or upset rather then comfort you?
Do you negatively comment on their intelligence or appearence? Either in private or in front of others.
Do you blame them when someone goes wrong?
Do you ever use phrases like “I could just hit you right now” or “I”m so mad I could punch something”?
Do you ever punch walls/throw things in front of your partner/etc?
Do you leave during fights and not inform of where you are going and when you will be back?
Do you behave the same alone with your partner that you do if you were in front of your friends or in public?
Have you frequently accused your partner of being too sensitive?
How often is your partner praised and complimented by yourself?
Do you think your partner spends too much time with friends and family?
Do you feel your partners friends and family are trying to drive you apart?
Do you actively comfort your partner when they are upset or angry even if you don’t really understand why they feel the way they do?
If your partner brings up a behavior that bothers them do you respond by discussing how to change it or do you respond defensively?
Do you have difficulty apologizing?
All of these things are abuse tactics. Obviously even the healthiest of us will do these sometimes but if any one becomes a regular habit that’s when the problem starts.
this is super important, i feel like this website makes it easy to put yourself in the role of the victim but never the abuser. It’s also important to note that being a victim does not preclude you from being an abuser.
I find this esp. important. I’ve exhibited some of these behaviors. I know abuse perpetuates abuse and that victims of abuse learn abusive behavior. I also know that having mental illness can make reacting and dealing with feelings even more difficult. That being said: being mentally ill does not mean you cannot be held accountable for your actions. Nor does being a survivor of abuse. I gotta take care of myself & heal and recognize how trauma and mental illness plays a role in how I treat others. Being a victim doesn’t mean you cannot be an abuser too.
One of the reasons I always recommend Lundy Bancroft book ‘why does he do that? Inside the minds of angry and controlling men’ to everyone is because it is an invaluable tool for highlighting the toxic aspects in our own personalities.
All men have been socialised with some of the traits/behaviours he speaks of, and the behaviours encourage attitudes and then the attitudes entrench behaviours. Breaking this cycle takes determination, honesty and self care, but it’s in invaluable journey.
I will also reiterate that abuse/abusive mentalities are not always consistent between relationships with the same person. What negatively affects one partner will slide right off the shoulders of or be immediately curtailed by another. What one partner needs another partner dislikes or doesn’t want. What will cause one relationship type to crash and burn horribly will support or confirm another relationship type. This is why abusers often have functional friendships and disastrous romantic relationships. This is why some poly abusers can have very functional relationships with one partner and disastrously harmful ones with another. Or, have great nonprimary relationships and terrifying primary ones, or whatever. Sometimes we believe it is acceptable to mistreat or behave badly only in specific types of relationship, so watch for that both in yourself and in others.
Basically, you don’t need a doctor’s prescription to get self-administered birth control (pills, patches, injections and vaginal rings) in California anymore. You go down to the pharmacy, fill out a questionnaire and get your blood pressure taken. There’s no age limit, either. Methods that require doctor-performed insertion, like the implant or IUDs, do still require a prescription.
This is pretty great for people who can’t afford the doctor’s appointment to get a prescription or have other reasons not to go to a doctor, making birth control more accessible than before.
REBLOOB TO SAVE A LIFE!!!
Finally an end to coercive, rape-y exam rules.
needs to be in more places than just Cali, reblog will have to do for now.
No, I’m serious, if women all got together and went into electrical engineering or automotive repair en masse, then ten years later people would be talking about how it was a “soft field” and it would pay proportionately less than other fields.
Likewise, if men moved en masse to bedeck themselves in sparkles and make-up, then suddenly you’d get a bunch of editorials talking about how classy they look.
None of these things are inherently masculine or feminine; none of these things inherently elevate you or drag you down. But whatever women are seen to do is automatically seen as being inherently more frivolous than anything men do. And shaming women for not pigeonholing themselves into a narrow range of acceptable “masculine” behaviours is just going to result in the goalposts getting moved once again.
This is literally what happened to basically every field women have entered. The opposite happens when men enter. Computers used to be a “woman thing” until the guys who did it got really mad about how badly their job was viewed and realized they could fix it by forcing out women.
Also happened/ is happening with the fields of biology and psychology….
I honestly wonder how much of the backlash against public education in the last generation has been due to teaching becoming a woman-dominated profession.
Fashion used to be a men’s thing. Then women got involved in the late 17/1800’s, so men went the other way because it came to be seen as “frivolous” and “anti-intellectual” to care about how you looked. Add in the homophobia that arose around that time, bam, staid bland dress. Ditto leggings/tights, that are now called attention-whoring when on men they were required to show you cared about your figure and had the money to pay for such a fitted item.
