#unconditional regards

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

‘Stupid idea. I’ve only got stupid ideas’

‘What makes Ed happy is you’

‘I’m sorry if my horrible naked chin disgusts you so much’

‘I love your chin, naked or otherwise…I love everything about you’

I am flawed and unlovable. You’re wonderful, I love all of you!

If only they could see themselves through the other’s eyes.

[lavender-elle]

do any of you gyns have resources for writing to female prisoners in the uk? i read that regular contact with someone "on the outside" drastically increases their chances of re-integration with society upon release, but the only active uk penpal program i can find doesn't let you choose the gender of who you write to and i don't want to write to a moid

[littlescaryinternetguy]

Sometimes, I want to be cupped in the palm of someone thirty-three times my size, hugging a fingertip to myself, as they tell me it's going to be ok. And other times, I want to be in their ear, telling them its going to be ok. Not sure if I've ever really considered a time where both of us are ok, but it'll happen sometime probably.

[seventh-district]

tfw you're trying to write a Genshin fic but ur memory is shit so u have to leave urself [REMINDERS] to come back and correct your spelling/figure out NPC names/scour the wiki to double-check character and story lore, because if u even so much as glance away from the google doc in the moment you'll lose all of your writing momentum

coughs [link to some other (better) excerpts from the fic since the post didn't make it into the tags and i'm too lazy to remake it]

[skid-the-mighty-poet]

[stellerssong]

like 99% of the time i WILL be like "actually as a woc participating in fandom the LET WOMEN BE HORRID EVIL MURDERESS CUNTS conversation does nothing for me, because in general that conversation revolves around taking female characters of color who have been portrayed as nothing but good-to-heroic in canon and applying totally revisionist readings to their characterizations that play on stereotypical views of women of color as sexual aggressors/morally suspect/uniquely untrustworthy and uphold fandom's priors regarding the victimization and overwhelming narrative value of white men" because that is almost without exception the behavior i see in fandom

the other 1% of the time fumi nikaido is being so so compellingly evil on my teavee screen so never mind all that i guess. let lady ochiba be a horrid evil murderess cunt.

[conscious-pisces]

“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

—Vincent Van Gogh

[myersbprd]

AT   THE   MOMENT,     YOU   WANT…     

to be loved...

it's lonely, despite people constantly reassuring you. platonic or romantic, you crave to feel warm, to feel held, to feel worthwhile and to feel cared for. you yearn for that feeling, like a spot of sun hitting your skin on a breezy day. you want validation, love, from those who surround you. you aren't sure how to ask, or if you can. there's fear there, you can't figure out if they care, if this is love, if they're sincere. perhaps your shoes were muddied, during a long walk in the rain, and you fell, and you were muddied as well. you got home, finally, and washed off, but part of you still feels muddied. your past is not the present. someone loves you. reach out, and express that you need that love, and surely, someone will reciprocate.

TAGGED: @spirit-x-ing ( thank you! ) TAGGING: @legaciestold @amused-bouche @doyl1st @shireentheunburnt + whoever else wants to do this.

[ohwaitwhatdamn]

CW: Death, murder, veterans

Thinking about some of my past veteran clients....what a time...four years of my life working with homeless justice-involved veterans.

When I met Client A for the first time at my office. He told me a story and sobbed the entire time. He described in great detail how the army did a surprise night attack and was dropping tanks in addition to parachuters from planes......People and tanks were landing everywhere and anywhere. Splattering bodies and so much death.

Or another client who was in Vietnam and ordered 'Shoot to Kill' and wrote me letters in great detail and told me stories in person. Client B explained that when he used drugs, it made him stop seeing the children he "was forced to murder".....he abandoned his children because he was "a trained killer," and he was "scared of hurting" his kids because he couldn't stop seeing the faces of the ones he was forced to murder. Fuck. The. Military.

When I met Client C, it was almost four years after he started writing me from the jail then from Western State. He wasn't eligible for any VA resources because he served in the Army National Guard and didn't have enough active duty. He was on a competency hold and finally was released last year. He found love at the shelter and got married. Thinking about his face when I was able to get him a disability housing voucher. He cried and told me he had been homeless for nine years.......

