A character can still be a great character without being a good person.

In fact, some of the best characters are terrible people.

Because a character’s worth should be based on how complex and interesting they are, not their morality if they were real.

Yes. A thousand times, yes.

Let’s goooooooo

came back wrong is such a judgemental term. i think i came back perfectly normal. maybe i came back and all of you were wrong have you considered that

𝖮𝗂𝗅 𝗉𝖺𝗂𝗇𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖻𝗒 𝖨𝗏𝖺𝗇𝖺 𝖹̌𝗂𝗏𝗂𝖼́ ( 𝖻. 𝗂𝗇 𝟣𝟫𝟩𝟫 𝗂𝗇 𝖲𝖺𝗋𝖺𝗃𝖾𝗏𝗈)

OIL

PAINTING

it really is crazy how quickly people were willing to just let chatgpt do everything for them. i have never even tried it. brother i don't even know if it's just a website you go to or what. i do not know where chatgpt actually lives, because i can decide my own grocery list.

saw someone say "an 11-year-old isn't even supposed to know what sex is and if you do something horrible must be happening to you and you need to get out of there" like can we be for real for a moment. have some people honest to god never heard 11-year-olds making sex jokes in their life

and let's be honest. if something bad was happening, good sex ed would help them recognize that. trying to shelter children from even knowing what sex is doesn't help or even work, it actually enables abuse. teach them about consent

Hot take: let's not discuss sexual stuff around CHILDREN.

Let's not sexualize children or even think of children & sexual stuff

Don't discuss sexual stuff with CHILDREN.

They cannot consent.

Children cannot consent and I dont know how many times we have to tell you this.

CHILDREN. CANNOT. CONSENT.

people like you are the reason so many kids can't speak up about being sexually abused. go back to the catholic church or whatever. we need proper sex education and this is dire

oh they're literally catholic. that explains a lot.

sex education ≠ sexualization

sex education ≠ sexual abuse

sex education ≠ child endangerment

HOWEVER

sex education = increased safety through knowledge

sex education = decrease in teen pregnancy

sex education = decrease in spread of sexually transmitted diseases

sex education = productive and necessary

Hello! Literally practicing Catholic here! Raised by Catholic parents since birth! I went through things exactly like this as a child entirely because my parents neglected my sex education due to viewing it as 'scarring' and 'inappropriate'! Please fucking educate your kids about sex and what constitutes sexual abuse! Teach them they have a right to refuse! :)

And let's also say the uncomfortable part out loud here: it's not only about protecting kids against older teens and against adults.

The average age for puberty to start is 11-12, but it is normal for puberty to begin between the ages of 8 and 14. Puberty is only considered 'too early' by doctors and delayed with puberty blockers if a girl is 7 or a boy is 8. And while not everyone experiences sexual arousal in the first years of puberty, quite a lot of kids do.

So, as deeply uncomfortable as it makes adults: some 11 year olds have already been getting horny for 3 or 4 years. And while their first explorations of that feeling often happen alone, some of that hornyness will drive those kids to seek out others to experiment.

So without information, that 11 year old may end up having sex with another kid and may get pregnant. That 11 year old may sexually assault a younger kid, not out of malice but out of simply not knowing that you should not do this to others. The idea that these things will not happen if we don't tell kids about sex is patently false.

I know we don't like to think about literal kids getting horny, but if we ignore the fact that this happens, those will kids suffer because of our cowardly unwillingness to face the facts and to give them the information to stay safe and to be safe to others.

For those who want a source on the age at which people can start getting horny:

HOOOOOO boyyyyyy.

Okay. I'm trained in this.

You need to be providing age-appropriate sexual education to children from as young as you possibly can.

When kids are really young this looks like "Yes, that's mummy's vagina. Please leave the bathroom because it is rude to be in the bathroom while mummy is using the toilet. Mummy is placing her boundary, sweetheart, and you need to respect that."

"Yes, daddy does have something different to mummy. What daddy has is called a penis. Yes (mummy/daddy's penis/vagina) is the same as you."

You will notice here that I use the anatomical terms for these body parts. That is for a reason. It helps your child if something does happen better be able to disclose, exactly, what has happened to them. You do not want your child trying to disclose using words such as "secret pocket" or "hidden flower" or "willie" as this can obfuscate meaning. Imagine, if you will, Maisie trying to disclose that Coach Asshole touched her sexually by saying "Coach Asshole stuck his stick into my secret pocket," to a teacher or family friend who does not know that those words are euphemisms. Maisie has tried to disclose, but has been unsuccessful because she does not have the language that she needs.

Now, next.

