size of the world

The Kingdom of Hawai’i was illegally overthrown with the help of American businessmen and we have suffered under the iron grip of America.

Our land is simply seen as a vacation spot, my people are simply seen as tour guides and hula dancers. We have had our culture, our history, and our people turned into a commercialized joke by America.

The rampant tourism kills our islands with endless hotels, attractions and overcrowding. The housing and living costs are out of control because of the false “paradise” narrative. The Navy poisons our water and destroys our land. Covid has killed so many of my people due to the reckless and selfish nature of tourists. I have lost loved ones to this virus, because tourists “couldn’t stay away”.

My people have suffered. I have suffered.

We are more than your vacation. We are more than an aesthetic.

We are a sovereign nation illegally occupied by the United States of America.

Restore Hawai’i to Hawaiians. End the American Occupation.

See the links below to learn more and to read up on your Hawaiian history.

As a white person raised in a white supremacist society, you’re gonna fuck up sometimes. That’s just a fact. But racialized people often aren’t able/comfortable speaking up when y’all do some shit because of the power imbalance/not feeling up to educating when you may be resistant/don’t think the “fight” will be Worth It.

Show initiative without making it A Struggle or playing the white guilt card. Show you actually care about them, their struggles, and the way you interact with them BEFORE they have to have a bigger Conversation with you, beyond when they need to yell about someone else being racist.

Even close friends or partners are not necessarily safe. I have had partners dismiss accusations of racism just off hand, I have had partners treat me like a repository for knowledge on Muslim cultural practices despite the fact that *my family has been Christian since Jesus,* hell I have had a partner say I was overplaying my pain at the genocide to get sympathy.

IF YOU ARE WHITE YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE FIRST STEP OR YOU ARE JUST PUTTING MORE LABOR AND DANGER ON YOUR RACIALIZED FRIENDS FOR YOUR FUCKING COMFORT

i saw the trailer when it came out! I'm always excited to see more of Ena so I know I'll end up loving it~

Oh, this is so exciting!

Hmm… I find winter the most beautiful season. But I think I would say my favourite is spring! The sight of flowers blooming is really lovely, and the weather is usually mild, so I can go on long walks without feeling uncomfortable

Plus, spring can be used as a metaphor for hope/new beginnings/etc. in prose

As for me, i used to like fall a lot. like, imagine the stereotypical fall, with brown crunchy leaves and an occasional chill that makes you wear scarves outside...

I’ve kind of disliked fall since young, because where I used to live fall was constantly rainy and cold, so it was just a soggier winter with piles of rotting leaves.

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This was a request from AO3. The scenario is of the HSR men taking care of a Reader who became blind and is struggling with adjusting to the disability.

Characters: Mydei, Anaxa, Phainon, and Argenti

Mydeimos

🍷 Mydei knew that strife and war brought with them casualties and injuries, and that having you in his Kremnoan Detachment increased your risk of getting hurt. He knew, yet he was still unprepared for the sharp stab of fear that pierced his heart when he was told you got seriously wounded in the recent battle. Some shrapnel had flown at your face and embedded itself in your skin, but otherwise you were alive. Mydei was relieved beyond measure that you had survived, though learning that the shrapnel had pierced your eyes and rendered them useless dampened his joy. He knew that the loss of your eyesight would heavily impact your life, but he was prepared to be there for you.

🍷 A part of him feels guilty for not being there to protect you from harm. As your partner and friend, he saw it as his duty to keep you safe. His body could handle being gravely injured while yours could not, so it was only logical he should serve as your shield. Still, what’s done is done and he needed to learn to live with it.

🍷 Mydei could tell that your blindness was difficult for you to accept. It made you depressed and scared at not being able to see the world and people around you anymore. Being robbed of your eyesight so suddenly wouldn’t be easy for anyone, so he devoted himself to caring for you in whatever way you needed.

🍷 When you were no longer under professional medical care and were deemed well enough to go home, Mydei nursed you back to health, both physically and mentally. He made sure to apply medicine to your healing wounds and change your bandages, taking care to be gentle with your face, and supported you through the grief of losing your eyes.

🍷 While he wasn’t great at giving words of encouragement, seeing your depressed state motivated Mydei to tell you to keep your chin up and not let your disability knock you down. It may be difficult now, but you’re more resilient than you give yourself credit for, and he’s confident that with time, you will be able to live your life again. It may not be the same as before, but you will have him to rely on. There’s no word for ‘giving up’ in the Kremnoan language, so don’t throw in the towel.

🍷 Mydei served as your eyes while you got used to walking without seeing where you’re going. He let you hold onto him for guidance and warned you about obstacles or changes in terrain that you might bump or trip over. He also did your shopping, cleaning, laundry, and every other task around the house until you felt well enough to try doing some of them on your own, at which point he still supervised you to make sure you wouldn’t get hurt. He would only stop once he felt confident you could handle yourself on your own.

