#but this is a good post! as are op’s other ones on school settings etc

[lovelyhan]

what are your svt fic recs??? like your holy grail??

took me a while to put this together BUT here it is!

disclaimer that i've been a carat for like . a month so it's a stretch to say i've read a lot of svt content. tho from what i've consumed so far, my favorites are listed under the cut :>

i'll start with the ones i found on ao3 first hehe

push it down (sooner or later it all comes out) by dontflailmenow × tags: s.coups x reader; camboy!cheol, enemies to lovers

the first EVER svt fic i've read, and it was just so WOW!!!! basically, reader recently broke up w her ex, which is seungcheol's best friend. cheol and mc aren't on the best of terms (always arguing etc.) so when she realizes that the camboy she's been lusting over to get over her ex turns out to be cheol, some...problems start to arise i'm pretty sure i saw this one around tumblr but i'm too lazy to find the op's blog i'm so sorry HEUUUHEU but i really loved it to pieces, and it ultimately flung me into svt fanfic tumblr altogether :D

The bore next door by HoneyAteez × tags: wonwoo x reader; blind dates, suffocation via cock LOL

another fic that i am fairly sure is cross-posted on tumblr too, but can't be assed to find -- your mother sets you up with good neighbor jeon wonwoo, and he turns out to be the worst sexual deviant on the face of the earth, fucking the soul out of your body right after the first date.

Walking in Traffic by versigny × tags: mingyu x reader; soulmate au, teens being teens

literally crying as i type this because it's one of the most beautiful coming of age stories i've ever read, and it was written back when i was still in mf HIGH SCHOOL 😭 reader and gyu find out they're soulmates way too early, and pretty much despise each other growing up, but they eventually come to terms with their soul bond along the line.

close proximity by chilligyu × tags: mingyu x reader; roommates, LOTS OF ANGST

there's no explicit smut in this one, but the plot twists and the narration itself threw me in for SUCH a goddamn loop that it would be a hate crime not to include this here. mingyu becomes reader's roommate upon bff!wonwoo's recommendation, and they and up falling for each other, and [gets dragged off stage because spoilers]

now for the tumblr recs!

sapiosexual by @smileysuh × tags: s.coups x reader; sugar daddy au, psych daddy!cheol,,,,

it's a pretty straightforward sugar daddy au, but what makes it different is how it's written, y'know? cheol clearly lays all of the details for he and reader to agree on, making sure all the boundaries are clear and there aren't any blurred lines. seungkwan as your best friend is also a really enjoyable addition (he's the one who coined the term psych daddy LOL), AND i just love the author's humor in general.... quirofilia [bursts out laughing]

A Break by @smileysuh (again bc i'm obsessed w their work) × tags: mingyu x reader x wonwoo; svt as babysitters, budding poly

so op has an entire assortment of meanie poly fics, but this one is probably my most favorite bc it touches on a more endearing and responsible side to mingyu :') he and reader just can't sit down and fuck because he's busy worrying about their child every ten minutes LOL. enter jeon wonwoo, who is not only baby saebyeok's favorite uncle, but has been pining for the reader since time immemorial. of course, gyu has known all along, and asks them if they're both down to have a threesome (this is literally a terrible way to summarize the story, but i suggest you just read it <3) OH OH bonus: hoshi tries to sacrifice the baby to the tiger gods in a summoning circle made of tiger plushies. if that doesn't sell this fic for you, i don't know WHAT will

Love, Actually by @haet-sal × tags: jun x reader; cheating but not really? whipped single dad!jun

aka the fic that catalyzed my jun brain damage. reader works as jun's secretary but she isn't very...good at her job, but he keeps her around anyway bc 1.) his kid likes her, and 2.) HE likes her. problem is: she has a boyfriend-not-boyfriend, but Because that boyfriend-not-boyfriend is an asshole, she kind of uses jun as a constant rebound, poor guy (it has a happy ending tho i promise!!)

an untitled dk friends 2 lovers by @husbandhoshi × tags: dk x reader; idiots in love

this is actually preceded by 2 more drabbles from the op, but i'm linking this one specifically bc it made me physically long for big dick boyfriend lee seokmin. the thing i like most about smut written for dk is that he's ALWAYS so fun and endearing and lovable in bed, and what's more is that this one's a friend to lovers fic, so there's YEARS worth of pining and puppy love to spice up the sex hehehehehehe it really really deserves more recognition !!

right where you left me by @tonicandjins × tags: wonwoo x reader; exes getting back together, ANGST

i have a shitty memory so i can't go into the specifics on what this fic is about. it's one of the first ones i read on tumblr, but it's been a hot minute but i DO remember writhing in bed right after reading it, so it definitely earns a spot on the rec list! reader and wonwoo lived together in their hometown, but had to break up when wonwoo moves to seoul and he just couldn't make any compromises. bonus points for best friend hoshi on this one <;3

that's pretty much it for now! i'm so sorry if any of the authors mentioned didn't want to be tagged 🤒🤒 i just thought i'd share my thoughts abt ur work while sharing them w the rest of my followers UEUEUEUE

[true--north]

tbh, i love reading your tags, do you mind a short analysis on "kristoff and hans had their own responses to these issues" [frozen heart]? 🙏 idk, i feel like you'll have smth important to say here, there's not smuch talk about the boys and i'd love to hear your deepened opinions on both of them, especially in F1 (since Hans hasn't really been present in the franchise afterwards)

Hi, Anon ❄ Idk if I have something important to say, but I've always viewed The big frozen four (Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Hans) as a whole "set". They are connected and more similar than it seems.

The op's post was about trauma and fear and the sisters' response to it. Kristoff and Hans were traumatised and isolated too; basically everyone in Frozen had a metaphorical frozen heart but Anna, she's got a real one after so many tries to reach out for the people she loved in vain.

Kristoff was an orphan since birth, if we believe The lost legends: Fixer Upper book. He never knew parental love. The children at the orphanage bullied him, he could not make real friends, plus he was somewhat different from the others (this book strongly hints at Kristoff being autistic) He noticed those people, the ice harvesters, and was very eager to become one of them, to find his own place, but he could not really do it, no one really wanted to adopt him, and the craft was passed on within clans he wasn't a member of. When staying at the orphanage and the school became unbearable, Kristoff gladly allowed himself to be "kidnapped" to the Trolls' valley. He got a lot better there, but still there is a difference between a troll and a human; and the older he got, the more obvious it was. He always knew only offence and cruelty from people, but he could no longer be with trolls like in childhood, so he protected himself with cynicism and aloofness. He didn't believe in anything until he met Anna.

Hans, as Lee said, is the result of growing up without love(as all of them to some extent). Based on the information from the Frozen Heart book and that comic "Leftovers", his childhood was terrible. His brothers ignored and mocked him (someone might say that they felt something cursed in him, but maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy), his father considered him a worthless nobody and did not pay attention. The Isles were terrible and at the same time he was eager to prove himself to them. Power, a chance, a higher calling became both a way out of the cage, and an opportunity to earn the respect and love of his father and brothers. A way to show them that they were wrong, that he meant something. Hans's response to the trauma was coldness and hatred. As none treated him as a person, so he will not consider others.

If we place the characters on "the frozen heart" scale, Anna would be at the bottom, then Kristoff(Trolls saved him) then Elsa, and Hans at the top. Kristoff and Elsa didn't trust anyone, shutting everyone out. Anna and Hans trusted and desired other people, but in different ways. Anna thought that everyone was good and loving, Hans thought that everyone was either evil or stupid. There's so many parallels and similarities between them all: Kristoff and Hans and their cynicism, Elsa and Hans and "the cage" theme, their relationship with power, Anna and Hans as "the spare", etc, etc.

[progmetol]

Cecil Headcanons #1

Ok this is assorted with no particular order or theme. I’ve been sitting on this for a while and I keep adding to it. So I’m gonna post it now while it’s a… “reasonable”… length, and probably eventually do a part 2. I also intend on eventually doing a GDA headcanons post because I have a lot that are more broad to the GDA as a whole and not just Cecil.

Discusses his backstory from the comics slightly but nothing that’s really a spoiler.

- From the outskirts of Jacksonville, Florida (dear God no wonder he’s the way he is). Has a southern accent that he represses, but slips out occasionally. It does in the show too, so this isn’t entirely conjecture.

- Father is from Alabama. Mother from Florida.

- Majored in counterterrorism (most 3 letter gov orgs irl require a bachelor’s degree, I can’t see the GDA being any different)

- Chose to enter the military initially due to his older brother being a victim of a supervillain terrorist attack. Previously a sports prodigy, he was left paralyzed and unable to pursue his dreams.

- Was a green beret before being introduced to the GDA. Was invited to the CIA’s SAD or the GDA’s SPECOPs. He chose the latter.

- Was a spec ops commando that worked to support behind the scenes of superhero operations. Basically, they’d do dirty work while the public superhero they are working with is soaking up the attention and serving as a distraction.

- His call sign was Rooster, inspired by his mullet. The hair in front would stick straight up, which caused him to grow that thing all the way out. He eventually was “promoted” to Phoenix, which got it after being, quite literally, reborn from ash. Had a few other nicknames too though, mostly derogatory and in reference to his scar.

- Usually supported/worked alongside Brit. They became best friends and still are to this day please don’t cut him from the show Amazon

- Due to the chemical treatments he takes to maintain his artificial skin grafts he looks older than he actually is. And that’s not even mentioning the immense amount of stress he endures. He’s actually in his mid 50s but nobody really believes him. Male pattern baldness is a bitch as well.

- Insane sharpshooter and is proficient with just about any firearm you put in his hands. Even to this day, sets aside an hour to train in the range and keep those skills sharp. Never know when you’ll need them. Always carrying heat.

- Addicted to coffee. Occasionally adds whiskey. That isn’t good for you, but nobody has the guts to scold him (anymore).

- Usually drinks coffee black since it’s easiest and fastest to prepare, but will not turn down a latte. Loves any coffee with three pounds of sugar and milk dumped in it.

- Also likes jack and coke but this is much more seldomly witnessed.

- Wine too. Anything alcohol he will drink really. Beer.

- Loves Italian food. Isn’t really a picky eater though and will eat just about anything put in front of him, for better or worse.

- Refuses to use any sort of cloning technology on himself. He believes that with the idea of only having one chance in the back of his mind, he will be more pressed to use that chance to its fullest. This isn’t public knowledge though.

- Really likes sweets and that problem is the primary reason for his weight gain besides stress. Baked goods are his favorite but he even likes shitty cheap candy.

- The US flag pin belonged to his wife. He wears that one specifically to remind himself of her. He likes his stupid ass reminders.

- Enjoys listening to music or sports while doing things like paperwork (but he never sets aside time to just listen to them). He enjoys classic rock, old school heavy metal, and surprisingly, piano music. If I had to name bands I’d say Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Led Zepplin, etc. As for sports he’s mostly into football (his team is the Jags).

- Messy as fuck, but in an “organized chaos” kind of way. He knows where everything is in his office but it looks like a wreck.

- Smokes a pipe. This actually isn’t a headcanon it’s in the early comics. It’s a rare occurrence, he is somehow not addicted. Despite this, his mouth and respiratory system are in perfect condition due to GDA medical tech.

- He’s a fucking hypocrite about a handful of topics, usually morality, emotions and relationships. He also is completely aware of it and views it as an unfixable flaw.

- He knew Nolan killed the guardians from day 1. He just hired the detective to make it seem to Nolan like the GDA didn’t know and was still investigating. Just a means to buy more time. His contingency plan for Nolan was not ready. I genuinely think this is canon btw but it’s never explicitly stated.

- He thinks the costumes that heroes wear are stupid and (mostly) impractical. The only reason they still are used is to divert the attention towards the heroes and not the fact that there is a government organization directing them.

- Black belt in Taekwondo + skilled in some other martial arts. Basically Solid Snake with his CQC. Similar skill set between characters. Is a stealth guy also.

- Carries four guns on him at all times. Two in his coat. One in his belt. One on his shin. One of the ones in his coat is a laser pistol, just in case you run into someone bullet resistant. But as the Heavy from TF2 says: it’s tough to find someone who can outsmart bullets. Unfortunately I can name three major characters in Invincible right off the bat that can. Tough luck.

