#I feel bad for the people getting sucked into this ideology being told it's the only ''real feminism''

[vampirebeverage]

Jewish People: Hey don’t support JKR or the HP franchise, her work is anti-Semitic.

BIPOC: Hey don’t support JKR or the HP franchise, she’s really racist.

Trans People: Hey don’t support JKR or the HP franchise, she’s transphobic and uses her platform in ways that directly harm trans people.

TERFS: Oh I Absolutely Must Buy This Racist, Anti-Semitic Video Game! Take That, Transes!

[bijouxcarys]

I didn't have anywhere else to kind of talk about this, and I need to get it out of my system somehow, so I'm just putting this on here. Maybe someone can relate to it?

TW/ self-harm, suicidal ideology, please don't read this if it's going to potentially trigger you.

If you don't think this will trigger you, I still suggest you read on. Anyone around you could be experiencing this right now, and it's a very real thing.

Here's the reality of living as an adult with autism, who wasn't diagnosed until the age of 18.

It fucking sucks. To put it mildly.

Growing up as an undiagnosed autistic child is difficult. Especially if you are beaten down verbally by everybody to the point where you believe that you are, in fact, a bad kid. I'm convinced that's had a hand in why I'm so paranoid about my relationships with people. If I'm doing something to upset or annoy them.

You spend your entire childhood being told that you're the problem, when you're just trying to fucking survive in a world that's hard enough to live in without the added stress of developmental disorders, and you're going to believe for the rest of your life that you're the problem.

That is, unless you're able to go and see a therapist or counsellor.

Which leads me to my next point: we are conditioned to believe that we aren't allowed to ask for help, because we can never take on the advice anyways! 18 years of being told that I'm being dramatic, by my own counsellor as well, definitely dampens your willingness to attend any kind of talk therapy.

You get trauma building up over time from the rejection sensitivity, the amount of friend groups you plow through, the anxiety and depression that come as a result of how your brain is wired. It's not even that you have depression or anxiety; a lot of the time, they are symptoms of our autism. But they don't care. They'll feed us antidepressants.

I've been on antidepressant medication for a long time now. I'd argue about 6 years. I'm 22 now, on 200mg of sertraline daily. Last year I tried to come off my medication. Big mistake. Realised I'm kind of fucked without it.

Back in 2019, I used to take my antidepressant in liquid form because I had a sensitivity to swallowing pills. One day, my inability to read social cues and communicate effectively with my friends led me to drink the whole bottle of Fluoxetine.

When you're undiagnosed with autism and you have to go through regular life every day, it's damaging. So dangerous to the mental health of the child. The more we are put in situations that can overstimulate us, and overwhelm us, the more it takes from your ability to cope with life. You get beaten down, and beaten down, and beaten down, until you're an emotionless entity wandering the Earth with no solid ambitions or aspirations. You've spent your entire life in defense mode, mirroring everyone's behaviour and personalities so that you feel the tiniest bit "normal" out of pure survival, that you lose a sense of who you are as a person. You feel stripped of your personality. You don't know what you're doing.

Then you get thrust into the real world. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? I don't know how to survive in a world that isn't made for me. I don't know how to tell people I'm autistic, because a) they very rarely understand what I mean by that, and what it entails, and b) I don't even know enough about my autism.

Why? Because I wasn't diagnosed until just before I turned 18 - got discharged from CAMHS (Child and Adolescence Mental Health Service) once I turned 18, with no referral to a counsellor that could help me, and no information on what the fuck I should do next.

I've stayed in education because it's the only thing I know how to survive. I went to college, university, and now I'm doing a master's degree online. And I still don't really know what my goal is in life.

I have no friends, and I flip-flop between being upset about it and being absolutely fine with it. I don't leave the house, I don't work, I even struggle to do the most basic of daily tasks.

I'm constantly fantasising about a life I could have, but ultimately realise I can't have.

My brain is fucked up, and I am traumatised by the life I've had to live and survive in. And now I'm stuck in survival mode.

And I don't know how to live, instead of simply exist.

That's where the suicidal ideology comes in. I'm constantly thinking about how much easier everything would be if I did just off myself. But the thing is, I'm not actively planning it, but the thought brings me great comfort. There's always a way out. And I can't expect that I'll leave this world any other way.

Now... when an autistic person, or any person, tells you that they don't want to die, but thinking about killing themselves brings them a sense of comfort and contentment... there's something wrong there.

There's nothing I want more than to start living. But when it takes 110% of my energy to do the bare minimum... living becomes synonymous with existing.

Not being taught how to deal with the meltdowns, the overstimulation, the understimulation, the food sensitivities, the way the world functions... has fucked me up, for myself, and for everyone else around me.

And when given the choice between spending the rest of my life putting all my energy into living the way I do now, and killing myself and saving myself from the pain, the latter sounds far more enticing.

I don't want to die. But to live is too much of an enigma to want anything other than the silence.

[transpathfinder]

veilguard thots

[massive plot spoilers]

ok i did say i was gonna write up some brief thoughts after i completed but first of all before i start, as a lucanismancer i just want to say any lucanismancer who hates neve kys. you are not affiliated with me don't even speak to me or breathe in my direction. and bioware, idk when u will realise i have 2 hands. 1 is for lucanis 1 is for neve and my spare dick is for spite so just get with the programme

alright that being said... yeah i didn't really like the game much. i think it's easily the weakest DA game, which i consider a pretty big failing since i am not someone who thinks inquisition is good. i had a lot of problem with inquisition's main story and open world, but somehow veilguard's story is. Worse. i don't even have the energy to get into supervillain evil blighted elvhen gods, turning the old gods as stupid little dragon thralls, because obviously, again, nothing pagan or elemental matters, they're not real, they're not godly or saintly or divine, just stupid animals. making the antaam breakaway into this crazed faction you keep fighting cos they absolutely had zero ideas or interest in tying positively into qunari culture you can have a relationship with, it becomes an easy excuse - ''they're not reeeeaally qunari teehee'' first of all, crafting both the antaam and venatori into easily siding with supervillain elvhen gods who want to bring the blight to the world is fucking weak and pathetic excuse for it cos it doesn't even make sense with their goals/ideologies. a very, very cheap entry into the lore, i think lazy and diminishes the world as well the utter thinness of companion background and conversations. i know there's no dialogue wheel, but to me that's a basic aspect of getting to know in-depth background lore about factions, status of the worldstate, different parties' political ideologies and leanings, in standard video game infodumps cos yes this is still a video game, you need to write for it rather than focus on the realism of how conversations play out.... u can't even call solas a monster without morrigan attempting to school you like you're 5. this game wants you to suck solas' dick so bad as if the rest of us from inquisition didn't already peg him as a person who wants to cause genocide. veilguard only told us he already caused it once and now wants to do so again, but in 2 entire games, he is constantly made to be this sympathetic and deep figure that i'm supposed to be enamoured and intrigued by and want to save. why would i want to save this thousand plus year old mf who eradicated a race knowingly!! this game doesn't even give me the opportunity to kill him, i was so disappointed by my 3 choices in the end with him, of which 2 are literally functionally the exact same. there's no way i was gonna redeem this piece of shit even though i had mythal's essence peacefully or whatever the fuck yeah this other abuser piece of shit is also a hero now that morrigan carries lmafoo give me a break. all da2 did was demonise anders over and over again, and again in inquisition. these chars are not even in the same universe of ''crimes they've committed'' and yet, the disparity in writers sucking one dick and trying to get u to hate the other is crazy. i hate white liberals soo much fuck all of you!!!! bitchass mfs

