#Who never really taught them how to be a man

[percivaltheknight]

Yeah, this says it so fucking well.

I have some big feelings about this entire thing. As a trans man, and as someone who was raised in a very gendered parenting heavy culture.

As much as my mom claims to not care about gender stereotypes, there's so many things she's said or done or expected from me, that she expected to see, that she prepared to see in her growing Girl Child, that she never got. And it shocked and annoyed her every time, because I wasn't following the Rules TM.

And my dad was always the type to keep his opinions to himself, but it's clear to see that he's always been a very firm believer in gender roles and stereotypes.

This created a very awkward environment for my brother and I. My brother who liked sewing and crocheting and origami, who hated the fixing and yard work that dad expected him to learn how to do. My brother who's now teaching himself how to cook, who buys himself cookbooks, because my parents never took the time to teach him anything besides how to turn on a grill.

And then me, who was dragged to knitting circles by my mom and grandma, who said, "it's good for you to learn a craft" but ignored all my interest in other things, because clearly those aren't Real Interests. Me who learned anyways, and then taught my little brother, because he wanted to be involved but was never brought with. Me who learned chess so I could play with my dad, who always said no, not today, but was always disappointed when my bro showed no interest. Me who borrowed my dad's sword art books, and his castle books, and toddled after him to his fencing clubs and through the hardware store and into his work shed to see what he was doing, who listened for hours when he'd tell me about medieval culture and building techniques and weapons and armor and knights, who watched all of the documentaries with him long after mom and my little bro got bored and wandered off to do other things.

And my dumbass parents were surprised that I named myself after a knight from arthurian legend when I came out as trans.

And at the same time, while my brother is teaching himself how to sew and how to cook and is making crafts and knitting, because he enjoys those things, they ask, "why didn't you tell us you wanted to learn?" and we both just sit there and share a look, because really? Where have you even been? Were you paying attention at all while you were raising us, or were you just on autopilot for 18 years?

I mean, yeah, there are still things we like that belong in the Assigned Gender Category. My bro likes his tools, and he's always been proud of his skill with computers and videogames. And I do like crocheting, and cooking, and makeup, now that i've found my own way of doing it. But those aren't things we like because we're supposed to like them. Those are just things we like.

But I think I figured out why I hated pink and purple so much as a kid. When every birthday and christmas present you get is the same color that you've never shown interest in before, and when everything in your room is the same bright happy shade of Something Someone Else Likes, you tend to cringe at the sight of it.

Gendered parenting is so weird. As a little kid I was a total daddy's girl, I was told I would always try to sneak into the garage, I was always very interested in everything he was doing and would follow him around while he was working, but while my family was never the type to outright say "you can't do that because you're a girl", they simply didn't entertain the idea that I could possibly be interested in cars. Then when my little brother was born, it was just assumed he would become a mechanic like our dad because he was a boy. Even though he, unlike me, didn't like being in the garage much and wasn't all that interested in what dad was doing. Once he got to a certain age, dad started making him help and would drag him away from his actual interests for it, which lead to a lot of arguing and not much actual learning.

Gendered expectations sort of create doubles of children. There's the real child with their actual personality, interests and behaviors, and then there's the Gender Child.

My real brother hated soccer and team sports. The Gender Child that existed only the minds of the adults in his life needed to play soccer because that's what a Boy Child does.

Growing up, I always felt like adults didn't actually know me as a person and they weren't interested in getting to know me. Because they felt they'd already learned everything there was to know about me when they were told "it's a girl".

When I talk about how I never got gifts I actually liked from my relatives (to this day I still don't like getting gifts that aren't something I picked out myself), it isn't actually about the gifts themselves. I don't even remember them. What I do remember is the feeling of being given gifts that were seemingly not bought with the real me in mind. They were for the Girl Child™️ version of me. The me that adults wanted me to be, not who I actually was.

[spectral-phases]

A non-comprehensive guide to my cooking headcanons for the Batfam

I'll add comic panels to support myself when I feel like I'm going very much against the grain of fanon and have to defend my position a little.

Alfred: Master of the craft, learned to cook from French chefs and has been a professional chef as a cover while serving as a spy. He can make you croissants and puff pastry from scratch, but the waffle iron (every waffle iron, yes even that brand new fancy one that is supposed to be so easy to use) was designed in hell to torment him specifically. This may be because even God himself is jealous of Alfred's ability to master a recipe after only reading it once (never refers to it again while working), or watching the video once and so he was given an Achilles heal by the divine. He has a cookbook and personal recipes written down, but very rarely looks at them. He is not the best teacher, and he did not care for children or anyone else in the kitchen, but Martha Wayne was not having any of that, especially for Jewish holidays, and to date, the way he handles kids in the kitchen is his best approximation of how Martha taught Bruce how to cook, but he lacks the requisite patience because he learned how to cook from French chefs (Gordon Ramsey without the soft kids mode, but he's never screaming or yelling or cussing people out because he's refined).

