FlowersOnPebbles

Amen to that.

After 2 years of this I asked myself "How could I have let this happen? How did I not see the red flags? How did it get this far?" And it hit me. He treated exactly the same way my adults treated me when I was a child. I didn't see any red flags because I'd never been treated any differently. I'd be screamed at for being lazy, if I wanted anything then I was selfish. I was physically intimidated to make me behave. My emotions were "dramatic", and if I complained at all I heard the "everything I do for you" speech. He treated me exactly the way id always been treated and I didn't even recognize it as abuse until I wanted to kill myself about it.

That realization changed my life. Its a big part of why I work with children now. Parents sometimes hate when I say this but you need to treat your children how you would want their future partners to treat them. They are going to use their relationship with you as the blueprint for every other relationship in their life.

And it keeps them safe *now* as well. People who groom children are able to do so easily because many children havent experienced an adult be kind to them before. All the predators need to do is treat them like a person for a bit and of course they seem safe and friendly. If you treat your children with respect and kindness then their uncle or babysitter or whoever is gonna have a harder time gaining their trust and getting close to them because their tactics don't work if the child already expects to be treated like a person. Plus if your child feels safe and respected most of the time the moment someone makes them feel unsafe they can immediately know this isnt right and they will trust you to fix it.

i was working at a little cafe where I could deny service over bad behavior, harassment etc. & mask mandates had just ended a week before & already people were being weird about me still wearing mine—an N95, the kind shaped kinda like a duckbill.

so this man walked in, looked at me sooo scathingly, laughed at me, and said “damn. never known a woman to choose…practicality over looks.”

And I just said, “oh. you can go, you’re not getting a drink.” And he said, “what???”

I said, “sir, you just walked in at 6 am & called women impractical and me ugly in one sentence.”

This part. This is the part I’m talking about

This is not a woman falling to pieces because her father won’t let her marry a man she just met.

This is a woman born to a life she has very little say in. She has never had a genuine friend (besides a tiger). She is facing a marriage to a man she doesn’t know and doesn’t like but duty (and the law) demands it. So she took a risk, ran away, ran to a world she doesn’t know or understand and when she landed in trouble (serious, serious trouble) a stranger came to her aid. She finally (finally!) made a real connection with someone but they didn’t get much time together before the guards showed up and she had to reveal who she was.

This moment when she’s crying her heart out? It comes after she’s been told that the first person she ever connected with, the first person to be genuinely interested in her for who she is and not what she is, the first real friend she has ever made, was executed… because of her.

Crying is normal. Even if it's over something trivial. We all face a lot of struggles in their lives, whether we acknowledge it or not. Something minor might end up breaking the camel's back.

Anyway, here's one of my favorite scenes in Beauty and the Beast:

Really, none of the classic princesses deserve the misinterpretation.

Cinderella?

Again, this is not after someone told her “yOu CaN’t MaRrY a MaN yOu JuSt MeT”—this is after she went to great lengths to get ready for the ball, adhering to the intentionally difficult (meant to be impossible) stipulations set by her abusive step-mother for her to be allowed to attend (when really she was invited and had as much right as the others to attend). She made that dress (I can’t recall off the top of my head if the classic animated version was also her mother’s old dress she restyled or not but still, she put in a ton of work on top of all the extra house work) and what did her step-family do? They tore to shreds while she was wearing it. Of course she’s lost hope: it’s the final straw after years and years of doggedly remaining optimistic despite constant harsh treatment.

Let’s go to another favourite: Mulan.

Mulan’s just had the worst day.

She tried her hardest to live up to her family’s and her society’s expectations and vision of a perfect bride but she failed. Not only did it go wrong, but she was publicly humiliated by the Matchmaker—by extension, humiliating her family.

Granted, her family has been kind and sympathetic about the whole thing. Her father even goes to encourage her, assuring her of his unconditional love for her and his confidence that she’ll get it right next time.

She’s just beginning to smile when the drums pound and news of war reaches their village. Her father—her beloved father who’s already a veteran and lives with a disability—is expected as the only male in their family to suit up and head out in the morning.

Mulan can’t help. Nothing she says will be listened to and she can’t take his place (until, of course, she thinks of a way to do so which this moment of crying it out in the rain leads to—score one for having a good cry and clearing your head).

There’s of course more. Take any princess’ dramatic crying momentTM and review the context and I’ll bet you’ll see it’s never as trivial as some have framed it. And, yes, like prev pointed out, it’s this awful thing of people believing boys can’t cry and girls can but then they can never be taken seriously.

Captions cover the spot on the screen you put the information I need

The dialogue is captioned but not the song you have playing that the dialogue is responding to

You only captioned the person on the screen, not the person off screen who is also talking

No captioning of critical sound effects (alarms, bells, dogs barking, etc)

Speakers are not labelled at moments where it is not clear on the screen who is talking.

Captions cover the spot on the screen that you put the information I need!

Other d/Deaf people welcome to add.

But. But it's essentially the womb. Because there's nothing there with him. Except peace.

Whilst he's getting the plants pregnant to make more like him. To also suffer. But he gets to be with Vahs in his mind scape and in peace, pain forgotten. Idk how to articulate this. But like. This.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.