which brings me to why i think this game is so thin and written so childishly - it's desperate to be liked. it wants to be liked by the masses sooo bad, that it becomes nothing to me. everyone is sweet, everyone is lovely, all factions are uwu heroes, even antivan crows, who torture and abuse children but hey nvm they're cool heroes now with no nuance. i loved all the crew, but the game makes it exactly so. no difficult stances to combat, nothing akin to any previous DA game, where there's at least a companion or 2 people would find their nerves fray over, which is the point. this is the only game that feels so typically found family where everyone loves each other, because it's deliberately made to be that way. a child's idea of big threats and saving the world and everyone happy in traditional hero centric journey with a team.

BUT EVEN THAT... it doesn't commit to it fully, because it so desperately also wants to teach u a lesson on how not everyone can survive this. so... yeah... harding died in my pt, and u know what? i felt nothing until the credits rolled. cos i straight up thought it wasn't real and we'd just get her back later. like she got stabbed and fell into the pit and i felt zero emotion cos i was like o okay she's injured we'll wait for this cutscene to end and next bit we'll look into a new sub-quest for finding her or something cos ofc i had already completed all personal quests, there's no way she would die unless the player didn't do it. and until the credits rolled i didn't believe she had cos i was just so stumped this game even pulled that... imagine the heartbreak and betrayal players who romanced her would have felt? it's soo shitty wtf... no idgaf how ''unrealistic'' it is everyone survives. this is a video game built off fun rp-ing and romances, which is a core bioware feature. you don't write romances and entice people on that front and then turn around and pull this shit. my god i'd have been livid but by then i was ready for the game to end so i already found myself semi-exhausted by the experience since i was maxed out at level 50 and already clocked in over 120++ hours taking my time with it slowly. certainly not something i binged through

it's not a horrible game... i do think the linear playstyle and the no death toggle was critical in my getting through it. i love the deviation from open world, and obviously, the lucanis romance really carried me through cos i adore the character and very much fell in love with him and the romance... and while like i said, i do love the crew as a whole, i can't shake the feeling away that it's an empty game void of classic DA mannerisms of choices and conflict of prior entries that i have strong memories of. i don't hate it and i'll still replay it in future if i do a DA run, but it hasn't captivated me enough. i may sound very angry in this write up but honestly i'm pretty chill in my explanation and thoughts about disliking this game. it's nothing to me. this DA game feels so bitchless and sauceless with no identity apart from ''wow i hope everyone loves this game i'm making this as palatable to for mass consumption as possible'' from hero to weak basic story to lack of imports from earlier games to classic hack-n-slash combat. definition of mid.

[severeprincesheep]

I watched this FAFO video where a youtuber pointed out that, once again, it was relevant to bring this back, a famous poem by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), written during the Holocaust, denouncing the fact that when good people stay silent bad guys win:

First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me

Ironically Mr. priest over here was put in a concentration camp not for risking his life to save any innocents or anything, but because he was disappointed that Hitler kept church and state separate and his government secular... the Third Reich just wasn't quite patriarchal or fascistic enough to his liking. Just saying.

Well, I learned this lesson early on and I would stand up for my friends when they were under attack - and was rewarded with almost alarm as if they feared being in my debt. I guess they wanted to let me know they wouldn't be there for me if I ever needed them, and they weren't. I met people who thought it was odd of me, as a female, to ever expect anything like gratitude or loyalty. Women don't get to have that, hadn't anyone ever told me?

Outside of personal relationships I was vocally protective of the rights of demographies that didn't include me, namely the LGBT community. I was one of those people who cried real tears of emotion when gay marriage became legal. I wanted equality and inclusion for everyone even when it was clear that this didn't benefit me personally in any way. It didn't have to, it was just the right thing to do.

But then when gender ideology became a threat to women's sex-based rights the same gay people who benefitted from the support of women like me called me a bigot and a phobe and told me to stay silent and suck it up. My rights didn't matter, only men's feelings. Loyalty was not reciprocated as in their vision of the world women are supposed to be servants of men and to revolve around them, so this is simply what men expect and require, no gratitude is in order. I cried real tears over this as well.

Now I can relate to how African-American women feel, as they have been for many years the group that is the most invested in fighting for human rights in America and who show up for everybody; by a large margin they were also the ones who most showed up to vote for Kamala and against Trump's tyranny... only to be defeated by white men and their sycophants, men and their handmaidens who dream of bringing back the South, with chattel for women and slavery for blacks.

People like me and African-American women, we lived our lives by that golden rule that if you don't help out your fellow human beings, regardless of what groups they're in, one day you're gonna need someone to help you and no one will be there.

We were hoodwinked by the patriarchy that conveniently left out that this is a lesson that only men need to learn.

Caring about all other groups and showing up for everybody who needs it does nothing for you... when you are nothing in the eyes of those groups. You can even save their very lives and they'll still see it as you having done nothing more than your duty. When it's their turn to come to the rescue they'll just watch you drown.

