#not looking to argue

[okayigetitifuckedup]

I hate the pomegranate poetry trend going around on tiktok right now because every video I see is comparing the way men and women love to the way they eat a pomegranate- saying that men make a mess of them, destroy the fruit, while women carefully peel it and save every piece with delicate fingers that won’t be stained by juice.

I hate it because once again it steals from me the humanity of making a mess of things. I am not gentle simply because I am a woman. I am not a gentle breeze or a soft wave, I am not a carefully peeled pomegranate. Why are men the only ones ever given the grace to be uncouth?

“It’s in their nature!” I hear them cry.

It’s in my nature too! Can it be so evil if that is true?

Why must I be subservient and clean to be loved?

Why is it so wrong to love messily when you’re going to devour all of them either way?

Is it really so wrong to love with so much enthusiasm it hurts?

Either way I will savor every bite, but this is a rare treat, and my hands shake when I am excited.

I know it is a shame the mess I make. I know the stains on my fingers should make me sad, but they only remind me of the experience.

I’m sorry.

I do not mean to be rough.

[hinamie]

post-graduation trip airport looks

[nouverx]

*proceeds to drink the whole bottle*

Yeah Alastor you're gonna be loved and appreciated wether you want it or not :)

[hansoeii]

head empty, no thoughts. just turtleneck crowley

[flurmitcraff]

Mumbo, desperate to feel normal for once, releases dirt on his fellow hermits and asks the community to rank their weirdness.

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Okay 3 things

1. I was thinking about an aroace Sonic who says things that can be taken as wildly flirty/romantic but he just means them genuinely. “You have beautiful eyes, I keep getting distracted while looking at them,” not cause he’s interested romantically in them but because eyes can be really cool and pretty man I dunno what to tell you he likes looking at cool things and he thinks his friends are neat. “You’re the most beautiful person here,” because he really thinks that, he loves his friends

2. Sonic randomly dropping heartfelt genuine comments on his friends out of the blue completely blindsiding them and then moves on like nothing happened while they’re left going ?????? Bonus points if he does something immensely stupid or jerkish just before or immediately afterwards and they can’t tell if he was serious or not with the compliment (yes he was)

3. Sonic usually being so allergic to truly vulnerable moments that when he expresses something heartfelt randomly Tails thinks he’s been stabbed or something and does not believe him when he reassures him that he’s fine he’s fine he’s not dying yeesh

[tinartss]

eternally gagged by their development

[lucabyte]

there's a stranger who sleeps at the foot of your bed

[wishfulsketching]

Benzo, Vander and Silco as kiddossss

[shitpostingkats]

No joke???? Pokemon character with a cane with an actually usable grip handle??? Not just a knob handled cane that would kill your wrists after a few hours??

Like don't get me wrong I love these designs but looking at characters like Agatha and Ortega and then looking at AZ's new design and one of them just feels so much more like a real cane to me.

[seancefemme]

yeah well you want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid

[screambirdscreaming]

Something that peeves me whenever I see another post going around with some variation on "autistic people take things literally which means we are the only people who communicate Clearly and Directly" is that - for any given statement, there is not one singular, agreed on, universal Literal Interpretation. If there was, none of this would be a problem!

The nature of language is that there's always some degree of interpretability. Words have several different meanings, often overlapping, and there's nuance of context, cultural references, and so on.

Faced with a statement, most people will quickly come up with an interpretation that to them makes the most sense. But if you asked a roomful of people to explain in detail their interpretations, everyone's would probably be a little different, even for a pretty simple statement. Regardless of whether those people are autistic! Everyone conceptualizes the world a little differently, and everyone has a unique personal history of all the language they've encountered, and these things effect our interpretations.

In order for communication to be workable, given this slosh in interpretability, there's another couple of processes that go on. As conversation goes on, people reassess if their initial interpretation matches up with additional context. If it doesn't, they revise it, or ask clarifying questions. And on the flipside of this process, the other person in conversation is tracking if your reactions make sense with *their* understanding of what they're trying to convey to you, and offering context or rephrasing things if it seems you're out of alignment.