- May come as surprising but he’s religious. His main thought process is that in a world as chaotic as his, some people may be inclined to think there isn’t a god, but he is inclined to do the opposite because he thinks that there are some situations in which you’ve done all you can and all that you can do now is pray. He isn’t really hardcore though. This idea stems from all the religious imagery that shows up around Cecil for some reason. I’m not tweaking I swear. I could go on a whole thing about that correlation but that’s a different topic.

- Adding on to this, a major idea in Christianity is that God allows evil to persist because it will eventually result in a greater good. SOUND FAMILIAR? He got it from somewhere.

- The only Korn song he knows is Here to Stay and he knows it by memory. Yes this is oddly specific and I will not elaborate.

- Tends to be crude, but in moderation. Definitely tries to tone in down in front of women. Professionals have standards.

- Dude could still break your back (assuming you don’t have superhuman durability) even in his older age. He’s a little out of shape but the muscle memory is still intact.

- Can sing surprisingly well. No training at all so he’s not professional level, but it’s pretty damn good for no training. It’s rare that anyone ever witness though. Once in a lifetime event if they are lucky.

- Can write with both hands, simultaneously, different things. It took a lot of effort to learn (just kidding. secret government hypnosis) and is incredibly useful for multitasking.

- His hair genetics are really screwed up. First he started showing male pattern baldness in his 20s, though it didn’t really get notably bad until later (we know how that turned out). He’s really attached to his hair and refuses to shave what’s left of it. He’d never admit it but he is self conscious about it.

- In addition he started graying severely at a relatively early age, 30s, due to stress. He dyed it back to its platinum blond color almost religiously but eventually gave up, too much work for no payoff.

- Occasionally when his work is super backed up, he doesn’t get to shave and his stubble grows out. Hair doesn’t grow where his burn scar is so there’s a big spot there that has nothing.

- The side of his mouth with the scar has reduced mobility due to nerve damage. It doesn’t impact his speech but his muscles do not work properly there. When he smiles or frowns that side of his face just doesn’t move.

BONUS

CECIL’S SCHEDULE (just for fun)

Literally at any given time he can go on call because incidents can happen whenever. But on a typical day…

5 am - Work day officially starts. Paperwork time, get ready for the day. Check meeting schedule and any missed news.

6 am - Breakfast. He’s still working while eating.

6:30 am - Meeting window opens.

- Check on department heads, make sure there’s no problems.

7 am - Check on Guardians and other GDA teams.

12 pm - Lunch. See breakfast.

12:30 pm - Check on department heads, make sure there’s no problems.

3 pm - Meeting window closes. Exercise hour because gotta stay in shape.

6 pm - Dinner. He’s still working, what did you expect.

6:30 pm - Check on department heads. Make sure there’s no problems.

7:00 pm - Check on Guardians and other GDA teams.

9 pm - Cecil hits the range because you gotta stay sharp and strapped. Training hour.

10 pm - More office stuff.

12 am - Brinner. That’s right. He has four meals a day, because he doesn’t sleep. Plus, even with the reinvigoration he gets from the chemical treatment, he needs more energy to account for him being awake longer and burning more energy.

3 am - The infamous hot tub. Reinvigorates his body as a whole, not just the skin.

4 am - Make sure night shift stuff went well. Otherwise, paperwork.

[sideprince]

Writing a response to @diogenescamus because it's too long to put in the notes of this post they linked me to, it's under the cut so everyone else can keep scrolling 😂

I want to preface all this by pointing out that all of this meta needs to be weighed against the literary elements at play, ie. that Dumbledore is often more of a proxy for the author, and that the author has many failures when it comes to world-building. I think the meta post you built on didn't give any consideration to this, and treated the world of HP as an infallible one operating as if it were real, and that will inevitably causes lapses in critical analysis. You may not like a lot of my responses, and while I think OP put a lot of work into their essay, I don't feel it's a reasonable critique and doesn't use the text appropriately in order to be one.

Dumbledore doesn’t encourage students to break rules, he just shows them he’s content to look the other way if they’re broken. I think he's encouraging them to be independently minded, and approach their choices with a sense of accountability, and also to consider these choices critically.

In the examples of students getting away with breaking rules, I don’t think Tom’s ring is a good example. He doesn't show the ring off to Dumbledore, he just has it on in Slughorn's memory that Dumbledore sees. At the time of the memory it wasn’t known where the ring came from, Dumbledore only found that out years later. Even if he’d known, the theft (and murder) happened off grounds and is therefore not up to the school to punish him for (at best he’d be turned over to the ministry), but again, it wasn’t known what even happened. OP's reading doesn't consider the text and extrapolate conclusions from it, but rather it tries to force the text to justify their already existing conclusions, and it doesn't work.

I’d argue Dumbledore’s stance on rules is more tainted with bias than anything else. Harry gets away with breaking rules because Dumbledore knows the larger challenges he faces and wants Harry to try his strength. There are bigger things at play than mere administrative rule enforcement. The same with the Marauders’ prank: the goal was to protect the vulnerable student, even if it meant encouraging the bullies and silencing their victim. Dumbledore’s approach to rules considers more than just the school itself and daily life in it, and disregards a need for order. We know he enjoys whimsical chaos. Dumbledore looks at rules, their purpose, and the outcome of enforcing them critically, and while I don’t agree with all his decisions, I do respect that approach much more than, say, Umbridge’s one of blindly setting and following them. We also see that, save for egregious offenses (like Harry getting caught with another petrified person in CoS), daily rule-breaking and enforcement of punishment falls on the staff and is kept off the Headmaster’s plate. 

Dumbledore encourages safety and gives clear parameters for it, but wants to impart to the students that they are responsible for themselves, and that there’s a greater repercussion to breaking certain rules - like staying out of the forest or the third-floor corridor - than staff-imposed punishments. I think it shows respect for the students as intelligent, autonomous young people. To tell them to stay out of somewhere to avoid a painful death is also much more effective than to tell them they aren’t allowed to do something. He knows that “don’t do this” is a challenge to children, and he’s making clear what is a challenge with disciplinary consequences (Filch’s rules) and what is not a challenge, but a warning for their own safety (forbidden forest, third floor corridor, etc.). I don't think he minds the students having a bit of fun, it's just that "a bit of fun" has a much more abusive definition in a British public school setting than, say, a present-day high school in the U.S. which is what I can only assume is OP's frame of reference.

Dumbledore also knows he has limited scope. There’s only so much he can do with his resources to stop a kid like Harry from doing something like find the stone in PS if he’s determined. He doesn’t go to war with the students like Filch or Umbridge, because he’s wise enough to know it’s a losing battle, and that's one of the reasons he maintains their respect and they listen to him when he says "don't do this or that because you will die." He chooses his battles. 

The issue isn’t that witnesses aren’t listened to, but that every teacher is biased and enforces rules accordingly. this is just how it is in British public schools, especially in the 90s when HP takes place, and very especially in the 70s and 80s when the author was in (not public) school in England. Snape doesn’t let Harry off because he can’t punish him, he lets him off because Lupin bails Harry out and backs Snape into a corner, figuratively. We see Snape punish both Harry and Ron with detentions at various points in various books; we also see them punished by McGonagall as early as CoS when they get detention for crashing the car into the Whomping Willow (and we know only from hindsight that they weren’t expelled because Harry must be protected and in order to do so he must remain at school), even though there were no witnesses then.

The rule of “don’t get caught in the act” doesn’t seem irrational to me? It’s another way of saying, “innocent until proven guilty.” And if you start to base punishments on eyewitness accounts of students, you also enable bullying. Consider that approach from the perspective of the four Marauders all claiming Snape broke a rule when he didn't, and that being enough for teachers to take disciplinary actions against them. What Dumbledore does is trust the students to be responsible for themselves, while also not trusting them as the key reason to determine if someone deserves punishment. There would normally, in a muggle school, be a system where students can file a complaint, but that’s not very interesting storytelling in a YA novel, and often in a British public school environment doing so will get your ass kicked for being a snitch, whether or not you’re justified. That’s just how that social environment works. In any case, the students complain to the head of house of the perpetrator, not the victim, because that’s who metes out punishment. Hence why they went to Snape when Alicia got hexed, and not McGonagall. We see again and again heads of house say that they will be the ones to deal with their house's students where necessary.

With things like using a pensieve to see who broke a rule (like exploding a swelling solution), I just don’t see the point of taking the books this seriously. We know the author’s world-building is full of holes. It would grind the plot to a screeching, boring halt if teachers would just go get the pensieve to examine every incident of rule-breaking. We also have no indication that the swelling solution could have killed anyone. Goyle gets covered in it, and though it’s clearly painful and unpleasant, the school nurse can sort him out. Again, to some degree this is just the magical world’s version of a British public school, where the unspoken motto is “don’t make a fuss, keep a stiff upper lip.” The students are expected to sort out their own issues, whether or not it's fair, and the sense of injustice this imparts on the reader makes for a much more interesting read and raises more complex questions than if teachers acted like judge and jury with full, infallible oversight at every infraction.

Dumbledore wasn’t silent about Riddle, Diary Tom says in CoS that Dumbledore was always suspicious of him, and Dumbledore tells Harry in HBP that he advised Dippet against giving Tom a teaching job (and clearly convinced him not to do so). Again, OP is using the text to support pre-reached conclusions instead of deriving them from it, and I find this frustrating and limiting.

Your own extrapolation of why Flitwick setting Seamus lines is problematic is also a great example of the author’s own biases coming through in the writing, and should give a perspective of how much of the way rules are applied or ignored at Hogwarts is really about what suits the author and the narrative in a given moment, and not a real-life disciplinary structure that’s been fleshed out and integrated into the story’s world-building. 

Percy warrants more discussion. He’s a great example of how upholding rules just for the sake of doing so is perceived by the culture of the school as pedantic, annoying, uptight, and gets you dismissed as a narc. Again, standard British public school behavior. I don't think he was pushed by Dumbledore's penchant for chaos to work in the Ministry, I think the Ministry exemplifies the kind of uncritical approach Percy has to trusting authority without question, and I find that fascistic approach to be even more problematic than Dumbledore's.

Small note because everyone’s talked the “Dumbledore was unfair at the end of PS” thing to death at this point, but yeah, once we find out in CoS that an award for special services to the school exists, it’s hard to understand why Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn’t just get one of those instead fucking house points???

The whole bit about offering Divination as a class overlooks what we, as readers know in hindsight: Dumbledore didn’t care about hiring the best teacher for the subject, he employed Trelawney to protect her from Voldemort who knew she’d made the prophecy about him and Harry, and to protect his own side and prevent Voldemort from hearing the rest of the prophecy. We see Dumbledore do something similar in giving Firenze a job when the centaurs expel him. Divination is also a Ministry approved subject that the students sit an official exam in, and since we know the Ministry oversees the school, we also know that it’s not up to Dumbledore to choose what subjects are offered. He’s the headmaster of a school, not the tyrant king of an island nation. 

Of course Filch can’t mete out punishments, he’s the caretaker. This just isn’t a valid example. It’s like saying the janitor should be able to assign detention. That’s not his remit. I don't understand why Appolyon Pringle, his predecessor, was able to, but since that's only referred to in a throwaway comment from Molly Weasley, I'm inclined to assume that, again, this comes down to the author's poor world-building.

I also think it’s very presumptive to think Dumbledore wouldn’t have sacked Lupin at the end of PoA. I think he assumed Lupin would resign, as he’s a good judge of character, and he likes to give people the opportunity to prove themselves, so he would have given Lupin the opportunity to make that choice - and preserve some of his dignity - rather than fire him before allowing Lupin a chance to speak. 