He is allowed to cook in the kitchen by himself

The kitchen is his domain and he maintains the right to supervise as needed, with some exceptions

Select people can assist him, but he prefers to do the cooking by himself as its the only thing he adds to the family that they enjoy that isn't cutting off years of his life like medical treatment or running the comms is. He's also stupid fucking fast at it and good at cleaning as he goes, and its hard to have someone else in his very regulated and honed system without mucking it up

Bruce: Contrary to popular belief, the man can cook. Unfortunately, he can only do so if there is a written recipe to follow and it is written in the way that makes sense to his brain. Will read the recipe ahead of time for prep, but will miraculously forget that there is a 3 hour resting period if it is not at the top with the prep time and cook time. Please do not ask him to cook anything after watching a video, it does not stick. Has no sense of what spices do what, so if the recipe says we're using 2 tablespoons of ground cloves, then that's what we're doing. With a good recipe, he can make any food from around the world no matter how complex, however, even something as simple as a tuna salad, ham and cheese, or a PB&J sandwich needs a written recipe with exact amounts and instructions for him to get it done or he will mess it up in ways not even the devil himself could imagine. Look, he has an eidetic memory, but his brain just does not compute that way and he's alway second guessing himself without a written recipe. The only thing he can make from scratch without a recipe are his mother's latkes, but that is, of course, rarely made because of all the emotions, but sometimes he goes through it because he remembers how she had him make them and it feels like she's still there with him, whispering in his ear.

He and Alfred have both agreed to tell anyone who asks that he's not allowed to cook by himself in the kitchen because he will find a way to use three pots and every bowl to make hot chocolate (he will, as a matter of fact), but it's really because when he was younger, he was making a pan sauce that the recipe simply said to “reduce” and managed to burn it so badly it ruined a pan Alfred had inherited from his grandmother and Bruce cannot stomach the possibility of doing that again

He winds up cooking for real these days only if Alfred is injured, but can sit in the kitchen to help supervise (“No, Master Bruce, you'll need a much bigger pot for that”) and explain vague steps in the recipes ("Coat the back of a spoon means that...")(Alexa or other virtual assistants do not help)

Dick: Despite what his kitchen cabinets may suggest, he makes phenomenal food. He's just putting all his emotional energy into keeping his people alive so if he's on his own then odds are he's having take-out, eating a mix of cereal/granola bars/trail-mix/cartons of protein shakes, or maybe a frozen meal prepped thing from the last time he had the wherewithal and time to do so and is thusly freezer burned to shit. If he is making food for other people? Amazing. Delicious. His repertoire is mainly dishes from Eastern Europe or Southwest Asia, but he has to know what the soul of the meal is if he's making something new. Rarely consults written recipes (unless they're online and have the whole novel of where the recipe came from and what it means and all the pictures of how it's supposed to look at various stages, and he will read that and the ingredient list only), prefers videos, but only from grandmas and grandpas or POC, not the rich white frat boys.

He cooks in any kitchen where Alfred is not and will not be present. You would be forgiven for thinking that he and Alfred could cook in the kitchen at the same time, especially since they can make the same dish with a reasonably similar flavor profile. The fact of the matter is, they both are very much type A personalities (even if Dick likes to pretend he's a type B) and if they are both present during the cooking process they will be at each other's throats constantly about their different methods, even if they are getting to the same destination in the end

Cass: Subsists mostly off of what she can find or what others feed her. She can cook a few simple dishes but they’re not mind blowing. She does make a phenomenal assistant, but she had zero working knowledge of what does what coming into the picture and has been gradually learning. Has learned how to work the waffle iron from Steph, and so is in charge of waffles for breakfast. Waffles has become her thing and everyone lets her have it. She can even make stuffed waffles these days.

Alfred is happy to leave all waffle breakfast adventures in the manor to Cass, she's very polite in the kitchen and doesn't make a huge mess, she'll even clean as she goes so it doesn't interfere with whatever else he is making

She is Alfred's favorite assistant (the rare times that he actually wants one) because she doesn't take his irritation personally because she can see how its meant to be directed at himself and will do exactly as he says