These processes are social skillsets that are, like most social skillsets, not ever directly articulated or explained. Many people are bad at one or both. Sometimes you encounter someone who is really, notably good at it - the vaunted "good listener", who puts in the effort to really understand what you're trying to say, or that really excellent teacher who engages with you back and forth until you really get it. But a lot of the time, it's a sort of passive social friction - people just not getting each other.

Sometimes, you encounter someone whose brain works so much like yours that talking to them feels almost effortless - you just get each other. But that's a pretty rare occurrence for anyone. More often, as you get to know someone, you start to understand the shape of the way they interpret things and learn to account for it, so over time it's easier to make sense to each other.

It's honestly not uncommon in society for people to aggregate in groups of people who interpret things similarly, and who are thus easier to talk to, rather than actually building the skills of communicating across interpretation gaps. Particularly egregious are those groups of men who talk about Women as an incomprehensible monolith, but it turns up to a greater or lesser degree on a lot of levels.

I suspect this is the root of a lot of parenting problems - people who have never built this communication skillset, and relied on choosing friends who make sense to them without a lot of effort, and who are then totally unprepared to interact with a child who interprets things in ways they don't expect.

Obviously I can't speak to The Universal Typical Experience, not least because it doesn't exist. But in general I would posit that:

Most people, give or take a few assholes, are not trying to say things that are confusing. Most people think they are communicating clearly, because the first interpretation *they* would come up with on hearing one of their own sentences is the correct interpretation.

Many people are not very good at accounting for different ways people could interpret things they're saying. However, it is normal and polite social behavior to be somewhat flexible about this and forgiving of misunderstandings. If people are being shitty to you about not understanding them, they are assholes. And I wouldn't assume that the rest of the communication they have with everyone else they know goes totally smoothly for them.

I suspect there is a bit of an unfortunate feedback loop, where people have bad experiences when someone gets mad at them for not getting something, and learn to hide when they're confused. Which then leads to larger, more complicated misunderstandings, which other different people get upset at them about, because those people think they should have asked for clarification in the first place.

Truly you can't win with everyone. No one can win with everyone. There is no monolith of "neurotypical communication" which resolves all these contradictions - all those people you're lumping in together under "neurotypical" have just as much trouble with each other.

[kenobers]

what would a bat do | jason todd blurb

or jason finds you crying and decides to shoot first and ask questions later. gn!reader a/n: could be read as romantic or platonic

Jason is a lot like Bruce. He does not see this as a positive.

To be fair, "You're acting like Bruce" is the verbal equivalent of hitting below the belt for him and his siblings. Being compared to your parent is a devastating below in any sibling argument, but with their...respectively unique relationships with Bruce, it's downright lethal. Especially for Jason, who still hasn't found complete security with their father.

So, Jason only compares himself to Bruce with blinders on. He does it every time he snaps at someone just to get them off his case. He cringes every time he decides to go off the grid and shut everyone out instead of confronting his feelings. "You're acting like Bruce" echoes in his head as he draws a mental Venn diagram and desperately fills the opposing sides.

The worst is when he catches his reflection glowering back at him; if he had a nickel for every time he mistook it for Bruce sneaking up on him…

He only sees his father in himself when he's angry. When he's so blinded by the nauseating need for vengeance that the line between Hood and Bat start to blur. When all he can see is the mission. When he realizes just how much he’s chosen to isolate himself.

One of the reasons he hides as much of his face as possible is because then no one can tell him he looks just like a bat when he bares his teeth. He wears his emotions on his sleeve instead of leaving it to anyone's guess. He makes absolutely sure that there's no mistaking him for Batman.

All of this to mixed results, of course.

Because despite all of his valid issues with Bruce, deep down Jason knows that Bruce Wayne is still a good man.

And although he doesn’t quite realize it, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to admit that Bruce Wayne raised Jason Todd to be a good man.

Bruce is why Jason always holds the door open for the person behind him. Every time Jason buys a coffee, he pays for the next handful of customers, something he consistently watched Bruce do. Whenever a child talks to him, Jason always crouches to their eye level…that’s Bruce too.

That’s not to give Mr. Wayne too much credit. Jason Todd has had a good heart from the moment he was born. He never needed anyone to tell him to leave the world a better place than he found it. Just because he has an anomalous method of doing so doesn’t make that any less true.

