#in the certainty that it makes sense

[cwicseolfor]

A chance at a future for life, human and other-than-human, to continue to flower on this planet. Please do not stand out of the way of those who would see it end.

[cwicseolfor]

This is why it is so important to implement as much justice and as broad a range of support as possible. Any animal will misbehave under the wrong circumstances, it’s only with humans that we think there’s wisdom in essentially deliberately making them miserable and justifying it on the grounds that only those not suffering enough to snap are worthy.

one of the most important things, perhaps the most important thing I have learned in my life is that nice people can fuck each other up in monstrous ways. people can be bone deep kind and loving and self reflective and still lash out under pressure. people can be earnestly neighbourly and charitable and hospitable and generous and still find themselves in situations where they become selfish. people can be well meaning and easygoing and gregarious and hold deep seated opinions that turn them into vicious little bullies under the right conditions. nobody is just one thing, and nobody stays one way. every person is a kaleidoscope and they will surprise you. you will surprise yourself. it's not a warning and it's not a judgement and it's not an excuse, and it's certainly not a reason to stop trying or to stop trusting. it is just a fact.

[cwicseolfor]

The creators I feel bad for and want to support right now were working for Warner in 1999-2011, who developed an iconic visual style for a fictional wizard school, fabricated setpieces and matte paintings and costumes with love and care, scored the music to create ambiance, poured themselves into styling and executing visual effects...

all of which are now used in propagandizing and funding horrific bigotry, including pushes against human rights in the antisemitism and anti-trans fascist quarters, to equating Scottish independence efforts in a post-Brexit era as equivalent to fictional nazism.

Imagine having gotten your dream job as a creative, living out what most of us could only ever hope to glimpse from the sidelines: working in concert on a major project with some of the best peers of your craft toward something that seemed so innocent and kind and needful ... and ten years later the work of your heart and soul has been turned against your own children. And their classmates are lapping it up.

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[cwicseolfor]

If you have any form of power over your life, you also have the power to push back against people who want to prevent you from using it, and make fucking over other people a much less sure equation for them.

Working remotely, when it is feasible for the worker, reduces total miles commuted, traffic and wear on the roads, carbon and microplastic pollution from the vehicles, general aggravation among commuters, expensive car repairs and fuel, and the absurd waste of office culture/ office theatre - thousands of pages per day being printed for no reason, everyone in every climate on earth dressing in businesswear designed for Northern Europe and having to air condition their spaces to match, the expense and ecological impact of a constant rotation of dry-cleaned workwear. It makes parking less scant and thus, reduces demand, which may mean committing less land to being paved over for empty parking - improving storm water drainage and increasing possible density, meaning you don’t have to travel as far for the same services and amenities, rents can potentially fall as available space increases, you can even potentially start walking or biking when you need to go out because there is space for sidewalks.

But if you can stand your ground when they demand you forget their promise of “the new normal” and insist on remote-first work when that’s better for you, you’re also promoting more equitable workplaces. When the work turned in is how you are judged, we step a little closer to a meritocracy. You’re making upper management assess whether they’re willing to blow up people’s lives - especially women’s lives, since women shoulder an overwhelming burden of family care duties, although Black men have a remarkable/ outlier proportion of the same among men - in order to satisfy arbitrary, outdated asses-in-chairs rules. You’re suggesting maybe the workers ought to have some power in the situation. And casting doubt over whether their next arbitrary piece of worker-hostile theatre is worthwhile.

If you can issue an ultimatum you can safely back up, so much the better.

The value of your talents will be better reciprocated elsewhere.

Video transcript:

Person 1: Did you know that employees are quitting instead of giving up work from home?

Person 2: So, as someone who was not able to work from home–um, I’m in a manufacturing facility, I, that’s not an option for me. I’m in this bitch right now on a Saturday. So, really not an option.

But. I wanna be really clear that we support y'all. The people that can work from home fucking should. Cause it’s better for us too. There’s less traffic, parking’s easier, uh, there’s just, there’s less stress in the whole world which benefits everybody.

