#You Were Here

[lesbianralzarek]

"life doesnt get better, you just get stronger" does NOT include ages 11-17. life does in fact just get better from there. those years are dogshit. like, you do get stronger but its mostly just a factor of not being 11-17 anymore. positive thinking helps but it doesnt fix whatevers going on at 15, you have to brute force through that one raw

#i originally posted this as just a 'hey remember how fuckin bad middle/highschool was? shit was wild' type post but now #there are a bunch of teens in the notes being like 'oh my god are you serious? it gets better? im not stuck in hell forever??' #and im reminded that the only people who told teenage ella 'it gets better' were speakers at mental health assemblies #aka the least relatable people alive who were seemingly born to lie to you #so. uh. yeah im a certified adult who isnt here to lie or sugarcoat the realities of being a teenager #the only thing more certain than the pain is the transcience

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

#yes i want things to be free like ??? that is not a weird desire #'but but it costs money to keep up' ok and? how is that my problem #the government has plenty of murder dollars they could reallocate a few to make internet services universal if they wanted #also these companies were perfectly capable of supporting themselves before the internet got drowned with ads so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #edit: muting notifs on this post bc new additions have kind of petered out #so no one feel bad about adding something someone else has said‚ it is not bothering me im just trying to keep my #notifs page cleanish lol #also since i saw some people are being redirected to read my tags: firstly hiiiiii this is a special secret message for you:3 #secondly i have learned since making this that the reason they were able to support themselves previously was because #of investors bankrolling everything #and theyre now finally realizing that theyre never going to actually make a profit and arent as willing to invest #however thats just a minor correction and doesnt change my overall point #once again. so many murder dollars #so thats why im just adding it here in the tags rather than making an actual correction #anyways . love yall 💕 #origibberish #bigger gibbers

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

#idk what to tag this #worldbuilding #writing fiction #historical fiction #fantasy #a real-life example: my dad (a pediatrician) was once entrusted with the care of a baby who was born with a rare condition #this was in a place without great hospital/medical access and anyway they were going to fly the baby over #and he specifically asked them to bring the mother and baby #they show up with baby and...the baby's uncle #and he was like. y'all. do you think I asked for the mom to come just for fun??? We don't have formula here. what is the baby going to eat?

[bookcoversonly]

Title: You Were Here | Author: Cory McCarthy | Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire (2016)

#books #You Were Here #Cory McCarthy

[pianokantzart]

A little obsessed with the "utterly burnt out & can't quite figure out how to make it work in this economy" depiction of Mario in the concept art.

Look at him. He's so tired.

#You just want to give him a hug and a crisp 20$ #Makes me wonder if they were planning on having Mario with a lot less self confidence at the beginning #which explains the ''Super Luigi Bros'' logo #It would've been a lil weird but I'm also kinda here for it #I'm rolling this around in my mind as an AU #Super Mario Bros #Mario Movie #Mario movie concept art

[reasonsforhope]

Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."

Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.

These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!

Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!

Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.

So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.

#obligatory disclaimer that this really really obviously is not universal #I do live in a major progressive city #there's definitely a level of a liberal bubble effect here #but it's still really powerful to see it #because even in a major liberal enclave there were so many limits on the gender roles and homophobia etc. etc. fronts #and also the limits of the oppressive weight of obligatory teen apathy lol #seriously go gen z. so glad you guys decided cringe is dead. I love you for that so much #and I love it for you #not news #life #hope #homophobia #sexism #teens #teenagers #progress #gen z #btw if it wasn't clear I'm a #millennial #plush toy #plushie #squishmallows #build a bear #stuffed animal #like the idea of almost any teenager much less teenage boys #saying IN FRONT OF THEIR PEERS #that they are excited about their STUFFED ANIMALS #when I was a teenager #????? #cannot imagine that ever happening.

