#a child’s perspective

[tiny-anon]

I- I don’t understand… why is he angry? why doesn’t he remember us? I- I’m scared…

[chloesimaginationthings]

The FNAF 4 bullies really were monsters in his eyes..

[wearenotjustnumbers2]

Meet Mohammed Nazzal, a Palestinian child. He was in administrative arrest (this means he can stay held captive without charge for as long as israel decides, also look it up for better understanding) without charge or trial in Israeli occupation prisons and was released yesterday as part of the hostages exchange.

"They shattered metal bars on me, beating me non-stop on my head, broke my hands. They starved me."

[leandrocrossard]

something really cool happened today that i wanted to share:

my nephew is 9 years old, and a stereotypical little boy. he likes dinosaurs, minecraft, and ninjas.

today i walked in on him excitedly watching Nimona with my dad. (minor spoiler warning!)

i had never heard of it, but i sat down and watched some of it, just to see why he was so happy.

he started narrating it, anticipating parts of it, almost as if he’d seen it before. he had.

we didn’t get to finish it, but i watched it on my own, because it looked fun and i wanted to see how it ended.

and i loved it. it was a fun, exciting, fantastical adventure about the importance of acceptance people who are different to us.

and it had a very clear queer subplot.

one that my nephew hadn’t mentioned at all in his explanation of the film. his summary was “it’s about a monster who helps a knight that was framed for killing the queen”.

and honestly yeah, that is what the film was about.

before sharing it with us, he had watched it all, engrossed himself in the story, took it in entirely, and the part he cared about most was whether Nimona got her acceptance. he wasn’t indoctrinated, or confused, or questioning anything about himself.

he didn’t bat an eyelid over a gay love confession. he just enjoyed the film, raved about it, made my 60 year old dad watch the movie about the monster who didn’t fit in.

he’s still the same little boy who’s been asking us how to get a girlfriend.

the only thing a movie centred around queer and queer-coded characters taught my nephew was that those who are different to him are not monsters. that’s it.

and that dragons are really cool.

[mikakuna]

i see this jason todd who actually looks his very young age (instead of the 30yr old man that comics like to portray)

and feel my heart breaking just imagining bruce beating him up, almost killing him, mind-breaking him, and just overall being a total piece of shit father towards him.

a huge chunk of the reason why people don't view bruce's actions towards jason as abusive or wrong is because jason doesn't look his age. he's drawn to be this 35yr old father of three who looks even older than dick (and way too on par with bruce) that people see their fights as one between batman and any of his regular rogues. when they fight, it just looks like batman is fighting a man his age and not an actual young person. it doesn't look like batman is fighting his son who's barely even drinking age (and who def wasn't drinking age in utrh). their fights are portrayed in a way that eliminates the very real power struggle between them.

this applies to jason's entire character as well. a lot of people don't sympathize with how he died or his actions as robin or his fights with the other bats because he doesn't look his age. he always looks older and scarier than everyone else. tim has many sympathizers from the titans tower incident because jason just looked like a grown man fighting a 12yr old (even tho i disagree, tim was built and like 17 lmfao).

anyways, i just wish comics would actually draw jason to look his age, which literally ranges from 19 to early twenties. he's young- so young, and it's so annoying to see him drawn and written as someone older than even bruce.

[ditzybat]

janet: should we be concerned that our teenage son is hanging out with our strange middle aged neighbor with two sons - one dead one estranged - that hold similar appearance to ours? and who suspiciously has him over at his home sporadically throughout the week?

jack: nah, but hey look let’s be amateur archaeologists despite having a medical company to run and a young son, that’s definitely not committing illegal vigilantism, to raise!

janet: you’re right, how silly of me!

[degenerateshinji]

you hit friendship 4 and he just gossips about his ex job

[demigods-posts]

heartbreaking realization that in ttc when thallia kicks luke off the mountain. annabeth has to witness the death of her family all over again. and she copes by insisting that luke isn't dead. that he isn't as far gone as everyone claims. because if thalia came back to her, why couldn't he? until tbotl when she sees kronos inhabiting luke's body and realized that it was cruel luck that he got the curse of achilles when he did and survived the fall off of mount tam. that the fates would not spare him another chance to set things right. that from the moment annabeth cried in luke's arms the night they lost thalia. that the great prophecy she read nine years in advanced laid out plain how impermanence is a constant in her life. and her losing luke would be confirmation that she could not outrun fate.

[pollyanna-nana]

I think it’s so interesting that Kui decided to show us how differences in lifespan affect tallmen and elf relationships from both angles with Kabru and Thistle and also how that reflects real-life abusive situations. And then goes on to deconstruct that by showing how genuine understanding and respect CAN exist between the races with other characters!

