THIS 👏🏻IS 👏🏻NOT 👏🏻OK👏🏻

Children should not have to live like this!

Where are the parents protesting masks in school because it would traumatize their children? Is THIS not a trauma inducing practice?!

Things that are ACTUALLY pro-life (not abortion bans)

- contraceptives - free healthcare - free education - free housing - paid maternity (and paternity) leave - sexEd - s*icide prevention - abolishing the death penalty - pushing to end world hunger - gun control - defunding the police - ending wars - fighting drug abuse - letting in refugees and immigrants - supporting Black lives - supporting LGBTQ+ lives - creating laws that protect trans people - making the foster system safer - banning conversion therapy - mental health care

feel free to add any i may have missed

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

Not to keep beating dead horses like I so much love to do but I am still completely Flabbergasted and Astonished at how you (Merle Ambrose) could discover the most terrifying fact that a child that is essentially under your care has been indoctrinated into a cult (which, by the way, a process that has taken over the course of years) ((by an agent that has been stationed in a direct position to make it easier to access and manipulate children, that has easily escaped your notice for such a long time)) that worships a nihilistic entity whose ultimate goal is the absolute and total destruction of Everything and Everyone around you, and your one, single, simple-sentenced response to that is to say "Oh, that's a shame. He (Duncan) always was pretty terrible. Hope he gets better someday." And then to move on from those extremely worrying and dangerous bundle of issues permanently without taking any sort of action to protect the vulnerable and make sure nothing like this ever happens again

quick sprite redraw

colleges should have free places for people to take naps and i'm not joking

my school president - coming dec 2nd 

We’re forcing women to birth children in a country that cannot feed babies or protect children. Tell me again how this whole pro-life thing works?

😅

More asks, you say? Dare I... I must... I call upon the mighty powers of SEVENTEEN!!!!!!!!!!

your wish is My Command!!!

17. List five headcanons for your favorite characters!

another reason why Junko went off the Deep End is because, as the Ultimate Analyst, she sees every possibility. in a sense, she views the multiverse all at once. there is nothing interesting to her besides death because it's all happened, is happening, will happen. (Kamukura probably has something similar going on, but he reacted Differently)

surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, Mikan is the ex-Remnant who needed the most medical attention after coming out of the NWP. not because of anything that happened in the NWP, but because of her acts before that. she had really Frankensteined herself, to put it mildly

there are lots of characters i headcanon with a body type different than how they're portrayed, or a body type they're only sort-of suggested to have but the sprites don't really Follow Through. for example: i see Kaede as quite thick, a bigger girl, very hourglass shaped

inexplicably, Taka is in charge of moderating a lot of HPA's review sites. he is not proud of arguing with Kokichi people on Yelp about the state of the boys' bathrooms, but someone has to do it, and the SHSL Social Media Director died in a fire last year, so...

Kokichi once tricked Yasuhiro into a pump-and-dump crypto scheme

BONUS: a general headcanon for Hope's Peak Academy i don't think i've talked about much yet. it's a locus for obsessives, hyperfixators, neurodivergent folks, and...Robots. so: they may not be the most PC bunch, coming from Different Backgrounds and all, but it's kind of a tacit thing that most of them are playing around with gender and sexuality. SHSLs who can't cope with that generally leave, so it self-regulates. pride parades and labels may be foreign to some of them, some of them may still refer to themselves as Slurs you only ever heard your parents use, but YOU are considered the weird one if you're a genuine shithead to others for it. why make fun of someone for being gay when you can make fun of someone for being in the Reserve Course anyway

everything you see ab being the oldest daughter is true btw why am i the family therapist AND punching bag smh

long ass depressing rant in the tags srry i got a wee bit emotional

i have a weird relationship with weight because i hated eating more than anything the moment i was ready for solids ( i hate chewing with my entire life always have & will ) which made me underweight for most of my life ( to this day ) & during late primary-middle school this made me actively suicidal because i felt like something was wrong with my sex because i just was not developing whatsoever prompting me to have a years long phase of trying to gain weight in any way i could ( #EPICFAIL by the way ) & i was already insecure but i felt seriously so unforgivably ugly after bullying not just at school but by adults of my entourage. but then i did in my late 15s which prompted the pendulum to swing in the other direction & suddenly i FREAKED OUT & thought well being skinny is pretty much all i have & know myself to be & clearly it is not going to last forever so i Better preserve it i was delusional about how skinny i thought i was actually i look stumpy & weird i have to prove myself. But now i am normal again kind of

URGENTT ADVICE FROM UNCLE NINA NEEDED!!

ok so I know you work with kids; even if theyre not as young as the ones I work with, and I have a situation I need some advice on. I'm 15 and I volunteer to work with kids that are troubled/their parents don't or can't have them home right away. (D.A.R.E) And there's this kid who has become my little buddy, he's nine years old and today I was at my little volunteer job and he started fake moaning so ofc I let him know not to do that; and he didn't stop so I repeated myself. That resulted in him asking why, so I said "Do you know what that means?" And he said yes. But then I was like bro no way so I said what dude thats crazy then he was like im just kidding but then he asked me what it meant and I was like, "ask your mom." Then he started making inappropriate jokes and I continued to let him know that it wasnt appropriate, Then he asked if I had a boyfriend so i was like nope and he was like oh I thought you would have one so I said thanks, but it really concerned me. I don't know what I should do, I talked to my mom and she said to just keep correcting him and he'll learn and not to tell the deputy I work with because that'll just get him in trouble and to only do that when it becomes too extreme. I agree with her but I want another opinion to see if this would be the correct thing to do.

thanks so much:D

hi, my friend! i apologize if this is brief and a bit jumbled -- i am still a little out of sorts, but you did say Urgent, so i wanted to respond!

that...is an unfortunate situation. and a tricky one. i do agree with you and your mom, though. i think you should definitely use your next interactions as an indication of tone w/ the kid you're working with, see if he mellows out or is still not listening/not respecting your boundaries. i think it might even be wise as a final warning to be like, hi, this is making me uncomfortable, this is your last warning before i speak -authority figure- and while not telling that deputy, perhaps mentioning the possibility of consulting that deputy will deter the kid.

most importantly though, i just want to caution you and say please don't let that drag out too long. the biggest issue i found with my new job is i did not set boundaries well enough or firmly enough and that's why i got hell handed to me in a handbasket, like if that child is saying something uncomfortable to you and you are like "hm, that was weird, i didn't like that, but maybe it'll be alright" that is not alright and you should not feel like that.

at the end of the day, those kids need support and while getting in trouble is very unpleasant, if that is how that kid is going to learn not to conduct himself in that manner, then he is better off for it.

but yes, i would go ahead with the corrections but if you notice it getting Worse ( and not even like massively worse, i think any amount of it escalating/you not being listened to is cause for action )...i would speak to the deputy but also maybe see if there is a gentler way in which your friend can go about speaking to the child?

either way, i will say sometimes you have to put up that hard wall, it sucks but it's always easier as a teacher to start stern and get sweet, if you stat sweet and try to get stern, that's muuuch harder. so tldr, give the kid grace for now, but if it gets worse, i would say something and i would say something sooner rather than later.

i am...not very wise, but i hope this helps?

December lights 🎄💡

thematically absolutely love miles rejecting people calling him "kid" and infantilizing him but truly cannot stop myself from laughing when he talks to his parents and is like "im not a kid! im 15!!" like go off king!! go get that learners permit!!