the funny thing is that i don't think younger people - and i mean those under the age of 40 - really have a grasp on how many of today's issues can be tied back to a disastrous reagan policy:

this is just what i could come up with in a relatively short time and i did not even live under this man's presidency. the level at which ronald reagan has broken the united states truly can't be overstated.

A couple of these started earlier (before Nixon, for-profit health insurance was not allowed, and Nixon also started the war on drugs specifically to target minorities and anti-war activists), but Reagan doubled down on them and made them even worse. It was the difference between sliding down the side of a hill and jumping off a cliff.

The people behind project2025 started with Reagan

if anyone ever asks why return of the jedi is my favourite star wars film i’ll just send them this gif

Today, the 6th of April, is international asexuality day.

It’s only the 3rd year of celebration, as the day was recognised in 2021!!

It’s worldwide effort to recognize the asexuality community and promote understanding of the asexual spectrum, including all umbrella identities!!

I wish age gap discourse hadn’t spiraled the way it has because I want there to be a safe space to say “Men in their 40s who date 25 year olds aren’t predators, they’re just fucking losers”

… honey you just described a predator LOL

No, I said what I said. But thank you for providing an example of how this topic has become insufferable on the internet.

i am honestly burningly curious about how a 40 year old man who fucks around with college grads is not a predator

“College grad” is not a developmental stage, nor is it what I would describe a 25 year old as. I was 4 years out of college at 25. My mother had two children at 25. You can be a fucking congressman at 25.

There’s a difference between a man who is immature and buys into misogynistic views of beauty and aging and one who is a predator. Also, many actual predators? Not losers and able to move through society pretty freely being seen as cool and the ideal, so conflating the two isn’t helpful.

This is going to be my final response to any attempt at discourse. You’re welcome to continue amongst yourselves.

also sometimes a 40 year old and a 25 year old just weirdly find each and it’s a perfectly normal relationship - like all human relationships are complex and situational, it’s so rarely an either/or thing let alone just one thing only

if a 40 year old dude only dates 25 year olds, DiCaprio style or something adjacent to it, then yeah he’s a loser

if a 40 year old dude meets a 25 year old through social event or friends or whatever and they happen to hit it off and make a go of it, and this isn’t some sort of reoccurring pattern for the guy, that’s just a relationship with an age difference

being predatory means something specific, and man I agree w/ OP and really wish people just stopped ascribing it to any and all relationship dynamics they personally might not like

predator and groomer - two words that need to go up on the “can’t use till you learn their meaning” shelf

Something I find really stressful is this seemingly endless creep of infantilisation and removal of autonomy from young people. Like, not to be all “in my dayyyy” about it, but… at 16, my friends and I were expected to be broadly responsible for our presence in the world. Most of us had jobs, we navigated public transport, looked after younger siblings. We were expected to make informed decisions about our future careers and our sexual partners. We were allowed to leave education and work full time (this was not necessarily good thing - I think increasing the school leaving age to 18 was broadly for the best). Most of us were smoking, or drinking, or both - again, not good things, but just facts - and many of us were sexually active. Many of the AFAB people I knew were on the pill. Legally, we could live independently, or get married with adult consent.

Legally (I live in the UK) we were not minors, although we inhabited an odd legal limbo until we turned 18, and we were certainly not “children”. Intellectually, socially, though, we were considered (young) adults, or at the most “older teenagers.” We were expected to read mostly adult books (rather than middle grade or YA), watch the news/read papers, watch mostly adult television.

And I do think we a bit under-protected, under-supported, and in some cases - neglected and financially exploited - and I’m not necessarily advocating that. But it did make us feel, I think, in charge of our own lives, capable and competent to make decisions.

At 16-17 my parents knew they could leave me alone overnight/for a couple of nights, and I wouldn’t starve or burn the house down. I felt comfortable getting cross country trains on my own, or booking and staying at a hotel (yes, with my boyfriend.)

Then there was this… creeping of sentiments that we were all Too Young to trouble our heads about certain things. A lot of it was good - more stringent licensing laws, raising the school leaving age, raising the minimum smoking age(!) - but some of the broader cultural stuff was… a bit patronising? Eg, the introduction of “New Adult” as a category of books aimed at 18-25 year olds, the way cartoons and books written for the 9-12 age group were being marketed as for the 12-15 age group, referring to late teens as “children,” etc etc.

Then, in 2008, there was the big financial crash and suddenly my generation were (broadly) robbed of all the usual markers of adulthood and success, meaning that we got ‘stuck’ in the lifestyles and modes our late teens/early 20s. And suddenly, all the emphasis shifted from social and legal protections for late teens/ younger adults, to legal restrictions on their freedoms/rights, and strange philosophical protections on the emotional states.

So, OF COURSE a 23 year old can’t buy a beer without carrying an ID card, and a 17 year old can’t have a crush on a 16 year old, but also, because you’re *children* you don’t need to live like adults. So the UK government got to save money by saying “18 isn’t a proper adult,” then “20 isn’t a proper adult,” and “25 isn’t a proper adult” because it meant they could refuse to give single occupancy housing benefit rates to people of those ages (I think they’ve raised it over 30 now.) Or by refusing to clamp down on exploitative temporary/zero hours contracts - because they’re just “temp jobs for young people!”, or by raising the retirement age because “60 is far too young to retire. You’re not a real adult until 35.”

And it means the discursive environment is such that you can claim that a 21 year old trans person is too young to make their own medical decisions, or a 15 year old is too young to consent to the contraceptive pill.

