#this is either going to get zero traction

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddieholidaydrabbles.

Hell Has Officially Frozen Over

Prompt Day 9: Icy Roads | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: T | CW: Language | Tags: Post S4, Eddie Munson Lives, Future Fic, Reconnecting in Your Hometown, Old Friends, Pre-Steddie

It's bad. It's really, really bad.

Eddie white-knuckles the steering wheel of his pickup truck wondering if he's ever gonna make it to Hawkins as he barely crawls along. Not only is it nearly impossible to see, but the roads are slicker than shit already. It's like this snuck up on them, and the state didn't even have time to salt the roads.

He should have left an hour earlier.

Hell, he should have left a day earlier.

It's heading towards being a whiteout. Which is pretty fucking gorgeous, honestly, but not when he's having to drive in these blizzard-like conditions.

Easing down the highway, not another car in sight, he thinks his eyes are playing tricks on him. A slight glow, off to the left.

As he approaches, he's pretty fucking certain that he's seeing the faint glimmer of taillights off in the ditch. A car probably missed that little curve, and slid off in the ditch.

Fuck.

He should stop. But he isn't exactly sure how or where he might be able to do that safely.

Fuck it.

He hasn't seen anyone else out in miles, so he stops in the middle of the two-lane highway. He'll check real quick, see if there actually is anything, or if it's just his eyes deceiving him after all this white.

He turns on his flashers, but he's not sure that'll help anyone see him in this near zero visibility. 

Eddie pulls out his Maglite, and is thankful Wayne was always so adamant that he carried one.

He's pretty sure there is a car. Something covered in white, and lodged into the snowbank.

"Hey! Anybody in there!" Eddie hollers. 

He stops to listen, and he doesn't hear anything — then. A dull pounding. 

"Goddamnit," Eddie mutters, but slides down the ditch, and once he gets closer, he hears the pounding again. Hand against glass. 

The passenger window is covered in snow, and Eddie starts brushing it away as fast as he can. It's fucking freezing, even through his gloves.

He gets the window cleared, and a face appears.

"Eddie?!"

It's Steve Harrington. 

Shit.

Eddie leans down to get a closer look.

"You okay?" Eddie asks through the window and Steve nods.

"I'm stuck. I can't open either door, or the windows!"

"Want me to break in?" Eddie hollers, and Steve nods. 

Eddie moves to the back window of the car, and yells back, "Cover your eyes!"

Steve leans forward, and Eddie bangs the butt of his metal flashlight against the window. It doesn't give. Fuck. Apparently it's gonna take more power than that. 

He rears back and gives a really good whack this time, then another, harder, near the corner, shattering the glass into the car. 

"Hey! Still okay?" Eddie asks, brushing glass from the window sill with his flashlight. It's safety glass, and not sharp, but he can't imagine crawling out over it would be a whole lot of fun, still.

The soft glow of the lights Eddie could see goes out, and then Steve's head pops back into view as he crawls over the console of the car, and into the backseat.

"I'm good, I think. Just thought I might freeze to death before I was able to get myself out."

Eddie holds out his hands, and offers Steve help as he tries to slide out of the now broken window. It's a tighter fit than seems comfortable with his heavy winter coat on, but together they pull him out. 

"Sorry about the window."

"No, no. Thanks for stopping. I figured I was stuck until INDOT came out tomorrow."

They climb up the ditch and towards Eddie's pickup, to see if they can find something to at least cover the broken window.

After, Eddie can't get the traction to get going again. He looks around. He does have some gifts for Wayne, and unwraps one, dumping the contents in the seat, then with his pocket knife, cuts the box into four pieces, one for each tire.

It's enough. He's able to get them edging forward again.

Five miles to Hawkins.

But it seems like five-hundred at this rate.

"What were you doing out here?" Steve asks.

"I could ask you the same thing, Harrington?" Eddie banters back, and Steve laughs.

"Coming home from the airport-"

"That was a rental? Oh shit."

Steve laughs, but continues, "I promised I'd do Christmas at home this year," Steve admits.

"Oh, so this blizzard is your fault."

"Huh?" Steve questions, confused.

"Hell has officially frozen over," Eddie teases.

And Steve laughs. Eddie has missed him. It's been too long since any of them have gotten together. Once out of Hawkins, it's been really hard to return.

"Something like that," Steve says, but he's smiling at Eddie, "What brings you home?"

"Wayne," Eddie says. Wayne's the only reason he'll step foot into this town these days. 

There are no other cars on the road. They're the only dummies out and about in this shitshow.

When they pull up in front of the Harrington house, Eddie turns to look at him.

"Thanks for rescuing me," Steve says, meeting his eyes in the dark.

"Hey, I definitely owed you one. You rescued me first."

Steve reaches over and squeezes Eddie's hand, "You didn't owe me anything. It's been good to see you, man. You look good."

Eddie flips his hand over so he can squeeze back, "If the parents get too stifling, come to Wayne's," Eddie offers.

"Expect me. How long you here?" Steve asks.

"A week, you?"

"Same."

"Let's definitely catch up," Eddie offers, and Steve's nodding, hard. 

"Yeah, let's do that. You and me."

"The Hideout," Eddie laughs.

Steve grins, "All the shitty beer we can drink."

"Where's Buckley?" Eddie asks.