I don’t think it was the primary reason, if one at all, for Snape to out Remus, that Remus sided with rule-breaking students. As far as Snape was concerned, he had no reason to think even after the end of PoA that Remus hadn’t been helping Black, and that Black wasn’t the traitor, because he was knocked out in the Shrieking Shack during the big reveal that would have changed his mind. I don’t think rule-breaking or Remus’ stance on it was remotely prominent in Snape’s mind. At best it’s mentioned by Snape in the Shrieking Shack when he tells Hermione to keep quiet, and I would argue that he does this more because he doesn’t know what Harry does or doesn’t know about why his parents died, is ashamed of his own role in their death and doesn’t want to talk about it, and because in his mind the children are in mortal danger from a dangerous dark wizard - Sirius - and his helper - Lupin, a werewolf - and he knows Hermione cares about rules and teachers’ approval and uses this to keep her calm and to stop her interfering. He’s seen enough dark wizards maim and kill to know that in order to contain the risk of the situation at hand, that any bystanders need to be kept from interfering because it's an unnecessary risk that can easily result in injury or death, and I think that’s his primary motivation in invoking rules, not any real priority that sets their importance above the situation at hand. I'd make the comparison that if you're a firefighter you wouldn't let a civilian run into a burning building. Remus siding with rule-breaking students was, without a doubt, not the “main reason” Snape outed him. 

I don’t know if it’s fair to say Crouch/Moody tortured Malfoy as a ferret without fear of reprisal. I think he just didn’t think about it. We know Crouch was maniacal, had a penchant for cruelty, and had been in Azkaban for a third of his life and his time as Moody was the first time in over a decade that he was free to do and say what he pleased. Malfoy - the child of a DE - acted in a way that triggered Crouch and he reacted. Assuming he didn’t fear reprisal in some kind of thoughtful, considered way is the perspective of the reader who has the benefit of seeing the whole picture, not the character and his limited scope. 

I think there are questions around whether physical abuse was allowed during Snape’s reign as headmaster and this essay says it as a certainty. We know the Carrows liked corporal punishment, but don’t know if it was something Snape actually allowed. We know Snape’s own punishments were not physical (detention with Hagrid, for example). We know from Neville (DH Ch. 29) that the other teachers won’t refer students to the Carrows. The Carrows abuse students in classroom settings, or attempt to, but even then the example given is that they want students to abuse each other, they don’t do it themselves. They use what seems to be Sectumsempra on students, as we also learn from Neville, but we also know that this is their first year in this position so it’s possible that Snape curbs their use of violence where he can and doesn’t actually allow violent punishments, they just act of their own volition. This is in contrast to Umbridge’s time as headmistress, when she openly used violence herself and encouraged Filch to. It was clearly permitted under Umbridge, but unclear if Snape permitted it, or if the Carrows made their own rules. After all, we know that Snape avoids violence where he can and chooses to act defensively instead of offensively, so it would be out of character for him to allow abusive punishments, let alone encourage them the way Umbridge did. (Again, I take issue with OP 's tendency to tailor the text to suit their argument instead of vice versa. Just because something happens under an administrator’s watch doesn’t mean they condone or allow it.) I also don't think you can argue the opposite - that Snape forbade corporal punishment - for the same reason. We can only infer based on the information given in the text, but I don't think there's enough clear information to make such definitive statements as OP has, let alone use it as a fact to base other points on.

I’d also argue that Dumbledore sees himself as the warden of a targeted institution against Voldemort, and as a result he gives much less weight to school children breaking school rules, which seem petty in comparison to someone who considers himself to be a general in a war. I think he’s a great military strategist, but not a very good headmaster. 

As to Ginny graduating with a hex-first attitude, it’s clearly implied in the text (and, at times stated) that it’s a result of her growing up not just with half a dozen older brothers, but specifically the Weasley kids as brothers. It’s a big stretch to use one character as an example of a systemic failure and this isn't nearly strong enough an argument to be a convincing one to state that Dumbledore consciously and deliberately encouraged students to act this way.

The students don’t know Filch is a Squib. Harry finds out when he reads his Kwikspell course letter, and it’s news to the few people he tells. We have no indication in the text that this knowledge became widespread. It’s certainly a stretch to say that Dumbledore’s students were trained to disdain squibs. Again and again I find myself deeply frustrated by OP's tendency to cherry-pick parts of the text to support their perspective, instead of keeping an open mind and extrapolating conclusions based on a thorough, critical reading.

"It's just a pity they let the old punishments die out ... hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days, I've got the chains still in my office, keep 'em well oiled in case they're ever needed ..." This castle is 1000 years old. It’s magical, and in perfect condition everywhere else, so it’s not surprising that all Filch has to do is oil the chains. There are tapestries everywhere that should be in disintegrated tatters, and yet there's no mention of any decay anywhere, and I think it's reasonable to assume that the castle is kept in shape via magic (this also implies that Filch being a squib is an outlier re: his predecessors). There’s no reason to think cahins or other medieval torture methods were used at any point past the time period they would have been used in the muggle world. As for Arthur Weasley’s marks, they could have been caused by a number of things - and for all we know, Appollyon Pringle was a wizard, not a squib, and had capabilities Filch didn’t. Umbridge, meanwhile, had free reign to do as she pleased. The ministry didn’t give her permission to enact violence on students, it gave her permission to do what she thought was appropriate and trusted her with that responsibility, which she exploited. So I think the issue isn’t necessarily of sanctioned violence (and I’m not saying it’s definitely not, but rather that we don’t have enough information from the text and thus can’t make definitive statements), but rather a lack of oversight. “Punishing students with outright torture is a Hogwarts tradition” is an egregious statement and I don’t think there’s enough evidence in the text to back it up. It might be something that occurs in each generation, or you could say that the Hogwarts system is easily exploited by bad actors, but to say outright torture is a tradition is unfounded, misguided, and backed only by - again - using the text to justify a previously decided on perspective rather than drawing a perspective based on the text available. 

“I was safer at Hogwarts…. But while I busied myself with the training of young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army.” - this just goes to show that Dumbledore has consistently considered himself to be in a position of a general in a war, whether with Grindelwald or with Voldemort. He doesn’t know how to be a school headmaster because of his own trauma and sense of responsibility to something greater (and his youthful ideas of working “for the greater good” remain, only they’ve shifted and are now focused on letting his students’ everyday challenges fall by the wayside as he pays attention mostly to the wars he is fighting). 

I think to understand how warped Dumbledore’s thinking is, you have to consider that he didn’t just raise Harry for slaughter, he also arranged his own death in a similar manner. The difference being that he consented to it, while Harry was manipulated to some degree. And all that can’t be viewed properly without keeping in mind how much Dumbledore, as a character, was a proxy for the author. 

[aronarchy]

@iris-sunflower I’ll respond to your reblog of my post here, since my OP was already very long and I don’t want its notes to be cluttered:

1) Children and everyone having a right to public, accessible education is such an important value for me. Is youthlib against the idea of funding public schools?

I’m not The Single Valid Youthlib Representative(tm). There are many different youth liberationists who don’t necessarily agree with each other on every single point. I can only give my own opinion, which I believe is the most accurate interpretation of the principle of youth liberation: Of course I agree, and I acknowledge that public schools are currently underfunded and should have more financial support. Gatekeeping from education is oppressive.

It would put all minors at a disadvantage, and we should be improving children’s education so they have a fairer prospect for their future. Being literate, understanding math especially finance, etc.

I agree it’s a problem that so many children are unable to access any education in the first place. But I would caution against taking the “less educated = less successful” at face value. The issue isn’t that being less educated automatically, inherently means one will become disadvantaged, but that capitalism creates these disadvantages for uneducated people. It’s unfair that people who haven’t had a chance to go to/remain in school are also gatekept from jobs, resources, and respect later in life. Resolving the issue (re classism and adultism) involves making it possible for children to be able to go to school instead of being unable to access it, but it also means fighting for justice for children & adults who didn’t get to go, instead of just leaving them behind in the dust now that it’s too late or whatever. It’s sad that if someone can’t understand the (overcomplicated, very bullshit, should-not-be-existing-in-the-first-place) financial system capitalism has forced onto us, then they’ll be disadvantaged in life.

And, some children/minors/adults just can’t understand math or finance or learn literacy well in the first place, regardless of how good their teachers/educational materials/settings are. It is unfair to expect that they should, or treat them as lesser, or refuse to accommodate them. Everyone, regardless of capability, should be able to expect a good future for themself, and to have the resources to live securely.

And, formal schools (both public and private) are extremely adultist and violent to children. Does that mean homeschooling is the solution? No, because family homes are also extremely adultist and violent to children. I’m frustrated at a lot of the discourse I’ve seen, where survivors of violence from schools or violence from the home have tried to discuss our traumas, only to be dismissed and told that we should just suck it up and deal with the flaws of the institution because the alternative would be “worse.” Many people have experienced immense abuse and trauma from both schools and our families. I want to think of solutions beyond just trying to pick the lesser of two evils.

(Official) schools (in their current form, at least) aren’t particularly good at teaching in the first place. They don’t teach how to really understand the concepts of “math” so much as rote memorization and computation, for example. The way subjects are taught in schools focuses more on trying to train them into good capitalist workers, not help them develop life skills for themselves or learn things they actually want to and choose to learn themselves. Meanwhile a lot of potential educational materials (paywalled academic texts, informative books in general, politically unpopular info/arguments like honest analyses about abuse dynamics/what to do in more difficult situations, niche things they don’t really care about because they’re not profitable) and sources of education (i.e. people, places from the outside) are withheld from children because of the formalized schooling system which narrows what and how they can learn, and meanwhile tries to force students to learn whatever they don’t want and don’t need to learn, and is especially hell for disabled children/minors being forced to attend and being overloaded with work when they can’t handle that, plus all the higher likelihood of bullying and abuse from authority figures they can’t escape from.

So I believe youth liberationists, and leftists in general, should be focused on both improving access to education and ensuring that people who had not been able to access education or just genuinely don’t want to or cannot are not being punished for being uneducated either. Right to learn things doesn’t mean also being okay with forcing children to learn things (which is also a major problem right now). And grassroots education outside of formal schooling hooked up to the state/capitalist systems / the nuclear family home should also be a priority. Though it would help, “reform & improve public schools” is still not a solution to the fundamental problem of enforcing a divide between “learning” and “the rest of life” / “place to learn” and “anywhere else” / monopolizing good (or as good as possible) education in the hands of authorities.

We should be making schools better for children not losing their right to an education.

(I prefer to frame children’s rights discussions as something which centers their input and their efforts; should not just be a thing “we” pass down onto “them” on their behalf instead of them being directly involved in the process.)

(Note that nowhere in the entire article I reposted was there any claim that children should “lose their right to an education.”)

2) Does losing parental rights make parental abuse obsolete as a legal protection? Confused here.

That’s not what “right” means. A right you have is something you can do, not something you have to do. “Parental rights over their children” doesn’t mean parents are being made to care for or be nonabusive to their children; “parental rights” are the mechanisms which allow parents to abuse their children because their children are viewed as their property, or to force invasive medical procedures onto/withhold needed medical care from their children because they’re viewed as having a right to make their children’s decisions for them regardless of what the children themselves feel, or to decide what their child’s future must look like because of their “right to control” them. “Parental rights” means that outsiders are barred from housing an abused/neglected child because only the parents may choose where “their” children live.

On the other hand, parental obligations (or responsibilities, or duties) are a rather different concept. For example, every person has an obligation (or responsibility) to not abuse or otherwise violate other sentient beings. Everyone also has an obligation to not hoard essential resources they won’t use themselves while others are in desperate need but can’t access them—for example, (IMO) very rich people with control over their finances are obligated to redistribute their wealth downwards ASAP, and are committing ethical violations when they do not. As for obligations specific to parents: if they have children under their care who cannot leave/acquire that care elsewhere, they have a responsibility to feed, clothe, house, and otherwise provide for their children wrt essential resources to the best of their physical and financial capability.

Parents should face consequences for abusing children, which unfortunately will happen sometimes regardless of efforts to prevent crime. Some parents are just cruel.

I like to think of this question a bit differently. The issue here is that right now, if a parent has cruel beliefs/intentions, then abuse will happen, because they have near-unchallenged power to enact their will for cruelty. Consequences for abuse which has happened are important, of course, but I’m also interested in preventing abuse from happening in the first place, instead of just keeping up the system where kids have to roll the dice and if they land on a cruel parent then that’s just what they get and having a good parents just depends on their luck. I want to work towards a world where regardless of an ideological bigot/authoritarian’s personal desire for cruelty, they will be unable to act out the abuse they want, because they no longer have the power to do so unresisted. This is also why general social justice organizing (if it’s good) doesn’t focus primarily on reforming bigots, getting them to change their beliefs/intentions, but on reclaiming power and autonomy so that despite what the bigots might still believe, they can no longer make those beliefs matter to us as easily.

