#enforcing

[ghost-mantis]

Truck drivers in Michigan have for years smashed into an undersized bridge called The Big Penny. Normal warning signs have not deterred drivers from wedging dozens of trucks into its hungry maw.

So they put eyes and teeth on the bridge, in part as a further deterrent.

It has not worked…

[draconym]

My favorite person who ever took me to court when I was a law enforcement park ranger was the guy who showed up to the courthouse with his dog dressed in a little bowtie so he could tell the court the full story of how "actually, he rescued me," who then had to explain to the citation hearing board that yes, he did intentionally fart on a park ranger and threaten to run them over with a car in response to being issued a $30 citation for an off-leash dog.

[thebibliosphere]

If there’s one thing that drives me insane it’s learned helplessness. And I know, I know it’s a stress response to trauma and a lot of people aren’t even aware they’re doing it, but unfortunately my childhood trauma is having to be the person who did everything because none of the adults had a handle on their shit, so unfortunately I have a short fuse when it comes to the kind of people who need a longer fuse and, well. You can see the conundrum this puts us in.

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS: 2x04 - “Paint the Town Blue”

[nhaaauyen]

me if i was living in zaun and trying to figure out if it was sevika or the enforcers knocking at my door

[lesbian1toy1slut]

[kovrikkk]

[popuplee]

the thing that drives me sooo crazy about the jinx/isha/cait/vi confrontation is that for vi, it was a lose-lose situation. either caitlyn misses & accidentally hits isha (child witnesses enforcer violence), or caitlyn kills jinx in front of a child who cares for her (child STILL witnesses enforcer violence). Either situation parallels vi’s own past trauma. In that moment, it wasnt about jinx (at least not entirely). It was about vi’s catalyst for violent change about to be recreated and forced upon this child. Caitlyn said she understood how vi felt seeing her parents die, but demonstrated in this moment that she doesnt and literally CANT. caitlyn has never been on the other side or enforcer violence. the child didnt even compute to her—isha was just an obstacle to be avoided, not a person that will carry this experience forever. But vi’s been on the wrong end of a gun. She understood that no matter what, no matter who got hit, if she allowed caitlyn to shoot, vi would be recreating her own trauma. And THATS why she stopped cait

[tiredfoxtf]

"Just breathe... c'mon, we have to get out of here, together this time".

Or yet another au out of my ultra-a-lot aus that I told nothing about because I harbour a hope to write them someday, despite me writing nothing.

[violent-viscera]

my heart honestly breaks for jinx.

all she’s ever wanted is a family and a place to belong without being a burden.

i feel like this shot where she’s with vander, isha, and vi is the most at peace we’ve seen. vi wanted to stay in the peaceful commune together and help people. there was hope for unity and togetherness again.

in this shot, she’s so optimistic that she still can get through to vander even though it’s clear his aura has changed and he’s lost his humanity. he is operating off feral instinct. but jinx steps in front of wounded vi, protecting her sister but still not wanting to hurt her father—whom she finally got back.

and of course her heartbreak when she realizes what will happen to isha.

and this is why i don’t believe powder has died.

her desire for family, belonging, and to be loved has never died.

and as long as she still holds those dreams in her heart, powder is alive.

[senhoraisaart]

✨fantastic✨

[thenationofzaun]

The fact that Piltover and Zaun are sister-cities that were both once united under Zaun, until a catastrophic accident involving explosives separated it into two. And then Zaun sank into darkness and chaos and became infused with Shimmer while Piltover rose out of the muck with the help of rich merchant clans. And Piltover hurt Zaun badly but now Zaun hurt it back and they are going to go to war. The damage is done, and they will probably never reconcile. But they will always be sister-cities. Nothing can erase their entwined history. Nothing can change that they were both once Zaun. They hate each other but they will always be sisters.

[wishfulsketching]

Finally made a "finished version" of this sketch I did three years ago!

