Waiting for the lotus flowers to come back...

Wei Wuxian for Mermay

In 1970, my mother's family adopted an intellectually disabled man named Horace. Horace was 56, and had been in an institution since 1921.

My uncle, who was 19, was working as an orderly at the institution where Horace lived. He only stayed a few months as the abuse he witnessed was too much for him. He had become friends with Horace and told him "I'll come back for you."

Horace replied "They all say that."

By that Christmas, Horace lived with my uncle and his family. My grandparents did the official adoption. Horace had never seen a Christmas tree, and that was his first real Christmas.

Horace died in 2010, at the age of 96. He laid down for a nap and just slipped away.

At least two generations of children grew up with him. He felt immortal to us. He loved Hot Wheels, pizza, cartoons and to talk to the portrait of my grandparents as he sat in his rocking chair.

He knew everyone's birthday. He loved unconditionally.

He had scars on his back from the institutions. If you asked him about that place, his face would screw up and he'd say "oh, it was a bad place. Bad place."

And for 40 years, he was safe, loved, and happy. He loved us in return.

No point to sharing this. But I still miss his laugh as he held a conversation with a portrait, whispering about his day to the people who had helped rescue him.

Memories of Horace:

Oh my god. 😭💕💕💕 The response to this in so little time is wonderful.

Horace deserved the world and I'm so happy his story moves people. Thank you for remembering him with me.

VERY excited

Magicians Don't Need Superheros Pt12

First: Link Prev: Link Next: TBA

----------

Marvin rubbed his face, his eyes feeling sore and he was done with the smell of paper and ink for the day. Glancing out one of the windows showed the changing colors in the sky, meaning that it was evening and he had completely forgotten about dinner. He sighed and, after a strained groan as he stretched out his body, started stacking up his books and setting them aside. 

“I’m still just as lost,” Marvin said to himself with a sigh. Everything he’s read was just random information to him, none of it clicked nor made sense to him. He’d need more time to study and adjust and Marvin hated that fact. 

Yeah, we probably should all be worried about this, because the eu parliament didn't push back against stuff like this hard enough before, after the elections they certainly won't change that. If the representatives in the eu council after the next national elections end up reflecting similar growths for the far right and center right we might be fucked even if the european court keeps pushing back.

This is also basically just a continuation of the ongoing discussion concerning chat control.

For those unaware: Officially proposed as law to fight and prevent csam and grooming under the name of Child Sexual Abuse Regulation, however in practice it demands profound undermining of end-to-end encryption, basically opening door to never known mass surveillance. It asks for scanning of every data uploaded, proposing the use of for example client side scanning and to scan for known csam - originally it was supposed to scan also for new material, but the justified fear of false-positives caused the mitigation to scan only for known material and "grooming", after long discussions if "new technologies" couldn't solve the problem of both, the life-destroying issue of false positive and the undermining of end-to-end encryption (spoiler: If a law must hope that speculative technology that doesn't yet exist and might never exist will solve it's problems you know it's a shit law that tries to find the technological sledgehammer to solve problems that are better solved in different ways. And whoever supports such a law should be looked at with suspicion, concerning either their competences or their motivations). The latest compromise proposed that instead of scanning everything it should only scan video and pictures... with users getting asked to agree to this or to just not being able to use those parts of a service. The major countries that blocked the chat control in EU council where by now Germany and France (though France already is showing cracks in its resistance, which is bad). There also is the position of the judicial branch of the EU which clearly positions the law as not reconcilable with current EU laws. For now the law is on hold, mostly because parliament (which agrees with the law) and council (which holds against it) can't come to an agreement and we now had eu parliament elections.

Honestly if you guys are worried about KOSA, you also should be worried about this. It's certain that the pressure to implement further means of mass surveillance is growing and that politicians will try to spin it positively (by linking the measurements to heavy topics like csam, even if most organizations working on prevention see the lack of proportionality, doubt the usefulness and criticize the potential of abuse behind such extrem disfranchisement of civil rights).

There is a very good post about the danger of chat control as well as a discord server being promoted here to organzie against it ! reblogs welcomed !

how do you guys feel about my lock screen

OP do you take constructive criticism?

there is nothing to criticize here

Who the hell organize apps by color

Mind your business

This HAD to be on my blog.

Credit: theemidknight on TikTok

Reblogging this to make sure I didn’t hallucinate it

Plants actually move around a lot in 24 hours, they just do it very slowly | source

How cool 😎

LMAO just read someone on Twitter try their best to connect the fact that italians prefer Donald Duck over Mickey Mouse to our deep rooted fascism

go read the full thing here its CRAZY

finally some REAL italian sheds light on the matter

The fact is that we think ducks are papere. Literally nobody I know will correctly tell you that a papera is a baby goose. And I suspect that Donald has a role in it. Donald Duck shattered our understanding of Anatidae terminology to a level that no foreigner can imagine.

And why is liking the unlucky neurotic guy fascist?

I need everyone to know that prev is literally an italian donald duck themed blog. our Paperino stanning is unmatched

I need to tell you that those comics have all been translated to finnish. Actual american disney comics are super rare here, but we have all the italian donald duck comics. I personally used to own like 600 books of them.

Italian Paperino >>> US Donald Duck.... the USamericans could never conceive Paperinik

did i ever post my favorite version of “controversial ways i raise my dog”

i’m COUGHING

Ok, real quick, speaking as a librarian, you absolutely cannot despair about the adult literacy crisis and shame adults for reading fiction books you do not personally care for or think are "challenging" at the same time. It doesn't work with kids, and it doesn't work with adults.

Here's how to increase someone's reading level:

1) Let them read whatever they choose without shame or judgment. Maybe get them talking about it using open-ended, non-leading questions to encourage critical thinking and comprehension.

2) Let them get bored after a while and seek out different books.

3) Repeat.

Troll-Apple Pancakes!

A short comic about a troll child sent to find the key ingredient to his favorite snack. But can he resist the temptation to nibble before he gets home? Probably not.

If you'd like to support more of my comics, consider my new fantasy graphic novel, The Pale Queen!

Montage de photos