#I'm gonna get hate for this aren't I

[valzhangism]

i know i said i was happy about how mel's story went, but the more i think about it the less i'm sure about that. this is very much connected to how the themes of classism and wealth disappeared in s2, but mel in the beginning was the epitome of piltover. she wanted to advance piltover to prove herself to her mother. to "put piltover—" and by extension herself, "—on the map."

she wanted wealth just to have it. and i'm not blaming her for anything that happened, especially with hextech! she, just like jayce and viktor, could not have known what it would lead to. i mean yeah heimerdinger said so but who the hell listens to heimerdinger? but anyway i think mel changed throughout s1, much in thanks to jayce. by the end she's become more cognisant of the mistreatment of zaunites. she's the first to vote for their peace. she was a good person all along but now she knows how to act on it. it's also seen more in s2 act 1. when she covers her painting with gold, it's symbolic—she won't act according to what her mother might think. she won't let her desire for approval dictate her anymore.

so somehow i wish those themes were. continued, somehow? like again they were dropped not just with mel but the whole show and it makes her story a off to me. there's no meaningful commentary on war or classism or how her ideology stands opposite to her mother's. like some people have said, it feels like she doesn't have much agency, even if she is really cool. and that to me is a shame because agency felt like her thing. "to shape your own destiny" as she says to jayce in s1. i know her collaborating with the black rose (but not fully joining them) and learning magic is supposed to represent becoming independent from her mother, taking her own path, but some other aspects of her character were thrown away... the more i think about it the more i'm thinking they kind of #girlboss-ed her a little bit. maybe to sell another champion. i can't help but feel like even though i enjoyed seeing her on screen, the payoff didn't feel proportionally satisfying compared to her setup in s1.

[thawthebeez]

i love reading haikyuu tiktok shipping discourse comment sections. it's so entertaining seeing so many people with such bad taste.

[nonconstories]

Someone pissed me off a couple of days ago

So! Below are several links to programs and foundations that promote adult literacy! Hundreds of millions of adults world wide were failed by their education system and now must fend for themselves while trying to read contracts and hospital bills and infographics from the CDC. But they don't have to be alone, and it is never too late to learn!

ProLiteracy: A network of educators, researchers, and advocates which provides research reports, learning materials, and other support to adult education programs. They assist with connecting volunteers to local programs and provide guidance and support to community leaders trying to use their programs' findings to advocate for social and political change.

Adult Literacy League: An adult education program in Central Florida, which aims to provide students with one on one attention to foster growth and confidence. It also offers English Second Language courses and job skills training, and each new student receives a comprehensive assessment to determine the best plan for them.

Saint Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center's Foundational Skills Program: A 100% free adult education program aimed at adults reading below a fifth grade level. It operates year round and is either in person or remote, and they now have a GED testing center that is open to students and the public alike.

Washtenaw Literacy: A free network of trained tutors for adults in Washtenaw County, Michigan.

Adult Learning Program (Las Vegas/Clark County): Free education classes to those lacking a high school diploma, those seeking to learn ESL, and adults who read below an eighth grade level. Also assists in students' search for gainful employment. Nevada got so fucked by COVID and the education/literacy numbers in the South West are grim. Please help these guys.

Hawaii Literacy: In addition to helping adult residents of Hawaii Island learn to read and write AND bridging the education gap in Hawaii's underserved children, they offer computer literacy classes, ESL classes, and a bookmobile. 1 in 6 Hawaiian adults struggle to read and write.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

"We need more messy/awful/cringefail female characters!"

You guys couldn't even handle Wanda Whipple...

[grimark]

unnecessarily long wall of text tag essay aside, “we all need to be nicer to men so they don’t radicalise and try to kill us” is really not a take i’m in the mood for hearing right now.

[travelbasscase]

me when my disability disables me:

[onehundredandeleventropicalfish]

there's so many del conversations i really fucking love and wanted to put my own spin on before we get an officially cast delirium, so starting off with this fun one from kindly ones!