People want to say misogyny doesn’t exist, that male privilege doesn’t exist. Look beyond “living memory” and you’ll find that’s what drives the “inexplicable reversals” society seems to make on many things. Hell, just look beyond your own society, and you’ll find out that what’s considered “for men” elsewhere is held in high esteem while here it’s scoffed at purely because it’s “for women”:
Skinny jeans are the height of masculinity in several east Asian societies, rather than being seen as “gay” in the USA because of their association with femininity.
Medical fields in Russia are valued like kindergarten teachers are here, because it’s women who are the doctors instead of men.
Love and romance are highly valued in eastern countries, because men are interested in it too—of course they would be, surely you want to share your life with someone? Here, it’s strictly a women’s subject.
The field of anthropology as a whole illustrates this.
Significantly higher proportions of females compared to males are currently entering the fields of archaeology and biological anthropology, and as this occurs, the prestige, funding, acceptance as valid kinds of science, etc, are fading quickly.
This has already occurred with linguistic anthropology and cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropology in particular went VERY quickly from being seen as a manly, scientific discipline (e.g., Franz Boas, Bronisław Malinowski) to being seen as a touchy-feely female thing.
Let’s examine a traditionally male-dominated role that is very well-respected, and well-paid, in many parts of the world — that of a doctor. In the UK, it is listed as one of the top ten lucrative careers, and the average annual income of a family doctor in the US is well into six figures. It also confers on you significant social status, and a common stereotype in Asian communities is of parents encouraging their children to become doctors.
One of my lecturers at university once presented us with this thought exercise: why are doctors so highly paid, and so well-respected? Our answers were predictable. Because they save lives, their skills are extremely important, and it takes years and years of education to become one. All sound, logical reasons. But these traits that doctors possess are universal. So why is it, she asked, that doctors in Russia are so lowly paid? Making less than £7,500 a year, it is one of the lowest paid professions in Russia, and poorly respected at that. Why is this?
The answer is crushingly, breathtakingly simple. In Russia, the majority of doctors are women. Here’s a quote from Carol Schmidt, a geriatric nurse practitioner who toured medical facilities in Moscow: “Their status and pay are more like our blue-collar workers, even though they require about the same amount of training as the American doctor… medical practice is stereotyped as a caring vocation ‘naturally suited‘ to women, [which puts it at] a second-class level in the Soviet psyche.”
What this illustrates perfectly is this — women are not devalued in the job market because women’s work is seen to have little value. It is the other way round. Women’s work is devalued in the job market because women are seen to have little value. This means that anything a woman does, be it childcare, teaching, or doctoring, or rocket science, will be seen to be of less value simply because it is done mainly by women. It isn’t that women choose jobs that are in lower-paid industries, it is that any industry that women dominate automatically becomes less respected and less well-paid.
Even if they just breathe in the pollen. Or get it on their fur. They will fucking die. Do not do it.
SIGNAL BOOST THIS SHIT
I did not know this reblogging
“…
the most toxic household plants for cats is the common lily. In fact, eating as little as two or three leaves from the flowers can result in liver failure and, if left untreated, can have a fatal outcome for cats.” (Source: PetMD)
Please take care of your feline friends!
We’ve had several cases of lily toxicity at my work recently. ALWAYS make sure your indoor plants are pet-friendly!
Fun History Fact: The overwhelming majority of cowboys in the U.S. were Indigenous, Black, and/or Mexican persons. The omnipresent white cowboy is a Hollywood studio concoction meant to uphold the mythology of white masculinity.
Thank you.
I will always re-blog this
I think it was high school when i overheard some white girl put on her best semi-disgusted and confused voice and go “why do so many Mexicans dress up like cowboys?” and I had to be the person to tell her.
Why do you think the whites say buckero? Cause they couldn’t say vaquero.
I dunno if I reblogged this before but fuck it, y'all gon learn today.
In honor of Lord Byron’s birthday I would like to remind you all of the time that Shelley and Keats, having not heard from him for some time, became concerned for his safety and it was determined that Shelley would go looking for him. Keats received a letter some time later that Shelley had found him in Venice, where he’d been having so much sex that he’d nearly died from malnourishment and dehydration. Keats’ entire response amounted to essentially, “You should probably have let him.”
“I found him, he’s in a gutter.” “Well go put him back”
Okay so, tomorrow is May 5th or Cinco de Mayo, if you’re that type of person.
And contrary to popular belief, it is not Mexico’s Independence day. That day is September 16th (celebrated on the 15th). So if you believe you are celebrating Mexico’s independence, then you are wrong.
Also, if you wear a sombrero and dress in “typical’ Mexican fashion, then you are being racist. And if you use this day as an excuse to get wasted on tequila then you’re just gross and have reduced a pretty significant day is Mexican history to a day where you eat taco and get bombed on margaritas.
Also, Cinco de Mayo isn’t really celebrated nationwide in Mexico. It’s mostly celebrated in Puebla. Because Cinco de Mayo is also know as “La Batalla de Puebla” or “The Battle of Puebla” where the Mexican army won, despite the odds, the French army during the French intervention in Mexico.