People in this plant can work from home. And when they do, I can park outside easier. And I can still get up with them by calling their phones, emailing them or whatever.

This should be normal now. This should be normal. We were told it was the new normal and they tried to take us back. Fuck that shit. Work from if you can and quit if they won’t let you.

[kevinsdsy]

jas i just had a vision you know those celebrity puppy interviews (these ones if you're not familiar) basically they just ask people questions but let them sit and play with puppies while they answer and ALL i'm saying is like. when the erc is trying to stir up hype for the US exy team before the olympics they like. send some of the players to go do puppy interviews i'm thinking like kevin jeremy and jean in one and andrew and neil in another please this is ALL i can think about rn

THIS IS SO CUTEE AHHH I LOVE THE PUPPY INTERVIEWS SO MUCH BECAUSE EVERYONE ALWAYS SEEM SO DISTRACTED (and they’re so real for that because i would be too).

kevin x jeremy x jean doing a puppy interview together is EVERYTHING to me— jeremy goes on a whole rant about how he always wanted a dog, but something would always be in the way of it. by the end of the interview he gets so attached to one of the puppies so he takes the puppy with him to his next interview too (the way tom holland did a few years ago LMAO i think about that moment a lot).

kevin answers all the questions really professionally while keeping a puppy in his lap and at some point he makes place for another one in his lap too.

both jean and kevin keep their composure through the interview though and they’re at least not as distracted as jeremy since jeremy keeps forgetting he’s supposed to be answering questions and jean keeps to have nudging him to get him to focus on the questions.

i imagine andrew going into the interview saying “i’m more of a cat person myself” before they let out the puppies and he’s determined to keep his ‘bored/doesn’t care about interviews’ image up but then he kind of forgets about the camera and he keeps trying to break up a fight between two of the puppies and he’s scolding them and neil just lets him while literally letting a puppy rest on his shoulder and making sure his hand is holding the puppy at all times so they don’t have to witness a scene where the puppy accidentally drops to the floor

and yeahhh i’m just thinking about this really hard now omg you always come into my inbox with my favourite things omg

[helluvahotmess]

'I want you to continue to be who you are.' what if i fucking died what then

[userautumn]

"not all men" but not in a men's rights way, in a "it's important to remember that men aren't the only perpetrators of cruelty, abuse, and evil and that subconsciously or consciously training yourself to view men as inherently evil and everyone else as inherently safe inadvertently puts you in a position where you're both vulnerable to attack or harm from people you otherwise wouldn't suspect, AND causes you to limit the number of allies you might have in a time of need" kind of way.

[hoarding-stories]

Steel: To be honest with you, even if I was certain that this prophecy was correct, my suggestion would be to keep Ame here and have these witches fuckin... you know?

I mean this in the most neutral way possible because what she said makes sense for her as a person and how she operates, but that's why Ame left

[useless19]

Do you think Bowser has hinted at marriage once in awhile randomly or do you think he's chilled out about rushing things finally. Sure he was pretty dead set on marrying the Princess not only from his own interests and political benefits but prehaps abandonment issues caused him to see marriage as mostly a way to insure himself they wont leave him since it a final say writen on papers? (divorce exist but if you got unspoken issues the smaller details are usually ignored)

Honestly I've always been fascinated by peoples take on Bowsers possible attachment or abandonment issues

He absolutely has.

"Or I could just lock you in the dungeon when it's time for you to go back," Bowser said. He laughed when Luigi started to protest. "I know, I know. No kidnapping. It was a joke." -Bowser, in the middle of planning Luigi's kidnapping.

I imagine a lot of the earlier proposals got passed off with a similar 'I'm joking' sort of thing. But because Luigi's still got fairly low self-esteem, he takes Bowser's word when he brushes off Luigi's bemusement with a 'I'm not being serious' or the like whenever Luigi comments on a pretty place and Bowser hints that it might be a good place to have a wedding.

