#A little reductive

[gaylactic-fire]

Not to talk about these posts again, but I've had a pretty big chunk of people reblog and equate Link and Zelda's height difference as being "Because they're T4T" or "Because Link is trans." And maybe uh... don't do that??

It's not that I dislike T4T Zelink (the exact opposite, actually) But you simply can't waggle your finger at people increasing Link's height to fit a cisnormative stereotype WHILE also suggesting Link's smallness is caused by an entirely different stereotype. To suggest the only possible reason Link is smaller / Zelda is taller is due to one or both of them being trans is hardly any better than "Man must be taller than woman because he is man."

I was genuinely happy seeing transmasc Link HCs in my notifs at first, since it’s a huge comfort HC of mine, but it's just bothered me more as time's gone on. Can we like... stop associating height and gender as being interconnected? Be it in a cis way or a trans way. It's weird and only enforces gender stereotypes. Thanks ✌️

[ableism]

I know i’m functionally a gay DARE officer at this point but I do in fact feel some sort of way about Cocaine being back in vogue. Surely I sound like a square + narc and I’ll concede ok do whatever you want, nobody can materially stop another person from using drugs if they really want to 🤷🏻 I don’t really care that it’s hip to do party drugs, moreso I want to articulate a general level of caution and concern that I never see a sidecar of harm reduction and safe using practices along with the commonplace clips of people straight up snorting coke I’ve seen for “brat summer!!!1!!”

You 🫵 are not immune to ingesting fentanyl or any number of other additives. Do you think drugs at the gay club are different than the drugs people are taking under bridges and in gutters? I promise they’re not! So if you want to use drugs and continue being alive, do your part to be safe. Protecting yourself protects others and your community.

Do not accept drugs from strangers. Test your drugs with fentanyl test strips. Carry narcan and know how to administer it. Never use alone. Have an exit strategy if you’re using drugs in a public space. Know the contact information for your local harm reduction groups, overdose emergency hotline, and if you need/want it, addiction treatment orgs. This is all the bare minimum for community care if you intend to be out in the world using drugs. Mainly I encourage you all to be buzzkills if it means you don’t have to die of an accidental overdose. Overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans under 40. I have a whole lot of social workers in my network and however bad you think the synthetic opioid crisis is, it’s worse. The war stories I’ve heard from my people on the ground are… The shit of nightmares. Don’t let it be you or anybody you love.

If you live in the state of Georgia, DM me for a longer list of resources.

Fentanyl information (harm reduction.org)

Get Narcan

How to use fentanyl test strips

Call 311 to find out where to get Narcan in your community at no cost to you

[linkemaus]

Not to be that person, but if Kamala Harris were a white man with the exact same ideals, positions, and beliefs, it wouldn’t have even been a competition. Realising that the worst thing you can apparently be is a woman, is truly devastating.

[inkskinned]

as we enter the start of a semester and the dreaded Hour of Making Friends us upon us... if ur ever at a loss for what to say in one of those weird social situations where you only vaguely-know people, one of my favorite questions to ask is "what is your favorite food crime." a food crime is like the food combination that you love that other people find revolting. press them to take it further than pineapple on pizza, that's rote. food crimes is a good topic that has many benefits as it turns out all people are degenerates and also it will give you some cool ideas to try out later in the privacy of your own degenerate kitchen

the other good thing to ask is "okay but has anyone here ever been someplace haunted" bc it turns out if you ask most people directly they don't believe in ghosts, but many people are like "oh yeah i lived in a haunted house. ghosts aren't real tho"

[mikimeiko]

Our Flag Means Death Season 2 - one gif per episode (with the first gif from their first scene and the last gif from their last scene) | Jim Jimenez

[chronicowboy]

i can't see you (the light is in my face) | 15.6k (E)

"What are we drinking today?" Eddie asks as he carries the teapot over to the kitchen table from the counter. He sets it down on the woven grass placemat in the centre of the table and slides into the seat opposite his abuela.

"Blue tea," she says, pushing her teacup towards him.

"And why do they call it that?" He raises an eyebrow at her before picking the teapot back up again to pour her some. He flushes when it comes out a dazzling blue. Abuela just rolls her eyes at him, a glint of amusement sparkling there.

"Rosa from book club gave me some," she tells him, lifting her cup and inhaling some of its steam. "She said it's made from butterfly pea flowers, so it tastes very floral."

Eddie pours himself a cup, watches the blue pool against the white porcelain and thinks of Buck. They'd talked briefly on the drive between the station and his abuela's. But Buck had been late for lunch with Bobby, and Eddie had let him go even though he'd wanted to sink his nails into the phantom of Buck's voice.

