#and i've just accepted that

[dizzydizney]

Why do you think Mal never gets the benefit of the doubt from the fandom the way other characters do?

My number one guess would just be that she gets the benefit of the doubt ad infinitum from canon so the fandom doesn't bother extending the same grace. But that's just me.

I'm in a weird place where I don't think Mal faced enough consequences for what she did, but I also don't think she really... did anything.

I'm sorry but you cannot convince me she's to blame for the whole "closing the barrier forever" thing when you KNOW that's exactly what every adult in that room wanted, and she was literally the last person in the room who should've had the authority to make that call. Belle and the Beast just didn't want to be the ones to say it, and didn't want to put it on their own son either, so they forced the poor girl from the Isle to make the decision.

I think Uma and Evie's whole "You were just trying to do the right thing"/"She always comes through" was quick and not totally deserved. But while the fandom is screaming "No she deserves to be punished!" I'm in my little corner like "This resolution felt too easy yes but I don't think Mal deserves to be punished for being the king's pawn in a broken system that was put into place years before she was even born".

Y'know??

I started the whole "Mal did nothing wrong" crusade to spite the Mal antis but... They made me really believe it. The way they treat her is far too extreme. And when every character is problematic, no one is it makes me sad to see Mal singled out just because the narrative of the franchise was mainly focused around her.

[reasonsforhope]

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

--

I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

[mcmissileproof]

favorite hobby when I'm driving is to catch someone trying to climb up my back bumper while I'm going a completely reasonable speed and just slowly take my foot off the gas. you seem upset, brother. why don't we slow down and enjoy the view awhile

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[tshortik]

I love you messy artstyle i love you visible brush strokes I love you textures and rough edges I love you imperfections I love you roughness and colour blobs I love you scratchy sketches and bold stylisation and dirt and imperfections I love you ugly and raw emotion!!!!! ❤️

[divorcedfiddleford]

happy friday *activates the old man spawner*

[feralnumberfive]

I'm kind of having the time of my life relishing in the chaos of the reactions of S4. Did one of my favorite shows end and it was a shit season to end it on? Yeah. Is it disappointing? Oh yeah. I'm not alone though, and most of us are in the same boat!

[redgoldblue]

'oh eddie getting jealous' this 'buck's first gay sex experience' that. what I want to see is, in the early days after Buck comes out, Tommy very gently pushing him against the wall in the lower level of the firehouse and sweetly but thoroughly kissing him goodbye before pulling back and smiling and leaving. and a 10 second close shot on Buck still leaning against the wall all blushing and giggly before we pan back to see half the Fam on the top level leaning over the railing as Chim wolf-whistles

[beepborpdoodledorp]

ruin out here forcing me to learn how to actually draw the animatronics

[sunlit-mess]

I can only take so much, but lately, they have replaced my reflection. And realize I'm just as bad as them.

[oneroomjestershow]

tomodachi Ren is doing good, putting him in silly outfits

it's going like this

[lylahammar]

hey this is a really really really amazing video and it goes over like all the talking points of societal fatphobia and why it's all bullshit and rooted in racism and ableism and a bunch of other stuff. It covers SO many different topics relating to fatness/fatphobia and Mickey Atkins put a ton of work into it (plus they're a licensed clinician and a fat person who knows what she's talking about). If you have a few hours and you wanna put somethin on in the background, please do so with this video!!

[darunyama]

Yuri effect 🫶

[johnslittlespoon]

Tough And Sweet (Like You And Me) ♡

'Gale looks unfairly handsome in the soft golden light of the late evening, but even more unfair is the fact that John can’t just bridge the gap between them and kiss his feelings away. The more time he spends around Gale, the more it feels like he’s being consumed by his overwhelming infatuation, and there’s not a single thing he can do about it that doesn’t involve the risk of scaring the man out of his life.

So he shuts the truck door behind him after promising Gale he’ll text when he’s safe inside, and he tries not to stare too forlornly as the truck putters off down the street and rounds the corner.'