Jason: It's important you know I headcanon his paternal grandmother as Italian (so she cannot be Ma Gunn) and his step-mother as Latina going into this. He can fucking cook like no one's business. He can taste something and recreate it nearly flawlessly. However, he was taught by his nonna and mamita to measure with his heart, so he was presented with measuring cups once and broke out into hives. Only God knows how much of any one ingredient makes it into anything he makes, this includes cakes and breads. The only recipes he's interested in learning are strictly videos from the grandmas and grandpas or POC (Jason has a rule, the shittier the camera quality, the better the food will be, usually). He watched one popular white frat boy cooking video exactly once and was screaming about why they have to dirty approximately sixteen thousand little bowls to measure out each spice by themselves (and that wasn't nearly enough garlic!). He technically has recipes written down by hand from his nonna and mamita, and a few he wrote himself to try and help Alfred understand some meals, they're just hidden away in a drawer that he rarely references for cooking guidance over looking at their handwriting (The set from his family was in the box of stuff the neighbor saved for him that had his birth certificate in it, and he is forever grateful to still have that stuff. He thought for sure it was gone for good). Approximately 80% of all his meals are cooked by him or someone else, even if it's just a quick scrambled eggs and toast.

Jason and Alfred do not coexist happily in a kitchen together. However, they do coexist because Alfred asked him once why he was doing things ���that way” as a child and he said his Nonna did it that way and that shut Alfred the fuck up immediately

Jason does not accept help in the kitchen from anyone unless he's making dumplings of any variety or tamales and then everyone's helping put them together

Tim: He only started learning how to cook at the age of 15, so he doesn't have a wide base of experience to draw from or pre-existing knowledge. Tim has a few staple dishes he has learned how to make. It's good, but not winning any awards. However, his hang up is he needs to know exactly how and why things work the way they work in a recipe before he can actually be trusted to cook it on his own. He likes recipes from food scientists, hobbyists or professionals, because they are more likely to explain all the things he needs to know before he can go ahead and cook something more complex. He measures everything in grams, and had to get a scale with 10ths of a gram for spices, once made coffee with lab equipment just for the science of it. Someone got him The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and it was a game-changer. There is no deity out there that can explain to you the recipes he writes down himself, because their ever changing shorthand only make sense in his brain. Like Dick, Tim does not often have the wherewithal to make complex foods for himself, and so has a bunch of jars of sauces/curries/soups or vacuum sealed pre-seasoned meals ready to go in a sous vide or pot in the freezer to break out as needed. Often freezer-burned because of how little he is at his own place.

Tim is only allowed to cook in the manor's kitchen with supervision because he is likely to make disastrous experiments if left curious and unattended ("I know it's usually done this way, but…" is either going to lead to some delicious food, or an explosion. No way to know for sure unless you're there watching it happen live). What happens in his home kitchen is between him and God

He can make himself useful as an assistant if needed, but usually only for Dick because only he has the patience to put up with Tim in the kitchen

Damian: Has forced himself to learn to cook competently. Will not let himself be outdone by the others, but has learned from all of them. When he's older, he could whip up a Michelin star quality dinner with plating, but doesn't find it worth the effort unless he is trying to impress someone or prove he can. Opts for simple and nutritious meals on the rare occasion he is responsible for his own meals and has the time/desire to cook. Does he measure? Only exactly for baked goods, he will never admit it, but he has no idea how Jason can make baked goods without measuring. There are two things he knows how to make on his own as easy as breathing beyond eggs: Martha Wayne's latkes and Talia's karak chai.

Damian will only cook in the manor if it is more prudent to do so and everyone else there cannot (It's the middle of a blizzard and Bruce and Alfred are sick). Regardless, he is allowed to cook unsupervised in the manor when he's old enough for that to be reasonable.

Will help Alfred but complain the whole time, despite obviously enjoying the time spent with Alfred

Look, he's either helping someone else make something, or he's on his own. Does not care for assistants as he feels like he is constantly being judged.

Barbara: Can cook, will cook, and does cook. She uses slow-cookers and sous vide usually, because she needs something she can throw into a pot and then have to run away from for hours at a time at a moments notice without having to juggle it too. Otherwise it's a microwaved meal. Everything in her kitchen has been fit to accommodate her cooking in her wheelchair and when she's got the time and is really feeling up to it, she can cook a very amazing meal on the stove just for herself or anyone else she's having over.

Will only accept help in the kitchen from Cass or Steph because they are laid back enough to put up with

Steph: Can she cook? Yes. Does she love cooking? No. Cooking is a chore to her and it does not have the payoff she needs to engage with it more than absolutely necessary. She'll look through her pantry and declare that she doesn't have anything good because everything she has was bought when she had more ambition to cook than she currently possesses and then order door dash. The easiest way to get her to cook is to tell her that she's not allowed to. That said, she really loves to bake. She's not winning any awards for her presentation, but it tastes amazing.

Would rather clean dishes than help cook because she does not have the energy to put up with the way the others are while cooking

I haven't read much with Kate, Duke, Helena, or Harper in it, so I don't have anything for them.