"She'll be here in two days, weather allowing."

"Let's gather up everyone who's home. Do something together again. We survived Hawkins once."

"Hell yes we did," Steve says, his blinding smile proof they can do it again.

This time, it's only Hawkins for Christmas.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddieholidaydrabbles and follow along with the fun!

[floralfemmes]

I know I have another donation post going around, but it's lost traction and there's an urgent update on my financial situation so I'm making a new post

hi! I'm Samira, a brown disabled lesbian currently trying to survive off of disability while paying off debt and trying to save up to move out of an unhealthy living situation

my automatic payments + fees sent my bank account far into negatives, and I have a huge upcoming payment on my debt

for now, I'm just trying to raise enough to get out of the negatives, which is 425 CAD, ideally before my bank adds on more fees (which they do if my balance remains below zero for too long)

this is my paypal link, and this is my ko-fi link where I accept both donations and writing commissions, or you can message me for my e-transfer info

helping me out either by donating or sharing would mean the world to me!!

425/425 CAD (proof of my financial situation below the cut)

I've reached my goal, thank you!

account in the negatives ⬇️

upcoming debt payment ⬇️

[satorugojjo]

I don’t think there’s a single book BookTok has promoted in the last couple years that’s turned out to be an actually good “you cannot miss this read” which now makes me and so many others I know avoid it as a whole.

A lot of BookTok books seem to be specific for very young or very new readers who haven’t cut their teeth on fanfic or haven’t been reading from a young age. The writing style is either a really profound Instagram metaphorical caption kinda overwrought and over flowery language, or it’s trying so hard to be edgy and sardonic and ends up being completely tell and almost zero show. This Is How You Lose The Time War is a PERFECT example of this - where the flowery and poetic language actually takes AWAY from a scene and distracts you from it rather than adding anything to it in the moment, and for those who do like poetic fiction this will be up their alley but if you don’t and you pick it up because of badly marketed hype when you normally wouldn’t, it’s gonna turn you off reading in general!

There’s nothing wrong with starter fiction to help get readers engaged and then find their way into actually good books, but my gripe is that it’s never ever marketed as that and as if it it’s just generically good fiction. Nothing Colleen Hoover has ever written is objectively good - the writing style is mediocre and she romanticises taboo topics which will seem spicy to the average population who doesn’t READ. And yet she takes up every bookshelf which I promise you will end up turning many readers who ARENT on booktok away from reading altogether.

YA is another genre that has declined a lot in recent years because it’s full of marketers trying to fit all the buzzword tropes into their books and getting young readers to buy it because it’s “enemies to lovers pirate cyberpunk found family” or whatever - and it feels more like focus group fiction rather than actual writing. I LOVE YA but nothing that’s been released post 2020 has had any depth, plot, character development or any style to it.

A great example is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros - i tried reading 2 chapters as a sample and it was shocking to see how illogical, overdramatic, overedgy and exceptionally “this happened then this then this then that” it was. There was absolutely zero nuance and it felt so ��I’m telling you all this but I’m not gonna prove any of it”. And yet it’s rated either 5 stars or 1 star. I’m sure it’s a great starter middle grade/teen book but it is definitely not deserving to be on the same pedestal as other YA books like Hunger Games or Six of Crows. I used to think that perhaps I’ve just outgrown YA but considering I can pick up YA from 2018 that I haven’t read before with no problems, it’s so specific to BOOKTOK YA.

It’s getting to the point that if I see a book that’s being overpromoted on tiktok, I’m more likely to believe the bad reviews because there hasn’t been a SINGLE book where I’ve disagreed with them, and then go find a different book in the same genre that hasn’t been on booktok - it’s getting hilarious actually that the books that are actually incredible get zero screen time and traction on booktok because they aren’t just cheap easy airport reads. Once again - nothing wrong with an easy airport CH book or YA book, but we aren’t going around parading a Lee Child book as peak literature no matter how enjoyable they are.

I don’t even have a conclusion to this entire rant - I’m sick of books like Babel getting steamrolled because it was “too sad or too hard” in favour of the latest SJM book, and getting even more sick of the decline of media literacy due to books getting easier and more spoonfeedy. When they aren’t? They mistake flowery metaphors for complexity and depth.

[notafragilething]

The Twitter Mess is Suspicious

So going through all the information that has been sent and shared with me today about Lou's twitter post I'm fairly sure it was a hacking. Obviously, we can't know either way and it's likely never going to be publicly addressed but that seems to be where it's pointing to.

I will say there is a lot of information out there that seems to just be made up so I'm only talking about what I have been able to confirm.

We know last night that Lou's twitter account followed an anti-BuckTommy, Buddie stan who had previously posted the old Instagram posts. His account also tweeted a random screencap of an Instragram profile that had an abliest joke about blind children in it. Shortly after the tweet was deleted and Lou's account blocked them. All of this was confirmed with by the owner of the twitter account his account responded two. I do not think the owner of that account has anything to do with the hacking because he seems equally confused by this behavior.

The first reason I think this is fake is because the account followed the anti-account. Which would make little to no sense for Lou to do. However, if you wanted to make sure that account saw and screencapped the response and shared it to their decent size following? Replying and following tracks.