Leftists and anarchists in general are often told that we are too utopian and need to understand that “violence will always happen no matter how much you make social changes.” I dislike this framing; first of all, I’m not a doomer, and I do not want to say there certainly will always be violence, because I don’t think it is possible to guess that with 100% accuracy, and I like to leave room for a little hope in the world; second of all, it’s not really a relevant objection, because we’re not about gambling on the possibility of there being no abuse, but about taking steps to reduce abuse as much as we can and make it as hard as possible for abuse to happen.

But if parents aren’t “legally responsible,” are they not also going to be found liable for abusing their children?

I’m thinking about a certain Reddit post I read a few months ago. A woman was raising an infant with her (boyfriend? husband? not exactly sure which it was). She hadn’t wanted the child, and he had. She was slowly realizing that she just couldn’t bring herself to love the kid, and the childcare work was annoying and frustrating and exhausting her. Her bf/husband really liked the kid and was enthusiastic about taking care of them and nurturing them. A lot of commenters on that thread told her that she should leave them, because she’s not suited to be a parent for the child, as they grow up they’ll be able to tell that she’s just faking her emotions and actually dislikes them/doesn’t love them, so she should halt the toxic dynamic as early as possible. That stuck with me a lot—it would’ve been so helpful to a lot of kids if it was normalized for parents who don’t like a kid to be able to give them to better-suited, more loving caretakers who do want to have a kid, because many parents are just incompatible, just aren’t fit to parent, personality-wise or otherwise. Expanding the options for everyone to have healthy relationships and get the love and nurturing they need does not mean that neglectful parents of children stuck in their abusive household are not culpable for their harms (i.e. specifically withholding resources when they were needed). And, in general, abuse is wrong when done by anybody to anyone, legal parent or not. This doesn’t change that. And, I don’t really care about the legal system much in the first place because even with laws forbidding extended kinship networks they still don’t actually do a lot about parental neglect or abuse. I’m interested in more concrete questions like “how do we help neglected children acquire the resources/care they’ve been deprived of” or “how do we get abuse victims out; how do we minimize unwanted relationships and maximize wanted relationships; which cultural norms do we need to change to facilitate this.”

3) How would we ensure that children, particularly very young, are being well cared for - diapers, feedings, etc? Currently parents are completely abandoned by the social systems in place. I actually think a reformed/socialist service like cps (unsure of a better word) should be freely provided to all parents. Social workers or volunteers can make sure a child isn’t being ISOLATED which is the biggest factor for abuse. Neighbors may not even know abusive parents have a child and that’s terrifying.

Agreed, though I’d like to point out that this isn’t just something that can only be done by a specially appointed or paid professional group; this is something anyone can do, and especially people already close by. Like, checking up on your friends if it seems like something abusive is going on. Being that person for them if they’re stuck in an abusive home. Normalizing being more attentive to children near you socially, paying more attention to people around you in general, and lending a hand, and creating more interconnected communities which make it harder to isolate someone. It’s kind of hard to imagine given our current atomized hellscape but there are & have been societies in which families weren’t just sorted into single-unit disconnected households, and it was a lot easier to notice if something was off/hold each other accountable; also people fighting for this right now—whether children/minors using the Internet to finally befriend outsiders when they never could before, or having electronic devices they hide from their abusers, or meeting/talking to a friend in secret; or the teachers, healthcare workers, classmates, anyone else seeing them and opening the pathway for questions, help where there were no other options before, etc. & preventing isolation and exploitation wholesale means targeting the root of the problem (the nuclear family’s isolation, thru various political/economic forces)—which is exactly what the article was talking about.

[whythewords]

Moving Target

I'm doing well.

I seriously just wanted to start one of these god damn posts like that for once, throw everyone off their game.

Realized it mid-conversation with someone recently about how, yeah, the romantic stuff is eluding me but other than that...everything is kinda going according to plan. I finished school which is the thing I set out to do as the first major ball in motion to do this big 'ol reset. I went on my solo trip to Japan and had an incredible time. I'm back in a more steady routine of healthy eating and exercise. The job hunt is going pretty well...

I got an offer to be an IT Support Tech from one company and I'm kinda cool on the offer because of the location, amount of commuting and potential on-call stuff happening real early on in the role...and I'm thinking about turning it down and it seems like I can absolute afford to. The concept of actually being selective is foreign to me. I am definitely nervous about saying no to something but I feel like future Joe will appreciate the forethought.

Fortunately, it seems like a lot of prospects are popping up: pre-interviews, recommendations, the city job where I did my co-op is still on the table in the near future. This is one of the things I was most worried and stressed about going into this stage of things but ultimately I don't want to start out in a job that I know will make me unhappy. But the beauty is I am free to make these choices and I'm feeling more confident about them and about myself. It's a good spot to be in.

I did my first open mic in a while, an event for my brother at his shop and it was a nice opportunity to step back into performing in front of people. I got a better sense of what my brother was doing down there and got to meet the people he worked with. One of them was another musician, older Spanish fellow who made KILLER empanadas that were on the menu for the function that night. He was also a killer guitar player and actually had convinced my brother the night before to pick up his guitar and start playing again. At the end of night this gentlemen and i were trading off songs and playing lead/jamming and I got to jam with my brother which was a nice bit of nostalgia going all the way back to the basement of my parents' old house.

So all is well aside from dating. It's there though, and unavoidable, it hasn't really left my mind. I did get into a good rhythm with it, not letting the apps be too distracting, but I am struggling a little bit with my need for companionship and intimacy, which caused me to start paying a bit more attention to them. I think I've already a mentioned a couple of times that for all the pining and romanticism, I'm still not sure what it is I want or if I'm ready. More and more I start to feel as if I should get the job situation squared away and move out (for the thirds time) before I can even think about properly re-entering the dating world. But if that's the case, not taking a job I don't feel good about may prolong the time it takes to be gainfully employed, in order to start saving money, in order to move out, in order to be more desirable in order to start seriously dating again and etc. etc.

These are the kinds of spirally thoughts I'm working to avoid, and doing a mostly good job I think. As long as I can stay busy and motivated. What's that saying about idle hands? Something something devil's something? I'm gonna try to keep these hands moving at a pretty quick and consistent clip. This is how I'm defying sadness and longing. Keeping busy. Moving. It's a lot harder to hit a moving target.

[kylie]

Hi folks! It's time for a slightly redundant introduction on a blog I've had for more than a decade.

My name is Kylie Robison, I'm a technology reporter for Fortune Magazine. Before that, I was working at Business Insider. Many of you on here know me as "preteenager," a URL I've had since the word was applicable to my age.

Many of you have followed me for more than a decade, and when Yahoo decimated this website, some of you followed me to Twitter. If you've forgotten about me since 2015, you might only know me as the person who asked how popcorn does that thing.

I've missed Tumblr a lot, I spent most of my youth reblogging late into the night until I hit my limit for the day. One of my most sacred memories was staying up all night on Tumblr just before my 14th birthday fiddling with my theme's HTML. That month, Frank Ocean released Channel Orange, along with a text post about his sexuality. This website was so fuckin good back then.

I don't really remember when I stopped being so active here. It was a slow trickle of declining usage through the end of high school, and everyone in my school started using Twitter. Over on that platform, I went through a few usernames (based babe, myspace mami, fijibongwater, molly mom, and of course, preteenager). By college, all Tumblr activity ceased and I started getting more involved in "tech twitter." I was studying business management information systems, and I wanted to get a job in developer relations. My audience became people in their mid-30s and on who wanted to support my professional endeavors.

Then, in my junior year of college, I joined a student publication called The State Hornet. I wanted to write about technology, and flex those blogging muscles I hadn't used since my heyday on this platform. I had an op-ed column called "kyliebytes," which ended up being my final username on Twitter.

Those articles got shared by those same nice people who wanted to support my professional endeavors. I also reached out to a reporter I idolized named Taylor Lorenz for advice on how to get into the field, and because she's so kind and I'm so lucky, she started sharing my articles with her thousands of followers.

Because of that newfound reach, an editor at Business Insider happened to come across these articles and a few of my dorky try-hard tweets about wanting to become a tech reporter. He reached out, I interviewed for an internship, got the job, and here I am today.

At Fortune Magazine, I write about the not-at-all-controversial Twitter. As a result of some slightly chaotic business decisions by its new CEO Elon Musk, I've been pretty busy writing about it every day while simultaneously growing a sizeable audience on the platform (mostly composed of people who just want to see what crazy shit is going to happen next).

The infrastructure there under Musk has been notably more fragile, and people (including myself) are looking for a place to move their audiences before things get too dire. Some have moved to Mastodon, which is annoyingly technical. I found myself really missing Tumblr, but couldn't imagine using a blog dubbed "preteenager" at the ripe old age of 24. I hoarded @kyliebytes and @kylierobison, but didn't really consider it further.

Much to my luck, the CEO of this site tweeted "if you have a ton of followers on Twitter and want to switch over and there's a held-but-unavailable username you want, reply here and I'll see what we can do." I messaged him a few weeks ago for @kylie but never heard back.

Yesterday, Twitter rolled out a controversial new policy that banned users from linking to other social media platforms. "Follow me on Mastodon/Instagram/etc at @kyliebytes" would get you suspended. Also, linktree's were banned, which is what I used to direct my audience to my articles and other social media platforms. It was a hot mess, and Twitter reversed the policy a few hours later.

In those few hours though, I was like uhh... fuck this? Let me just set up a Tumblr really quickly that serves the same purpose. I logged in, and saw that the CEO gave me the new username but forgot to respond, I suppose. A caveat to giving me the username: I have to be active or they'll take it back (or if Kylie Jenner wants it, probably). Fair play!

So here I am, a decade later, using my favorite platform again. I'm going to still use @preteenager to reblog shitposts and pretty pictures, you're welcome to follow me there. I'm going to use my cool new URL for whatever I want, I guess. Mostly going to be news, blogging, probably a lot of shitposts, etc.

I've missed you guys and this place dearly. I'm happy to be back with a very traditional and slightly cringe blog post that probably could have been less than 200 words.

You can also follow me at:

IG: @kylie.robison Twitter: @kyliebytes Mastodon: kylierobison@mastodon.social

[corvidcall]

I posted 18,037 times in 2022

That's 1,739 more posts than 2021!

401 posts created (2%)

17,636 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sassytail

@omgitsseddie

@blazing-spectre

@starlit-mansion

I tagged 3,204 of my posts in 2022

#anime life - 339 posts

#hermitcraft - 176 posts

#iswm - 127 posts

#homestuck - 106 posts

#fnaf - 96 posts

#ofmd - 88 posts

#deltarune - 80 posts

#markcu - 75 posts

#disco elysium - 60 posts

#splatoon - 54 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#yucky but its fine for other people i guess. good in other things but gross as a primary condiment. yummy!!!! i love mushrooms. yucky and gi

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

i had a dream last night where i was in a high stakes game of magic the gathering, and even though im very bad at magic the gathering, i was extremely winning because WotC just came out with a new set of cards for like. Pride i guess? and they didnt want to seem homophobic so they were very OP.

anyway heres my best recreation of two of the gay mtg cards

(the lyrics on the lesbian card are from Dodie's song "She" - I don't remember exactly if those were the lyrics on the card but i DO remember looking at it and going "oh i guess they got Dodie involved in this? ok")

110 notes - Posted April 16, 2022

#4

i think it's really funny when people criticize something they don't like by calling it "soulless". saw someone say that about squishmallows, and said that instead of buying that soullless crap, you could spend the same amount of money buying a real stuffed animal

now, i don't care if they do or don't like squishmallows, but i am fascinated by the premise. squishmallows dont have souls, but other stuffed animals do? is toy story real? are beanie babies going to christian heaven?

319 notes - Posted September 19, 2022

#3

None Of You Know What Haiku Are

I'm going to preface this by saying that i am not an expert in ANY form of poetry, just an enthusiast. Also, this post is... really long. Too long? Definitely too long. Whoops! I love poetry.

