#sorry that was so long

[fkapple]

What was it like for Emily to grow up with Haley?

Hmmmm. I guess....I imagine it was pretty chill? My head canon is that they're about 5 years apart- enough of a gap that they weren't in school together at the same time and kinda always ran in different crowds doing their own thing.

I don't see them fighting per se, more Haley giving Em attitude and it just rolling off Em's back cause she doesn't take Haley seriously, lol. They probably fight more as adults as they reconnect and try to understand each other...but middle school era Haley most certainly gave a lot of sass to Em for being weird.

If there were any big conflicts, it was from them stealing each others clothes- Em knew Haley would say no on principle while Haley hated admitting she liked something Em had.

From left to right-

Lil Haley and Em- Haley looked up to her and Em loved the role of big sister, hence the cheesin'. She hand sewed the patches on the knees of her jeans, which she was very proud of.

Middle school/high school era- what's more middle school than rolled up cartoon print PJ pants lol. Em found that shirt in the little boy's section and had to have it. I imagine her hair is largely cowlicks and kinda explodes if cut short. She's also still learning sewing/construction so not at the point of wearing her own clothes.

HS/college era- Haley definitely brought lunch to school in a paper bag with a shirtless dude on it and spent a ton of time in the mornings straightening her hair, while Em was contending with unnecessary belts and owls on everything. She understood it aesthetically but still wished there were more exotic options for when you had to put a bird on it......

[deathdetermineslife]

how do you manage to get any followers or friends in the selfshipping community? is it just luck?

for months i’ve been trying to interact with others and follow people, engaging with stuff like ask games and hosting reblog games, but when i try to share any artwork or i reblog an ask game myself, its radio silence. like even in small discords i get ignored so bad

i don’t say this at all to be guilt tripping /gen, it’s genuine curiosity at how this stuff even works. like am i doing something wrong or is the community just like this?

here is my comprehensive and lame guide on How To Get Selfship Followers

step 1 - posting

so a lot of my posts are either kinda general or fun. folks I will not lie to you. these are all stupid shit that come to my mind on a day to day basis. for example, today, I thought, "man I'm such a loser I'm not in college like all my friends r" and then I was like "omg wait. i could make a post out of this" so I did that.

you also kinda gotta be conistent. so i try to post at least *something* everyday. even if its a reblog, tho, I don't reblog a lot of things other than ask games.

another thing with posting is that i do try to make a lot of community based content. so idk if yall remember but in the beginning of my account, I did the "things you can do if you have xyz f/o". i did like,,, I think almost 100 of those ?????? it was a lot. then I started making templates and I made some ask games and ofc I post a lot of general like,,, imagine stuff. oh also polls. people seem to enjoy polls.

step 2 - be positive

this is the big thing. as most of yall (hopefully) know, I do not fw proshippers !! but I don't talk about discourse unless its directly brought up. not only this, I put a big focus on just,,, being nice idk. like id like to think I'm a pretty down to earth person.

if you make a template and people tag you in it, say something nice! reply to peoples art, send in asks, things like that. i try to do my part in being nice. i also just like hearing about peoples selfships.

when people post promos and have the little "rb to be moots", reblog! when you come across someone having a bad day, maybe they made a vent or something, reply with a simple "I hope you feel better <3" or "your f/o loves you <3". things like that, ya know?

step 3 - have fun

genuinely. i post as much as i do because I like it. i didn't go into this thinking "oh... yea... I'm gonna get selfship famous..." like no I just wanna ramble somewhere bc none of my close irls r selfshippers.

you wont get popular or get followers because you grind out posts. literally one of my biggest posts on this account I wrote while I was half asleep one night and wanted to test out queuing on my account.

and in that regard, it is partially luck. i don't control what posts people do and don't like. sometimes I write up imagines and no one sees them. sometimes I write up a post saying "lol go kiss your fake boyfriend ooo smoochie smoochie" and that does numbers

step 4 - interaction

im only in two servers. one server (which was the first public server I think I ever joined ???? i could be wrong tho,,, bad memory blehg) that I don't own and then my own 18+ server. i don't think being in servers does anything,,, considering I'm only in one that isn't mine. i think its more like ,,, sticking to one or two places ?? like just being consistently in an area you're comfortable in.