[himasgod]

Gaming x Reader

Where you are a craftswoman, and he always make sure that your orders arrive correctly

You work as a craftswoman in Yilong Port, creating small sculptures that merchants sell in other regions. Although you've seen Gaming many times helping merchants, you've never had the chance to talk to him. Everything changes when a problematic delivery leads you to cross paths with this energetic and lively escort.

(HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAMING I LOVE YOU SO MUCH <3)

At Yilong Port, work never stopped.

Every day was a dance of activity: merchants haggled, fishermen unloaded their loot, and you immersed yourself in the workshop, delicately carving small sculptures. The pieces you created, from animal figures to ornaments inspired by local legends, were in high demand in other regions. Although you loved your craft, there were days when exhaustion caught up with you, and this was one of those days.

“This order is a mess!” you muttered to yourself, looking at the pile of sculptures that still needed to be packed.

You had worked tirelessly to complete an urgent order, but the merchant who was supposed to pick it up never arrived. Now, you were at the port, carrying the box yourself and looking for the delivery man.

That was when you saw him: Gaming, with his unmistakable red amd brown hair and his smile that seemed to light up the place. He was helping a group of merchants load their ships, moving with an energy that seemed inexhaustible.

“Do you need help with that?” he suddenly asked, coming closer as he saw you struggling with the box.

“I don’t want to bother you…” you replied, but he had already taken the box with ease, as if it weighed nothing.

“It would be bothersome to let you continue carrying this alone. Come on, where are you going?”

His tone was carefree, but there was something in his eyes that made you feel like he really wanted to help.

From that moment on, Gaming began to appear frequently in your path.

He always had an excuse to stop by the workshop, whether it was to “make sure the merchants weren’t late again” or just to see how your projects were going.

At first, you found him a little annoying; his energy contrasted with your calm environment. But over time, you realized that his company made the days less lonely.

“Your sculptures are amazing,” he said one day, as he watched you work on a dragon figure.

“Thank you. I always try to make each piece tell a story,” you replied, without taking your eyes off your work.

“And what is the story of this dragon?”

You paused for a moment, surprised by his genuine interest. “It’s about a guardian who protected his people, even when no one believed in him.”

Gaming smiled, but this time his expression had something else, something melancholic. “I like it. The dragon looks like the Wushou dance's one. I also dance."

His words intrigued you, but you didn’t want to push him. It was during another conversation, while sharing an improvised Honey Char Siu, that Gaming began to open up.

“Before I got here, I traveled a lot. I’ve always wanted to see the world, meet people, help them fulfill their dreams. But…” He paused, his gaze lost on the horizon. “Sometimes I feel like, while I do that, I forget my own.”

“And what are your dreams?” you asked softly.

He laughed, though his laugh didn’t have the same energy as usual. “I guess I’m still trying to figure it out.”

It was at that moment that you realized that behind his energetic attitude, Gaming carried a burden that he didn’t always share.

Over time, your relationship became closer. He began helping you in the workshop, though his attempts at woodcarving often ended in disaster. In return, you taught him to appreciate the tranquility of the creative process, something he admitted he needed in his life.

One afternoon, as the sun set over the harbor, Gaming appeared with a surprise: a small wooden box, clumsily carved, but clearly made with effort.

“It’s not as good as your sculptures, but I wanted to make something for you,” he said, handing it to you with a nervous smile.

Opening it, you found a tiny figurine of a bird in flight. It wasn’t perfect, but that made it all the more special.

“Gaming, I... it's beautiful...” you said sincerely, feeling a warmth in your chest that you hadn’t experienced in a long time.

Gaming scratched the back of his neck, clearly relieved. “I wanted you to know that even when I’m busy with merchants or travel, I always think of you!”

That confession, simple but full of meaning, marked the beginning of something new between you.

From then on, every day at Yilong Port was a little brighter. You were no longer just a craftswoman working in solitude, and Gaming was no longer just an escort carrying other people’s burdens. Together, you found a balance: he showed you how to find joy in chaos, and you taught him to appreciate peace in the small moments.

Under the warm lights of the port, the two of you began to build something more lasting than any sculpture or journey: a connection that made every day worthwhile.

[notacluedo]

more diomedes just bc

[amelikos]

Friede being that bridge between generations and the beloved student of Liko and Amethio's parents, to the point Liko's mother entrusts her daughter's safety to him and that Amethio's father acknowledged his work and kept his ID card long after Friede left Exceed and trusts him enough to let him know he always has a place with him..

Something something, once a student, now the mentor guiding their kids.