If you ask most English-speaking people (or haiku-bot) what a haiku is, they would probably say that it's a form of poetry that has 3 lines, with 5, and then 7, and then 5 syllables in them. That's certainly what I was taught in school when we did our scant poetry unit, but since... idk elementary school when I learned that, I've learned that that's actually a pretty inaccurate definition of haiku. And I think that inaccurate definition is a big part of why most people (myself included until relatively recently!) think that haiku are kind of... dumb? unimpressive? simple and boring? I mean, if you can just put any words with the right number of syllables into 3 lines, what makes it special?

Well, let me get into why the 5-7-5 understanding of haiku is wrong, and also what makes haiku so special (with examples)!

First of all, Japanese doesn't have syllables! There's a few different names for what phonetic units actually make up the language- In Japanese, they're called "On" (音), which translates to "sound", although English-language linguists often call it a "mora" (μ), which (quoting from Wikipedia here) "is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable." (x) "Oh" is one syllable, and also one mora, whereas "Oi" has one syllable, but two moras. "Ba" has one mora, "Baa" has two moras, etc. In English, we would say that a haiku is made up of three lines, with 5-7-5 syllables in them, 17 syllables total. In Japanese, that would be 17 sounds.

For an example of the difference, the word "haiku", in English, has 2 syllables (hai-ku), but in Japanese, はいく has 3 sounds (ha-i-ku). "Christmas" has 2 syllables, but in Japanese, "クリスマス" (ku-ri-su-ma-su) is 5 sounds! that's a while line on its own! Sometimes the syllables are the same as the sounds ("sushi" is two syllables, and すし is two sounds), but sometimes they're very different.

In addition, words in Japanese are frequently longer than their English equivalents. For example, the word "cuckoo" in Japanese is "ほととぎす" (hototogisu).

Now, I'm sure you're all very impressed at how I can use an English to Japanese dictionary (thank you, my mother is proud), but what does any of this matter? So two languages are different. How does that impact our understanding of haiku?

Well, if you think about the fact that Japanese words are frequently longer than English words, AND that Japanese counts sounds and not syllables, you can see how, "based purely on a 17-syllable counting method, a poet writing in English could easily slip in enough words for two haiku in Japanese” (quote from Grit, Grace, and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer by Kit Pancoast Nagamura). If you're writing a poem using 17 English syllables, you are writing significantly more content than is in an authentic Japanese haiku.

(Also not all Japanese haiku are 17 sounds at all. It's really more of a guideline.)

Focusing on the 5-7-5 form leads to ignoring other strategies/common conventions of haiku, which personally, I think are more interesting! Two of the big ones are kigo, a season word, and kireji, a cutting word.

Kigo are words/phrases/images associated with a particular season, like snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring. In Japan, they actually publish reference books of kigo called saijiki, which is basically like a dictionary or almanac of kigo, describing the meaning, providing a list of related words, and some haiku that use that kigo. Using a a particular kigo both grounds the haiku in a particular time, but also alludes to other haiku that have used the same one.

Kireji is a thing that doesn't easily translate to English, but it's almost like a spoken piece of punctuation, separating the haiku into two parts/images that resonate with and add depth to each other. Some examples of kireji would be "ya", "keri", and "kana." Here's kireji in action in one of the most famous haiku:

古池や　蛙飛び込む　水の音 (Furu ike ya　kawazu tobikomu　mizu no oto) (The old pond — A frog jumps in The sound of the water.)

You can see the kireji at the end of the first line- 古池や literally translates to "old pond ya". The "ya" doesn't have linguistic meaning, but it denotes the separation between the two focuses of the haiku. First, we are picturing a pond. It's old, mature. The water is still. And then there's a frog! It's spring and he's fresh and new to the world! He jumps into the pond and goes "splash"! Wowie! When I say "cutting word", instead of say, a knife cutting, I like to imagine a film cut. The camera shows the pond, and then it cuts to the frog who jumps in.

English doesn't really have a version of this, at least not one that's spoken, but in English language haiku, people will frequently use a dash or an ellipses to fill the same role.

Format aside, there are also some conventions of the actual content, too. They frequently focus on nature, and are generally use direct language without metaphor. They use concrete images without judgement or analysis, inviting the reader to step into their shoes and imagine how they'd feel in the situation. It's not about describing how you feel, so much as it's about describing what made you feel.

Now, let's put it all together, looking at a haiku written Yosa Buson around 1760 (translated by Harold G. Henderson)

The piercing chill I feel: my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom, under my heel

We've got our kigo with "the piercing chill." We read that, and we imagine it's probably winter. It's cold, and the kind of cold wind that cuts through you. There's our kireji- this translation uses a colon to differentiate our two images: the piercing chill, and the poet stepping on his dead wife's comb. There's no descriptions of what the poet is feeling, but you can imagine stepping into his shoes. You can imagine the pain he's experiencing in that moment on your own.

"But tumblr user corvidcall!" I hear you say, "All the examples you've used so far are Japanese haiku that have been translated! Are you implying that it's impossible for a good haiku to be written in English?" NO!!!!! I love English haiku! Here's a good example, which won first place in the 2000 Henderson haiku contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America:

meteor shower . . . a gentle wave wets our sandals

When you read this one, can you imagine being in the poet's place? Do you feel the surprise as the tide comes in? Do you feel the summer-ness of the moment? Haiku are about describing things with the senses, and how you take in the world around you. In a way, it's like the poet is only setting a scene, which you inhabit and fill with meaning based on your own experiences. You and I are imagining different beaches, different waves, different people that make up the "our" it mentioned.

"Do I HAVE to include all these things when I write haiku? If I include all these things, does that mean my haiku will be good?" I mean, I don't know. What colors make up a good painting? What scenes make up a good play? It's a creative medium, and nobody can really tell you you can't experiment with form. Certainly not me! But I think it's important to know what the conventions of the form are, so you can appreciate good examples of it, and so you can know what you're actually experimenting with. And I mean... I'm not the poetry cops. But if you're not interested in engaging with the actual conventions and limitations of the form, then why are you even using that form?

I'll leave you with one more English language haiku, which is probably my favorite haiku ever. It was written by Tom Bierovic, and won first place at the 2021 Haiku Society of America Haiku Awards

a year at most . . . we pretend to watch the hummingbirds

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Further reading:

Forms in English Haiku by Keiko Imaoka Haiku: A Whole Lot More Than 5-7-5 by Jack How to Write a Bad Haiku by KrisL Haiku Are Not a Joke: A Plea from a Poet Who Has Had It Up to Here by Sandra Simpson Haiku Checklist by Katherine Raine

964 notes - Posted October 17, 2022

#2

there's a post (possibly a genre of posts?) that i see frequently where OP is mad about self care posts that are like "it's okay if you didn't brush your teeth today uwu" and op is mad because they didn't brush their teeth for a long time and now they have huge dental bills and i take umbrage with their idea that it was tumblrs fault that they didnt brush their teeth and if only people had been less nice to them, they would have known to brush more

listen, i didn't brush my teeth for many years. feeling bad about it didnt make me brush more. knowing that people thought it was gross didn't make me brush more. being shamed and guilted about it didn't make me brush more.

what DID help was figuring out what was actually the barrier between me and doing it, and then removing those barriers, even if they felt silly and like they shouldn't be barriers at all

for example:

PROBLEM: my toothbrush is too big to fit in the cabinet and I can't leave it on the counter, so I have to keep it in my bedroom and remember to bring it with me to brush

SOLUTION: buy a new, smaller toothbrush. i know i already have a perfectly good one that's nicer than the new one i bought, but a cheap toothbrush i actually use is a million times more valuable than an expensive brush i dont

PROBLEM: i dont want to brush immediately after i wake up, it feels gross and makes me gag

SOLUTION: i set an alarm for a few hours after i wake up and do it then. the teeth dont know the difference!

PROBLEM: i hate mint and i hate cinnamon. most toothpastes are mint and the ones that aren't mint are cinnamon

SOLUTION: start buying kids toothpaste. this has the added bonus of i think it's fun and whimsical

Being mad at yourself for not brushing isn't going to help. You KNOW you should be brushing your teeth. People who don't brush their teeth aren't UNAWARE that their dental hygiene is important!!! Posts that say "if you didn't brush your teeth, you don't need to feel ashamed about it" aren't hurting people, because shame and blame don't help people form healthier habits, and frankly, it's weird to pin the consequences of your unhealthy habits on people for not shaming you more!!!

27,908 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

for the record. i dont post cringe to keep the twitter users at bay. i do not post cringe at all. if you cringe at my posts, thats on you, not me. i am simply having a good time on this webbed site and if that makes you cringe, i am sorry for whatever you see in me that shames you so.

29,443 notes - Posted November 8, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[musashi]

alcoholic dyke here and i think a lot of nuance has been lost in this conversation.

i've been here for all of it (i don't know if you have, OP, so forgive me if this sounds condescending at all) and i pretty much watched it happen and was annoyed and upset the whole time, 'cause you are fundamentally correct--being marginalized is a hell all its own, that is the root of why we have higher death and addiction and suicide and mental illness rates. i don't think anyone was ever insinuating otherwise, at least not anywhere i've seen it.

but from what i saw on this website & other online spaces vaguely adjacent, it went like this:

this post was made:

2. young queerfolk, alcoholics, disabled queers (with both physical & sensory sensitivities), and many other groups that fell in agreement with this for their own personal reasons added onto the sentiment. at the time (over a decade ago, give or take?) it was not the norm to have many other options besides 1. bar/nightclub or 2. GSA, if you were lucky enough to have one at your school/university.

3. of these groups that showed support for this sentiment were sex-repulsed asexual people who felt uncomfortable with the sexual nature & unspoken pressure to 'hook up' at gay bars & night clubs.

4. around 2014, exclusionists on this website decided that it was trendy to violently abuse asexuals & aromantics for clout. every single thing the aroace community did on tumblr was met with meangirl backlash at best and relentless vitriol at worst. this more or less destroyed the aroace community and it has still not recovered to this day.

5. one of the most potent forms of propaganda leveled at the ace community was malicious reframing of sex-repulsion as a concept. the sex-repulsed ace is, obviously, just minding their own business and living their truth--but exclusionists intentionally framed them as virulent, homophobic prudes who went around telling the ~real~ queers where they were and were not allowed to have their Gross Faggot Sex, etc etc.

6. one of the most effective ways they propagandized this was by out-of-context circulation of posts like the one i posted above.

(and, occasionally, actual psy-ops where users would pretend to be asexuals and intentionally post cringey, anti-sex, anti-kink, homophobic nonsense and of course the 'no internet skepticism skills' website believed it)

7. posts like this stopped being read in good faith. seeing a post like the above, tumblr users before the ace discourse instilled brainrot in half this website would see it and think "yeah! it would be awesome if we had more options." after the ace discourse, the reaction a lot of those same people would have would be more like "i cannot believe the cringey aces on this website are still acting like gay bars and night clubs are depraved sex dens full of rambunctious horny dykes. they don't even know how homophobic they are."

8. miraculously, eventually, the ace discourse freaks all either 1. moved onto bi/pan lesbians (and so far are doing a pretty shit job) or 2. were run off the site/out of communities because people unpacked shit and realized they were on the wrong side of things.

9. arguments in defense of the original point came back out of the woodwork. "now that the ace discourse has died down, can we please fucking get back to rallying for more queer spaces other than bars and clubs? the autistics, the mobility aid users, the children and teenagers, the sex-repulsed asexuals, and the alcoholics deserve options for community too."

