An Essay Darren Seals Wrote To MTV After Darren Wilson Was Not Indicted

Watch: Poet Porsha Olayiwola heartbreakingly reminds us all that black women’s lives matter too. 

this art exercise is small and simple, but its easy to do anywhere with any materials

It's officially Banned Books Week, so now is as good a time as any to remind everyone that libraries still get frequent challenges to books on our shelves. Books continue to be challenged, banned, and even burned. I'm a librarian in a blue state, yet one of my neighboring libraries has recently been the target of book bannings and threats of violence (they had to shut down an all-ages LGBTQ event due to these threats too).

Please support your local libraries. If you want more books by queer and disabled authors and authors of color, TELL US. Give us recommendations. Check out books and ebooks when we get them in. Tell us when you write books too. We're here to make information and stories accessible.

P.S. And if you notice patrons or staff acting like assholes (particularly managers) please let someone know. Library government is weird, so a lot of libraries aren't union and also don't have any sort of HR. Trust me, if you frequently notice someone being a jerk, chances are good everyone else has to and has been stonewalled.

Okay, Killer Croc has been so inconsistently written as far as the "Croc" part goes that I think the funniest thing would be if he was still just a dude with a skin condition, but he feeds the mutant rumors to keep people from fucking with him. Someone starts a rumor that he eats people and he just rolls with it. If anyone questions the lack of tail, he says it just came off and hasn't grown back.

Idk who needs to hear this, but you are not damaged goods, you are not less than and you are not bread that is several days old. You are still you, you are worthy and will always be. You are wanted and you are needed, sometimes it is just a matter of figuring out where you fit in. You deserve to be appreciated and to feel appreciated, and you will, you just gotta hang in there and don’t give up. 🌸

trying to prove a point to my brother

reblog this if you think art IS work, and that it takes time and effort and is a valid source of income.

uh so i never do this but maui is quite literally on fire and there isn't nearly enough care or consideration for. you know. Native Hawaiians who live here being displaced and the land (and cultural relevance) that's being eaten up by the fire. so if ya'll wanna help, here's some links:

maui food bank: https://mauifoodbank.org/

maui humane society: https://www.mauihumanesociety.org/

center for native hawaiian advancement: https://www.memberplanet.com/campaign/cnhamembers/kakoomaui

hawai'i red cross: https://www.redcross.org/local/hawaii/ways-to-donate.html

please reblog and spread the word if you can't donate.

I realized growing up alone caused me to never give other people any roles in my life. I don’t allow myself to need anyone, because I still know how bad it hurt to need my parents, and how badly I was punished for it. Needing people is scary. I get attached to things instead. When I was a kid, some of my clothes had actual names. I had a favourite pillow, favourite blanket, favourite pajama. I was attached to every poster on my wall, and some of my things felt like extensions of me, if someone hurt them, it felt equal to hurting me. I gave things a role in my life one would usually give to humans, because I needed connection and interacting with humans was so unsafe.

Forms of communication that didn’t include direct interaction felt like the pinnacle of bonding to me. Reading a book felt like talking, listening and understanding. Watching a show felt like having friends. Listening to audio books felt like being read bedtime stories. Playing a game felt like being played with. Identifying with a fictional character felt like being seen, that character finding happiness felt like being fulfilled. Reading a blog felt like intimate connecting with someone’s soul.

I was out there absorbing and feeling like that was it, this is how you feel like a part of humanity. Only problem with it was, I was still invisible to all these creators, existing only in my own mind, nobody affirming I was a part of the bond. And it was safe. So I keep doing it with people too. I absorb what they say, without making myself a part of their world, and without giving them a role in mine. That kind of a role is reserved specifically for my socks.

Amen, amen, amen.

For victims of abuse, it’s almost essential to gain ability to stop empathising with our abusers, not only because it’s keeping us trapped in their manipulations, but because we deserve to know that we don’t have to prioritize the feelings of a person who is actively doing harm to us.

Empathy for victims of abuse is almost mandatory, to the point where we’re punished for every moment we’re not displaying extreme and unconditional empathy for the abusers. We can get called out and berated for simply going about our business and not thinking of what the abuser might want of us in the particular second. We get shamed for ‘not knowing better’ and 'failing our role’ if we take a minute to consider our own needs.

When they’re doing their usual play – hurting us, then quickly acting hurt and playing the victim, bringing out their past trauma, crying about how hard they have/had it, how our feelings hurt them, even in the case we don’t fall for it, and refuse to apologize and accept that our feelings are just collateral damage in their personal crusade, we will get attacked immediately for being an emotionless and selfish person. Fail to react empathetic to the abuser’s guilt trip will get us called out for being horrible, for not caring, for being the most vicious demon, the worst person, the most unworthy and ungrateful human being in the world. That kind of thing sticks. We don’t just get over that. It becomes etched in our brains that displaying empathy, even to someone who is walking all over us, is our biggest priority, that showing empathy is the last thing that might protect us against an even bigger outburst, that might help us deserve to not be attacked for our lack of morality. We don’t get to be mad. We don’t get to stand up for ourselves. We have to put up a display of empathy or endure personal attacks that will make us feel like we don’t deserve to live.

To finally be able to cut the empathy and stand up against the abuser, is an act that fights years, maybe decades of brainwashing and conditioning. To not care if the abuser has it bad anymore, means we faced and fought years of trauma, lies, personal attacks, self doubt, self hatred, pain and injustice. Abusers want to take away our ability not to care, not to empathize and not to prioritize them, and seizing that back means seizing ourselves back, existing in a place where our empathy is not mandatory anymore, where we’re not pure compassionate receptacles of trauma anymore. Where empathy isn’t forced and squeezed out of us under the threat of pain. Where our value and personality isn’t dictated by whether we endlessly forgive and accept people who will only continue hurting us and bringing trauma into our life.

It is not a mark of a healthy and normal human being to offer our entire compassion and understanding to a creature who is destroying us in return. If someone proves to be a danger to us, it’s normal to disregard everything except the knowledge that this is a threat, and nothing else to us. To keep away because our well being shouldn’t be put under a fear of a constant threat. We are normal for following our sense of self-preservation and turning away from whatever is damaging us, regardless of how sad or upset this being becomes. We are not to be a collateral damage to someone’s misery or manipulation. Our empathy doesn’t have to be an opening to accept harm. We can save our empathy for those who also feel for us. We’re not bad people if we close up under a threat of abuse, and want to retreat to safety. We’re not evil, cruel or selfish for extending our hearts only to those who also keep ours safe.