[floralovebot]

yknow i think a really fundamental misunderstanding current dc writers have with garth is that he genuinely wasn't a child soldier like dick or wally. sure he definitely comes from that era and there Are undoubtedly aspects of his character arc and relationship with arthur that are similar to the classic mentor/mentee relationship, but their core relationship didn't start with that. arthur originally only brought garth along because they were just besties. arthur was living it up homeless style with this random orphan he found and they got into some hijinks together. then shit happened, he becomes King, but he's not going to abandon garth so he continues to bring him along.

part of garth growing up was him having to take things more seriously and learn to handle hero shit. like. he was really just randomly thrust into that world because arthur Became a big hero, not because arthur intentionally took on a protégé.

so when i see dc writing rebirth garth or even yj garth as this Cool Kid who was taken under arthur's wing and trained to become a Cool Hero, it's just,,, it's a Huge misunderstanding of garth himself but especially their relationship. his daddy issues are amplified because he always saw arthur as this cool older man who took him in as a son, not as a student. unlike a character like dick who has issues with bruce because bruce himself treats him as both a son and student, garth really became the student in response to arthur's duties, after they already had an established relationship. and even then, garth was never meant to be arthur's protégé in the way the other kid sidekicks were.

like. garth became arthur's sidekick because he wanted to be there. he wanted to be with His Dad and help him on these important missions. he didn't want to be alone anymore, and if that meant risking his life for arthur then fucking whatever, he'll do it. while arthur did take on the role of mentor and garth was very much his sidekick, garth was never the Child Soldier or the Protégé like the other sidekicks. like i'd say that's actually a huge part of his character arc. current dc writers will Never be able to capture garth in the right light if they continue to paint him as the same kind of sidekick the other titans were.

[grinchwrapsupreme]

being super normal about White calling Billy "a dreamer"after the events of Maybe No Go

[starry-bi-sky]

back on my bullshit

and by bullshit i mean "rewatch MCD for the millionth time in a row and resist the urge to make an MCD OC"

i have yet to succeed in my bullshit.

[fragglerockopinions]

The worst thing about suffering is that it still hurts when the danger is over but no one cares about it anymore because it shouldn't hurt. No one will ever say "I'm sorry that happened to you" especially when they barely say "I'm sorry that's happening."

[united-under-skyfall]

growing up in a small town is like. i want to get as far away from here as humanly possible and never look back. i've been sorted into homeroom classes with at least seven of the same kids from kindergarten through graduation and i don't know that we've ever talked longer than five minutes but i'd probably die for them. this would be a nice place to live for the rest of my life, i think. you know everyone in town by their family name even if you don't actually know any of them personally. i'm tired. everyone i know is tired. i hate it here. i never want to leave. we have nothing to do here and the boredom gouges tracks in my brain. i am personally offended by anyone not from here who says there's nothing to do here. everyone here knows too much about me. i know too much about everyone here. how does it feel to start from a blank slate? i would never know. there is a quiet, hidden sort of rage that everyone plants in their gardens. the lemonade at the market tastes like five-year-old laughter, the library smells like paper and the hot chocolate they used to make for events in the basement. the local history room hadn't changed since they installed it because there's nothing else to add, nothing else to know. i am tired. they're developing things and too much is changing too quickly and this has been the same unchanging neighborhood for fifty fucking years and now it's utterly unrecognizable from the place i knew barely a decade ago. i am never sure how much this change is a good thing, how much is too much. it feels like someone is peeling back my wallpaper skin when i'm not looking, painting different shades over what i thought should be there. i'm not the only person in this place but it feels strangely like they should have asked for my permission first, like i am part of its foundation, or maybe it's part of mine. (do we ask the bricks what they want the wall to look like, too?) we all share layers of the same memories that are slowly shifting and eroding, and you can see it everywhere you look, viscerally, physically. i think it is impossible to escape this place unless you are willing to bleed, and make bleed. it would be so, so easy to just disappear. the air feels fresher here than anywhere else, simply because it is the baseline my body has learned and my lungs have loved. i am so very, very tired. i think it's this place. i think i like it. i don't know. i don't know how to be anything else. i learned from brick and mortar, from pavement, from parks; buildings that served my mother as a child, graves no one visits anymore, trees older than my family line; everything sags, the colors washed out. they are tired, too.

[badcountryofficial]

I'm so lucky I realized all I did after my first long term relationship and not like...multiple in

[relaxxattack]

i really liked these additional comments and thought they deserved to be in the post

every time i post about male favoritism in the fandom i feel like i need to wear a shirt that says "i am not trying to tell you that it is wrong to like davekat i literally also like davekat if you come away with the assumption that my message is to stop liking the boy ships in homestuck you are missing the overall point which is arguably more detrimental than never having interacted with what i was trying to say in the first place" flashback to that person in my inbox like "just admit that you don't like davekat it's pretty obvious based on your posts that you have a problem with it" do i need to draw them holding hands or something to get you guys to trust me and engage with what i'm saying. would it help if i also threw in a subway surfers clip

[werewolfbneimitzvah]

vent post. There are two stories i was told in my teenage years that even before i had a real concept of trans issues made me uninterested in discussing the supposed sacredness and safety of separated sex-based spaces.