10. presumably, these posts are circulating now, because they make good points.

i don't think any queer alcoholic is going to genuinely say that gay bars are the reason we have a higher alcoholism rate. we have that because society wants us dead and you have to find a way to survive knowing that. but 1. the alcohol companies know that and intentionally prey on us, see them setting up their rainbow floats at pride every year and 2. the lack of sober queer spaces makes it hard, often nigh impossible to stay clean and sober. it's hard enough to stay clean and sober as a cishet, alcoholics bleed friends like fucking crazy when we make the choice to stay sober or even just cut back. 12 step programs are largely bunk, but repeated studies have shown that the reason they work on accident is because they are a social space where addicts can find community without the pressure to use.

so if cishets struggle that hard, we struggle much harder. and, yes, the lack of sober queer spaces is a huge part of that. back in 2014, we addicts on tumblr were largely laughed out of every room we entered, every point of discourse we tried to spur on. i got a multitude of pretty violent threats on here back then for talking openly about intoxication culture and how addiction was a disability. and that was before the ace discourse ramped up.

so i think probably what's happening is queer addicts are finally feeling emboldened again to discuss this and perhaps some nuance is being lost in the many, MANY layers of telephone over the years. perhaps some of them are remembering the shitty discourse and how they were swept under the rug and persecuted as homophobes/apologists because they, for their own reasons, dared to share similar opinions with asexuals in 2014.

no, going to a gay bar doesn't turn queers into alkies, but it sure as shit is a lot easier to not die of alcohol poisoning at age 27 when you have the choice to walk into a social club or a cafe instead of a bar.

alcoholism is a problem in the lgbt community yes but there's something weird and mentally disconnecting about trying to say that's because there's too many gay nightclubs or whatever instead of the reality that being lgbt is just genuinely oppressive and will push people to maladaptive coping mechanisms. like did we forget that people become alcoholics for a multitude of more reasons than because they went to a club once

[gothprentiss]

people like to say that you need to learn the rules of writing in order to break them which is imo semi-true: on one hand, many people who write quite prolifically would be unbelievably well-served by having to get down to brass tacks with certain features of grammar, style, etc.-- tho this is, i think, largely a product of the fact that good writers are in fact very rare, and really probably most writers would be well-served by regarding writing as an art, and behaving accordingly. on the other hand, though, this is rarely a claim people are making with the assumption of doing an mfa or taking creative writing classes; more often it licenses the kind of overkill you get in, for example, the us high school writing curriculum, often with the expectation that the often very arbitrary writing guides being leveraged at 16 year olds map 1:1 onto the writing that will be expected from them in college. this is of course not the case.

as is often the case, valuable time and effort is sacrificed to The Rules, which are an unevenly wielded set of guidelines set, often quite arbitrarily, by a variety of people who rarely seem to be in communication. you might have 4 different english teachers in high school. you might be taught to write differently in history classes. few students emerge from these conditions able to generalize a set of rules they can apply in academic settings; rather, they're conditioned to expect to be told, every semester, how to write. every semester, not even just when i'm teaching freshman comp, i have students who are still struggling against the expectations of high school: the 5-paragraph essay; how to structure an introduction; specifics on citation when options are offered; whether the first-person is permissible in academic writing; etc. this in addition to the basic problem of how to make a good argument.

anyway my point is that i rarely see a similar claim being made about how to read (*interpret). i don't mean like Basic Media Literacy which is a ludicrous category we're pretending really exists, but i mean like-- most art and media forms have a well-established conventional language. the argument against this is that many artists make their names breaking said conventional language and norms, so teaching this stuff is limiting and inorganic, but you fundamentally deprive people of the ability to see innovation or difference if you treat it as the norm, an organic phenomenon which inheres in the medium or form rather than something accomplished by the work and thought of any number of creators.

this-- much like the Rules of academic writing-- doesn't really matter in a non-academic setting. it's clear that in fandom spaces, for example, a major concern is the validity of any given reading, which is often constructed and sustained on grounds of response and relation. histories of analysis or theory are semi-relevant. there was a post i saw all the time last month that was like "canon, fanon, and headcanon are all equally made up and none of them are better or worse than the others" (claim of specifically moral validity, i think? as opposed to quality) with a very cursory overview of stuart hall's reception theory (which presents encoding and decoding as intended and received meaning, respectively) tacked on by someone other than op. i've been thinking about this post a lot because it really grated me-- the first part is just like, true insofar as it's saying very little and its central point feels oddly buried (fictions shouldn't have an inherent moral hierarchy, esp not one derived from perceived originality). but the second thing is like-- if you cut out all of what hall's work actually is, and the work it's actually doing (e.g. it's not a methodology of reading but an ethnography), then sure, it's how you interact with the intended meaning of a tv show. but like how do you know. this is especially the case with audiovisual media-- a movie or a tv show isn't, despite the enduring presence of the auteur, the product or expression of a single intention. like "i think X is meant to be about Y but due to my positionality i perceive it to be about Z, which is as morally and intellectually acceptable as Y" is certainly a fair statement to make, but surely requires you to have an equally strong sense of how X is about Y-- positioning this as the primary, at least prima facie, form of meaning. like there is a hierarchy proposed here, if only in terms of order-- to negotiate against or oppose the dominant order one must be in conversation with that order, whereas the dominant order has no such order of operations. all of these meanings are equally arbitrary, but the assumption is that there are either knowing departures from the conventional language or actual idiosyncratic misunderstandings, which don't have the same systematic validity.

anyway my point is that like... i think hall is assuming more engagement with conventional codes than said post assumes, as well as a more functionally conventional set of codes. i think a lot of internet talk about reception theory (the bad readings of barthes yk) focuses on the validity of relatively disengaged interpretation, or maybe more specifically on a minimum standard of interpretation under which individual decoding involves a more profound truth claim than encoding. i think a good example of this is the way that people #onhere frequently sort of whack each other over the head with the Media Literacy cudgel rather than providing any amount of formal analysis or commentary-- depriving a work of its typical hegemon doesn't radically democratize processes of reading or allow for new and manifold forms of meaning to emerge, it seems, but rather proliferates new hegemons who are reaching for that same absolute truth status.

[kudamono94]

Hello everyone!  As promised in my last post I made prior to the premiere of the 1st episode of the new Futurama revival, I have decided to share some of my favorite screenshots I took since watching it myself~  That said, I have seen some of these scenes already shared but I still wanted to post all of what I had taken in one place for myself just for fun, so if you see something in this post that you’ve already seen 1000 times by this point feel free to ignore lol

Tbh I’ve never tried live blogging anything before, let alone tried to edit and share screenshots I didn’t plan on keeping for myself, so I hope these turned out okay!  I did my best to clean them up and crop to what I wanted, so if they don’t show up well I apologize in advance ^^;

Otherwise, if you’re interested in reading past this point, I hope you enjoy what I have to share as well as what little commentary I have to accompany my pictures :3 

Okay, so just to get this out of the way first and foremost, while I have seen mixed reviews in regards to the first episode, imo I honestly thought it was pretty good!  A lot of the jokes definitely landed and even had me laughing out loud, and with the easter eggs scattered throughout combined with seeing all of these characters once again, I couldn’t stop smiling at several points just because I was so happy lol

That said, while I wouldn’t say this is up there as one of my fav episodes of all time in the series overall, I say it definitely did what it set out to accomplish as far as bringing the series back after 10 years off the air in terms of animation, voice acting, etc.  So to anyone that felt as if The Impossible Stream was a let down, I would recommend giving it a few episodes into the new season before coming to a solid conclusion on whether the revival lives up to the hype or not/forming a firm opinion on the new season as a whole.  Again, as far as plots are concerned, this episode isn’t anywhere in my top 10 list, but at the same time, it was pretty good and served as a nice welcome back to long time fans since 2013 when Meanwhile aired, so I want to believe things will only get better from here~

Any who, with all of that out of the way, on to the screenshots:

1. First, Idk if this has been pointed out already, but since I haven’t seen anyone else post this, I thought I’d do it myself~  I honestly thought this was pretty cute lol, and considering that the new season is on a streaming service as opposed to tv (meaning that they most likely can have both the OP and ED be as long as they want without it being cut off by ad time), I hope they include new stuff like this in the OP in addition to the cartoons being displayed on the jumbo tv Leela always crashes into again :)

2. This scene right here was too cute for me~  I love these two so much, and I’m so happy to see them again :3  They just want each other to be happy, and it’s precious :3

Also Fry looks so adorable here (´◡`)  Look at him! 

3. I know this scene speaks for itself, but still enjoy this quote none the less :3

4. If I had a nickle for every time one of my special interests was cancelled because of corporate incompetence/bad judgement, I’d have at least 2 but it’s weird it happened twice - let alone that it happened to two shows that technically aired on the same block (I.E. adult swim, Metalocalypse I’m looking at you :( ).

And yes, I know this is prob a jab at streaming services like Netflix but I think my point still stands, you know?  I wish things were different but...

5. Hey, at least we’re getting Futurama AND Metalocalypse back this year, right? I guess that’s a small victory, at least for me?  Idk, the fact both these series ended back in 2013 just to be revived in the ye old year of 2023 seems like fate to me tbh, so if the latter’s direct-to-dvd film does well, here’s hoping it can get picked up on Hulu alongside Futurama so I can get back into my high school era~  In the meantime, have this which reminded me of the revival campaigns I have seen over the years dedicated to bringing these 2 wonderful shows back:

Too bad Leela’s not a Dethklok fan :(

6.  I figured we’d see Calculon come back sooner or later, but I sure as hell wasn’t expecting him to return like this in the first episode no less XD That said, I’m not a huge fan of either him or the Robot Devil, but this scene was gold~

And last but not least:

Once I learn how to make good quality GIFS, this is the first scene I’m uploading as a GIF ｡^‿^｡

7. Oh!  Speaking of Calculon, over these past 15+ years of my life, I had always figured he was either Bi or Pan, so alongside my ship with him and Bender potentially being given more fuel, it was nice to see the writers had the same idea :3 In this house we stan a Bi and/or Pan Calculon~

And let’s not forget about this:

Idk man, I think I might reconsider my Calculon dislike if this continues O////O Never thought I’d say that after reaching my 20s but ye, this was pretty good

Also, this scene was another gem in my opinion:

Technically, yes

Bender x Fry x Leela parallels aside, it’s always nice to see this as a multi shipper~  Keep in mind, as well, that this was originally also written BY BENDER HIMSELF, so ye, a lot to talk about another day 

8. I almost choked on my drink watching this lol Looks like the old man yaoi group of Farnsworth, Hermes, and Zoidberg has trouble in paradise (this is a JOKE, pls don’t take this seriously!)

His face is priceless XD

9. Finally, I know this last scene was prob meant to be a tongue-in-cheek joke about both reboots and the writers, but at the same time all I could think of was that one quote from Fry in When Aliens Attack when Leela asked him about his script writing?  Idk if it was mean to be a call back to this scene too, but was I the only one reminded of this during the end?  Also, Bender sure is one to call the kettle black XD

Compare these exchanges and see what I mean:

And that’s about it tbh, so if you’ve read this far, thank you so much!  As thanks, here’s some bonus screenshots of Leela and Fry being cute, and I can’t wait to post again about next week’s episode :3  Have a great day and good night~

[blakelywintersfield]

Minors

Okay so, I originally wrote this in response to this post (my friend's reblog is linked instead of the original because OP either deleted it from their blog I guess?), but I feel like this constitutes as its own post.

I know this may sound like an overbearing parent "don't trust strangers on the internet" talk, but like. I don't think a lot of you understand just how quickly a situation can escalate; it's scary. I mean that not in a condescending "you think you're untouchable you stupid little child, you don't really know what the world is like" way either, but as in, I don't think internet safety is being taught realistically, so those things you're told to watch out for are far-fetched or already seem suspect.

Predators don't work the way TV shows joke that they do -- most predators aren't going to try and message you at random posing as a teenage girl and attempt to strike up a friendship. A lot interact in community spaces like tumblr, where some level of anonymity is allowed, and it's not odd for there to be people of both minor and adult ages. They interact with a variety of people -- not just targets. They will have full-fledged social circles. Their blogs and social interactions will look like literally any other person's on here.

Then, of the different blogs they follow, they end up interacting a lot with a certain user. Maybe the kind of humor clicks, or similar opinions, or interests. Nothing out of the ordinary; that's how people make friends. Maybe then they start by sending an ask, or a message, or whatever, and that continues for a bit until you two are kind of acclimated to one another, and then, as far as everyone is concerned, it's just a new friend! Neat! That's how you make friends on the internet. They most likely did this with their other friends on tumblr. Nothing weird. In this hypothetical, the minor party has their full name and city public.