[connieaaa]

"Unconditional Positive Regard" is 10000x what Christianity was for me. I just have personal boundaries and then I am free to help HOWEVER I want. No rules, no regulations.

I don't have to forgive 7 times, or 70 times, or 490 times. I am free to help on the 730th time because I believe in you, and I am not draining my own personal resources.

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

‘You Wear Fine Things Well’ is so important. I should imagine Ed has had a lot of sexual attention over the years during his time in piracy. Maybe the Blackbeard persona has kept intimacy at arms length, but sexual objectification exists; only that very evening has Ed been depersonalised and subjected to exoticism by the French Aristos. Stede’s interaction with Ed here is something else entirely.

Stede does not define Ed as exotic. He doesn’t objectify him by his outward appearance. He speaks directly to his personhood with a genuine compliment, stating that Ed has the sophistication, inner character, and bearing to carry off ‘fine things’.

Ed might feel seduced, but Stede is not trying to seduce. There is no motive behind the action and comment other than sincere kindness. And in that moment, Ed is transformed, forever.

As a person of mixed-heritage, this scene was life-changing for me.

[novelistparty]

I like a compliment yes, but I love small affirming comments. don't even have to be words when someone sees what I'm up to or going for and looks at me and nods in a "ya I see the vision, you're on to something" sort of way. that's the magic of life

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I think that the radically connected world sometimes forgets there are still many, SIZEABLE pockets of people where they truly don't ever see possibilities other than religious authoritarian marriage and family making. And in areas you might not think are vulnerable to it.

It's easy to believe that because MORE OF US are being raised with access to this knowledge and opportunity, that ALL OF US must be. But that isn't true.

Maybe it’s worth trying to get through to the internet tradwife and coquette contingent that you have way more time and money to engage in the more stereotypically feminine hobbies and aesthetics if you have control over your own finances and time and personal tastes and don’t get married or have children before your time.

[conscious-pisces]

“In marriage there must be complete companionship and concern for each other on the part of both husband and wife, in health and in sickness and at all times, because they entered upon the marriage for this reason as well as to produce offspring. When such caring for one another is perfect, and the married couple provide it for one another, and each strives to outdo the other, then this is marriage as it ought to be and deserving of emulation, since it is a noble union. But when one partner looks to his own interests alone and neglects the other's, or (by Zeus) the other is so minded that he lives in the same house, but keeps his mind on what is outside it, and does not wish to pull together with his partner or to cooperate, then inevitably the union is destroyed, and although they live together their common interests fare badly, and either they finally get divorced from one another or they continue on in an existence that is worse than loneliness.”

—Musonius Rufus

[no-longer-prophetic]

Being a therapist:

Sometimes, people may just give you their mask, their ego, their defenses...

But, don't misunderstand the potential benefit of you taking all of that from them, without judging them. Taking it as a clear mirror, with unconditional positive regard.

That may provoke something in someone.

I reflect that sometimes, I say things that later on, don't feel fully correct.

But the fact that I had a space to express myself in that moment , which then allowed the later reflection, which then offered to me the allowance that I can now choose whether it felt correct or not, for ME.. allowing that process to unfold, free from judgment of the other... That is a blessing, to me.

To those of you who are standing to do your best to be a judgment-free zone, to offer safety to those, to offer spaciousness for others to make their own decisions on what feels right or not for them.... Salute xx

[ohwaitwhatdamn]

The past two days, I was surrounded by people who created a culture of inclusion, acceptance, and empathy. I was quite moved by the things I saw and the stories that I heard. There were times I definitely cried as I am during this writing. From spoken word poets to somebody wrongfully convicted and exonerated, expanding peer services to making mental health services accessible for all to celebrating the individual - the totality of a person. Resilience. Radical Honesty. To learn a person - the totality. The patience, humility, and intentionalism. To walk alongside someone.

I feel changed in some ways.