#AND THE PEOPLE RUNNING

[starrycassi]

What the kids need (in times of war)

I'm not sure if it should be called war. They called it differently, I'm sure. It was not that long ago, was it?

I saw boys, one time. I was coming back from school, my backpack heavy with books and my chest heavy with fear. The streets under my feet were damaged, and my shoes were not good enough to stop my skin from getting hurt. Ashes and dried blood stuck to me all the way back to my house.

And I saw them.

They were boys, merely. Young boys.

And they saw me.

I had a backpack. Some of them had one, too. I still wonder what they were hiding in there.

"I'm harmless" I said, holding up my hands. I was, maybe, twelve. I'm not even twenty now, but it feels like an eternity ago. Like it happened to someone else.

I had my school uniform on, and a little tag hanging around my neck. It had my name, my age, and it confirmed that yes, I was a school girl, and I prayed that would be enough to make them respect my life. It should.

"Drop the backpack" they said.

I did.

I wondered if I was going to be raped. I heard many, many stories about it, from friends, and family, and neighbors, and strangers. I flirted with rape all of my life, but we never started dating. We did have some close encounters, so I had my little story, too. I still believed in God, and so, I prayed.

"You can have my money" was my plead. Take it and let me go, please. Leave me alone, and I will run. I am not ready to date, yet. Let me be a child, first.

They were not older than my brother.

My brother was not a good boy. He introduced me to the concept of dates.

"We don't want your money, dumbass. Probably only got five cordobas on there, don't ya?"

I remembered the sweet tasting lollipops I had gotten myself. Yes, I had little money left. The sweets were buried deep down in between my school books, because Mom hated that I spent money on something so stupid in the middle of a crisis.

"I have candy"

They looked at me, and I slowly moved, reaching out. There were at least a dozen of heart-shaped lollipops, all of them had kind comments engraved, a little touch that the brand had added some years ago.

"Not your baby candy either, idiot"

And so. I broke down, crying, and pleading, and wishing. I was not ready to date. I was twelve. Flirting was enough.

They seemed to realize what I was thinking about, and laughed. It sounded more like a howl. A cruel mock at my flirting experiences. One of them lift me up on his arms, and I was too stiff to run.

"It's all right, kid" said one that didn't even look eighteen yet, and I recognized in his eyes the look of a kid I used to play with in my street and then hung himself one day. I wondered if they were related, or just had the sadness lying deep inside of them.

I wondered if he knew how it felt like, wanting to end it all. If we could sit, and I could share my thoughts and feelings, and he would hug me like the older brother I never had. If he was old enough to understand how to help me, or if he was young enough to understand me.

I saw them, and I saw little boys that probably just wanted to go home. Have some of their mother's soup, and play in the street. Laugh it off after dropping some sick joke, and chase bugs down the river. I wondered if they also had a favorite flower, like I did. If their parents were divorced, and how did that affect them. If they had gone on dates. If they liked dancing or singing, and if they preferred metal to classical or reggaeton over pop.

I was, maybe, twelve. I wonder how old they were.

"You can have my lollipops" I said again, still worried, when I was done crying. I wonder why there was no one in that street. We were just a bunch of little kids alone. Where were the grownups at? Why didn't they take care of us?

"Nah, that's lame" said another boy. He had a horribly deep cut in his cheek, and I had band-aids and alcohol.

I ended up taking all of my school material out, making sure to keep it clean from the ashes and dried blood, just to give him some of the things on my medical kit. Mom made me carry it around everywhere, and, now, understood why. I also handed out the candy, some of them snatched it right out of my hand, munching and chewing without any care for their teeth, while some others refused a few times before finally taking them and unwrapping the candies slowly. The band-aids and gauze would heal their cuts, I was sure. Sweets would heal the internal wounds, I hoped. The ones on the soul.

And so, they walked me down to my house. Fighting over which one got to carry me and my backpack, laughing and telling me all about how to properly build a home-made Molotov, and how to build a great pillow fort.