[anotherpapercut]

yesterday I went to a little meeting at my local queer community center and I was admiring their bookshelves and mentioned that I work at the public library and someone said "well I bet they don't have any [LGBTQ+ books] at our library" and I was like um. yes we do. we have tons of them. half of our employees are queer leftists so they said "oh well I bet they don't in [nearby rural county]" and I was like uh once again yes they absolutely do. gay people live and work there as well

so here's a quick reminder that if you don't think your local library has enough queer centered materials you should actually check before assuming, and if you're not satisfied with their collection you should submit a request for more such books. I don't know what the political landscape of libraries looks like outside the us rn, but within the us no matter where you are, I promise you there are employees at your library fighting for inclusion and intellectual freedom and they can't win without vocal public support

#literally maddening thing to hear #we were fucking at pride this year #i know missouri is a hell hole but there are people working really fucking hard to make it better and we could use some support here #just fucking go to your local libraries website right now literally right this second #and look around #you may be shocked at the stuff you discover there

[arunneronthird]

imagine being a gotham villain just living a peaceful life and suddenly here comes a vigilante with an actual gun

#jason todd is the funniest character in the whole dc #like who let this kid choose firearms #jason todd #red hood #my art #dc comics #batman #ladies. gentlemen. you have eaten well. #theres a version of this quote with the word filthy. however were not weak here

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

#dungeon meshi spoilers #mithrun #dungeon meshi #this has been rotating for a while but i wanted to check my evidence before getting into it thanks user angelspenance for posting that meme #half of this is just the text and the other half i'm sure has been said before but it's making my brain [radio static] so here this is #someone did for sure mention this but i do find it very cute that in his fucked up conjured world meant to portray his ideal reality #his teammates came to visit him. like part of the fantasy was then explicitly that they cared about him and were his friends. even though #he says he tried to see the worst in them. #hm it does feel important to note that i do also believe 100% in mithrun suicidality--his desire to be eaten does seem to focus a lot on #wanting it to be Over. wanting not to be left incomplete and empty anymore. #but that loops back around a bit to the hole in your heart that appears when you feel unloved. it's many things and the same thing at once #snakes #long post #severe problems #meshy

[bakedbeanchan]

Drawing from a mini comic where the timeline is reset but Zuko still has all his memories

Minicomic here

#baked bean originals #I just like drawing sokkas mortified face and then checked out #absolutely humiliated by some fire nation ponytail freak and then your little sister and that stupid bald kid want to befriend him after he #starts lying about how you all were friends in a parallel universe or whatever #that's rough buddy #just realized it looks like zuko's doing some pathetic little thumbs up here #avatar the last airbender #atla #sokka #zuko #katara #aang

[butch4maryoliver]

Three of Emily O’Leary’s hand-hooked dog rugs (@emiliaoleary); bottom two photos were shot by Bucky Miller for an installation in his Wraymour&Flanigan project (strongly recommend seeing the full installation photos!)

#i love these so so much #i had no idea you were on tumblr! tagged you proper here too and added the w&f installation link- #your work is absolutely jaw-dropping and stunning and lovely and i am so grateful to know about it #much to gush about but i’ve gotta head back to work

[toddhewitt]

they should invent decisions that are easy

#mayatalks #nofar if you see this you can say you were here first

[egophiliac]

was gonna wait 'til I'd done all the poms, but it's been a day, so have Vil with a Salazzle 🍎

#art #twisted wonderland #poketwst #what are they plotting? you don't want to know. #sigh. once again the whole 'i don't wanna do more than two each' thing is coming back to bite me. #salazzle was the immediate obvious one and then there were like two or three others i was really torn between #(milotic is the other obvious-seeming choice but there were others i felt fit more in different ways and...yeah) #then i remembered i don't actually have to draw more than one pokemon so here we are #with the ✨QUEENS�� #(me drawing salazzle's weird little feethands: heheheheh)

[sidras-tak]

Reporting this to the unaware masses lmao: Thailand released the first episode of a moderately-highly-anticipated BL today, about professional racers, and revealed (with absolutely zero hint of it in any trailers and marketing) that it is set in the omegaverse. And the main relationship is Alpha/Alpha.

#sparklepants #it’s chaos out here tom!!! #I’ve been absolutely thriving today #the memes the jokes the screencaps the confusion #BONUS the author lied and said omegaverse storylines were taken out during scriptwriting #go off queen thank you for your lies #if you had been honest I wouldn’t have had such a seretonin-filled afternoon

[iou1freetv]

#how could you forget #you were here #this was real

[eventually--darling]

If you guys were on here at 11 years old what would you be posting about

#tagged #(Y'ALL I GET IT YOU WERE ON HERE AT 11 OKKKKKK YOU DONT HAVE TO SAY IT IN EVERY REBLOG)