#also it annoyed one of the teachers at my primary school

[iwanttorundirectlyintothesun]

that's so funny tumblr gave me a notifcation i was tagged but wouldn't let you tag people,, thanks for the thought?? the projected idea??

anyway! time to overshare!! enjoy that

Last song: No Longer You from the Underworld Saga of Epic the Musical, i put off listening to it for ages (like a month) bc i knew i was gonna be obsessed and it was gonna make me try and read the odyssey again (i keep getting distracted) and now i've been listening to it on loop for a week straight

Currently watching: too many things good lord,, so i'm watching that time i got reincarnated as slime, disney percy jackson, tgcf, lego monkie kid, LA last airbender, i have one ep left of original ATLA, 2 eps left of dr stone but my family is waiting till the next season comes out so i have to Wait, i want to rewatch the librarians soon, and my current beloved show is dungeon meshi (and thats not even all of them, christ alive please let me finish a tv show)

3 ships: uhhhhhhh i definitely have more than three hang on,, okay so quark/odo from ds9 (they hate that they care about eachother and i love that for them), bilbo/thorin from the hobbit (one of the first ships i ever read fic for actually), maomao/jinshi from the apothecary diaries (i fully believe this is the first time either of them has felt this emotion ((friendship or romance)))

Favorite color: i dont have a favourite colour bc as a kid i was taught that favouritism was bad concerning people and extended that to all concepts for some reason. that being said my favourite number is 3

Currently consuming: i just ate the crunchiest sweetest pear ever i think,, ideal pear situation

First ship: first one where i knew what shipping was?? percy and annabeth,, first one ever?? possibly shmendrick the magician and molly grue from the last unicorn (beloved childhood movie). oh wait it mightve been the main couple from the secret of moonacre (fun early 2000s fantasy romeo and juliet story, theres unicorns and a magic lion so i mainly cared about that but i do remember wanting them to be happy together)

Relationship status: i have lots of friends (exaggeration) i have a moderate amount of friends (truth)

Last movie: carnosaur!! its really fun and theres a lot of goop and carnage, it came out the same year as jurassic park but the book it's based off came out like 6 years earlier and has a line about how recreated dinos would be a cool theme park so im not saying it inspired jp but i think theres a good chance

Currently working on: assessment 3 for FORS3006 :(( i am very bad at modelling and worse at synthesising info so its not going well and its due in 3 days. artistically ,, my sib asked for help with her next tattoo design?? i guess??

oh god thats too many words isnt it,, im not changing it but i am actively procrastinating so im not gonna tag anyone specific if you see it please do it i wanna know the people ive been co existing with online

Tag Game

Thank you @piccolaromana for tagging me❤️ I’m starting a new thread because the other one was really long :D

Tag game: tag 9 people you’d like to get to know better.

Last song: Move Your Body(Alan Walker Remix) by Sia

Currently watching: I've started watching Stranger Things. I'm currently on episode 2. It's interesting. It's the kind of show my teen self would have liked very much. It happens in 80s and there's this sense of nostalgia about it. Especially the soundtrack. Have you ever felt nostalgic about a time you didn't live in? That's how it makes me feel.

3 ships: Frostiron(Loki/Tony Stark)- Erasermic(Aizawa Shouta/Yamada Hizashi) in My Hero Academia- Ineffable Husbands(Crowley/Aziraphale) in Good Omens

Favourite color: Green

Currently consuming: Apple

First ship: Rhett Butler/Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind

Relationship status: Single

Last movie: Wish

Currently working on: *looks uncomfortably at all the different apps and tabs open* Uhh a couple of things?😅 Some are fandom related and I try to get past my anxiety to actually write them instead of daydreaming about them :D

Tagging: @geehollow @marril96 @tori-artemis @just-cosmere-fan @abby118 @notachair @solostinmysea @starlightbelle @silverloreley and anyone who wants to play consider yourself tagged

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Boiling hot take, but we're never going to be able to tackle the problem of bullying, especially in schools but also in general, unless we address the fact that some people, especially some kids, are just… not that great to be around.

And that's not always their fault.

Like, as an autistic adult, when I look back on the ways I was treated as a kid, on the one hand I think "fuck that was shitty to live through", but on the other hand, I kinda get it?

I was loud and regularly called out in class or interrupted people when they were talking.

I had a narrow range of interests that I was very interested in, and wasn't great at recognising when the person I was discussing them with wanted to talk about something else.

I couldn't judge my tone of voice and so things I said often came across as insulting when I didn't mean them to.

I was highly opinionated and argumentative.

I would sometimes lash out at people physically (when provoked).

I growled and hissed at people like a cat when I wanted them to go away, because I didn't know how to communicate that in human terms.

I used to hit and bite myself when I felt frustrated, and a couple of times threatened to hurt myself during stressful social interactions.

I had a loose grasp of personal hygiene.

Was any of this a justifiable excuse for bullying me? No. I was a kid, struggling with a brain that was structured very differently to everyone else's. I didn't even know what I was doing wrong a lot of the time. I had a disability.

But was this a justifiable excuse for not wanting to hang out with me? Fuck yeah.

Like, I would have liked it better if I'd been able to have close friends in primary school (without the teachers having to literally set up a structured group of people who were willing to befriend me, complete with weekly meetings where we discussed our social issues with an adult mediator present)? Yeah. That would have been great.

But I was also weird and unpredictable and gross and inconsiderate, and I wouldn't have wanted to hang out with me either. The other kids didn't owe me their friendship. (Even though, again, none of those things were my fault.) But that doesn't mean I deserved mistreatment.

Basically, I think there would be less bullying if we had more preschool books and Very Special Episodes about how to handle interacting with people who are essentially harmless, but who you don't really want to be friends with all the same.

Get rid of the dichotomy in kids media where everyone is either deliberately and purposefully being unpleasant because they can, OR Just Like You with no annoying or unpleasant traits whatsoever.

Sometimes people just are Annoying. It sucks. But part of living in a society is learning to walk away from those people and leave them be, rather than treating their existence as a personal attack.

[mx-julien]

each ninja was a different kind of teacher (except Lloyd who basically went on a year long press tour) and it also explains why Rebooted and after they seem a bit more responsible than in season 1 and the pilot

Cole has my favorite teacher characterization because he's objectively an interesting person with cool hobbies but when he is responsible for a group of children he just becomes Dad Who Is Helping Out At The Summer Camp. we never see his classroom, but given his proficiency in the arts we can assume he's the English teacher

since he went to art schools, he's probably not used to kids who aren't actually interested in what's being taught. the louder kids seem to dislike him (ref: running gag of "Mr Cole is the worst"), but that doesn't mean he's necessarily a bad teacher- just not one to humor pranks

also his and Kai's teacher outfits belong in the 1970s. I like the touch of making their ties the same color as their gis

little bit of meta: most of the people who worked on this show went to school in the 80s/90s so to them "older/boring" teacher outfits would look like this. also, as someone who was in the intended age range and saw it at the time of release, this sort of clothing conveyed that the ninja were doing a stuffy adult job- juxtaposed with their colorful gis

Kai appears to be the history teacher? his teaching style is likely structured and straightforward. given his nontraditional childhood, his frustration with the kids likely comes from both his jealousy that they aren't aware of how valuable schooling is and that Nya was much easier to work with when she was their age. at the end of the day he's an older brother who's now in charge of a bunch of kids

he's using an old-fashioned projector with film, which I assume (1) shows how low-budget they are, (2) emphasizes that Kai is out of his element (pun not intended), and (3) juxtaposes them with New Ninjago City

Zane is the one who doesn't know what a vape pen looks like but will listen to you infodump for an hour after class, then drive/walk you home because you missed the bus. he probably doesn't get any of the classroom humor or notice if the kids make fun of him. I can't imagine him ever getting angry at the kids, and he probably is very good at keeping them to a routine and a schedule

in rebooted episode 1 he seems to be teaching science? and the use of catapults is actually quite endearing- he's probably explaining tension and going to get his kids to make little models, which shows that he both is a pretty good teacher and hasn't realized that giving elementary/middle/primary schoolers their own catapults will only lead to chaos

he and Jay have personality-based outfits, with the snowflakes being an obvious allusion to Zane's element and the zig zags on Jay's emulating lightning

the little bowtie on Zane reminds me of Bill Nye the Science Guy (program with a a host of the same name who taught kids about science in a fun and accessibly way- very nostalgic for kids who went to american public school)

Jay is the exhausted teacher who's more interested in his hobbies than class material, and if you get him talking about that hobby, he won't stop until the bell. as a jokester, I think he'd get along well with the kids and definitely encourage them to annoy the other ninja

we don't see his classroom, but given Jay's skills he's probably the math teacher. he'd have a difficult time explaining things in different ways- very gifted people who learn well on their own often find it hard to teach things to others, though he would make sure he doesn't leave anyone behind

Nya definitely teaches math classes, but she probably handles tutoring as well since she's well-balanced in most subjects. it would also give her an intelligence network- kids come to her room after class/during lunch to complain and gossip. she uses it in the noble pursuit to antagonize the others

i'm used this video and the ninjago wikia because I'm on mobile and finding other sources would've taken too long

extra group photo I found! love the detail that Zane blinked (Dr Julien probably took the photo)

[snapshotxsinners]

if they had a kid, ekira and roi!!

