straigalex

[straigalex]

So, you know how certain Christian missionaries are trained to act in a very obnoxious way, so that most people they preach to will reject them outright, so they feel like the world hates them for being Christian and they can only be friends with fellow Christians? You know that thing?

I think as activists, we sometimes need to stop and ask ourselves whether we're acting like those missionaries. I think this type of behavior is a little more ingrained into our society than some of us realize, and some of us have internalized it without realizing what it's actually meant to do.

[straigalex]

Splitting the difference on productivity fetishism by striving to maximise my personal utility, but only for purposes no-one actually wants.

[straigalex]

Hey, the ACLU is getting people to send letters to your Reps to have Congress pass the No Kings Act.

This act would make constitutional amendments to ensure that even sitting presidents are held liable for their actions. That NOBODY is above the law.

Their goal is 150k messages sent and at the time of writing this they're about 2.1k off from that goal!

ACLU gives you a prefilled message that you can edit to send to make the process easier, and will send it out for you.

This only takes a few minutes!

[straigalex]

[straigalex]

The author's poorly disguised fetish

The author's proudly displayed fetish

The author's fetish you're pretty sure they don't realise they have

The author's fetish which they're firmly convinced everyone has and is just pretending otherwise

The author's non-sexual special interest which just sounds like a fetish because of their habitually unfortunate phrasing

The fetish the author is making a well-meaning effort to cater to in spite of clearly not understanding it themselves

The author's fetish that never quite makes it into the text because they keep getting sidetracked by the requisite worldbuilding

The author's utterly pedestrian sexual preference which the text treats like a bizarre fetish because they've got shit to work through

The author's seemingly innocuous recurring trope they're going to have a personal revelation about ten years down the road

The author's fetish you missed on a first reading because it's so far out of pocket, it never occurred to you that you could sexualise that

[straigalex]

Half tempted to write my own autism assessment. None of the ones written for autistic adults seem to accommodate higher support needs/higher level folks and none of the ones written for autistic children seem to accommodate folks who aren't either nonverbal and level 3 with vhsn or level 1 and hyperverbal geniuses whose only reason they're being assessed is some mild to moderate social and sensory issues.

Like sorry, but I need to be reassessed ridiculously often and I was late diagnosed but I'm also medium-high support needs and mixed level 2/3.

Autistic adult assessments are always like "here's a situation you've never been in. What would you do?" And I'm like "great question, i don't know, stay home probably? With my mom?"

And autistic child assessments are always like "here's a question directed at parents! Is your kiddo a super genius with awesome powers or are they [r-slurred] and basically an inanimate object?" And I'm like "dear heavens what on earth why are y'all talking about autistic kids like this, why are you so ableist?"

[straigalex]

If you’ve never been all that disobedient before, you can and should start really, really small. For example, you can wear the slightly revealing or gloriously trashy-looking garment that makes your mom roll her eyes and sigh despondently every time she sees you put it on. You will feel judged and disapproved of when you put it on, but that is fine. Your goal is to sit with the uncomfortable feelings and continue with your desired behavior anyway.  Saunter down the steps in that highlighter-yellow Garfield crop top with your chest hair flowing over the neckline, and harness as much courage as you can muster. It’s okay if you feel like a beacon of sin. Just keep it moving. Your emotions are not the target here. Your behavior is. You can feel however you are feeling in the moment so long as you keep acting like you’re free.  Do you have a favorite TV show that a partner or roommate vocally hates? Try watching that show around them without apologizing or defensively joining them in mocking the program. At first, you probably won’t be able to enjoy the show while in their presence. You’ll feel self-conscious about everything they find annoying or cringe-inducing about the show, and so focused on their reactions that you can’t relax. That’s okay. Allow those feelings of embarrassment and guilt to exist and pass through you without giving up. In time, you will be able to ignore these reactions more, and enjoy the activity.  You want to see the needle of discomfort moving down just a little, like Link’s body temperature meter in Tears of the Kingdom when he puts on a breathable outfit in a hot climate. You’re not gonna go from roiling hot to frosty cold in an instant. But after a certain point, you won’t be actively in pain anymore. Things are just gonna slowly suck less, bit by bit, until they are finally okay. That’s true of most major life adjustments, I find.  Probably the best way to develop self-advocacy skills while growing in your distress tolerance is simply by telling other people no. Do this without explanation or hedging. Nitpicky aunt wants to hear all about your dating life? “No, I don’t want to talk about that.” Unreliable ex-friend wants you to do them the tiny favor of moving their entire home gymnasium into a new third story walk-up? “No, I’m not available.” Manipulative shift supervisor wants to cajole you into sticking around for another three hours to close? “No.”  As many advice columnists smarter than me have already intoned, “no” is a complete sentence. “No” requires no explanation. “No” is not subject to debate. “No” can be repeated over and over like a broken record if a disrespectful person acts like they can’t hear it. And you can walk away at any time to make your “no” physical and impossible to argue with, when someone has proven they don’t respect your boundaries. 

you can read or listen to the full piece for free here

[straigalex]

As someone around for 9-11 and the "NEVER FORGET NUMBER #1 GREATEST TRAGEDY EVER IN HISTURY" response to it I am in thrilled and invigorated by the fact that younger people just make amogus memes and TikTok nonsense about it. A huge chunk of America cared more about it than any entire genocide and thought you would cry learning about it. They hoped it'd make every generation patriotically angry forever and ever and want to join the military. Instead you Photoshop the towers into squidwards house and shit. Never stop lol

[straigalex]

tell me something nice

[straigalex]

I think my biggest takeaway from the audience response to Mouthwashing is that it has the misfortune of being an indie space horror game that's largely uninterested in explaining itself published at a time when it's become customary for indie space horror games to have a letter or a diary or a cassette tape or whatnot that you find at the end which helpfully outlines the game's core themes.

