[CHECKMATE]

"No." Says the tuna, "Do you?"

"I have never seen it." Says the whale, "but deep in my body, I remember it."

"Why do you care," says the tuna, "if you will never see it."

"There are bones in my body built to walk through the forests and the mountains." Says the whale.

"They will disappear." Says the tuna, "one day, your body will forget the forests and the mountains."

"Maybe I don't want to forget," Says the whale, "The forests were once my home."

"I have seen the forests." Whispers the salmon, almost to itself.

"Tell me what you have seen," says the whale.

"The forests spawned me." Says the salmon. "They sent me to the ocean to grow. When I am fat with the bounty of the ocean, I will bring it home."

"Why would the forests seek the bounty of the oceans?" Asks the whale. "They have bounty of their own."

Last year I finally had an excuse to illustrate this simple little Tumblr story I've had bookmarked forever for class.

What they had was an understanding.

As treatment for the weight of their lonely, barren lives, the professor and the crow would sometimes enact little rituals of physical pleasure.

A kiss here, a touch there. Just enough to remind them of what it was like to be a human being.

And to ease the yearning for human contact that they both knew they could not indulge in.

As long as there was the mission, the walls must stay up.

But the neither one of them wanted to acknowledge the pangs of longing for one another that they felt.

Instead of talking about it, Qrow drank.

Instead of questioning it, Ozpin worked.

And neither really wanted to see the parallels between their current situation and their previous relationships.

If they’re pissy at you, there’s a high chance you’re doing something that sets them off (and also you’re a woman, lgbt+, or a minority but sssshhhhh), that means you’re doing something good and it’s setting off their guilt that they’ve wasted so much of their time doing nothing. They need to bring you down and make an “example” out of you so they can go “glad I’m not THAT guy” and delude themselves into believing they’re super amazing and doing great at life than their victim.

They are not.

Do not EVER let them believe they are.

- Britney for making fun of her when she had her breakdown

- Monica Lewinski for judging her when she was a 22year old temp sexually assaulted by the most powerful man in the world

- Ke$ha for ever thinking she was trashy when all she wanted to do was make party music

- Kristen Stewart for ever thinking she was dumb when she’s actually one of the coolest people ever

- Megan Fox for ever thinking she was just a slut when actually she was an actress being harassed by her employer. 

- Hating all the women who made a career out of having a hot body. Being is shape is hard, beauty is a weapon and auto promotion is hard work. 

- All the Mary-Sues, who exist because young girls everywhere want to be part of a story they love so much

- All the female characters I ever snobbed because they got in the way of my ship.

(ʘ‿ʘ✿) “what you say ‘bout me”

the original post

And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.

We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.

As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.

I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.

… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.

Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.

This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.

No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.

keep yourself together

it does not matter how

badly it hurts

hold yourself together

the survival of your colleagues

depends on it

do not fail them and

do not fail yourself

you are a monster, you can

prove that if you keep yourself together

hold it in, hold it in, hold it in

just keep yourself together

if you fail and everyone dies

you will be a fucking monster

my family is dead

and it is all my fault

i did not kill them but

i unwittingly aided in

every step leading up to

the night they were killed

their blood is on my hands

i am nothing and i deserve

nothing, leave me alone

their blood won’t wash off

my hands, I’d have to cut