Ultimately, Days!Bowser had a (at his best) distant dad, a mum who died when he was barely old enough to remember her but not young enough to have not remembered her at all, and some relatives who couldn't be around very often for their own safety. And then he only reinforced that by kidnapping people. So yes, he sort of thinks that marriage will make someone stick around (and it did during the main plot!).

(I considered going for a Bowser who lost both his parents at a terribly young age (playing into the fact that some of the Yoshi games refer to him as King Bowser, even though he's a pretty young kid), but a Bowser who has literally never been accountable to anyone is going to be different to the Bowser I was putting together for Day 7/9.)

Anyway, this means it comes as a shock the first time Bowser goes all out on a proposal. Luigi is not a fan of surprises or being the center of attention, and Bowser's not going to half-arse something as important as a proposal. It'll be loud, there'll be a crowd, and Luigi's going to have the frightful time of figuring out how to say 'no' without Bowser assuming that's the end of the relationship. (He doesn't do great).

Luigi escapes the resulting fiery chaos and retreats to his room. He feels awful and has some miserable thoughts on whether or not this relationship is viable if they keep having stuff like this happen. (It's not been that much that often, Luigi's just spiralling here). He gets ready for bed automatically, but doesn't get any sleep.

And trying to figure this out turned into just writing fic... It's first draft, but here you go.

Luigi yelped when his bedroom door slammed open. Bowser stomped in, only to stop short when he noticed Luigi.

"Knock, please," Luigi said.

"You haven't escaped yet?" Bowser said.

Luigi clutched the heavy book he'd been trying to use to send him off to sleep. "Do I have to escape?" he asked carefully.

"Not yet," Bowser said. He began to pace around Luigi's room.

Luigi put the book aside and laced his fingers together. It was hard to even know where to start. How were you supposed to tell your partner that you weren't ready for marriage when they so obviously were?

"I'm sorry I messed things up," Luigi said.

"You should be," Bowser snapped.

Luigi flinched. Bowser stopped pacing and took a deep breath.

"I'm furious," Bowser said on the out breath.

"I'm sorry, I -"

"You said you wouldn't leave without telling me why," Bowser said, looming over Luigi.

"Do you want me to leave?" Luigi asked.

"What? No!"

Luigi patted the bed next to him. Bowser huffed. Instead of sitting next to Luigi on the mattress as Luigi had intended, Bowser slumped to the floor and leant his head on his folded arms on the bed.

"I don't want to leave," Luigi said.

"Then why didn't you say yes?" Bowser asked, a note of hurt in his voice.

"Because I don't want to get married yet," Luigi said. "It's a lot to say yes to. It's a huge decision."

"Figures I managed to bag the one mushroom person afraid of commitment," Bowser grumbled. "What do you think a relationship is except a precursor to marriage?"

Luigi hadn't considered it like that. "I don't know. There's still a lot we haven't talked about with... us and everything it entails."

"The proposal can be a surprise but the engagement shouldn't be," Bowser said.

Luigi blinked in surprise. "Exactly. Where did you hear that?"

"Can't remember." Bowser shrugged, knocking Luigi off balance.

Luigi lifted his hand to put it on Bowser's arm then hesitated. Would his touch even be welcome right now? When he dropped his arm, he caught sight of Bowser's red eye watching him.

"Hate me so much you can't stand the thought of touching me?"

"No." Luigi braced himself. "Do you hate me?"

Bowser closed his eyes. "I asked you to marry me a few hours ago, what do you think?"

"I think a lot of people would hate someone for saying no."

Bowser huffed and reached out to pat Luigi's leg. If he wanted to hurt Luigi, it would have been so easy, but he didn't. Luigi reached forward and threaded his fingers through Bowser's coarse hair. Something he hadn't realised was tense relaxed as Bowser gave a rumble of contentment.

"Was it just a no?" Bowser asked. "Or was it a not now? Because it felt like the former, but you waffled a lot before you got there."