The response is weird for two main reasons. The first being the fact that it's an ableist joke. The tweet was responding to criticism of Lou's previous posts. Even the account holder pointed out that this was a strange, strange way to respond. It wasn't an insult, it wasn't a response, it was a joke. If this was Lou responding to the criticism, you would think it would be more direct.

The second reason this response is weird is because it's a screencap of a profile on Instagram that has zero followers and no posts. The joke wasn't even a post, it was their profile message. To me, this seemed like someone was trying to replicated the style of early 2010s meme culture that was a lot of screencaps which include posts, usernames, etc. instead of just the actual image but wasn't around for it so they didn't fully understand it. People weren't screencapping profile messages, they would just screencap a post they wanted to share to make it their own that showed up on their feed. So this seems like a failed replica to me.

The quick deleting and blocking of anti-Bucktommy fans makes sense if this was a hacking. Lou is a verified account and I'm not sure how long he has been. But this means either he got verified because he's an actor (which proves he owns the account) or he pays for it (which is easy to prove by providing your credit card number to customer service). Either way, he was likely able to get it back pretty quickly, deleted the post in question and blocked people.

I know a lot of people are saying he would have said if it was a hacking but I disagree on that. To start with, it would have simply brought more attention to this and there truthfully doesn't seem to be a lot of traction around this. Second, if he did apologize it would draw attention to the original instagram posts (which are now deleted) and that wouldn't be good PR. So likely this just won't get mentioned moving forward.

Other weird thing I noted is both the anti-BuckTommy user and the screencapped acccount both have similar Chuu/Cuuh in their username. Which does make me think there might be some other options for what happened but I don't have enough information on that at the moment to express those.

Overall, I don't think this is the major issue that some people are making it out to be. I'm leaning towards hacking but there are a few other options. None of which are these awful, horrible things that some antis are making them out to be.

Until I get more information I'm opting not to give this anymore attention. It isn't picking up traction and it likely won't and most people will have probably moved on in another day or so.

If you have more information please reach out and share it with me.

[casual-praxis]

“Those awful, ravenous rainbows.”

Shadow’s Slime Rancher AU design is finally complete! I may have procrastinated getting it done a little, but ironically he’s the only one whose design I had completely figured out. I can already tell he's going to be a pain to draw more than once lmao.

(Sorry if this one looks wonky, I drew it entirely on my phone instead of sketching on paper like I usually do. It did not make the process any faster sadly.)

I intended for him to have both Tarr inspiration as well as hunter slime, but the bulk of it ended up being Tarr related and the only potential nods are the yellow stripes on his pants and the claws on his gloves. Very impractical, but Shadow doesn't really do the normal ranching stuff anyway.

As always, more details about him below the cut!

+ Shadow was the second person to arrive at the shared ranch, although the gap between his arrival time and Red's was much shorter than the one between him and Vio. As a result, he was still learning the ropes alongside Red for a while. This helped the two bond while also driving Vio slightly (more) insane.

+ While he does find the slimes to be cute, Shadow much prefers the vibe of the Tarr, hence his jacket theming. The others don't really understand his choices, but so long as he doesn't intentionally bring one back to the range, they don't mind it.

+ Everyone had their outfits tailored by Shadow. It's just one of his many miscellaneous unconnected talents. He can also play the piano, speak three different languages, do a perfect split (among other things), and partially keep up with Vio in the lab. Asking about where he learned any of these things gets a wildly different explanation each time.

+ Shadow pays the most attention to the plort market. He goes to the board immediately after breakfast to check what's going on with it for the day, despite the fact he doesn't have any slimes of his own. Depending on what's high value, he'll hunt down whoever has said high-value plorts and let them know it's time to crash the market.

If he doesn't have a stream planned, or has time to spare before one, he'll spend that time helping move plorts where they need to be.

+ Streaming is something Shadow had always been passionate about, but he just wasn't getting any traction back on Earth. It was hard to stand out even with his odd assortment of skills, so that's how he ended up moving to the Far, Far Range. With literally no one else to compete with, he very quickly found success in livestreaming his day-to-day there.

As a nice bonus, he does genuinely enjoy being out on the range. His viewers mostly stick around for him and his wacky roommates at this point, even if a few more streamers have popped up in the area since.

+ One of the first things Shadow ever said to Red was, "Vio is lying. He has more than one," with absolutely zero follow up context. Like, more than one what? Slimes? Plorts?? It took him a bit, but he did figure it out eventually. Green and Blue are still in the dark, but Shadow finds their confusion hilarious, even more so since Vio won't explain either.

+ Pretty much right from the get-go, Shadow was flirting with everyone. The other's always had such funny reactions to it, he wasn't even mad when he caught actual feelings for them. Vio would flirt back harder (which Shadow was not expecting), Red always took a moment to realize he was being flirted with (to which he'd start fumbling through his own attempts before laughing at how silly it sounded), Green would get incredibly embarrassed (Shadow was delighted to find out Green's ears light up too), and Blue similarly got embarrassed (but brushed it off a lot quicker and would usually chase Shadow off).

No surprise, Shadow was the first one to suggest they all date each other. By the time he mentioned it, they were all basically married anyway. All their stuff was merged and it's not like anyone was going to move out. Plus, different pairings kept getting caught doing couply-stuff, might as well make it official.