Children, especially girls, can start going through puberty young. Like, really young. I have taught 9 year olds who menstruate. We need to be teaching these children about their bodies. We need to be teaching boys about the bodies of people who menstruate. There is so much misinfomation amongst grown cismen about menstruation because they are not taught it in school.

We also need to teach children about consent and bodily autonomy from as young as possible. This sets them up that even if they do, unfortunately, suffer abuse of this form they are vocal in their protestations and are more likely to disclose than children who have been taught to accept that adults can do whatever they want to a child's body. Granny kissing little Maisie on the cheek doesn't look that different to Coach Asshole calling his girls at gymnastics "Special girls" and kissing/touching them inappropriately, especially to a child (who, usually, have a much less refined emotional radar and both will cause them to shut down and just accept what is happening. You want your kid to be able to say "No, what you are doing/did to my body is wrong.")

So.

How should adults behave around children?

Firstly - my golden rule of interacting with children is If you have nothing to hide, don't hide anything.

This means when you are interacting with children you always do so in an area where you will easily be visible if another adult happens to walk by. No closed doors, try to minimise rooms without windows, have another adult present.

The reason you are doing this is to make it flag as strange and unusual to a child if an adult tries to get them alone. Safe adults do not do that. By making sure you are transparent in your behaviour, the child is more likely to flag something being wrong when someone is not transparent. You are equipping the child with skills to protect themselves.

They will also be more likely to disclose to another adult that an adult was trying to get them alone.

Secondly - No secrets.

(There is a little bit of an exception to this rule but to begin with, no secrets.)

This leads back to transparency. A safe adult will not ask a child to keep a secret from another adult. If Uncle Jeff is telling Nancy to keep "our little secret" when he gives her extra dessert, then Nancy is prone to believe that keeping a secret from another adult is something she's supposed to do when Uncle Scumbucket asks her to keep his inappropriate fondling of her as "our little secret." Children who see secrets as unusual are more likely to disclose that an adult told them to keep something a secret.

This is also important as grooming usually starts as "we need to keep you getting this special treat as our little secret." Uncle Jeff giving Nancy more icecream out of the goodness of his heart looks a lot like Uncle Scumbucket giving Nancy candy and lollies and extra screentime in an effort to get her to like him and Uncle Scumbucket's secrets are going to move on to "Sit on my lap today, honey, but don't tell your mother. Remember, this is our little secret." And eventually to Uncle Scumbucket asking Nancy to keep sexual activities as "our little secret."

You do not want children thinking that safe adults keep secrets.

Thirdly - this ties in a little with secondly but Teach your child the difference between a safe secret and an unsafe secret.

If you are unsure of the difference yourself -

A safe secret:

A safe secret is a surprise birthday party, a camping trip, a surprise trip to disneyworld, pizza!

An unsafe secret:

You can see how Uncle Scumbucket's secret is unsafe, but also how Uncle Jeff's secret is unsafe because Uncle Jeff's secret does not have an end date. Uncle Jeff's secret is unsafe because it is priming Macy to see Uncle Scumbucket's secret as reasonable, which leads back to the grooming discussed above.

Lastly, and this is very important -

'Protecting' children from having access to sexual education actually does them an injustice.

We do not live in a perfect world.

Bad things can and do happen to children, with depressing frequency. Get me drunk sometime and I'll tell you what I'm legally allowed to disclose of the stories where terrible shit has happened to children I have cared for.

Pretending that they don't happen means that if they do happen, children are unable to recognise and respond appropriately. You are making your child less equipped to protect themselves, not more.

Children who are taught age-appropriate sexual education from a young age are so much less likely to be in a situation of sexual violence than those who are not taught age-appropriate sexual education. Children who are taught age-appropriate sexual education are more likely to disclose if something does happen to them, than children who are not.

Protect your kids.

And for God's sake teach them the words 'penis' and 'vagina/vulva'

Also the idea that 11 year olds aren’t gonna want to figure out how the hell babies happen is absurd. And leads to little girls thinking they’re pregnant because they got cooties from a boy kissing her or some shit.

I learned the basics of sex Ed from a book specifically for elementary schoolers. It was fine. I wasn’t scarred. I thought it was hilarious. And you know what I did? I went and told every kid on the block.