"Oh, hey, wait there." Eddie drifts back to the kitchen counter and picks a lemon from the fruit bowl. He slices it into wedges and takes two of them with him back to the table. "Buck told me about this stuff. I think he tried every tea under the sun after his coma. Did a bunch of research on all the different health benefits of them. I'll have to ask him for recommendations." He drops back into his seat and sets a wedge of lemon onto Abuela's saucer. "Says a chemical in the lemon is supposed to..." He squeezes the juice into his tea and grins as it begins to react. "Ah! Purple tea!" He tilts his cup just enough for Abuela to catch a glimpse of it.

"Oh!" She clasps her hands together, eyes lighting up, before reaching for her own wedge of lemon.

Eddie watches her stir the purple into her blue tea with a childlike glee, lets his own frivolous joy spread through him like hot tea. Accepts it for what it is. Little blessings, his abuela used to say. Life is full of little blessings. And Eddie is learning to welcome them without guilt. He pulls his phone out under the table and taps out a quick text:

Having blue tea with Abuela. Your lemon trick worked! But now she thinks you're a witch that's corrupted me with the dark arts :/

"Eddito?" Abuela pokes him in the shoulder with her teaspoon, and Eddie slips his phone back into his pocket like he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Do you like it?"

"Oh, um." He picks his cup up for the first time, convinces himself it's just the rising steam that has a flush bleeding through his cheeks as he takes a sip. He wrinkles his nose. "It's... Very blue?"

"Mm." She nods, tight-lipped. "Not the best we've had. But the lemon definitely made it better."

"And some honey might make it tolerable," Eddie says as he plucks the jar from the small tea caddy against the wall. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out greedily as he stirs the honey into his tea.

eddie tell her that blue tea helps heart and brain health and that the lemon boosts your immune system so if i am a witch i'm at least a nice holistic witch

tell her eddie tell her

:(

"Who is that?" Abuela asks, raising an eyebrow at his phone.

"Just Buck."

But she'll just think you've bewitched me into saying it. Which you basically did.

"Ah, Buck," she says sagely.

are you calling me bewitching diaz?

i might have gone with beguiling but whatever

Eddie snorts, tucks his phone under his thigh and takes another sip of his tea.

"It's definitely better with the honey," he says. Abuela just stares at him, her head cocked slightly to the left the way it is whenever she's stuck on a sudoku puzzle. "What?"

"Nothing." She shrugs. "How is Buck?"

(OR: eddie makes a new friend, she makes some assumptions, eddie spirals about it in his patented life-ruining way)

[batshaped]

i paused reading chapter 76 to make this LOL

[xboxfox]

chell pony

[fluentisonus]

chiens-loups

[sergle]

also I consented for my doc to use photos / video footage of my reduction on social media and shit and he's ALREADY posted my before/after photos on his instagram. and I'm experiencing an emotion unknown to mankind, reading a bunch of insta comments about how great the results are and how wonderful the new boobs look

[tonydaddingham]

aziraphale constantly expresses his admiration and adoration for crowley by telling him he's nice, and good, and thanks him for what he does for him, calls him all the time to tell him things, "our car" and "our bookshop". and then dear, sweet crowley, who cannot go a single minute without doing something for aziraphale, driving him around everywhere, looking after and tidying the bookshop, indulging him in his earthly pleasures and quaint little hobbies, saving him even when he doesn't necessarily ask to be saved, "little demonic miracle of my own" and "alright, I'll do that one, my treat."

their methods of communicating their - friendship, affection, love - are set.

let's look at the bandstand, where crowley offers to magic them away, away from earth and the loom of armageddon, and aziraphale retaliates with stating that they're not friends and he's doesn't even like him. let's look at the So Did I argument, where crowley offers to whisk gabriel away and dump him on the moors so aziraphale doesnt have to deal with it and is no longer under threat from the former archangel, and aziraphale practically begs crowley to stay, that he'd "love [him] to help [him]".

their methods of communicating their - friendship, affection, love - are being rejected; they're not working.

let's look at 1967, where aziraphale gives in to giving crowley the holy water, but refuses the lift to anywhere he wants to go, and crowley offers to thank aziraphale, but refuses to hear aziraphale's verbal concerns about the danger it poses to him, "you told me what you think - 105 years ago." let's look at the final fifteen, where aziraphale offers to restore crowley to what he thinks crowley has always been yearning for, and crowley tries to tell aziraphale exactly what he means to him, put it into words what he hopes aziraphale will see through and understand.