𝑰𝑭 𝑻𝑯𝑬𝒀 𝑯𝑨𝑫 𝑨 𝑲𝑰𝑫...

Send me a pair name ( either one of my muses or yours ), and I’ll tell you what I think it would be like if they had a child

Name

With a love of flowers and Ekira's sunny personality, it only felt right for Roi and Ekira to call their child Florian Elio Aandos Shlaforck. Often affectionately nicknamed 'Riri' by friends, and 'Sunny / Sunshine' by their parents and family.

Gender

Florian identifies as Non-binary, but does have more of a masculine lean and preference. Though, they do quite enjoy wearing long flowing skirts and dresses, since they love flowy and airy clothing in general. Their primary pronouns are They/He, but Floarian also doesn't mind being referred with feminine pronouns.

Personality

Soft-spoken, gentle, kind, patient and calm. Florian is often described to have a sweet-soul, whose company can put almost anyone at ease — Whether it would be through their comforting words, level-headed advice, or simply because they listen well and offer a non-judgemental presence.

They care deeply about others and have a lot of compassion, which makes them very nurturing to the people around them, but especially children. As they grow older, they show a knack for mentoring and guiding others, which eventually takes them down the path of becoming a Teacher and Counsellor for the youth.

Due to their compassionate and understanding nature, however, Florian can be a little naive and too easily trusting of others. They don't easily hold onto anger either, which occasionally made them a bit of a door-mat, especially when they were much younger. They thankfully grow out of it more as they age and gain experiences.

Florian tends to care for others more than themselves, which can lead to bad habits of them taking on other people's problems, shouldering too much they can handle, and at worst, self-sacrificing themselves emotionally or even physically. Despite having a lot of support from family and friends, it's just simply in their nature to be this way.

Special Talents

Florian is incredibly emotionally intelligent and can pick up on even the faintest details about someone's mood. Their keen observational skills make it hard to get past their knowing eyes and intuition, and Florian even seems to be able to tell when someone is lying or trying to hide something.

In saying that, Florian themselves in an excellent Actor — which means they can lie very well. Florian develops a love for plays and musicals, most likely because of their parent's influences, and they would participate in their own school drama-club growing up, and try-out for other roles in local theatre shows.

So as they grow, they develop acting, singing and dancing skills. Not to mention, they become quite proficient in playing various instruments. Though, the violin is their favourite since they favour a lot of classical-style music.

Who they like better

They adore and love each parent equally. They couldn't choose!

Who they take after more

Species wise, they certainly took after Ekira. But mostly, it seems Florian took after Roi quite a bit — Even inheriting his more black and silver palette, and Roi's quieter and calmer nature.

But Florian definitely has Ekira's eyes, and their nose even crinkles up the same when they smile. Their laughs are more full and from the belly like Ekira's too, which surprises a lot of people who are used to how quiet Florian is. Even their ears flick and twitch in the same manner, when they are annoyed or ticked off.

Florian is definitely a well-mixture of Roi and Ekira's love.

Personal Head canon

I like to think that Ekira and Roi would have at least couple of children. And if so, Florian would definitely be the eldest and be an incredibly loving and doting big sibling. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Florian who would ask Ekira and Roi for more siblings in the first place! Haha

@cflight

[pearwaldorf]

Some shit has come across my dash that reminded me about this talk* between David Baddiel and Toby Lichtig that discusses his book Jews Don't Count. (There is also a documentary of the same name, which I have not been able to find. Supposedly it's on iTunes, but I'm not downloading it to find out.)

It discusses the duality of antisemitism wherein Jews are seen as both powerful but also "the usual" tropes we associate with non-Jewish marginalized people. It's all tangled up with white privilege (because some Jews are white), the idea of passing, and the conflation of Jewishness** and Judaism.

This is instructive and useful for everybody, but especially people who consider themselves leftist or progressive. I very much hear (or not hear) the silence on the left when antisemitic stuff comes up, from the left or the right. (And it's amazing how that shit sounds exactly the same regardless of which side it comes from.)

As a goy and somebody who considers myself progressive, this is something I find extremely fucking concerning. If a group of people are being attacked and marginalized because of things they can't control, they should be protected. I don't see how proximity to whiteness*** (and some Jews benefit from white privilege) changes how we approach the issue.

Like. This article from 2020 talks about how Tottenham Hotspur uses a word considered to be a racial/ethnic slur to describe their fans and players. I substituted the n-word or the c-word and it became extremely clear how offensive this is.

It is enraging to hear people say it's reclaimed when they were the ones who made it a slur in the first place. A dominant group can never reclaim a slur that is leveled against a marginalized group. That's called, uh, using a slur to describe a marginalized group. You would never do this with anybody other ethnic/racial group today, but it's acceptable because antisemitism is baked into western culture.

One of the things I have been most surprised and appalled by is how very little I know about Israel and how that affects what I know as an American. I was in my 30s before I learned there were non-zionist Jews. I had never met or heard of one.

[Part of this might be where I grew up. The PNW has a very small population of Jews (~1%), and I knew exactly three: my 2nd grade teacher, the annoying kid, and the annoying kid's dad (who was a rabbi and came to talk to my high school class). My primary exposure to Jewish culture was Kornblatt's and Mel Brooks.]

So maybe my knowledge of Jewish (and Israeli-American) politics is kind of remedial. I can't recall a subject where I continually learn something that makes a lot of things fall into place. And sometimes I wonder if other people have this experience too.

--

* "BAME" is a term that comes up a lot in the video, which is an abbreviation for "Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic". It is now an outdated term, but it takes time for that to filter into everyday consciousness.

** As Baddiel bluntly puts it, "It doesn't matter if I'm an atheist, that wouldn't have gotten me a pass out of Auschwitz."

*** Honorary whiteness is a whole different can of worms which is not quite relevant here.

[pocketramblr]

For the ask game: what about an au where Bakugou is the quirkless one, and Izuku has the perfect combo of his parents quirk?

1- Izuku can breathe green fire, and can telekinetically manipulate the flames, though this doesn't work on fires he didn't create. People say he could be the next Endeavor, and Izuku says he'd rather be All Might, who is an even better hero and makes people feel safe, not scared. "Well, fire is a scary quirk, but I'm sure you'll be just like All Might if you want to be, Izuchan!" (Izuku never could quite put his finger on why that annoyed him, though he was much better at recognizing the unfairness and assumptions others faced.)

2- Bakugou is quirkless. He also knows how to play the game. (Remember his "don't smoke I don't want it on my record but illegal quirk use that never gets punished is fine, also I'm only at this sucky school because it'll make a better origin story for main character me" moment?) So he works very, very hard to be the top of the class academically, does not waste words on those who don't deserve them (yeah he's going to be a hero. No he doesn't need to prove that to his middle school science teacher.), and rather extensively knows his rights and how to sick his mother on the school when needed. (Mitsuki is the most hated parent at Aldera primary.) Eventually, he agrees he needs a better middle school he isn't fighting to get the bare minimum at, and leaves then.

