Marcille and Falin's relationship is so. Like to start out this ten year old child and this thirty-seven year old research grad were one another's first ever friend, right? They're adorable, there's mutual respect, they change and enrich eachother's lives, Marcille revises her whole approach to her life goals due to Falin's influence, ect.

Fast forward a decade, and Falin grows up. Falin leaves, for four whole years, and Marcille follows her to the end of the earth as soon as she's asked. She'll risk her life, die repeatedly, eat monsters and slime, invoke ancient and forbidden magic to save her.

But acknowledging Falin as an adult who has grown and changed with the passage of time? That's scary. That's too scary.

listen. There's a whole mentality shift that needs to happen culture wide here, from the schools to the public infrastructure to pet ownership to the justice system

The proper response to your dog doing a natural behavior you dislike (digging/barking/protecting etc) it to give them an appropriate time and place to engage in that behavior

The proper response to skateboarders damaging infrastructure is to build more and better skate parks, or build skate elements into the public infrastructure on purpose.

The proper response to homeless people sleeping on park benches is to build them houses.

you see how there's like, a commonality at play here?

The proper response to a disruption is to address the root of the disruption directly, not somehow attack the disruption itself -

you don't invent a muffler by swinging a bat at the engine noise, you don't relieve your hunger by punching yourself in the stomach, you don't resolve public unrest by sending armed men to control them and you don't prevent homeless people using bus shelters as a roof by removing the bus shelters.

a whole ass shift in a basic mindset, i'm tellin' you. We need it.

Meeting The Man: James Baldwin in Paris

(via Mubi)

Going to add a maybe controversial thing but:

Women who are attracted to men but also don't like penetrative sex - and I'm definitely + explicitly + it's very much the point including vaginal penetrative sex here - are also perfectly within their rights to have that boundary and to have it respected.

Straight or bisexual women, cis or trans women, doesn't matter - I feel like womanhood is often equated with enjoying penetration. But it's not. Your identity doesn't dictate what you like sexually. And what you like sexually doesn't dictate your identity.

And I think especially for women who are attracted to men, enjoying penetrative sex is considered such a must that many of us don't even question it - to the point that a) not wanting it is considered a medical issue by itself and b) with many medical complications or conditions or even psychological reasons that someone might find vaginal penetration painful, the first concern is often not even to fix the underlying issue or even to make that kind of sex pleasurable - but to make her "functional" for her partner again. (Prized example: The husband-stitch. Generally, I hear so often from women whose partners got impatient with their recovery after they gave birth and who felt pressured to have vaginal sex before they felt like it.)

So I just want to say:

Womanhood does not equal enjoying penetration.

Being AFAB doesn't equal enjoying penetration.

Being attracted to men doesn't equal enjoying penetration.

What you enjoy sexually is not a matter of your identity. It's only a matter of what you enjoy and what you and your partner(s) genuinely want to do.

And actually, yes, this specifically goes out to heterosexual cis women in particular: Even if you never ever ever want to have vaginal penetrative sex - that's perfectly fine. You are perfectly within your rights to have that boundary. And no man has any right to force you. And calling you "uptight" or "vanilla" or "weird" or "but you own a dildo" or "It'll be good with me, I swear!" - that's a way of forcing you. He has two options a) accept your boundary and find a different way to have sex b) accept your boundary and go home.

If there is an underlying medical issue like cysts or if you have vaginismus that diminishes your quality of life - of course I recommend seeing a doctor. And if you have experienced trauma, I recommend therapy. All of which should be focussed on helping you with the things that you deem important - and not what your partner or a potential partner deems important.

But if you simply just don't want to have penetrative sex - then don't. Nothing is wrong with you. No one has any right to force you.

We often say "don't do anal if you don't want to", "don't do oral if you don't want to" - and those are very, very true! But I feel like we don't say "don't do vaginal if you don't want to" or "don't have penetrative sex at all if you don't want to" often enough to women - because it's such an expectation that everyone would enjoy it.

And also, you don't owe anyone an explanation. Sometimes, trauma is a reason - but if you have experienced trauma, you're not obligated to tell your partner the details of it to justify not wanting to have that kind of sex. "No" is a full sentence. Sometimes the fear of pregnancy or contraception failing is a reason - and that's also to be respected.

And if you don't have any reason related to trauma or a medical condition - you're still perfectly within your rights to have that boundary respected. Sex is supposed to feel good for both partners involved. And any partner who doesn't care about your boundaries or pressures you - is for the streets. Gotta go. Is an ex. Shoo. Out. Over.

tiktokers who say classic lit is bad because its not relatable 1. thats not the fucking point 2. you've clearly never read twelfth night as a trans bisexual

you've clearly never read Frankenstein as a student

If you're fucked up enough a lot of classic lit suddenly becomes uncomfortably relatable tbh.

This is 100% true, but also: literature is a great way to engage with people you don't actually relate to, and practice feeling empathy for them anyway. I have never been in a battle, but I have cried over the Iliad multiple times because I was suddenly made very aware that every single war has people like Hector in it, who leave their families one day and just never come home to them. Please keep looking for things you find relatable in unexpected places - but not everything has to be relatable for it to be worthwhile.

