#except being home

[nabsthevulture]

Man I'm just not okay anymore and I don't know what to do about it

[inkskinned]

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

[xx-sketchy-xx]

It was the cutest dream I’ve ever had.

Wally, except baby size, and he hung out with me all day

andthentheworldsortastartedfallingapartbutthatsok

[spindlewoed]

Look, listen. The smoker on the balcony is obsessed with beauty and the fine arts while Cindy the skull is a contemporary artist all about activism and I need them to interact so badly because they would have THEE most heated art debate of the century. Cindy would eat him alive but that's not the point their back and forth would be legendary you don't even know. Lesbian on gay man violence.

[turtleblogatlast]

Every day I’m haunted by the fact the boys happily swim in sewer water

Even if it’s filtered somehow there’s no way it’s not still nasty 😭 Bet they can defeat any of their villains just by accidentally giving them diseases I swear

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt in Memes 6

Let's make it some in-world memes this time :)

[icaruspendragon]

thoughts on romanticizing mundanity and making kindness defiant:

[naamahdarling]

Labor, on its own, has no inherent value. The willingness or ability to labor does not translate to virtue. It can confer financial value, since everyone should be compensated for their labor, but it absolutely does not have inherent moral value.

Disabled people are not obligated to perform for you. They are not required, morally, to break themselves in order to earn some sort of personal value and prove their "worth" to society. They do not need to exhaust every possible means of survival to warrant aid, or spend the entirety of their existence pursuing the same amount of production as others even though it takes everything they have and leaves no room for anything else. They are not obligated to push their limits.

If that pisses you off because YOU have to work to the limit, or beyond, your problem is that you are not being paid enough or you are being asked to do the work of more than one person. Not that disabled people get help for "nothing".

You deserve better, too, you lovable dingus! Every single thing that benefits disabled people will benefit you and the ones you love, either immediately, or eventually. All of it!

[yuwuta]

gojo would kill your work husband. but if he were the work husband, that's a different story

REAL!! he’s such a hypocrite because if someone mentioned you had a work husband, his entire world would stop and he wold devise the absolute worst plans to make sure that your co-worker, everyone at your job, and everyone in the next building over knew that he was happily committed to you 

but if he is the work husband, he’s very........ dutiful in his role. there’s a loose office/lawyer au in my head where satoru is your secretary, and for all intents and purposes, your personal assistant, and he’s good at his job, but mostly because he considers his job to be pleasing you. he has coffee for you when you arrive, he moves your schedule around without you asking, he has answers to questions before you can even ask them, he has fresh flowers on your desk weekly, pokes into your meetings to pretend to hand you a file that’s really just maybe a single document in a manilla folder with candy on top of it—he’s made himself your business, your partner; he’s made himself irreplaceable, and he loves to remind everybody of that fact. 

he’s also extremely loyal. sure, he could day a week’s worth of work done in about a day, but that doesn’t mean he’ll just use his talents for anybody. he’s your secretary, so he’s at your beck and call, and everyone knows it. they know he’s the best, but also that he’s off limits—not because you won’t share him, but because satoru won’t let himself be shared. 

he also extends his duties beyond work, of course. when he hands you a print out of your schedule for the day and you’re confused by the three-hour block of time you have in the middle of the day, satoru just helps you shrug your coat of your shoulders and smiles, “that’s for the lunch date you have with me, of course!” hanging up your coat in your closet for you, “i’m paying, see you soon, sweets.” and because you’re great at your job, and satoru helps you be great, nobody really questions when the two of you have time for a 13-course tasting menu at 1pm on a tuesday afternoon. and if they did, all satoru would say that you two had a lovely date 

[pain-is-too-tired]

We were robbed of any mentions of Michael or Lee in Toa.

I know Apollo was struggling with memory issues, but I refuse to believe he didn't at least once think about all the kids he lost in the Titan War

He gave Michael the arrows!!! He interacted at least once to do so!!! We could've gotten so much cool angst from it.

But of course most of the focus was on his failed love lifes.

