#exactly enough

[absentlyabbie]

sometimes you're just innocently scrolling along down your dash and you read a post and you're just nodding along like "yep, good post"

and then a singular sentence leaps out and catches your throat in its teeth and your breath draws like a knife

because for fuck's sake, that goddamn tumblr post's single goddamn sentence just slapped the realization out of you that, before you had reckoned with how you had been abused and gaslit through your childhood, you used to pre-apologize for what was done to you when you described it to others, so they didn't get the wrong idea and understood,

"i was a difficult child" and that means it was, of course, at foundation your fault

you just never could make it easy to like you, you see, you were such a handful, such a problem child, so hard to tolerate without caveat, so hard to love because of the conditions you failed to meet

and you used to believe that, for so long you believed that, that you, unlike better children, were like playing parenting on nightmare mode

if only you hadn't been so stubborn if only you had just obeyed and not questioned if only you never argued or talked back if only you weren't such a liar, always such a liar

you believed it all, and because the ones meant to shelter and guard and hold you repeated these things so many times for so many years and with such vehemence... it had to be true

and it might just be the most cruel thing that was done to you

[problemnyatic]

While we're on the subject of swinging our fists at God

The ACLU is gonna take action against Mastercard for their anti-porn schtick! Y'know, one of the major reasons the internet turned to shit in the last ten years? It's literally like 95% of the way there, we just need a few more signatures and the petition Gets There. You have to be USAmerican to sign, but there's enough of us here to fill in the last few signatures needed several times over, so go on over and throw your name on there!!

[10001gecs]

i think there’s something to be said about how the gig economy makes things ostensibly more convenient but also worse. and not just like, doordash guys take too long to get to you so your food is cold. but because the business model is centered around a million people doing work without any familiarity with what theyre doing and decentralized from the businesses they’re working with, you get service that’s being reinvented from scratch every time it’s purchased.

it happens all the time that I’ll order an uber and when they pick me up, they’ll just stop in the middle of the street with their hazards on, making me dodge traffic to get to them and pissing off the cars around them. and then I’ll get in the car and chat with the driver and find out they’re actually from two counties over and they’ve never driven here before, so they don’t know where parking is or whether they’re heading to a wide open parking lot or a busy downtown. and then you start to realize that they’re not being a dick, they’re just given as little information as possible every time they pick up a ride so they have to just guess how and where to pick up a passenger. and since they’re paid by ride, they’re incentivized to pick you up as fast as possible. and all the people who cared about finding a safe place to pick you up quit the app or stopped doing that so all you’re left with is the pissed off cockroach motherfuckers.

and then you see that this happens with every fucking app. doordash sucks because you pay 8 million dollars for delivery and you still have to hike half a mile to find the guy because he got lost in your apartment complex. Instacart sucks because the guy picking your groceries couldn’t care less about getting ripe fruit and replaces your heavy cream with shaving cream. customer support for all this sucks because the guy helping you can’t do anything more than offer you $5 credit, beg for your forgiveness, and hope you get out of the queue fast enough for him to go to the bathroom. because all of them aren’t given enough time to do a good job or enough money to care.

and every time a gig worker makes the experience suck for you, it’s a rational decision. they’re evaluating the money they’re being paid and if it’s worth getting paid less to do a good job, and correctly deciding that it isn’t. so you can’t even get mad, because you’d do it too. and so the company manages to pass on its race to the bottom to its lowest-paid employees.

[marisatomay]

just saw someone call barbie movie an independent film. and. girls. what are we doing here. a $100mil movie, from warner brothers, about one of the most famous toys in the world, produced by the makers of that toy, is not an independent film. come on. you can be excited for it without treating it like some low budget arthouse underdog.

[ryllen]

[ x ]

[officiallydoubtful]

Y’know those evil personas that Youtubers had back in like 2017 or so? I love the idea of those. I think we should bring back using opposite names as like our 'evil persona'. I'll go first, hello everyone, my name is InformallyCertain! Awful to meet you, now I'm off to kick a puppy, or whatever it is evil people do!!

[zelkams-art]

you need not suffer anymore

[bisexual-steveharrington]

ask Neil the colour of Andrew's eyes and he could go on for hours using metaphors and adjectives and the exact pantone colour code

but ask him the colour of Aaron's eyes and he's just like idfk shit brown?

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

My Great Grandma who loved her babies very much

Reference that I used for the face!

[yesokayiknow]

they try, honestly they do, but the doctor isn't a stationary creature and never has been, especially not when they know there's something they could help with. which is to say, it takes a week of soft quiet life before he starts begging kate for a job. kate in turn withstands three weeks of the doctor's incessant begging and big puppy dog eyes while donna noble stands right behind him and mouths don't you fucking dare before she makes a counteroffer: he can work in a lab (the 'very far away from active duty' is implied) as long as he meets with unit's therapist.

and he refuses, of course, loudly and profusely, right up until donna very gently but very firmly tells him that it really could help, actually.

so. therapy. the doctor assumes it won't do anything. the unit therapist is no nonsense and unflinching and very very bright, and twenty minutes later the doctor sits outside the room hyperventilating while kate finishes paperwork and kindly doesn't mention the way he's all but curled into her.