[brutallyboned]

On one hand, as a proship anarchist, I feel like it should be obvious that being proship as a stance should be the obvious stance for any earnest anarchist. On the other hand, discounting the fact that there are a lot of people who call themselves anarchists for lifestyle/aesthetic reasons without actually reading theory or having even a basic understanding of the ideology, I kind of get the impulse that would lead a genuine leftist to get indoctrinated by antis. It's the impulse to wish that media and stories could replace the hard work of education. If only fiction could have the persuasive powers that antis think it has, we could just write and draw about the anarcho-communist utopia we believe in, and THIS would convince reactionaries in the better future we know is possible. We can sit privately in our rooms and craft stories about it without having to face the constant frustration of talking about our beliefs about the real world to people who've been told their whole life that anarchy=chaos and the state is necessary for civilization to continue. That unions are 'mob rule' and communism is authoritarian state rule. Translating dense theory into succinct coherent arguments that will still be dismissed by a lot of people. That's incredibly difficult, unrewarding work, and that doesn't even get into the hard work that is direct action, propaganda of the deed, and organizing with other working class people who are also tired and burnt out by shitty exploitative jobs. Wouldn't be nice then if art could change peoples' minds and help us show people the world we're fighting for... only, the power of art to do that is so incredibly limited. A person could love a piece of work you make depicting a free world where the means of production is collectively owned by the workers. But they'll turn around and say, 'that's a great story, but it would never work in real life. People are too selfish, too tribalistic'. That sucks a lot, but there's a good side to it too. For all of the propaganda where a villain has an ideology pretty close to ours, but then does something terrible that has literally nothing to do with said ideology, and the narrative of the media says "See? This is why this ideology is bad and wrong!" people are totally capable of seeing the gaping hole in that logic AND also enjoy the piece of media. Magneto is the obvious example, but there are so many. This is just a fact we need to be at peace with, and I think it's something that plenty of my comrades need to confront in themselves. Art, as wonderful as it is, as much as we need it as humans, will never replace education, agitation, or organization. I'm an artist and a leftist, and I don't feel uncomfortable believing or saying that at all.

[creekfiend]

Just wanted to say thanks for "people from culturally Christian backgrounds" because that seems like a good way to phrase it, and I'm going to try to remember to use it when I'm talking about this sort of thing. (I try to not be a dick to people, when possible, and trauma's messy and complicated.) I'm sorry that some people are being horrible in this whole discussion, and I hope you are doing okay.

I'm doing fine! I really sympathize with most of the people involved in this tbh (except the outright antisemites of course lol) bc like I HAVE seen a lot of reactive and reductive and unkind blanket statements about this by some jumblr people in which they are condescendingly explaining other people's realities to them. Which is my LEAST favorite thing. Jumblr can also be really... umm, dog pile-y in a way that I find frustrating and unproductive. However. I think it's also fairly obvious that most of these reactions are trauma responses, and while that isn't an excuse it is an explanation and provides additional context that I do not feel is irrelevant. For jews we have constantly been told 'well simply stop being jewish' like all the time by everybody, often at gunpoint. So like, when I see nonjewish atheists assert that stuff jews are TELLING you they have gone through "literally never happens" that ALSO REALLY SUCKS. like so so bad. Cannot overstate how much that sucks. Cannot overstate how much it sucks to see ppl I sympathize with deeply wrt their mistrust and hatred of like, organized religious authority, align themselves with people who refer to jewish atheists as "religious nationalists" for refusing to divorce themselves from their ethnic backgrounds/culture/community/traditions. That rhetoric is Just antisemitism in a form that has been used to cause real and violent harm to us in living memory.

Also really alienated by the idea that one must be This Vitriolically Angry About Religion to "count" as an atheist. Like what? That is bonkers. I do not understand why the people making seemingly reasonable posts about "actually here's some interesting writings by people from Islamic cultures or majority Hindu cultures or orthodox jewish cultures outlining the ways that the authorities in these societies have used religion to cause harm on a systemic level" (objectively true) seem to be aligning themselves with people who are doing the SAME THING TO JEWS that they resent being done to them -- e.g. condescendingly explaining to us that our negative experiences with a certain type of atheists Don't Exist or Don't Count or cannot possibly be rooted in antisemitism.

I find the whole thing depressing and troubling. I don't tend to follow jumblr because of the aforementioned issues I have w it but this backlash seems to me to be disproportionate and really hateful in a way that... combines poorly with the increased antisemitic sentiments being lobbed at jews from all ideological sides recently. I wish we could all be more congizent of 1. the role trauma is playing here for everyone and 2. the inherent lack of productive discussion that can be had when two parties are simply Trauma Responsing at each other back and forth endlessly.

Then there's the people who just get super aggressive about people "believing fake things" but I'm not sure there's any help for them. Sure wish that the nonjewish atheists who are not like that would disavow them though! I certainly am more than happy to say "acknowledging a cultural/societal dynamic that privileges one religion and culture as default and that existing in thay culture might cause people to have unexamined assumptions about other religions and cultures" should not be weaponized against individual people in order to bully them by insisting they are a thing that they manifestly are not (atheists aren't Christians. The fact that atheists from Jewish backgrounds will have Jewishness shackled to them regardless of their degree of identification with Being A Jew is actually bad and a function of antisemitism; it is not an aspirational dynamic we should be applying to other people simply because their cultural background is privileged over our own in our society.)

Like can we stop talking past each other and try to understand where people are coming from

People are expressing a lot of hurt and anger about atrocities and systems of oppression that I ultimately feel are totally interconnected. Because of this hurt and anger most people are not being precise in their language or prioritizing connecting or actual dialogue about this and instead focusing on dogpiling and gotchas. It's discouraging.

I'm a secular humanist jew with complex feelings towards both jewishness and atheism as concepts and movements. I want to understand and connect with people based on our common ground.

This is I guess all me being a big baby who is unsuited to internet fights but this one specifically feels really hurtful to me because I feel like my reality is being ignored and denied. I suspect a lot of people are also feeling that way. Which might be a good place to START the discussion to be honest.

[creature-wizard]

i used to be in the loa community and it was miserable lol. i'd have phases of being so inspired and really feeling like things were going to change for the better, only for it to not happen. for a long time i held out, and any 'failures' i had i took it as an opportunity to improve and carry on. but then at some point i just began to spiral--it came out of nowhere--and i felt so, so hopeless. i think with every 'mistake' and failure i had, it built up without me fully realising it. i never told anyone, not online and of course not in real life, because acknowledging it would've been the final nail in the coffin for my 'journey' or whatever.