+ He gets lost most often, to the point where Green constantly has to go out and look for him. It's a running joke on his streams that whenever Shadow tries to show chat something he found in a different direction than he was originally heading, one of the mods needs to start a prediction (point-based betting poll) on whether or not they should call for Green now or later.

Green is attempting to get Vio's help in making a tracker for these specific situations, but negotiations keep falling through.

"You can't make him wear a collar, Vio, that's demeaning."

"It fits his brand. I don't think he'd mind."

"Why's it have to be a collar? Can't it be something less weird?"

"It's symbolic."

"No."

(A collar may or may not actually be added to his design. It can even have a little nameplate on it with instructions on how to deal with the lost little feral cat should anyone find him, because Vio thinks he's funny.)

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Same anon that's something the supreme Court question. Why do you say it like they are defending it when I have seen multiple people say they don't care about the Constitution either? Like aren't they the ones that overturning roe v wade and there's a possibility they will make same-sex marriages illegal again with all this project 2025 stuff that's going up?

speaking about that, is Biden actually accomplishing those goals? And please make this very clear with facts. This may require you to write up a longer post about this but I think I really want to understand if that is a fear monitoring thing or if this is another "Dems are bad, gop good" shit

First of all, Roe v Wade was always bad law. The idea that the right to privacy means a right to legal abortions never made sense, morally or constitutionally, and it never should have been in place at all, let alone for as long as it was. The Supreme Court overturning unconstitutional laws and reversing unconstitutional decisions is literally why it exists. The Constitution empowers the court for that very reason. If you want other examples of the court protecting the constitution, just look at the Heller decision, or any of the other decisions rolling back unconstitutional gun laws in the past few years. Look also at Matal v Tam, in which the court unanimously ruled that the government can't ban speech just because it's offensive. Which means that there can be no laws against so-called hate speech in the US, and the Orwellian tyranny you see all over Europe under the guise of combating "hate speech" can never legally happen here. Which is a massive win for free speech and the entire reason the 1st Amendment was written.

As for gay marriage getting overturned, it's incredibly unlikely, since there are zero court cases about gay marriage going on right now and the Supreme Court can't just make rulings out of nothing (much to the frustration of more than a few people, I'm sure) it's basically a non-issue. If you're referring to what Clarence Thomas said about gay marriage in his majority opinion overturning Roe, he specifically said that this ruling shouldn't be used as justification to overturn the Obergefell v. Hodges decision on its own, though he did say that those decisions deserve another look. And he's right. Obergefell is another case of an activist court inventing rights out of thin air. There is no such thing as the right to marriage, for gay or straight people. It should be overturned, and the issue of defining legal marriage should be left up to individual states, as the Constitution intended (see the 10th Amendment).

I've been asked about Project 2025 before, and I'll tell you what I told the last anon, as far as I can tell, it's a pile of nothing. It's a group of policy proposals made by a bunch of conservative political commenters I've never heard of, who, as far as I know, have no connection to any Republican political campaign or the RNC. No one on the right is talking about the project. No politicians have come out in support of it. No campaigns have said they're going to implement those policies. Project 2025 is a left-wing boogeyman, and not even one that's getting a lot of traction in left wing circles since the only time I've ever seen anyone talking about it has been in my ask box and a few fringe far left conspiracy sites that came up when I originally tried to figure out what it was. It's the left attempt to have their own Agenda 2030 to be scared and angry about, except there aren't any international organizations trying to get the governments of the world to adopt their policies.

speaking about that, is Biden actually accomplishing those goals?

So, I really don't know what you mean by this. What goals?

[angelogistics]

do you make original art? have you ever submitted to zines/galleries and been rejected? feel like there's no place for your cool weird stuff on the internet? well, fret no more.

under the floorboards seeks to highlight artists that go unnoticed on the internet and uplift non-fanart pieces that don't get as much traction. UTF will be free to read & submit to forever and published online for the forseeable future.

officially opening submissions for under the floorboards vol 1! there's zero timeline and also i dunno how long a volume will be. each artist spotlight/ article will be posted somewhere, probably on a neocities site i'll host (or maybe mine until i get off my ass and make a second acct).

pls be open to communication either thru email or discord, as i'd love to have a casual interview component as well! shoot me a tumblr dm or email (in tags) if you're interested in being featured.

[corcnaiism]

;-- alrighty so i have come to my decision. i will be moving my oc and my gf muses to another blog bc i feel like there is so much lore ive created and will be creating that will require its own blog for me to dump everything in without feeling like im clogging the dash.

i also been feeling like this blog has run dry and i need to start fresh again. i will keep it with the other muses i have just in case i get inspo to write them, but so far ive been nose deep in gf, especially with my oc that is heavily involved in that verse, so i feel like i just need another blog for me to throw all that stuff into.

i also just haven't been feeling comfortable in this blog anymore even with the things ive tried doing to make it easier for me to be around. it's like ive disconnected myself/been disconnected from the rest of the community, and i honestly just need to go somewhere else and start anew. even tho i might not get a lot of interactions for gf stuff, at least i won't feel like i'm blowing someone's dash and feeling annoying or something. sure, people would've just unfollowed/block me, but still idk i just feel uneasy speaking about the things ive been super passionate about lately. i might not get much traction either once i move blogs, but at least it'll feel like i'm throwing my ideas out there to those who genuinely want to see me yap my brains out or even just to myself without feeling awkward doing so.