But then this person you make friends with -- the way you would any other person on this website -- turns out to be 10+ years your senior. Which like. Honestly, you don't have to cut them out of your life and block them immediately, but you inform them you're 10 years younger than them. A responsible adult would respond to that knowledge with anything from the range of "oh holy shit you're baby uhh I feel a little weird interacting with you so personally" to "oh goodness you are a youngling I will now enter caregiver/parent-like mode". And there will be an established tone from there of "we may still interact but there is going to always be a set emotional distance". It'll have a different dynamic/feeling to the friendships you have with people your age. And it should. Both parties can still care about each other! But this isn't someone you would like. Hang out one on one with. You wouldn't hang out with your mom's friend one on one, or at your teacher's home alone. That'd be weird, right? That should be the same kind of vibe you get with any adult "friendship" you make online (I put friendship in quotes because I feel like... there's a better term for it, or should be one that establishes that adult/minor relationship, but if there is I can't for the life of me remember it).

But maybe that person doesn't go down that path. Maybe it comes off that way at first, but there's a subtle level of emotional manipulation that is subtle enough that you're not certain you can accuse them of being manipulative. "Oh wow, you're so much younger than me... do you still want to talk to me / be friends / etc.? I can leave you alone now if you want." Warning sign #1: they are pressuring you to make the decision; they are placing responsibility on you. And it might feel a little mean to just drop communication all of a sudden because of age -- you got along fine before. Why should that change anything? That's a rational thought process, but it's also the one that benefits them too.

So hypothetically, you say "no it's okay, we can still talk. we were talking just fine before we found out each other's ages so why should that change?" And then maybe the conversation continues normally from there. But then they continue interacting with you as your peers would. You guys talk about stuff that's been stressing you or your problems, just like you would with your peers. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Warning sign #2: That form of emotional connection isn't normal with an adult/minor relationship. I have minors that follow me. They have talked to me about their problems, and I've offered advice and wisdom; I don't condemn that because, well. As adults, we should help guide the younger if asked. But when it comes to my troubles, I limit how much I discuss with them. I don't bring them up myself (it's often brought up by the other party because I'll post about it on here, like a vent post or whatever). And while I don't brush them off with a short "don't worry about it", I make it clear -- I appreciate that you care enough to make sure I'm okay (because their sympathy / care is just as valuable as an adult's), but even if I'm not okay, the burdens and problems surrounding my troubles will be dealt with by me. I don't ask them for advice. I don't goad them for sympathetic words. And it's not that I believe they couldn't give good advice, or their sympathy means less, but an adult should not be relying on a minor for those levels of emotional labor. That established emotional connection where both parties exchange advice and comfort is how predators manipulate their victims because it's subtle and seemingly harmless, and difficult to paint them as a bad person when you have that level of emotional trust.

And once that emotional connection is established, that's when things can escalate, and get scary, quickly.

One day while talking they will probably bring it up -- the way one of your peers would. Something along the lines of "hey can I tell you something?" or "there's something I want to tell you but I'm afraid you won't want to talk to me anymore if I do" etc. etc.; with that peer/peer dynamic, that'll make you anxious, sure. You'd probably get anxious if they were your own age and said that too. So then, it comes out in some form that "I like you, but like... as more than a friend" or "I think you're really cute; I have for a bit now actually" or something similar. Obviously then it's uncomfortable.

But then you realize -- this is an adult. This is someone who has access to transportation. This is someone that doesn't have to report to someone (i.e. a minor can't just say "I'm going out of town for a week bye!" like your parents would, or SHOULD, be like "uh okay where are you going, who are you going to be with, why, etc. etc. etc."). And they know your full name and a general idea of where you live. You could just block them then and there and remove that information from your blog. But what if they already saved it? What if they already used one of those websites where you can look up a person's address by name for $5? What if they already know where you live, and they had planned on asking to meet up? They might know where you live. And you can't confirm or deny that they know. You can't say for sure if you removed that information before they saved it and used it for that purpose. Suddenly, there's the very real possibility that a pedophile that admitted to being attracted to you knows where you live.

Then what do you do? You should tell your parents or a trusted authority figure. But you're also a teenager and there's the likelihood that your parents might brush it off, or get angry with you, and you might get your internet taken away, etc., which is stressful because that takes away a major social area. To build upon the anxiety with that, there's the risk of unknowing if this person does know where you live, and if they do, if they are just unstable enough to do something drastic, like, y'know. Kidnap you. Because they know where you live. And they may know your school schedule too. And if your parents or trusted authority figure doesn't know about this situation, you may end up a missing child never found at worst, or found with far more trauma (5 years of life being kidnapped as opposed to a few months) that could've been avoided had someone known the situation.

But to 100% ensure your safety, it would have to be reported to the police. Because your parents can't do anything about the fact that a pedophile on the internet might know where you live. They can't confirm or deny that they know, and if they did, there's not much they can do other than keep an eye out for someone that looks out of the ordinary. But if they're most likely not home at the same time you are all the time. So, having the police involved ensures your safety -- if you open a case. You can report it to the police, and they'll ask: do you want to press charges (because it could be considered a form of child endangerment). If you say no, then that guarantees if you are kidnapped, that person would be the first they'd look to as a suspect. But to avoid that kidnapping risk at all, you'd have to say yes. And you're a kid that's now having to get involved in court just to avoid any risk to your safety because a pedophile may or may not have your address and may or may not be someone that would abduct their target, and so even if they didn't have your address and wouldn't kidnap you, you are now in a legal situation, which is. extremely. stressful. As someone's who's dealt with the court system a lot it's stressful no matter what.

And sure, you could omit the last step. But then you'll have that looming anxiety for as long as you're a minor that there is a possibility this person may show up at your house at some point. And that anxiety is fucking torture. I know it firsthand, I know all of this up to the legal portion firsthand, because this is exactly how I got tangled up with a pedophile in high school. That anxiety can make you paranoid. It impacts your sleep, which impacts your emotional tolerance and your concentration. It looms and there's nothing you can do to get rid of it other than convince yourself "they probably don't have my address; they probably won't find me". And that logic becomes sounder as time passes. But it requires time to pass, and in the meantime, you sit in constant suffering suspense.

It's just not fucking worth it, okay? You might think "this would never happen to me" but like. I was the fat emo weirdo in high school, literally considered attractive by no one and told so by peers and I still had it happen to me. So don't think "I'm not appealing enough" or whatever. Put self-esteem issues aside here, because to them, you're underage and at a power dynamic disadvantage not just physically, but most likely emotionally too. They care that you're a certain (under)age and can be manipulated into sexual acts. They will target you no matter how ugly you think you are or how unattractive your peers have convinced you.

So please. As an adult, that went through this situation (and could've had it turn out a lot worse tbh) -- do not disclose your real name (especially last names), location more specific than country, phone number, or school publicly online or to anyone you cannot 100% trust. I practice half of these in adulthood just to err on the side of caution since a full name and phone number alone could be used to find my address, and there are some preeeeetty unstable people out there. As a minor, absolutely no one needs any information unless you plan on meeting them in person, which should only be done after you've gotten to know them extremely well and both parties' parents know and are involved. It doesn't need to be on your public profile, and it shouldn't be on your public profile. I want your social media experience to be as enjoyable as possible, I don't want you feeling like you have to constantly keep an eye out for predators. But to keep yourself as safe as possible, don't purposefully make that information public. It's simple, but it’ll help you avoid so much potential stress.

Please stay safe.

[sunnywalnut]

Something to add to this, especially from a disabled writer's perspective:

-you can absolutely have arthritis at a young age(I'm 19 and yes. Rheumatoid arthritis exists. I am very close to having it myself. No it is not fun)

-you can have tremors! Tics, uncontrollable muscle spasms, nerve damage, etc etc

-you can need a cane/walker! Especially the ones with the lil tennis balls on the bottom. Go for it.

-you can absolutely have muscle/joint aches and yes it does get worse with the weather. Winter especially! My muscles in my back tighten VERY painfully when it is cold and I cannot help it no matter how many layers I wear!! And yes!! My knees can tell when it's about to rain!! I thought it was silly too!!

-taking random naps in the middle of the day, including recliner naps, can actually be really needed. Especially if you're very fatigued. Also recliner naps can really help if you have back issues/your knees feel "heavy". Speaking from experience.

-YOUR BODY CRACKS AT RANDOM!! I can't count how many times I've had to stretch out my arms/legs and have it all crack out and then just have to sit there and let it "settle" before jumping up and going on to do whatever I needed to do.

-Old Man Groans are a thing. Involuntary. Did not even realize it was a thing I was doing until it was pointed out to me. Even if you think you're not doing it, you are. You're an old man. Embrace it. Yes I am fine. Yes the noise comes with the package. Deal with it.

-sometimes you gotta just lay down when talking to your friends even if they're all sitting/standing. Laying on the floor should be allowed. Good friends will lay/sit with you.

-"resting your eyes" is also a thing. Sometimes you really don't realize you're sleepy until you've got your eyes closed and you're all comfy and suddenly you're just drifting off...

-not quite a disability thing but you know how grandmas tend to have hard candies/snacks on hand? Yeah. People who struggle with extremely high metabolism/energy dips/low blood sugar tend to carry snacks and a water bottle on hand. Especially if they know they have this problem. While the trope of everyone flocking to help their homie who fainted is sweet(and sometimes very needed), some people will have snacks to spare to others just in case. I myself carried a LOT of Tylenol, cough drops, mints, body mist, and snacks in my bag when I was in high school bc every time I was in drama, at least one person would complain of one thing or another and it was great to be able to share. If you want to use this trope, I recommend using it with a bit more nuance. Why did they leave their stuff at home? Did they just set it down? Did was their brain fog worse than normal and they forgot? Or you can use it as a discovery as to what the character is going through. I've seen a lot of diabetic characters "forget" their things without any sort of explaination and it's sort of brushed off for laughs (like in the older film "Mall Cop" from what I remember)

Like sorry for hijacking your post op but I got so excited being able to talk about something like this! Very rarely it gets brought up so I'm happy to be able to ramble^^

I love young cripples with stereotypically “old people” disorders! (Personally I have severe plantar fasciitis at 20)

You’re not “too young” to have this pain.

You don’t need to “wait until you’re older and then you’ll see”.

Your disability is a disability regardless of your age!!!!

[neurotichunter]

Sometimes ppl are so incredibly funny. A few months back I commented on a post about the German band Rammstein. Everyone was hailing them, but I said what needed to be said: That they're Nazis and should be treated as such. I have never gotten so many angry replies to anything I said, every single one of them defending Rammstein and telling me I didn't know shit and that patriotism is a good thing and omg how could I say something like that and that I didn't know what the term Nazi really means and that one look at my bio made everything clear.

Three things:

First of all - my bio? What part of my bio makes anything clear about my comment? The only thing that makes anything clear is your reaction to my bio... So... ???

Secondly, all the replies to my comment came from countries like the US or Australia, telling me that patriotism is not an issue and that you can love your country blablabla... Like... Have you read about your countries' history? Have you read the news lately? How can you love countries that treat their minorities like shit and other stuff like that? Probably because you don't belong to a minority... Well... Also, I'm not sure, but if I remember correctly, the OP of the video is Jewish. Rammstein makes music that's especially appealing to Nazis, they don't ban them from their concerts (like other bands do), they don't speak up against them, there can be seen the "Hitler Gruß" in many occasions in the audience etc... Just fyi. And one person defending them is trans. Guys, Rammstein's lyrics are all about exclusion. I was rolling on the floor laughing my fat ass off when I saw who defended them.

And last but not least: Guys, don't sweat it. I will still say Rammstein are Nazis and that patriotism is a bad thing regardless of how disparaging your remarks about my opinion and my bio are.

You know why?

Fun fact: I'm fucking German. I know Nazis when I see them. I went to protests against them when you didn't even knew what the term "Antifa" means. My grandfather was one until his death in 2014. In some German states these racist, homophobic, patriotic assholes are part of the government. You still see swastika graffiti on the streets, especially near Jewish organizations and stuff.

I am so sick and tired of ppl from countries with a different history than Germany telling me what racism, patriotism, and national socialism look like. In Europe and especially in Germany, these things are taught in schools. We actually deal with our history (or at least try). And whatever is said about Rammstein in their defense is pure window dressing. They have done a lot for better PR, but behind that nothing has changed.

And if you're still not convinced that they're assholes, read this article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramstein_air_show_disaster?wprov=sfla1

The band named themselves after this disastrous event that killed 70 people and injured about a thousand. Especially in the beginning, the band's props and sets at live shows showed burning debris, and the band members' jackets were often on fire too. Every time somebody criticized them, they said it was a coincidence. Yeah. Sure.