i guess you gotta just find the right people ??? and like I mentioned, be friendly, but ya know. also I guess tags too? idk if you look at any of my regular posts I have 8 million tags on them. idk if that actually does anything or not because its kinda hit or miss sometimes.

i was gonna say something else but i forgot. see look listen I dunno how I got here but this is what I do ,,,, effectively nothing. also with the being kind thing, maybe this is how I am bc I'm pagan but I think that if you expect kindness back you wont get anything. sometimes its just nice to be nice. eventually you gain a reputation for being a nice person. you kinda have to not want that tho? like I don't see myself as particularly like ,,, super kind ,,,??? i just do what feels right.

step 5 - uhhhh idk im just rambling now

i guess i also went into this kinda like. damn sometimes this community is a cesspool of absolute meanie pants. i don't wanna be a Meanie Pants and just post my thoughts and the things I think about. i guess how I see it too is, I kinda like ? idk I think all these things anyways why not post them? kinda feels like a waste not to.

also ive been told my posts are pretty recognizable bc of how I format them ? my dividers and such. also tagging all of my imagines and stuff with my 🥀📜 emojis. i guess that helps too? because that's how I recognize certain accounts. "like oh there's them I recognize their dividers and their tags".

also you kinda gotta like,,, not let hate get to you. like have fun with it? i know that's hard, but, that's what you gotta do. when I get printer ink (bc. a hoe does NOT like buying printer ink) im printing out that fucking 8 mile long hate message I got sent. but also that's just the kinda person I am. like people being a dick and stealing my posts and telling me to swallow a glock 9mm doesn't upset me, im more like,, confused more than anything because never in my life have I ever sent hate to anyone. also I have had this "I do not care because you're some loser on the internet and you being an ass wipe is no where near as bad as the shit people have done to me irl" attitude.

TLDR; i dont think youre doing anything wrong because I don't exactly know what I'm doing right. i just... do... and sometimes, "just doing" is enough. maybe its luck, maybe I've been blessed by the tumblr algorithm and I've somehow figured it out, or maybe the community is just genuinely that bad and they pick favorites. maybe its all of the above! who knows. i try not to worry about it. i think at the end of the day, as long as you're having fun posting about your f/os and selfshipping, that's what matters.

alright thats all see ya. if you have any more questions feel free to ask however I fear I cannot answer them </3

[mdawgswizzleinthehizzle]

In the spirit of asknado, if you could steal an ítem from a pedro character, what would it be?

i feel so bad because i saw this so long ago and completely forgot to answer. better late than never though because i genuinely appreciate the question. i love interacting with y’all. sooooo… it would probably have to be something from pedro’s joel because i love the original game and i LOVE joel. i have for a long time loved both pedro and the last of us so them coming together is just wow, and pedro as joel no less. like my two major interests colliding, and pedro is killing it. so to answer the question, i’m thinking maybe his jacket. like the iconic brown one that he wears in part 2 and the one that ellie takes. it sounds like an odd choice but i just think that would be so cool to have and to wear. like joel is a comfort character, so having his jacket to wear is like yes. and it’s pedro, c’mon. old joel has my heart.

[ghosts-r-real-i-swear]

Me when I invalidate SA Victims and then proceed to ignore any evidence that the character I like was a bad person. Snape is morally grey, he’s not supposed to be perfect but at least snape stans can admit wrongdoing.

[desi-yearning]

Describe yourself (anti honesty)

Hi! My name is Tabhi.😊🙋 (... Abhi.. Tabhi.. I hope you get it💀)

I'm a Biology student, I love Biology so much.😽 My hobbies include singing and dancing. I'm a great artist, I can draw humans really well.💁 I also love cooking, I can make you all the best dishes!😋

I'm a huge Co-Ho fan, I like reading books with the female leading being a cute Lil baby and the male lead being the baddie daddie.😈 Miscommunication and love triangles are my favourite tropes in all kinds of media.😳 I don't like watching shows at all, but I absolutely love the ones with all the cute hetero tropes, they are just so fun to watch and fill my very hetero heart with so much joy!😇 And oh yeah, I'm the straightest person you can ever meet.✌️💋