First, when i was like 13 or 14 my PE teacher told us about a time she went to a women's public restroom, some guy was hanging out outside the bathrooms, she didn't think anything of it, went to the bathroom, and he walked in after her and like, creeped on her over the top of the stall. She was ok, she wasn't telling us this to scare us, just telling us what to do in situations like that (and iirc she was telling the whole co-ed class this, not just girls, bc it's useful for everyone), but this taught me immediately and forever that there's nothing actually keeping these spaces separate really, that anyone can be a creep in any space, and that establishing a space like that as for women only isn't actually particularly useful for safety.

Second, when i was 16 i was at an anime convention, a friendly acquaintance of mine and i ended up in conversation outside, and he showed me his bare wrist and told me he'd been kicked out. A female friend of his had stepped in dog poop outside, and between that and the stress of the convention she'd had a bit of an emotional breakdown, so being her friend, he started comforting her and ushered her into the women's restroom so they could wash the poop off her shoe together. And because he was a man who went into the women's bathroom, he got kicked out, no matter that he was doing something that was actually beneficial to a woman. Punishing a woman's friend for supporting her was supposed to... protect her somehow? This made it clear to me that a no-exceptions rule separating the sexes like that wasn't actually inherently good for everyone.

And this isn't even getting into me as a child needing to accompany my younger sister to the restroom when we were out with just my dad because she had certain support needs past the age he felt comfortable bringing her into the men's room with him. And what if I'd been born a boy, or she'd been the first born? Who's helping her then?

And of course even putting all this aside, we should always prioritize compassion and support anyway. But i never even needed to meet a trans person to know that "keeping men out of women's bathrooms" is silly nonsense. But trans people also need to pee anyway and as humans they have that right, so leave them the fuck alone. your precious women's restroom is just a fucking room with a door, holy shit give it a fucking rest, if someone is attacking you in the bathroom that's bad and if someone is in there to pee that's good and it doesn't fucking matter what their junk is or was when they were born.

a woman could have done the exact same thing to my PE teacher and it would have also been bad no matter how "supposed" to be in the restroom she was, and no one should ever be punished for helping a crying friend wash their shoe.

Anyway i know I'm speaking to like-minded folks here, i just think about those two stories literally every time bathroom gender shit comes up and it pisses me off.

[trust-over-love]

The conversation sucked but was so what I needed. I was asked to respect his decision to move on. & I asked for the respect to not have sex anymore. Because I love my husband & it makes it harder for me to move on. I was being cordial, not trying to fight. But instead of saying okay & ending the conversation I get shit talked about me. Like what?

I want to move on peacefully as well, just as he requested & not having sex with someone I love who no longer loves me back makes me wrong? So much negative things being said to me. When the convo could’ve been so short. Just crazy. Proves me how toxic he truly is.

But the conversation was needed for me to understand that I am not the only one who messed up. I was lied to & made to believe we’d always work through it & always get stronger through our downfalls. I mean I literally got all the proof of his betrayal, but to him it was nothing & I’m the bad guy. He told me to stay when I should’ve left & now he denies it lmao Okay. We both messed up. Take accountability as I have. I was willing to always try & you lied about never giving up & always trying & that divorce was never an option. Thanks for showing me your true colors. Even showing me how much of a snitch he is by threatening me with law enforcement like really. Thank you for the push. I’m with our kids 85% of the time cause you work a lot & that’s okay I understand that but you threaten to try to get me in trouble with the law. Fake AF. So unbelievable but it’s okay. Thank god I didn’t decide to go back to that place when you asked me to for our kids. I knew it wasn’t gonna be a good idea & I’m so thankful I stuck to my gut feeling.

& he’s mad I use this app to vent instead of talking to people & posting on apps where people know us. Don’t nobody know me here. Don’t nobody even care. You left me, you can’t dictate how I heal myself from being fooled. Crazy how the truth unfolds when things get rough.

[jewishvitya]

A pro-Palestine Jew on tiktok asked those of us who were raised pro-Israel, what got us to change our minds on Palestine. I made a video to answer (with my voice, not my face), and a few people watched it and found some value in it. I'm putting this here too. I communicate through text better than voice.

So I feel repetitive for saying this at this point, but I grew up in the West Bank settlements. I wrote this post to give an example of the extent to which Palestinians are dehumanized there.

Where I live now, I meet Palestinians in day to day life. Israeli Arab citizens living their lives. In the West Bank, it was nothing like that. Over there, I only saw them through the electric fence, and the hostility between us and Palestinians was tangible.

