#any more with me

[twinliches]

while i was trying to wade through the large amounts of people trying to leave the central subway station, everyone abruptly came to a halt in front of the subway turnstiles. two french girls had misunderstood the tap-out process, and one of them was now stuck behind the gate. as i was wracking my brain on how to explain the tap-in tap-out process of the milan metro to both of them with my rudimentary french while they both got increasingly upset at the closed gate between them, a young teenager suddenly pushed me to the side.

i was just about to give him my most scathing disgruntled glare when he took out his ticket and, after realizing they had no common language, started gesticulating wildly in front of the french girl left behind. he pointed at the ticket, then at her, and very seriously said: “on three, we go.” she nodded, and after he counted to three, holding up his fingers so there could be no confusion, they sprinted through the gate together, giggling profusely afterwards as if they had just pulled off the heist of the century,

it was just a small moment during the morning commute. but i realized then and there that the time i had spent trying to intellectualize the problem and wondering if my lack of language skills would be awkward the situation could have already been resolved. and that while i had been mad about being pushed aside, the teenager got it exactly right: no questions, no fear or shyness, just direct action to help where you can and rushing there to do so. i think about him every time now when i run to lift someone’s pram or ask a lost looking person if they need my help despite the fear of being rude. on three, we go.

[visenyaism]

do you have any ideas about why so many students are struggling with literacy now? I know that illiteracy and reading comprehension have been issues for years and most americans read at like a 5th grade reading level but I’m curious why it seems to be worse now (pandemic? no child left behind?)

It is everything. There’s not one answer. I could talk about this forever so instead I set a five minute timer on my phone and wrote a list of as many of the many things that are causing this on a systemic level that I could think of:

It’s parents not reading with their kids (a privilege, but some parents have that privilege to be able to do this and don’t.)

It’s youtube from birth and never being bored.

It’s phasing out phonics for sight words (memorizing without understanding sounds or meaning) in elementary schools in the early aughts.

It’s defunding public libraries that do all the community and youth outreach.

It’s NCLB and mandating standardized tests which center reading short passages as opposed to longform texts so students don’t build up the endurance or comprehension skills.

It’s NCLB preventing schools from holding students back if they lack the literacy skills to move onto the next grade because they can’t be left behind so they’re passed on.

It’s the chronic underfunding of ESL and Special Ed programs for students who need extra literacy support.

It’s the cultural devaluing of the humanities in favor of stem and business because those make more money which leads to a lot of students to completely disregard reading and writing.

It’s the learning loss from covid.

It’s covid trauma manifesting in a lot of students as learned helplessness, or an inability to “figure things out” or push through adversity to complete challenging tasks independently, especially reading difficult texts.

It’s covid normalizing cheating and copying.

It’s increasing phone use.

It’s damage to attention span exacerbated by increased phone use that leaves you without an ability to sit and be bored ever without 2-3 forms of constant stimulation.

It’s shortform video becoming the predominant form of social media content as opposed to anything text-based.

It’s starting to also be generative AI.

It’s the book bans.

what did I miss.

[sepublic]

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[ruushes]

sleeping arrangements (not sure tara would ever actually deign to sleep in the same 20ft radius as shovel but who can resist those big shiny insectoid black eyes 🥺)

plus:

[inkskinned]

okay is she being actually immature or is it just a woman over 30 expressing a human experience you find to be immature.

like yeah. at certain ages... let shit go. im not defending the real immature shit. im not defending the karen you're picturing. i worked in retail i hate those people too. (once somebody got mad at me because she didn't like how our winter window decor was a snowman smoking a pipe. i wish i was joking).

but men at 57 will write books about how 17 year old girls are soooo sexy. they will invent worlds where women have to be naked for "armor reasons." they will write songs that treat women as objects. people rush to defend them. meanwhile a woman at 35 will be like "heartbreak is hard, actually" or "i feel betrayed by a friend" or "i am struggling with something emotionally." immediately people will say stuff like this woman is 35 by the way. by the way this woman is SO OLD to be experiencing this. BY THE WAY.

im 31, almost 32. the other day a poet was blasted online because at her "big age", she had written a poem about feeling unloved. top comment was "this woman is 29 by the way." this woman is too old to still be useful, by the way. she has to behave better . maybe if she was a good wife and mother she could stop existing loudly, and the story could continue on without her. this woman has served her purpose, by the way. she's so cringe, by the way. at 29 - so old! - she still hasn't figured out that her existence should be one of shame.

