came to the art gallery cafe + got an orange pistachio and carrot cake and the sun has been appearing in and out of the clouds and i've just finished my book, my heart feels so full 💌💌💌💌

people who use DNA tests to """prove""" Jews aren't indigenous to Israel by showing some Israelis ancestry is purely European.

you know Jewish converts are a thing right?

Thinking about Life is Strange 2 and the absolute dust it got paid compared to the other games in the series. It's the ONLY video game I've ever played where someone in the story has Special Magic Powers, but it's not you. It's your little brother. And your father has been killed in a police shootout, and your little brother is just a kid who is so confused and terrified that he levels a whole block with a telekinetic boom. And then you, a teenager just a few years older, have to guide him to safety and try to parent him and help him use his powers for good while also dealing with the same traumas in your own life.

Also, there's a level where you just clip weed buds. Phenomenal game.

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i knew it.

I am of the (apparently controversial) opinion that a human is a human, and deserves to be treated as such.

white middle class to wealthy people are so crazy to me like. How are you so alienated from the system you live under

Every once in a while I remember that Bloom had to earn her Enchantix by meditating on the dragon planet and like… that was fine? Putting the main character at a disadvantage and forcing them to do something different from The Way Things Are Always Done (tm) can be very interesting, actually, and I think having a character become more powerful by learning to embrace their inner self is a pretty good message for a kids’ show. But I’m absolutely baffled that this is what the writers decided to do instead of just… introducing a character or characters from Domino.

I know the show acts like it’s impossible for Bloom to earn her Enchantix the normal way because Domino was destroyed and its inhabitants were frozen, so there’s no Dominians for her to sacrifice herself for, but hear me out: that makes no sense lol.

You mean to tell me that in the Winx Club magic dimension, where the main characters are attending school in Magix and repeatedly visit realms other than their home realms, emigration doesn’t happen? Not a single person from Domino immigrated to Melody to study music, to Zenith so that they could be at the forefront of technological development, to Linphea because they wanted to be closer to nature? Nobody ever falls in love with someone from another realm and chooses to immigrate to be with them? (Bloom canonically does that one btw.) There was not a single mixed race Dominian who was born on Domino and later moved to be closer to the other side of their family?

Even if you want to pretend the Winx Club universe hasn't invented immigration yet (which like... a half assed fandom post isn't really the place to get into a discussion about xenophobia, but if you think that's at all a valid argument, then perhaps you should take a minute to consider why you think that), you mean to tell me nobody from Domino left the realm temporarily? There was not a single Dominian studying at Alfea who was excited to tell their family about acing their last exam only to find their family gone? There was not a single Dominian visiting friends in other realms, or just on vacation who tried to return home at the end of their trip, only to find there was no home to go back to?

Just the idea that there is not a single other person out there from Domino is absolutely nonsensical to me, but it's what the series decided to go with. And that's a damn shame because when you think about it, Bloom is a transcultural adoptee whose biological parents and their culture were victims of genocide. (Domino is brought back, but iirc both the characters and the audience were unaware that was a possibility at this point in the narrative.) There's so much that could be done and said with that.

The musician who made it big on Melody could sing Bloom folk songs that nobody else quite remembers. The person thriving on Linphea could show Bloom their garden filled with flowers they brought with them from Domino; flowers that no longer exist anywhere else. The former Alfea student could hold Bloom close and tell her it's going to be okay even though it won't because while their experiences are undeniably different, they remember being there; in that same environment, being forced to come to terms with the same truths and grief that Bloom is now facing.

And I want to make it clear that none of this precludes Bloom earning an incomplete Enchantix. Like I said, putting the main character at a disadvantage and forcing them to do something different from The Way Things Are Always Done (tm) can be very interesting, actually, and I think there's so many ways that could still be done. (I mean this purely from a storytelling perspective rather than a nerf perspective btw. I get that Bloom being overpowered is a common complaint, but it's actually not one I share. She's quite literally the current mortal avatar of the universe's canon Creator God; she should be more powerful than all the other characters lol.)

Maybe no opportunity arises for Bloom to earn her Enchantix while meeting these people and she's not going to purposefully put someone in danger just so she can save them (although in her most desperate moment, perhaps she considers it) (I am biting anyone who insists someone needs pure intentions to earn Enchantix btw; that's not canon and eliminating the possibility that morally grey or outright villainous high level fairies can exist is boring don't @ me). She can then make the active decision to go on the dragon meditation quest or whatever (perhaps with some guidance from the person or people she met), but is doing so with more knowledge about the people and culture she is fighting for.

Maybe the perfect situation to earn her Enchantix does arise, Bloom saves someone's life, and it just... doesn't work. To earn Enchantix, a fairy must save someone from their home realm, but not everybody has the same idea of home. The person she saves may be Dominian by birth, but in the seventeen-ish years they've had to grieve and rebuild their life, they've started to think of the realm they now reside in as their true home. Alternatively, Bloom realizes that despite being Dominian by birth and desiring a connection to her biological parents, their people, and their culture, she still considers Earth her true home. She doesn't want to go back to Earth and put her adoptive parents or anyone else in danger, so she makes the active decision to go on the dragon meditation quest or whatever.