3- Izuku gets very frustrated very quickly when at the beginning of middle school, his friends expect him to start talking bad about Bakugou too, and are even more annoyed when he tells them to knock it off. Just because he's a shoe-in for a hero school doesn't mean he has to be so self righteous all the time! Izuku ends up largely being alone in middle school, and figures it's better that way, focusing on training and studying.

4- Bakugou ends up using his parents connections to figure out some support tech as he prepares for UA. Mitsuki tells him not to get his hopes too high this time, because she can't promise being a nightmare parent will work to actually get him fair treatment, UA is a different beast than Aldera Primary. He gets mad because he didn't ask her to pull that card this time and can get in himself, she gets mad at him because he's too smart to stop thinking of backup plans now, it's a whole screaming match thing that ultimately changes nothing about either's expectations.

5- Masaru's opinion on it is that it seems there's an actual chance for Katsuki to make friends at this new school who could encourage him- that Ashido girl sounds nice- and that would both help him maybe get in, but also get him a support network if he doesn't. No one listens to Masaru except his old classmate Inko, who nods on the phone and says she gets it, she really wished Izuku would have more friends over too, because sure he's been trying hard but UA is so selective

[choirstaidhiona]

This Barbie Cries In Public, or I Wish I Could Show My Mum The Barbie Movie

Like everyone else in the world, I recently saw the Barbie Movie! I also saw Oppenheimer, in the cursed double bill of the century, and it's taken me days to process both of them and all the BigFeelingsTM That have come up from both, so in my first actual considered and proper blog post on this website since I was the world's angriest teenager, I'll be sharing them, alongside some thoughts about grief and gender and all that really fun and not miserable at all stuff.

Part 1. Barbie Girl

I was born in 1996, a weirdly large baby constantly dressed in pink and lace and frills, as my mum would say, "a proper girl". I loved dolls; baby dolls, Barbie dolls, Bratz dolls, doll house dolls, paper garland dolls I made whenever i had a sheet of printer paper handy for years of my life, Polly Pockets, those weird off-brand dolls you'd get in corner shops and chemists for some reason, all of them. I loved dolls. I still love dolls. I made a film last year where i painted dolls and animated them and it was sad and about childhood and death and memory. I used to film my Barbie Princess and The Pauper dolls singing together and I made a music video of it on my Karaoke machine, rigged up to my pink TV. I was, in short, A Barbie Girl.

When Bratz appeared in the supermarkets of Greenock, I remember the shift happening really clearly. I was in Primary 5 or 6 and my Grandad had died, Baby's First Big Death, and I drew everyone pictures of the outfits I'd dreamed up for my Bratz dolls, transfixed by their big mouths and big eyes and the way their clothes sat on their bodies. Drawing pictures for people made them happy. Drawing pictures for people made them tell me I was clever. Drawing pictures for people gave me a task and gave me a focus. I loved Bratz dolls because Barbie was too boring. I was getting too old for fairies and princesses (note: I have since regressed), Mattel's fixation of the era, since Barbie had already been a Doctor and a President long before I met her, and I didn't know she had all these cool talents and past careers. To me, she was part of a personal era I was moving on from. Bratz dolls didn't have jobs, they were like Ken from the Barbie movie, but their job wasn't Beach, it was Gorgeous. I don't think it's a coincidence that this was the era I'd been told specifically that there was something wrong with me by other girls for the first time.

I grew up in Gàidhlig Medium Education, a sectioned-off and sheltered part of the Scottish Education System that I owe my life to, I would not have survived, weirdness and spirit intact, in any other school, and I know that for a fact. I'd entered GME at 2 and 10 months old and left school at 18, having only known classrooms where everyone was a bit different because we belonged to this sort of movement of cultural reclamation. My only prolonged interactions with "The English" (the rest of our classmates from the English speaking part of our primary school, the ones not in the Gaelic unit) came at the end of primary school, when we started learning French together as a whole year group. It's not an exaggeration to say that GME kids were bullied appallingly by "The English", including a lot of the old-school teachers. I'll go into this properly another time, but I do think that I saw in Bratz the kind of aspirational teenhood I hoped would be beyond my late primary school experience of being othered- being edgy, wearing cool outfits, having boobs, and most of all, working at gorgeous.

Part 2. Oppenheimer Teen

Think of the most catastrophically annoying and angry kid you knew growing up, that was me. And I lived here, on Tumblr, blogging my early teens away - being not like other girls, then being radicalised by third wave feminism. Learning about queerness, and realising I wasn't just the best ally of life, I actually fancied by best friend. Discovering that the square root of happiness was hunger, (i mean this ironically, it's very much not) and documenting my ever growing thigh gap... all of it. I wanted to tear everything down. I gave this section the title of Oppenheimer Teen because I thought it would be funny, but honestly, I was more like the atomic bomb.

I'd long since been informed that playing with dolls wasn't okay anymore, it was embarrassing and for babies, and the only femininity I was happy to take part in was a half-understood Kinderwhore version of it. Everything i embodied in this era was based on Courtney Love's babydoll dresses, red lips, and bleached hair. The first time I bleached mine, it broke my mum's heart. She had breast cancer and was losing her shiny brown hair, while I was turning mine into custard-coloured chewing gum with 40 vol at the bathroom sink. I didn't want to be pretty because I didn't know how to be without being ridiculed for trying, I was hurt, and I was scared, and my mum was sick and my boyfriend was evil, and Jesus, I was so hungry all the time. Eventually, after about two years of starting fights I couldn't finish, and drinking 70cls of straight vodka while looking men (teenage boys) in the eye, and reading the communist manifesto on the 6am Gourock train home after parties I'm still processing in therapy, my mum got the all-clear. I dumped the boy who was abusing me, who by this time was a grown man, I dyed my hair pink, and green, and blue... and I met the first of the girls who would start to save my life, while we were drawing pictures and dressing up at art camp.

3. Actually Talking About The Barbie Movie

Every year that I haven't been a teenager has been better than the one before, this is something I've told every teenage girl who has ever told me she's worried about growing up, and I've seen a wave of calm wash over her face every time. I really saw myself in the angry, clever, moody group of teenagers Barbie meets in the school canteen when she arrives in our world. Sasha, who I think we've all realised/read by now was named for the Bratz doll along with her friends, tells her she doesn't represent her, she's let her down, she's old news!! This was how pink and sparkly girlishness felt to me at that age, I didn't look like Barbie anymore, and the girls who did were making my life hell. I had acne, and my period lasted three weeks at a time, and being a girl wasn't fun anymore. Everyone just cared about which Ken they were getting off with, meanwhile I'd just realised that death existed, and one day would come back and finish the job and take my mum away, what the fuck was Barbie fucking grinning about?

Her spiralling existential crisis throughout the film was truly jarring, only because I remember those exact moments of girlhood. I remember being 11, lying on the floor and crying and feeling like it would never stop. I remember being 8 and noticing my belly was rounder than the other girls at ballet. I remember sweating after a game of rounders at 10 and realising I stank and feeling like I was malfunctioning. I remember being so angry for a whole year when I was 9 that I wanted to bite people. I remember every time I wasn't being a "proper girl", and how I saw on everyone's face that they felt it too. I remember every time I realised that I wasn't perfect anymore, just like Barbie does, and that I just wasn't the way I was made anymore. And they still feel like fresh wounds, fresh failures, despite what 2012 Tumblr feminism taught me.

I've seen Tiktoks from the current generation of internet teens discussing how the film wasn't radical enough in its feminism, and I get it, to an extent. When you've been an Oppenheimer Teen - fighting boys about how they treat their girlfriends that you're secretly a bit in love with, spending your whole life placing your value in your intelligence and your rage so as not to be someone's Barbie, making online friends all over the world because no one gets you, reading feminist lit while your classmates are excited about YA Fiction - Gloria's monologue, the climax of the film's mission statement, feels like "okay, and??" And as I said, I was Sasha, eviscerating femininity for what it had done to me. But as I grow up, not a (Barbie) Girl, not yet at all a woman (I'm non binary, knowing that is vital to understanding that joke), but also no longer an Oppenheimer Teen, I see the spaces that the powerful, vengeful feminism of my youth is missing.