[sweethingxo]

Saw you mention before you're not Australian but you live over there, why did you move? For a guy?

nah i didn’t move for a guy, i actually got out of a really abusive relationship and found myself back home in another bad situation and it was i either move away from everyone or 🪦 and so i chose to move lol i had the opportunity to move to germany or aus and aus was the furthest away and i’d been to europe already so i thought hey brand new adventure and now i’m a resident/soon to be citizen here xx

[she-said-hello]

Genuine question, and please forgive me if I word this wrong, I’m so high. Emma says that your body + weight are sexy + beautiful (Everyone else agrees btw)

Would you be scared that you’d be less attractive if you lost weight? * Ik Emma (and everyone else) would still find you beautiful. but I also know sometimes it can be scary to change how you look when you’re complimented on it so much. I AM NOT SAYING YOU NEED TO DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT. I’m just high and thinking philosophically

to be completely honest, i find myself extremely unattractive because of my weight/body. i have been wanting to lose weight for many years now because i'm very unhappy with the way i look and feel in my body. i have always been the biggest of my friends and have NEVER gotten attention, romantic or sexual, before. i most definitely do NOT get "complimented on it so much", i have been criticized and shamed for my weight for many years, and emma is genuinely the first person who has ever shown interest in my body type. she's also the only person i've ever felt even slightly comfortable showing my full body to, and i've continued to get more comfortable as time goes on because i know she genuinely likes my body. however, i don't think she would stop liking me or find me unattractive if i were to lose weight. as for the rest of the world, i think i would be more attractive to others if i lost weight. i think i would personally feel more attractive too. but i'm in therapy for my ED/body image issues and am trying really hard to feel okay about myself as i am. emma has also really helped me with that as well. she does so much to make me feel sexy and i am so grateful for her and the way she talks to me about my body.

[pimento-playing-hopscotch]

THIS. SO MUCH THIS.

ALL OF THIS.

Seriously- like if you want to shave your legs to feel like a slippery dolphin in your sheets, then do it. Go for yours.

But I really cannot stand that people are expected to do this for their partner (and let’s be real, I say people but mainly women).

Like why can’t your man fuck you with a hairy bush?

Like oh baby I love you so much but not unless you’re a smooth hairless baby like a literal child- like what da fuck is this??

I already stopped shaving my legs a couple years ago but a few months ago I stopped shaving under my arms and I have not regretted it.

It’s like bitch I am not here to make you feel comfortable and the fact you care so much about hair on someone else’s body is very concerning.

Shave it if you want to- but only IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT TO.

Less body hair removal PERIOD more bush more happy trails more chest hair arm hair leg hair knuckle hair foot hair back hair ass hair tummy hair facial hair if u want to remove your hair for sensory purposes that's your business but I'm so tired of the human body being expected to be shark smooth we r mammals........🦍

[willinghands]

i think r/BenignExistence is my favorite subreddit 🥲 i love these pleasant little glimpses into strangers' lives

[climbingthefloors]

obsessed with this baby hippo from thailand's khao khew zoo.. she has been so utterly betrayed by the world

[whiteshipnightjar]

Zoozve, my beloved

[winterdaphne2]

I agree with @lololollywrites and have some stuff I want to add!

@loudest-subtext-in-tv explains the difference between the moral philosophy that Sherlock and John share and Mary's actions very well in her M-Theory meta. Sherlock has a very keen and deeply-held sense of justice, and his commitment to justice is what motivates his work as a detective in the first place. (Think about what Mycroft said to John in ASIB. What does Sherlock's decision to become a detective, rather than study science for the pure pursuit of knowledge, tell us about his heart? @asherlockstudy has a great meta on this here.) Sherlock wants to save innocent people from dying or getting hurt, and he cares deeply about bringing people who have done terrible things to justice. But if Sherlock judges someone to have done something unforgivable, he doesn't particularly care if they suffer for it. That's why Sherlock is willing to hurt Jeff Hope the cabbie to get him to reveal Moriarty's name; Hope killed five innocent people, so Sherlock doesn't care about protecting or respecting him. And as @lololollywrites said, Sherlock hates Magnussen because he manipulates innocent people, "because he attacks people who are different and preys on their secrets." (@nyxviola, now @nyxneon, did an awesome meta on why Sherlock hates Magnussen so much here.)