anyone who voiced their upset about not getting the results they wanted, they'd be told by some blogs that it was because they "weren't persisting enough", and that all they needed to do was continue. any mention of doubt or feeling bad was frowned upon. it sucked. because i sure as hell knew that i was putting my heart and soul into it. i like to view myself as someone who is steadfast, but a person can only handle so much until they crumble. to be fair, it wasn't completely loa's fault for my sudden decline in mental health, there were definitely different factors. but it probably wasn't that healthy for me regardless. burnouts happen ig

in defence of some of the blogs i've been on, there are definitely a few that don't have the regular toxic ideology that a lot of the other blogs do. not all of them take neville goddard's words and teaching as gospel, and some of them actually encourage getting help when you need it and to not rely on loa completely, and they reiterate that any awful things that happened to people wasn't their fault! but i will say that those more healthy loa blogs are more rare and hard to come by. coincidentally, they're also the least active. but i digress

but yeah. my main issue with loa was that after being in that community long enough, i just became stagnant. mostly due to the hope that things would sort them out themselves. i'd hold back on pursuing things and making plans because i wanted to do them AFTER i'd manifested everything. but clearly that didn't work out for me lol.

so uh yeah if you're in the community and reading this and you're not quite ready to let go of it yet, just don't let it hold you back. you think it isn't harmless until you just stop moving forward because of it. and please don't be afraid of reaching out for help.

sorry for the long ramble, hope you're doing well.

fuccccckkk if it were all true. manifesting a big ass psychic elephant would have been so metal !!

Thanks for sharing your story! And yeah, that's the thing about trying something over and over with no results - you might be able to repress the disappointment for awhile, but it will build up and eventually come out and hit you all at once. And it can hit hard.

You mention that you never posted about your failures, and I think that this is a far more common in the Law of Assumption community than many people realize. Neville Goddard's teachings and the community around them absolutely push people into self-censorship. We see people posting success stories (or, supposedly posting success stories), but we really have no idea of what's going on behind the scenes.

And it's a shame that the blogs taking a healthier approach to this aren't as common or active. But honestly, the fact that the toxic bloggers are spending all this time on this blue hellsite when they could, supposedly, manifest themselves doing literally anything else should tell people a lot about how well they're actually doing with the Law of Assumption and their approach to it.

Anyway, I'm glad you're doing better and I hope things keep going well for you!

[astrronomemes]

CAMP CAMP : SEASON ONE STARTERS (PART II)

a collection of quotes, phrases, and sayings from the debut season of the Camp Camp webseries by Rooster Teeth. change & alter as needed.

“What a waste of time! We could be working on that flamethrower right about now!”

“You know, Juliet should have done karate instead of kissing boys. Maybe she wouldn’t have died then.”

“You’re just adding to my anxiety!”

“All right, people, get your shit together!”

“I’ve been told to tell you no.”

“I would just like to apologize for the sheer absurdness that you’ve witnessed.”

“You’re not going to do anyone any good if you keep letting [name] get to you like this.”

“The moon landings were a hoax filmed in Area 51, orchestrated by the government as a publicity stunt designed to humiliate the Russians in the space race.”

“I know what you’re thinking... and you’re totally right.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?! This is all you!”

“I just wanted to show him that his entire philosophical outlook on life is flawed, and that the fundamental beliefs and ideologies he holds so dearly are trivial, so he’ll start crying himself to sleep like the rest of us! I’m not a monster!”

“I’m suddenly regretting multiple recent choices.”

“I am not moving back in with my parents.”

“I can’t do this alone, which means that you’ve got to pull yourself together!”

“Okay, maybe don’t phrase it like that.”

“What if we just, I don’t know, give him a hug? That always makes me feel better.”

“I just want to have his British babies!”

“You know, my uncle believed in tough love. Turns out that Child Protective Services didn’t, though.”

“You’re not like the other kids. You’re bad.”

“Being tough isn’t the same as being an asshole.”

“We are going to do things my way — with aggressive pacifism!”

“Big deal. It’s not like I’m gonna lose sleep over it.”

“What irks me is that the math just isn’t there, you know?”

“I’m gonna go get some breakfast before this scars me for life.”

“Magic only works for those who believe in it.”

“I’m gonna go sit in the shower for a while.”

“I was just gonna throw them away, but that was way cooler.”

“[Name], don’t do this! You’re not properly trained in the ways of magic!”

“Look, man, I’m a sheep. I don’t ask questions.”

“You want to throw this whole thing and roast ants with a magnifying glass?”

“Darn it, [name], you know I’ve got a crippling gambling addiction!”

“I think I speak for all of us when I say I don’t want to become some fascist militant peon.”

“[Name], don’t break character!”

“Do good every day? That’s just bad grammar.”

“So, can my prize be cigarettes?”

“I can’t believe I frenched a platypus for this!”

“Life sucks, and we live in a world of desensitized, apathetic assholes. Why don’t you just get with the program, and stop giving a shit?”

“That’s why I’ll never stop trying. Because somebody fucking has to.”

“Do not look too deeply into this!”

[boundless-n-bare]

audhd confessions - my own worst enemy

being active in this community as a neurodivergent individual (audhd) can be very challenging in unexpected ways. for me the hardest thing to deal with is the rsd - rejection sensitive dysphoria. i have this BAD. this doesn't strictly pertain to real or perceived rejection from individuals in the community although that can be part of it, but more broadly its like a very intense and painful feeling of fomo. having to miss NEST this year was a huge trigger for me - no one rejected me, but i still felt rejection because i couldn't be there. my brain told me i wasn't allowed. that no-one wanted me there anyway and i wouldn't be missed.

its also very hard seeing other members of the community being active and fulfilling their desires in a way i wish i could but very deeply feel and have been telling myself for years that i can't. this one honestly kills me, like it can be super debilitating to the point that it legit keeps me away from interacting in these spaces which i hate. its a huge reason ive been so distant - it sucks majorly feeling as though you're surrounded by people who have it all figured out, or at least seem to, while you feel lowly, alienated, and incapable.

for me, rsd is this ever present voice screaming "you're not allowed." woah see this community member posting about the really awesome session they had with this other community member? you'll never have that. they flew halfway across the country for that session, you're broke and will never be able to do that. they have social skills and you're a socially inept loser who no one wants to talk to. "they" are allowed to have those experiences, "they" are normal. but you are not allowed. you can be a spectator, at best. you get to yearn

the truly fucked thing is that i have had those experiences! i have been to NEST! i have traveled long-ish distances for sessions! i have had the good fortune of having multiple tickling experiences while many in this community may struggle to cement even one. yet i still look at myself and my experiences in this completely ass-backwards light that tells me that they are nothing special, its everyone else who is out there living the absolute dream and nothing i achieve will ever live up to what they're doing - it can't, it simply isn't possible because you are not allowed!

this shit has paralyzed me for far too long. it makes me not even want to look at tumblr, or reddit, or anywhere i might come across that sort of content because what if i see another post like that and then i get sad? then i suddenly have to wrestle with these feelings of inadequacy and isolation and who needs that? its easier just to ignore it all entirely... right?