Now, I need you to remember that because it is important. To me, since Puebla is where my mother was born. To my people. And to my culture.
Cinco de Mayo is not yours to celebrate. It is not your excuse to get drunk on what will be a Thursday.
Now, despite that being said, I don’t mind if you celebrate Cinco de Mayo so long as you know it’s significance and you don’t reduce the day to gross stereotypes.
Respect the culture and Mexicans will invite you over for a cook out and a good conversation. We are not what you see on tv. We are a diverse people who love our culture and don’t mind sharing as long as there is respect.
Cruz and Kasich dropped out……only Donald Trump is left.
I fucking thought he was a joke…..who would vote for a reality tv star with no political experience and has bankrupted his company multiple times…..how did we get here
honestly the high fantasy genre is suffering because authors can’t stop ripping off tolkien and basing their worlds off the same few shitty medieval european countries complete with Historically Accurate Misogyny™, HF has so much untapped potential for creating beautiful and diverse and interesting worlds and authors just squander it by rehashing middle earth over and over
And like! I like Middle Earth! I love LotR! I do! But G U Y S. Pull yourselves out of your hobbit hole and revel in the potential for new and cool shit in your high fantasy worlds. I read this book where the main character’s literal job in life was to blow up ghosts with enchanted gauntlets, and her main love interest was a pirate king who spontaneously turned into a giant bloodthirsty monster around ghosts and let me tell you a thing, watching them take down corrupt governments was a goddamn delight.
Um, excuse you?
How dare you describe this book and not tell us what the fuck it’s called and who wrote it so I can find it and go FUCKING READ IT RIGHT NOW???
It’s called Geist by Philippa Ballantine and I am scheming to acquire the second one almost as we speak. I 100% recommend it. Cool magic! Cool ghosts! Schemes and shenanigans! Airships! Ship-ships with pirates! The main character Sorcha is a complicated, individual woman who is never spat on for being a woman! (I might be wrong about that, but I can say with absolute confidence that anyone who does learns their lesson really really fast and also is a bad guy, because sexist dicks are bad guys, mmmmkay?) She is also really, crazy powerful and badass and I am a tiny (very small) bit in love with her.
Her runaway-king-slash-pirate-slash-part-time-monster friend/eventual love interest Raed is cool too, I guess, but SORCHA MOTHERFUCKERS.
honestly the high fantasy genre is suffering because authors can’t stop ripping off tolkien and basing their worlds off the same few shitty medieval european countries complete with Historically Accurate Misogyny™, HF has so much untapped potential for creating beautiful and diverse and interesting worlds and authors just squander it by rehashing middle earth over and over
And like! I like Middle Earth! I love LotR! I do! But G U Y S. Pull yourselves out of your hobbit hole and revel in the potential for new and cool shit in your high fantasy worlds. I read this book where the main character’s literal job in life was to blow up ghosts with enchanted gauntlets, and her main love interest was a pirate king who spontaneously turned into a giant bloodthirsty monster around ghosts and let me tell you a thing, watching them take down corrupt governments was a goddamn delight.
my requirements for sleeping at night:
is the pillow cool enough? are my legs positioned so they don't put too much weight on each other? are my arms tucked in nicely and not at odd angles? can I stop thinking about the day's events? is enough of my body out from under the blanket that I won't overheat? are my toes safely tucked in to hide them from monsters?
my requirements for sleeping in the morning:
is the surface vaguely horizontal and not made entirely out of hornets
Okay, so we all know that Poe went around the Resistance base telling everyone about the Handsome Stormtrooper that saved his life – but what about BB-8? Imagine BB-8 coming back to base and promptly telling everyone about the good brave human who saved his Poe. This is Finn he is so lovely, he is the best of all humans, look at him, be nice to him – he’s a little bit slow – doesn’t understand droid at all but he’s a quick learner.
And imagine ALL THE DROIDS falling into line, looking after Finn, and Finn is just so nice to them because he remembers what it’s like to be treated like you’re nothing, like you don’t have a personality. And they just adopt him: Finn the best human, they designate him, and R2-D2 – battle-hardened war vet that he is – teaches him binary but teaches him the bastardised sweary binary that all the older droids speak and BB-8 is innocent and oblivious and C3-PO is scandalised because Finn is going round saying things like fuck me this is hot in this little whistle-beep.
And whenever Finn sits down he’s surrounded by happy young droids who absolutely adore him, and he is just so nice and all the droids go out of their way to do things for him.
And yes. Give me sweet lovely Finn with his droid ducklings.