When you're a child being brought into the situation, you don't experience the context, you don't experience the history, you don't know why they're hostile to you. You just feel "these people hate me, they don't want me to exist." And that bubble was my reality. So when I was taught in school that everything we did was in self defense, that our military is special and uniquely ethical because it's the only defensive military in the world - that made sense to me. It slotted neatly into the reality I knew.

One of the first things to burst the bubble for me was when I spoke to an old Israeli man and he was talking about his trauma from battle. I don't remember what he said, but it hit me wrong. It conflicted with the history as I understood it. So I was a bit desperate to make it make sense again, and I said, "But everything we did was in self defense, right?"

He kinda looked at me, couldn't understand at all why I was upset, and he went, "We destroyed whole villages. Of course we did. It was war, that's what you do."

And that casual "of course" stuck with me. I had to look into it more.

I couldn't look at more accurate history, and not at accounts by Palestinians, I was too primed against these sources to trust them. The community I grew up in had an anti-intellectual element to it where scholars weren't trusted about things like this.

So what really solidified this for me, was seeing Palestinian culture.

Because part of the story that Israel tells us to justify everything, is that Palestinians are not a distinct group of people, they're just Arabs. They belong to the nations around us. They insist on being here because they want to deny us a homeland. The Palestinian identity exists to hurt us. This, because the idea of displacing them and taking over their lands doesn't sound like stealing, if this was never theirs and they're only pretending because they want to deprive us.

But then foods, dances, clothing, embroidery, the Palestinian dialect. These things are history. They don't pop into existence just because you hate Jews and they're trying to move here. How gorgeous is the Palestinian thobe? How stunning is tatreez in general? And when I saw specific patterns belonging to different regions of Palestine?

All of these painted for me a rich shared life of a group of people, and countered the narrative that the Palestininian identity was fabricated to hurt us. It taught me that, whatever we call them, whatever they call themselves, they have a history in this land, they have a right to it, they have a connection to it that we can't override with our own.

I started having conversations with leftist friends. Confronting the fact that the borders of the occupied territories are arbitrary and every Israeli city was taken from them. In one of those conversations, I was encouraged to rethink how I imagine peace.

This also goes back to schooling. Because they drilled into us, we're the ones who want peace, they're the ones who keep fighting, they're just so dedicated to death and killing and they won't leave us alone.

In high school, we had a stadium event with a speaker who was telling us about a person who defected from Hamas, converted to Christianity and became a Shin Bet agent. Pretty sure you can read this in the book "Son of Hamas." A lot of my friends read the book, I didn't read it, I only know what I was told in that lecture. I guess they couldn't risk us missing out on the indoctrination if we chose not to read it.

One of the things they told us was how he thought, we've been fighting with them for so long, Israelis must have a culture around the glorification of violence. And he looked for that in music. He looked for songs about war. And for a while he just couldn't find any, but when he did, he translated it more fully, and he found out the song was about an end to wars. And this, according to the story as I was told it, was one of the things that convinced him. If you know know the current trending Israeli "war anthem," you know this flimsy reasoning doesn't work.

Back then, my friend encouraged me to think more critically about how we as Israelis envision peace, as the absence of resistance. And how self-centered it is. They can be suffering under our occupation, but as long as it doesn't reach us, that's called peace. So of course we want it and they don't.

Unless we're willing to work to change the situation entirely, our calls for peace are just "please stop fighting back against the harm we cause you."

In this video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares how he changed his mind. His story is much more interesting than mine, and he's much more eloquent telling it. He mentions how he was taught to fear Palestinians. An automatic thought, "If I go with you, you'll kill me." I was taught this too. I was taught that, if I'm in a taxi, I should be looking at the driver's name. And if that name is Arab, I should watch the road and the route he's taking, to be prepared in case he wants to take me somewhere to kill me. Just a random person trying to work. For years it stayed a habit, I'd automatically look at the driver's name. Even after knowing that I want to align myself with liberation, justice, and equality. It was a process of unlearning.

On October, not long after the current escalation of violence, I had to take a taxi again. A Jewish driver stopped and told me he'll take me, "so an Arab doesn't get you." Israeli Jews are so comfortable saying things like this to each other. My neighbors discussed a Palestinian employee, with one saying "We should tell him not to come anymore, that we want to hire a Jew." The second answered, "No, he'll say it's discrimination," like it would be so ridiculous of him. And the first just shrugged, "So we don't have to tell him why." They didn't go through with it, but they were so casual about this conversation.

In the Torah, we're told to treat those who are foreign to us well, because we know what it's like to be the foreigner. Fighting back against oppression is the natural human thing to do. We know it because we lived it. And as soon as I looked at things from this angle, it wasn't really a choice of what to support.