Kabru being raised by an elf (who is shown to only have a superficial respect for short-lived races, the same one might have for a pet in a lot of ways) and treated like a child even though he’s in his 20s. After all, a 20 year old elf would be a kindergartener, and Milsiril seems to have a rather toxic combination of overprotectiveness and dehumanizing tendencies that leads to perpetually seeing the children she raises as children, even well into adulthood for their race.

And yet, we see with characters like Otta that this doesn’t have to be true of EVERY elf (nor should it logically be, especially those who spend actual time around short-lived races.) For all the jokes made at her expense I actually think it’s really interesting that she’s also canonically queer since recognizing the agency and maturity of short-lived races is in itself a type of queerness in elf society from what we’ve seen. Senshi too, as funny as his misconstruing Chilchuck as a child is I think it’s really important that he realizes his mistake and rethinks his assumptions on short-lived races following his example. It doesn’t HAVE to be the way it is, but it will take work on each side to improve things.

Then on Thistle’s end… woof. Complete opposite of Kabru, it was difficult for the tallmen of the golden kingdom to comprehend how someone in their, like, 60s could still behave like a teenager and chalked that up to a personal and moral failing rather than literal differences in biology (kind of an autistic mood but that’s a conversation for later.) It’s just as disturbing as Milsiril’s treatment of the children she adopts really, since they explicitly didn’t want an adult that could exert their own agency and control over their situation. And the thing is it’s not like that’s totally uncalled for, the previous points show how a non-insignificant number of members of long-lived races do genuinely see short-lived races as inferior, or are otherwise ignorant, like with below.

It ended up working out just how they wanted, because Thistle’s child-like innocence and singleminded desire to make the only family he had happy meant he was never going to do anything he didn’t think would help them… which then backfired, because of course it would. It’s overcontrolling and manipulative parenting, but with the added spice of lifespan differences and magic. Kabru ended up detesting the elves that raised him and wanting nothing to do with them, and Thistle basically had a massive breakdown trying too hard to please everyone. Infantilization vs adultification, as some have said, with predictable results.

[topnotchquark]

Nico saying that Lewis gives his daughters boxes of presents every Christmas just got caught in my mind.

Imagine you were a mixed race boy born in Hertfordshire, different from everyone else around you. Bullied in school, being raised by your father to compete in a sport where money is very much of essence and you and your family do not have a lot of it. And then you meet this other boy who comes from the kind of life you dream to live one day. You're friends and fierce competitors. You find solace in each other. You visit Monaco for the first time with your friend, dreaming up the life you will have when you make it, when you beat out of the mould that the world thought it could capture you in.

And then you two grow through the ranks and you're at the pinnacle of your sport and you have what it takes to win and the world recognises that you can win. And you win. You win with your friend and fiercest competitor by your side fighting with you for those wins, and this fighting ruins something something that was valuable to both of you when you were still innocent and unsullied by life.

But despite everything that went into the doing and undoing of this relationship, you still realise that this person you once called a friend has a life and family beyond your bitter dynamic. He has children, and children need love and affection and good memories. And you're a better man now so you understand that. So you make sure the kids get gifts on Christmas. And you make sure of it every year. Afterall, if you met someone you loved deeply when you were both kids, wouldn't you feel a pang of nostalgia when they had kids. Wouldn't you try to extend the warmth that you couldn't find for your friend to his children. Afterall, whatever happens during childhood basically remains with you forever.

[little-blurry-stars5]

he ate too much canned crab

[tiny-anon]

e- everyone's angry- i- i don't- i don't like this- i'm scared-

[rayveneyed]

cw: sexually explicit content / blood / relatively light sadomasochism / age + experience gap (reader is older + more experienced) / sub!choso / vampires 🧛‍♀️ / sex and violence as two sides of the same coin /

choso kamo is 160 years old when he meets you.

in those years of walking the earth, undead, he believes he’s embraced his vampirism as much as he possibly can. the broiling self-hatred he had once found solace in has reduced to a simmer, strongest in those moments of blood and guts and weakening heartbeats; and although he often avoids crowds, and companionship, and light, he no longer believes himself to be a slave of his own nature.

to be true — in the grand scheme of immortality, of vampirism — he isn’t anywhere close to the level of control he’d wish to have. often, when indulging yuji’s desire to enjoy the world as he did before his death — boardwalks and arcades and cotton candy — he feels his canines aching in his gums, stretching until they dimple against his bottom lip.

it’s not comfortable. it’s not confident. but even despite the growing aches, he’s no longer cowering in alleyways; no longer drinking from poor stray cats and garbage-chewing rats to momentarily satiate that ever-growing, gnawing hunger. he has some sense of control—

“oh, you baby-bats. so adorable.”

control which he now flounders to grab.

a sharp, inky black nail scrapes up the column of his neck — he can’t help but arch into it, head tilting back until his wide, pupil-blown eyes find the ceiling, with its intricate coving and obsidian chandeliers. the music from the main hall is nothing but a buzzing in the back of his head; thoughts of his friends’ whereabouts, an afterthought. your fingernail crowds the underneath of his jaw and stops at where his pulse point would have thrummed, would he have been alive.

you’re a demon. a devil. a she-beast. a succubus. any horrid, terrible name he could call you, he will — dressed in blacks and burgundies and gold older than him, your lips painted an ox-blood red and your eyes as sharp and dark as any polished knife. in your hands he is small. weak. mortal.