In conclusion: Rammstein are assholes. I don't like them. Do I tell you to not listen to them? No. It's your decision what to do. Do I think you're an asshole too if you listen to them? You bet I do. Am I going to shut up about it? Hell no! So, have fun insulting me for telling the truth, I don't fucking care.

🚩161🏴

[lilypixels]

Izzy’s Dag-Dag The Artist… Tag

By @morgynemberisagenderfluiddaddy

~ Rules ~

Show us a rendition of yourself in your own art! Can be anything! Sims render? Random stick figure? Picrew? Go nuts! (Just be sure to tag the artist if you use someone else’s picrew!!!!) Tag the blogs you want to know, and don’t be a dick that’s it! Also, feel free to answer as vague or in-depth as you want. And if you don’t want to answer a question for any reason just don’t vibe with it! Skip it if you wanna! Also make sure you tag me and use #dagdagtheartisttag so I can see it!!!!!!!!

This is a bit long so i’m just gonna...

~Questions~

1.) Do you prefer to be referred to by your name or blog name? Both are fine! I don’t care much about what people refer to me as in general and have had someone on here call me lily once

2.) Where are you from? I won’t say exact, but I live in the middle of USA (I can’t wait to move-)

3.) Do you have pets? 👀 Yes! 3 dogs and 2 cats, tho only one cat is truly “mine”

4.) Tell us about your “dream”. uhh like where I want to be in life? what I want to do? um I’m still working on the exact job title, but I wish to do research at a natural history/science museum (sorta like archives or collections manager, but neither of those are quite right i think). Otherwise, I just hope to adopt and even foster kids cause my life would not be complete without little ones :3 (spouse/partner optional lol) 

5.) Aside from art, what are your hobbies? Randomly researching things that grasp my attention, games...lots of games, reading, watching tv, coloring (wait does that count as art-), uhhh spacing out

6. )Does anyone irl know about your blog? yeah, but mostly just know about, not like see my posts i guess

7.)Do you know anyone from your blog irl? not outside of just chatting on discord

8.) What are some fun facts about you? I’ve had some poems published before (it was with entering a poetry contest), I have surprisingly good balance, my brain is not properly awake/functioning until 10am which has led to me almost using soap as toothpaste a few times too many, I have a birthmark on my finger (bonus: it sorta changes color/how noticeable it is depending on how hot or cold I am lol, i call it a mini thermometer cause of this), apparently Lion King was my Disney movie obsession as a kid...oh and I have a certificate in cryptozoology lolz

9.) What’s your day job? i work as a private nanny/glorified babysitter (i don’t live with them or drive but work regular hours through week and as needed; even join the occasional vacation with them)

10.) Do you have a celebrity look alike? i don’t think so; a girl in high school once said I look like Cameron Diaz tho-

11.) What’s your aesthetic? for my blog I think it’s becoming like dark academia meets cottage core?? idk for myself...who knows

12.) What kind of artist are you? the tired kind lol

13.) How did you get into your form of art? if we’re looking at sims, uhhh well I just happened to learn about cc one day, then happened upon simblr, saw edits, and thought I’d give a try cause I can’t draw but I need a creative outlet so this worked for me

14.) What do you watch/listen/read/anything else while you create? if I do anything, its listen to music; music is generally random based on what I feel like but more recently its been 2d anime groups (idolish7, hypnosis mic, etc)

15.) What is your favorite of your own creations so far?  lets see...this, this, and this edit wise I think

16.) How would you describe your art style? idk chaos

17.) What is more satisfying to you coloring or outlining? coloring, I like coloring 

18.) What meme would you use to describe yourself?

19.) What character from any media form do you most identify with? oh gosh uhhhh there’s a few but I’ll say Iori and Sogo from Idolish7 since they come to mind first lol. Iori is a fellow aquarius who hides his interests and agonizes over past slipups even a year later, others have legit moved on but he’s still stuck on it (that was true moment I was like “omg you are aquarius” lol cause yeah meee). Sogo i heavily relate to as well cause he’s,,,very nice and hides his own feelings, putting others before himself (but when right buttons get pushed, he can be scary lol) so yeah, those two

20.) If you were on the run, what would you change your name to? I’ve never thought of this...no clue

21.) Have you ever or do you want to change blog names? I have changed names, yes; I used to be silverine-sims but after a time i didn’t ~vibe~ with it

22.) God forbid Tumblr decides to pull a MySpace and lets us have page songs, what song would you choose?  page songs like adding playlist to blog? i mean its possible already with bit of coding and I used to have one set up but uh one song huh? gosh um I guess Twisted Hearts by tasuku hatanaka; it was op for Moriarty the Patriot s2 and I’m pretty obsessed with it rn 

23.) Oh yeah, I’m still on the MySpace train and I’m starting discourse! Who’s your top 8? my brain refuses to think and rank; i have trouble with choices and that extends to favorites,,

24.) Did you understand those references or did you have to look them up? (I’m fully aware I’m ancient, but are you?) i know of myspace but otherwise i have no clue what all it entailed

25.) One last question; why are you like that? I grew up watching Secret Saturdays, He-Man, Teen Titans, Danny Phantom, and Spongebob idk what to tell ya ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Dag dag?

Now tag tag!!!

I know not all of you will do this or was tagged by izzy already but I’m tagging everyone I can think of anyway-

@cyansimblr @neriney @lunchsims @waysims @klayde @sinfulwunders @void-imp @ladykendalsims @lazysunjade @almost-spring @smolteabirb @lunaziie @clumsyghostie​ and uh uh anyone else cause its too early and my brain just quit

[vergess]

#tbh this is one of those topics i rly badly wanna go on a long hyperfixation research binge on

#like reading and literacy and how to raise it

#like what kinds of alterations to the school system would help

#but also what programs and campaigns outside of the context of schools would help?

Tags via @cozyprompts

No, no, come back, this is a good point. This post was, as the OP mentions, me desperately trying to figure out why people brush these statistics off. And the answer is complicated enough to spawn an entire dedicated field of study: science communication.

I focus primarily on childhood reading education because it's easier for me to understand. I have experience with teaching kids as an adult, and obviously I was also once a child in the system myself.

The good news is, teaching adults to read is a very similar set of steps. Vocabulary, Letters, Phonics, Phonemics, Fluency and finally Comprehension.

The major change is in tone. Adults who cannot read are often intensely private about that fact. Many will even insist that their very poor reading skills as "good enough" out of shame and fear.

At a cultural level, two things we can do are reduce stigma, and ensure that the skills to TEACH reading are more common in general.

Reducing stigma may look like publically admitting when something is above your reading level and asking for help. It may mean correcting mistakes politely and calmly. It may just mean adopting an attitude of acceptance instead of condescending revulsion when illiteracy comes up.

In any case, it's important to remember that Americans who cannot read were failed by the state. They are not failures themselves, but victims who deserve kind aid on their own terms.

As far as teaching skills:

All people learn to read in basically similar ways. Step one, the ultimate beginning, is learning to speak. Building a robust vocabulary in spoken english, especially understanding the way words relate to each other (opposites, share word stems, etc) is helpful.

Most adults already have spoken fluency so you can skip this for adults. But kids in particular benefit from vocabulary lessons.

Once comfortable spoken vocab is achieved, you begin at the beginning: The alphabet.

A shocking amount of Americans are literally not taught the goddamned alphabet.

Children benefit from illustrated alphabet readers like these, which relate each letter to a matching word they already know.

If you don't have the time or opportunity to read these alphabet books to your kid, there are educational videos that function similarly. Just pick out videos that feature words your kid knows, or subjects they enjoy.

Adults often prefer learning something less... condescending. The NATO Phonetic Alphabet is popular.

Once a person has a rough grasp of the letters, it's time for everyone's favourite classic: phonics.

This is the process of sounding out letters, and this is where things tend to go off the rails educationally. But for the sake of it, here's an adult textbook on phonics from the 1800s. The process has not changed hugely since then.

Once a student roughly knows the phonetics of the alphabet, they're ready to START reading, sounding out the letters in words until they "make" the "whole" word and can understand it. This is where "baby books" come in. You may recognize them if you work with very young children. They usually have only a word or short sentence per page, with a matching illustration.

The more difficult of these types of book have a short paragraph per page, and have matching illustrations which feature the information in the paragraph but don't centrally display it. This is to begin discouraging the use of illustration as a shortcut. These books also begin introducing phonemics: word sounds rather than letter sounds. This may mean blending specific letters together, silent letters, words imported from other languages which follow other phonics, etc.

This is also where the current educational system begins to struggle the worst.

In a reasonable system, practice reading books are separated by phonic (letter sound) and phonemic (word sound) difficulty.

However, in the 1990s in the US, this style of difficulty filtering was dropped in favour of a guess-and-check method called cueing. Cueing, when it works, does create readers who lack the "reading accent" created by sounding out words phonetically.

It also does not work for more than half of students.

So, this is where, as individuals, we end up getting caught. Many libraries, especially in schools, had really rigorous phonic difficulty level separation. And now, they don't, because this mess has been going on for so long.

The good news is, it's still taught in Library Science courses as part of the information desk and child librarian curricula, among others. If your library has a librarian ASK THEM ABOUT DECODING/PHONICS DIFFICULTIES. They can direct you to books with good separation of difficulty.

Beginning reader books have:

NO silent letters other than terminal-E.

Few multi-letter sounds (TH, SH, CH), only in well known words (child, the)

Few unusual letters (Q, X, Z) used very obviously (Queen, X-ray, Zebra)

Few unusual phonemes (Gorillas yes, guerillas no).

Short; under 30 pages.

So, if worse comes to worst, you can always pre-read books for your students against these guidelines. Your Dr Seuss books and such go here. For most informal discussions, this is the "elementary school" level of reading skill. It equates roughly to Level 1 Literacy in the PIAAC map.

Middle reading books, aka "chapter books" are for developing fluency, or, the ability to read without consciously processing each individual word.

This is where things fall apart quickly for adult readers, who often immediately jump to them and struggle enough to become angry and give up. These books usually start introducing more complex stuff that didn't exist in the beginning reader books, and combined with greater length, this is probably the hardest leap in the reading process.

At the early end, you'll find books like these

And at the higher end, long childrens' series like Animorphs, thematically ambitious series like His Dark Materials, and linguistically demanding ones like Narnia and the Hobbit.

Giving these books to an adult learner immediately when they are actually fairly difficult is a great way to ensure they never try to read again. Inability to "understand" a "kid book" is demoralizing in the extreme. These series do not "read like kid books" once you have the skills to read them, so they make good suggestions WHEN your students CAN read them.

That's because there books aren't for teaching reading, they're for practicing reading skills that already exist, to build fluency.

Once a student is a fluent reader, the teacher can begin introducing comprehension.

But comprehension (the ability to synthesize information from long or multiple sources) can ONLY exist where ALL the other reading skills arose already.

Basic level comprehension constitutes "middle school" reading skill in most common usage. It roughly equates to Level 2 fluency in the map. It's the ability to answer simple implications like "what was the character feeling" or "if this event hadn't happened, how might the story change?"

An easy and effective way to help adult learners practice comprehension is, fortuitously, VERY accessible.

Fandom. Any book fandom. They function as weird collective book clubs, and encourage critical analysis and interaction with the text. Yes, it's often bad interaction, but it's still good practice.

And Level 3, or "adult" fluency is just a matter of practicing skills and reading more ambitious texts over time. Most texts are more ambitious than children's sci-fi/fantasy, I think we can broadly agree.

Quick question, genuine question:

Why on earth does "more than half of US adults under 30 cannot read above an elementary school level" not strike horror into the heart of everyone who hears it?

Are the implications of it unclear????

I'm serious, people keep reacting with a sort of vague dismissal when I point this out, and I want to know why!

If adults in the US cannot read, then the only information they have access to is TV and video, the spaces with the most egregious and horrific misinformation!

If they cannot read, they cannot escape that misinformation.

This obscene lack of literacy should strike fear into every heart! US TV is notoriously horrific propaganda!

Is that???? Not??? Obvious???????

I know this sounds sarcastic, I know it does, but I'm completely serious here. I do not understand where the disconnect is.