Idiot Parent: But How Will I Explain It To My Children?

💕 List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you to get to know your mutuals and followers.

Ohh thanks for the ask!

1. books

2. cats (if they count as things)

3. watermelon

4. Tumblr

5. 5sos music

Also hope it all goes well with the photosynthesis.

This is so cute!

POOL PARTY

Can we please stop making scary shark movies? Sharks are pure sweet babies that don’t deserve this slander. They just have bad eyesight. Don’t be mean to them.

I love that the internet saw people comparing women and other alienated groups of people and went, “they’re dating,” and, “they support each other.” We’re improving as a society.

Baby beaver sneaks out behind parents to go for a swim. Full VDO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B6afRdVv40&feature=youtu.be

Vote now for Ship of the Year by liking and reblogging your OTP here on Tumblr! Remember, notes = votes, so  be sure to show your favorite ship some love and tune into the 2016 @mtvfandom​ Awards on July 24th at 8/7c to see who wins!

Art by @samkatdiz

Do you think Bella is a strong or a weak female protagonist?

You've hit my word vomit button/one of my pet peeves, anon, in that I utterly despise breaking down female characters by being "strong" or "weak".

Because almost always it breaks down to this idea that there's only a certain type of woman that's legitimate and, curiously enough, it's a woman who takes on traditionally male characteristics or bucks feminine trappings.

There has been a long run of female characters caring about boys, makeup, clothes, fashion, things that are "girly" are made fun of or seen as weaker or lesser.

See Lavender Brown and Parvati in Harry Potter, ruthlessly mocked in comparison to Hermione Granger our more masculine acting golden girl who cares about sensible things like her studies.

It's a lot of Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?

Where it really gets bad for me though is female characters described as weak are usually described as such for daring to be trapped in situations they cannot easily escape or having mental health issues difficult to cope with.

Cinderella is weak because she is abused by her relatives and lives in poverty and her one chance at escaping this is a dance. This is why we get modern interpretations of Cinderella where she tells us she can leave the house any time she pleases, because she's strong and independent, she just chooses not to for some reason. But the important thing is she could leave, because she's proactive!

Wendy from the film version of The Shining is weak because she's horrified at trying to hit her abusive and insane husband with a baseball bat in a truly terrifying situation.

In the case of Bella Swan, she despises herself entirely and a strong woman would never do that!

It's supposed to be empowering, but what it feels like instead is it's promoting the unintentional message that Strong Women (TM) would never get themselves into a bad situation where they feel trapped and or hopeless, they never have debilitating mental health conditions like depression or even suffer from low self-esteem.

To pull another Harry Potter reference, Dumbledore tells Harry that Merope is a weak woman, compared to his own mother Lily, for doing something as presumptuous as dying in childbirth. Because you see, only weak women do something as silly as die when having babies.

To make a long rant short: this isn't even an argument I subscribe to.

Some messages left by queer Palestinians who face annihilation by the Israeli government in their retaliation against Hamas. The Israeli government has dropped thousand of bombs, leveled streets, cut off water, gas, and electricity, bombed hospitals, ambulances, mandated evacuation and then bomb evacuees. Innocent people are dying in the mass.

There is no need for this government to employ these acts of collective punishment. The same logic that is used to condemn the acts of Hamas, should be used to condemn the actions of the Israeli government. No one deserves to slaughtered and dehumanized.

And keep in mind, that this terror is not unusual for the Palestinian people, and this is another horrific event in a decades long oppression and apartheid.