Every time my friends are mistreated by men who are supposed to love them, there is a beat before they remember who they are where they think they deserve it. We constantly wonder if we're over reacting to our own trauma. We lose weight through grief and are told we look great and we say thank you, and sometimes we mean it. We fear taking up space even though we can't help it. We wonder if we should go for jobs that we aren't technically qualified for, even though we have degrees and years of experience to contradict our gut feelings of inadequacy. We are clever, bright, talented people, but those of us who have a girlhood in our pasts have a unique never-quite-healed injury. It's like a broken ankle from falling off a trampoline when you were 10 that aches in cold weather even now, the ankle you always go over when you're drunk in heels. I didn't know I'd grow up and get less angry. I didn't know I'd pick my battles eventually like everyone kept telling me to at 15, instead of waging war on everyone. I didn't know there would be a day that life would figure out how to make me small. I thought I had shut up the Barbie Girl I once was by outsmarting her, but my heart is still baby pink, strawberry scented, and covered in sparkles, and it always will be.

When i sat there, bathed in pink light, surrounded by mums and daughters, best friends, sisters, queers who never got to be Barbie Girls but desperately wanted to be, grannies, and aunties, and tiny girls who have no idea how much their hearts are about to be broken, I held my friend Isla's hand and i kissed it and wiped tears off my cheeks, because we were all there, together, in the middle of the afternoon on a Monday, living not in a Barbie world, but the real one. The really shit one. And the biggest cinematic event of our lives was telling us we were right, and it wasn't our fault, and we didn't make it all up for attention, we weren't rude or bossy or difficult, we were traumatised and hurt and tired. The children we were who played with dolls, cutting off their hair before we were allowed to mess up our own, had been let down.

4. Still Talking About The Barbie Movie, But Also Talking About My Mum.

Nearly a month ago, my mum died. She had a brain tumour, diagnosed a decade after she had the all clear from breast cancer. These two acts of evil by the universe were unrelated, it wasn't a secondary tumour related to her first one, it was just bad luck. She had been sick for years, and before that she was sick in different ways for years, so it wasn't a shock, but it has forced me into a new era of my life in a way I wasn't ready for. Just like growing up.

My mum was born in poverty in the 1960s in the West of Scotland, and by the time I came along her life was a dreamscape compared to what she had once known. We had a standard, comfortable-enough, but still working-class life, but we lived in her Barbie Dream House. I got my love of clothes and dressing up from her, the colour palette of my life from her, and my internal monologue from her. We spent most of our time together until I moved to Glasgow at 19, even when I was raging and destructive, because she was sick, and because she knew I wasn't going to be that way forever. She had been a wee girl once, too. She knew why I wanted to bite people.

The moment in the Barbie Movie where Ruth Handler says "We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they've come” launched into my chest like a fist and winded me. I was holding my friend Isla's hand at this point, too, she knew why I was crying and she cried too. I know this line was likely intended to be about career and the choices afforded to older women in the past, and the choices afforded now to mothers vs fathers, about the sacrifices of mothers and the love they send their creations, us, off into the world knowing, but my mum's own stillness was suddenly phrased in a new way, and it hurt. I don't want to look back on photos and videos to see where I left her, I want her to be dressed up in pink and glitter to go to the cinema with me. I wanted to cry with her and tell her I loved her for everything she did for me growing up, for putting up with me when I ruined by hair and dressed like a maniac and cost her a fortune in black eyeliner. I wanted to thank her for laughing and agreeing when i told her I wanted to bite people, I wanted to thank her for understanding my hormones were making me shouty and introverted and weird, not my intentions. I don't want to see how far I've come without her, she was supposed to be here.

I wish I could have discussed Gloria's point of view with her, watching her daughter grow up and away from her, in reference to our relationship. I wish we could have agreed we were so glad we got to the other side of that, and that every year I wasn't a teenager was better than the last for her, too. We would have laughed at Weird Barbie because all my dolls looked like her too. She would have remembered stories about my girlhood i'd never heard, she always did when we watched films together, often in her bed while the rain poured outside. The strangest part of losing my mum, has been losing the only witness to my entire life, because no one knows you the way the person who made you, lost you, and got you back knows you.

5. The End

Greta Gerwig has made me cry a lot, mostly about being a daughter to a mum, and growing up, and I love that this film fits solidly into her library, while standing out as an offering to a world that doesn't seek this kind of epiphany out. Barbie's mission as a doll was supposed to be about empowering women and girls, giving girls a role model when women didn't have space in the world to make globally successful films about how brilliant and capable and hurt and injured women are.

It's easy to look back after seeing the film, especially with all the history lessons included, and decide that Ruth Handler won the day with this mission, but I think The Barbie Movie will be the true closing chapter to this objective for Mattel. Isla (my friend whose hands I kept kissing and crying on in the cinema) and I were talking after the film about how kids now aren't growing up with the Barbie we had. They're not getting glamazon, can't stand up for the size of her boobs Barbie, with her yellow hair and a princess dress. They're getting flat footed, representative of them Barbie. She looks like she eats her dinners and she could actually do all the activities she's dressed to do, she's modern, and that's class, it's the next step in the evolution. That means that this film won't give the wee girls we were sat among in the cinema the same gut punches and feelings of nostalgia for girlhood when they grow up that it gave us. Their Barbies are just dolls, pals, they aren't trying to prove anything. There's no "please go further than I ever did, please" in the marketing, we all know we can be whatever we want to be in theory, we've heard it all and we're constantly under pressure to actualise it, like Gloria was talking about.

We've finally caught up to Barbie, we can, in theory, have our own homes and careers, we have the right to our own bank account, we don't, in theory, have to have families if we don't want them, we can be whatever we want, it just really, really fucking hurts trying to get there. And so we meet Barbie, all of us able to actually stand without a giant hand supporting us, Birkenstock to Birkenstock, looking out at what's to come. What's to come, is more of what's been, because we don't have equality, or anything close to it. We are still aching and being traumatised by our world. By the end of the film, Barbie is a real woman, a symbol of this new era Isla and I were talking about. She chose death and cellulite and misogyny over their absences because to feel, and to be real, and to stand with the girls who grew up loving her, is more noble.

I will say though, if there's a vacancy in Barbieland now she's in LA, I have really bad cramp and I'm tired of crying for my mum, so I'll send my CV over if anyone has an in x

[embossross]

2023 in anime

i give ratings out of 10 stars based on a rubric that considers the following:

2 points / ambition of what the anime is trying to achieve 3 points / effectiveness of the anime in achieving its aims 4 points / my personal, subjective enjoyment 1 point / pacing +1/-1 miscellaneous

so with that said… ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (2 anime)

revolutionary girl utena – heavy breathing panting crying what a fucking roller coaster nanami the child you are anty the child you were utena the child you choose to be – just one of the true masterpieces of all anime. took a few episodes to realize that this show understood tone and comedy perfectly and wasn’t just a wonky children’s show and by golly! the nanami in season 3 gutted me unlike anything else

attack on titan: final season (for real this time) – decent conclusion to maybe my favorite anime of all time

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (10 anime)

school rumble – so goddamn funny and i cared about every goddamn character. it’s witchcraft!

trigun – good ole saturday morning cartoons

golden kamuy s3 – how does it keep getting better???!?!

fruits basket – i was a certified hater after s1, but slowly but surely i gave into the melodrama. akito and shigure were EVERYTHING

nana – the most disappointing ending of all time! for one of the greatest anime of all time. manga pls save me!!!

rascal does not dream of bunny girl senpai – i’m embarrassed. i cried.

princess tutu – expressionistic, dedicated to storytelling, tremendously kind-hearted. you have to let it move you

blue lock – i’m officially a sports anime girlie

cyberpunk: edgerunners – this was just so slick!

chainsaw man – nothing needs to be said here

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (8 anime)

yamada-kun to lv999 no koi wo suru – adult romance that hasn’t been stripped of all conflict and maintains momentum nearly to the end

oshi no ko – my expectations were non-existent after ep 1 but then it crept up on me. i can’t even fully put my finger on what works so well? but it does! it knows when to take itself seriously and when to be nonsense.