“satoru usually keeps his strays away, after last time,” you say, pouting now, though it’s a crude approximation of sadness — even now, your eyes glint with devilment. “so mean, when he knows i have a weak spot for bats like you.”

that wretched finger stretches up; pokes at his bottom lip, scrapes against the fangs that had — embarrassingly — extended from his gums at the simple weight of you on top of him.

“look at that,” you coo, and your grin is something unsettling, something that curdles in the pit of his stomach and heats between his legs. “excited, pup?”

his answering breath comes ragged, and it’s always more embarrassing than it was when he was human. his heart doesn’t work, his lungs do not work, and he has no need to breathe — in fact, he lost the reflex to do so around 92 years ago — but his brain is scrambled, it seems, wilted neurons confusing signals from almost two centuries ago. “i’m — ahem — i’m okay, duchess.”

“how sweet. you don’t have to call me by my title, you know. my name will do just fine.” at his silence, you push yourself up from where you’d been laying low against his chest — looking far too excited when you say: “unless, of course, you like it.”

his hands tremble at his side. he can’t remember the last time he’s indulged in — in debauchery. the last time someone’s made him feel like they’re holding his heart in their hands. over the past hundred-odd years, he’s avoided it like the plague, and for good reason — most vampires aren’t known for their commitment, let’s just say. and now you’re on top of him looking like every sin he’s tried to avoid, and he’s straining so hard in his pants he fears he’ll cum before you even hint at removing a single article of clothing.

you press yourself flush again, nosing at his neck. he knows, for the first time in his long life, what it feels like to be prey. is this what his victims had felt when he ripped into their throats, young and inexperienced and bloodthirsty? did their vulnerability sit like a stone in their throats?

a groan comes from you, suddenly, and your tongue darts out to lave against his skin. choso’s answering moan is more of a whimper, broken and weak in his mouth, but you don’t seem to notice — or care. he flexes his glutes in an effort to stop himself from rutting up against you — not only would it be embarrassing, desperate, but it would be rude. this is your house, after all. your soirée. your gilded halls and bedazzled walls. your silk sheets against his back. your satin skirt bunched around your waist.

“tell me, pup,” you say, and he fights the instinctual reflex to shiver at the brush of your lips against his skin, “have you ever fed from our own?”

“hm?” it’s a sound of confusion brought half on by his simple lack of knowledge, and half on by his slow-processing brain. only seconds after does he fully register your question, and the eyes he hadn’t realised he had screwed shut flew open. “no. i — i didn’t know that was possible.”

all at once, you’re sitting up again — swinging your leg over his hips until you’re standing. it wouldn’t be right to call it clambering — you are impossibly graceful, even passed the agility and elegance that comes with the gift of the undead. his hands reach for you before he can stop them, a sound like a question on his tongue, and you send him the sweetest, most tooth-rotting, stomach-turning smile. he thinks he likes your biting, cruel grins more, though you’re lovely regardless.

you begin to reach for the ties of your corset at your spine — just another thing that makes his mouth water. people didn’t wear these sorts of clothes anymore, not in the human world. but he remembers the skirts and corsets from paintings of noblewomen hundreds of years ago, and how he’d admire the curve of their waists, the swell of their chests—

“of course, satoru wouldn’t tell you. why would he?”

his eyes snap up from your chest, caught with his hand in the cookie jar. but you don’t seem to mind. the corset is removed painfully slowly, for no other reason than to torture him; then, the outer dress, with its carmine satin and intricate embroidery. you throw it to the floor carelessly, as if the most knowledgeable museum curators wouldn’t prostrate themselves at your feet for the simple chance to display it for millions to see — a while his eyes drink up the sight of more skin, the whisper of form beneath your underdress and bloomers, you near him once more.

metal to a magnet, a moth to flame, he pulls himself to the edge of the bed. you find a place between his legs and grasp his chin, and choso can’t look away from you.

