#Beyond Survival

[earthmoonlotus]

Then we remembered ourselves, remembered that trust is not earned - it is how we begin. It is the first thing we do. Learning to trust is returning to a beginner's mind, returning to our nature. We are meant to need each-other.

- Adrienne Maree Brown, from her essay "How We Learned (Are Learning) Transformative Justice".

Found in the anthology "Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement", compiled and edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

[danathon23]

I wrote a poem titled “SICK”. I decided to post it here while it’s July (2023), Disability Pride Month.

Image description: A brown paper journal lays open on top of light blue bed sheets. The page holds a poem written with grey and maroon colored pencils. An orange knit beanie lingers in the top right of the photo, creating a soft arched shadow that hesitates right above the poem. The title of the poem “SICK” appears in big letters and has an added effect that could be described as creating a shadow or a 3-Dimensional effect. The drawing of the word “sick” is what led me into writing the poem, which reads:

SICK

see how it rises / the letters of the word duplicate / double / there’s more / abundance here / sunshine and shadows love and / grieve — being / more possibilities / sinking beyond space and time

End image description.

[wombywoo]

retired 🩶

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Mike and Michael compare nightmares,,

[kagoutiss]

din’s champion

[s0fter-sin]

ghost fucking soap so hard and so good he passes out but he utterly panics about it

he thinks he must’ve ignored soap asking to stop; was it pain that made him pass out? how bad could it have been to make him pass out when he’s been shot and kept going? should he bring him to medical? he’ll never touch him again, he’ll never so much as look at him again; he’ll ask for a transfer- fuck that, a dishonourable discharge. there’s no coming back from this

he spirals, guilt chasing hatred chasing despair chasing fear, until soap finally wakes back up

soap's still floating, loose-limbed and buzzing; fucked so thoroughly out of his head that it takes him a while to notice ghost isn't in bed with him anymore. he frowns, lifting a heavy head off the pillow and freezes. ghost's on the other side of the room, curled up tight in the corner as far away from soap as he could get without leaving him alone

(he would've left, would've made sure soap never had to see his face again and be reminded of what he did to him, of the monster he’d let into his bed- but he couldn't just leave him unconscious; what if he didn't wake up, he had to make sure he was safe first even if he'll rightfully hate him forever when he does wake up)

soap's voice when he calls out to him makes him flinch, his head burying deeper in his knees. cold worry chases the bliss from his blood and soap pushes himself up but his shaking arms can't hold his weight

the sound of him collapsing back onto the bed makes ghost rear up, his panic growing and soap's heart breaks at his red rimmed eyes

it takes a long time for soap to coax him back to the bed, countless loops of, "sweetheart, please, come here, what happened? it's okay, everything’s going to be okay.”

(and how ghost’s self-hatred grows hearing soap comforting him; hearing the concern and love in his voice when he doesn’t deserve a drop of it)

it takes even longer for ghost to believe soap when he says that he passed out because he felt so good; that he never asked ghost to stop, never wanted him to stop. that he trusts him more than anything and knows he'd rather die than ever hurt him, especially like that

“you’re not a monster, love,” he promises, soft with conviction and it’s as much a surrender as a relief when he collapses into his lap and lets him hold him close

ghost believes johnny but he still can't bring himself to be intimate with him for a while; that fear still haunting him, but soap doesn't hold it against him, doesn't complain about ghost's perceived "step back" in their relationship

hell, ghost seems to hate it more than he does; he misses being with soap, misses the connection, the closeness they shared, the safety and quiet he found in his embrace, but he's always trusted soap more than he trusts himself

soap doesn't let him be consumed by his fear or worse, sabotage them and turn it into a punishment; doesn't let him even get through the suggestion of switching because he knows how much he hates it and he won’t let him twist something as good and pure as their physical love into something self-harming

instead, he brings them back to the basics, working through the steps to get ghost comfortable with intimacy again, to get him to trust himself again; spends happy months just grinding and exchanging handjobs like when their relationship first started

and it's a happy day for them both when soap finally falls apart on his cock once again, anxiety the farthest thing from ghost's mind when his arms are wrapped so tightly around him, kissing a smile against his lips

[stealingpotatoes]

dinluke making utterly zero sense but catching so much popularity is my favorite thing to exist ever

no no no this is slander it DOES make sense!! u gotta think, dinluke didn't get popular out of nowhere, they got popular after they canonically met. what 2 other things happened in this episode? 1. din's son going with luke to be a jedi and 2. din becoming mand'alor. you know what that leads to? 1. a reason for din and luke to continue to interact and 2. spicy conflict and a shitload of shared struggle. Din and Luke both have to lead/unite/help their disparate, genocided people, are both strongly devoted to their creeds, both fierce warriors willing to do a helluva lot to protect those they love, and like loaaaads more. they might seem pretty different on the surface but at their cores they rlly match up and share a very particular set of experiences and again HAVE REASON TO MEET REPEATEDLY

and that'd be enough on its own but then you have that against their peoples' ancient feud and bam you have some romeo and juliet spiced in there. and w that, even if you ignore the mand'alor stuff you still have their devotions to their religions (+ w that the conflict of intimacy and want and din's helmet/the old code getting in the way), din knowing NOTHING abt famous hero luke and ofc din actively trying to avoid being the main character vs luke being the Most main character ever. its just. im normal abt them

[outlanderalien]

Me, age 10, believing I just saw Mrs Tweedy get boiled alive in gravy:

Me, age 25, believing I just saw Mrs Tweedy go headfirst into a meat grinder:

[turtleblogatlast]

“Haven’t You Noticed (I’m a Star)” from Steven Universe works so ridiculously well for Leo

[laufire]

in a literal sense, this is just a funny moment regarding a case that terry is right about involving an unimportant tertiary character. spiritually, this is about stephanie brown, and I'm gonna kick up the ladder from under that man.