John was an army doctor, so as @loudest-subtext-in-tv points out in her M-Theory meta, Sherlock is drawn to John in part because he probably joined the army for noble reasons and has saving lives as his highest priority, just like Sherlock does. At the end of ASIP, Sherlock specifically points out to Lestrade that John didn't shoot Hope until he was in immediate danger, so John has "strong moral principles." John shot Hope to save Sherlock's life, and Sherlock perceives early on that John's moral code is probably very similar to his own.

Sherlock and John's moral philosophy doesn't always line up with the law and the actions of the British government, and they don't hesitate to work outside the law when they believe that's where justice leads them. This is in keeping with the original Sherlock Holmes and John Watson characters from ACD canon. In the ACD stories, Holmes sometimes decides to let the criminal go if he believes they won't do any more harm and aren't a danger to anyone else, or if he thinks it would be crueler to hand them over to the police. Watson is on board with this.

Even though Sherlock is willing to work outside the law, though, in HLV he doesn't go to Appledore planning to kill Magnussen. Sherlock thought he could get Magnussen for attempted treason and then hand him over to the authorities and have them bring Magnussen to justice. Sherlock only shot Magnussen as a last resort, in an absolutely desperate measure to save John after he realized that killing Magnussen was the only way to prevent John from getting charged with treason and to protect John's future with Mary. Remember how utterly shocked and devastated Sherlock looked when Magnussen said there were no vaults, and Sherlock realized that his original plan had fallen apart!

Mary's actions are very different. As @lololollywrites explained, Mary's decision to shoot Sherlock was a selfish act. She did it to protect herself, not to protect others like John did when he shot Hope and Sherlock did when he shot Magnussen. And we have to pay attention to what Mary said in that very first gif that the original poster used! @loudest-subtext-in-tv highlights this line in her M-Theory post, too! Mary says that Magnussen has stuff on her that would put her in prison for the rest of her life. This implies that Mary killed innocent people in the past. Maybe we could do some mental gymnastics and suppose that Mary was acting like Sherlock and John and only taking out bad people, but then Magnussen later tells us that she was an assassin for hire. So she killed people for money! (Kind of like Jeff Hope??) Not to protect other people like Sherlock and John did.

I also totally agree with @loudest-subtext-in-tv and @lololollywrites that Mary likely worked for Moriarty. Another one of Mary's lines to John in the 221B scene in HLV is important. Mary asks John not to read the memory stick in front of her, "because you won't love me when you've finished, and I don't want to see that happen." I think this heavily implies that Mary was involved in something directly relevant to John and Sherlock during her assassin career, and personally, I think it means she was one of Moriarty's snipers at the pool. (We know she wasn't John's sniper in TRF because we see that guy on screen.)

So yeah, no, Sherlock and John live by a very different moral code from Mary. They care about justice and believe there can be a higher justice than the law, but they generally try to work within the law and have only resorted to killing in desperate situations. They haven't killed for money or personal gain.

Maybe Mary really did want to leave her past as an assassin behind and be Mary Watson. But then she shot Sherlock after he offered to help her. Moreover, @loudest-subtext-in-tv makes some great points in the M-Theory meta about how Mary really doesn't treat John well in HLV after all of this goes down. She never shows remorse for her past or even apologizes to John for lying to him, even though it's clear that she's caused him great pain. I actually really, really liked Mary when TEH and TSOT first aired, and I wanted her to be the strong charismatic female character that the show lacked. But now that I've thought about her character a lot more, I just can't like her. :(

Finally, I have to point out that Sherlock is ultimately the most selfless and caring person on the entire show, and this contrasts him sharply with Mary. Sherlock jumped from the rooftop of Bart's in TRF to protect the three people closest to him in the world, and he did so knowing he was leaving the love of his life behind and without knowing when or if he would see him again. When Sherlock returned to London, he was desperately in love with John, but after John revealed in the train car scene that he wasn't going to leave Mary for Sherlock, Sherlock respected that choice and spent the entirety of S3 doing everything he possibly could to give John the future with Mary that he thought John wanted. Even though it clearly broke his heart to do so. Finally, in HLV, we saw that Sherlock was willing to throw away his whole life and accept a suicide mission to eastern Europe in order to prevent John from going to prison and to give John a safe future with Mary. Sherlock is such a forgiving and selfless person that he was even willing to help Irene Adler after she broke into 221B in ASIB, even after she treated him like shit, and he even forgave her again and saved her from the terrorists in Karachi after she betrayed him and treated him like even worse shit, because Sherlock didn't think she deserved to die for what she'd done.

