man-inthe-suit

[man-inthe-suit]

Well, you know, some bathroom graffiti offers insight.

[man-inthe-suit]

Truck drivers in Michigan have for years smashed into an undersized bridge called The Big Penny. Normal warning signs have not deterred drivers from wedging dozens of trucks into its hungry maw.

So they put eyes and teeth on the bridge, in part as a further deterrent.

It has not worked…

[man-inthe-suit]

Randomly remembered how as a kid my mom would always fast forward through the beginning of 'Finding Nemo' because she thought Coral's death was too violent, so for years I never knew why Nemo was raised by a single father and assumed Nemo's parents had gotten fish divorced and Marlin had won custody of Nemo. My dad's biological parents divorced when my dad was young, so I always knew what divorce was and I knew my Grandma had gotten primary custody of my dad, so I just assumed that's what happened with Nemo. It wasn't until years later when I watched Finding Nemo with my grandparents without my mom and they didn't know to fast forward through the beginning that I finally knew what happened to Coral and I was *devastated*.

[man-inthe-suit]

Now is the Time to Start Masking Again

If you stopped paying attention to COVID with the release of vaccines, you've missed a lot.

COVID is airborne.

Long COVID impacts 10% of people infected by COVID (though this is beginning to look like a low estimate). Risk of Long COVID goes up with each reinfection. Long COVID is worse than initially reported.

Bisexual and trans people are more likely to develop Long COVID.

Black and Hispanic folks are more likely than White folks experience more symptoms and health problems from Long COVID.

***COVID and Long COVID has much more in common with HIV and AIDS than the flu (28:19 - 38:30 of linked video)***

The Basics

[WEBSITE] You Have to Live Your Life

[ZINE] What's Up With COVID and How to Protect Yourself - 2024 Edition

[FAQ] r/ZeroCOVIDCommunity's FAQ and Resource List

"This is great and all but it's overwhelming. TL;DR?"

COVID is airborne. Long COVID is much more common (and serious/debilitating) than previously thought.

Mask with an N95 or better in all indoor spaces and outside when close to others. Improve your indoor air quality by opening windows and using fans/air filters.

Rapid tests are prone to false negatives so make sure to retest in 48 hours after exposure and/or when you develop symptoms. Isolate in the meantime. Consider upgrading to a NAAT (PlusLife, Metrix) or PCR (Lucira) if you have the money.

Things for you to do today:

buy some N95s or request some from a local mask bloc

open a window more often and/or buy an air purifier

buy the best COVID tests you can afford

Basics in Video Form

If you have limited time, watch the videos with * first. They will cover the basics in about 20 minutes.

*VIDEO: COVID is Airborne [2:53]

*VIDEO: What the latest research tells us about long COVID's most common symptoms [5:58]

*VIDEO: FDA warns of false negatives with at home COVID Tests [2:19]

*VIDEO: How to Stay Safe(r) at Home [10:35]

--

VIDEO: The Astounding Physics of N95 Mask [6:08]

VIDEO: Mask Fit 101: Seal [4:07]

VIDEO: Mask Fit 101: Qualitative [3:49]

VIDEO: Mask Fit 102: Quantitative [5:04]

VIDEO: How to get [and give] FREE Masks [6:07]

VIDEO: Try this DIY indoor air purifier for cleaner air [4:22]

VIDEO: Why is EVERYONE more SICK [54:55]

Want to Get Involved?

Join your local Mask Bloc

No local Mask Bloc? Consider starting one

Talk to the people in your life about COVID

Print quality zines and spread them in your communities

Push for COVID Conscious changes in your spaces.

[man-inthe-suit]

Readers, make sure you have all your favourite Ao3 fics downloaded.

Writers, make sure you have copies of all the fics you have posted on Ao3.

I don’t want to be alarming, but things could get really bad really fast. OTW shared this today on Twitter, and I'm a bit worried about it 😅

Ao3 is a non-profit organisation. If they have to start paying taxes, I have no idea what will happen.

