Smart enough to get in AND out of trouble

You cannot challenge racism, on this level, by being nice to and reaching out to white supremacists.  Their entire ideology revolves around dehumanizing us.  It just does. not. work.  

You cannot fight fascism by prioritizing the feelings of fascists and letting them think they’re safe around you.  You don’t “get them on your side”.  Because treating them kindly and respecting them, gives them your silent approval and access to those of you who are way more vulnerable than you are and who cannot afford to feel safe enough to “debate” with these monsters. 

They shot him in the fucking head.

They shot him in the fucking head.

They shot him in the fucking head.

He was sent death threats. The FBI considered him dangerous. People assaulted and murdered many of his followers. White America thought he was too confrontational and not appeasing enough to the sensibilities of whites. He was considered disruptive and an “outside agitator.” He was not a beloved man. He was hated and despised.

His protests came with the risk of being brutalized or killed by police or vigilantes. He decried the white moderate for caring more about order than justice. He refused to condemn riots, ‘the language of the unheard,’ because of how violent America was to Black people. Despite their differences, Malcolm X offered him protection and self-defense. Even though he was committed to nonviolent resistance, which meant breaking the law, disrupting traffic and yes - willingly opening yourself to being brutalized, he was more complicated than you give him credit.

The United States hated him and for his troubles he was killed.

For example, most H&M blouses these days don’t even have boobdarts. Which means they will sit awkwardly on literally anyone with boobs, no matter the size. But on hangers or when folded on display? They look fab as fuck. Because hangers don’t have boobs. And the models chosen to show them on the catwalk are usually chosen for their lack of boobage too (unless it’s for lingerie), other requirements including ridiculous size and weight requirements. As for the average (EU available) clothing shops, the worst offender I’ve encountered yet was Zara. Everything’s way too long and way too flat: clearly aimed to look good on the catwalk models but not intended for normal people. At all.

Also sizes are just numbers. Shopping online has taught me that I’m a European M, an American XS-S, and a Japanese L-XL. And then these sizes even vary from shop to shop in the same country: I’m an XL at Apples but an S at Lola&Liza, for example. They’ve also been reducing the sizes of these numbers throughout the years to make people feel bad about themselves and to sell more weight-loss products. Don’t let a number get you down, it does not define you.

Previously, I’d only seen the first two panels and assumed it was the complete comic.

you are soft. you believe the world should be kind. you expect people to treat you fairly. you think your needs are important, that you deserve to be listened to, that you shouldn’t be hungry and frightened and in pain. 

and people are seriously SO OFFENDED by this. like, how dare you. how dare you believe the world might be a good place, how dare you believe you should be treated well just for existing. life is pain, princess, anyone who tells you different is selling something, now wipe that smile off your face, shut your mouth and go suffer like i did.

best of tumblr: harry potter

this is a fandom one cannot simply leave

Then it happens. Every ounce of fatigue or hunger leaves your body. The face of your beloved is perfectly still, their expression exactly the same. The ticking of the clock on the wall has stopped. Once again, it’s 20:17. 

You stretch your arms and walk to the table with the homework for the three doctorates you’re working on. The work is mentally stimulating and enjoyable, but it’s finished far too quickly. You check your pocket watch and see that not even one hundredth of a second has passed. 

You knew it was too soon to be able to see any movement on the watch, but you can never quite help yourself from looking early on every 20:17. Time to move on. 

You clean your home, do your budget, then go outside and fix a noise that your car was making earlier that afternoon. (Oh how you already miss afternoons.) Then you go back inside, boot up your computer (which magically speeds up to keep pace with you as long as you’re in contact with it) and check for any new orders. 

You’ve set up a website for the small business you started called “Magic Elf Services.” People in your area can pay a modest fee on your site to have different tasks and odd jobs done by “The Magic Elf” at 8:17pm every day. It was a little slow to get started, but word has spread and these days you have a steady stream of clients. 

The money that comes in from the business is nice, but you’re mostly grateful that it gives you a clear list of things to do. You print off your updated list of clients, step outside, and start making your way through the neighborhood with your to-do list. 

There’s the apartments down your street where several neighbors have hired you to tidy up, do the dishes, and mop the floors. You do the windows too, just to see if they notice. There’s the large house across town that paid the “Magic Elf” to clean out the gutters. After the first dozen jobs are done, you manage to stop looking at your pocket watch. 

As near as you’ve been able to determine in the past, 20:17 seems to last for approximately one normal year. But it’s not exact. For one thing, it’s hard to keep track of “time” when everything but you has crawled to an almost total standstill. For another thing, time seems to move differently depending on how “productive” your behavior is. One time you tried to spend all of 20:17 sitting at home in your pajamas, but that was getting you nowhere, so you eventually gave up and got busy. (Though you defiantly stayed in your pajamas the whole time.) 

During 20:17 your body doesn’t get tired, hungry, sick, or injured. You’re essentially tireless and immortal for the duration of the “minute.” So sleeping or eating away your boredom has never really worked for you. 

One of the houses on your list forgot to follow the instructions and leave a key for you to get in. At first you figure you’ll just send them an email telling them to pay more attention and that you’ll do the job tomorrow. Then you decide to go home, get your locksmith tools, and come back. 

After finishing up all the jobs on your list, you go into several other homes and small businesses in the area, performing tasks you hope they’ll find helpful, and leaving a hand-painted business card at each one. (The business cards don’t contain your real name just in case somebody thinks “The Magic Elf” should be subject to breaking and entering laws.) 

Speaking of laws, you head down to the local police station to pick up your case file. You’ve been in contact with a detective who’s been investigating corruption within their department, and your ability to investigate unseen and get in almost anywhere between the ticks of the clock has proven invaluable. You see that they’ve also added five missing person cases to your file this evening, which certainly raises your interest in the job. 

You make your way through town gathering evidence, and start making your way to the outskirts of town. Since you happen to be out that way (and you’ve already solved three of the five missing person cases) you decide to swing by the stone castle you’re building and do some more work there. 

The castle walls stand about 20 feet right now, but you know they’ll be much higher when you’re done. You’re far from any roads and pretty safely tucked away, so for now it’s your little secret. You’ve been excavating and moving all the rock yourself, which has been much easier than you first expected since your body doesn’t get tired or sore. You’ve also got a nice system of tunnels going underneath the castle, and you dig and build more of that network for a while. 

All that time spent underground has left you feeling rather lonely, so you walk back home to see the face of your sweetheart. Their facial expression has moved ever so slightly since you last saw them, which is a comfort to you. Looking at them gets your imagination going and makes you dream up a story you’d like to tell, so you sit on your couch, plug in your laptop, and write a book. 

After you finish editing the last chapter for the third time, you finally allow yourself to look at your pocket watch again. Three seconds have officially passed so far.