Which sucks, because one the biggest other times he was turned mortal was because he snapped after the death of his son. One son!!!

I think his grief over his other kids should've been bigger part of his character. Especially with not only human emotions, but teenage human emotions.

Like, iirc he says something about feeling sorry about helping kill Achilles? Which??? No! He killed your son!! Maybe even two of your sons!!(i believe at least Tenes is canonically his son in pjo, I'm not sure if pjoverse counts Troilus being son of Apollo or just Priam-) you should not feel bad!! Especially if him killing Troilus in your temple is the version that actually occurred in pjo. I'd stick to my choices on that one. If Achilles didn't want to die maybe don't assault and behead a god's son IN HIS TEMPLE. Not just that, but the god that you seen absolutely wreck an whole army over the daughter of one of his priests. How you think he'd react over his son(s)???

Anyway. Apollo being absolutely protective over his kids and Meg even more so cause of his emotions. Him struggling with grief over his kids. Maybe him remembering hearing their last prayers and hymns. Maybe those haunting him at night just-

Apollo grieving all over again over his lost children. Thinking about them, their mortal parents, what ever he could recall of them.

[bookwyrminspiration]

"we call these trees the Pures because their leaves filter the air" all trees filter the air dipshit it came free with its fucking being a tree

[butmakeitgayblog]

✨Dreamy sigh✨

[inkskinned]

im having a particularly terrible night with urges and imagery that i dont know how to handle. i gave in to some things. held back on some others. but im barely holding on, dear internet stranger.

you do not owe me your time or your words.. but if you could write some hope into existence for me.. i would be unendingly grateful to you.

please. tell me how you do it. tell me how you survive. because im not so sure i can get through the fifteen days it'll take to get to my seventeenth birthday.

could you please give me something to place my faith in? i dont think the universe is watching out for me anymore.

i don't usually answer these, because i am not a professional, and you deserve professional help. when i was 17 i was terrified of the idea of professional help, because my household was extremely unsafe, and made it clear that if i ever chose to get help, i would be punished for it.

i hope this is not your case. i hope that you can call someone, and they can take you where you should go.

but i will give you the advice that i wish i got, when i couldn't get help at 17, when i was so bad that years later, i literally don't-know-how-i-survived it: what you want is peace, not death. your brain is sick. it has romanticized an ending where there are no consequences. where effort isn't necessary. where you can just... forget.

you want peace. that is a normal, human thing to want. maybe it feels more like you want quiet. or just... to take a break for a second.

here is what i will say: to end yourself means you never get to experience what it's like to actually be happy. i thought i knew what it was like, and i was bitter about it. i'd say - i've been happy, it's not worth it, because i didn't know what i was missing. i thought that happiness meant having a partner or having a job or money or a college degree. it sounded like effort. it sounded like something that had to happen to me.

for the first time in my life, just this week, i was able to go to a concert and just-enjoy-it. no liquor, no drugs. just stomping my feet and getting caught up in it. i didn't feel nervous or self-conscious or overwhelmed. i just had a good time. these days have a lot of these firsts for me - it is the first time i can eat cake without crying. it is the first time i can be around an exacto blade without supervision. it is the first time i have too many people to call when i am crying.

i can't tell you where you'll run into happiness, only that, for me, it started once i was out of that fucking house. it started once i figured out where the pain was coming from. once i figured out that i was not possessed, something medical was wrong with me. that i am not stupid or lazy, i have depression and adhd. the first few years were difficult. at 19, during my efforts to recover, i actually got worse by a considerable margin. and then, with time and patience - i got better.

happiness doesn't feel like what you think it will. in movies it's so golden and all-encompassing. but it doesn't fly into your hands when you buy your first car nor does it arrive in the arms of a partner nor does it require passing your classes. happiness came to me on a tuesday in the form of a red-winged blackbird, and i looked at her, and she looked at me, and i said - oh. the whole world suddenly filled itself in with color. like i had been forever-asleep. like every corner of every room was suddenly glistening.