Teach your kids age appropriate information so some little shit like me circa 1990 doesn’t make a REAL interesting school bus ride and a lot of awkward phone calls for everyone.

tangled gave us so much, but mostly it gave us the beautiful and intense love of a horse and the man he is chasing in order to imprison

i personally believe that maximus was the former captain of the guard who was cursed into horse form pretty recently, and everyone’s having trouble adjusting to it.

like, he’s entitled to sick leave, he really ought to take a couple months to break the curse and come to terms with whatever the fuck just happened to him, but instead of embarking on a journey of self-discovery and healing he just keeps showing up to work. no one can get captain maximus to go on his fucking voyage of self actualization and fix the curse because he’s obsessed with catching flinn ryder. everyone really fucking hopes that when he finally catches this guy the curse might be broken anyway, but it isn’t.

he just keeps showing up to work. he glares at the stablehands until they saddle him up. everyone’s gone over the regulations a dozen times but there’s nothing there saying you’re not allowed to saddle and ride the captain of the guard if he makes you do it. his former second in command rides him around like ‘sir i really don’t know about this’ and he’s just like ‘are we going to catch some criminals or what.’

you can see in the movie that everyone in the royal guard defers to this horse. it’s absolutely because that’s their boss. and secondarily because now he’s two thousand pounds of percheron.

there is no evidence against this theory and you cannot prove me wrong.

Can I say something. I actually love getting surgery. I love waiting in bed with a heated blanket and leg massagers. I think getting tubes put in me is cool and I like feeling like a science experiment on the table. I like how you just teleport in time. I like how COLD the OR is. It's FUN

literally same

THANK YOU I was trying to find this exact picture

Suddenly I am thinking about that article written by Brennan Lee Mulligan about being witness to extremely hyper-wealthy people believing they were going to live forever.

Not if the rest of us have anything to say about it, said the guy with words on his bullets to the heart of a health insurance CEO.

The old men were by far the most diverse bunch. Old billionaires wear whatever the fuck they want. One man wore a maroon, velvet, three-piece suit and a paisley cravat, and he must have been sweating in it, but I couldn’t tell because he had doused himself in a cologne that I’m going to call “A Million, Billion Different Kinds Of Fruit, by Calvin Klein.” There were two shaven-headed men of Caucasian descent, wearing black hakama robes and some kind of pendants. They had white socks and sandals, and from the way people were bowing to them, I’m guessing they were some kind of religious officials, but I can’t be quite sure. Whatever faith they practiced, it wasn’t Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Baha’i, Taoism, Shinto, Confucianism, Voodoo, Wicca or the Dreamtime Faith of the Aboriginal Shamans. If I had to guess, I would say they were either members of the Illuminati, or we are living in the Matrix and they are priests from the remaining human city in the real, outer world.

I don’t know what religion they were from. Do we get why that’s scary? Aside from the fact that a vast chunk of my education centered on world religions and mythology, religions really want you to know about them. That’s their whole business model. They tell you why things are the way they are and then you give them money. So the fact that there’s a religion that I’m too poor to know about is deeply troubling.

These rich old billionaires were the kindest, sweetest old gents. In conversations I overheard more than once, a man worth more than my entire extended family (which is Irish and therefore vast and mighty) talked about another man at the party as “just being the sweetest soul,” or referred to a cupcake at a certain café as “sinfully seductive.” And I realized, these men may have been cutthroat sharks before, or they may have inherited their fortunes, but none of that matters now. They won. They won life. They are lions that, having killed enough gladiators, are now left gloriously alive to become old and toothless. The host of the party had an entire wall covered in plaques and trophies. I read most of them, and still couldn’t tell you what he did for a living. Because whatever he had done, he certainly didn’t need to do it anymore. His accomplishments referenced his humanitarianism, his civic heroism and his contributions to culture and civilization. So whether or not this man had worked at Bain Capital gutting companies in the American Heartland didn’t matter, because he had rescued a bunch of Tibetan art and now he was kissing other billionaires on both cheeks and saying, “Tom, I’m in love with you!” because who gives a fuck, I’m rich!

I watched these crazy old holiday wizards and their jeweled scarab wives, their Oxford sons and Cambridge daughters, and thought to myself, “This is the most fun I’ve ever seen anyone have. Louis the XVI would've shit a brick if he'd ever thrown a party this good. This is… so great. This is… completely fucked.”

I began to notice that people were looking at me funny. For a moment I became scared that they realized I was poor. Perhaps I had used the wrong fork, or a moth had flown in lazy spirals out of my wallet, or my toes had popped out of the holes in my shoes. But then I realized it was my expression that was drawing looks. I looked flabbergasted and astounded. And they didn’t.

That’s when I realized it. These motherfuckers weren’t going to the best party of their lives. They weren’t even necessarily going to the best party of their week. Who knows? Maybe one of these plutocrats was sneering at the lack of a third fortuneteller. “No augur divining mysteries from the movement of birds? No oracle breathing poison and screaming prophesies? You call this a Christmas Party!”