well, no, because tickling is my passion and if i ignore it completely, to the point of not even letting myself engage with the community, then im depriving myself of not only the community and any potential support network therein but literally the pursuit of the one thing in life that bares any semblance of importance to me at all! when i tell you nothing else matters to me, when i tell you there is nothing in my life that drives me forward the way tickling does i am not fucking exaggerating - if i have learned anything over the pandemic and throughout the years that followed up until now it is that i forget who the fuck i am if i sever myself from my desires for too long. i'll put it all on the back burner and then wonder why im so miserable all the time. then i'll eventually come back, start getting into the hang of being active, then the asd starts surfacing, then i experience some sort of meltdown, then isolate for a few more months, then dip my toes back in and start the cycle all over.

i honestly dont know the best way to combat this but my plan is basically to kill this ideology with persistence - from now on i won't back down and dip out when im confronted with these feelings but rather i will challenge them and keep doing what im doing anyway. i will tell myself that with patience and persistence i can do any damn thing i want, and it might not happen immediately but sooner rather than later i will prevail and i will be content with my place here.

i intend to seriously challenge any assertion by my brain that im not good enough, moneyed enough, social enough, likeable enough, etc. to participate in this community. sure, there might be very real barriers to what i can and can't do compared to others but even still there's ultimately nothing i can't do! i have even told myself for the longest time that i could never be any sort of content creator... yeah, well guess what? im challenging that shit because the very act of my brain telling me i can't do it signifies that its obviously something i want to do, therefor i should! i've deterred myself from buying toys, bondage equipment, etc. because "you're not even active! you don't even talk to people! you're so socially awkward you'd spend all the money and never use it!"

fuck you, brain! the only thing truly getting in my way is you! im not making excuses to minimize myself anymore. im going to do the thing! the fuck is even the point of living if all you're going to do is keep yourself from the shit you want? its beyond fucking stupid

i doubt its going to be easy. i doubt that i won't slip up. but persistence means getting back up and doing it anyway when even when i feel like giving up, and hiding from or not interacting with the community is a sure-fire way to get absolutely nothing from it at all

[sophsun1]

No other episode is guaranteed to make me ugly sob within seconds than brian's father's death. god, i relate to it and brian so fucking much and gale's performance throughout and at the end always, always breaks me in half. The thing that pisses me off is people's reactions to children of abusive parents. You see it in the episode and in life in general wherein you're almost guaranteed to hear a version of "I'm sure they loved you in their own way/they didn't know how to show it/they had a bad childhood themselves/how the child should be the bigger person and forgive them/the classic, but! they! were! still! your! mother/father!"

As if just because you were born through no choice of your own that you end up owing them, you have to constantly forgive and forget, having to be the parental figure over and over and it fucking sucks.

What I appreciate about this episode is the writers actually show the two sides to the reality of being that child. It feels so human and relatable and I'm not just watching another episode of my favourite show, but I can look at it and say fuck, that's me I have felt that. On the one hand, you have people like Michael and Justin who comment regardless of what Brian's father did and how he treated him he was still his dad and it trumped any feelings of hurt Brian had over it. The simple "blood is thicker than water" ideology that as his father it gave him the power to be respected and Brian should wave away any wrong he did. How quickly people want to brush off any feelings of ill will when a person dies, how they become immortalised as someone who never did a thing wrong. How quick they forget.

We see versions of this in relation to Brian in the show and I hate it. For example when Brian first finds out that his father is sick and Debbie encourages him to tell him he's gay, more or less putting the burden on Brian and insinuating he owed his dad this part of himself (what the fuck!) and what happens? His father says he wishes Brian was the one who was dying. When his mother finds out he's gay and he's putting on a front at Woody's telling the guys how she was horrified by it and him but he doesn't care, fuck her. Michael pipes up saying that maybe she will come around in time, as if anytime Brian expressed hurt and anger towards his abusers they could never just accept it and let him have those feelings it always had to be countered in some way. I guess some part of it is when you come from a loving home either as the child or parent it's very difficult to understand the inner workings of the life of abusive parents and the impact on their kids. Not forgetting Debbie taking it upon herself to tell Joan that Brian had cancer!!!

I love that they didn't shy away from the other side, the side that's not deemed as maybe socially correct and you should keep that stuff behind closed doors. But I completely sympathise, agree and relate to Brian's behaviour how he refused to bow down to everyone's expectations of how he should grieve because they felt he wasn't doing it the right way. Michael deducing that just because Claire was sobbing like a demented banshee that meant she was obviously feeling it so much worse than Brian who hadn't shed a tear. In reality Brian told him that his father hated her. Yet Brian who was openly abused by them, always tried hard to be respectful and show care for them both in spite of what they did, which again is so relatable as a child of that.

I cheered him getting to tell the story of how his dad wanted him aborted, how he continued to go to Babylon and fuck around, that was his grieving process it might not have been what Michael thought was right and proper but it was his way.

The poignancy of him getting a do over of the joy of hitting a strike with Michael as kids, now as an adult and giving zero fucks and getting the celebration he was robbed of! The haunting finale with the bowling ball down the alley, the sombre so long Jack, and then finally on his terms releasing some of the burden, letting the tears flow.

Special mention to my two favourite lines of dialogue in the episode - "If you don't earn respect when you're alive, you don't deserve it when you're dead" and "Can you imagine growing up in that house, how did he ever survive? Who's to say he did?"

[papirouge]

I had bad experiences with some of those trad wife accounts on IG in the past as well, mostly how many of them downplay rape and consider a rapist to be a baby’s father when I had to correct them and call those men a criminal that should be locked up for the rest of their life for harming women. I’d get called a liberal a lot (lol) with that stance (I don’t know why they’re so willing to protect rapists) despite also wanting to fight for babies unborn and born and stronger criminal prosecution for rapists, but there was this weird underlying theme of submissiveness and how women needed men (even the violent and dangerous ones) with them that made every interaction feel like a fetish. Or that maybe their boyfriend or husband (with a rape fetish?) was actually running those accounts

With that other anon that felt defeated, I’d say to pick and choose your battles. I learned that mostly for online. It’s getting harder to ignore how many false Christians there are polluting the church with their degeneracy and violence. But their apathy and clout chasing on social media will produce no good fruits. We see that already with how many false Christians are rejecting Christs teachings for being too soft now. They want to create a new false idol out of their insecurities but out of the likeness of Christ yet, their idol will be vicious and cruel towards everyone that isn’t them.