Kids should look one after each other, after all. Only kids know what kids need in times of war. Molotovs and Pillow forts. Gauze with alcohol, and heart-shaped lollipops.

[dozydawn]

nimble, a border collie-papillon mix, wins the 12” class in the 2024 masters agility championship. the first time a mixed breed has won at westminster ever.

[lastoneout]

"Violence only leads to more violence" TRUE! The thing is tho, a lot of people in power seem to think the start of the violence was the CEO getting shot, but they're wrong. The start of the violence was that very CEO running a company that turns immense, endless human suffering into money.

Violence did lead to more violence, decades of needless death and suffering willfully enacted by millionaires so they can make just a little bit more money, that was the start of the violence. If they didn't want it to escalate eventually, they should have maybe not made killing people the core functionality their entire company hinges on.

The people being tortured and killed by the health insurance industry are not the ones who started the violence, and tbh I don't really think it's on them to end the violence, either.

[zanmor]

We are well beyond canary in the coalmine warning levels with the way trans people and particularly trans women are treated on this site.

Maybe you've heard the metaphor of allowing wolves and sheep to share the same space, welcoming everyone. You end up with just wolves because allowing them in that space makes it unsafe for any sheep. Or the story about how a nazi goes into a dive bar and is refused service. The bartender then explains to someone else at the bar that if you serve them once they tell their friends and before you know it you're the nazi bar they all go to and normal customers don't feel safe.

Terfs and other bigots are seeing these targeted harassment campaigns succeed against trans women and rejoicing. They see Tumblr ban them and officially stand by those decisions as endorsement for their harassment. It's a sign to bigots across the internet that Tumblr is a good place for them.

And what's more is that a lot of us probably don't realize just how much trans women contribute to Tumblr. The women banned recently were sources of site-wide memes and posts I wasn't even aware originated from them.any years old memes and references can be traced back to trans women on this site.

How many of these folks have to be removed before this is no longer a site you want to be a part of it? Sure you cultivate your own experience, but you can't follow or interact with people who aren't here. And if I wanted to interact with the nazis and terfs I'd go to reddit.

I encourage everyone to reblog this. Trans women shouldn't have to be the only ones speaking out against the bigotry they're experiencing. They shouldn't be the only ones risking their blogs being nuked by staff. We have to stand with them.

[captainjonnitkessler]

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

[aficionadoenthusiast]

jason's 13 years at the super disciplined camp and several years as a leader of said camp mean it is very unlikely that he is any shade of feral, except for maybe a few minor idiosyncracies that all camp jupiter kids have because they all spent time at the wolf house, but since they all have these traits, they might be considered cultural rather than feral. however, annabeth chase, who was famously left alone until she was seven and was raised by an ancient greek horse man that used to live alone on a mountain, a barely sober god of mental illness, several other mythical beings based on animals, and approximately 37 different traumatized, exhausted, and desperate teenagers at an unregulated summer camp where she learned how to be scary by studying greek monsters, would definitely be somewhere near feral.

[trekkerac]

it does not matter who you are! stanley will lie to your face! and trick you into following some rando who's not even dead or gonna die for miles out of town!

👻💀All Frankenghost drawings💀👻

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dog Meshi.

[roninkairi]

You can only reblog this today.*

*PLEASE READ THE TAGS

[consulsmirror]

fucking obsessed with the uni town i live in

[sergle]

ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE, people dropping mad mad sums of money on gfms and charities and stuff are extremely impressive but that DOES NOT MEAN that putting like $5 towards someone's fund or any good cause is any less valuable, a lot of crowdfunding is about momentum and those single digits add up super fast, you do not need to be Rolling In The Dough to make someone's day!! moving the dial at all is extremely positive!!

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[an--artistic--autistic]

i am unreasonably proud and excited about this

[paintedcrows]

Holiday Classics

Been thinking about Ford watching the 70s Animated Lord of the Rings Movies... (companion comic to this post!)

[nosnexus]

I hate Kipperlilly - but this level of nickname shenanigans would have killed me on the spot in high school