🍷 Until you got the hang of eating without eyesight, Mydei was the one to feed you. He cooked your meals whenever he had time and carefully spoon-fed you, making sure to blow on the food so it wouldn’t burn your tongue. You felt like a little child being fed from a spoon by a parent, but your complaints about this treatment fell on deaf ears. Mydei said that until you learned how to do it yourself, he would help you. He knows he failed you by letting you get hurt in that battle, so let him make it up to you by ensuring you’re well taken care of.

🍷 Mydei became even more protective of you since your injury, both out of guilt and the innate need to keep you safe since you became more vulnerable without eyesight. He nipped any malicious rumors about the origins of your disability in the bud, threatening the gossiping lion head statues to keep their mouths shut, as well as chasing away any nefarious individuals that hoped to take advantage of your blindness. He would give up his life to protect you and your honor.

🍷 Mydei remembered that there existed a special kind of script that blind people could read. Braille, he thinks it was called. He asked Anaxa to help teach you and him how to read Braille so you could still enjoy books and Mydei could write you notes in the event he couldn’t relay the information to you directly. He also promised to get books in Braille for his library and that you should tell him your favorites so he can add them to the collection.

Anaxagoras

🌿 Anaxa knew early on that you had a genetic disease that slowly ate away at your vision. Some members of your family had it, but you were unlucky enough to develop it fairly early in your life. Despite knowing your fate, you struggled to accept the idea of having your vision completely taken away, so Anaxa resolved to try and prevent it. He began researching a cure or even a preventative measure that would stop the worsening of your disease. But little by little, your eyesight worsened until you couldn’t see anymore, and he had to bitterly admit he failed.

🌿 You already struggled with partial blindness, but once you became fully blind, you struggled more than before. It pained Anaxa to see you so helpless and heartbroken over the unfair hand that fate dealt you. He knew you could overcome this challenge and learn how to live with your blindness. He’s seen others with the same disability lead normal lives, so it was more than possible. But what you needed right now was a push to get you out of the pit of despair you buried yourself in so you could find the motivation to adapt and live your best life. Anaxa encouraged you to think of your disability in a different light. While losing your eyesight was a life-changing ordeal, this also allowed you to view the world in a completely new way and notice things you may otherwise have not noticed before. You may have lost your eyes but in their place, you gained higher sensitivity in your other senses so use them to adapt and persevere.

🌿 Had he two functional eyes, Anaxa would have offered to transplant one of them to you in the hopes of giving back your ability to see, but alas, he only had one. He had to settle for researching a tool that could help you see again even if it took him decades to develop it.

🌿 Anaxa swallowed his dislike for Aglaea and approached her with questions about her own blindness. He knew she could still perceive the world around her better than any pair of eyes ever could thanks to her demigod powers, but he still thought it worthwhile to ask on the off chance her answers could give him some insight into developing a tool for you to use. Perhaps he could find a way to imitate the power of her threads? A pity she won’t give him any to experiment with, but it’s a start.

🌿 Anaxa knows how to read in Braille and took it upon himself to teach you how to read in that script. He exercised great patience while teaching you which assortment of raised dots corresponded to which letter and even praised you for correctly translating the sentences and quickly grasping the new skill. Anaxa doesn’t want you to lose out on the ability to obtain knowledge hidden in books and scrolls and strongly believes that you should have an equal opportunity to obtain it. He knows the selection of books in Braille is much smaller than texts penned down in ink, so he makes frequent requests to have texts you’re interested in reading transcribed into Braille. It gets him into trouble with some of the other scholars at the Grove, but Anaxa pays them little mind.

🌿 Any books he’s unable to procure in Braille, Anaxa reads aloud to you. He may scoff over some of the things written in them but perseveres if it makes you happy. However, he makes frequent remarks about this or that sounding ridiculous, how the author didn’t do their research, and going on tangents about why some of the things described could not work in real life. These reading sessions usually result in him roping you into a discussion or even giving you a lecture, but he finds these moments with you far more fun than reading awful literature.

🌿 He's been skilled in the art of invention since he was a child, so it costs Anaxa very little to design a mobility cane for you. Not just any ordinary cane, either. It’s designed to suit your needs. Aside from helping you get around, it also assists you with daily tasks you may struggle to do with your disability thanks to Anaxa building in various tools and gadgets into the cane.

Throughout the story, it's often shown just how much power a community can have, usually with examples of overpowering individuals and causing great harm: E.g. However much they love each other, Yuri still sacrifices herself for the sake of her relationship to Aono. This is why the rituals that require sacrifice for some grand purpose are often accompanied by the 'Sange Sange Rokkon Shojo' chant or clapping; in the scene where Aono-Yuri is about to kill Hitomi-Aono, they are surrounded by a swarm of chanters, who almost seem to celebrate what's about to happen. Violence from the larger unit intensifies as it is conveyed through the smaller unit. These sorts of harmful traditions, these cycles of abuse, survive due to community, in fact. The ostracisation Yuri faces once she shows symptoms of her bond with Aono (which can of course be connected to the shaming of teen pregnancy) occurs because a collective draws a very clear line between 'us' vs. 'them'; ostracisation can only be inflicted by a community.