Or maybe the perfect situation to earn her Enchantix does arise, Bloom saves someone's life, and she does earn Enchantix, but it's incomplete, despite doing everything right. If Enchantix must be earnt by saving someone specifically from the realm a fairy was born in, who's to say it doesn't share a connection to that realm? At that point, Domino is a dead world and Dominians are an endangered people. Bloom is a Guardian Fairy with very little to Guard and so she doesn't have access to the same level of Enchantix magic as other fairies do. This would also mean she would get her full Enchantix powers after Domino is revived; a sign that everything will be okay for the Dominian people.

idk I just have a lot of thoughts about all the missed opportunities here, basically all of them related to the erasure of the immigrant experience and how thoroughly the ball was dropped with the show's portrayal of genocide (refusing to even consider the idea of survivors other than Bloom and basically not discussing it at all beyond how it affects the former Company of Light and Bloom)

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some days I go over past conversations with friends and wonder

how much of that interaction was them just being nice and polite

I just turned in my last assignment for my first semester of grad school and was it good? Absolutely not but good God at least I'm done

the leftist sphere online and its insistence that nuance is critical while it completely waives it and transforms major issues into black-and-white is so….

"What would you have done, Taylor?" "I don't know. I hate to say it, but I really don't know. I can't even begin to think about a world where people have to make choices like that." "You live in that world." He said quietly. And I knew this, but I didn't want to. I started to cry right then (...) There was no way to explain what I felt. That my whole life had been running along on dumb luck, and I hadn't even noticed.

-The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver

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Labour MP Zarah Sultana has blasted the Tory party’s “disgraceful” anti-trans, anti-refugee and anti-worker rhetoric in an impassioned speech to parliament.

Speaking on Wednesday (22 June) in support of the UK-wide rail strikes, Sultana explained that these policies are linked in their “attempt to divide our communities, and distract us from its failure to serve the British people”.

Sultana, 28, explained that she had attended a demonstration against the government’s Rwanda deportation policy just after hearing the debate on trans conversion therapy last Monday (13 June).

“The Rwanda policy, which has nothing to do with tackling people smuggling and everything to do with whipping up hate, demonising marginalised groups and pitting people who were born here against people who seek asylum here,” she said in a video posted to Twitter.

She added: “It’s also what the refusal to ban trans conversion therapy is about, letting abusive practices against trans people go unpunished in order to pit cis women against trans women.

“It’s also what the demonisation of railway workers and RMT is all about… vilifying workers who are standing up for their jobs, for their pay and for their conditions, and pitting those railway workers against other workers.

“It’s all an attempt to distract and divide our time with this government is overseeing the cost of living emergency and a growing poverty crisis across the country.

“The problem isn’t railroad workers. It’s not refugees, and it’s not trans women. The problem is this Tory government and the billionaires that back them.”

fic update in the form of langst character study

hi are u a former/current fan of voltron: legendary defender that was disappointed with lance's overall (lack of) character development within the show and felt that there could have been more to explore like his family life, identity as a queer-coded man, and his deep insecurities?

hi have you ever returned to your hometown and your childhood home and realized that everything around you is different and changing and the people around you are moving on and nothing will stay the same and you're having a hard time reconciling with the grief of change and growing up and navigating the landscape that is family dynamics and transitioning into being an adult?

omg that's crazy— read my fic.

lol jk but icymi, chapter 11 and 12 are going to be character-centric. chapter 11 is solely dedicated to lance and exploring his fear of being left behind/not good enough, his relationship with his dad, and his relationship with his siblings. chapter 12 will be focused on keith.

taking a bit of a step back from the group shenanigans at college for the next 2 chapters but i really enjoyed writing lance's section and getting to know him as a character, and i hope you all do as well :)

pls check it out!

🔥disney

I feel like at this point both hating and loving Disney are pretty popular opinions, so I guess the only thing I can say is that I don't get the whole deal with Disney world as like thee American childhood experience? Idk if it's just an "I'm first gen and grew up in an immigrant community" thing but the idea that you would go to Disney world as a family (or ever) was like. not even an inkling of a thought. I honestly don't even see the appeal really, like there are way cheaper ways to get on a rollercoaster, and none of the Disney films were particularly formative to my childhood, so I don't even get why people would want to meet adults dressed as them if you're older than like 5. It's wild to me that this is a real thing real human beings do and that it's considered normal or common. This isn't like a shaming people thing, I just really don't get it.

gfshdjgkhjlgf not my friend trying to set me up with his single male church friends and when I remind him one potentially very large problem with that is that I am super duper not religious he goes "oh don't worry about that, they're not either, they're actually just there to meet girls" like B R O 😭😭😭