Better late than never, I guess

[trans-axolotl]

one of the reasons it's really hard for a lot of intersex people when intersex topics are on the news cycle is because the public's reaction reveals how little anyone knows or cares about intersex people, including people who call themselves our allies. almost every time intersex topics are trending, the discourse surrounding them is filled with misinformation. people who only learned today what the word intersex means jump into conversations and act like an authority. endosex/dyadic/perisex people get tripped up over things that are basically intersex 101, with tons of endosex people incorrectly arguing about the definition of intersex, who "counts," DSD terminology, and so much more. i've seen multiple endosex people say today that they've been "warning intersex people" and that we should have known that transphobia would catch up with us eventually, which is an absolutely absurd thing to say given the fact that consistently over the past ten years, it has often been intersex people sounding the alarm on sex-testing policies and also the fact that many, many intersex people are also trans, and already are facing the impacts of transphobia. there is an absolute failure from the general public to take intersex identity seriously; people seem not even able to fathom that intersex people have a community, history, and our own political resources. instead, endosex people somehow seem to think they're helping by bringing up half-remembered information from their high school biology class which usually isn't even relevant at all.

and this frustrates me so fucking much. not because i want to deny the impacts of transphobic oppression--i'm a trans intersex person, trust me when i say i am intimately aware of transphobia. this frustrates me because there is no way we can achieve collective liberation if our "allies" fail to even engage with basic intersex topics and are seemingly unaware of the many forms of intersex oppression that we are already facing every fucking day. if you are not aware of compulsory dyadism, if you are not aware of interphobia, if you are not aware of the many different ways that intersex people are directly and often violently targeted--how the fuck do you think we're going to dismantle all of these systems of oppression?

if you were truly an intersex ally, you would already KNOW that this is not new, and would not be surprised--interphobia in sports has been going on for decades. you would know that we do have a community, an identity, a history--you would have already read/listened/watched to intersex resources that give you the background information you need for allyship. you would know that although there is a really distinct lack of resources and political education, that intersex people ARE developing a political understanding of ourselves and our oppression--Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr and their framework of compulsory dyadism is one example of how we're theorizing our oppression. It's absolutely fucking wild to me how few people I've seen actually use words like "interphobia" "intersexism" "compulsory dyadism" or "intersex oppression"--endosex people are seemingly incapable of recognizing that there is already an entrenched system of oppression towards intersex people that violently reshapes our bodies, restricts our autonomy, and attempts to eradicate intersex through a variety of medical and legal means.

you cannot treat intersex people like an afterthought. not just because we're meaningful parts of your community and deserving of solidarity, but also because intersex oppression impacts everyone!!! especially trans community--trans people will not be free until intersex people are free, so much of transphobia is shaped by compulsory dyadism, the mythical sex binary, all these ideas of enforced "biological sex" that are just as fake as the gender binary.

it makes me absolutely fucking livid every time this shit happens because it becomes so abundantly clear to me how little the average endosex person knows about intersex issues and also how little the average endosex person cares about changing that. i don't know what to say to get you to care, to get you to change that, but we fucking need it to happen and i, personally, am tired of constantly being grateful when i meet an endosex person who knows the bare minimum. i think we have a right to expect better and to demand that if you're going to call yourself our ally, you actually fucking listen to us when we tell you what that means.

okay for endosex people to reblog.

[giantkillerjack]

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

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plain-text version:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[mollysunder]

All the concept art of young Silco really drives home how thoroughly Vander destroyed him. It's like night and day where young Silco is relaxed, healthy, handsome, and genuinely happy, older Silco is rigid, guarded, scarred, and his condition is actively deteriorating. Even though Vander failed to drown Silco, he really did kill him in every way that mattered.

It's even worse when you think about Silco and Vander through a shipping lens as the concept art and the peacetime au does. When you do, you see Vander committed a horrific act of violence on his partner, and the community took Vander's side years after the fact.