#but don't use other people's shit

[nexus-nebulae]

shoutout to people who don't have a "before" the trauma.

shoutout to people who don't have any sweet or nostalgic childhood memories. to people who don't remember enough of their childhood to know what the before was like. to people who lost their innocence before they ever learned the word for it. to people whose pasts were too painful to keep around in any form. to people who only knew trauma, and don't have an idea of what life would be like without it. to people who can't long for "the better days" because there weren't any.

you deserve a good future. i hope it's there for you soon.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Council of lovefools.

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[dedusmuln]

yeah you support trans people but are you normal about trans men who choose to get pregnant

[uncanny-tranny]

I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.

It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.

[vampiresinforks]

petition to A) use pictures of the same size when putting them in photoset and B) not fucking including other people's graphics and gifs in them

the rise of twilight aesthetic posts that just slap rando google pics with other people's gifs together is alarming!!! and the note counts on them are even more alarming

[bixels]

This Twitter MLP human redesign drama is a mess, leave me the fuck out of it.

[knifearo]

ultimately when it comes to shipping and fandom space treatment of aspec characters i just don't accept "aro/ace people can still date/have sex" as an answer from nonaspecs. like yeah. mhm. okay. now i think we both know that you're not saying that out of real interest in the diversity of aspec experiences. so you can turn in your seventeen-page essay on why and how you plan to examine this character's aspec identity within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship complete with evidence from canon and peer reviews from multiple aspec people within the next week or i'm putting you in the pit from the edgar allen poe story

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[gunstreet]

sorry I'm not a photoshop master but would someone mind hanging this up in the SNW writers' room because I think we have all had enough

[puppetmaster13u]

Meme Prompts 14

[trans-axolotl]

also this is the reason why i hate the whole discussion about "oh can we still say hermaphrodite in science discussions" because like. you all do not fucking understand the weight of the word. what it feels like when someone calls you a hermaphrodite when you are fearing for your fucking life. the amount of times i had to call myself a hermaphrodite because no one fucking knew what intersex meant but i needed to find a way to disclose that to clients so i didn't end up assaulted again when they were surprised. you don't know how much i fucking hated myself for that and what that was fucking like to experience at 16. like. that is what that word means to me! that's what i think of when i hear it! lots of other intersex people have their own stories, their own ways this slur was weaponized against us and written down in our medical records and a million fucking things. so i really don't want to hear from dyadic people who have never had this slur used against them about how hard it is to find an alternative word and how they just really really need to be able to still say it because of all the scientific discussions that are happening all the time or whatever. literally fuck off i don't care

[izzyspussy]

the fact that they made it illegal to make ads louder than programs on tv in 2010 but haven't updated it to apply the same regulation to streaming. who do i have to call.

[dxxtruction]

"Louis acting like a pimp to Armand" And what is a pimp exactly? Quickly. And, oh so sexual trauma survivors can't engage in kink now without it being all about that? Pet names? They can't be submissive anymore? Consensually? Sexually healthy? Be serious. I'd hardly say there's much power difference between them during all this anyway, except that Louis is freer than Armand and it's been putting a strain on their relationship. Louis wants more from Armand, and less of this 'being his past' for them both, and so helping Armand with this could fix that. It's healthy to want to help your partners get out of a rough patch?

I mean, the whole exchange was very clearly set up as a "I want to help you" after such a great moment of vulnerability Louis feels just how much Armand is desperate for it. Louis called Armand so they could work out a plan together.

And the bit with the umbrella was Louis' way of asking 'are you willing to listen to me?' and Armand said yes by unfolding it. Louis goes on and explains, Armand is allowed to argue against it, but Louis makes his point. And then he gives Armand a way to make his own choice in it too. Armand's already decided 'I want you, more than anything else in the world', but Louis still asks after if he's sure of his choice, and with a name, Arun, that is the one of his fullest agency, running the point home. Honoring the situation Armand calls Louis Maitre - as a way of being like 'I'll do as you've said then'. To make this work he's going to have to give Louis some of the control, yes. But it's the first time such a role is ever established, and it was his choice to do it. So so what if they do it in a very suggestive way? They can't like doing that? I think it's them having fun.

I struggle to find how Louis is being overly domineering here when really he's giving and offering Armand the most agency he's ever had. Same with finding it manipulative. The manipulation was more earlier in the episode I think, when he was stringing him along, giving mixed signals. He's no longer toying with him like that. Louis might be pushing Armand, leading him on to make a decision, but he doesn't mean bad by it.

But back to this pimp thing. I find it frankly offensive that this is where people are going with this. I get it, but to run with it being the case is, on many levels, wrong.

Louis told us episode 1 this was the only sustainable line of work to support his family and keep their standing, at the time. It was never his choice to be doing this either but his blackness allowed no other options. He did what he did so his family could stay in that house and maintain all their same comforts. It gave him privileges most black men didn't have at the time that he wanted to maintain and even have more of. Anyway, it doesn't and had never defined him the way 'being good at running things' had. And in that case he just likes having that kind of control where he can get it, which makes sense.

The world is what placed that kind of role onto him of what he was allowed to be able to run, not himself. And on that he actually treated the sex workers he employed well and respected them enough to give them more opportunity.** He recognizes they don't have much in the way of options either.

Louis employed sex workers, yes, but he didn't subject them to abuse, (like how Armand was)*. He didn't oversee things in a way that would go against their consent (see; episode 1 again)**. Sometimes a job is just a job. And Sex work is work.