[straigalex]

creating a new OC. He's a doctor who treats weird kink furries. his bit is that every patient who comes into his office he has to figure out how to complete the checkup while working around some weird toon-logic contrivance. He's like the doctor house of kink because he's the only one in his field capable of getting results. He's massively overworked and he's been IP banned from the e621 forums.

[straigalex]

I saw a post you made the other day about SSC being the trendsetters of the galaxy, so I consider you the authority and pose you this cursed thought I had.

Most of the SSC style mechs have human-like feet. Do you think that design aesthetic extends to their other products as well? Hard suits with sculpted toe boots? Drones and Subalterns that all walk on human feet? Airplanes and space ships with big feet landing gears?

The thought that this might be true frightens me.

This is cursed enough that I know it's true

[straigalex]

cracked and bleeding hands are not more tolerable than the feeling of lotion

[straigalex]

It's fascinating how a lot of Evangelical Christian anxiety about Satanism seems to be rooted in the unspoken idea that if the Devil gathers enough worship he'll depose God and become the new God, because that's not the party line in any major religion, but it is how it works in Dungeons & Dragons.

[straigalex]

something that should be taken with a grain of salt are the statistics talking about the high rates of mental illness + neurodivergence among trans people (ocd, bpd, adhd, autism, etc)

I see both sides of the political spectrum taking these studies at face value - conservatives say we're broken, and trans people try to come up with reasons why for example autism + gender dysphoria makes sense and why one of them feeds into another

at the end of the day you have to remember that we're the one category of people on this planet who are legally required to go see a psychiatrist in order to receive non-psychiatric medication and surgeries.

more trans people are in therapy by law than any other demographic of people, and as a result, this captures more comorbidities.

if I had to look at my own family & rates of mental illness?

mom, dad, 2 maternal aunts, maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother, sister, sibling, and me all have OCD.

7/9 of them are cishet, never been to therapy, never diagnosed. 2/9 are trans, required therapy for hormone treatment, and were diagnosed.

you don't have to do any math to just see that the resulting statistics end up intensely skewed.

and we can think back to how autism was virtually never diagnosed more than 50 years ago - ruling out any grandparents being included in statistics - and even my parents' generation (they're in their 60s now) wouldn't have been included either.

I don't think it's to anyone's benefit to accept these studies uncritically. a lot of these things are hereditary and far more prevalent in the overall population than people realize

[straigalex]

So. Im not out to my best friend as being trans.. she doesn't know yet.

My problem is that shes pregnant and wants me there in the room for the birth of her baby along with her husband, and i am so honored and excited! I want to be there to support her through this moment!

However, i havent come out to her yet.. and we havent talked about our thoughts on trans people much, so im not sure where she stands exactly. It seems more like she doesnt understand or agree with it but she wont be a dick to people about it which is just the vibe i get from the one day we kinda talked about it because her grandparents were listening to transphobic shit on fox news while we were in their house. So i know, for sure, her family wont support me (at least her parents and grandparents) so i won't be able to see them after transitioning, but i dont know what to do about my friend. It scares me thinking that she wont want to see me again.. maybe i'll make her uncomfortable? Maybe her husband will be uncomfortable?? I mean me and her are very close and everyone makes jokes about how we are "gay for each other" (even her husband makes this joke) but how will that relationship translate when i look and sound like a man? I just feel like im gonna make things awkward and she (or her husband) wont want me around as much or at all.... i mean dont get me wrong i understand boundaries and being respectful, i wasnt and don't do anything line crossing even now, but from her husbands place i can see how my transition might change his entire perspective or feelings on my friendship with her.. ( i dont know?!?!?!)

Basically, because of all of this, im gonna wait to tell her until after she gives birth so i can be there for her... but then i feel like that might be selfish of me.. purposefully holding off so i can have this cherished memory as one of my potential last times talking to her. What if i come out to her after and she is weirded out because she let me watch her first kid being born..? I dont know if im being selfish in waiting. But it just feels like i would be... i feel like i shouldve told her way earlier on, before she even asked me to be in the room... fucking christ this sucks

[straigalex]

I hope the "What if Disco Elysium was about a witch finding her cat in the mountains" post never leaves the gaming discourse vernacular. It will never not be funny to me bc it's got all the Gamer Entitlement™ levels of CoD bros throwing hissy fits about "woke" shit but instead of being couched in far right reactionism it's the exact kind of "Kingdom of Conscience" style liberal outrage at anything with conviction and beliefs that DE waxed on about. Like even chuds who get mad that the game calls you out for being racist interact with the themes of DE better and understand them more than Cat Lady did.