crocomom truther

cruelty is so easy. youre not special for choosing it

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."

-Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

I saw the tweet and felt the sudden urge to do something with it for the first day of Pride. Inspiration comes from weird places, I guess.

Reblog if you or someone you know is ace… I’m trying to see something

one piece has a long and storied history with introducing gnc/trans characters and while its starting characters weren't horrible (you can tell they were certainly written out of cluelessness and being products of the time it was written rather than outright maliciousness and distate for the community) you can tell as the years pass eiichiro oda met and even befriended trans people in real life because as the series progresses his trans characters are fucking fantastic

idk when we decided that explaining yourself shouldn't be part of an apology but like. if someone was a dick to me and apologizes but I still don't understand why they did it I'm not gonna feel any better

"Sorry for hurting your feelings earlier. I was trying to say x, but I guess it came across wrong. I don't think you're stupid."

or

"Sorry I snapped at you. I didn't get enough sleep last night so my patience is a little low today."

is a better apology than

"I want you to know that I am sorry that my actions offended you. I take full accountability for my actions and I am listening and learning. I hear you."

the most fun thing about being a fic author is when you know what’s supposed to happen but when you go to write it you realise that, for the event to be plausible, you need to add another 2k of development and establish like six extra things before you can even get to the scene you need to write, and by ‘most fun’ I mean fuck everything someone take this fucking story away from me I’m on strike

perhaps one of my hotter takes as a queer person but i’m never coming out again. you can figure it out or live in pure ignorance but either way it’s not my problem. the worst thing society ever tried to teach us was that coming out is an obligation. it’s not. it’s a privilege for you to know the depths of who i am, my sexuality included.

So I’ve been trying to get into a new anime and had to force myself to go through the first three episodes because the protagonist did not sit well with me. Nothing bad about him, he’s just not the kind of intelligent bastard character I prefer.

And that got me thinking. I’ve been obsessed with Luffy for two years now. He’s my favorite One Piece character. He’s one of my favorite characters in all media, period. I adore him.

But, and I think we can all agree, he is very much not the sharpest crayon in the box.

Usually, I would hate this type of character. In fact, it was one of the reasons it took me so long to watch One Piece – I was one hundred percent sure Luffy would bore me. I saw the fandom joking around about his idiocy, and didn’t really look more into it before deciding that 900+ episodes is too long of an investment when I knew the main character is exactly the kind of protagonist I hate. The fact that I actually started One Piece was a total fluke, and I did it despite everything I saw and read about Luffy.

Here’s the thing. I still hate the stock shōnen characters. But I love Luffy, and I think that the main difference here is that Luffy is, before anything else, competent.

He is not a stupidly naive, bleeding-heart hero trying to see the best in everybody and having no actual connection to the real world. He does not bumble around, being tossed around by forces bigger than him and only resolving an impossible situation thanks to luck or being able to throw a bigger punch (though the punching bit does play a significant part). Luffy is always the instigator, the one in charge of the plot, the one driving the whole thing forward – the plot does not happen to Luffy, Luffy happens to the plot.

He’s not the smartest. Often, he’s not the strongest even. But when something needs to be done, when someone needs to step up and resolve the problem, he knows what to do. And he does not hesitate to do it, often in the most surprising of ways. He is a very simple thinker, but that simple thinking lets him see a clear line from a problem to a solution, without taking any detours a more intelligent character might have taken. It’s not just about who punches the strongest. It’s about pulling the right emotional lever (Robin in Enies Lobby), or finding a hidden weakness (Crocodile), or even about concocting the most outrageous solution that would resolve the situation immediately (destroying the Baratie, anyone?)

Also, he might not be the cleverest person around, but his insane emotional intelligence ensures that he does not have to be. He has friends for that. He surrounds himself with people who are smart and strong and just as competent as he is. His nakama do what he cannot, and so even this personal drawback is eliminated.

Luffy is just straight-up competent, in every way and situation possible. He does what needs to be done, always and without hesitation. And he does it well.

In his own way, he is just as effective as my personal favorite intelligent bastard characters. He’s just so much simpler about it.

Description: [A video of a woman riding a galloping horse bareback while holding a large rainbow flag.]

i felt like these tags really added to the experience, thanks @cynderxdustypaws for your knowledge

men are so privileged they dont even realized how oppressed they really are

@casualfruit nah say it with ur chest cos u truly ate

what they dont tell you about strategy based games is that its hard if you’re stupid

executive dysfunction is telling yourself for two and a half hours that you need to shower bc you smell like your workplace and you absolutely Cannot do Anything Else until you shower, doing Any Other Thing before showering is illegal!!! but you still haven’t for some reason??? you’ve just been sitting on your bed in a towel scrolling tumblr for 2+ hours thinking “I need to shower right now immediately” and growing increasingly frustrated that you are still not clean and you haven’t eaten or done your laundry either

ok actually no I’m reblogging this because a) I am clean now (and I smell amazing, thank you), and b) I had a heckin Realize and I wanted to share it with y’all in the hopes it’ll help someone else with a brain like mine.

I figured something out about myself a long time ago– it’s only just now occurred to me that I was in fact solving a problem caused by executive dysfunction, and I haven’t been implementing this solution lately because my brain went “that’s a relatively new term to me and therefore a Different problem that requires a Different solution”. thanks a lot, brain.

anyway, long long ago, before I knew these fancy schmancy Official words, the problem, as I phrased it to myself, was such: 

sometimes I get Stuck. I was doing something, or on my way to doing something, and then… I just. got stuck.