demon slayer s3 – best season of demon slayer to date, i actually cared

durarara!!x2 shou – this is a confession. my inner edgy teen loves durarara. i appreciate huge casts of characters acting in opposition in atmospheric tokyo.

gintama – i finally finished gintama one of my favorites of all time. the end pulls all the threads together but it does so at the expense of the laughs so loses some points

chihayafuru – amazing background anime. just consistently fun and engaging.

perfect blue – i feel stupid and uncultured to not give this a 10

vinland saga – askeladd is so hot wow

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (7 anime)

buddy daddies – funny and sincere in degrees but a truly annoying little girl character

serial experiments lain – god you’ve gotta appreciate the wild swings creatives were taking in the 90s

durarara!!x2 ten

great teacher onizuka – ugh he’s a creep but also heh he’s funny

trigun stampede – they yassified them!

mob psycho 100 s3 - meandered a bit but the characters are forever favorites

to your eternity – the first 3 arcs are extraordinary. march is one of the great child characters of all time. the end drags.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (8 anime)

zom 100 – crazy good first episode that earns its premise and then a slow descent into mediocrity; cool colors though!

terror in resonance – utterly forgettable

dororo – way too long with way too many hit or miss episode arcs

bungou stray dogs s4 – the cracks are showing but the rampo backstory is dope

lycoris recoil – those cute girls shoulda been lesbians

classroom of the elite – is it edgy? yes. are the quotes frustratingly misused? oh yes. is it fun? ugh yeah actually

romantic killer – pretty cute and the edge of danger at the end really sells it

free – solid watch but it left my brain like sand in a sieve

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4 anime)

wolf’s rain – what passes as deep when children are your primary audience

hell’s paradise – boring and i liked the manga so.

durarara!!x2 ketsu – the conclusion falls short

land of the lustrous – bold but was too slow for me

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (3 anime)

tomo-chan is a girl! – sometimes funny but the conceit does not justify 13 episodes and it loses steam fast

mushishi – some of the vignettes were beautiful but felt repetitive

bleach: thousand-year blood war – sleek, hype, plagued by all the old bleach problems

no game no life season 1 - confused that this was such a phenomenon when it came out. it’s fine i guess.

⭐⭐⭐ (5 anime)

kamisama kiss – trite imo

given – god save us from anime about perfect people being perfect with each other – but this time set to music!

tokyo revengers s2 – 🤷

natsume’s book of friends – i don’t need vibes this cozy

sasaki to miyano – and i really don’t need vibes this cozy

⭐⭐ (0 anime)

⭐ (0 anime)

& then ongoing shows that i’m not going to rank until i finish them (but actually all are pretty good so far) – skip to loafer, heavenly delusion, spy x family s2, apothecary diaries, jujutsu kaisen s2, frieren: beyond journey’s end, vinland saga s2

[here-have-some-stories]

The Slide

TW: Mentions of murder and blood

As I looked back at the tiny slide at my primary school's playground, I realized something about myself. I didn't care. So much bad happened at this one slide in such a short amount of time and I didn't care about any of it. 

It had been twenty years since the so called "tragedy", and people were still hung up about it. They were still acting as if it happened yesterday. Apparently twenty years wasn't enough time to get over some things. 

There had been an annual memorial right here at the school, to mourn the loss of the children who had lost their lives in such interesting ways on this very slide, but I hadn't gone. There would have been too many tears, too much grief for something that was now just an insignificant part on the town's history. The news people had stopped talking about the incident so why couldn't they? I had come to the school after everyone left and it got dark so I could look at the slide, and I now stood in front of it, replaying the scene over and over again in my head and questioning my own mind. Why didn't I care? 

Three kids, my mind pictured, three kids playing on the tiny unstable slide. A teacher on playground patrol had approached them, nothing out of the ordinary at the time. Something appeared gleaming in the teacher's hand, but from my position on the other side of the playground I couldn't fully see what it was. I gathered context from what happened next. One of the kids screaming was cut off pretty quickly. The teacher was holding them tightly by the hair, their right hand behind the child's back. Their arm then moved to reveal what they were holding. A gleaming sharp knife, dripping a beautiful crimson sort of liquid all the way right down to the handle. The teachers hand moved with rapid speed, making a precise fine slit across the child's neck, releasing a waterfall of that pretty substance.  

In the same movement, the teacher pushed the child down the slide and grabbed the next kid, repeating the artistic sequence.  

By the time the teacher had finished, the third child had managed to run away screaming, and some of the other teachers had ran over, wrestling the knife out of the teachers hand and quickly dialing the police. 

All the students on the playground had run as soon as the first child had fallen. Why? They weren't in danger at the moment as the teacher was preoccupied with the kids on the slide. Surely it wasn't the blood. That was fascinating. It wasn't everyday you got to see what was inside of your body, although I wish it was. The entire sight was so interesting, I could have watched it for hours. But a teacher, a non-psychotic one, had picked me up and taken me away from the playground, putting me in a classroom filled with annoying crying kids as the school went under a lockdown. I don't know why they did it, it wouldn't keep anyone out, the teacher was already in. It would have just locked us in the school with them.  

The news covered the story for a couple weeks before they got bored of it and found something more interesting: A robbery. It was confirmed that the teacher suffered from ASPD, also known as antisocial personality disorder, highly common in sociopaths and psychopaths.  

I don't like that they used the term "suffering". I have ASPD and I'm doing fine. 

Maybe that's why I didn't care. My disorder prevented me. That was probably it, sociopaths are known to not feel much, if anything at all. 

I did feel a little bit of something towards the story. Annoyance. It was annoying seeing the story everywhere. For three whole weeks the news wouldn't stop talking about them! It felt good to see something else, even if it was another violent crime, albeit a less interesting one. 

Satisfied that I knew why I didn't care, I walked away from the slide, out the school gates and towards my pickup truck. I'd visit again next year to ponder, as was my tradition. 

I am so sorry if I got any traits of ASPD wrong or if it is seen as offensive, I'm not a proffesional, just a sleep deprived writer and if I got anything wrong please tell me so I can try and change it so it is better. This was a writing prompt I got from my English teacher and I finished it and felt like posting it so here it is. I've got some other stories from English class that I'm planning on posting when I finish them which will probably be a while. One of them is about an assasin and one is about a cannibal circus. When my teacher was reviewing my work the only thing she told me was to fix the places where I forgot apostrophes and that I needed more action in it instead of just relflecting, but like, that's the point of the fucking story. The charcater is reflecting on something that happened. She didn't even comment on the topic of it she was just like "APOSTROPHES' Anyways, hope you liked it. It was fun to write. -Kenickie

[slytherinshua]

Ah I loved that, thankyou!! I feel like Yechan would hate me tho because I LOVE to tease. I am a menace to my younger sister (I once convinced her for about 5 mins that she didn't actually know what her middle name was, but then again I'm am extremely gullible and my brother has convinced me of things that I have believed for years 😭). He would definitely be so supportive though and I feel like it would be so interesting to have convos about music with him!

Sangyeop definitely strikes me as the reliable "I'm here if you need me" type of of guy. He would definitely be such an interesting person to talk to, the amount of random knowledge that he must know could keep me entertained for hours lol

I need Wonsang to help me through my fears even now lol. He's so sweet and I could see him being so patient with you while trying to get you to face them, why is he not in my life 😭😭

Songwriting with Gwangil would be so fun! And the amount of inside jokes you would probably have is amazing. I definitely agree with you, I think his hugs could solve anything and I absolutely need one lol.

