drawingrosescausewhynot

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about some of the people I interact with. I have a coworker who I am pretty sure is a MAGA type, and she is also a lovely woman who is dreadfully overworked and so good at connecting to patients when they call. I can see the conflict on her face when she talks to me, a gigantic tranny dork who speaks Spanish and affirms the LGBT community, but can also talk to her about her cows and knows about guns and stuff. I can see the fear in the eyes of my former Young Men’s leader when he misgenders me and realizes that I’m not an ideology but a person he has known for a long time. I can see the way my extended family stop and stutter over political discussions when they realize they are talking about me. And I don’t know why but lately it’s just made me think about my neighbor as a kid.

When we moved to Arizona, we moved next door to a lovely retired couple - John and Lucy. John was a veteran of WWII, he had an M.D. and a Ph.D. in radiology, and he LOVED us to pieces. His wife, Lucy, was a sharp and gifted woman - well spoken, very observant, and VERY clever. I just know that she used that cleverness as a mom to great effect, because with my and my siblings she always managed to find a way to send us home with candy and treats for a week despite my dad’s protests. We loved them, growing up, and even though they have long-since passed away I love them still, and I love what I learned from them.

John was, as stated, a WWII veteran. He was enlisted as a rifleman, and later as a front line medic, starting at Point Du Hoc and moving inwards to France and towards the Rhine. He let me do a report on him in 6th grade where he shared war stories with me he had kept to himself his whole life - he said it was out of respect for his friends who didn’t get to come home and tell their stories.

He said he told me because he knew I could respect the memories of his friends.

He showed me his collection of medals, and which he’d kept hidden away in a sock in his attic because he’d feel an immense grief any time he saw them. He had wanted to be a doctor his whole life, prior to being drafted he was studying medicine and had taken the Hippocratic oath to Do No Harm. He saw his medals as a reminder that he had Done Harm.

After telling me his stories he was able to convince himself that while he had Done Harm, it was only because his only other alternative was, to him, cowardice. He chose to be brave even if it meant acting against his Oath because he felt that if he didn’t do it someone else would have to go in his place and he would be responsible for the harm that befell them. I don’t think that’s true, but for him it was and that was something no being on earth could have ever dissuaded him from believing.

He shared wild stories - melee combat on the beach, clearing artillery bunkers, receiving a Purple Heart for being injured in hand-to-hand combat with a Wehrmacht rifleman he said he felt pity for because they were the same age and he had to imagine the man he was fighting had been drafted just like him.

He shared how he was awarded a Silver Star for charging a machine gun nest, but shared that he was most proud of not killing anyone in the process. He threw a grenade with the pin still in it and when the machine gunners jumped to avoid being blown up they were killed by someone else so he didn’t have to do it. He took the machine gun and shot the other machine gun in that French field to pieces so he didn’t have to kill the people operating it. He said they were giving out Silver Stars like candy but I knew he was being modest.

He told me about being redesignated as a medic, about how he crawled for about 500 yards on his belly to rescue an injured tank driver, then threw him over his back and crawled the same 500 yards back (1000 yards total) to treat his injuries. He said he met the man in an Army hospital in England after his spine was broken by a high explosive panzer shell was fired through a hollowed out French farmhouse and landed about 20 feet away from him.

He told me about all the people he helped and saved as a medic, he told me about his work in radiology and research after the war. He showed me a hallway that was quite literally wallpapered with academic honors he’d earned as a researcher. He told me about how his first Fourth of July back was a horror show for him because fireworks and German artillery make very similar sounds. He told me about how he woke up in a cold sweat well over half a century later hearing the screams of German artillery men being burned alive with flamethrowers, or hearing his own voice apologizing to the young German soldier he stabbed in the heart at Point Du Hoc.

He told me that when he was asked to present at a medical conference in Germany 25 years after the war ended that he was so scared he couldn’t step off the plane, and that his wife had to hold his hand and lead/pull him with her. He said he was not scared because he was worried about being triggered, but because he knew that someone somewhere outside of that plane had the course of their life irreparably altered by his military service. That to someone out there he was the cause of immense suffering and harm. That some unwitting waiter could be the son of the Nazi Officer he stabbed in the heart with a 12-inch hunting knife. That some woman asking questions in the audience would be the daughter or widow of a man he sent to judgement with a .30-06. He was scared that they would hate him.

