#even though I agree with them

[clunelover]

Watching The Americans, one thing I keep thinking about - I really relate to this feeling of "omg I’m raising my kids in such luxury compared to how I grew up, and they have no idea how spoiled they are."

And this is with us trying consciously to not spoil them! But just…idk it seems like kids have so much more stuff now. My kids have SO many stuffed animals and toys, and while I definitely remember my mom being annoyed specifically at my large stuffed animal collection, there’s no way I had this much stuff! But we only really get them stuff for their birthdays and Christmas, we’re not out here like buying random toys just because! And we stick pretty closely to the "four Christmas presents from mom and dad to each kid - something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read." Although we’ve slipped a little, like getting more than one something to wear or read because like, shouldn’t we be able to get them LOTS of books? But this year we’re going back to full on, just four items for each of them - but I’m saying, even when we’ve fudged it a bit, we didn’t get them more than one TOY or "want" item…so where does it all come from?

Idk maybe I’m misremembering how much stuff I really had…also my kids are closer in age than I was with my sisters, so we had relatively little overlap of time when we both wanted stuffed animals or whatever. And they have more aunts/uncle/grandparents in their lives consistently getting them gifts. When I was growing up, my mom was mostly estranged from her family and they didn’t send us stuff, and then on my dad’s side there were so many damn grandkids you could count on one SMALL present from grandma and grandpa (is that right? That still would have been quite a lot of presents even if they were small…but in any case I remember that being pretty strictly regulated lol).

It’s just weird…when I was little, my mom was on welfare, and I definitely remember knowing we didn’t have much compared to other people. But then she married my stepdad and became a realtor, and between both their jobs we had a solidly middle class lifestyle for a while…but then it moved on to real boom and bust when they split up, like she at one point had a big house in the nicest neighborhood in town, plus a little cottage up north, but then they both got foreclosed on. She declared bankruptcy twice, once when I was in 5th grade and once when I was early 20s. That level of up and down. And I always knew WAY too much about her financial situation as a kid, and a lot of her out-loud fantasizing included "when we’re rich"…so there was just an icky level of focus on money (but I’m saying this as someone who is now upper middle class and always has enough money, so it’s comparably easy for me to NOT focus on it).

And then my dad and stepmom also had an unusual setup, where my dad did work until I was in maybe middle school, but then he became too disabled, and they lived on his disability plus whatever money from my wealthy step-grandparents (although my stepmom claims that while they did give generous gifts, like if it was time to get a new car her parents would just buy it for them as a gift, they didn’t give any regular $ to cover day to day expenses…who knows whether that’s really true). In any case, my stepmom almost never had a job, since my sister was born when I was 11 - she was a stay at home mom to my sister, and then she didn’t get a job when my dad stopped working, because my sister was still little, and then even as sister got older my dad needed a lot of care (…but if she didn’t have the safety net of her parents, she would have had to get a job, and they all would have survived!) The point is, from the time I was in like…7th grade? Neither of them had a job at all!

So it’s like I don’t quite have a model for "living modestly and teaching one’s children the ‘value of a dollar’ without getting them all freaked out or overly focused on money."

One thing I intend to get into once my foot is healed and I can move about, is volunteering as a family. We have some friends who do that every week and I think it’s a great idea to try to have the kids focused a little on things other than what they want to acquire.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

License to Kitty.

[marzipanandminutiae]

what's with the weird glorification of smoking that's come back lately

like

I've seen so many posts that paint opposing smoking as some impossibly Loser-ish or puritanical stance and I really don't get it

it makes you, your house, and your clothing stink, destroys your teeth, and gives you lung cancer. opposing it is. Correct. obviously addiction is very complicated and quitting can be hard, but just saying "smoking is gross and harmful as a practice (including vaping)" is True and Right actually

some of you have never grown up hearing about how some beloved family member died a slow, agonized, wasting death of smoking-induced cancer, or watching it firsthand for yourself, and it shows

[mossy-paws]

these fuckass robots that I hate /aff (Ultrakill x PHIGHTING!)

the girls are PHIGHTING! again

[technically-human]

Part two of the reverse verse is here! The reverse boys meet the original boys. They're not really getting along as well as I had hoped...

Again, this was a commission for @i-am-as-normal-as-you-are and they asked for angst/funny vibes... I think it's mostly just angst though. Oh, well...

Part one

[licorishh]

she's everything, he's just ken, etc. etc.

[starscream-is-my-wife]

Sometimes a day makes you want a Starscream to bite and squeeze

[theysangastheyslew]

Hurray for more pre-war shenanigans 🥳

Feels kinda anti-climatic now considering how long I wrestled with this one but oh well! Who has time to learn how animate things anyways? 😆 Now would this have worked better time-wise if LH were talking to Magath and Pieck? Yes, but it’s hard to pass up the opportunity to call Yelena a bitch :)

[front-facing-pokemon]

[90stvqueen]

when i was 11 and first got obsessed with wicked, i had no idea i was shipping these two women. which is insane because i'd already been reading fanfiction for years at that point. but with elphaba and galinda it was "their friendship is so beautiful and meaningful..." and it honestly wasn't until adulthood that i was like "...and also they lez out like crazy"

[deoidesign]

For my birthday... read my webcomic! It's literally free! (Unless you want books. Those are not free)

It's beautiful, it's gentle, it's funny, they're canonically t4t and gay... And it's about time traveling vampires solving supernatural mysteries!