their methods of communicating their - friendship, affection, love - are swapped, and break them apart altogether.

swapping those methods, in a guesswork effort to reach the other person better, isn't the answer. the action, and what is being said, is what needs to change. crowley offers things that aziraphale doesn't want, or goes against who he is fundamentally, and aziraphale says things that wound crowley deeply, reducing what they are to nothing in a few sharp words. so instead crowley tries to use words, and aziraphale tries to offer an act of devotion; but this doesn't work either - arguably, it's worse!

what they communicate needs to be clearer, not how. crowley needs to stay with aziraphale when he promises that he will, and not attempt to solve problems by running from what he doesn't want to face, threatening to abandon him in the process. aziraphale needs to express outright, plainly, what crowley needs to hear; that exactly as he is, everything that he is, is everything that aziraphale wants and respects and loves. and to be able to do that, they need start by giving each other the respect of acknowledging their respective boundaries, their fears, and what principles are important to them.

they've had their methods right all along, but what they're currently saying with them doesn't make sense. it's the french all over again; the words can be translated, "but you understood me!", but that doesn't mean that it makes any sense.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Imagine being 9 years old and asking your dad about the things you're interested in doing when you grow up and he's like "No ❤️! But you can get married, have babies, and then maybe your sons can do those things ☺️🫶 "

[hydralune]

I can finally clear all the pictura stages!!! I'm free!!! 🥳🥳🥳

[foolishlyzephyrus]

ah it frustrates me how much the oh hellos gets reduced to a “christian band” when that really isn’t the case. undeniably, their music holds a lot of biblical references, especially in their first couple albums. but it’s not in any sense of praising god or existing as worship music, it’s about their own relationship to and struggles with christianity (it’s a lot clearer in later songs, i.e. “rose”). they have stated time and again how much their music is influenced by other mythology and folklore. religion, especially christianity is incredibly present in all storytelling, and it’s incredibly reductive to write off their music as christian-specific because of that fact. they can make music about their faith without being forcefully pigeonholed into that sort of classification

[myfriendtheurbanlegend]

The Carter/Reese kiss came up on my dash again...

I've always thought John Reese can love and care about more than one person at a time for different reasons. This doesn't do a disservice to any character and I find it incredibly reductive to think so.

Behind the scenes, it was an emotional alternative take that the writers chose to include in the final cut of the episode, despite the showrunners' apparent disinterest in a Reese/Carter relationship. Both actors said the lines sort of called for it and I can see what they meant. I fail to see how the kiss ruined anything about Reese and Carter and Finch, unless one thinks character roles are radio buttons and you can't check [BADASS] without unchecking [LOVE INTEREST].

Reese's relationship with Finch is special; Finch gave him a purpose and the means to fulfill it but that doesn't cancel the fact that their story starts with Finch wanting something out of Reese and effectively getting it through manipulation. There is a lot of friction and distrust in the beginning and Reese is smart to be wary. It might be me, but I like the ups-and-downs of this relationship, the arguments. Nonetheless, Finch proves himself to be magnitudes better than his old bosses, a leader he can follow. Instead of leaving him to the wolves at the end of Number Crunch, the "middle-aged cripple" comes for him, and saves his life. Reese puts his life on the line for him when he's kidnapped, and so on, and so forth, they stumble along together, trying to right their wrongs.

Carter on the other hand doesn't have that kind of baggage. It's not the same dynamic. She takes one look at him at the station and understands what he's going through. She is a working woman, a single mom and she was in the same path as Reese to an extend but she made good decisions and ended up different. I think Reese recognized that when they first talked. She did what he strove to do and failed and he feels that with the power Finch and his machine granted him he can protect the ideals she upholds even if he can never live up to them. He does say the world can't afford to lose her and has always, from S1 tried his damnedest to protect her. Now this isn't very well communicated in the show because Reese's active suicidal tendencies were cut (they wanted to have Reese dangling from a bridge but the city prohibited filming there) but this is what I think the "You changed my mind" line means. Carter, being the person that she was, gave him a nudge in the police station. When he was on his feet, she became his anchor, through her good work and character.

In the end, Finch gave him the purpose, the means. Carter was the ideal that he was fighting for.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads

The Spider And Her Demons

YA Australian urban fantasy/horror

about a Malaysian-Chinese girl who’s half spider-demon, just trying to keep her head down and survive high school

when she accidentally kills and eats a man in front of the most popular girl at school, they strike up a strange friendship and she starts to learn more about herself and the supernatural world

aroacespec/sapphic ish