WE ARE FIGHTING DREAMERS!!! *mumbled Japaneses* FIGHTING DREAMERS!! *quiet Japanese sounding words*FIGHTING DREAMERS!!! *more muffled Japanese sounding words* OI OI OI OH JUST GO MY WAYYY
At the end of the last episode of Steven Universe, you hear “Garnet? Garnet? Gaaarneeeet?” It’s Rose’s voice. She says, “So, what do you think, Garnet? Should I go to the concert?”
Here’s a question that no one ever has a good answer for: why are cashiers forced to stand? Who decided people need to stand for 4 hours straight between breaks when they don’t MOVE?
Would it really hurt if they had, at least, a stool?
hey i haven’t seen anything about this on tumblr yet, but around 7pm this evening a bomb went off in the chidlom district of bangkok thailand, right next to the very popular erawan hindu shrine. last i’ve heard the death toll is at least 16 with about 80 injured. thankfully all of my family has checked in and are safe, but please keep bangkok in your thoughts. [periodically updating source which may contain potentially graphic images/videos/descriptions]
update: new reports are coming in that there are now 21 deaths and 81 injured. please keep them and their family in mind.
ALRIGHT alright so here’s the thing that’s been bugging me for MONTHS now, and I’m talking pre-Stevenbomb 1.0. In the episode Marble Madness, when the Gems and Steven break into Peridot’s hideout beneath the Kindergarten (Facet Five), Peridot learns for the very first time that there are still Gems present on Earth.
She’s legitimately surprised because “the Red Eye” didn’t detect them. You know… THIS THING??
This comes all the way from the second episode of the series, Laser Light Cannon. But this little bit of dialogue made it clear to all of us that the Red Eye was actually sent here by Homeworld, to monitor the planet and ensure that it was safe for them to invade uninterrupted so that they could continue their work.
SO HERE’S MY PROBLEM.
HOW in the FRESH HELL was the Red Eye unable to detect ANY kind of Gem presence when the Gems’ first solution to trying take it out was to do… THIS??
Please stop assuming that everyone who dresses outside of the binary is ashamed of their anatomy.
So you can stop giving me your unsolicited tips on how I should do softer makeup to “look better” or only wear high waisted bottoms to “have a better figure”. Please stop.
I am fully aware of my muscular stature, broad shoulders, chiseled jaw, narrow hips, and everything else that makes me look “manly”. But it’s my body. And I love my body. And I will decorate it how I please. If that doesn’t neatly fall into your heteronormative aesthetic standards that means there’s something YOU need to fix. Not me.
On that note. Peep this beauty. Normalize this beauty. Cuz it ain’t going nowhere sweetheart 😘
my mum showed me a tv show she likes where boyfriends are put in charge of organising their weddings and the girlfriends are sent away and not allowed to give input so it’ll be a surprise and like, the majority of the episodes turn out with the woman being weirded out and sometimes even unhappy with the results?? and im just there like, do these people know each other?? do straight couples actually have conversations and get to know each other before they get married because this is heavily suggesting otherwise
I don’t have a belly button - it was surgically removed in the process of treating Crohn’s disease that progressed to life-threatening peritonitis about four years ago.
This isn’t a story about a belly button, or about intestines or any lack thereof. This is about the United States.
As part of a ‘getting to know you’ exercise a few weeks ago, a group of people and I were playing ‘two truths and a lie.’ For my turn, my lie was ‘I used to live in Canada.’ I was called on immediately after the game was over for confirmation that my statement ‘I don’t have a belly button’ was true.
I complied immediately, revealing a set of long purple scars that stretch across my abdomen - one of which crosses through the midline, no belly button in sight.
I gave a condensed version of the story and the general consensus was ‘bro, sick.’ Except for one guy, who looked utterly horrified.
“Wait,” he said slowly, something clearly dawning on him, “how are you going to have kids?”
This threw me for a second, but I’m used to being asked that question - my abdomen is full of scar tissue, I’m missing some key organs, the medicine I’m taking to stay in remission is a known abortifacient and I may well not be able to have children. I’ve discussed it before, but generally not with strangers.
“Uh,” I replied. “Well, that’s a complicated question. There are a lot of factors and I don’t really know.”
“No, no,” he insisted. “You don’t have a belly button.”
“What?”
“Isn’t that how the baby… you know, eats?”
“I’m sorry?”
“So like, the baby couldn’t get food. Because there’s nowhere for the umbilical cord to connect.”
“Wait,” I said, deeply confused. “Like, how was I born? This is recent, I was born with a belly button. I lost it like fourteen years after being born, there wasn’t a conflict.”
“No, I get that, but if you had a baby, there would be nowhere for the umbilical cord to connect and it wouldn’t get food. You don’t have a belly button so there’s nowhere to connect.”
I paused for a second, the realization dawning on me that this guy had a winning combination of no boundaries and literally no idea how pregnancy worked.
“Dude,” another guy cut in, “that’s not how it works.”
“That’s how babies get belly buttons, man,” the first guy insisted.
“The umbilical cord is a source of nutrients, yeah, but they’re stored in the placenta,” I offered. “That’s a totally different organ.”
“Then why do the mom and the baby both have belly buttons?”
The second guy was getting kind of upset, but I was totally beyond that - this guy had graduated high school and was heading off to college to study political science and didn’t have a clue where babies come from. It was actually comical.
I decided to interrupt and change the subject before anything got heated.
“What do you want to do after college?” I asked the first guy.
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I just want to be a politician - like, public policy, that sort of thing. Run for office, you know.”
sometimes you say or do bad things while you’re in an awful mental place. sometimes you say things that are rude or uncalled for or manipulative. and i’m not going to hold that against you. mental illness is hard, and no one is perfect. but once you’re through that episode, you need to take steps to make amends. you need to apologize.
“i couldn’t help it, i was having a bad episode” is a justification, not an apology.
“i’m so fucking sorry, i fucked up, i don’t deserve to live, i should stop talking to anyone ever, i should die” is a second breakdown and a guilt trip. it is not an apology.
when you apologize, the focus should be on the person you hurt. “i’m sorry. i did something that was hurtful to you. even if i was having a rough time, you didn’t deserve to hear that,” is a better apology. if it was a small thing, you can leave it at that.
if you caused significant distress to the other person, this is a good time to talk about how you can minimize damage in the future. and again, even if it is tempting to say you should self-isolate and/or die, that is not a helpful suggestion. it will result in the person you’re talking to trying to talk you out of doing that, which makes your guilt the focus of the conversation instead of their hurt.
you deserve friendship, and you deserve support. but a supportive friend is not an emotional punching bag, and mental illness does not absolve you of responsibility for your actions. what you say during a mental breakdown doesn’t define you. how you deal with the aftermath though, says a lot.
This is the most carefully-nuanced discussion of this I think I have ever seen. Thank you for writing this.