Mary tells Sherlock at Leinster Gardens that there is nothing in the world that she would not do to keep John. In contrast, Sherlock proves by the end of HLV that he is willing to sacrifice absolutely everything, and to let Mary have John if that's what he believes will keep John safe and give John the future he wants. Ultimately, Sherlock's love for John is a far more selfless kind of love than what Mary demonstrates.

So in the end, Sherlock was a very selfless person, and Mary was not. She killed people for money and shot Sherlock to protect herself and to hide her past from John. There are major differences here, and we shouldn't just wave our hands and say that if we forgive Sherlock and John for killing people, then we should forgive Mary, too. These differences are very important to our understanding of the characters and to our understanding of the narrative of the story more broadly.

Listen carefully to what Mary says: “people like Magnussen should be killed, that’s why there are people like me”.  She’s the type of person who kills people like Magnussen.  And what type of person is Magnussen?  According to Sherlock he is ‘the Napoleon of blackmail’ who runs the Western world from Appledore, using the “greatest respository of sensitive and dangerous information anywhere in the world”.  And as long as Magnussen has that information “the personal freedom of anyone you have ever met is a fantasy”.  He’s not a very nice person, in fact, he’s a pretty nasty guy who turns Sherlock’s stomach.  When Magnussen flicks John’s face at Appledore he tells him “I know who Mary hurt and killed.  I know where to find people who hate her.  I know where they live.  I know their phone numbers.  I could phone them right now and tear your whole life down.”  He could set these people on Mary, and they obviously wouldn’t call the authorities to have her arrested and properly tried in a court of law.  They would hunt her down and kill her.  Probably not very nicely, because they are not-very-nice people.  So Mary may be right, people like Magnussen should be killed; that’s why there are people like her.

Who else has killed someone?

and then justified it as the killing of a not-very-nice person who deserved to die?

Remember that when John shot the cabbie Sherlock was voluntarily taking the pill - he wasn’t being coerced.  This means that John cannot avail himself of the “defense of other” defense to murder (akin to self-defense except that the homicide is committed to defend the life of another person, not yourself).  Sherlock confirms this when he tells John that he wasn’t really going to take the pill (true, John doesn’t believe this, but he does acknowledge that Sherlock was voluntarily risking his life to prove he was clever, because that’s how he gets his ‘kicks’).  John actually committed murder that night and then threw the murder weapon in the Thames.  Nevertheless, we love it when they giggle at the crime scene and then go off to dinner together. 

Also remember that after John shoots the cabbie Sherlock tortures him to force him to reveal Moriarty’s name telling him “you’re dying, but there’s still time to hurt you”.

Finally, remember who actually does kill Magnussen:

So don’t be too judgmental of Mary.  Both John and Sherlock have committed murder to save each other.  I don’t hear anybody criticizing them for doing this - in fact they are praised for doing so.  So why the double-standard when it comes to Mary?  Is it because we don’t know her back-story?  Sherlock has deduced that Mary was an intelligence agent, but he does not know what country she was serving. By her blonde hair I suppose we are to assume she is Russian, but that could be a red herring.  Sherlock trusts her, maybe, because, like him, she is on the ‘side of the angels’, even if she isn’t one herself. 

The fandom shouldn’t complain when John Watson’s wife turns out to be an assassin, because if the fandom likes Sherlock Holmes, and the fandom likes John Watson, then it is, indeed, what the fandom likes.

[thorinds]

1000 Books You May Have Actually Read

[soaked-doors]

happy birthday zoro 🎉🍾

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

[kensatou]

studio trigger understood the assignment. i would let her wreck me.