(i have also started a del themed tiktok bc i have a lot more audio/video stuff in the works, so if you're interested you can find this video cross-posted here)

[skrunksthatwunk]

you go to a lesbian blog and find it says women only!! no men allowed!!! and go oh! excuse me, um, what about other lesbians? plenty of lesbians are genderqueer... and they go well, okay, go fuck yourself tim chop off your sweaty dick and stop calling yourself a lesbian. you do not have a dick, actually. you think about that fact often, even though it does you no good. you do not tell this person that.

you go to another lesbian blog and it says women only and you try again, and this time they change it to wlw + nblw only (non-men who love non-men :D). and you'll say hey i appreciate that but gender's not really that cut and dry for a lot of people. someone could be both a man and nonbinary, for instance. i just worry that you're looking at nonbinary as a generic third gender, or an extension of womanhood. i mean yeah you include nblw in your tags but all your posts are about pussy-havers exclusively. what's with that? and they say go fuck yourself you pervy man pretending to be a lesbian. you tried to sneak in but i won't let you.

so you go to a lesbian blog with a dozen or so posts about queer people needing to be more weird about it and you sigh in relief. but you still see the men dni. that's odd. hoping for the best, you say hey! i know you mean well but please maybe don't put men dni at the end of the lovely posts on your lesbian blog bc some lesbians are men. and they'll be like ok!! well you're allowed ;) and you say no that's not. no. some men are lesbians not just me. you think about your own dicklessness and wonder if that's why you were given entry. and you add that even if male lesbians are allowed, there's no indication of that. how would anyone know without asking? and they're like ohh gotcha gotcha well men dni + this is for sapphics only!! and you'll be like ok well that treats the concepts of men and sapphics as mutually exclusive identities and i just told you that's not true and you agreed with me so.. i don't think that solves our problem. and they're like. ok. fine. men dni but genderfluid and multigender people are allowed! and you're like no see that's. that's still the same thing.. you're saying the same thing just with different words. if you don't want men to interact but you're fine with multigender/genderfluid/etc ppl interacting then you either don't see them as Real Men (because they don't reach a standard of Full Manhood) or Complete Men (because they're only Part-Time Men), both of which suggest that they are, in some way, not men or less-than men, which is invalidating and defeats the point of the exception in the first place (accommodation) OR that you don't really mean the dni which is confusing and inconsistent and makes guydykes feel weird and uncomfortable and excluded from the lesbian space you're trying to cultivate. and they're like um. ok. so. cishet men dni? and you're like well i think that makes more sense, but what if someone identifies as both a cishet man and a sapphic? again, if we're trying to accommodate the genderfucky populace then that has to be a possibility that is considered. and they say god you people are never happy. what do you want me to do? what am i supposed to say to keep the right men out? and you pause. you empathize with the need for a space free from dudes trying to fuck you straight and feminine. dudes who watch lesbian porn and joke about what they'd do if they were allowed into girls locker rooms. who look at you like a piece of meat, and like someone who looks at women like pieces of meat in the same way he does. you get it. you know. you want a space where you can be sapphic, too. that's why you came to these blogs in the first place. you brace yourself and you say well i don't know that there are "right men" to keep out. i don't know that there's any single label that would accomplish whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. you could go for "sapphics only" or "queers only" and i think that might be the closest thing to what you want, but it's never going to be perfect. creating any exclusive space is going to shut out people you didn't account for, and the broader the label, the more people will be shut out that you didn't want to shut out. and what about people who don't know if they're allowed? what of questioning transbians, where are they supposed to go? and, frankly, i think i might rather my dykey posts get read and appreciated by a gay guy who sees me as a man than a woman who only sees me as a sacred womb, pure from male perversions or violence or whatever. i think community might just be more complex than a dni can handle. and they look at you and say i don't want to not have a dni. i think you're too permissive. you can't just "what about" or microlabel your way into everything. go fuck yourself, i bet you're not even a lesbian anyway. go find a real problem to get mad about.

