#that’s what the story is ABOUT

[bestworstcase]

i think people who treat summer joining salem as synonymous with ‘summer is BAD and EVIL’ are cowards actually

the central conceit, the essential idea that makes it compelling, is that “she was always the best of us” is true; that summer rose was and is the kind of person who could look into the face of someone she’d been led to believe was a soulless, inhuman monster, the root of all evil in the world, and see a person, and want to help her. that summer rose was and is the true ideal of what a huntress is supposed to be—compassionate, righteous, honorable, merciful, someone who stands to defend those who cannot defend themselves—and that is why she joined salem.

because the divine plan is horrific and once she learned the truth, she could not return home to be complicit in upholding it. she had to do the right thing.

summer rose is not a cautionary tale or a victim or a monster or a tragedy or a fallen hero; she is the answer. how do you stop salem? you help her.

[minileena]

A little story about a zookeeper learning what empathy for nonhumans is - part 1

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“And this is the last stop on your route,” my trainer said as he took me into the final room in the ‘small creatures’ exhibit.

I did a quick scan of the room as I entered, noting the dark gray walls with glass tanks built into them. It was probably about twelve feet wide and thirty feet deep, and that was just the room that the guests could walk in—I counted seven exhibits total, and six were built deep into the walls, three on each side. There was one lone tank on an elevated table in the center of the room. I made mental notes of all of these little tidbits of information. It would all be important, seeing as I would be spending every day cycling through each room on my route now that I worked here.

Being a zookeeper was certainly a more interesting summer job than a cashier at McDonald’s, and I was actually pretty excited, so maybe my enthusiasm was just getting out of hand.

“This is small mammals, right?” I inquired as I inspected each tank.

“Yeah,” Jasper said, following along lazily as I took inventory. “Sorry you’re stuck with the little guys for your first assignment. They don’t let you work with any of the more interesting animals till you’ve been here a while.”

“I’m less disappointed than you think,” I hummed as I searched through the third tank for the sugar gliders. “I kinda like all these lil critters. The scorpion in the ‘creepy crawlies’ room a while back was freaking adorable.”

Jasper cocked an eyebrow at that. “Don’t think I’ve ever met someone who considers scorpions ‘cute’, but I guess this job attracts the few people who do. Either way, though, this is definitely the room where you’re gonna lose that little spark of enthusiasm I see in ya.”

I furrowed my brows and looked back at him. “Huh? Why do you say that?”

He moved forwards and tapped his finger against the glass tank in the center of the room. I immediately winced.

“Isn’t that, like, a huge no-no? Tapping on the glass?”

“Not for this one,” Jasper said with a sigh. “It annoys her, yeah, but she’s fine. Honestly, the little shit deserves it.”

“Fuck you,” a voice called from within the tank.

My eyes widened and my brows furrowed deeper as Jasper flicked the glass again. I left the sugar gliders for now to check out the central exhibit for this room. The tank was odd—it wasn’t just a cube, it had a hole in the middle, like a square donut. You could get into the hole via a gate on the side, presumably in case you wanted to see the inhabitant from the center of the donut and look around at the whole environment.

Speaking of the environment, it was a lot more sparse than the other exhibits. The ground was red stone, with the occasional rock formation peppering the terrain throughout the tank, creating hills and valleys. Aside from that, the tank was the most sparse out of any I had seen in the zoo. There were a few plastic plants here and there, but not much else. A bowl of water made to look like it was chiseled out from a rock sat on one side of the tank, set up next to an indent in the ground filled with cotton. I could only assume the latter was a bed for the 5” tall nude woman curled up within it, arms crossed over her chest and back turned to Jasper as he looked down on her.

“This is the sole inhabitant of our parvinnet exhibit,” Jasper sighed. “Although some people tend to just call ‘em ‘tinies,’ as if using an adjective as a noun makes any sense when they already HAVE a name.”

He glanced down at the parvinnet’s tank and rested an arm atop it. “This is gonna be your most important job here, rookie. All the other exhibits just require basic upkeep, tidying up and feeding the inhabitants and whatnot. For this little thing though? On top of staying on top of maintenance, you gotta keep a VERY close eye on the state of the tank. She’s smart, and she’s nearly escaped before. Check every day for ropes leading through the ceiling, holes dug in corners and covered with foliage… it’s a bit of a pain, but over time we’ve worked on preventing her from doing much. If you’re wondering why the tank looks so empty, this is why. Gotta make sure she doesn’t have any tools to escape with.”

“Oh, and before you ask, yes, I do bite,” the parvinnet said cheerily. “And I fully intend to draw blood if you ever bring your hand anywhere near—“

She was cut off as Jasper slid open the glass lid and reached down, pinching the parvinnet’s ankle between his forefinger and thumb before lifting her in front of his face. Her eyes shot wide open, and from my viewpoint I could see the pitch-black colour that covered each eyeball in its entirety. I tensed at that, all my instincts telling me that what Jasper was doing was wrong, but I didn’t do anything more than stare. We’re… not supposed to handle the creatures like this.

