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it’s insane how quickly your life can just. suddenly improve. i used to be so miserable but now i own 5 swords

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so back when i was teaching, one of the things i learned to look for were the "mood makers", as i liked to call them, of the classes. there were always 2 or 3 per class, and it was easy to find them in the first few days. you got those kids on your side, and it was a ripple effect with the rest of the students - they would all follow. so winning those kids over was huge when it came to how the year would play out. and from time to time, whenever the class was sort of faltering - middle of winter, of a big project, burn-out high - i would lean back in on those mood makers again to turn things around.

one particular class, when we had a big multi-month group project happening, were just... really struggling with getting their shit together lol. they were supposed to be practicing their presentations (english speaking class) and they were doing pretty much anything but, and their presentations were supposed to start the next class day. they were also PANICKING as i started giving out some feedback - which was NOT GREAT - as they were running through the lines they were supposed to be remembering. after realizing all of them needed so much extra work, i decided we needed to have a turn-around, so i invited one of the mood makers up to the front. i held out a cup to him, with two papers inside.

"one of them," i said, "says tuesday, and if you draw that, presentations go as planned. but one of them says thursday, and if you choose that one, everyone gets extra time to practice."

everyone was like OH SHIT. OKAY. THIS IS IT. and this mood maker, he was a big personality (they usually are) so i knew he'd really ham this up, and he did. we made a huge deal, with drum-rolls and everything, of him picking one out of the cup. he opened it up the paper and announced THURSDAY to a round of huge cheers. he was the class hero. everyone had TONS of motivation to work super hard on this gifted extra day, and really put the time in. their presentations were great. morale SOARED.

the plot twist was that both papers said thursday, because they all needed the extra time. my forever teacher advice: find creative ways to make things happen so that you get the buy-in from the class.

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My favorite mermaid art is the one of a family photo with a mermaid mother and old sailor father and their sons are both reverse merfolk (human legs with fish heads).

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it's illegal to not say "oh big stretch" when your dog does a Big Stretch

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Also hey, cultural history time: The reason why cats are associated with women wasn't ultimately and originally about women as sly, cruel, or capricious creatures, but about cats as mothers to their kittens. And yes, sure, reducing womanhood to motherhood and a woman's worth to her fertility is Much Bad, but nonetheless I want to stress that the reason cats became the symbol animal of so many goddesses and were associated with women from thereon wasn't over some "cats and women are sly and selfish, dogs and men are straightforward and loyal uwu" dichtonomy.

It was about cats' tendency to go "I am 4kg of whoop-ass and if you try to touch my eight beautiful children I will fucking kill you."

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Congratulations! You are now a Magic-User!!

#i choose the bird noises but otherwise the dim lights thing sounds nice considering how sensitive my eyes are

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One day in 2019, I had pain so bad I went to the ER.

My gut felt like there were red hot needles and knifes being stabbed into it. I felt nauseous. I felt faint. I very nearly threw up.

It was not the first time I felt this way but it was the worst I’d ever felt. I’d been getting increasingly bad pain for over a year and I had gone to countless doctors trying to determine what it was.

The doctors at the ER — thankfully — took me seriously. They determined I had a severely infected gallbladder and the only way to save my life was to have surgery to remove it.

I still had to give consent before the surgery.

I remember being terrified. I was alone. There was no one to help me. And somehow, even though the only course of action I could take was to consent to the surgery the fact that I had to before they could take action made it all the more terrifying. The consequences of the surgery would mean I would live, but I’d never quite be the same. I felt cheated by my own body. Why was it this way? Why couldn’t I be healthy? Functional? Why wasn’t my body working with me?

The nurses, doctors, and surgeons there were all incredibly kind to me.

One surgeon in particular — the one who ended up operating on me — said something that will stick with me for the rest of my life. “Your body is there to help you. Sometimes, when part of the body is no longer helping you, the best thing to do is cut it away. You’ll be so much happier after the surgery. You won’t be in pain anymore.”

I think about that a lot.

I think about it a lot when I see trans men begging for help to get top surgery and are met with resistance or well meaning but ignorant messages begging back to not “mutilate” their body.

I think about my surgeon, who was so kind to me and knew what to say when I was scared and crying and alone in my hospital bed.

Your body is there to help you.

Sometimes, when part of the body is no longer helping you, the best thing to do is cut it away.

You’ll be so much happier after the surgery.

You won’t be in pain anymore.

I hope you get your top surgery.

I hope you will be so much happier.

And I hope the pain will end.

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THE SANDMAN episode 1: Sleep of the Just

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The Sandman | the protective wrath of Lord Morpheus

Because he hurt you 

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The Sandman | favourite transitions

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Tom Sturridge on becoming Morpheus

What is a dream if not the most lucid articulation of our true selves… He knows how everyone feels … and is in fact the most extraordinarily empathetic being but is managing this unstable thing which is the collective unconscious of the universe, this incredibly dangerous thing, just all of our feelings, and to manage that he has to push it all down into his belly and hide it because the consequences are disastrous…And I wanted to play someone who had that struggle. 

(BFI) 

There’s a line in the book where John Dee is driving with Rosemary and he says to her: “Dreams are real but they’re made of viewpoints, images, memories, puns and lost hopes” and I think my assembly of the pieces of the character is not dissimilar to that 

(Headliners podcast, BBC Radio 5 live) 

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The Sandman | dream a little dream of me

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I do not see what purpose this will serve.

THE SANDMAN 1.06 The Sound of Her Wings

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You know you're in trouble when he menacingly stands up from a fancy chair in your house.