i blame my low self esteem tbh. i just have zero confidence in myself when it comes to putting myself out there, and sometimes it gets to me that i don't have someone to talk to about things or feel like im being ignored/annoying. it's honestly just my own fault tbh and giving myself a hard time, and this is just something i deal with on a day to day basis whether it be online or irl.

so yeah ill just stop there before i get into trauma-dumping territory but uh yeah so ill most likely be creating a new blog and pouring all of my gf stuff on there with my oc and my other canon muses. i just feel like that's the better option bc like i said there has been so much ive written and still have to write about the worldbuilding for that universe where my oc exists within the gf realm that i feel it deserves to have its own blog. ill be turning this blog into my secondary blog and come back to it every now and then when i get muses for other fandoms. i feel like this will just be better for my own mental health too and stay away from feeling isolated.

if you read this far and you have written with any of gf muses, oc included, i will be moving our threads over to the new blog and tag you appropriately if you wish to continue. i'll post something on here whenever i've moved to the new blog so you're aware that it's me tagging you just in case you're confused as well as sending dms. i'll probably have this new blog up and running after the holidays and my trip, so expect an update or two on the upcoming new year.

and another note if you've read this far, i wanna wish you all happy holidays and please make sure you do what you can to stay safe. i love you guys and thank you so much for giving me another lovely year <3

[papermint-airplane]

I just wanted to quickly write about a childhood experience I had so I can get rid of it because it's been on my mind a lot recently. You're welcome to read it if you feel like you want to but I warn you, it's not a happy memory and will contain descriptions of child abuse. Read at your own risk.

When I was 8, my parents bought me a bike for my birthday. This was a whole ass surprise for numerous reasons not the least of which being that we were very, very poor. I had never asked for a bike or expressed interest in learning to ride a bike, but they got me one for whatever reason. I still don't know why or how they afforded it.

Well, maybe I do sort of know why. My mom always expressed to me her regret at never learning how to ride a bike in her life, either in childhood or adulthood. I suspect she didn't want that for me so I was going to learn how to ride a bike regardless of how I felt about it. She did a lot of things like that.

Nevertheless, I was pretty excited to learn. It was the cutest little pink and purple Huffy bike with white handles. My mom put streamers in the handles, put those little colorful bead things on the wheel spokes, put a basket on it, put a bell on it...I mean that bike was pimped tf out and I loved it. It took me a while to build up the courage to even sit on it, though. I was very small for my age and bikes were scary. Even though it had training wheels, it was still a lot faster and more intimidating than my thrift store Barbie skates. Eventually, I gained the confidence I needed to ride it and I was doing pretty well with it.

Then my dad decided I didn't need training wheels anymore. I was not ready to take the training wheels off and I said as much repeatedly, but my dad didn't listen to me. He is, after all, the man who, to this very day, thinks that children should not have rights, so my opinion didn't matter in the slightest to him. He just informed me that the training wheels were going away and I had to live with that.

He started trying to teach me to ride my bike in the front yard, on the grass, where there was more traction and less chance of me getting hurt than on the sidewalk. Less chance. Not zero.

Anyway, he was doing that thing dads do where he was running alongside me on my bike, holding onto it, and telling me what to do. Mind you, I knew how to pedal already, but doing it while balancing was new and very scary to me. I was already shaking from fear and feeling very out of control when my dad let go. I didn't realize he had let go at first until he told me.

If you're picturing a cute Hallmark moment of a cute little girl taking off confidently on her bike while her proud father watches on with tears in his eyes, stop. That's not what happened. Predictably, I panicked because I felt unsafe and I didn't know how to stop. I panicked and jerked the handlebars around, which resulted in my front tire hitting a divot in the grass and launching me headfirst into the front porch.

Something of note: our porch was basically a large concrete slab with heavy iron railings. Very sturdy, very strong, very solid. I hit the porch at max force, hitting my side on the iron railing while scraping my knee on the concrete. I think I might have hit my head, too, but fortunately I was wearing a helmet. Needless to say, I was terrified out of my mind, shaken up, bleeding, bruised, and in pain. I did what all little girls do in that situation. I screamed. I cried.

What do you think my dad did? Did he comfort me? Apologize for pushing me to do something I wasn't ready to do? No. He clenched his jaw, grabbed me by the arm, and wrenched me to my feet.

"Get in the damn house," he growled. He picked up my bike and violently threw it into the shed. He was angry. My father's rage was -- is -- something that terrorized our family to no end. I have always likened living with him to living on a minefield. You never knew which step was going to result in a catastrophic explosion that could very well end your life. He was unpredictable and violent. If the batteries died in the remote, he might sigh and replace them. Or he might hurl the remote across the room while screaming curse words at the top of his lungs and then grab my sister by the throat while yelling in her face to get him the G.D. batteries right now or he'd kill her. You never knew which it was going to be.

And this time, I didn't get "sigh and move on" dad. I got angry dad. He hauled me into the house and proceeded to spank me as hard as he could until my butt was numb and I couldn't breathe because I was crying so hard. Then he pushed me out of the kitchen and told me he didn't want to see me again for the rest of the day.