“i can take you apart and put you back together,” you say — promise — voice like crushed velvet, quiet and creeping like a choking vine. your thumb smooths over his cheek and ends at its apple, where you press the sharp tip of your nail into his flesh. “i can show you the pleasures of your eternal life, and its pains, and everything in between. i can bring you to every edge, and draw you back from them just as quick — and it will be painful, and you’ll enjoy it so much you won’t be able to go another day without it.”

he’s lost the ability to speak. his unmoving heart is in his throat — or in your hands, or between your sharp teeth. you tilt your head and regard him with knowing, twinkling eyes.

“all you have to say, pup, is yes.”

oh, it’s out of him so quick he can hardly keep up — a word so breathy you’d swear you’d already had your way with him. but embarrassment is a thing of the past when your smile stretches, and you murmur marvellous. you release him from your grasp, much to his chagrin, but when you begin pulling down your bloomers his attention shifts.

he can smell you. smell you. the musky, salty scent of between your legs — a smell that has his mouth watering and his fingers cramping from how hard he fists the sheets. your bloomers are damp when you discard them, sticky with your arousal, and pride glows in choso’s chest. he didn’t do much, but it seemed enough — if he had only let himself lose control, hump up against you harder, perhaps it would’ve stained his clothes; seeped through your layers and onto his lap. he’d go home and hold it over his nose until the scent faded, and perhaps after.

“new as you are,” you say, climbing onto your bed once more and reclining back against the numerous pillows — huffing a mean-sounding laugh when he crawls after you. “i’ll do you the mercy of taking it easy, just this once. oh, don’t make that face — you look like a kicked puppy. i promise you’ll enjoy what i have in store for you.”

and you hike up your underdress, and spread your legs. choso’s mouth waters — the thick smattering of hair on your mons, your flower-like labia, shiny with your arousal. and your clit, peeking out from its hood, pink and shiny and begging to have his mouth on it. but as if this wasn’t enough — as if he wasn’t already scrabbling to get between your legs — you take one of those long, sharp nails, and drag it against your inner thigh. the skin splits. blood trickles down from the wound like a river of gold, flowing into the crease between your thighs and your pussy, and it smells ambrosial. if his fangs were aching before, they’re screaming, now. this isn’t human blood; this is richer, sweeter, creamier. delectable. hedonistic. you’ll make a glutton of him.

“after all,” you say, grinning wickedly, “i’m treating you to a most delectable meal.”

[furiousgoldfish]

abusive fathers will go 'what makes you think you can live in my house rent free, you are kicked out if you don't deserve your stay' and abusive mothers will go 'you are the worst trash on the world if you leave, I will never let you go, there's no place for you anywhere else in the world, you owe me to fix my entire life and live right where I can use you the most'

[potofsoup]

Happy 10th year of me doing this dorky comic! Hope people don't mind the fact that I haven't really dabbled in Cap stuff for a few years, except for my weird yearly July 4th ritual. On AO3 here, and tumblr tag here. (2022 was about Dobbs, 2020 was about seeing the stars, 2019 was about building new systems, 2018 was about voting, 2017 was about immigration.)

@histrionic-dragon tagged me yesterday and posted a bunch of cool links of ways to help: https://histrionic-dragon.tumblr.com/post/721837010124488704/almost-captain-americas-birthday

Rail workers paid sick leave: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid

Lots of posts out there on the 2023 Minnesota legislative session, but here's the OG tumblr roundup post.

California is trying to divest its two largest pension funds from fossil fuels, but apparently today they decided to table it until next year. :/ I guess more meetings are needed! (productive ones, not ones that could have been an email.)

[clonerightsagenda]

Had a dream that I got hired to deal with a haunting and I was like you know my blog is a bit right, I don't actually believe in ghosts unfortunately, but it turns out the place was actually haunted and the ghost was pretty pissed off at me for sticking my nose into it. So I went ok, they hired me for *my* skillset, so I started looking shit up and eventually found one oldish book on local urban legends speculating that the ghost was a woman who lived on the property when it used to be a low income lodging house who lost a baby and buried it in the yard, so I dug around and found the remains, which were in an area that the place I was hired by (I think it was a branch of NARA? which is weird, why would they need to hire an outside researcher) was planning to build a new addition on. So by the end of the dream I was going 'yeah ok I have two proposals, one you put these remains in a silver box, rebury it, keep on with your construction, and hope that'll do it, OR you add a covered walkway to your building plans, connect the old building to the new building, and have a nice little courtyard area with a plaque where we rebury the remains, maybe that would make her happy' except I was hired to do research at a history and records institution so I couldn't just write that report based on Vibes, so the rest of the dream was consumed with me trying to figure out which local newspapers would help me confirm the ID and make my case better than one speculative sentence in a trashy book. So yeah. Dreamed I was a ghostbuster but the real core of the dream was the challenges of public history when working with regular people who don't make the historical record very often. Wish you well, dead lady. I was really trying to get you that courtyard.