You will know your people by their works. There are true considerate pro life Christians who will never forget Palestine and are trying to do something to help those there 💕🇵🇸 god sees our hearts and your intentions

Oh girl, I've been accused of being a leftist, a communist, an islamist, a conservative tradfem pickme, countless times... I'm too left leaning for the average Christian on this hellsite, but I'm not enough progressive to be accepted by actual leftist xD I'm not a political person anyway so I don't care the slightest about whatever people put on.

Yeah that anon felt quite defeated and reading my reply, I felt like I didn't encourage them enough (girl, if you're reading this I'm sorry 🙇🏾‍♀️). But the thing is, since I don't attend church I struggle to realize the extent of feeling letdown by their own local church community, which sucks. I'm a VERY individualistic person and know that we can't save people - only God does. You perfectly said it: we have to pick and chose our battle. Profess truth wherever we are, and let go if it's rejected

I'm a very small blogger and sometimes feel discouraged by people with much bigger communities but using their influence for the worst, bewildering young Christians, etc. But years ago, God clearly told me to "do my part". That's what I do. God keeps talking to me and reassures me He's still there so I know I'm good and He's still backing me up. That's why I'm so serene whenever people attack me for my theological statement. Whenever they do I'm like "when was the last time God spoke to you?" "When was the last time that you asked God to open your eyes and see the truth in who you are, whatever you need to fix in your life, etc.?" bc if you did, God would've shown you I'm right. I know bc God shown me through dreams/visions when some Christians with a public voice were anointed by him

"They create an idol out of their own insecurities"

You are absolutely right anon. That's one of the best indicator of genuine Christians vs opportunists. Opportunists won't be changed by the Word of God, they will twist the Word of God to fit their own bias. I don't know about you, but becoming Christian changed me. It changed some my beliefs to the core. But the opportunists? they will twist the Bible in any way possible to NOT change their ideological stand because they are uncomfortable with the idea of moving thrm5. That's how you have Christians defending murder, racism, stealing (not paying owed taxes), etc. They might read the very specific passage condemning such acts, they will constantly find ways to deny them. Interestingly, they will have no problem acknowledging other passage that confirm their bias, such as those condemning homosexuality or adulterers (very handy to dunk on sex posi women/liberals they obsessively hate)

"you will know your people by their work"

Yes, yes and yes💞 I think it's interesting one of the people (who got mad at my post calling out the hypocrisy of pro lifers sleeping on what's happening on pregnant women & babies in Palestine) told me that prolifers didn't owe me to speak up about what fit my politics, when first of all, caring about the wellbeing of newborn and mothers are the staples of the prolife fight -those are not my "politics"- so it makes sense to paint out the complacency of so called prolifers regarding the struggle of said mothers and newborns in a war ridden area🤔, but also, as a Christian, I believe we do owe something, not to me, but God.

The "Saved through faith alone" slogan unfortunately deluded Christians into thinking their actions, or lack, didn't have consequences. They do. Ananias and Sapphira were Saved - God still killed them for their disobedience. Jesus talked about "fruits" and Paul about different sort of crown we earn in heaven based off our work/how we conduct while on earth.

Resisting AND denouncing evil is part of the basic lines of being Christian. We're lucky the antichrist has yet to come and we can still freely condemn evil as we see it, but it's like it was already too much to ask for some.

God definitely listen to our prayers : a few days ago, there were call to pray for the rain to come so Palestinians can drink, and rain eventually came. God is good 💜✝️

[roobylavender]

I wrote this during my breakdown so I'm not actually crying rn jshshjs

Being in a desi family means no matter what I'll do for my parents, I know they will always choose my brother over me, well at least my father will. I will never get the justice I deserve as long as I live in this family. Sure, my mom tried for me but that only lasted 5 minutes at most before she gave up. Maybe she knew it will never happen so that's why. It still hurts tho. Only trying once and then never again. And instead preaching ME to not get on my brother's bad side. I really, really loathe living in this family. I loathe desi men. My parents will never raise their voice for me to my brother. They will never defend me as he continues to bully me whenever he wants to. And as I continue to type this as I cry, I know it's pointless. Tomorrow I will act like nothing happened and continue to please my father, as if I don't have this thoughts running through me everytime I talk to him. I will continue to talk to my mom as if I don't think how she will never fight for me even if I told her all of this. Because what is the point knowing it will cause a meaningless discourse in the family that will only last a few hours or a day at best and embarrassed myself. Knowing it will be me who will get lectured. And I'm not even crying because of my brother rn it's the fact knowing my parents never did, and never will fight for me. I might've forgave my brother if only my parents did something and he apologized. But they never did. Every day I loathe and love my parents. Being in a desi family sucks.

i want to apologize again for getting to this so late and while i am more than familiar with how this is unfortunately a perpetual, never-ending kind of deal, i really hope that today you’re feeling at least a little better than you were when you were typing this. i’m not sure how old you are but speaking from personal experience i really think the best outlet for any desi kid is to try to be independent as soon as possible. if your family can afford it go for an undergrad degree in a different city. keep connecting with people so your network provides you with opportunities to get out and get a job. prioritize financial stability so that you have the means to move out even if it’s into an apartment. it depends from family to family obv but sometimes there’s a point where some families will not change and you have to do what’s best for yourself and that’s okay. i think it’s easy for us to harbor a lot of guilt that we’re ungrateful if we don’t stick around and try to fix some of the baggage ourselves but what i’ve learned is that even if you want to try to fix the baggage you need to be in a mentally stable place to do so. living at home doesn’t necessarily facilitate that. and i don’t know what your thoughts on it would be personally but if from what i assume you’re a girl then i again would highly highly recommend doing whatever you can to forge financial independence for yourself. even if it means working a minimum wage job for now. i feel like in a lot of desi families there’s a tendency to look down on that sort of thing (odd, no?) but it’s really a vital developing experience all people and esp desi women should invest in. my lack of financial experience has hindered me in so many ways and kept me tied to a familial situation where i am often very unhappy. i love my parents very much but we have ideological and practical divides and we’re at a stage in life where we need our space from each other (and i imagine that’s true in your situation too) and yet i don’t have the means to execute it bc i’m still figuring my life out. it’s easier said than done obv but i think if you develop the conviction early to get your life in order and work towards creating your own space where you can control how you’re respected it will be worthwhile. the pain of your parents’ faults and inability to protect you is always going to sting and esp within desi families there’s a very deep trauma every child goes through when evaluating what their parents have or haven’t done for them. but that sting will hurt more when you’re completely at your parents’ mercy (and your brother’s, in this case). when they’re not in control anymore it will be easier to manage, and i really hope whatever your circumstances that you’re able to forge that path where your life is your own and you’re not bullied for existing within this familial structure. iA let me know if you ever want to vent again, my dms are open as well so if you want to talk more privately that’s welcome, too. love you lots 🤍

[likorys-shimenawa]

SO only tangentially related, but the comment section made me wanna write this cause I think a lot people need this:

Humanity is good. We’re selfless and kind and loving and curious and inventive and all in all pretty amazing.