I was homeschooled and this bike excursion was my physical education class for the day, so I had to return to my mom to continue doing my schoolwork while still sobbing and bleeding. I don't know why I expected her to comfort me. She so rarely did. She always took his side unless it benefitted her to do otherwise. "You shouldn't have screamed," she said. "You made a scene in public and embarrassed your father. You got what you deserved." Then she went on teaching me my Bible lesson for the day, the story of Sampson and Delilah.

I moved past that incident because I had to. Nobody took my side. Not my mother, not my siblings who were both older than me and had learned long ago that anything that brings negative attention to our father is worse than a war crime. I pushed my feelings of anger and injustice down like always and just went about life. But I never forgot. It's been 30 years and I still remember every second of that event like it happened yesterday. It wasn't the first time something like that had happened to me nor was it the worst, but it is etched into my memory so deeply, I can still smell the grass and feel my teeth rattling from the impact with the porch. I still feel the fear, first from the loss of control and then from my father's wrath. I still hear my mother's voice telling me I brought this on myself because I had the sheer audacity to scream when I was hurt. I still hear the way my father said "get in the damn house" like he was barely containing his anger. I still feel the hatred burning in my stomach because my father ruined something I had been so happy about. He tainted what should have been a rite of passage for me. And it wasn't even the worst thing he'd done to me by that point in my life.

I will never stop hating that man. Never.

[cablepowerhouse]

Ngl I remember expecting the climax of season 11 to be a one on one fight between a charged Zane and Kai, both in harnessing the power of forbidden spinjitzu and going at each with elemental clashes that would tear up the landscape around them in a flurry of ice and fire. I’m talking about some Scorpion vs Sub Zero type of energy with this

It’s not like this idea got any less traction for me either in fact I became more and more convinced it would happen as time went on.

(Set images a released) “oh they’re clearly going for a fire versus ice theme here, both elements have their own unique enemy designs. So maybe Kai and Zane will lead their own armies against each other in some sort of civil war or something.”

(It’s revealed that there is another scroll of forbidden spinjitzu) “yes! This is a clear sign that two of the ninja(kai and Zane) will have their own scroll to amp their powers and since the staffs corrupt their welder’s minds then clearly they will be compelled to fight each other.”

(The Ice emperor is revealed and it’s pretty obvious that he’s really Zane) “okay clearly Zane has gone off the deep end and has frozen an entire realm. But now that Kai is getting his powers back it’s pretty obvious that he’ll be the one to face him.”

(The Ice Emperor/Zane has memory issues and in the meantime Kai and the other ninja are rapidly getting closer to the ice castle) “okay, NOW Kai is going to fight Zane, he’s got the motivation to do so after what happened to the villagers he couldn’t protect and since Zane doesn’t remember anything at the moment he has no reason not to fight back against Kai.”

Anyway I was dead wrong about any of that and due to my own inflated expectations I despised season 11 for a good amount of time. I still don’t think it’s that great now but it’s not as bad as I made it out to be in my head.

[voidofryu]

Hello this is me Aya.. ‏🇵🇸

Imagine having everything and suddenly you wake up with nothing left.That's exactly what happened with us .we moved from having everything to having nothing.In a blink of an eye ,we lost everything, our house ,dreams,

memories belongings and our works. We are starting from zero and need your help to climb the leader step by step from scratch.

All the positive words cannot express how generous you are, especially in sharing my posts to inform other donors about the people of Gaza who are still suffering from the terrible conditions caused by the unjust war on Gaza!

Please continue to support us by donating directly or by sharing the link to let others know. Don't hesitate to help people in difficult and miserable times until the dark days are over.

https://gofund.me/c4c2cf82

This is Aya's go fund me for her and her family. Please do your best in donating, sharing, or even engaging with this post so that it gains traction. It doesn't take much. Firstly, you can click on the link, and it will take you to the campaign itself. There, you can either press the donate now button or the share and copy link button to share the link to the campaign all around. You can also like and reblog this post so that more people can see this. Please help these Palestinian families find the peace and freedom that they need.

Aya Almajdoub's family consists of 8 members. Aya, who is 27 years old. Her father, Maher, 60 years old. Her mother, Maha, 50 years old. Her husband, 32 years old. Her son, Bassam, 3 years old. Her brother, Mohamed, 28 years old. Her two sisters, Amna, 29 years old, and Enas, 22 years old.

They were all displaced many times in an attempt to survive. As a result, her and her husband are struggling to provide for their son. Basic necessities such as baby formula, diapers, water, food, clothing, and more.

Please help this family in getting the freedom and peace that they need.

Free Palestine forever 🇵🇸 ❤️

[threewaywithdelusion]

Someone who's good at internet-speak (ie, not me) should write a fic about Richmond's crusade against homophobia, but in the format of posts and articles.

It starts when Isaac attacks the fan at the Richmond v. Brighton game. The tv cameras didn't catch what the fan said, only Isaac's reaction, but maybe people filmed it and put it online or maybe the fan does an angry Tiktok video or whatever. Unconfirmed rumors start that Isaac threw hands because of the f-slur. A lot of people don't believe it, because why would a (presumably straight) footballer care about something like that? Some queer fans are touched that someone cares about that language being used in football. Others are outraged that a team captain would get himself red-carded over something so minor.