But there are certain things, instincts, that Bruce cemented in his mind. Like knowing when to ask questions first and when to ask them later.

Like when he finds you crying just now.

He’d sent you a text earlier in the day. Something completely unrelated to your well being, something incredibly unimportant actually. Still, your lack of response made him anxious, so he went to check on you. Just to make sure you weren't, like, dead or something.

There's a split second of awkward silence as you both stare at one another. But you hardly have time to wipe your tears and blubber out, "Oh, hey, what's up," before Jason's engulfing you in a bear hug.

That's when you know you don't need to hold it together. That's when you know it's safe to completely fall apart.

Jason doesn't need to ask questions just yet. You don't need him asking questions. You both know he'll get answers, whether from you or his own investigation. For now he'll stay quiet, sans a few whispered comforts. He could try being a man of many words. He’s more than capable of waxing poetics. It’s just that he knows he can come across as mean and abrasive, even when he’s trying to be kind and soft.

Another way he’s like Bruce.

Nevertheless, he’s got two big strong arms that can speak for him. They’ve got you. They’ll protect you from whatever’s got you feeling like this.

One large hand anchors you to him. It holds you steady as your body shakes with sobs. The other cradles your head, every so often moving to pat your back whenever you hiccup.

You can hide your face in his chest. Ride along with the subtle rise and fall of it. Let the gentle sound of his heart beat drown out the sound of your stressors. He doesn’t care about the damp spot you’re leaving on his shirt. He just cares about you.

Jason is a rock, an absolute pillar of a human being. He can stand there for as long as you need. He can support your weight and hold you up if you’re too exhausted to do it yourself.

When you decide that you want to talk about it, then he tries to be all ears. He sits you on the couch and wraps an arm around you as you rest your head on his shoulder. Occasionally, his thumb drifts up to wipe your stray tears away.

He listens as best he can. He definitely would've dealt with your issue differently if he were you. In a different era, he would've let you know exactly what he would do - more likely, he would've just gone and done it for you. But he can recognize that this is probably a healthier way to deal with whatever upset you. And you know what, he can respect that too.

After you've vented until there's nothing left to say, Jason stays with you. It's that nagging voice that tells him that he has to make sure you're really okay, that you're not about to do something stupid as soon as he takes his eyes off you. After all, that's what he would do.

So he puts something on the tv. A show, a movie, a YouTube compilation, video essay - something he knows you like. He doesn't look away from you the entire time. He sits at the ready to catch any stray tears or soothe any sudden bursts of rage.

Until you fall asleep on his shoulder. He sits like that for another few minutes before he finally transfers you to your bed, tucking you in with so much care. The only sound he makes is a sharp gasp when he catches his reflection in your window.

Then he sits some more, still watching you closely. He watches until he's certain you're sound asleep, ignorant to the things that hurt you.

Then he slips out the window without a peep, off to get your justice.

That's exactly what Bruce would do.

[openachannel]

Desperately want a garashir fic that is the inverse of the Our Man Bashir episode. Julian sneaks into Garak's holosuite program thats basically just a medical drama

[sansculottides]

pisses me off to no end when people on reddit or whatever complain that the show wouldve been better off without the tuunbaq.....did we watch the same show? the tuunbaq is everything, it held everything together. the tuunbaq is the main transformative element of the terror. the tuunbaq elevates the text beyond mere historical fact and lets it say something about the expedition's broader context of imperialism. it hunted the british men who were trampling on its home as a mere stopover, a side casualty, to finding the northwest passage (for, you know, "trade with china" after britain beat china into submission after the imperialist opium war). silna couldnt complete a proper ritual with it because of the british men - just as british colonizers have historically intruded and disrupted the practice of indigenous culture. and in the end the tuunbaq dies, after all the injuries it's taken from the british over the course of 10 episodes and finally chokes to death on the worst of them. because there's no escaping the reality of colonial history, and there is especially no fantastical escape for the colonizer. there's no proper way for us to move forward otherwise.

good historical fiction doesnt have to limit itself to accuracy - it needs empathy to draw out meanings in history using literary craft. thats what the tuunbaq means to me.... if you wanted a straight depiction of historical record, just go watch a documentary.. TUUNBAQ DENIERS DNI

[hinamie]

...........slips gege ¥2000