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#I always wanted these as a kid
laughingcatwrites · 6 months
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As a reminder that good exists out there, a coworker recently confessed to me that he found out his child is questioning their identity (kid's gender redacted for this post). The kid is keeping it from him, so he can't say anything to them or show that he knows, but he's doing his best to get mentally prepared and educated so that he'll be ready whenever his kid does feel comfortable enough come to him.
For context, this guy is a big, bulky middle aged dude who loves sports and typical outdoor "manly" activities. As his coworker and friend, I know he's a kind and sweet teddy bear of a person, but his kid probably views him as a stern, authoritarian figure, the way most teenagers view their parents. His family lives in a conservative area, so I'm sure between that, their dad's looks and interests, and the fact that their dad is a Figure of Authority, the kid is worried that they won't be accepted.
But you know what? When he found out about his kid, the first thing he did was reach out to his closest queer friend and ask for resources for parents of questioning children. His biggest fears are that his kid will be bullied or discriminated against and won't feel comfortable enough to be themself. His second action was to find himself a mentor in another parent who went the same situation (kid coming out in a conservative town). The other person is preparing him for some of the struggles his kid may face and the fights he may need to take on as a parent to make sure his kid is safe and treated well.
Something I want to emphasize for people focused on language as the primary method of allyship is that when we spoke, he used some outdated terms and thoughts about gender and sexuality. That does not make him bad. These were the terms and thinking used about questioning teenagers when he was growing up and he never needed to learn more current ones. But now that he does have that need, he's throwing himself in head first because that's his kid and he's darn well going to make sure that his kid feels welcomed and has a safe place to be themselves even if they never come out to him.
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inkskinned · 1 year
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probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
#this is true#writeblr#warm up#relatedly for some reason one of our Favorite Jokes#amongst the Siblings#is like - ''this is so good u will love it''#while we are reacting to something we OBVIOUSLY find viscerally disgusting#like we will be actively retching and be like ''nooooo it's so good''#to the point that i sometimes get nervous if someone outside my family is like oh u should try it its good#(obvi we never force each other to eat anything. we are all just curious birds and#like. we're GONNA try the new thing.)#edit to answer why we had so much vanilla:#my mom is a very good cook and we LOVE to bake. so she just had a lot of staples in the house.#it's one of those things that's like. have u ever continuously thought ''ah i should get butter im probably out''#even tho u are not out of butter. so u end up with like 5 years of butter.#my mom would do that in a costco but like with vanilla extract#to be fair we WERE always using WAY TOO MUCH bc we were kids#so like she was right to stock up#ps. yes we were VERY sick after this lol i just didn't want to include it in the post in case ppl had an ick about that#u can tell it's real bc we knew "oh no we fucked up that's too much vanilla to waste'' but our reaction was to just. keep drinking it#> sibling understanding that vanilla extract isn't free > knowledge mother doesnt mind if we use it for milkshakes#> sibling choice to maybe get in a loophole of ''not wasting it'' if we drink it bc that's the same as using it (not throwing it out)#listen bud i was like 13 and my sister was like 9#when my mom discovered this we. got in. A LOT. of trouble. a lot of it. a LOT of it.#3rd edit bc i guess it isn't clear - i am 1 of my brother's 2 little sisters#i am the middle child#out of all the ways i have had to explain a post before being like ''did u forget a middle child can happen'' is my favorite
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bixels · 29 days
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Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.
Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).
Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.
Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.
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Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).
AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.
But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s
At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.
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This is why Michael doesn't scare Elizabeth in FNAF
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daftmooncretin · 6 months
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last three seasons spn are crazy. its just dean being borderline suicidal while sam tries to fix it by basically dangling his keys at him and going : “dean look! cowboys!” “dean look! strip club!” “dean look! haunted action figure.”
Meanwhile castiel is like i see that dean is suicidal, this is clearly my fault so i will remedy this by dying.
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The funny thing about the PJO cabin system is that everyone's always all 'oh the twelve' this and 'the twelve' that but that's absolutely not even remotely accurate. To start, right off the bat it's thirteen, not twelve, because they don't count Hades. But not really because before Percy, there were no big three kids, so we're down to ten active cabins already but it's actually eight because Artemis and Hera don't make demigods.
And of those eight, Mr. D is stuck at camp (thus not really making new demigods all that often) and his only two kids don't even sleep in a cabin, they sleep in the Big House with him.
So, pre-Percy, there are seven active cabins at Camp Half-Blood:
Glee club, the Jocks, the Nerds, the Geeks, the Farmers, the 'Sketchy Kids' and the Popular Kids.
Or, in other words, the Apollo, Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, Demeter, Hermes (and the unclaimed kids) and Aphrodite cabins.
What's cool is that you can already see the cabin dynamics in the show. For example, the Athena cabin allies with the Hermes cabin for the numbers. The Hermes kids plus all the unclaimed kids? It's the biggest cabin in the camp by far. It's a battle strategy. Luke and Annabeth's close relationship is just the cherry on top for Annabeth. It'll be really cool to see how the show develops the differences in the cabins during the series.
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gay-impressionist · 11 months
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france is burning.
667 people were arrested last night. they are curfews in place. public transport is partially closed at night.
nahel, a 17-year-old, was shot tuesday by the police during a traffic stop. he wasn't violent or armed, he wasn't a threat. but he broke the law and tried to drive away, so the cops killed him.
and now france is rioting.
there is a video so the government isn't trying to deny the facts for once. but the minister of the interior (in charge of the police) still insist that the police shot less people since the 2017 law on public safety.
but an analysis of police statistics by Le Monde, the most read newspaper in france, says otherwise. when the police shot on average 250 people each year in the five years prior to 2017, that number became 297 after 2017. for shots fired specifically on moving vehicles, the average used to be 119 and it's now 150. before 2017, there was an average of 0.06 deaths per shot. now it's 0.32.
more than ever, the police shoots to kill.
so france is burning.
