#we never got a first dance

[ramayantika]

Okay but the life of the legendary Shovana Narayan altered my brain chemistry, a superb academic record hold, a maestro in kathak and then also a civil services officer with a long distance marriage and motherhood

If she could do this in the 50s and 60s, wtf is stopping me from doing so, when I have never wanted just one thing to define me

[dreadful-luck]

GGS TEAM PAST!!!

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

“You did not live in a house of horrors. I was raised to believe in hellfire; now that was bad!” Okay and impending global genocide of any culture that disagrees with your beliefs isn’t? Being raised mentally preparing to withstand torture at the hands of police in a “do it to Julia” situation isn’t? Being socially isolated from your peers on the grounds that they’re evil uneducated dumb worldly heathens controlled by Satan isn’t a bad thing? No. Those are all good things which every child should be taught in order to experience “the real life.”

The legitimate truth is that we are all in “the real life” right now and in “the real life,” the Governing Body is doing the very best they can to cover up the fact that they’re a cult by relaxing the cult’s rules in a futile attempt to prevent the prosecution in the numerous ONGOING child sexual abuse cases from handing their non-tight-pants-wearing asses to them. And the other legitimate truth is discovering this fact to be the legitimate truth while having to navigate a sea of lies and high school is extremely traumatizing, especially when you feel the need to take a hard stance against the cult to prevent others’ children — children like you — from befalling the same fate by dressing up as some miserable wretch who cooked and ate children, hoping the way you look and carry yourself and stare into the parents’ eyes will scare them away. And even more traumatizing is that your tactics worked; proving that you are just as bad and scary as your preexisting OCD made you out to be. Yes I did it to myself; but consider the reason why I felt so compelled to sacrifice the entirety of my mental health to sabotage you with what little tools I had. I wouldn’t have done it had I not had a very good reason, and my very good reason was that I was a child who loved children. You were trying to protect me and it was a sacrifice; but I was also trying to protect children. My endeavor is not — and was never — a selfish one. It is not that I don’t care about you; I only prioritize the class which is most oppressed, and you are not a part of it because you are adults. Your feelings, unfortunately, are expendable in my mission to end religious child labor. I will not support your corrupt religion to make you happy when I know what it’s done to others and to myself; it is wrong, and you are wrong for supporting it. I, as a paraprofessional, refuse to support a religion which hides the sexual abuse of children for its own gain. By law I am now a mandatory reporter; I must report child abuse when I see it under penalty of law. Therefore it stands to reason that I must report your cult from the top of every mountain for the entire inhabited earth to hear so they may not even take so much as one step in your direction. I am sorry if I seem like I hate you; if the fact that I reject your ideals of theological expectational fascism disturbs you so much, then maybe you need to re-evaluate your choices.

“Your actions affect others.” I know my actions affect others; I know how they affect others as well. You’re crushed and demoralized and suffering physically from all the emotional stress; I’ve likely dug you both early graves. I know what I’ve done and I can live with it — Not easily — but I am not defeated because I know I’m in the right, and have always been in the right. No. The real question is: Do you know how your actions are affecting others? In exquisite detail? Have you listened to the victims? Have you allowed yourself to hear both sides of the story with your human ears, not ones made of tin and thought-blocking strategies and “I had it worse than you” excuses? No? Then you’d better start because the key to healing yourself is to aid in the healing of others. We are all connected as one body; and I refuse to be a cancer cell. Sorry I’m aiding in your downfall but it’s got to happen at some point.

[hella1975]

my sister is currently doing her nightly *douse myself in water for 5 mins despite it leaving PUDDLES EVERYWHERE BTW and then spend 20 mins applying imported skincare i spent all my money on* in SILENCE sans any form of music meanwhile she walked in on me having a party of one (1) at myself in the bathroom mirror to set it off of all things. it's a bit funny that we are related by blood

[saturnsfather]

yknow. if i had a nickel for every time i had a huge crush on someone, never did anything about it, then reconnected with them several years later only to be told that they Also Had Feelings For Me or Currently Have Feelings For Me, except because of the time distance or other factors i/we cant/wont do anything about it and then i pretty much never see them again, id have two nickels. which isnt a lot, but it sure did happen twice.