Even so, to these characters, is this not better than being alone? If Aono was not bound to Yuri, he would be completely alone. If Hitomi didn't have her children (the 'products of her love' with her husband), she would have likely killed herself much earlier. In the world of this story, death is synonymous with solitude - as Mio notes, each person exists in their own separate reality, but these barriers can no longer be surpassed once you die, condemning every ghost to an eternity of solitude. A community can perpetuate harm onto itself, but the truth is also that people cannot survive without each other.

That is what this chapter is about. It's not a refutation of the collective capability for harm, but a celebration of the good a community can do. Complete strangers to Yuri end up saving her life. Those few seconds each person sacrifices to her add up, and they are connected to her by her acquaintances, her friend group, and friends of her friends.

but you deserve to give informed consent to that process.

the lies around pregnancy - that it's inherently safe, that it doesn't do you permanent damage, that it's only extremely rare for people to die of pregnancy complications, etc like

all of these are lies constructed so that more people will get pregnant w/o knowing all that

there needs to be more talk about the impact of miscarriages and how common they are, how different abortion processes are and how accessible they are

but also like. talking about how pregnancy fucks your body up should not be taboo

this is a process that permanently changes most people's bodies, and that's even if the pregnancy doesn't do them like. severe illness or injury

and i just think everybody should have a right to KNOW that

When I was pregnant I was in a million forums for pregnant people because (cough adhd hyperfixation) and I had something called SPD (Symphysis pubis dysfunction) (not Sensory Processing Disorder though I also have that) which is where your pubic bones separate early (more or less) because they get all loosey goosey as your body gets ready to crank that baby out.

Except my pubic bone got confused and got misaligned at like 3 months pregnant. I could barely walk. I couldn't roll over in bed. Doing something that required me to shift my weight from one foot to another like opening a door knob was like an excruciatingly painful knife being stabbed into my pubic bone, I can't express how intense and blinding it was.

So I am in one million baby forums like "am I dying what is happening why is there a knife in my pubic bone" and all these people are like "I have that too! my doctor says it's normal and not to worry because it doesn't hurt the baby. I just deal with it by laying in bed for months in excruciating pain and think about how lucky I am to be having a little miracle growing in my body."

So lol nope. I went to my midwife and they are like, "Oh squeeze a can between your knees look up a physical therapy youtube on SPD" and I did that can-squeeze thing and it CURED THE PROBLEM in ONE DAY. I had been SUFFERING, y'all, it felt miraculous.

And I was so full of rage (flames, flames on the side of my face) that people are being told "Oh, it's NORMAL just deal with it" "It doesn't hurt the baby." Like, look, yes it's NORMAL but it's 100% treatable!!! SPD (again, not Sensory processing disorder) affects 1 in 5 pregnant people.

I was lucky to have amazing midwives (need a gender neutral term for that profession, but they see pregnant men and women)(side note highly recommend midwives if you are gender nonconfirming/a man/etc) and I have DOZENS of examples of shit like this.

Some people in moderate car crashes are very lucky, and walk away with zero injury. Some are very unlucky, and die. But most people fall into the third category, where they'll be injured at the time, then heal, and then for the rest of their life they have some minor and liveable complication from the injury. Like a knee that lets you know when the rain is coming, or a back that doesn't like seats without lumbar support, or a shoulder that never quite gets its full range of motion back.

she's been suffering with this since she gave birth to me. I'm 38 years old. she had that surgery last week.

Granted, it still needs to be updated because not just women give birth.

Here is an etymologically equivalent but gender neutral term I just made:

the image of the voodoo doll as a magic doll you stab to hurt people actually comes from a practice by english pagan witches of making poppets. the poppet would be made in the shape of someone you hate and filled with their hair and then stabbed with big needles repeatedly. and the poppets got conflated with voodoo dolls later on.

voodoo dolls were actually a way of keeping records when black people were prevented from reading or writing. a voodoo priest who would serve as a communities doctor would make a doll that looks like the patient, and stick a pin in it where the patient was experiencing symptoms, this would let the doctor keep track of who was having what issues. for example if a patient has a headache, the voodoo priest puts a pin in the dolls head. the priest gives the patient a treatment, when the patient comes back the priest knows which doll is theirs because it looks like them, and they know they're dealing with a headache because the doll has a pin in it's head. when the symptoms resolve the pin is removed, until then the doctor has a reminder that this is an ongoing issue for a specific patient.

I wrote this because when I saw it this post had a TL;DW that conflated the information about poppets and the information about voodoo dolls, creating new and original misinformation about voodoo dolls that comes from confusing them with poppets so like don't reblog that one maybe.

also someone else in the chain included this freeze frame so you can read it

I felt like painting fabric and textures