aprillikesthings

[aprillikesthings]

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literally so embarrassing to have someone go "i don't go here" or "what's this from?" on my art and it's a rarepair/crackship that is in no way representative of the source material... and i have to be like. well you see, the rest of the restaurant's menu is not like this. i'm doing my own thing eating black olives right out of the can in the back-of-house. whether or not you want me to throw you a can, you have to understand that's not what they serve out front

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Job interviews suck and are bullshit performances of obedience. But since we gotta deal with them, here's one bit of advice:

The question "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" isn't usually about vision and ambition. It's likely code for "will we need to replace you the moment you find the job that you actually wanna do?".

The answer they often hope to hear is: "In 5 years I hope to have the knowledge and experience in this position to take on any challenging tasks and to train and manage less experiences workers if needed."

Which reads as: 'I will stay with your company and become more valuable to you over time'.

#adulting

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#spop #catradora #kissing is awesome

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Time for some She Ra headcanons!

I know Nate’s suggested that at some point after the events of the show, the former members of the Rebellion invent musical theater, because now they just have the TIME

And clearly some forms of art existed during and before the events in canon—Bright Moon’s castle and rooms, for instance. Clothing. Music.

But the post-war stability (plus the inspiration given by magic flourishing) would bring about a tremendous amount of art of all kinds!

I think that all those former Horde soldiers—including the clones!—would just have a lot to say artistically. Their skill level would be low to start with because it just wasn’t something the Horde or Prime encouraged at all, but given the time they’d improve rapidly and end up with these various artistic movements and styles across all kinds of art: fiction and painting and yes, musical theater.

And I just imagine art history scholars (lol we know Etheria has those already) a few hundred years later who specialize in the incredible wave of post-war art.

#spop #she ra and the princesses of power #my posts

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Sometimes you gotta pick a cat up just to set them back down somewhere nearby. Remind them who calls the shots in your house. Oh you thought you were lying on the floor? Dead wrong fool you're standing on the couch cushion now staring up at me waiting for an explanation. You'll never get it. I'm gone. I'm walking away. I'm already in the next room before you can so much as mutter a confused "meow." later son. you're reexamining your place in the universe all by yourself. Consider my power in a empty living room

#me at mal

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#this is a DELIGHT #soviet propaganda #weird combo of tags but trust me lol #happy making

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#Lolol #French

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The ink bottle lying on your desk... begins to crawl away..???

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camino frances

© 2023  Yiannis Krikis

#hah I totally had a late breakfast at the place in the first pic #it wasn’t quite that busy but close?? #camino de santiago

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My spop brainrot is bad enough that part of a dream last night had me trying to explain to strangers a friend’s headcanon as to how the titles of princess and queen differ on Etheria

#mage-cat I think that was your hc? #spop #my life

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Oh!! Like the ramp at Pioneer Square!

Also a RAILING. The thing that scares me when I see pics of conversation pits is that there’s no fucking railing, which means clumsy people (me) or vision-impaired people can just fall into the damn thing

Also a railing along the ramp to lean on

What would an actually accessible conversation pit look like? Would such a thing actually be possible?

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#I’d like to report a murder #no he deserved it

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when the body trots on

passed a memorial on my morning trot today. buckaroo about my age, lots of flowers. went to his instagram to learn his way and it was just packed full of photos with buds and good times. you strip away the body and all thats left is love. sad but also very beautiful and important

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something you said has been on my mind for a while - "kink is not inherently sexual". good faith! I don't understand that at all, could you explain it a bit?

This post is educational, hooray! Extensive discussion of kink under the cut. Nothing explicitly sexual is described in detail.

Please note that in this post, I use the terms top and Dom/me interchangeably. This is because I personally identify as a "top" and not a Dom. Some communities draw sharp lines between these two terms, and it's useful to make sure that you're using the same definition as other people when you're talking. Some people use "top" solely to refer to the giving or penetrative partner, which is not synonymous with the dominant partner. Topping subs, power bottoms, and all other permutations exist. I just use that term for myself because I don't like being called a Dom. It sounds like a guy's name to me, I don't like it.

When I text my wife in every morning, "Please bring me my coffee," and she answers, "Yes, Sir!" is that sexual? I'm surely not feeling sexual when I'm barely awake. When I hold my other wife's hand when she's having a depressive fit and tell her, "Daddy's got you, it's okay," that's kink, but it's not sexual. In that moment, neither of us feel particularly sexy, and we're surely not engaging in sex, but it's kink that - forgive the pun - binds us more strongly together.

One of my girls wears a 24/7 collar that I locked in place. (She can ask me at any point to take it off, or she can take it off herself if she wants to, but she chooses this.) That's kink. It's also... a necklace. That's not any more inherently sexual than her wedding ring, though it - for us - certainly symbolizes part of our relationship that happens to sometimes include sex, exactly the same as a wedding ring.

There are a lot of types of kink that don't include sexual contact in any way or which might include sexual contact but don't need to. One of my friends is a sex-repulsed ace bootblack. They literally take care of the boots of tops, usually at play parties. For them, this act of service and submission allows them to go into a particular headspace that's very fulfilling for them. They are explicitly serving the people whose boots they clean and polish. The Dom/mes receive that service and not only get really great-looking boots out of the deal but also get the feeling of power from having someone eager to take care of them and serve them. For some of us, that kind of service allows us access to a feeling of power that can be hard to access in our daily life, and that feels really good.