the second session ends much like the first, and the third, and then the fourth he walks out with dry eyes and a tremulous smile. the fifth, kate calls donna and she takes him home and they drink hot chocolate and he doesn't start talking again until the next day. it takes him seven sessions to be able to stay in the room for the full hour; kate pats him on the back and then finally allows him to build a shield for her office as a reward. she sits outside the therapist's office every time he has a session, even though she has to have better things to do. they don't talk about it.

unit only has files on things the doctor's done on earth, and even then, only sometimes, which means that when the doctor talks about some things he just. edits, a little. talks about two weeks in a confession dial and a month in prison, because maybe then he doesn't have to think about the enormity of it all. and every single time he does this, the therapist looks at him and very kindly calls bullshit. it's weird, being known. it's different with donna. he is donna and donna is him, in ways they will probably never talk about. but he sits in that cluttered little office for an hour a week (sometimes two or three times, if he's doing particularly badly) and he feels seen.

after four months, there are memories he can touch without flinching, and people he can talk about without crying. he starts spending a couple of hours just sitting in the vortex, not because he's hiding or running but just because he likes the way it feels against his skin. he cooks dinner every other night and washes up when he doesn't. he takes out the bin every week even though it's rose's job, because he loves her. and he can say that now, and he doesn't think about her short lifespan or about all the other people they've loved and lost. he can say that and just mean it.

part of his contract is an agreement to never offer a trip to a member of unit unless it's actual life or death (the small chemical leak in the lab doesn't count; he takes shirley to new mars anyway) but he finds himself toying with the idea of asking for a session in the tardis. just once, just to see. the therapist looks at him and sees him and it is monstrous and they keep looking anyway and now the doctor can sit through a family dinner without wanting to tear his skin off and he doesn't know any other way to say thank you.

it's funny, almost, how quickly he grows attached to this person who picks through his hurts and rifles through his traumas and holds direct eye contact while doing so. the doctor talks about their deaths and their crimes and their cowardice and the therapist nods and asks him how he feels and it's. it's terrifying. it's beautiful. it's the worst thing he's ever ever been through, and the best. he feels ripped apart and put back together in a way that few people have ever been able to— huh.

after his sixty eighth session (he's unable to not keep count) the doctor walks outside to where kate is annotating a schematic and says, thoughtfully, they're the master in disguise, aren't they. and kate says oh 100% and please don't let them know that you know because they will definitely go to the second stage of whatever long con they've been hatching and they're too good at this for us to let them go

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[fairandfatalasfair]

I've seen a few fics where Charles is dyslexic, and while I'm not wedded to it, I do kind of like that headcanon.

In which case, I do think that Edwin has noticed on some subconscious level that if he describes his books to Charles by shape, colour, and location, rather than just title, that Charles is more likely to hand him the right book.

But I do not think that Edwin is likely to be consciously aware that Charles is dyslexic, or indeed of what dyslexia is, nor do I think Charles knows. I think if you asked Edwin he would say that Charles is brilliant and therefor is refusing to learn to read Aramaic out of pure stubbornness, and if you asked Charles he would say he's just not great with reading and that's what he has Edwin for.

[autisticjoshrusso]

one quick thing i need to put out there uh as funny as it is to be like "omg the Glee namedrop bc he produced both shows" or whatever i DO need to inform you that pre-Glee/post-Glee era IS an actual academic discussion point. that is a genuine unit of cultural measurement and had been long before this. that piece of dialogue was not pulled out of nowhere it was pulled directly out of existing queer discourse.

[mushroom-through-the-stargate]

romantic partner? no, i want a lab partner. i want to run experiments and solve the secrets of the universe together. maybe we're wearing lab coats. maybe the cafeteria has bagels.

[spacerockband]

Legend tells of the carp that leapt over the Dragon Gate at the crest of a river and became a stand up comedian.

[dreamerdrop]

I don’t talk about my love for Kira Nerys too often because. Look. I think if DS9 handles anything well, it’s Kira, hands down.

Her character development is a work of art. She is so traumatised, so angry, so beaten down and STILL FIGHTING at the start. She struggles so much with her PTSD, with the idea that she is ever allowed to be in anything but attack mode…

And then, slowly, gradually, she becomes a whole new person. She laughs, she smiles, she makes corny jokes, she does dumb fun things for the sake of enjoying herself. She has friends, she has a family, she is surrounded by love and joy and HOPE.

Even in the middle of second war, she’s DIFFERENT now. She’s not the same miserable angry person she was, afraid to let go of the vigilant surivival instincts that kept her alive for so long. She’s come back to life as a person who has something to live for.

She has done terrible things. Her hands are stained with blood. She is never going to be able to forget her trauma or the suffering, both her own and that of her people, nor the suffering she inflicted while fighting for her freedom. But she recovers. She heals. She carves out an existence where she is truly, genuinely happy to be alive.

I don’t need to talk about Kira as much as some other characters because this all happens on screen. It’s right there, and it’s beautiful and perfect.

Kira Nerys goes from a person who cannot conceive of herself outside of the horrors she has suffered, inflicted, and fought against, to someone for whom her trauma is just one part of the larger picture, a piece of a rich and vibrant tapestry that is now filled, overwhelmingly, with joy.

Kira Nerys is like, hands down, bar none, one of, if not THE best characters Star Trek has ever created. I love her so much. She is just, completely and utterly perfect, especially in her flaws.