“Forget your place again?” Jasper asked idly as the parvinnet averted her gaze, tense as she hung from his grip.

“…I’m sorry,” she whispered pitifully.

“Uh huh,” Jasper muttered as he roughly set her back down in her bed. She immediately curled back up in a ball. I couldn’t see any tears from my viewpoint, but something told me she was crying.

“She knows you’re new here,” Jasper said, looking back in my direction with a tired smile. “You don’t have to let her talk to you like this. She’s gonna try to, but you’re totally free to get her to stop. Think of it like obedience training for dogs—you gotta make sure you’re the dominant one.”

“M’not a fucking dog,” I heard the parvinnet whisper with a quiver in her voice. She flinched as Jasper flicked the glass again. She stayed silent after that.

“Anyways,” Jasper continued, “my little routine is to get in the middle of the tank through the gate, then poke around every corner to feel for holes she tried to dig in the glass. Move the little plastic plants around, check underneath the water bowl, look under the fluff of her little bed-nest thing… she hasn’t made any moves in a while, but since you’re new she’s probably gonna be a lot more proactive in finding escape routes. After checking around, food goes here and water in the bowl. Empty it out and clean it before refilling it, because sometimes she bathes in there.”

I just nodded, trying to stifle how disturbed I felt about this whole situation. Jasper moved along to the other six exhibits, telling me proper procedure for handling the inhabitants. My vigor was shaken, however, and my mental notes got a little fuzzy as my mind lingered on the woman in the tank behind me.

(A/N: this story is actually written up to part 8 in my lil google doc that you can find in my first post, I can’t be fucked to link it but it’s there somewhere)

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[ered]

Here’s my take on the whole audio books vs. reading:

Oral tradition of storytelling predates written ones by millennias, and honestly, which one you like is just a personal preference.

The actual difference is

when listening, you have no idea how to write characters’ names

when reading, you have no idea how to pronounce characters’ names

hope this helps!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

License to Kitty.

[wasabi-gumdrop]

local ladies man’s signature move totally useless against autistic monster enthusiast. more on Kabru’s fumble era at 6

[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.

[liquidstar]

Yes, Greece still exists, we didn't all die 2000 years ago. Yes, people speak Greek. You people are so fucking stupid for real. So many of you claim to love ancient shit but can't even acknowledge the actual living culture of the people whose mythology and classics you romanticize. You keep leaving annoying comments about how you just forget Greek people still exist, thinking you're being quirky because you love ancient stuff soooo much that you forgot about the people it came from. You think about it so little you don't even realize that an actual Greek person has to read this shit, making it clear how little you actually care about the culture beyond the romanticized (and westernized) mythology. Don't claim you love Greece, don't use our mythology anymore if you can't acknowledge that we're still around without making it about how little you think about us. It's mind boggling that you'd think a Greek person would read this and think you're anything but obnoxious. Explode.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Susie meets the friendly yellow rabbit in FNAF..

[findmeinthefallair]

It can't be overstated how powerful the catharsis is when a scene of a character connecting with their wounded inner child is done right. The key poses...the expressions...the timing...storytelling like this can help to provide some healing for so many people in the audience.

[seshrat]

i've been seeing a lot of californians aghast at the proposition to abolish prisoners being used as slave labour getting voted down and i have no idea how to fix this on a societal scale but after having enough conversations with people you really do start to realise that a massive percentage of the population sees prisoners as subhuman and therefore believes that once someone is in prison for any reason then everything bad that's done to them is simply their just desserts

[camilleflyingrotten]

Part 1/?

[tsuchinokoroyale]

At a party and a guy was telling me about how one of his coworkers was complaining about how he thought his dealer was lacing his heroin with cocaine and then the party guy was like “but his dealer was his brother” and I said “that’s some cocaine and abel shit” and the joke flopped so hard but I stand by it so I had to share it somewhere

[skellydun]

absolutely love reading such a well-written story and falling a bit in love with the author based solely on the way they write. like baby the way you italicize words makes my heartbeat quicken.

[forgettable-au]

PROLOGUE

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 1-9)

AND SO IT BEGINS!

[CONTINUE] [MASTERPOST]

[lgbtlunaverse]

There's a version of the "don't go grocery shopping while hungry" rule specifically for writers where you should never under any circumstances be allowed to touch your draft within 3 hours of reading a really good story. Because sometimes when you read something great your head goes "fuck this is so much better than my stuff I should make that more like THIS instead!" Look at me. That's the devil talking and you should close the document NOW.

[akanemnon]

Shouldn't there be a minotaur in the labyrinth? Who put this goat here? This is not accurate to the mythology! /j

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MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)