Not everything has to be about you to be worth reading

Meeting The Man: James Baldwin in Paris

(via Mubi)

John Berryman

Something that both fascinates and delights me about Gideon and Harrow's relationship at the beginning of Gideon the Ninth is how complicated it is, and how well those first scenes set Harrow and Gideon up for the transformation their relationship undergoes later.

When Harrow finally appears after a chapter of buildup, their intimacy is immediately obvious. Their banter is practiced, and they pick through their rules of engagement and play out the scenario together like some weird mix between the hero and villian in a comic book and two children playing a very complicated but deathly serious game of tag. But what really strikes me about it, what seems really important to me that doesn't come up enough, is that Gideon's primary emotion toward Harrow in their introductory chapters is pity. Even while the very mention of Harrow makes her palms prickle, she describes Harrow as cute, sad, desperate, and completely obsessed with her. And that pity for Harrow doesn't go away in Harrow's presence. After Gideon wins their verbal sparring match and Harrow escalates to challenging her to a physical duel, Gideon feels moved by "a great wave of commingled pity and disgust" and says that she looks like what she really is "a desperate girl younger than Gideon, and rather small and feeble".

Harrow knows Gideon pities her. Gideon just has to stand there and smile in the face of her insults to infuriate her, and while Harrow does use that pity against her in the fight I'm very sure that the fury was real. It comes out again, much later, when all the setup in the first chapters finally pays off. This is where the story establishes what later becomes the core of the Pool Scene:

It's not just Gideon saying she's sorry for Harrow there in that scene Harrow's reacting to. Gideon has pitied Harrow for a long time, and Harrow has tried to quash it. Now she knows she can't, and Gideon has won. She expects, now that their long game is over and victory is declared, Gideon will take that pity out and finally unload it, putting her out of her misery like a wounded animal. She's sad, and desperate, and completely obsessed with Gideon; exactly the way Gideon described her in chapter one. The difference now is that Gideon longer feels disgust commingled with her pity. The growing trust and understanding between them has banished that, and without it Gideon's pity becomes compassion.

The intricacy of this writing is really something else.

A few years ago, I went to an anatomy conference and they had a huge 3D printed vampire skull, and these thoughts have been on my mind ever since I saw the teeth up-close. 

The under-utilized potential for this bothers me a lot… like in movies… it’s just bite and done!

What happened to ritual shaving or elaborate skin engraving?

I know a lot of artists/writers follow me…. can you guys do Vampires a solid?

You know maybe we don’t want to go there too much but I think deep down there’s something very cathartic about a lesbian dying to advance someone else’s plot because that’s all she thinks she’s good for and then the next installment in the series being a drawn out agonised scream of loss at the hole her absence leaves in the universe

Gideon the Ninth really went ‘the pinnacle of my existence is sacrificing myself for unrequited love and my reward will be to live forever in her memory and that’s more than enough’ and then Harrow the Ninth (and Harrowhark the First) grabbed her by the collar and shook her like a etch-a-sketch and said ‘no I won’t let you you’re worth so much more than that your life is worth breaking the laws of heaven and earth to preserve’ and I just think that’s neat

@leftpawedpolarbear FUCKINFH

Grad student Harrianthe meetcute where their eyes lock while sneaking into the bio lab at 3am to compound and self-administer their own hormones/antipsychotics

a moment for an unsung hero

So something I’ve been thinking about for a couple days is that Murderbot only realizes after first meeting ART that, as a ship, ART doesn’t really have any contextual ability to understand entertainment media. ART tries to watch it and can’t. 

Of course, Murderbot only tried that track because the FIRST bot pilot it negotiated with accepted the media packet without any sign of complaint, but there’s no reason an even less advanced bot pilot whose body is a cargo hauler would be able to enjoy entertainment media any more than ART could without riding on Murderbot’s experience, and it’s not like Murderbot wouldn’t have noticed if it was hanging around them in the feed either (see: ART), so it wasn’t even sneaking a peek while Murderbot binged its own shows. 

Meaning the cargo transport who gave Murderbot its first ride basically took one look at this “free bot” skulking around and bartering/begging for a ride with some sort of weirdass garbage data like it didn’t realize it was worthless, went “Oh, dear,” and then accepted the worthless trash file without a word because it’s not polite to put people on the spot like that, and maybe because it didn’t want to stress Murderbot out even further. 

And then, as mentioned in Artificial Condition, it gave Murderbot access to its comm and feed streams for Murderbot’s own peace of mind, so Murderbot could listen for anyone mentioning it? Like why do that for a free bot apparently just on its way home and only riding along because it doesn’t want to deal with the crowds? Why do that for ANYONE who doesn’t have reason to be paranoid about pursuit? 

Headcanon now that Cargo Transport was FULLY AWARE that Murderbot was a shadyass, traumatized motherfucker lying through its teeth the whole time, possibly even realized it was a SecUnit (it is a cargo transport), and just helped out within Murderbot’s comfort level because it’s a genuinely good person.

Also headcanon that it wasn’t the first time it’d done something like that. 

ever think about how making homework a big part of grades in school effectively sorts kids along class lines? like, in general, poor kids have jobs, middle class kids have chores, and rich kids have tutors. give all of them four hours of homework after eight hours of school and take a big fucking guess which ones fail your test. 

has anybody made a Slender mod yet where Slenderman is replaced with the you know I had to do it to em guy