Peace And Love On Planet Earth

Your parents can love you and still be shitty abusive parents. They can mean well and still fuck up. They might fuck up without even knowing it's abuse.

Sometimes I think about how, when I was 5, my dad would make grilled cheese sandwiches and cut them into dinosaur shapes for me. Other times when I was hungry, he would refuse to feed me at all, because he decided that 5 was old enough for me to cook for myself when he didn't feel like doing it.

I think about how he taught me to swim, and fish, and (yes) throw a ball. In the summer, at night, he would wrap me in a huge comforter and carry me around outside to show me the constellations. But I hated being left alone with him because he was often bad tempered, mean to me for no reason, and I couldn't count on him for basic things like food.

Sometimes I think about how my mom raised hell in my high school principal's office in front of multiple faculty members because they weren't complying with my IEP (disability required accommodations). She always saw red if someone else laid a finger on me, even figuratively. When we were at home she screamed at me for things I had no control over and said I was using my illness to get my way.

I think about how she bought me art supplies and paid for lessons for all of my hobbies. She attended every single concert, performance, and game. I don't think I went a day without being told she loved me while growing up, and she constantly told me how proud she was. But I could never trust her mood and she could go from loving mother to terrorizing me before I knew what was happening.

My parents love me but I still flinch if someone in my vicinity washes a dish a little too aggressively. My parents never intentionally traumatized me, but my nervous system never knew the difference. Neither of my parents saw anything they did as abuse; they believed they were good parents. It wasn't until my mom was in her mid 60s that she grasped that her own childhood had been abusive, too.

They're not bad, irredeemable people. They're complex people with a lot of their own trauma who lacked many skills necessary for good parenting. I could hate them for it, but I don't. I'm not obligated to forgive them, and I don't think I have, and I don't know whether I ever really will. My parents damaged me a lot in ways that have affected my whole life, and I still have good memories with them.

today i found out that when monarch butterflies migrate south for the winter, all the ones that go across the middle of lake superior suddenly stop going south and go west for five miles and then continue south. which really freaked scientists out cos like What is in the Middle of Lake Superior what do Butterflies know that We Dont Is This The End Times etc. anyway turns out about a hundred million years ago there was a mountain there and the butterflies still think they gotta fly around it. classic butterflies

it is so important that you are a little bit ugly. please get comfortable with having unplucked eyebrows and nonexistent jawlines and wrinkles. let your blue hair grow out into an uneven pale green and your clothes be old and mend them and modify them until they’re unique to you. wear lipstick which doesnt compliment your skintone and mismatched outfits which went out of fashion 5 years ago. be a little bit too loud and a little bit too passionate and as weird as you can be because oh my god there is nothing more disturbing to me than perfection. beauty is manufactured and sold to us and you need to realise that you are a fucking animal to live a joyful life I am so serious. you cant obsess over aesthetics forever please just live messily and make your body your home however you please.

if you dont do it for you, do it for all the teenagers who will see u in the street and know that they are not obligated to be attractive

trying to prove a point to the boys at school

reblog this if you believe trans men are real men like this if you dont

i understand why the ‘grizzled loner who slowly melts & improves their outlook on life when forced to take care of a kid’ trope is a male exclusive role, bc the optics of a grizzled loner woman healing by becoming a mother are maybe not so good, but every time i think abt a hypothetical female version of that trope i black out instantly. could we maybe just do it one time and all agree to be cool about it

Spotted or Tiger Quoll (Dasyurus maculatus), family Dasyuridae, order Dasyuromorphia, found in eastern Australia

Threatened.

photograph by Charles Davis

as someone who has gone long stretches without electricity, let alone an internet connection

BACK UP YOUR WORK---YES, EVEN PHYSICAL COPIES. HAVE OFFLINE RESOURCES. KEEP YOUR LANDLINE. CARRY CASH. DON'T GET IMPORTANT APPLIANCES THAT RUN ON WIFI. LEARN TO READ A PAPER MAP

I made these as a way to compile all the geographical vocabulary that I thought was useful and interesting for writers. Some descriptors share categories, and some are simplified, but for the most part everything is in its proper place. Not all the words are as useable as others, and some might take tricky wording to pull off, but I hope these prove useful to all you writers out there!

(save the images to zoom in on the pics)

Just reminder:

Fuck ICE

Death to Trump and his billionaire buddies

Always punch Nazis