[crazy-fangirl2524]

Wymack, Bee, Nicky and Kevin are so underrated in regards to how fundamentally they helped Andrew. Without them Andrew would never have anyone to even take a chance at him. Without Wymack, he wouldn’t have college and exy, without nicky he wouldn’t even have a “home”, without Bee, Andrew’s mental state would have been way way worse, and without Kevin, Andrew wouldn’t have a purpose.

Neil may be the catalyst and Andrew’s main reason to actually live. But these four people (and Aaron) are Andrew’s cornerstones, his foundation, are what’s holding him up before Neil josten even existed.

[bhaalsdeepbat]

Lae'zel is like a play on the "I'm not other girls" thing, except she's trying SO hard to be like other Gith girls. She's trying to steel her heart and be a perfect soldier in the collective army serving beneath Vlaakith. No will of her own. Just blind servitude alongside the other Gith who are also denying their own individualism.

Rather than gutting the companions right then and there - as any other Githyanki would do - she joins them AND promises them a cure. A cure that was meant to be ONLY for Githyanki warriors. And she doesn't know about the lies or the fact that he cure is a death sentence, but she still extends that olive branch to the group. She'll speak up when she's grouchy and try to project a hard exterior, but she's SO secretly soft.

When you approach Rosymorn, she'll stay on that part of the map if you try to leave. Upon returning, you can make her admit she missed you.

You can make the strong Gith who was raised to pillage, kill, and conquer admit that she missed the player character.

Lae'zel isn't like other Gith Girls.

Her act two scene is trying to progress the romance as though it were between two Gith raised within that culture. It's a fight to prove your worth through your battle prowess, which makes only the best *warriors* worthy of companionship. However, it becomes clear that isn't want Lae'zel wants. If the player loses, and Bae'zel beats the fuck out of them, she becomes distraught because she doesn't WANT to fight her romantic partner.

She wants to mutually protect one another. She wants companionship with her partner. She wants to enjoy the sunrise with them, feel the tickle of the night breeze, see the Tears of Selune chase after the moon across the night sky, she wants to live and she wants to share those experiences with her love. She doesn't WANT to be the stone cold Gith that she was raised to be.

Lae'zel wasn't given any role to do with the eggs, but once the egg is in the party's possession, she's instantly drawn to it. When Xan hatches, she gives him a name to represent that he'll be raised to be free to be himself. He'll have the freedom to choose his own path, whatever that maybe. Xan DOESN'T have to be like the other Gith. He could be a scholar, an artist, a warrior, anything he wishes to be. It's his life and Lae'zel is just happy to see her little Xan be raised with the freedom she didn't realize she craved until she arrived on that silly little planet.

Lae'zel isn't like other Gith girls because no two people are the same, even if raised in the same circumstances and culture. Everyone is an individual, even when they serve a collective or are fighting alongside Allies with the same main goal.

Lae'zel isn't just a nameless, faceless soldier. She isn't interchangeable with other Gith. She isn't like the other Gith girlies.

[emoreooo]

oh, come on. everyone’s afraid of something.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

my propellor, boston 08/05/2009

[quinn-of-aebradore]

I keep thinking about how Ashton’s been acting lately and I coming back to them saying that they’ve earned “a minor sense of superiority” for all they’ve been through in their life and then how through a lot of what they said after that demonstrates that that sense of superiority goes far beyond being minor. Especially the way they laughed and said “who else?” when the Hells asked themselves if they should really be the ones deciding if the balance of the world should be upended and remade. It carried a lot less of a “well who else is going to do it?” energy that I think it might’ve once carried, the sort of thing the Nein might say, and instead felt more like a “you really want anyone else but us choosing that?”, which aligns with the wildly out-of-hand way they were behaving in the council meeting. They really seem to be placing themself above everyone that was in that council room, especially with how they repeatedly said that all of those delegates are stupid and blind and so on, particularly those who answer to divine powers (I cannot remember if Ashton directly said that last night, but I feel like it would align with what they did say even if they didn’t put it that clearly).

What makes that very interesting to me is that Ashton is also a vessel for a higher power now, a power that—from the way they seem to be looking at things—is grander and older and more powerful than the gods themselves; a titan. They may not answer to Rau’shan, but they channel her power just as surely as any cleric or paladin might channel their deity’s powers. Which is a little hypocritical, but that’s not my point.

I keep wondering that if maybe, probably on a subconscious level, that connection to an older power than the gods is fueling Ashton’s sense of superiority over the gods and those who follow them.

[solivagantingrebel]

The "Actually, I believe he prefers to be—" "That'll do." Exchange lives rent-free in my brain like. What was Soap going to say? Was it 'L.t'? But I think technically Alejandro is higher ranked than him (Ghost) right(?) So I'm not sure if that works entirely and 'L.t' seems to be something that other marines/or soldiers under their command picks up anyway (probably from Soap idk, but others do call Ghost that). Was it like, 'Simon' or 'Si'? I know he calls Ghost Simon occasionally and maybe the quick shutdown of Soap's sentence comes from Ghost wanting to keep the emotional distance from others. But considering the absolute vitriol of which Ghost says, nay spits, "That'll do." I wonder if Soap has gotten away with introducing Ghost with the stupidest names, like 'Ghostie' or 'Sisi', in the past 💀