"That's it exactly," Luigi said, relieved beyond measure at finally getting the right words. "I don't want to get married now, but I might change my mind in the future."

The lateness of the hour hit Luigi and he was unable to stifle his yawn. It must have been gone midnight by now. Tomorrow was looking better than it had been, but too little sleep wouldn't help anyone.

"We should probably try to get some sleep," Luigi said, untangling his fingers from Bowser's hair with a pang of disappointment. "Would you stay with me, tonight?" he blurted out before he could wimp out of asking for what he wanted again.

"In here?" Bowser waved at Luigi's quite-big-for-Luigi-but-small-for-Bowser bed.

"If that's okay?"

Bowser crawled onto the bed. There really wasn't much room for Luigi, but he'd spent enough time in too-narrow or too-short beds on adventures that he could probably doze off. Bowser curled his hand around Luigi's body. Luigi put his hand over Bowser's finger.

Heavy, absurdly long breaths were becoming a welcome sound to drift off to. Luigi snuggle down, enjoying the extra warmth a fire-breathing Koopa added.

"How long will it take before you're ready?" Bowser asked in a tone that he'd probably meant to be casual but missed by miles.

How long did it usually take before people were comfortable taking the next step in a relationship like this? Luigi had known people with whirlwind engagements who would have had a kid already on the way at this point, and others who had been together more than five years before they even hinted at marriage.

And it didn't matter how other people did it, Luigi had to figure out what worked for Luigi.

"I don't know," Luigi said. He clutched Bowser's fingers. "If I try to pick a date, then I don't know if I'll be ready by then and the extra anxiety over whether or not I'll be ready by then will probably just make it take longer. And I don't think you'll do very well with a specific date to get your hopes up for."

Bowser grumbled unhappily, but didn't disagree. Luigi rubbed Bowser's claw with his thumb and was relieved when Bowser gave him a gentle squeeze in return.

"I can promise that when I'm ready, you'll be the second person to know," Luigi said.

"After Mario?" Bowser said, disgruntled.

"After me," said Luigi.

Bowser laughed sleepily.

[release-the-sheep]

writing rizzles and look I know. I know it would take a lot to get Jane to read any poetry, probably especially old poetry or romantic poetry, or god forbid old romantic poetry. but listen because

a) Jane is one competitive motherfucker. if I can frame it as competitive, even just theoretically, all bets are off. and

b) there is actually not one single thing Jane Clementine Rizzoli would not do for Maura Dorothea Isles

[cwicseolfor]

Bring back work parties.

This is how humans USED to get everything done, in almost every culture. The idea that we need to become and remain dependent on hired help the moment we have financial access to do so is a classist nightmare. That's not "adulting," it's wealth. Great as a backstop, sure, but not for everyday living.

Painting a bedroom or helping someone move is just modern-day barn-raising. You can call your friends for a jump when your battery dies. You can offer to swap your friend's cellphone battery when it gets to being unusable. You can arrange communal childcare or carpooling. Swap and exchange tools and appliances as needed. And FOOD: not just meal trains when someone dies or has a baby - revive your family's tamaladas and strudel stretches, for the hell of it (yes, I'm from Texas.)

Things can be as good as you make them. And it keeps wealth and skills inside the community instead of trickling up.

“Oh boo hoo you shouldn’t ask your friends for favors we’re all adults”

I just spent three hours pulling up carpet and staples for a friend’s home renovation and we all did nothing but chat and joke and have wonderful conversation the whole time.

Helping somebody move or renovate or giving them a ride to the airport is functionally the same as going mini-golfing or playing a board game: it’s an activity that you do that is made more fun by having good company, and which provides something to talk about when the conversation lulls.

[oh-meow-swirls]

they are approaching.

[thedragonagelesbian]

making dragon age ocs is so dangerous bc they're so easy to spontaneously generate but then you get really sad about this guy you made up like 5 seconds ago..............

[da-janela-lateral]

Thinking a lot about Ghost Reigen AU these days.