[kagilasgilas]

I've been rewatching Gravity Falls :] Now when are we getting that Sea Grunks mini-series.

[bixels]

The final TF2 issue really got to me. Spoilers, but it’s the reveal that all of this suffering and murder and war over gravel and shitty land was for nothing but senseless, bottomless hatred. That the administrator can’t even remember where this revenge plot started as she flashes through different false memories of her parents’ deaths. There was never a tragic backstory or justification, only terrible people doing despicable things. And despite how crass and stupid and unserious TF2 is, the story subverts every expectation by showing the survivors and inheritors willingly breaking the cycle. Ms. Pauling lies to the administrator and chooses not to save her, and finally lets her die. (Hurts even more if you read into the subtext that Ms. Pauling is in love with the administrator.) She lets the final cache of Australium go and walks away from the burden and legacy of a century-old bloodfeud. Hale lets Gray’s daughter go and live her life freely. Spy is the first to arrive at Scout’s house and meet his big family, finally takes off his mask, and helps with the kids. Even Merasmus exhaustedly makes peace with himself and Soldier and chooses not to curse him or something. There’s nothing to finish, no promises to keep, and no one to avenge. The only thing to do is break the cycle and walk away.

It feels odd how happy and warm everything is, but it feels so right and earned. These bloodthirsty, awful, violent men were expendable cogs in a machine of endless violence, and they found a way out. It’s a genuinely great message about letting go the past that burdens you and finding the will and a way to hit the bricks, change, and be happy. Maybe they don’t technically deserve happiness, but they’ve got it nonetheless, and they’re not gonna let it go to waste. They’re still all crazy and violent, but on their own terms now and with people who love them! Smiles.

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

I remember discussing Tintin casting choices with a friend from Germany and remarked how it was odd he often has an English accent in adaptations rather than a Belgian one, and my friend just replied "that's because Tintin gives incredibly strong English boy energy (derogatory)"

Here in the UK there's a lot of weird classism tied into accents. Today accent diversity and representation in broadcasting is actively pursued but in Tintin's time there certainly was a preferred accent to have.

imagine this exchange happens between pages 28-29 in The Crab with the Golden Claws

[dirt-goth]

As much as I want to be a wholly joyous about the fact that Henry Kissinger is finally fucking dead, as he deserves... There's a lot of me that can't help being upset with. With the fact that he lived to 100 years old. He got better medical care, better housing, and a better, more stable life for those 100 years than billions on this planet ever going to see and he did it specifically through exploitation, state sanctioned murder, and lies. He lived to 100 years comfortably on a legacy of violence that rarely threatened his personal comfort. I want to be joyous that he's finally dead, because the world IS better with him dead, but the reality is he won a long time ago.

[lisholoz]

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[chloesimaginationthings]

The Aftons are a very normal FNAF couple

[blueskittlesart]

Dear Big Brother

kind of a sequel to this comic

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[aphel1on]

AuDHD is so funny sometimes like what do you mean my hyperfixations/special interests will last for years on end or possibly forever but they will cycle out every month or two with absolutely no transitional period or warning. like i will think about the same topic every day obsessively for 46 days in a row and on the 47th day with no visible cause adhd brain goes "ok! bored of that now" and autism brain goes "dw i got something queued up for ya" and i blast into full blown obsession on some other topic whose mental file folders haven't opened in 9 months. brain's out here treating hyperfixations like a crop rotation. once the dopamine runs out it cycles in another one but once something's in the rotation it never ever leaves. last summer we brought in one from when i was 11. it's so funny to me but frustrating too bc like. i cannot stress enough my inability to predict or control this. or how completely abrupt and random it can be