you go to a lesbian blog. you ignore the men dni because you know you probably don't even count to them. or maybe you do count and, out of respect for your manhood, they'd shun you accordingly. you try to feel okay about that. you scroll past dozens of posts about mediocre men and gagging at straight friends' boyfriends and how gross and undeserving men are of the beautiful women they couple up with and how all women should be gay so they can get treated right and and and and and. you finally find a post about curling into someone you love and feeling at peace and try to lose yourself in it. you know that feeling is what unites you, what makes you belong. you try to focus on it. you think about carding your hands through a butch's hair or lacing fingers with a femme and feeling warm and loved and more yourself than you ever have before. like this is who you're meant to be. you read about lesboys and butch boytoys and genderfucky dykes and big hairy deep-voiced wonderful women (like you want to be someday, like you wish you could make yourself) and you try to ignore the men dni underneath each and every post. and you daydream about meeting someone kind and earnest at a lesbian bar even though you don't think any such bars exist within three states of you and you can't drink and don't want to drink because you need to be in control of yourself at all times so you don't fuck up like you're always about to and here in the nonexistent lesbian bar you feel wanted and safe and in good company. you picture your ideal, happiest self. it is a mistake. ideal-you has a goatee. not the mascara one you smear on and call drag even though you know it's not drag, not really, the beard you call drag because you think everyone would look at you sadly if you told them it was just to pretend you had something out of your reach. a beard that's soft and that you grew and that cannot be smudged away if you get too comfortable with it. the dream shatters. your people pull away from you, their scoffs mixing with the mind-numbing gay girl bedroom pop you learned to settle for just to have something that almost resembled you, they all pull away and turn their backs and do not look at you. you're too close to being a man now, even though you're the same amount of man as before. and they know you're not supposed to interact with men, not as you would with dykes, at least. and it sours. it's all your imagination, all in your head, but it sours.

you sigh. you think about how small you are. how short, how narrow, how feeble. how your voice pitches up when you talk to strangers because it's easier to speak quietly when it carries more, and because you're nervous. because it's a chore to talk, like everything is. you think about testosterone. you think about how your family would look at you, the questions they would ask, your answers they would only pretend to accept. the uncomfortable glances and whispered questions they'd try to hide from you. you think about how small you are, and how small you will always be. how you don't know of a way to fix it, but even if there was one, no one would want you anymore. you'd be the only one thinking it made you a cooler dyke. you think about how you don't even want a T-voice all the time, how you'll never be able to switch it at will, because you don't know how and can't bring yourself to figure it out. you think about how your throat closes around every hint of your own attraction. how wanting is perverse, how wanting is invasive, how wanting is embarrassing and too vulnerable so it must stay anonymous, as an online witness, and how you can barely manage to form or maintain friendships because your brain makes you pull away, always spinning out and struggling to recover from the simplest of interactions. how they'll all leave you and you won't chase after them at all and how that will hurt them. how stuck you get. how it looks like nothing's holding you back, how that frustrates everyone who thought you were going to be more than you were. the people you love who understand except when it comes to being ghosted, being shut out. how you don't want to hurt them. how you can't tell them that because you're stuck. how you turn to stone when touched, how you never reach out, how you lose your speech and can't look at people, how your autism is fun and sexy until it becomes real and you never see them anymore, how much you longed for someone who knew everything without you having to explain, and who loved you anyway. how unreasonable you know that is to expect of anyone. you think about that not-even-real lesbian bar. you think about how you still can't drive. how you can't leave your home on your own, without dragging somebody into helping you. how you can't leave your body. how you can't leave your manhood behind.