I'm glad piano has been going well! How are you finding the teacher, do you like them? Ooh that's cool, do you have a lot of arm muscles from that? I always imagine that tennis players must have insane muscles but I could be wrong lol. That's so interesting that you lived overseas, can I ask where you lived? I'm sure it must have been hard to adjust! 2 of my best friends also lived overseas with missionary parents, but I don't think they struggled too much since the were so young and then moved back while they were still in primary school. I'm good! Not up to much either lol. I went on a mini roadtrip with two of my friends (funnily enough the ones I just mentioned). It was really good, but also really funny to see them interact with eachother since they are sisters. One is a year older than me and the other is a year younger, so being in the middle of it always very fun. I still live with my brother, but even then we hardly interact lol. Somedays the only interaction we have is when he's filling his bottle up before he goes to bed at like 1am and that's very short lol. We definitely have the same (broken) sense of humour, there was a period of time when we were constantly rickrolling each other and we both became very paranoid messaging each other ahaha. That's definitely the thing with family though, they are so annoying and some days you just want to slap them, but you also love them so much and would fight for them. If anyone touches my baby sister (who is only 3yrs younger lol) there will be hell to pay 😡😡

lmao yechan would lose patience fr 😭😭 my older siblings always gaslit me when i was little OMG like they fr convinced me my nose was blue and now they wont let it go even now like 13 yrs later 😭😭😭😭😭 yeah sangyeop is so sweet and reliable :( and hes so smart too i feel like he'd advice for anything!!! wonsang is the sweetest like stop.... im so sad :( gwangil has so much fun around the people hes close to but he can be so quiet to others i love him </3

i really like my teacher!! i had her back in 2020 too so its not completely new <3 i don't lol it doesn't take as much strength as you would think to hit the ball you just need to practice to get the timing right and accuracy down then its pretty easy in terms of strength!!

yeah i lived in the philippines for 3 yrs and i've also been to some other south east asian countries like indonesia, singapore, and cambodia <3 i remember having so much fun living in the countries and i would make friends really easy but the problem was i would always be moving away so i was never able to keep any friendships. even now im scared to make in person friends cause im scared im just going to move away again, so that's why i only have online friends :( its like a security net ig... cause i know we wont just lose contact one day <//3 omg that's so fun i miss roadtrips!! and i miss having in person friends too lskdjsk

yeah i live with my two closest brother and sister in age but sometimes we don't even see each other in a day not because we go outside but because they're sleeping... 😭 i love broken senses of humor tho like i fr have a teenage boy sense of humor with my best friend 💀💀💀 sibling relationships are so precious imo and so unique to any other relationship out there cause they could be so different from you that if you weren't siblings you would never be friends. but because you are you get along with them and love them to death <3

[laurentlemonke]

I don't think I have tourettes, but I've had tics since I was like 6. However, I've never been diagnosed with anything that could explain why. And it's not like they went unnoticed. No, I had very severe tics as a child. I never really experienced vocal tics, apart from coughing and clearing my throat repeatedly, but I did have complex motor tics that everyone was aware of.

My teachers, my classmates, my parents knew about them but they just didn't care I guess. I was made fun of for them by teachers and other kids though. I was told I was disruptive and bothering the class. Bro as if my tics weren't bothering me as well. But yeah, apart from telling me I was annoying, nobody really gave a shit lol.

They got better with age though. From the age of 12 or so my tics became less frequent and less severe than they were before. I still have them, but I can go days or even weeks without ticcing now, whereas it was a daily occurrence back in primary school.

Now that I'm older and my tics have lessened in intensity, I don't really feel the need to get a diagnosis. Sure, it'd be cool to know why the fuck this is happening. But given the point of a diagnosis is mostly to get access to treatment or accommodations, I don't really feel like I need one, since my tics are pretty manageable these days. I don't think people even notice I have them nowadays. It's mostly just my muscles tensing up, not something others would pick up on.

The reason I'm saying all of this is because an argument I've seen thrown around online as a way to discredit people with tourette or tic disorders is "I've seen videos where you don't tic at all but now you're ticcing every two seconds" or something along those lines.

And yeah, that's how tics work actually. They tend to vary in intensity. Even now that my tics are better, I still get days where they're more frequent. Some tics can go away completely over time. New tics can appear out of seemingly nowhere too. They can also change as you age. For some of us, we had really bad tics during our childhood, but now they've become less prominent. While for some others it might be the opposite, they developed tics later on in life.

This can go for basically any illness/disorder/disability btw, but we aren't a monolith. Which is why it's important to listen to as many stories as possible to get a better understanding of how a condition works. Everyone is different, so every condition is gonna present differently depending on the person.

Of course, diagnostic criteria is a thing, that's how you know someone suffers from a certain condition. But not everyone is gonna experience said symptoms the same exact way. As I've said before, I barely if ever, experience vocal tics. Doesn't mean nobody experiences them, or that if someone does they're faking. I'm just one person who exhibits one presentation of any given symptom.

Remember that medical professionals can't diagnose or undiagnose anyone from a social media post. They're straight up not allowed to, because social media isn't a 1:1 reflection of reality. We choose what we show online, things are curated. Which gives fakeclaimers even less credibility. Bro you're just some rando with a reddit account, go outside.

I didn't think this post would be so long. Shit's a goddamn novela. I'm pretty passionate about the topic, I just don't understand how weirdos online can claim to know more about someone than the person themselves. People change and so do disorders, doesn't mean it's fake.

Edit: omg forgot to mention! Just because someone isn't diagnosed doesn't mean they're faking their symptoms! You don't suddenly gain them once you're formally diagnosed.

[temperedsims]

Hate What You Love Chapter 1: So we meet again.

The class was noisy with everyone talking over everyone else. Naruto sat closest to the window on the left side of the classroom, one arm slumped over the back of his chair as his eyes wandered the expanse of his Grade 11 homeroom class. His eyes fell on the girl two desks over. Sakura. Her bubblegum pink hair fell forward hiding her face as she wrote steadily in her notebook. She was the only one in class who would do schoolwork before the teacher even arrived. Naruto liked this about her. She was smart.

He slumped back into his chair as the noise in the classroom got steadily louder. From somewhere behind him, Kiba was excitedly talking to Choji about a movie they had watched on the weekend. Up the front of the class, Ino talked loudly on the phone to someone, her manicured nail twirled the ends of her long blonde hair as she chatted. On either side of her were the worlds two quietest kids.

Shino, who sat in front of Sakura, always wore a mask, so Naruto had never even seen his face, his curly head was pushed up and held in place with a headband. In middle school all he ever talked about was bugs. It probably hadn't changed.

On the other side of Ino sat Hinata. Even more of a mystery than Shino, Naruto only knew two things about her; that she was a rich girl who for some reason didn't attend private school, and that her grey eye colour looked purple in the light. This, he had overheard Ino talking about it at the start of the semester.

"It's hereditary," Hinata had replied when Ino asked her if she was wearing contacts "my cousin has it too.". Oh, and she had a cousin. That made three things he knew about her.

Most of the people in his class had gone to the same primary school as him, except Hinata who had joined in high school. He'd grew up seeing their familiar faces, and knew things about them from being in the same classes, for example Shino parents were both scientist who studied bugs, Sakura was the top student but she was also strong, being a black belt in aikido, and Ino had been growing her hair out since she was a kid. He knew these things about them but he couldn't call them friends. He was fine though, he didn't need any friends.

He slumped even further into his chair and placed a pencil between his lip and nose, pushing his lips up to hold it in place. He was bored. If Kakashi, their homeroom teacher didn't come soon, he was going to die of boredom. He wouldn't even be in class if it wasn't for his adopted guardian Iruka. "You must graduate high school at least, Naruto.". He had scolded too many times for Naruto to count.

The door slammed open, he jumped at the noise and his lead pencil fell to the floor, clattering and rolling underneath the desk beside him. He sighed, annoyed and reached over to grab it. Fingertips grasping only air, he became even more annoyed, pushing himself more forward.

"Welcome class," Kakashi said casually, as if he hadn't been almost 10 minutes late. Naruto didn't bother to look at him, instead he focused his attention on the pencil. Reaching further, his fingertip brushed the eraser end. Just a little bit more.

"Today we have a new student-"

Naruto bent himself over even more, his fingers clasped around the pencil. Finally. He teetered precariously on the edge of his seat. He was too far forward. He tensed all of his muscles in his stomach, trying to pull himself back up.

"-This is Sasuke Uchiha." Kakashi continued.

What?! He snapped his neck to the front, forgetting about his balance and toppled over. His desk and chair made a loud bang as he fell, hitting the ground side on. Shit.