[man-inthe-suit]

seeing someone comment landfillcore under a holiday decor haul a few years back permanently changed my consumption habits. what an evocative word. I think about her all the time

[man-inthe-suit]

Everyone look at the cat blanket I made like .. 3 years ago

[man-inthe-suit]

being in a long-term committed loving relationship with a neurodivergent person, as someone very much neurotypical, has been a beautiful exercise in both humility and communication

[man-inthe-suit]

I finally watched "Dirty Computer" (Director's Cut) (2018) (available on Kanopy; free with your local library card!)

And it was very powerful

And very artful

And very beautiful

And VERY timely.

And timely enough that the twist at the end really fuckin horrified me. Credits rolled and I screamed.

But ultimately, this was a good one to watch on this election night. I was looking for something to watch to distract from the numbers rolling in, and this emotion picture was not distracting so much as a very beautiful reckoning, face to face with my dread and grief, and after the reckoning, what's left is strength. What's left is resilience. What's left is love and pride and refusing to be "cleaned" by a world that hates us for what we are.

Thanks for the art, Janelle. Thanks for the reminder that this is our home too, no matter how much people may try to erase us from memory.

[man-inthe-suit]

incredible

[man-inthe-suit]

people often cite concerns about aid donations to gaza somehow benefiting hamas. this is why i always recommend donating to anera.

anera addresses this concern on their FAQ page.

how i understand it - anera procures aid and then organizes and distributes it. i mean, if you're concerned about aid distribution in gaza, this is exactly who you should be donating to.

they keep a daily log of all of their activities.

they post videos of their activities

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Anera (@aneraorg)

and they are vetted by charity navigator, charity watch, better business bureau, and candid.

I highly recommend checking their gaza faq

and their donation page for gaza.

ceasefire and hostage deal now

[man-inthe-suit]

Some of you don't have firm principles that transcend ideology, and it shows.

[man-inthe-suit]

Hello friends, there's a dogwhistle I've seen used a couple times on tumblr that I want to discuss.

Fellow neurodivergents especially, please listen-- towards the end of this post I describe how some in our community have been using it without knowing what it means.

A fairly common antisemitic dogwhistle used amongst alt-right circles on the internet is being a "noticer," "noticing patterns," "pattern noticer," etc. I've seen this from a couple Tumblr blogs I follow reblogging memes and such that use this term but don't provide any context about what sorts of "things" they may be noticing.

Here's the meme that I saw a blog I'm following reblog last night.

Seems pretty harmless, right? It's a meme with a cute cat.

In alt-right circles, what they are referring to "noticing" is the conspiracy theory that Jews control the world/"noticing" evidence of an imagined globalist (read: Jewish) world order/etc. If you see a meme that uses terms like "noticing patterns" that doesn't elaborate what those supposed patterns are-- just leaves you to fill in the blank yourself-- take a look at the types of things OP might be posting. The alt-right has an idea that it's forbidden to talk about who might be behind the "conspiracies" they talk about (again, the target is frequently Jewish people) so lack of context is often a red flag.

I sent the blog who reblogged this an ask informing them that the meme was a dogwhistle. If you see someone reblog something like this, check what they've been posting. If this seems like an isolated incident, the person probably reblogged it not knowing what the term actually meant. That's why dogwhistles are so effective-- to the average person they look harmless if you don't know what to watch out for!

Let's take a look at how alt-righters use this term.

Here's an alt-right definition of it from Urban Dictionary.

Oh boy, this one gets a bigotry bingo for all the dogwhistles used here. If I miss any, feel free to comment. Here are the ones I found:

-Noseticing: Noticing plus nose, based on the stereotype for Jewish people to have large noses.

-"those who cannot be named"/skirting around saying Jew: again the idea that it's forbidden to talk about who they think is behind their conspiracy theories.