[acid-ixx]

a loving family, an unpalatable desire

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

a/n: would anyone hear me out if i ever wrote romantic yan! bruce (ft. platonic yan! batfam AND romantic yan clark kent alongside the superfam ofc) with a neglected spouse reader... because uhm, i've been thinking about it lately just yk... so anyways PLSPLSPLS send in asks about this, ive been thinking about it so much lately.

imagine wanting to raise a family so badly with a man who adopts problem children as a side hustle. you're not some invasive spouse, you've always been good, always been loving, so... so accepting, never questioned where or how he picked them up from the side of the streets, never once complaining about the hickeys on his neck or the once neat tussles of his hair now tangled accompanying lipstick stains on his white suit.

you love your children, you tell yourself all the time. you love them, you love bruce— even if he doesn't love you. you said it in your vows, despite it being scripted, despite your family finally sighing in relief in the sidelines at finally being able to sell you off to one of the wealthiest man in the world, rather than being wasting off under their care— your vows are real.

you wanted someone to love you, unconditionally, so viscerally eternal that it eats you up.

really, all you wanted was to play that fantasy life of trophy house spouses. all you wished for was a loving, healthy relationship. the american dream: the picture perfect family frames, your husband kissing you on the cheek as he leaves for work, your children bickering at the dining room, with the scent of homemade meals wafting about the vicinity. all you wanted was the warmth in your chest to flicker like candlelights. all you dreamed about was that domestic life, an escape from the abusive household you were raised in.

yet the manor is too cold, too unforgiving for a soul such as yours.

the longer you stay inside claustrophobic, yet oh-so large hallways, the quicker you drown in a neverending pool of self-hatred.

but you're not allowed to show them your sufferings. they've been through much worse, you tell yourself. they've suffered more, and as what good spouses do, as what you're taught, you stay silent, enabling them to turn you into their own emotional punching bag.

you only allow yourself to cry at the dead of the night, under the sheets of your too-cold blanket and your too-hot pillows. when the manor is filled with deathly silence and a looming sense of dread and ill fitting thoughts of ifs and when they'll come back in one piece, will you grant yourself temporary respite; worry for a family who never even called you their parent.

yet you've always been so considerate. despite the pang in your chest every time bruce flirts with anymore potential love interest at a gala, you chose to instead monitor your chaotic children, who have always never bat an eye on you despite you always gazing lovingly at them.

you know of their interests, they don't know yours, yet you still give them extravagant gifts on their birthdays, with tired, yet glinting eyes, and a silent excuse to return to your room; one separate from bruce.

you know of bruce's hardships, but you don't push too hard, don't force him to talk, only provide him your silence and an offer to serve him dinner; all the time he refuses without looking at you. you give him comfort only if he ever allows you, only if he allows his walls to crumble— but not even his spouse can amount to a warm, crackling fireplace. to him, you're probably only a matchstick under the deadbeat glaze of the snow in a winter night.

maybe that's why you're such a ghost in the manor, stalking through the hallways, looking out for any of your children in case they come across you with any injuries. maybe that's why eventually your resolve weakened.

and maybe the absence of familial love led you to find comfort in another man's arm.

''til death do us part,' is such a tragic saying in your case, because you know it in your fragile heart that bruce's love for you was never alive in the first place. and yet you allow him to play you like a fiddle, allow him to slowly allow you to slip away from his nonexistent grasp.

and now, you're a stand-in parent for clark's son, jon, after the tragic loss of his wife. now, your world seems a lot less bleaker, as you play the fantasy of a loving house spouse, fully abandoning the life you left behind, a life you've never been gifted with until now. you want to feel guilty, you want to feel absolutely terrible but the heartache of neglect has become too much and all you do was allow clark to warm you up each night, kissing away your tears and spooning your deep-seated anxieties away.

you don't let the past eat you up, not when the present is too perfect, too freeing, too delusionally beautiful.

your son, jon provides you every joy a parent could have. parent's day gifts, heartfelt letters at every nook and cranny of your shared bedroom with clark— even reading him bedtime stories, allowing him to sleep in your lap after he slowly nods off, with clark knocking softly on polished wooden doors, greeting you with a loving kiss on the lips and a bouquet of your favorite flowers in hand—

it's everything a parent wants, needs even.

and you're everything clark, and especially jon wants, needs in their life.

so it's such a stupid mistake, really. a slip of the tongue, a too-enthusiastic smile, incredibly bright, shining eyes. it's not jon's fault, you still love him either way. but it's an error still— one a complicated matter at hand, so dreadful for you, that jon accidentally, all-too-suddenly, mentions you as his parent to damian.

a loving, wonderful parent, he says, with a picture of you in his wallet shoved right in front of his friend's face.