Sometimes, it can feel good in a sexy way, and sometimes it feels good in a "makes lizard brain feel powerful but not sexy" way. Neither one is inherently better or worse or more or less kinky than the other.

Sometimes, people who like being whipped like it because the line between pain and pleasure is like a wave on the ocean, and they want to surf it. Sometimes, that involves mashing squishy bits together, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, it's just about riding that endorphin wave and then having someone take care of you afterwards.

Sometimes, people want to be tied up in elaborate shibari knots and fucked. Sometimes, people want to be tied up in elaborate shibari knots because that process requires a lot of trust and is an intimate ritual that takes a lot of time. Sometimes, it's both. Sometimes, people want to tie up others because it's a beautiful work of art, because that ritual of binding is a ritual and accesses something sacred for them. Sometimes, they want to be tied up because it's playtime, and that's fun for them! Sometimes, they want to be tied up because when they're tied up, they are 0% in control, and they want to just surrender control to someone whom they can trust.

Some people want to go into sub space - that headspace I talked about earlier - because in their everyday life, they have a lot of responsibilities and stress, and going into that space where nobody can ask anything from them, where they have no responsibility to make any decisions at all, is a relief to them. That might involve squishy bits, or it might not. Some people like going into that sub space because being someone's Good Boy, Sweet Girl, or Good Pup is gender-affirming for them. A friend of mine only feels really safe when he's got his pup hood on, because that means he's With Master, who will protect him.

Some people get gender affirmation out of being in control, being someone's Daddy or Mistress, Sir or Boss. It allows them to access a power that helps them to square their shoulders and take on the world.

All of this entirely skips over the fact that a person's primary sexual organ is between their ears, and some people do get sexual fulfillment out of kink even when no genitalia are involved at all, but I cannot stress enough that the reasons that people enter into the multitude of kink situations in the world are as varied as the people involved. People gain access to comfort, to feelings of stability and order and control over their lives, to gender affirmation, to endorphins that are or aren't sexual in nature, to release from responsibility, to ritual and intimacy, to the ability to provide for others and take care of others in a way that their outside lives may or may not permit. For that matter, they may simply gain access to a paycheck, and that's fine, too. That's no more or less "selling your body" than when I used to run my ass off for 13+ hours a day at my retail job, and I guarantee they're making way, way better money.

The fact that so many people see kink as only and purely sexual means they're missing out on so much of what kink can offer, and narrowing down the experiences of others to this tiny little sliver of what actually exists. Yes, it can be sexual, but it doesn't have to be. The reasons that people engage in kink are as varied as the reasons that people engage in any other kind of interaction, and the fulfillment they get from it is as varied, too.

[aprillikesthings]

when i was 20 i hadn't transitioned yet but i had a dream where i died and saw my own spirit leave my body and my spirit had the form of a silhouette of a young girl in a sundress and even without any context i felt inherently that that was "me" and then i woke up. a very cisgender experience

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Successful trans men

I wish I knew about men like these growing up, I wish I knew that trans men could be successful after a lifetime of never seeing anyone ‘like me’ excelling in life. So here are some trans men - some that you may have heard of, some that you may not - that are successful in a range of careers. Never let being trans hold you back, never think you can’t do something, never think there is not a place for you.

Ben Barres American neurobiologist for Stanford University and advocate for women in science. Barre’s research on the interactions between glial cells and neurons changed the way that we understand the brain and opened up a whole new field of research.

Stephen Whittle Professor of equalities law. Founder of FTM Network in 1989 and Press for Change in 1992. Whittle has been heavily involved in trans activism since joining the Self Help Association for Transsexuals in 1979. His research and activism has been instrumental in ensuring the rights of trans people in the UK.

Michael D Cohen Actor, teacher and coach. Making his break in award-winning Nickelodeon sitcoms Harvey Danger and Danger Force he was the first series regular actor to publicly come out as transgender. Cohen has a BSc in cell biology and a masters degree in adult education, teaching at his own acting studio and providing workshops.

Chris Mosier American triathlete and award-winning coach. Six time member of Team USA in both duathlon and triathlon, Mosier also won two national championships in racewalking and was the first transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympic trials to compete against other members of his gender.

Yance Ford African-American film producer and director. Ford received an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and was nominated for an Oscar for his part in producing and directing the documentary Strong Island which follows the death of his brother.

Kael McKenzie Canadian judge. Serving in the Canadian Armed Forces for several years, McKenzie later attended law school and and worked as a lawyer before being appointed as a judge to the Provincial Court of Manitoba in 2015. 

Shane Ortega Native American former flight engineer in the US army, former marine and professional bodybuilder. Throughout his career Ortega has served in Iraq and Afghanistan in over 400 combat missions. He has a long history of advocating for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the recent banning on transgender service members in the US army. 

Drago Renteria Chicano photojournalist and deaf and LGBT activist. Renteria founded the Deaf Queer Resource and is CEO of DeafVision - a webhosting and development company run by deaf people and the founder of the National Deaf LGBTQ Archives. Renteria has been instrumental in both creating and hosting many online deaf/queer spaces online along with being heavily involved in real-world activism for decades.

Phillipe Cunningham Elected city councillor for ward 4 Minneapolis and previous special education teacher, Cunningham holds a masters degrees in Organizational Leadership & Civic Engagement and in Police Administration and is passionate about tacking inequalities in his community.