And when the base is attacked, it’s the droids who turn the base into a deathtrap for the invaders - doors that trap or crush, sanitation systems that break explosively, power that reroutes itself on the fly to keep one squad in the dark while on the other side of the base another entire squad is electrocuted courtesy of a misfiring sprinkler system - and at the helm coordinating everything is Finn, knee-deep in young droids chanting reports from every part of the base in between best human, best human, BEST HUMAN.
how do all the gay kids group together before any of them come out
is emo hereditary
You’re on your own for two out of three, but let me tell you a thing: short people are angry because our compacted physical forms compress and harden grudges and rages until they surpass the feeble coal-stuff of tall folk and the half-assed graphite of average heighted people, into pure and glistening diamond fury.
me, talking about gay people in history:
people who we would define as gay, lesbian, or bisexual have always existed, but it is important to remember that different cultures in different time periods view ideas of gender and sexuality in different ways, so we should be careful not to project our concepts and terminology onto them and make sure not to make assumptions without evidence when talking about them academically
a homophobic historian:
there's no way these important historical figures could ever have been gay
me:
wow guess what i've changed my mind, all of my historical faves are gay now, time to go write a dissertation about how gay my faves were, excuse me as i publish 50 articles about my gay-ass faves
character A slowly falls in love with character B over the course of several years, realization hits them that they’ve been in love with B for a long time hits them like a truck
cool badass is actually a giant fucking nerd
The Power of Friendship ™
flat “what” reactions
sweet adorable characters with horrible tragic pasts
villains-turned-heroes becoming the Weird Uncle
characters that aren’t actually related having a parent-child relationship
characters that aren’t actually siblings having a sibling-like bond
“I can’t stand this person but I would die for them”
THERE NEEDS TO BE A MOVIE ABOUT THE NIGHT WITCHES DAMNIT.
BADASS LADIES BOMBING THE SHIT OUTA NAZI’S. WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE??
OKAY WE”RE GONNA DO HISTORY KIDs, GET READY FOR THE MOST FACE-MELTINGLY AWESOME WAR STORY YOU’VE EVER HEARD about Irina Sebrova and the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, or Night Witches as the Nazi’s called them because they hated them so much. The Night Witches were a group of Russian Aviatrixes during WW2,
THESE ARE THEM, AND
THIS IS THEIR BADASS LEADER IRINA SEBROVA.
now Russia had absolute shit equipment during WW2, and since the Night Witches were all women they were given the shittest of the shit equipment, and by shit, I mean World War One era biplanes that would hardly fly.
Yeah, ^THIS^ is what they had to fly, their job was to fly stealth missions. STEALTH. MISSIONS. In a super loud bi-plane that was originally meant to be fucking crop-duster. Now, in this plane, the navigator sat in front and the pilot sat in back (fairly common for bi-planes). Now, since these planes were so deafeningly loud and they were supposed to be flying stealthy night missions, the Night Witches solved that problem, BY TURNING OFF THE GODDAMN PLANE AND GLIDING ON AIR CURRENTS OVER THEIR BOMBING SITE. That is hardcore as fuck. Now, in addition to basically being flying death-traps, these planes had a slight problem, and by slight problem, I mean sometimes the bombs wouldn’t release. Now how do you solve that problem? How can you complete your mission if the bombs don’t drop? Well, if you’re a Night Witch you do what the navigators would do, AND CLIMB ONTO THE FUCKING WING AND DETACH THE BOMB BY HAND! You thought turning off the plane was badass? The plane was off while they were climbing onto the wing of a plane made of cloth and wood! Now to make things more badass, the Night Witches weren’t given supplies that were deemed ‘extraneous’ like, oh, a goddamn PARACHUTE. Seriously, no parachutes, and Irina Sebrova survived being shot down, TWICE, each time having to dodge German patrols while surviving the Russian winter. Now, for an American bomber in World War 2, if he survived 25 missions he was given an honorable discharge and it was considered he had done his duty to the Allies. Want to know how many missions Irina Sebrova flew? It’s more than 25. Irina Sebrova, Wing Commander of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew 92, that’s almost four tours of duty for an American, and those were just day missions!! Guess how many night missions Sebrova flew? ONE THOUSAND EIGHT. That’s right, she flew 1,008 night missions and 92 day missions, if she was American this would have meant she completed forty-four tours of duty. The Night Witches weren’t just badasses, they were heroes with such incredible amounts of courage that they carried out the most insane acts of braveryto protect their homeland and their people.
THAT FIRST SITE IS EVERY WRITER’S DREAM DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I’VE TRIED WRITING SOMETHING AND THOUGHT GOD DAMN IS THERE A SPECIFIC WORD FOR WHAT I’M USING TWO SENTENCES TO DESCRIBE AND JUST GETTING A BUNCH OF SHIT GOOGLE RESULTS
Okay but for real, that first site is my favorite thing that the internet has ever produced. You can just type in some jargon and it’ll pull up a WHOLE LIST of words with stuff in common with the description you typed in, and you can comb through for the one you need.