"Naruto." Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose as the class laughed at him. Embarrassed, he pulled himself to a standing position, glaring and ready to blame the teacher for opening the door so loudly. It was his fault after all.

The words died on his lips as he came face to face with none other than Sasuke Uchiha. The Sasuke Uchiha. Someone he hadn't seen since primary school. His face was as pretty as it had always been, with clear brown skin that had a slight sheen to it; almond shaped eyes, with long eyelashes that could rival even the girls in class, perfectly manicured, dark eyebrows and soft lips, curled up into a sneer that was so familiar it hit Naruto somewhere deep inside his chest.

"Idiot." Was the first thing Sasuke said.

"Shut up." He snapped back.

"Back to your seat please." Kakashi sighed.

Naruto groaned, fixed his seat and slumped into it. He crossed his arms and continued to glare at Sasuke. The guy had only just got here and he was already starting on him. Sasukes midnight black eyes met his glare for a moment and it felt like the room went still. Then Sasuke shifted, glancing elsewhere and Naruto let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

"Take a seat next to Naruto." Kakashi said, slumping into his teachers chair and leaning back, propping his feet up onto the desk.

"What? Why's it gotta be next to me." Naruto complained as Sasuke shifted along the isle without a word.

"Because I said so." Kakashi said in a very un-teacher like manner. He pulled out a sheet of paper and missed Sasuke shoving into Naruto as he passed.

"Hey!" Naruto yelped and went to push him back.

"Naruto". Kakashi stopped him. Knowing nobody would take his side over ever-perfect Sasuke's, he groaned and slumped further into his seat as the teacher called out attendance.

It was like primary school all over again. Naruto was the problem child and Sasuke was everybody's angel. When Sasuke called the teacher by her first name, it was cute, when Naruto called her 'teacher' it was rude. When Naruto and Sasuke fought, Naruto was the bad child, and Sasuke could do no wrong. High school wouldn't be any different.

Stupid rich kid. Naruto sulked slumping over his desk, praying for the bell to go soon. Hopefully he didn't have any more classes with that jerk.

[inamindfarfaraway]

My Bluey OC

Name

Whitney Ward.

Gender

Female.

Breed

Komondor.

Appearance

Whitney is a tall, chubby Komondor puppy with great natural strength, brown eyes, and soft, pure white fur grown out long and matted into her breed’s iconic dense dreadlocks. She wears decorative gold rings on the ones on her head and a black cord necklace with a red chewable bone-shaped pendant. Being autistic and nonverbal, she communicates through sounds, body language and typing and clicking pictures on an AAC app on her tablet, which has a red case; she can take time to find the right words, both in her head and on her tablet’s system. She may also wear red noise-cancelling headphones to cope with her hypersensitive hearing.

Age

Seven.

Backstory

Her mother Opal holds a senior position in a sewage treatment plant. Her father Sugar is a speech therapist who’s worked part-time primarily online from home since Whitney was born. They’re both deeply loving and do their best to provide her with a safe, comfortable physical and emotional environment that she can thrive in. The family uses a lot of shorthands to help Whitney get her points across easier.

For the last year and a half, she was in the special needs class of a local normal school. She was insufficiently accommodated, bullied and unfairly blamed by teachers there. When her parents realized what was going on, they were horrified and transferred her to Glasshouse Primary School. She’s doing much better there and has made new friends in Calypso’s class. Sugar and Opal are debating moving in the future to be closer to the school and its other students’ neighbourhood, but don’t want the massive change to distress Whitney, guilty about letting her suffer so much already.

Personality

Whitney is patient, observant, thoughtful and careful. She’s had to learn to be, with her developmental delays in speech and to an extent mental processing and reading usually making her take longer to do things than her peers. At her old school, she was left out and behind a lot and got used to entertaining herself. She’s analytically, strategically intelligent, but doesn’t do well academically. She has a strong sense of justice and believes that doing a bad thing always deserves punishment, struggling to apply this concept with nuance and in degrees. She prefers to wait, think carefully and try to look at the bigger picture and disapproves of others acting rashly. But once she’s sure she’s assessed a situation correctly, she will be very confident, stubborn and even self-righteous in her course of action.

She likes rules and is highly organized and dutiful. She genuinely doesn’t understand mischief, how getting in trouble or annoying adults, outside of mild teasing in contexts known to be completely safe like her family dynamic, could be fun. It certainly wasn’t at her old school, and she wasn’t even doing it on purpose. She spends most of her time and energy just trying to do things right. She has an instinctive respect for and trust in authority figures and institutions. After all, people wouldn’t be in charge for bad reasons, would they? That would mean that the whole system worked badly! And that would be stupid. This is part of why it took so long for her parents to figure out that her old school was one such bad system - Whitney assumed her teachers were right about her deserving her treatment and didn’t want to complain, on top of communication being practically difficult. Now she’s slowly building up her sense of unconditional self-worth and beginning to understand that adults can be downright wrong and cruel.

Her special interests are the Caprinae subfamily of sheep and goats, water supply systems and the properties and care of all different types of dog fur, inspired by wool and the Komondor breed’s often remarked-upon unique fur. She loves to watch herds of sheep and a fluffy toy Suffolk sheep called Cotton is her comfort object. The textures of wool and many other types of hair are extremely pleasant to her. She loves to play hairdresser, sheepdog, security guard and army. She stims by fiddling with her hair and even hides her face in her cords when anxious or upset. She’s also in the habit of lightly flicking and slapping people with them, either playfully as a physical form of teasing or to make them leave her alone or respect her personal space, especially if she’s stressed. She’s starting to pick up a hobby of photography too, taking pictures with her tablet.

She’s very protective of her friends, afraid of losing them after finally getting them, and possessions, and concern for them is basically the only thing besides fear and pain that can make her be impulsive and careless. She doesn’t like sharing her things. As words can be hard for her, she prefers to express her care through actions. Her good friends are Honey, Jack, Rusty and Mackenzie. She likes Bluey, Snickers and Coco, but their energy can be overwhelming and hard to keep up with sometimes.

Other Notes

She likes to playfight with her parents and friends. She’s occasionally too rough and is working on identifying cues that the other person isn’t having fun anymore. 

She has a restricted diet and strong sensitivity to mouthfeel. She mainly eats rice, bread, pasta, noodles, meat and seafood, dislikes spice and sourness and has vitamins more than vegetables. She likes chewy foods and her favourite foods are beef jerky and Choo Choo Bars, as chewing is one of her stims (she used to chew her dreadlocks before getting her necklace). Sugar, befitting his name, loves sweet flavours and eats more confectionery than her.

One Ward family shorthand is “sewage treatment” or ST for a difficult, even downright unpleasant, but necessary and ultimately beneficial task, based on Opal explaining her work and its importance to Whitney. The parents doing housework? ST. Whitney learning a hard new word on her AAC app that will help her express herself better? ST. Her meeting neurotypical social norms like eye contact or not stimming or using sensory accommodations? Not ST. If there’s no good reason behind it, if it doesn’t help anybody, if it’s painful or too uncomfortable or draining to worth Whitney’s while, it is just sewage. That means it needs to be avoided for the sake of her health. Her parents are strong advocates of every child being taught and enabled to recognize the difference between ST and sewage types of demands made of them, particularly those who are communication-impaired and therefore easy to bully and take advantage of. 

Her interschool buddy in Mia and Captain’s class is a twelve-year-old Yorkshire Terrier girl named Claire. Claire is kind, generous, extroverted, optimistic, fearless and talkative. She’s used to her small size not always being accommodated for, and has even been teased for it, so she’s fiercely protective of her little buddy (who happens to be physically bigger than her). Whitney likes to listen to her talk and stroke her silky fur.

Red is her favourite colour. As she grows older and more mature, she takes to wearing the fur cords on her head up in a ponytail in a red scrunchie.

[bluegalaxygirl]

Hello again 😁!!

I don’t know if this is okay to ask, but would you be comfortable to share something about yourself? I could be anything as long as your comfortable with sharing it and it’s also okay if you don’t feel like answering this. I’d just like to get to know you a bit better since you seems to be such a beautiful person. 😊

Thank you for all your great One Piece stories!! They always make my day and help me get through them. ❤️

Thank you so much for all the love and support you and everyone else have been giving me, i'm happy to talk a bit about myself and I'll put a Trigger warning down bellow when i talk about some stuff. I don't mind talking about it since it was a long time ago and i hope it shows that others aren't alone. Also this is way longer than i thought it would be.

