#VICTIMS: ME

[inkskinned]

i think a lot about exactly 1 thing from the roman empire: the concept of bread and circus. the idea was that if your population was fed and entertained, they wouldn't revolt. you are asking us to give up our one small life, is the thing - for under 15 dollars an hour.

what would that buy, even. i am trading weekends and late nights and my back health. i am trading slow mornings and long walks and cortisol levels. i am trading sleep and silence and peace. for ... this. for what barely-covers-rent.

life really is more expensive right now. you aren't making that up. i make almost 3 times what i did 5 years ago, and despite an incredibly equal series of bills - i am still struggling. the most expensive line item i added was to own a dog. the money is just evaporating.

we were okay with it because it's a cost-benefit analysis. i could handle the customer harassment and standing all day and the manager's constantly changing temperament - i was coming home to hope, and my life planned in a blue envelope. three hours would buy me my dog's food for a month. i can give up three hours for him, for his shiny coat and wide, happy mouth. three days could be a new mattress, if i was thrifty. if i really scrimped and saved, we could maybe afford a trip into the city.

recently i cried in the car about the price of groceries.

business majors will be mad at me, but my most inflammatory opinion is that people should never be valued at the same place as products. your staff should not be a series of numbers in an excel sheet that you can just "replace" whenever you need something at that moment. your staff should be people, end of sentence.

it feels like someone somewhere is playing a very bad video game. like my life is a toy. like someone opened an app on their phone and hired me in diner dash ultra. they don't need to pay me well or treat me alright - they can always just show me the door. there is always someone more desperate, always someone more willing.

but i go to work and know i could save for years and not afford housing. i am never going to own my own home, most likely. i have no idea how to afford her ring, much less the wedding. my dog doesn't have his own yard. everything i love is on subscription. if i lose my job, i have no "nest egg" to catch my falling.

this thin life - they want me to give up summer for it. to open my mouth and throat and swallow the horrible hours and counted keystrokes. they want me to give up mountains and any non-federal holiday. to give up snow days. to give up talking to my mom whenever i want. to give up visiting the ocean and hearing the waves.

bread and circus worked for a while, actually. it was the kind of plan that would probably now be denounced by republicans as socialist commie liberal pronoun bullshit.

but sometimes i wonder if we should point them to the part of the history book that says: it worked until it didn't.

[uncanny-tranny]

Honestly, there is a certain type of fetishizing of violence that occurs when you are the victim of abuse - wherein people talk directly to you about how much they fantasize about your abuser/s dying and being killed - "all abusers must be killed!" they say.

As a victim of prolonged abuse, I never felt cared for when people indulged that information to me. It often feels like my abuse is being exploited for others to enact their own violent fantasies and secret desires - my abuse means nothing to them in the same way that I didn't matter to my abusers. It's not support - it's just another cycle of violence.

I'm begging people to care more about victims and survivors than they do about retribution of abusers. Nowhere along the way should your focus on the abuser outweigh the people affected by their abuse. If you truly want to support abuse victims and survivors, start with us

[columboposting]

rewatched Last of the Time Lords

[bixels]

Scary Sunset.

I'm concepting things way outta order in this story, but I'm sure you can piece things together. Context is for a storybeat where, after defeating and capturing Adagio (thus having all three sirens in her possession), Sunset enacts her revenge plot to release the sirens on Canterlot as Thea discovers she's been manipulated. In a confrontation, the two scuffle and fight over the siren orbs while Sunset struggles with her conflicting wants and emotions.

[casscainmainly]

Jason and Cass' opposing views on murder is so interesting. Their conflict is not purely moralistic - that is to say, it's not purely that Jason thinks murder is okay, and Cass doesn't. It's their identities, their original and most fundamental worldview. Jason is a murder victim and Cass is a murderer. Yes, Jason kills people as Red Hood, and yes, Cass dies multiple times, but this never truly erases how they see themselves. Jason will always have been murdered, and Cass will always be a murderer. They are unable to fully extricate themselves from those roles, and thus will never approach life or death the same way.

[bbygirl-aemond]

“He was very fond of me, and i of him” NOOOOOOOO ALICENT STOP THE AVERAGE VIEWER DOESN’T HAVE THE MEDIA LITERACY TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU CAN’T VERBALIZE YOUR OWN ABUSE DUE TO YOUR UPBRINGING AND YOUR OWN COPING MECHANISMS AND THAT IT MEANS YOU SPEAK KINDLY OF YOUR ABUSER IN A WAY THAT IS NEITHER TRUE NOR DESERVED

[mschismosa]

"can I borrow you for a second-"

[saltycryptid]

bro is NOT listening to Gale's dissertation on the mechanics of the underdark tunnel system

[beirarowling]

The way your fellow men do or don't perceive you is an all-male issue. Setting aside the fact that the vast majority of female victims of SA indicate they'd rather receive counselling in a female-only space, there is zero evidence that trans-identified men present less of a threat to women and girls than the non-trans-identified variety. In fact, there are proportionately more trans-identified men in jail in the UK currently for sexual offences than among the general male prison population.

That statistic doesn't mean I think you personally are a predator. What it does prove is that there are at least as many predators among trans-identified men as among men who don't identify as trans.

If you and fellow trans-identified men want a space where no other men go, you're free to create one. Nobody wants you raped. Nobody wants you killed or harmed in any way. But women's spaces are for women. Your inability to grasp that you aren't entitled to those spaces because you don't 'identify' as a man is not female rape survivors' problem. Seeking to breach vulnerable women's boundaries does not mark you out as one of us. On the contrary, your arguments are typical of a certain kind of male: one who thinks the satisfaction of his own needs and desires is far more important than the harm he may be causing to women.

[omgrandomwords]

november 5th’s grandchild

[radicallycooljewishgirl]

Men will never ever like romance the same way women do because it shows them the way they have to act, it shows them that they can’t be scumbags and not abuse a woman.

Therefore they make fun of it, and women (sadly) feel ashamed of it, making them stop looking for men who might actually treat them well and instead go for the men that belittle them.

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love

[osiris-iii-bc]

How Terzo is universally considered the Ministry’s money waster/fashion victim when he only had two shitty outfits and a borrowed pair of sunglasses, while Copia rocks a different outfit for each song, tailored sparkly blazers in every color, gems covered vestments, a Goyard bag, and a McQueen outfit for his promotion (but still not a decent room) like how

[queerautism]

Unironically I have a solution to this - Encourage young women to also read Lolita by Nabokov in addition to these books.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Fuck fuck everything for fuck damned pissing hell's sake one of my students has used ChatGPT

I wish to commit an act that will in future be referred to by its date

[melancholyofautvmn]

VIVINOS WANTS ME DEAD WHAT THE FUCKK