[ AO3 ]

[babycharmander]

PSA for TF2 Fanartists

(And... really for everyone on the creative side of the fandom, but artists are the ones hurt by this the most.)

I've been seeing some really concerning stuff here that is going unnoticed. Granted, I don't think this is any artist's fault--if anything, the artists are the victims here. But that's why I want to make you guys aware of this, so you can protect yourself from this sort of thing.

"This sort of thing" being a little something called fetish mining.

Fetish mining is when someone with a specific fetish attempts to trick someone else into providing them with content for their fetish... without letting them know that's what they're asking for. Outside of fandom spaces, this can look like someone with a foot fetish approaching someone who is selling socks, and asking them to "model" the socks for them--they're not actually interested in buying the socks, they just want to see pictures of feet.

Within fandom spaces, however, they often take the form of someone repeatedly requesting something featuring a very specific body part of a character, or repeatedly requesting art of a character performing a weirdly specific action. (The repeated part is important here--someone could just say "oh hey could you draw this character shirtless?" once, and that would probably be fine. There's a chance it could be a fetish thing, sure, but it's significantly less likely. Same with a really random request--someone could request something really specific, but if they only do so once, it's significantly less likely to be a fetish mining request.) They might also provide an excuse like, "oh, I think this would be really funny! :)" or "this is a joke request! but it would be hilarious if you drew it"

So what are some examples of this?

Well... they might look a little something like this:

[ID: Two screenshots of two different anonymous asks. The first one reads "HEAVY TF2 TUMMY" with multiple red exclamation points afterward, and the second reads "Sniper tf2 teeth" followed by multiple red exclamation points. /end ID]

(I was going to feature another but then realized it wasn't anonymous, and I'm not comfortable putting an actual blog on blast.)

If these were just one-off asks, that would be one thing, but if you look up these things, you'll see dozens of these asks.

As well, there's nothing wrong with drawing Heavy shirtless, or drawing Sniper baring his teeth. Having fetishes for stomachs or teeth is not wrong, either, nor is specifically requesting fetish art (so long as the artist is okay with such requests)!

The problem is that the specificness of these asks, combined with how frequently these asks get sent, are signs of fetish mining.

(Though another problem is that... this isn't always a 100%-for-sure sign of fetish mining. Some people have special interests that might not be a typical thing like a fandom or hobby or branch of science, but could just be something oddly specific like stomachs or teeth. These things are okay and are not bad! But requests relating to these things can, unfortunately, look identical to fetish mining.)

And again, fetish mining is a person sneakily asking for someone else to provide them with something that is fetish material for them--something that is sexual for them--without letting that person know that's what it's for.

This makes it a form of sexual harassment.

I feel like a lot of the fandom is... not really aware of what's going on, here, and it's distressing. These are very likely bad actors trying to take advantage of people and get away with sexually harassing others (including minors). This is not okay. No part of that is okay.

The best thing to do when faced with a request that seems oddly specific is to look it up, and, if there seem to be multiple requests of this nature, to ignore it--do not fulfill the request. Do not encourage this behavior. (Unless you're okay with drawing that kind of content, but like... if that's the case, then tag your work appropriately.)

Don't feel bad if you've fulfilled some of these requests in the past--you didn't know, and being tricked is not your fault. But now that you do know, you can hopefully better protect yourself from this kind of thing.

[laughhardrunfastbekindsblog]

Me: sigh It's now "Missing Tech Hour."

Also me: ... Let's be real, EVERY hour is "Missing Tech Hour." And "Missing Echo Hour." And "Missing Hunter Hour." And "Missing Crosshair Hour." And "Missing Wrecker Hour." And "Missing Omega Hour." And "Missing Rex Hour." And "Missing Cody Hour." And "Missing Howzer Hour." And "Missing Gregor Hour." And "Missing Fives Hour." And "Missing Wolffe Hour." And...