So first off i'm a very creative person i used to write a lot when i was in high school mainly because i have dyslexia (BTW why do they have to make it hard to spell) and it helped me a lot to understand words and spell. I remember when i was 13 i had the reading age of a 5-year old but thanks to one lady, i got up to my own age in reading in two years (Something my primary school refused to do). I do a lot of other creative stuff too like art, cross stitching, card making (I'm currently making Christmas cards for my family this year, its snow globe themed), jewelry making, sticker making and i'm trying to paint figures again. I

I also like to write how i want to be treated or how people should be treated while in a relationship, with love, respect, kindness and understanding. I wasn't treated like that in my past relationships, nothing bad happened and i wasn't abused but there were times when i would have to "Remind" them of my boundaries. That's also a big thing for me plus communication, if there's a problem or something is bothering you then it should be talked about so you can both understand and maybe figure out a solution. I find it funny how i love writing romance and stuff but i can't stand romance movies, i 1000% hate them, i just find them so annoying.

I love making people happy and i believe that if you are kind to others then they will be kind back but i'm also no longer a push over. If i don't like you then i won't talk to you. Family is very important to me but unfortunately there are members of my family that i can't stand for one reason or another and i won't talk to them as much but if i'm in a room with them i'm happy to be kind unless their not.

My favorite flowers are Sunflowers, there just so big and happy and come in different color's and shades. I love anime and playing video games, my favorite is watch dogs 2 but i also love the south park games. I love anything to do with autumn/fall, pumpkins (I love to help my mum make pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie), horror, maple leaves, cozy jumpers and socks, it's also the perfect time to start drinking hot chocolate. :)

TRIGGER WARNING AREA

You don't have to read through this part, its just explaining what iv been through and why i'm ok about writing stuff.

I was bullied all through primary school and all through high school, calling it hell would be an understatement, it didn't matter how nice i was or if i told a teacher it would still continue. I was spat at, called every name under the book, had my hair pulled, got kicked and pushed around and yet the teachers wouldn't do anything. When i was in primary school one of my bullies pushed me off a climbing set and i broke my wrist, she said it was an accident and the teachers believed her. My parents were constantly fighting the school, but they had an excuse for everything and i couldn't be moved form that school since it was way better than any of the others around (I would have gotten treated worse in any other school). In high school i was heavily sexualized by the boys, after years of bullying and getting no where with anyone you end up just shutting down and not saying anything, i went years without telling my parents anything or complaining to a teacher because it would go no where. My parents new something was going on but without me saying anything or any kind of evidence they couldn't confront the school.

When i was 14 i was sexually assaulted by a boy on school grounds (I found out when i was in collage my bullies told him to do it and one of them would sleep with him, and they did), I started talking to my parents again after that, and we got the police involved unfortunately it was my word against his because the bullies who where the only ones around said they didn't say anything (Even though they said to my face that they did and laughed about it) and the cameras in the area didn't work, i still don't know if that was the truth or not. I ended up getting yelled at by the headmistress for getting the police involved and then told me and the boy should sit down and talk about it. My parents went off on her after that and i feel so stupid because when they said they were moving me to another school i told them no. I wish i moved schools but the school i went too was the only one going Photography GCSE's and i wanted to be a photographer and my parents didn't fight me on it. Luckily things got better after that i think my bullies were to focused on getting a good grade than me but it didn't completely stop.

I worked hard though and passed all except one and got into collage where i did Photography for 2 years, i loved it so much and am so proud of myself for getting a very high grade despite falling very ill in the second year and hardly being able to attend classes but the teachers and staff there were amazing and gave me everything i needed. The first year i had some problems, me and the boy who assaulted me went to the same collage and lived in the same town, so we would get the same train i did, i tried to avoid him but i noticed he started sitting or standing close to me on and off the train. The first time i realized he was basically stalking me is when i got to the station and deliberately missed the train i was supposed to get, and he didn't get on when usually he would. The next time i got on the train and then got back off once he was on, and he left the train too. We got the railway police involved, but they said because he hasn't touched me there's nothing they could do, but they did give him a warning. That warning made everything worse though, he started following me to class even when i was with friends, he would stand right in front of me or right behind me if i was standing on the train, he even started to follow me home. Finally, the railway police gave him a restraining order and it all stopped thank gods.

I was too shy back then but after a lot of therapy and learning self defense i became more confident and able to stand up for myself, i still have my moments of going into my shell but i try to fight back with words if i can.

[handern]

most annoying brand of teacher is the one that goes "they don't know about that" when I ask a class if they know about smth like I'm not talking to you I'm talking to the kids you sit down and be quiet I'm the one talking raise your hand if you want to talk you're not the boss of these kids you've only had them as students for 1 month you don't know them and you don't know their lives and also THE FOOD PYRAMID IS PART OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL PROGRAM THESE ARE TEENAGERS THEY KNOW WHAT PLANKTON IS

on the other hand my favorite brand of teacher is the one that sits w the kids and raises their hand when they want to talk A++

[belteppismo]

Controversial personal opinion (actually a rant) about RDARB because I'm still so annoyed about that novel

"Red, White and Royal Blue" is without any doubt one of the most annoying books I've ever read and I really can't understand how it managed to become so popular when it's so blatantly... Bad

I think the horrific Italian translation made me dislike it even more, but there were so many problems with it already

First of all, the side characters. Absolutely useless. I'm not even joking when I say that I had to stop for 5 entire minutes to try to remember who the heck was Leo. To me, it makes perfect sense that they decided to get rid of a lot of them in the film, they shouldn't have been there in the first place

Secondly, the dialogues. They couldn't have felt more surreal. You're telling me that the Prince of Wales, who's been getting PR training and etiquette lessons ever since he pronounced his first word, actually expresses himself like a dockworker? It all felt forced, like the author was trying way too hard to make every single line witty. But it didn't make me laugh, I just found it cringe

Thirdly, the emails. Once again, I had to stop because the second-hand embarrassment was becoming unbearable. God, I wanted to wash my eyes with bleach. Especially because the terrible prose (we'll go back to this later too) of the characters was associated to the writings of some actual intellectuals and poets. It was also a very unrealistic plot device to cause more drama. Basically a disaster under every possible point of view

And what can I say about said drama? Every single conflict was solved within 20 pages. While some superflous parts of the plot strecthed out for an eternity, issues found their solution in an instant. How can an international scandal involving the White House and the Royal Family last for the space of a chapter? *insert Italian boh*

Now, just a couple of thoughts about the main characters. The enemies to lovers trope was objectively badly executed. Their rivalry just felt very childish and based on nothing, so it consequently lacked tension (but no problem, the enemies part came to an end in less than 100 pages). And one thing that annoyed me was that they were supposed to be in their 20s (setting aside the maturity that they were supposed to have because of their respective roles) but they acted like teenagers. After they kind of got together, their in-person communication pretty much stopped existing because they spent every single second together having sex. What sort of development is that?

A word or two about the political sub-plot too. Apart from being uninteresting and very one-dimentional (I agree with the author's political views, but you cannot make such an absolute distinction between good and bad, we don't live in fairytales), it was also totally predictable. Like, Rafael Luna's "big secret" was pretty much spoiled 200 pages before the reveal, so I was just waiting for it and it wasn't surprising at all (just like the results of the elections, for instance)

Lastly, the style. As I've already said, part of my disdain probably derives from the translation. But still. This thing has really been checked by an editor? Most of the descriptions sounded like my brother's composition about his PE teacher written on his first year of primary school. And then, out of nowhere, the author changed register and started to wax poetry about the most mundane details. Just tell me why. I've read better fanfiction

I'd have so much more to say but I think this is enough. If you liked the book, good for you! Your opinion is totally valid and the majority of the world shares it so you're probably also right. I wish all that enthusiasm could change my mind since I bought the novel with high expectations and spent time reading it only to be disappointed and enervated by it