Armand's particular past with sexual abuses may strike a particular cord with Louis, given all that, but the very last thing either is thinking is that Louis' pimping Armand out here. This is merely their decision as companions, and had nothing to do with adding another line in a laundry list of selling Armands body out to people at the command of someone else. Armand rescinds some of his control to Louis' wishes, because he wants him, and he trusts him, that's all.

If you aren't allowing Armand that choice, and are doubtful it's fully his, you're putting him right back in the box of being defined by his abuses. Putting him back into that space where he isn't given any agency over what he does. (Which is exactly opposite of what the intent of this scene is for)*.

*: (edit) added for clarity.

**: (strike through) numerous people are saying I'm misremembering these points so disregard it. (Thought he was siding with Bricks, it was the other way around). (Technically one aspect of those opportunities were for getting around the law). I don't have a perfect memory, it happens. Let's not get mad about it. Doesn't change much of the point which is that Louis, now, Louis then, was always considering more about the running things and for stated purposes. So I guess I'd say he may only have respected the SWers enough sometimes for what allowed him to do that, and there are moments he certainly expressed remorse over the fact, but he has a great deal higher respect for Armand that is genuine. It's incomparable. Please read my added notes in the tags, it should address most other concerns.

[ale-arro]

thinking about a post i saw that was like "it's hard to use the word 'crush' as an alloaro bc people will automatically assume it's romantic" and i feel like i've recently been made to acknowledge another aspect of this which is that in distancing myself from the idea that my crushes are romantic i end up like, minimizing them? treating them like they're insignificant to me or weak in quantity because if i act too serious about it then it will be Assigned Romantic. but isn't that just more amatonormativity? the idea that if the feelings i have for someone are substantial then they must be romantic

[hazel2468]

Something that I need people to understand, especially on this hellsite. Is that oppression does not depend on who you actually are.

It depends on how the world sees you.

If the world sees you as X identity. They will treat you as X identity, whether you are or not. If the world sees that you are not X identity, but they can use the oppression of X identity as a cudgel to make you act the way they want you to? They will use it.

Oppression is NOT dependent on who you actually are. It depends on how the world sees you. It depends on how people see you and what they decide to put on you because of that.

Oh. And when someone experiences a form of oppression that is NOT based in the reality of who they are? It's still that kind of oppression. It's not "misdirected"- it is still that kind of oppression being leveraged to maintain the current social climate.

[feroluce]

So I'm well aware this is probably a case of "it isn't that deep" but I love looking at all the fiddly little accessories and bits and bobs of Hoyo designs and trying to justify them. Sampo's is particularly funny, because. What even is all that dkkxjdkd

His outfit has so many straps wrapped around him, like they're restraining or holding something in to keep it from bursting at the seams, and not all of them look like they're even connected to anything! But I'd like to think they are useful in certain situations, like if Sampo takes a hit out in the Fragmentum from one of the monsters.

He's hurt, his arm is bleeding, but he is ALMOST done, he just needs a couple more things to fulfill his quota to Natasha and he doesn't want to turn around and go back now. So Sampo frees a strap from his shirt, winds it around his arm above the cut, pulls it tight with his free hand and his teeth. He'll treat it properly in a minute, once he's done scavenging.

There's also the strange chains that resemble snake spines. Given how they're way longer in his splash art and the way they wind around-

I'd like to think they can extend somehow, and Sampo can use them to scale heights. Firefly clocks him as a covert fighter without even being within 20 feet of him, so it would make sense for Sampo to have ways to get around that don't involve usual/obvious methods, like stairs. Think assassin skill sets.

He's also the only one known to be able to get between the Underground and the overworld, and while he's pretty tight-lipped about his method, having some sort of device to help traverse vertical heights is probably insanely helpful there.

And the little metal ornaments across the backs of his wrists! You can see it a bit better in his reference sheet (everyone say thanks @/dragaliareferencearchive!) as opposed to his splash art-

they aren't flat, they stick up a bit off his arms. And so I wonder if Gepard has ever gone to arrest Sampo, and found that they interfere with his handcuffs haha

The ornaments don't match, the one on his right wrist is actually shorter and doesn't extend down to the back of his hand. Which probably doesn't make it nearly as annoying for handcuffs as the left one, but it would make sense for Sampo to have them like that, since he seems to be right-handed! I think a certain proficiency in being ambidextrous is necessary to dual wield daggers like he does, but. Sampo uses his right hand to

hold his blade in his splash art

throw his blade in his skill

play/show off with his dagger in his idle

lob smoke bombs in his technique

cross over his heart when he bows

and to flip his bangs during the cutscene where he saves the trailblazers from Bronya

So a shorter guard on his right hand would help him keep his wrist's flexibility to be able to do all that unimpeded (loving the thought now that Sampo is naturally right-handed and still better with it, but he practiced constantly with his left until he could do things passably ambidextrous).

I also love them because I wonder if they're in the perfect place to help block a hit, along with the chain wrapped around his left forearm.

Like I love the image of a hired killer soundlessly sneaking up behind Sampo in some shady dark alley, knife sloooooowly raising, and then all at once, they strike!

And instead of feeling the blade sink into his back, they get the unpleasant resonating of metal-on-metal shivering up their arm and rattling their bones, because Sampo has turned around at the last second and raised his crossed his arms to let the knife glance off the guards on his wrists.

And the mercenary is left to realize that oh, they are fucked.