Well fuck that!

_

I have completed another crochet monstrosity

It's terrible and I love it, especially how peaceful it looks taking a nap. @elodieunderglass horrible things with hands?

it's a great creation, well done @cardboardlife !

adventure time slang is weird cuz like. when you first watch the show and hear the slang you're like "oh this is cringy slang but its not like awful" but it gets to a point where the voice actors deliver the slang so naturally you don't even notice it and its just. part of the world's vernacular. I can't think of any other show that's done in-universe slang like this

Finn: oh man the frappin dude just ginked up and went flipoo over the junkin fence

Me, 3 seasons into this show: wow he really did huh

It's true but it's also funnier knowing the storyboarders were usually just making Finn say fuck

this is math

i have spent years rewatching all 10 seasons and recording every expletive i hear in adventure time:

Filing these away for later.

Wouldn’t it be cephalophlangi? Since fingers are phalanges, and pharynx is the throat

Ooooh yeah, that’s better as an accurate description - but no, it still needs the

How do we feel about cephalodactyl? And we can use phalanges for “phalangipod.” Cephalodactyl phalangipod. How do we feel about that

The Greek prefix for "hand" is "chiro", so perhaps it is a chirocephalic pentapod, or maybe a pentapodactyl cephalochiroid?

I like “pentapodactyl” tremendously!!! but hate “chiro” in this context, and I don’t know why. Obviously I have no authority to be the arbiter of this but I do feel strongly!!

There’s a gorgeous rhythm to:

Cephalopharyngeal pentapodactyl monstrosity of the alarm

@elodieunderglass I'm curious how you pronounce "Cephalopharyngeal" - my instinct is to pronounce the opening as a dactyl, like in "cephalopod", i.e. "SEF-uh-lo", but the scansion of that line feels better to me if it's an amphibrach, i.e. "suh-FAL-lo"

The Cephalobrachial Pentapodactylus! Palmate monstrosity of the alarm! The sesquipedalian's best pernoctalian psuedo-mammalian hand without arm!

This maniform, bursiform, digital deep-dweller drifts through the darkest demersal domains, A five-footed fingerling phantasm floating full fathoms afloor from the foam-freckled main!

It hunts with its quick hyponychial cnidocytes fully envenomed and ready to kill! If nocuous toxicants don't cause cessation its rostriform mandibles certainly will!

By ripping and rending, it ruptures its rations with razorlike radulae housed in its jaw; Its great glabrous grub-grippers gather the gobbets to go in its ventropharyngeal maw!

The Cephalobrachial Pentapodactylus seldom comes skyward while it's still alive, But sometimes some singular specimen surfaces, stalking the shore like a deadly high-five,

So if you should witness, in perambulation, gressorial fingertips roaming the sands, I beg you, consider this simple hortation: observe from a distance, and do not shake hands!

HELLO!!!

This and the cracker stacking poem are going into a file of things to be read aloud at my funeral. Absolutely incredible work.

no fun buttons for april fools' day?....

wel....okay..

Source

Source

...*sigh*

*taps mic*

Cory Booker has been talking in the senate for over 20 hours now

He’s not filibustering. He’s protesting the current administration.

For those of you from outside the US or those of you who didn’t pay attention in government class, in the US senate there’s really no limit to the amount of time a senator can speak. So sometimes if they don’t want a bill to pass they just. Don’t stop talking. To hopefully get past the deadline to vote on a bill. This is called filibustering.

Senator Cory Booker isn’t doing that. He’s disrupting “the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able”. Just in protest. This doesn’t usually happen.

He’s less than 20 minutes away from breaking the record of the longest speech given on the senate floor

Cory Booker has officially broken Strom Thurmond’s record for longest speech on the senate floor and he’s still going

For those of you wondering what he’s been talking about this whole time, his staff wrote down a bunch of stuff for him to read like stories from people across the political spectrum opposed to what the administration is doing. He’s also been telling personal anecdotes about meeting important civil rights leaders and other democratic senators have been pausing him for “questions” but the questions have been as long as a small speech and have both served the purpose of giving him a second to sit down and updating him on the news that he’s been missing while he’s been talking.

He has yielded the floor at 25 hrs and 4 mins. His eyes are so wide they look like they’re going to bug out of his skull so I don’t blame him for stopping. He said to go out and get in some good trouble.

Addition for those unaware: Cory Booker is black. Strom Thurmond set the previous record about 70 years ago in protest of civil rights. Booker spent much of the time I was watching talking about the importance of working together for the people and the idea that it's not "left versus right but right versus wrong."

The new record speech is on the right side of history.

DUDE