Are there some bad people in power doing immense harm? Of course.

Are there some awful people who hurt others? Sure.

You can’t say ‘well humanity sucks then’ because it’s like saying ‘one dog bit me, all dogs are biters’.

I will get real for a moment, because I’m still fuming: I have a shit neighbour, a really old bint who is a nightmare to everyone.

She has dementia. She takes her meds when she likes to.

Her son knows about it and on the day of her husband’s funeral told neigjbours ‘well good thing she has you to take care of her’ and proceeded to left his mother, with growing dementia, in a flat all alone.

There is nothing to do except wait for something bad enough to happen that will allow police/EMTs to take her somewhere by force. All of this, 100%, because if she was put somewhere the son (and his wife and kids) would no longer be getting money from her.

This for me is one of the most vile thing you can do to a human being.

I could go on. Someone hit my mom with doors when we didn’t let someone get into shop we were walking out of. A man went right to the self-chekout and pished into a free chekout without a word and acted offended people spoke up about it.

You know what else happened? 5 cars drove around a hit pidgeon on the road as I went to move it to the grass. Sure, someawful person hit it and left it to be mutilated even more on the street, but 5 people drove to avoid exactly that (and I moved it away, because I’m a bleeding heart for animals).

There isn’t any ‘good gene’ or ‘bad gene’, everyone can be shitty or awful. It does literally nothing to just accept it, but it can do everything is you do even one small, kind thing when you can.

Give the middle finger to apathy and take effort to be kind when you can. It will make you feel a lot better (and nothing pisses awful people more than other not succombing to their broken ‘all is evil just win the rats race’ ideology).

"humans are naturally selfish and evil" factoid actually just statistical error. former united states president ronald w. reagan,

[nothorses]

Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.

[mha-princess]

Canon Dabi x insecure reader where she’s insecure about her body since she’s not thin. She voices it to him after seeing a pretty and smaller girl flirt with him, and he shows her how much he cares for her? NSFW pls! Thank u!

stop your whining [dabi x fem!reader]

A/N: I didn’t proof this so bc I really wanted to post today also I’ll be posting my 1k event soon! - Anako ✿

Genre: canon-verse, smut, drabble

Word Count: 1.5k+

Warning: unprotected sex, breeding, degradation

You continue to twirl on the bar stool, your attention long adverted from the chatter dispersed around you. It wasn’t an uncommon for you to tune out of the league’s conversations, especially when the topic was new recruits. New female recruits. To be honest you didn’t think new recruits within the group was necessary, but then again it wasn’t your call. You rolled your eyes at the thought and let yourself tune into the girl riding Shigaraki’s dick, desperate to receive a compliment.

“I really admire your ideologies. I’m willing to follow through with any task given. Any task given.” She enunciates, taking a step closer towards both Dabi and Shigaraki. Her small stature made her seem sweet, cute even, but her eyes had mischievous intent. The two men glance at eachother exchanging an understanding look before, looking back to the girl.

“Thank you for your interest. We look forward to your loyalty. Kurogiri be a gent and show her out.” Shigaraki, responds.

The girl grins as if she just had an interview and was sure she got the job. As Kurogiri shows her out you watch her sway her hips, the skirt she’s wearing a little less than admiring. After Kurogiri is out of sight you sigh in relief.

“Thank god that’s over. Fucking groupies, this is getting old.” You sigh raising from the bar stool.

“Her quirk will be of use to us.” Dabi shrugs.

“Shapeshifting? Tch, isn’t that what we have Toga for?”

“You think I’d drink animal blood?! Gross Y/N!” The blonde exclaims, partially offended.

“Wouldn’t put it past you babe.” You shrug, “I’d rather you be able to do both that way we don’t have some groupie in the league.”

“Why so judegmental now Y/N? Aren’t you all about giving people chances and bullshit like that?” Dabi snarks, shoving his handing into his pockets.

“Not skanks,” you reply, “Well, maybe she didn’t come off as a skank to you seeing as you were pretty friendly.”

“Jealousy is fucking ugly on you.” Shigaraki rasps, opting to leave the room with the others rather than hear you bicker with the black haired male.

“Jealous? The hell is there to be jealous about?!” You shout, the leader sending you the finger before leaving.

“Shigaraki’s right.” Dabi agrees, beginning to stroll away to his room, “It’s also a huge turn off.”

“Turn off ? It’s not like I ever turned you on. You’d rather the skimpy skinny bitch, right? She seems more your type.” Dabi stops to turn around to face you.

The expression on his face was unreadable but the aura he was emitting was deadly. He then inches toward you causing you to take little steps back.

“Y/N.” Is all he says and you stop right where you are. As he closes the space between you he grabs your arm, the force of his fingertips crushing into your muscle.

“The room. Now.” He grits, shoving you in front of him.

“Don’t fucking shove me. Better yet keep your hands off of me. ” You mumbled, making your way down the hall.

When you enter the room Dabi slams the door behind you.

“So fucking unnecessary,” you voice, back turned to him.

“No, your fucking unnecessary. And fucking look at me when I’m talking to you.” He demands gripping your shoulder and flipping you around.

“Didn’t I say to keep you damn hands off of me?!” You hiss, pushing his hands off of you. Dabi, refutes by taking a death hold on your waist, pushing you into the foot of the bed. His hands grip tighter and eventually your sides begin to run hot, the smell of singed clothing flooding the air.

He draws closer to your face, he gets so close you can feel his breath ghost over your lips, “Now listen you fucking brat, I don’t know what your problem is but you better fix that shit real fast. I don’t like to play with bratty bitches.”

“Your the bratty bitch,” you bark. Dabi’s lips draw together before he pushes you over the footboard and onto the bed. He then climbs inbetween your legs and loops his fingers around what’s left of your belt loops.

“You can either tell me what your problem is now or you can wait until my cock is rupturing your fucking cervix. ” he offers, pulling your pants off along with your underwear.