Several months later (next season, after Ted's already gone home), a fan for the opposing team shouts something kind of homophobic from the stands. (This is in a world where either Colin and Michael didn't kiss after beating West Ham or miraculously zero people saw it and filmed it and posted it, so Colin isn't out). Some of the players stand at the corner of the pitch and begin shouting back at the fan, heckling them, but without actually going into the stands. Maybe Richard, Bumbercatch, and Jan Maas? I feel like Richard would be sassy and Jan Maas would be devastatingly straightforward and Bumbercatch would say something entirely out of pocket.

(Also, Colin wouldn't want to out himself by standing up for himself. Isaac is just fighting to keep his temper and not storm the stands again. Dani and Sam are too nice to yell insults at fans, even homophobic ones. And I literally cannot imagine Jamie is straight, which means he would be trying to fly under the radar just like Colin).

This time, the news hits the internet complete with videos. The players are definitely reacting this way to homophobia and it's blowing everyone's minds. Now the conversation shifts from people trying to say these are baseless rumors to center around two questions: 1) Are the Richmond players right or wrong to care so much about this and to allow it to disrupt matches? Is football about playing or about culture? 2) Why do Richmond players care so much?

There's rampant speculation online: This is Ted's influence, because he's American and they care about all this PC bullshit over there. This is some kind of publicity stunt. One of the players must be gay.

That last one gets some traction, but who is it? Isaac, who was the first one to act upset? Jamie, who *gestures at all of Jamie*? Someone else entirely?

At Richmond matches, some players from the other teams start saying shit to bait Richmond into fouls and yellow cards. As it starts to affect how Richmond plays, even the pundits take notice. The sexuality of the Richmond players is now a full-blown topic of discussion.

Everyone is curious to find out what the hell is going on. Roy gets asked about this every week at the post-game press conference. Clips appear online of players having microphones shoved in their faces and being asked who is the gay player on the team, though they all hold the line and refuse to answer. Entire threads are devoted to speculating about who on the team must be gay.

There should be tweets and tumblr posts and news articles. In the end, either Colin and Michael come out, or RoyJamieKeeley come out. Or both, and the fans are completely overwhelmed that so many of them were right when speculating about the players but also wrong because no one predicted there would be multiple gay players on the team (and coaching staff).

[smackins]

Not to be THAT guy, but I really need to bare my soul here.

I don't know if I want to do Artfight anymore.

While I'm extremely grateful for the attacks I did receive this year (I still owe 2 revenge pieces, don't worry, I'm working on them ❤️) it's become less fun and more of a reminder of how isolated I feel as an artist. I got a total of five attacks this year. I have friends who were attacked right out of the gate, on the very first day, by a barrage folks who were chomping at the bit to draw their ocs.

It's not Artfight's fault, and not really other people's fault, either. I'm not like, "How dare you not attack me!!111!!" It's just it amplifies so many insecurities I've had for years and makes it hard to ignore them.

I get an overwhelming feeling like there's something wrong with me as an artist, not even that I'm medicocre skill wise (though I feel that, too), but that I'm just fundamentally uninteresting and forgettable. My characters and my stories aren't worth asking about. They aren't worth anyone's enthusiasm or curiosity, they're not worth the encouragement. I can share a piece that I spent 6 hours on and just get "cute" as a response, while others could share a non-serious doodle of their ocs that took 5 minutes tops and get responses like "AHHH I LOVE THEM THEYRE SO AMAZING YOURE SO FUNNY."

And I know it's not good to compare yourself to others, but sometimes it's hard not to when everywhere I go, it feels so blatantly obvious how I'm barely worth anyone's time.

At first I thought it was the fact I draw non-human characters, because those are hard for people, so I made a little note on Artfight that I'll accept humanized versions. But plenty of people draw nonhuman characters, all the time, and recieve lots of encouragement and feedback from other people. Then I thought, "maybe it's my original comic characters that intimidate people" you know, my weird scorpion aliens. But that's not it either, because they're admittedly a lot less "alien" than they could be, and I know people with some absolutely WILD speculative-biology-type character designs who, again, get loads of enthusiasm and feedback. Plus, that doesn't explain why my fan ocs go ignored- plenty of people like Digimon, Mass Effect, and DBZ.

I feel like I'm just weird and tainted and cursed somehow, which I KNOW is absurd, but that's the best way I can describe this frustration. And yeah, I know if I posted more art and more about my characters, I MIGHT get a little more traction, but when I get so little encouragement from so few people, it's so hard to feel motivated to share. And it's not like I'm looking for huge, detailed responses or specifics about why people like my technique or whatever, because God knows I struggle to form specific words as to why EXACTLY I like something, but I just want to feel like people give a damn and ACTUALLY want to know more. Very few people ask questions or get curious. I have a lore blog for my original comic that has been up for 7 whole years, yet the only questions or comments I get are from the same 2 or 3 (very lovely and appreciated) people. Most of those posts have zero notes, a ton of them have been reblogged to my personal blog over, and over, and over again and still get ignored.

This isn't about popularity, or notes, or anything like that. I just want to feel like what I put into the world matters. Yes, I do get satisfaction from drawing for myself, but that can only go so far when I feel like I'm the little kid in the corner playing alone because the other kids don't notice me.