[delusion-of-negation]

90% of "your group never experiences X like my group" could be solved by people asking "hey do you ever experience X or things like it?" first just to be sure, and 90% of "you think my group isn't experiencing X like yours" could be solved by asking "do you think my group experiences X or things like it?" before jumping to that conclusion based on misunderstanding what they said, sorry bro.

[hanaasbananas]

saw a post earlier about how well behaved you were in school/how often you got in trouble and I can't find it again BUT it made me think of a couple of times I got completely REAMED by my teachers.

NUMBER ONE

One time when I was in year 6 so..11? I think? it was 2008/9, I'd just discovered Fruits Basket and was practically in love with Kyo Sohma. That's fine, right? Perfectly normal experience

UNTIL we got set a homework task to write a short 1000 word essay on any subject and what did I choose?

Well. I chose to copy and paste the ENTIRE Wikipedia article about Fruits Basket. The whole thing. And then I painstakingly went through my entire document, removing every single hyperlink so that "Mrs M won't know that I didn't write this and will be so impressed by how much i wrote". ARE YOU SURE. ARE YOU SURE HANAA

she did notice. Almost immediately when I rocked up with a STACK of paper and everyone else had like, one page and I still had the GALL to show off "how much work I did" to everyone else on my table. where is this confidence NOW??? when I NEED IT.

anyway turns out my friend ALSO plagiarised her paper about tigers but she didn't take out the hyperlinks so we both got yelled at for 10 minutes during break, absolutely sobbed our little hearts out and then were told to wash our faces and calm down in the last 5 mins lmaoo

I think the funniest part of this story is that Mrs M ended up being one of my favourite primary school teachers, though I never plagiarised a Wikipedia article again.

NUMBER TWO

The second instance I got absolutely WRECKED by a teacher was in year 8 dance. Yes, dance. I absolutely LOATHED dance. Despised it. Was absolutely HORRIFIED when I started secondary school in year 7 and found out it was MANDATORY for two years.

(Essentially all subjects are mandatory until u choose ur gcse options, at which point you only do the core subjects aka maths english science and then 4 other subjects of ur choice. most schools have u choose options in year 9 bc year 10 is when you sit your gcse exams but THANK GOD my school made u choose in year 8 so you could have a practise run with the subjects you chose in year 9 and change them if u wanted to)

I didn't mind doing drama, (though i HATEd having to take ur shoes and socks off in the classroom), didn't mind ICT or food tech or graphic design or DT or geography. I HATED dance.

And also, unfortunately when I started my secondary school the lessons were LONG. The day was from 8.45-2.45 (unless you were an older student and had later lessons. Having a maths lesson at 2.45 and watching everyone going home SUCKED.) and for the first 3 years while I was there each lesson was AN HOUR AND A HALF. NINETY MINUTES. So you only had 3 lessons a day if you finished at 2.45 but they were really painfully long.

(They did switch to 1 hour lessons eventually and and sometimes you'd have a double period of a subject but that was fine.)

ANYWAY back to the story- despised dance, had to do it anyway. I surilvived one year, but then I had a stricter teacher in year 8 and one time we had an end of year assessment where we'd been practising dance lifts all term and she gave us 45 mins to pair up and come up with a dance sequence that had lifts in it and then perform it to the whole class at the end.

and the thing is, I was (am) a little heavy. So I knew I'd be the one doing the lifting. No problem. Until it came to pairing up because I was shy and quiet I only hung out w two other girls.

do you see where this is going?

those two friends of mine (TRAITORS) paired up so I was left with another shy muslim girl who I vaguely knew as a friend of a friend. She was lovely, honestly but things Didnt Go Well.

