Dennis Bullshitting His Way Through Mass

This 7-Ft. Kid Jail is now available at Toys R Us

If you listen, her tapping very much adds to the music.

please don't ever think that no one cares about you

I work in an ER and we see suicides all the time. And we get at least 3 suicidal ideations a night. We all care about you. I promise, we do. A team of complete strangers who have worked 3+ 12 hour shifts this week who are being screamed at all day and night and probably haven’t had lunch and trust me, we still love you and care about you.

We had a 16 year old patient last night who we couldn’t save. We were in that room with this patient for over an hour, we did everything we could. And let me tell you, we all cried. The EMT’s, the nurses, the doctor. We all huddled together in the doctors dictation room and cried.

I went through the rest of my shift with smudged mascara and tracks on my cheeks.

I remember the names of all the patients that have taken their lives on my shifts.

I remember squeezing the hands, smoothing the hair, kissing the foreheads, and wiping away the blood and the vomit of every patient that has left me too soon.

I can still see every face that I have zipped into a body bag.

Trust me, someone cares about you. You have never met them yet. You don’t ever think about them. They are never remembered when you talk about heroes and role models.

But someone loves you.

this is my favorite vine

i love how it takes .08 seconds for me to determine whether or not a fic is good. like with regular literature sometimes you’ve gotta dig into it to figure out if you really wanna read this thing but when u got ao3 open at 3 am u just know. u just gotta read 3 lines and u know

Some tips on writing Latino OCs/characters

Avoid the stereotype of the sex-siren “fiesty” Latino tropes: This stereotype does more harm than good, as almost all classic TV representation for Latinos is shown as the big hypersexualized character. By boiling down a Latino character to simply their sexual appeal, it denies them of their cultural identification if they do not fit what non-Latinos imagine all of them look like. 

Not all Latinos speak Spanish: In fact, many Latinos do not speak Spanish that often or at all. Many times, non-bilingual/Spanish speaking individuals will write Latino characters “slipping” into speaking Spanish. This, obviously, does not happen in real life. If a Latino says something in Spanish then they meant to say it in Spanish. Here are some realistic reasons why a Latino character could say something in Spanish/Spanglish:

They are speaking to their grandparents or other people who only speak that language

For emphasis. I would sometimes speak to my partner in Spanish because I felt as though I could express myself better and more naturally (also ‘te amo’ feels more impactful than ‘I love you’, but that just may be a personal thing), but this did not occur often. 

They are short phrases that any non-Spanish speaker could pick up on. Hola, gracias, de nada, mucho mejor, qué onda, madre/parde, casa, por qué are all ones I use around my friends sometimes. Again, sometimes.

There are others I am sure, but please be careful when writing a Latino character speaking Spanish. As a Latino living in America, if I am be honest, unless speaking with other Spanish speaking individuals, I do not use the language all too often (just like any other language, weird how that happens). 

Do your research naming Latino characters: Please do not simply look up “Hispanic names” and choose the ones you like off of a list. If all your names look something like “Diego Rodriguez” then you are doing a bad job. Here are some tips: 

69% of South America is Catholic and 19% is Protestant. Using that information, you are bound to have a lot of religious names. All of my siblings are named after biblical figures. Some examples I see a lot are: Rebecca, Isaiah, Claudia, Gabriela, Marcus, Elizabeth etc.

In Latino culture, many times children take both their parents last names so their names would be hyphenated. For example: Father’s last name could be Perez-ABC and Mother’s could be Ramirez-XYZ so the child’s name would be Perez-Ramirez. 

This isn’t a hard and fast rule. If only one of the parents is Latino than most often they will simply do what most of Western culture does and take the father’s last name as the family name.

Represent many aspects of Latino culture: I far too often only see Mexican Latinos, which is great, but also there are many other countries/places to represent (Cuba, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Peru, Chile, Honduras and more)

Latinos have a variety of hair colors and skin tones and body types, make them: Afro-Latino people exist, write them. White passing Latinos exist, write them (though if you are only ever writing Latinos with pale olive skin and eurocentric features, you’re doing it badly). Latino people with thick curly hair and bold features exist. Talk about it. Latinas are not just your vessel to write about “thicc” or curvy women. Petite Latinos and especially plus sized latinos need representation. Represent them. 

Latinos do not just eat ‘Mexican’ food: Stop associating all your characters with tacos and burritos. 

If you do have Latino characters don’t be afraid to make them queer or disabled or anything else under-represented. 

Avoid stereotypes altogether: The maid, the drug dealer, the sex symbol, the immigrant, we get it. That’s all we see in the media. Look up stereotypes, avoid them. It’s not “making a statement”, it’s racist, stop it. 

If you describe any Latino person as “spicy” or “exotic”………………… :) you know

Make sure the connection to their cultural background makes sense: Some Latinos have a strong connection to their country and culture, some do not. Make sure it makes sense for their family history, background, etc.

This is all I can sort of think of off the top of my head. Latino people, please feel free to add on with anything else (my experiences are a bit limited as a Puerto Rican living in America, so the more perspectives the merrier). White people and non-Latino POC’s can comment questions but please don’t clown (no “I am not latino but also…!)

Please reblog, this is important for non-Latino creators!

HEY ARTISTS!

Do you design a lot of characters living in not-modern eras and you’re tired of combing through google for the perfect outfit references? Well I got good news for you kiddo, this website has you covered! Originally @modmad made a post about it, but her link stopped working and I managed to fix it, so here’s a new post. Basically, this is a costume rental website for plays and stage shows and what not, they have outfits for several different decades from medieval to the 1980s. LOOK AT THIS SELECTION:

OPEN ANY CATEGORY AND OH LORDY–

There’s a lot of really specific stuff in here, I design a lot of 1930s characters for my ask blog and with more chapters on the way for the game it belongs to I’m gonna be designing more, and this website is going to be an invaluable reference. I hope this can be useful to my other fellow artists as well! :)

I feel like there’s needs to be, like, handbook for authors who post on Ao3 for effective metatext.

By metatext I mean like tagging, summary, and authors notes (especially initial authors notes at the beginning of a fic). The means by which we communicate to our readers what they’re getting into.

Because we kind of all have to learn it by osmosis and there are conventions but nobody’s really taught them at the start, so there’s inconsistencies and misunderstandings or people just not knowing things through no fault of their own.

This ends up breeding frustration and confusion and in the worst cases resentment, hurt, and aggression.

I’m severely tempted to make such a handbook and get it circulating.

I think it would do fandom a lot of good.

I drawing I did of @thatsthat24 It only took 16 hours and 46 minutes!

In-Store Ikea Reviews [see a bonus review on Facebook]