you think about finding another lesbian blog and ignoring everything. about skimming it for the parts you can juice some meaning from. the parts men ignore and don't understand, and how typical of you it is to do so. or the parts where you're not welcome and you should accept that, because it's for lesbians only. how you are a lesbian anyway. how you're meant to choose lesbian or man, how each is a betrayal of some kind to yourself or your people, your family, your lovely strangers, your rare friendly acquaintances. about the parts that tell you you're not wanted, that you're ugly and lazy and gross and insert yourself everywhere without even asking. about the parts that tell you you are hated, and how lesbians are above it all by rejecting men. how lesbians are each blessed miracles. about the parts that say you should be ashamed of being whatever twisted confused freak you are, of everything, of looking and wanting or not looking or not wanting, of picking and choosing instead of taking it all in with a smile. after all, shouldn't you take it? or is your ego too fragile, as men's so often are? aren't you tired? good. we're not here for your consumption. and we sure as hell don't want your company or "community" or whatever. didn't you read the sign? no boys allowed. and if you want to come in you have to make up your mind. as if you haven't told them the only answer you have. you're both. you're both.

you know you broke the rule by interacting.

but it gets lonely sometimes. you wonder if they know.

[bookwyrminspiration]

trying to get shit sorted out for fall semester but no one is back in office until it starts is. not ideal

[fishedeyelenz]

[mad-hunts]

y'all know that feeling where you forgot a detail about your oc (because barton basically is my oc at this point LOL) and then it comes back at the most freaking random time to haunt you? because that is pretty much what just happened to me and it's uhhh. i wasn't sure whether barton's mental state could get any worse, but it seems i was wrong. trigger warning for self-harm under the cut.

so, i think i have talked about this before concerning barton's sociopathic nature, but if there is one thing that people with ASPD experience: it's this chronic feeling of emptiness within them that makes it hard for them to enjoy a lot of thing's. and this, combined with the fact that they can't easily connect with other people due to the fact that they're lacking in empathy... well, it's particularly relevant to barton because he has literally hurt himself before just to feel something.

but barton just acts like nothing is wrong a majority of the time if you see him with bandages on his arms. because he truly does feel a blend of not knowing how to ask for help, as well as thinking that he doesn't need people pitying him, though wanting to help someone who is mentally unwell is usually done out of concern — but barton just doesn't think that way for whatever reason. like, he does have a different perception / a warped perception of reality compared to other people, though he figures that it'd probably be best if he just dealt with it alone. because if even he doesn't know how to voice how desperate barton feels sometimes to get away from the emptiness, then he believes that no one would understand enough to help him, anyway.

and i think he still does it sometimes because barton is just genuinely so depressed that even when he gets something he thinks he wants about 50 percent of the time, it turns out that no, he actually doesn't want it - and he's constantly seeking out stimulation because barton's sense of boredom is like a beast in the way that it almost never seems to go away. because once he learns about something new, sure... it's cool for a little while, but then this new thing he's learned tarnishes and loses its luster, so-to-speak. so it's no longer appealing for him to do + it makes high-risk / thrill seeking thing's like drinking, gambling, egging people on intentionally (especially if they're dangerous), etc. even not seem satisfying sometimes.

[empresskadia]

I've been productive today, I worked, got off early, did the dishes, and cleaned a little. I wrote 1110 words today [my main accomplishment] and got to talk to lovely people today.

And now, it's my weekend now

[pa-pa-plasma]

one of the things that will always destroy me is people believing that good story = darker/more mature/more sexual. this belief has ruined so many stories that could have been amazing & has prevented almost everyone from enjoying other really good stories simply because the age range it's aimed at is one they believe can't have complex themes, characters, plot, etc etc. they don't believe they can be moved by something a publisher or studio decided is for kids & so write it off without even thinking about it. biggest curse of being a writer who actually loves stories & telling them is that literally no one else cares in the most pessimistic, higher-than-thou, capitalism brainrot way you can imagine. & it's all automatic. because that's just what you're taught.

[lillotte17]

..

[keeps-ache]

in a cafe rn. this place is nice :>

[evanelleonyx]

Shadow fans, come get your fuckin juice