He knew what the Nazi’s had done, he knew better than anyone I’d ever met. He’d watched the documentaries, he’s seen the PoWs returning from camps, he’d seen the civilians massacred and tortured by their regime, but he also knew that among the monsters were people like him - idealistic 20-somethings who only wanted to make the world better and were ripped away from that life by the Nazi war machine. And he spent his whole life mourning the loss of innocence and peace that was forced on so many people by such a corrupt power.

To be honest I don’t know if I could do that, but he could. He told me he could still feel the dead and lost with him, both when he slept and when he woke. He told me he thought he’d go to his grave never having told a word of this to anyone. That the stories of him and his friends and allies would disappear silently with him and those like him. That he had wanted that until he realized that he didn’t have to sell out to share the stories - that he could give the stories away for free to someone who would love the people in them, and not just the content of them. He didn’t want his stories to be used as Patriotic Pornography by some TV network or magazine. He wanted the people he knew to be respected, he wanted their memories to be honored and loved, and he entrusted me, a 12-year-old “boy” to do that.

He told me for years afterwards that after telling me these stories that he slept better than he ever had. That by sharing the stories with someone who could hear Him over the din of victory and glory and honor and revisionistic history. Someone who could see the man in the story and not just see the plot of a battle being won. He wanted to be human, and he wanted the people he saw die to be human too - everyone, not just the people on his side. He wanted someone to see and to know the anguish of having to look someone in the eye as heartblood muddies the ground beneath them and hope that they understand that this was not an act of love or hatred but an act of desperation. To hope that you had just taken out One Of The Bad Ones instead of a medical student or a poet who had been drafted. He wanted me to see how hard he had worked since then to build a world without scarcity, to build a world of peace. He wanted me to know SO badly that the cost of violence, any violence, even necessary violence, is always ALWAYS paid by both parties involved.

I think about the rise of the new right wing - the new Nazi movement’s traction in politics, and I feel sad and scared - the world that Johnathan J Yobaggy, my neighbor, my friend, and my hero, worked SO hard to build is being done away with by people who do not understand the cost of the path they are entering. I can see brief moments of recognition in the eyes of some of the people I mentioned - The former young men’s president who immediately regrets misgendering me and hen he makes eye contact with me and sees Me staring back at him and not a faceless “ideology.” I can hear it in the voice of my uncle who quietly comes up to me to apologize for some homophobic comment he made absentmindedly. I can see it in the eyes of racists and sexists being interviewed on TV when they realize that they didn’t vote for a concept, they voted for a real thing. And honestly, I have mixed emotions about it. Because while I understand frustration with the status quo, the importance of basic human needs like affordable good and rent, and I know the fear that comes with feeling powerless, I also can’t help but grieve the endless wheel of history bringing us back to this God Damned Fucking Place again. I hope we can avoid this fate, not just for our sake but for the sake of everyone who has ever tried to make the world safer. For everyone who has ever tried to make up for human nature, for everyone who has ever placed themselves on the offering plate to protect others from the cruelty they know lies just under the surface of mankind’s tenuous grip on progress. I want SO badly for there to be a solution to this, for the people who idolize the Nazi party and the impact of fascism to see that the price of this path is paid in more than just blood but in soul. That they’re allowing themselves to be devoured too. I want for the centrists and the fence sitters and the idealists who want to “change it from the inside” to see how dangerous our politics have become. I want them to see that they’re losing the things that make them great in exchange for a security blanket that’s now become far far far too small to ever work for them again.

Safety found in the past is already gone, and safety found in the future is only as real as a daydream. That any ideology that promises that by “joining us now we’ll make things rough so we can make things safe in a decade” is a promise made by those who will not have to fight the battles they send you to.