Meanwhile, they are not offering additional *protections* to these newly infantilised adults. 18 year olds are still encouraged to saddle themselves with enormous educational debt, or allowed to have credit cards, or expected to pay rent, or no longer receive child benefits. You still have to *work*. In fact, in the States, they’re looking to removed child employment restrictions - but that’s fine, because 20 year olds are being protected from making their own medical decisions, and adults get to say which books their teen kids are reading in school, and kids aren’t allowed to change their name or what they wear without parental consent.

We can see what these people are doing to the rights of children - so why are we being so complacent in expanding the definition of ‘child’?

Regardless - 25 is VERY CLEARLY an adult. At 25 I was married, had two kids, an overdraft, rent to pay, and experience of living in the world for 6 years. I had more in common with someone of 40 than I did with someone of 15. Hell, at*20* I had more in common with someone of 40 than someone of 15. Any sexual or relationship decisions you make at 25 are your own to make.

Of course there are likely to be power imbalances in a 15 year age gap - which is why most 25 year olds don’t date 40somethings - but not actually necessarily. And yeah, a 40 year old who only dates 20somethings is a skeeze - just like a 30 year old who routinely ingratiates themselves with rich 80 year olds is a skeeze.

But if any young people are reading this (doubt it)… your rights are much, much more important than your protections.

Yes, young people should be protected, but if someone claims they’re protecting you while denying you access to personal autonomy, financial stability, intellectual curiosity, or sexual self-determination because you’re “too young” to need, or understand those things… be very suspicious of their motives.

And if you’re legally an adult, ask yourself why you don’t feel comfortable defining yourself in those terms.

it's kind of crazy climate change has occurred at such a remarkable pace that I and everyone else around my age can remember a completely different climate in our childhoods. I truly watched winter gradually disappear in my life.

"You're too young to remember this, but there used to be so many insects outside that you would have to clean them off the windshield after a long car ride" is the kind of sentence that would have been in a cheesy scifi short story earlier in my life, perhaps submitted to a literary magazine and accepted to show support for its environmentalist message - now it's something I've said in earnest.

I know this has been said before, and y'all aren't gonna listen to me when I say it, but you can't be bigoted to bad people. Like you don't get to call Marjorie Taylor Green an NRA whore, or misgender Caitlyn Jenner, or be antisemitic to Ben Shapiro. It doesn't work like that. Not being called slurs is not something people earn by being a good person, it's something you do because YOU are a good person. And if I'm being honest, it shouldn't be that hard for you to do. You shouldn't want to say these things to ANYBODY, even if they are the devil incarnate.

When people use slurs against people they don't like, that tells me that marginalized people are only conditionally acceptable to them, and the second they don't like them they'll use their identity against them.

I've literally gotten into arguments with people for refusing to misgender certain controversial trans people.

I don't gender them correctly out of respect for them specifically, but out of respect for trans people as a whole.

Because no, I don't think using somebody's preferred pronouns should be contingent on them being a "good person" who "deserves" it. You should always refer to trans people with their preferred pronouns at all times without exception.

I'd argue that treating correct pronoun usage as a privilege that can be taken away at a moment's notice says way more about you than it does about the person you're misgendering.

Combine your chinese zodiac and astrology sign to make your true fursona

i still hate this post so much. i’m an ox and a taurus. i’m a bull bull. i’m so fucking annoyed oh m y go d

SCORPION TIGER I WIN MUTHAFUCKAS PINCH PINCH STAB STAB

Percy Jackson and the Olympians premieres Dec. 20 on Disney+

the percy jackson show is not realistic. when filling out worksheets on school trips i have never been given a clipboard. you put that shit against the nearest wall and cope.

Aegon was the son Viserys always wanted, the son he slaughtered one woman and raped another for, the son he neglected his daughter for. And yet he did not love him.

Helaena was the dragon dreamer Viserys had always hoped to be, the holder of the Valyrian magic he so revered. And yet he did not love her.

Aemond was the lover of dragons, the eager student of history, the kindred spirit Viserys was never able to find in court. And yet he did not love him.

I will rage forever at how much Viserys should have loved these kids. He should have loved them so fucking much. Every single one of them embodied one of his deepest hopes and dreams. And yet he spent the rest of his miserable life punishing them for his own goddamn decision to bring them into this world.

mommy’s little war criminal 💚

Dear, sweet, Littlefoot, do you remember the way to the Great Valley?  I guess so. But why do I have to know if you’re going to be with me? I’ll be with you. Even if you can’t see me. What do you mean I can’t see you? I can always see you.

The Land Before Time(1988) dir. Don Bluth

#I hope they feel like Italian today

I liked this post, scrolled for like another minute before I went “SHIT FUCK SHIT” and scrolled back to reblog it

I always reblog this one when I see it on my dash. When someone posts their own art, writing, or music here they are really hoping you will share it.

2 genres of fanfiction:

1) put that guy into situations

2) take that guy OUT of situations for the love of GOD let them REST 

#you put the sad guy in #you take the sad guy out #you put the sad guy in and you shake him all about

You know, it's kinda funny how much of high fantasy centers around kings and nobility and courtly intrigue considering that the archetypal high fantasy, Lord of the Rings, had the rather explicit moral of "saving the world is up to this backwater hick and his gardener because no politician, least of all inherited nobility, would have the ability to see past their own ambition and throw away a weapon". Oh sure, Aragorn is a great king and all, but there's a reason he's over there running a distraction ring while the hobbits do the real work. Sauron loses because he gets distracted by kings and armies and great battles (i.e. typical high fantasy stuff) letting Frodo and Sam sneak through his back door and blow it all to hell.

Just saying, maybe old Jirt knew what he was saying when he said that the small folk doing their best and holding to each other was more powerful than a dozen alliances and superweapons and we should respect him for it.

The Road Goes Ever On embroidered by seejor.