and by that I mean she couldn't lift me and wouldn't let ME lift HER so we could come up with something, anything. and I was CHRONICALLY shy. so I wasn't about to go tell the teacher, then my partner would hate me!!

time comes to perform. all of us sit on the floor against the mirror as the teacher goes down the line and sees everyone's performance.

we were last

we had nothing

"what were you doing for the last 45 minutes then girls? everyone else managed to do it, why didn't you?"

i tried to explain as articulately as I could, which is v impossible when you are a 12 year old trying not to start crying as you are BEING YELLED AT IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE (SILENT) CLASS. my partner didn't cry but she also didn't tell the teacher why she didn't let me lift her.

naturally, we were given detention. and this was in the time when detention was the same amount of time as a lesson. AN HOUR AND A HALF DETENTION. I was distraught. What would my mum say when I had to stay late after school? I'd NEVER gotten a detention before I couldn't believe it!!

the ultra humiliating part was this was at the end of the day and we all got changed in the dance studio, they had like, open lockers at the back to put your stuff in so I couldn't even leg it out of class at the end I had to get changed next to my classmates all while they're sneaking glances at me and I'm just. Sobbing.

I think the teacher did feel bad about how much I was crying though because she told us that she'd email us to let us know when the detention would be and never did. I skipped class the week after just in case she remembered but I escaped unscathed.

[astro-inthestars]

Hi guess who feels like he just experienced 8 consecutive days in a matter of 2?

[woulddieforloki]

so who wants to do my homework and study for my midterm for me so I can finally start my "genderfluid Loki starts hiding out on earth in her female form and takes up dance classes after fAkInG tHeIr DeAtH in TDW and accidentally picks the same studio Nat and Wanda decide to take tap lessons at which goes fine until Thor shows up at the dance recital at the end of the year" fic?

[todayisafridaynight]

ok game’s done how we all feelin

[glittertimes]

As a 24 year old I’m kind of over drinking culture. The last time I really drank it took me a week to recover from it loll, I’ve been getting really dizzy since a covid infection 2 years ago, and I had a really bad flare-up a month ago after celebrating a friends birthday.

But even before that I drank pretty minimally and I didn’t like how my friends put the responsibility of caring for them on me when they put themselves in harmful situations. I’m always going to be there for my friends, but it takes a toll caring for people and watching them not have that same care for themselves.

And then it’s funny and normalized when people drink all the time.

[seven-homosexual-dinosaurs]

Dude the song born this way by lady gaga literally gets me so emotional

[altarboysalteredboys]

crying and throwing up bc my ballet teacher is going to make us do center tomorrow

[freckleslikestars]

The kids I teach think I’m magic because I have a puzzle ring that falls apart when I take it off but stays together when I wear it. It’s just very sweet.

[weareuniqueandimportant]

WE WATCHED HIGHSPEED ETOILE EPISODE 11... DAMN QUEEN IS GETTING HER ASS KICKED WHILE KING'S IS SQUEAKY CLEAN... AT THE SAME TIME THAT MIGHT BE THEY'RE GOING TO PULL SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT TO HER CHARACTER NEXT EPISODE... AND SHE MIGHT END UP MORE COMPLEX AND INTERESTING THAN THE KING IS... BTW HER REACTION TO RIN PASSING HER IS VERY CUTE AND FUNNY... COULD THIS BE... WLW X CAR RACE ATTRACTION PARAPHILIA REPRESENTATION...?!?! THAT WOULD BE FLAMES... INFACT I ALREADY DECIDED THIS... IF THERE'LL BE MORE SEASONS THERE COULD BE ALOT MORE SUCH CONTENT TBH... FIRE TO BE HONEST... SPY KYOUSHITSU GOT MUCH BETTER WITH SEASON 2... COULD THIS BE JUST ANOTHER SLOW STARTING BANGER...? COULD BE COULD BE... THEN... ALL THOSE OTHER SERIES COULD BE THE SAME... ALL OF THEM TBH... THAT WOULD BE FLAMES TBH...

[jewishvitya]

A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.