I don’t know if America was ever really great, but as long as John was alive it felt great to me. There is no ideology that can replace a neighbor. No tax plan that can replace a friend. No grocery bill that can replace community and connection. No amount of budget cuts that can replace kindness. No amount of suffering from people I hate that will ever make more love. I don’t know how to make America great, but I know how to make my America great and it is not by selling out integrity and compassion and community and fucking humanity to make eggs and gas cheaper. It is by seeing and hearing the people around me. I’m not Mormon anymore, but I still know the value of mourning with those that mourn and comforting those that stand in need of comfort. I’m not Christian anymore but I still have Eyes That Can See and Ears That Can Hear. I want to make this all stop but I can’t stop the collective power of tens of millions of people so instead I listen to my MAGA coworker tell me about how sick her kid was last week. I make jokes with my Young Men’s leader. I hug my uncle. I let them see me fully, as a human and not an ideology. As a woman and not the concept of gender. As a whole person and not someone who can be easily summarized or boiled down into something short and quippy. And I let them know I can see them fully too, and I can see all their humanity as easily as they can see mine. I just have to hope that this works - that enough people can See and Hear the people in their lives who matter to them to bring them out of their personal world of forms and into the real world.

I am probably, honestly, just spiraling a little bit. I took my ADHD meds today and in addition to helping me focus they make me a little anxious so I doubt things are as bad right now as they seem. But just in case there’s any truth to the way things seem to be going, remember, and I mean this seriously: Be kinder to each other, be gayer, and read more Terry Pratchett.

And for the love of god day hello to your neighbor.

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

The difference between male wish fulfillment vs female wish fulfillment in romance anime

There’s kind of a different gaze that can be targeted to in romance anime. 

In male wish fulfillment anime romances, there’s usually a much heavier emphasis on the male love interest’s pov than the female’s. Also, women tend to be much more.. objectified and there’s an unnecessary amount of fan service. An example of this is Rent a Girlfriend and Don’t Toy With Me Miss Nagatoro. It’s more about the male lead being hit on by.. really horny women than actual romance.

However, in female wish fulfillment anime, it tends to be more told from the female’s perspective. The way the male love interest tends to be written is to make him emotional and aware and.. kind, rather than objectifying him or even making them horny, because women.. we don’t really want to be lusted after like that, typically. We’re already objectified enough. My favorite example is Kimi Ni Todoke: From Me To You. Kazehaya admits he’s a ‘pervert’ but in a respectful way. The writer doesn’t make him fully pure or naive or anything like that. He’s still a teen boy. But in this series, the male character is written to be sweet, emotional, and aware but he’s not stripped away from his inherent masculinity (nontoxic masculinity!). Not just.. a guy, if that makes any sense. Meanwhile, in male wish fulfillment anime, the women are just women, rather than characters. Again, I hope this makes sense!

Now, I’m not saying all romance anime that’s written from the female’s perspective is the best! I think MY Love Story!! is a good example of this! The main character is a male and he’s a genuine, total sweetheart while still having a sense of masculinity! And the female character isn’t objectified! And I would even say even say that this show could be considered a male wish fulfillment romance, based on how it’s written.

And then there’s shows for both, like Kaguya Sama: Love is War. In this show, the two love interests have complete equal power in focus, making them feel completely balanced and real. Neither are objectified and both get treated like humans. Same with The Apothecary Diaries, if not more so!

Anyways, sorry for this ramble. I just really like (well written) romance anime. And I will leave off with a list of romance anime recommendations!

•Kimi Ni Todoke: From Me To You (adorable, fluffy, amazing character development, doesn’t beat around the bush the entire fucking series. Half of the manga is pining and the other half is the complexities of being in your first ever relationship as you try to navigate it all)

•Snow White With The Red Hair (amazing female lead with cool world building and interesting dynamics)

•MY Love Story!! (SO CUTE! Amazing show about not judging appearances)

•My Happy Marriage (Really wholesome Cinderella type story)

•Kaguya Sama: Love Is War (hilarious. I actually recommend the dub. Genuinely really sweet)

•Sasaki To Miyano (so sweet it’ll give you cavities)

•Tomo Chan Is A Girl (there is sadly quite a bit of fanservice in this. I’ve seen way worse, but ya. If you’re wanting something to watch with your parents, this may not be it. Mostly just close ups on boobs)

•Monthly Girls Nozaki (romcom that leans really heavy on the comedy more than the romance, but I love it too much to not recommend. Watch it in the dub, you won’t regret it)

•Fruits Basket (Really sweet)

•Toilet Bound Hanako (THE MANGA! READ THE MANGA! DON’T LET THE TITLE WEIRD YOU OUT, I SWEAR IT IS INCREDIBLE! READ!)