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haunted-xander · 17 days
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I made this AAAAGES ago and forgot to post it and now I'm annoyed by how it's rotting away on my phone so here. Bratty teen Thancred being a menace to Fourchenault (and a bad influence on Urianger lol)
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ew-selfish-art · 9 months
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DPxDC Au: Normally when Danny vandalizes ancient cave walls and historic places on his 'favor' missions for Clockwork, he gets sent back to erase them. But no, apparently this time, when Danny added his actual phone number into some painting, he's not allowed to go back and fix it. Ugh.
...
Tim has had the painting of Bruce professionally reviewed a few times since the old Bat was retrieved from the time stream. He's not entirely sure how the painting still exists, he's not even sure that it matters any more... But one day Tim catches something new in the painting.
It was small, and it could've just been the light at first but... Is that a phone number in the background?? It looks like black marker on the black curtains and it makes him feel feral. The family is kinder this time about how they think he's gone crazy- but each one of them admit that they can't remember a phone number ever being present.
The lab reports that the number was added over the paint- and that it's an ink based marking akin to a sharpie but like, hundreds of years old. So... It's been added recently but not at all recently enough for Tim to have an explanation.
Tim doesn't want to hear any more of his family members opinions on the matter and he certainly isn't going to just, stop investigating or something stupid like that. So, he takes the painting to the tower, gathers his team (Cassie, Kon and Bart), and they call the number in the middle of the night after a lot of planning/back-and-forth/catastrophizing.
It doesn't answer until the final ring, and the static that comes through the phone is bone chilling. A deep, monstrous groan which echoed with agony fills the room.
"I have a math test in like, three hours, who the fuck are you and why the fuck are you calling in the middle of the night?" The voice now complains, still sounding vaguely inhuman despite it's very human word choices.
"Your number is in a historical painting, we had a few questions but uh, you can call us back later?" Tim cringes as he says it but he hadn't planned on having to reply to someone trying to go back to bed. Or someone who was apparently also a teenager. (He had so, so many contingency plans for like, every kind of villain, alien or demon. lame.)
"...Ugh. might as well." The voice calls out, agreeing with a sigh that echos so deeply the team can feel it in their bones.
"Cool. Good luck on your test?" Tim offers.
"Mph." And the line hangs up.
...
Danny is at lunch with Sam and Tucker when he remembers the late night call. He'd spent the morning bitching about never getting a full night of sleep and it finally occurred to him what had happened. Of course his friends think it's hilarious that CW wouldn't let him erase his number. Of course they do.
They stop laughing when Danny calls the number back.
"Hello, this is Red Robin of Gotham. I have Superboy, Wonder girl and Impulse present with me. How did your math test go?"
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got a worm nibbling my brain. can someone help me find a piece of obscure media?
webcomic/indie comic from the 2010s. basically a sci-fi short story about a young girl (with red hair?) who was being raised by scientists as part of an experiment. she receives a haircut/has her head shaved, in preparation for her annual brain scan/testing. it is revealed that while her body is human, her "brain" is artificial, made of computer implants throughout her skull and spine. at some point her biological mother (also a scientist on the same campus?) encounters her and is repulsed, viewing her as a machine who has murdered her daughter.
it was very poignant and it bruised my heart and i can NOT find it anywhere
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martinsorbit · 7 months
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My brain isnt arting the way that I want to but I managed to do theseeee; Just pre-virus Moon and some little girl having fun thats all
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batcavescolony · 11 months
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People who say "Batman was better without his kids" must really like the whole ELEVEN issues that Bruce had before Dick was introduced because that's the only time he didn't have a kid. Bruce Wayne/Batman was introduced in ’Detective Comics' #27 and Dick Grayson's Robin was introduced in 'Detective Comics’ #38. Dick was around before Alfred existed, if we can have Alfred why can we have the Robins?
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inkskinned · 11 months
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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME#there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing#and the writing is what i need to be doing#writeblr#this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to#edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol#i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!!#my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means#i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her)#hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong#i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet.#i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse#i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!!#i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO#i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness#and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it#im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us#i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer#and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art.#i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work#even if it means being miserable#but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.
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nerdpoe · 8 months
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Jason Todd is stealing the tires off of the Batmobile, when a man walks up on him doing it.
The man stares at him, nods, and just says "I'll keep a look out, man, go go go!"
So Jason does, and he gets all four tires with the man's help.
The man introduces himself as Danny Foley, and asks Jason if he wants to go get some burgers.
Danny, meanwhile, has decided that yes. This is the child he will adopt. He just has to convince the kid of that.
Batman has to call in Alfred to bring around his backup vehicle with spare tires, and little Timmy gets some wonderful shots of Batman having to replace his own tires.
@simplestoryteller
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Okay, but Elizabeth being an absolute savage girlboss isn't something that's talked about enough.
Love how you're spitting facts for our girly pop. 💪💪💪
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TBH I go off the personality baby has, and gotta assume some of that sass is definitely Elizabeth
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daftmooncretin · 5 months
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imagine being scotty in tos. every day your friend group goes on dangerous yet exciting adventures to new planets but you can never go because they always make you babysit the ship. also you have to stay on facetime with them the whole time in case they need a lift. you are the eternal designated driver. the seventh wheel. you dont mind as much as you should though because you sort of want to fuck the ship
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