it ended quickly, back then. it just stopped in to check in on me. but it was enough - this thing i had never experienced, but that i knew (logically) could happen. before that, i was only staying because it would make my mom sad if i died. that was my only reason. and then the happiness came, so strange and brilliant and lovely that for years i couldn't even look at it directly.

these days, things are so different. life is so much easier. i don't wish for death because so much of what i have is already at peace. my boss understands when i need a mental health day. people in general are less prone to high school drama. entire communities hold my hand and have my number. i have a car and a dog and a little apartment garden and candles on all available surfaces and today i bought myself a little cake just-to-celebrate-nothing. my body is my own and we are both dancing.

there are so many things i've gotten to taste in the last 10 years. i know, for you, that is an eon, because it's more than half of your life. but if it helps? in the 5 years between 17-21: i filled myself with laughter and love. i got to be a lead in a ballet and got my first tattoo and then my second and pierced my ears the way i'd wanted to (one of them professionally the other over a hot stove with a potato) and i discovered hozier is my favorite singer (i know. he was new back then) and i got my first real job and my first real paycheck and i hadn't ever been seen as smart but then i started to actually treat my adhd as a condition rather than a burden and people started saying you're like the smartest person in the room and my best friend met her husband who i will one day stand next to as maid of honor when he is her groom and i got to help people and make a stupid blog called "inkskinned" and find out that writing is actually my passion and that maybe i'm actually kind of good at it if i just practice and i got to meet my parents' dog (his name is kaiju) and i slept on couches and kissed people and tried new things and learned how to breathe without feeling my chest tighten and that peace is here, on this planet, that peace echoes everywhere, it is in my hair and my homework and my houseplants, it is quiet and divine and mine because i fought for it and i built it and yes i lost hair over it but holy shit the whole world feels like it is shifted through a sunbeam

recently someone asked me if i could go back in time to 6th grade, with all the knowledge i have now, would i? and without thinking, i barked absolutely not. i know i should say it's because i wouldn't want to risk losing any of this stuff - but really it's because i would never survive being a teenager again. it sounds incredibly lame and impossible, fake - but being a teenager was the hardest thing i ever did. i had no voice, no control, only fear and hatred.

but i did survive it. nothing about me is special. nothing about me is stronger than you or better prepared or more efficient. i didn't survive it perfectly. i made a lot of mistakes and lost a lot of friends and harmed myself in ways that i'm still recovering from. but i did survive it. and there is a part of me looking at you in the past and saying - i'm you in the future.

and holy shit. every day. every goddamn day i'm glad we survived to see the rest of it. because you hit 18 and everything changes. like, everything. and holy shit, it is infinitely worth it.

[shannonsketches]

Why is the anime so weird, it's not even the same series dude?? It's like,

Anime:

GOKU: I have a great idea to bring peace to the universe, and my leadership and compassion alone will unite us all. I have No Flaws and am A True Relatable Everyman :)

VEGETA: NO! I AM THE BEST AND I WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS UNTIL I AM RECOGNIZED AS SUCH!!!!

Manga:

GOKU: Vegeta what's cornmeal made of? I know it's what the corn eats, but what's it made of? VEGETA: Hey Kakarot let's play the quiet game until one of us dies.

[marzipanandminutiae]

still not over the absolutely braindead take that "if you say brutalism looks dystopian, you care more about your aesthetic than people having homes!!!!"

like

can't criticize Shein or you must want their workers to be unemployed

oh you don't like that restaurant? guess you want the people eating there to STARVE

fuck both roses AND bread; nutrient-dense gray EnergyCubes would keep you alive so wishing for a better sensory experience is basically capitalist bootlicking

(I agree that considering Soviet-era brutalist apartment buildings in the context of "shit we need housing; put something up quick" is important for those specific structures- though I think that can coexist with "wow that's ugly" -but. this person did not stop there)

[brainrotcharacters]

the next thing they'll be involved with, Logan will be drinking and gets told by a non-Wade "I'm here to save you from Deadpool" or some funny shit like that. Toss in a mention about incursions or Wade's 'higher purpose' having no place for Logan. Watch Logan laugh.