•Komi Can’t Communicate (I would, however, like to apologize for Yamai ahead of time. The entire fandom hates her, don’t worry. There’s also quite a bit of fan service in this one 😔)

•Toradora (haven’t seen it in a while, but it’s a classic lol)

•Horimiya (Another romance anime that doesn’t beat around the bush!)

•The Ice Guy And His Cool Female Colleague (SO. CUTE. AGHHHH. Despite it being ice themed, it certainly makes me feel warm and fuzzy)

•Love, Chuunibyou, and Other Delusions (so silly, amazing story about maturity while also keeping your inner child alive)

•I Want To Eat Your Pancreas (be sure to bring tissues! You will cry!)

•Kamisama Kiss (I really like the characters and world building in this one. Sadly, we’ll probably never get another season 😔)

•Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (SUCH A CUTE MOVIE! Amazing feel good romance that just makes you happy)

•My Little Monster (not my usual first recommendation, but it’s an overall fun watch… still so desperately want another season. False hope lol)

•Ouran High School Host Club (an absolute classic romcom. Another situation where I actually recommend the dub)

•Apothecary Diaries (AGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! …full stop. I love this show.)

•Princess Tutu (I LOVE THIS STORYBOOK SETTING! And Ahiru is so silly. She’s just a duck, she can’t handle all these responsibilities!)

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

As the impending heat death of the internet, our library of alexandria, inches ever closer, here are some resources that will teach you everything you need to know about digital archiving.

Digital preservation is the only process that can and will preserve everything you love that (currently) only exists in the digital realm. It’s not 100% guaranteed to work, but let’s be real—your own painstakingly, personally, manually cultivated digital archive is all you’ll have left of the images, blogs, recipes, videos, fics, fanzines, games, servers, forums, articles, peer-reviewed scientific studies, “illegal” musicals and even the friends you found online, when the internet is completely gone.

And yes, you can trust me on this, because I've had to help family friends create a personal digital archive of their own. She chose to pay for archiving software in the end, but that's not important.

The basics of/anticipating potential roadblocks to adequate digital preservation:

What to expect from the quality of your digital archive in the future:

Also! Fun fact: you can download the files that make up your entire tumblr blog!

Any additional resources you have or know of would be greatly appreciated, so please don't hesitate to share them.

Please spread this post so that it finds the people who need it the most right now.

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

refraining from a lot of election joke posting and instead I just donated $55 USD to gaza soup kitchen and i encourage anyone else to consider donating even a couple of dollars to the people who will be affected the most from whatever outcome happens

you can also donate to care for gaza here

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them.

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

This is the magic lucky word count. Reblog for creativity juice. It might even work, who knows.

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

Hello this a long shot call, am a citizen of Palestine. I am here to request for your support to help get my insulin (Humalog), just an injection for today to save my life please I beg.I was diagnosized with type 1 diabetes and due to current situation in Gaza I'm unable to get my insulin injection as a result I'm here begging for little financial support to help me purchase insulin for this week. Am sorry if am sending you again this request, kindly donate any amount please. My donation link is in my pinned post🇵🇸

Donate!!

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

I find it personally offensive how many bad writers can get published so easily.

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

Really not a fan of that in between stage where my parents are finally trying to work on themselves and be more conscious of their kids mental health but are not safe yet, so I can tell them small troubles but still have to mostly still pretend like everything is fine

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

I put together these podcast recommendations based on books a while ago, enjoy (they also work the other way around, I highly recommend these books, I made it my life's mission to make people read radio silence, it's SUCH a great book and it got me into Welcome to Night Vale and podcasts in general. Thank you Alice Oseman)

i'm never good at summarizing things but I tried my best lol

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

you didnt put a nametag on your boyfriend and he despawned. sorry.

[drawingrosescausewhynot]

A moment of light during the siege