[rothjuje]

It’s snowed pretty consistently for almost a week. I don’t really have strong feelings about it either way, it’s a little inconvenient and also a little pretty. I still like shoveling, but I love mindless tasks and exercise and being outside in general. I did fall twice trying to get Alyssa to the bus this morning, once down the front steps. But I was wearing Uggs with zero traction and I always slip in the snow with them so it’s my bad. My snow boots are a huge pain to get on (and off), I wonder if there is a slip-on solution with good treads.

It’s supposed to snow most of the night (I just realized that half my tumblr now is just snow talk, I’m so sorry) and I’m wondering if there will be a delay day. I’m really hoping not because George’s program is cancelled on delay days and he does so much better with structure and routine.

Alyssa spent her entire February break sick with strep. A few weeks ago she had flu A. She was very sick both times, with high fevers. I didn’t quarantine her in her bedroom because we always end up catching it anyway, but oddly enough, no one else got the flu or strep. Out of the 5 of us she was the only one to get sick both times. It’s kind of a miracle but it makes me worried about her immune system. She gets so sick so often, and out of the 20ish young kids we’ve had, she’s the only one who gets croup. I just don’t understand why she is catching things that none of us are.

I want to work out so bad. I *need* to run, for my sanity. More for my mental health than physical health. I need 20 minutes a day just for me, and running makes me feel free. My plan is to run from 5:40-6 pm on days I don’t go walking with neighbor bestie. I’m just going to have to buy the treadmill now, and make it fit in our garage while they do the floors. I’d join a gym but the logistics of that would be challenging and all I want is to run on a treadmill.

The reason the snow hasn’t been the biggest pain is the van simply cannot get up the driveway. If I very meticulously shoveled it and slathered it with sand, maybe. But it’s been parked at the bottom for almost a week now and it’s been fine. I mean, carrying toddlers one by one up a hill several times a day isn’t very fun but it is a good workout. The van doesn’t handle well in the snow, which is surprising to me because so many people told me it would do better than the civic. The civic can get up the drive fairly easily. And doesn’t slide out as much on snowy roads. Go figure.

I feel like spring is going to be a religious experience after this winter. To have sunshine and warm weather and foliage again seems like a dream. Also getting 3 kids into snow suits and boots and getting them to keep their gloves on is very time consuming and unpleasant. I actually find that to be much more torturesome than shoveling snow. But we’re almost there! It’s almost March!

[just-sg]

It's definitely also common in fanworks, and sometimes extended from the fandom treatment, but regarding the fandom treatment, my theory/observation has long been...

When you get into a series where everything is deeply fucked up, you're doing so alongside other people who (at least relatively more often) can handle things being deeply fucked up. We watch these characters be the absolute worst and we still love them. So when we see art and fics that are also really dark or "problematic" or whathaveyou, even in different ways, we're more likely to go, "oh neat, what horrors are we inflicting today?" And, although to an unfortunately lesser extent, if a person is being kind of an asshole, we're a little better about responding maturely, whether that's going "dude can you not" or just blocking them and moving on or whatever.

But when you get into a series where everything is very wholesome, or appears that way at first, it's attracting a mix of (a) people who also like darker media but enjoy the wholesome stuff for comfort / a change of pace / because it just also has a good story / whatever, and (b) people who refuse to interact with media or outright believe media shouldn't exist UNLESS it's fully positive and wholesome. It brings out the Purity Police.

Some of this does come from generally being more targeted toward younger audience, not because kid shows are inherently worse or teens can't be mature, but just because the teen and even younger adult viewers are more likely to have a more rigid, black-and-white mentality. (Neither guaranteed nor exclusive ofc.) But a lot of it has also gotten worse in the past decade or so with the way online spaces and especially left-leaning spaces have developed in general. There's a push to never mess up, always use the correct words, zero tolerance for anything, ignorance is no excuse, no room for education, no room for improvement, cancel, ostracize, punish, assert your own moral purity lest you be mistaken for one of Those people and fall victim to the same. The "crusader" mentality.

Not always about morality either, sometimes more like "someone has mischaracterized my blorbo and I must defend this injustice!" (I am not immune to this one even now but I've gotten better about friendlier tones I hope lol.) But similar roots. Good intentions, at the heart of it, but extreme methods and either ignoring the immediate damage or deeming it justified.

And then God forbid someone's fanwork be less pure than the source, or elaborate on some dark implications in the source. God forbid the source just get more complicated, more nuanced, less black-and-white.

It's not a cut-and-dry divide of course. There are pockets of "more wholesome" fandoms that are themselves super sweet and kind and wholesome, and pockets where everything is horror central and people are having fun with that. And you'll see crusader mentality pop up sometimes even in very dark horrifying fandoms, but they usually get less traction or end up relegated to certain pockets or certain polarizing characters. But yeah. The trend is definitely so very real overall.

phenomenon

[user-generatedcontent]

How GetAFollower Helped Me Skyrocket My Instagram Likes Instantly

Growing on Instagram isn’t as easy as it used to be. These days, if your posts don’t get likes quickly, the algorithm just moves on - leaving your content in the dust. I spent way too much time hoping for organic engagement, and found out that…waiting doesn’t work. It just doesn’t.

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Why I Choose GetAFollower

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Here’s how it went down…

What Happened After I Placed My Order?

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