“Stuck” looks like refreshing my feed or dashboard repeatedly. or it looks like staring at a spot on the wall. or chewing my fingernails. or picking at a stubborn sticker. all the while, my brain drifts through various unrelated topics I wouldn’t be able to recall if asked. sometimes I can get Stuck for hours before realizing I am Stuck. sometimes I get so Stuck that I go to bed that way (feeling especially bad for being unproductive) and I have to just reset everything by sleeping.

one day I asked myself, “why is this happening? why am I stuck, right now, at this moment in time?” the answer, as it turns out, was pretty simple: I was trying to make a decision, and I got distracted. I haven’t moved forward because I haven’t answered that one question or made up my mind.

let me rephrase this in terms of executive dysfunction: many people have expressed that it feels like knowing you need to do a thing but not feeling “ready” to do it. many with ADHD may also be familiar with the feeling of needing things to be “just so” before you embark on a task- you need your setup to look a certain way, or you need to set a timer, or have the right music playing, etc.

when I get Stuck it’s often because I got lost somewhere in that setting-up process, and my brain took the opportunity to nyoom off into Distraction Town.

getting myself Unstuck is solved, 95% of the time, by tracing my steps back to the original decision I was trying to make- often something small and inane- and then troubleshooting from there. (out loud! verbal processing is totally punk.) 

so!!! in the case of my first post, where I hadn’t showered for 2 hours? turns out I had been trying to decide what music to listen to in the shower. (another hack: my chances of getting Stuck while showering decrease by 75% if I have music playing to help me keep track of time.) I couldn’t immediately make up my mind, got lost in thought, got distracted, and drifted. once I stopped and asked- “why am I stuck?”-  then I remembered- “oh yeah! I wanted to listen to music”-  and then decided- “I want to listen to Daft Punk’s Discovery album”- I was finally heckin able to shower. and also eat, and also throw my clothes in the dryer.

and may I add I only zoned out once, during the slow part of “One More Time.” :P

I’m not saying this is a foolproof method. sometimes I don’t have a reason for being stuck, and that’s okay! I’m also not saying this is how every adhd brain works. it’s just how my brain works, and I’m sure there’s at least a few who can relate. for those few, I hope this helps!!

a lot of people are reblogging the original post without the update and leaving frustrated comments and that makes me sad! if I can find ways to hack my brain than so can you! executive dysfunction is a real and frustrating challenge, but don’t buy the lie that there’s no way to work with it or around it!!!

!!!!

Rejection-sensitive or not, you have to accept when people say “no” and realize that people’s “no” is not about you. A boundary is never about you, it’s about that person’s sense of security. Do not make people’s personal limits a matter of targeted offence.

The union busting firms are scared

As a fine dining cook, I found work in a union workplace around a year ago. My 40 hours a week are guaranteed except for Jan/feb/mar when there’s not enough customers, I get paid almost twice what I did at any other restaurant, if I work overtime, (more than 8 hours in one day, or more than 40 in a week), I actually get overtime pay, (and it’s 1.5x my normal rate!). I get holiday pay, and in addition I get to either bank or pay out my holidays if I work those days, (either a paid day off when I want it, in addition to the holiday pay, or I get paid an add’l 8 hours at 1.5x that week). I also get two floating holidays, 4 paid random sick days, 2 paid family sick days, and 4 paid “doctor’s note” sick days, (paid out by our health insurance), as well as general allowance to take as many unpaid sick days as I want without worrying for my job security. (I’ve been told that taking multiple months off is where we start to be concerned about abuse, so if I want to do that, I can go through our leave of absence procedures instead, where I’m allowed three 2-week periods a year generally for whatever reason I want, (If my manager wants to disagree, he has to get the union president’s approval), and after that it’s up to my manager to decide if he’ll accept them). I get two weeks of paid vacation time a year, and an add’l week per year for every 5 years I work there. We get our legally mandated breaks, which, I know that sounds like a low bar, but taking anything other than a smoke break in a kitchen?!?! Unheard of! I get two 15′s and a lunch every shift! I get to sitdown and rest my legs and not get flak for it! I get a bonus at the end of the year, there’s official procedures for if my manager isn’t happy with me or wants to get rid of me, (three meetings, during which my union representative has to be present), (and getting rid of my classification doesn’t work, there’s rules for how someone ‘bumps’ other people if classifications are gotten rid of), and severance pay for when full-time employees that are downsized out of the company, there’s a pension plan, like . . . Guys, I have a 40-page handbook which details all of the rights my union has won me, and believe me, I’ve never had any of these at any prior workplace. And you know what my union dues are? $4 a paycheck. Of course I’m going to pay my union dues for all of those benefits.

Reblogging for this incredibly thorough explanation of what it's like to actually have a contract in place at a union workplace. I reblog a fair number of posts about how people should organize, but if you're like me, you might not know exactly what that can get you until you've actually gone through the process. Every contract is different because you bargain for what makes sense for your particular workplace, and every few years you re-negotiate with the employer to improve things in the next contract, but some things (like the right to have union representation when you talk to your boss about leave or discipline) are universal.

It's worth every penny of your dues, I promise.

most insane reddit comment i've gotten is someone saying that they had a brief catholic phase because "sex should be for procreation only" just seemed "right" to them. And then they realized they were an atheist but had a breeding kink.

see also:

the best part about wei wuxian's resurrection scene is that it happens when the audience doesn't know anything about him yet, so when he goes "i'm going to act like a deranged homosexual lunatic so no one recognizes me" you're like yeah sure that could be a feasible disguise until the flashback happens and you realize it's a terrible idea, because wei wuxian acts like a deranged homosexual lunatic all the time