I've spent thousands of hours writing and drawing it, and it's really good! I'm not biased!

It's on hiatus right now and coming back in 2 months, so it's the perfect time to get caught up

[bonefall]

the worst parent poll made me realize just how many ppl in the fandom are willing to jump straight into abuse apologia. bc on one hand you have ppl dumbing down crow's abuse to "him just being mean" and on the other end you have ppl saying that curlfeather didnt abuse frostpaw because she sacrificed herself and frost + her siblings love her so she couldnt possibly be an abuser. truly mindboggling stuff take these serious topics away from the fandom asap.

Part of me feels like it's because many in this fandom have a feeling that if a character's actions are abusive, it means you're "not allowed" to like them. Like there's an impulse where if you liked a character, it MUST mean they weren't THAT bad, because you'd personally never like "an abuser."

As if it reflects poorly on your own morality, as a person, that you connected with An Abuser. Understood them, even. Even if it was just a character.

If it's immoral to Like Abusive Characters, of course your reaction is going to end up being abuse apologia. To enjoy something isn't logical, it's emotional, so you will get defensive about it when questioned. When you do, it's not going to be based on logic because you didn't reason yourself into that position in the first place. It's an attack on you as a person.

I feel like that's often the root of abuse apologia in this fandom, and sometimes the world at large; "If I admit that this character/person IS abusive, it means I was doing something bad by liking them, so I have to prove to everyone else that they weren't or it means I'm bad too."

And to that I say... That's a BAD impulse! Grow up and admit you resonated with a character that did a bad thing! If that's an uncomfortable thought, sit with it!

Sometimes abusers are likeable! They usually DO think they're justified in their actions, or doing it for "a good reason," or were just too preoccupied to care. MOST of the time, people who commit abusive actions are also hurt or traumatized in some way. You might even empathize with them. None of this means their actions have to be excused or downplayed.

"Abusers" aren't a type of goddamn yokai, they're people just like you and me. You don't help victims of abuse by putting the people who hurt us in an "untouchable" category.

In fact, all it does is make you less likely to recognize your own controlling behavior. You're capable of abuse. People you love are capable of it, too. People who love YOU can still hurt you.

In spite of how often people regurgitate "It's Ok To Like A Character As Long As You're Critical Of Their Actions," every day it is proven to me further and further that no one who says it actually understands what that means.

All that said; I think it's no contest which one's a worse parent, imo.

They both mistreated their children, but Curlfeather did it through manipulation without verbal or physical abuse. She politically groomed her into a position of power so that she could use her as a pawn. It can be argued if this counts as child abuse-- but it's firmly still under the broad category childhood maltreatment, which is damaging.

(though anon I'm with you 100% at seeing RED when "but she sacrificed herself" is used as an excuse. Curlfeather's death does NOT CHANGE what she did to Frostpaw in life. I think it's a valid point to bring up when comparing her to another terrible parent for judgement purposes, such as in the context of this poll, but I really hate the implication that redemption deaths "make up" for maltreatment.)

Crowfeather, meanwhile, is textually responsible for putting Breezepaw through verbal AND physical abuse, as well as child neglect. His motivations include embarrassment from a hurt ego, revenge on his ex, and being sad because of a dead girlfriend. This abuse drives Breezepelt towards radicalization in the Dark Forest.

You could argue Curlfeather is a worse person for Reedwhisker's murder, but as a parent? It's not even a question to me. Crowfeather's one of the worst dads in WC.

[drazedoodle]

Lots of silly school drawings

School drawings...

[khuuxu]

Nagi 1000% believes Reo is the most beautiful man in the world 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️💜

[trappedinafantasy37]

We did it guys! Minthara is in the top 100 most mentioned video game characters on Tumblr, sitting comfortably at rank 55!

With Astarion at rank 1 (cause of course), Gale at 5, Shadowheart at 6, Karlach at 8, Lae'zel at 9, Wyll at 12, Halsin at 16, Tav at 19, Gortash at 47, and The Dark Urge at 67. Baldur's Gate 3 is also the most talked about video game on this platform, as well as the 6th most talked about thing on all of Tumblr!

I wish Minthara was higher, but you know what, I'm happy she's on there at all! It is also interesting that she ranks higher than Durge and that Durge is that low on the list. It's also pretty interesting that there is such a discrepancy between Durge and Gortash as Durgetash is also the 67th most talked about ship on the platform. It is quite an achievement that our favorite drow is even on that list at all.

It is all just making me think back to some of the more dejecting AO3 statistics with Minthara almost being a blip, practically a statistical outlier in some ways. Even some insignificant side characters got more attention and adoration than her, or had numbers that would compare to her. But Tumblr is a much bigger platform than AO3, containing a much wider array of topics (including fanfics). So for Baldur's Gate 3 and Minthara to stand out that much is really saying something! Reading these statistics on Tumblr does go to show that one platform does not represent the entire fandom and that AO3 is only a piece of the picture.

[sonknuxadow]

see i do think there have been actual instances of fandom people just deciding two characters are siblings with no real basis and acting like its canon and forcing that interpretation on others and getting mad at people who disagree . but a lot of the characters i see people list as examples of this happening with are just actually stated to or heavily implied to see eachother as siblings by the source material and at that point i think you just dont see adopted siblings as real siblings idk what else to tell you