-"world events and agendas": idea that Jewish people have a Globalist agenda etc etc

-Degeneracy: Nazi term to describe the behaviors/people they find undesirable.

-Early life: refers to the section in a person's Wikipedia page. If a person was brought up Jewish, it'll usually say so there.

-Oy vey: a Jewish exclamation of exasperation that Nazis have unfortunately co-opted when talking about Jewish people.

Here's probably the most obviously antisemitic meme I found.

The title and first bullet point include the "noticer" term. This meme also talks about a "group" who controls wealth. Who might the poster be referring to here?

Here's a Twitter account with many similar alt-right terms. Explicitly identifies as a Nazi and ethno-nationalist, etc etc.

A couple other pages. I clicked on them to see if I could find any more examples but the first seemed pretty blank and the second... Well, I don't have a twitter so I couldn't view.

Let's unpack these a little. The first one has "13 outta 52," a statistic used among white supremacists to depict Black people (especially African-Americans) as "savage": 13 referring to the percentage of America that is Black and 52 referring to the alleged percentage of murders in the U.S. that are committed by Black people. "109 countries" refers to the idea that Jewish people have been expelled from 109 countries during history. (Which isn't entirely true. Some "countries" in this count are actually cities, regions, etc.) Some white supremacists may use the number 110 instead to suggest that it should happen again.

The second one has a blurb alleging a global sterilization effort and concerns of fertility. This is likely in connection to pro-natalism for white people. If Nazis want a so-called "Aryan nation," they're going to want white people to populate it, and so they encourage white people to have babies for their cause. Nazi Germany employed this tactic as well, even awarding "Aryan" German women who had four or more children for their contributions to the Nazi cause.

The reason why I'm emphasizing that context matters is that some neurodivergent people have seen this and co-opted it into neurodivergent circles. As a person who is Jewish and autistic, this is pretty alarming to me. I'll show a couple examples from Tumblr:

And

I've left out the URLs of the OPs because I want to give the benefit of the doubt-- they both explicitly refer to being a "pattern noticer" in terms of neurodivergence. And it's easy to see why introducing this term to ND folks would be an easy way to get a dogwhistle passed off as harmless! Since autistic people often have analytical minds, we often make connections that others might not be able to see. But unfortunately, using terms like this only makes it much easier for antisemites to fly under the radar.

Stay safe and let's keep Tumblr free of this shit.

[man-inthe-suit]

“Is it normal?” The binding edition

Yes:

Getting winded after walking quickly/upstairs with binder on, but able to catch breath

Chafing in the underarm areas

Soreness (during or after) in arms, shoulders, or back

Increased acne on chest or back

Mild anxiety about tightness

Chest sagging

No, take it off and rest, see a doctor if problem gets worse or doesn’t go away after taking the binder off (or after one week):

Nausea during or after binding, including nausea caused by pain

Bruising

Out of breath/can’t catch breath when not wearing binder

Skin rash

Sharp pains in ribs

Not able to cough or sneeze

Numbness in arms

Feeling too tired/sore to do everyday activities

Suddenly having any of the above symptoms even if you’ve been binding for years 

No, see a doctor ASAP, could be a sign of serious injury:

Anything from the above category if you can just tell/feel something is wrong, better safe than sorry

Extreme claustrophobia/panic attacks 

Sharp pain in chest/heart skipping beats or beating very fast

Not able to breathe  

Dizziness

Blueness in lips or fingertips

Change in shape of ribcage

Fainting

[man-inthe-suit]

my actual coming out story is in fifth grade a guy named asa was like "hey are you a faggot" and i was like what's that 😨 and he was like "it means you like boys" and i was like ohhhhh then yes ☺️ and then i got home from school and was like hey mom guess what i am ☺️

[man-inthe-suit]

people with chronic pain and chronic fatigue will be like why does it hurt and why am I so tired

[man-inthe-suit]

How your email finds me 🚬💀