“Do your worst, bitch.” You spit.

Now I know it seems like that was a badass move, but it was a bad decision to say the least. Dabi was never a gentle lover and now that you’ve pissed him off, he definitely wasn’t going to take and precautions. You were being a bitch and if the only way to fix that is fucking you, then so be it.

Without any care he yanks you up and takes off the remainder of your clothing. Your lips purse into a thin line, the feisty part in you wanting to say something, but with the mood you had put him in you knew better. In one motion your back hits the mattress once more.

The male on top of you doesn’t even bother stripping from his clothing. You watch as he undoes his zipper and shimmies his pants below his hips. He sucks air into his mouth before pushing it out causing spit to fly onto your slit as well as his cock.

He then grabs the back of your knees, his fingertips still hot from the incident earlier, and throws them onto his shoulders.

“Don’t open your mouth until your ready to tell me what the hell is wrong with you,” and with that remark he plunges the whole of his cock into your pussy. You let out a shaky gasp which is quickly met by a hand around your throat.

“Not a fucking peep.” The male urges, drawing out of your folds before thrusting back in. He slams his hips into yours hard enough to send you moving forward on the mattress. The sheets beneath you losing there stability. Your pussy clenches around his length in an attempt to lessen the impact of his thrusts.

“Stop clenching. Your gonna rip my dick off,” he growls, and it sends chills through out your body. Dabi had such a disgusting mouth, vial even, but in the end it’s only added to your pleasure. The pleasure which you couldn’t admit you were indulging in. The thought of Dabi fucking you with no mercy only made you want to piss him off more.

Your voice ached to be heard as he continued to fuck your greedy pussy. The sounds of slapping and low distasteful grunts echoed off the hollow walls as he continued to reek havoc on your slit. The closer he got to cumming the closer he neared your cervix.

“You know what? Your fucking cute like this. Being a stubborn fucking brat. Making me fuck you just to get you to act right.”

Cute? Through the rough pleasure that you were feeling that word made something burn inside you.

“Cute? You don’t think I’m fucking cute.” You wither through labored breaths. He takes the pressure off of your neck, interested in trying to hear you explain yourself as he pounds your cunt.

“And why wouldn’t I think your cute, mm?”

“Because you were into that thin bitch. Talking to her, grinning at her. Bet you couldn’t wait until I left so you could fuck her.”

“If I wanted to fuck her I would’ve fucked her. But here I am balls fucking deep in my cunt. In the pussy that belongs to me.” His vulgar words, spark a heat in your tummy, leaving your insides twitching.

“So that’s what the attitude was for? Because you thought I wanted to fuck some rando?” He chuckles before taking the back of your thighs into his hands. He then pushes them back as far as they can go before pulling the length of his cock out, leaving only the tip. Your hand scrambles to meet his stomach but by the time your fingers meet his skin he’s already eight inches deep in your pussy. The head of his cock kissing your cervix.

“Dabi!” You cry out, your toes curling as he slams the weight of himself into you. The boy leans down and places a tart kiss on the shell of your ear.

“So pretty when you cry out like that.” You whimper at his words and weakly shove at his chest.

“Take some out. I told you what was wrong.” A feeble whine lacing your tone.

“I know that’s what we agreed on but your sucking me in. I couldn’t pull some out if I tried.” He whispers, dragging his tongue up your ear. You groaned, squirming under him it was as if he just kept adding inches. Nevertheless the pain you felt was something you were use to, something that you only used to add to your pleasure.

“Gonna cum.” You cry out as he rhythmically fills you up, his cock crashing against your womb again and again. You feel you thighs tremble as your body locks up around him. Your hands slam down gripping the sheets as your orgasm courses through your body. Dabi moves his mouth to kiss you as he lets his own orgasm spill into you. Once you regain your breath you lazily push him off of you.

“Heavy.” You mumble, grabbing the sheets to cover yours self, but before you can pull them over your chest they’re ripped from your hands.

“Don’t.” He demands, letting his hand trail up and down your lower abdomen as he lays he head on your chest, “Let me rub here. It’s cute.”

“Stop calling me cute.” You say rolling your eyes.

“But that’s what you are. Your a damn brat as well but your beautiful, perfect body, perfect smile. It warms my shallow ass heart.” You fluster at his words as he continues his actions.

“Dabi don’t say-.”

“Will you be quiet?” he sighs, “I love you. Your perfect. I wouldn’t dare think of another girl so stop your whining.” You obey and entangle your hand in his hair .

Nothing else needed to be said on your part or his. You were aware of you over exaggeration of the situation and you were glad you had a boyfriend who cared enough to hear you out, even if it was after destroying your cervix.

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[artbyblastweave]

BLASTWEAVE what does steven universe have in common with watchmen?

Both Steven Universe and Watchmen are groundbreaking entries in their respective genres that demonstrate a deep understanding of the appeal of the genre they’re working in, and engage with their ideas on a previously unheard-of level for the medium. That breaks ground and clears the way for what other works in the genre can get away with. 

Steven Universe showed that, well, first of all that you can make a cartoon that’s fundamentally ideologically queer beyond a few side characters, but also that you can have an emotionally intelligent and mature children's cartoon where the character nuance and depth and development are all taken very seriously. Watchmen showed that you could write serious and interesting narratives about superheroes if you were willing to roll with the crazy. (Neither of them was the first to do the things I’m ascribing to them, but I do think that they’re what made it stick for their respective fields.)

In doing so, though, both works create/created a catch 22 for all future works in their genre. Part of what made both of them so good is that they were willing to critically unpack and air out the ugly implications of their format that usually get chalked up to suspension of disbelief, and now that that’s out in the open it becomes very difficult not to think about how any other given work is or isn’t addressing those issues- even if they aren’t equipped to address those issues in the scope of the story they’re trying to tell. Watchmen asked questions about who sanctions superheroes, what qualifies you to do that work, where the line is between heroism and fascism or if there even is one, whether the agency to act means you have a right or a duty to act, whether anyone who seriously bought into the superhero thing could possibly be doing it for good reasons, and, if they somehow were, how long you can care with the intensity necessary to be an effective hero without suffering burnout (not long.) I literally can’t think of a single superhero thing worth reading that isn’t in some way in conversation with Watchmen - you now kind of have to answer those questions, explicitly or implicitly, even if your books thesis is “Alan Moore sucks eggs and being a superhero is very sustainable and fantastic.” If you just leave the question of whether your superheroes are justified completely unaddressed, there’s an uncomfortable discordance there, because we’ve seen the extreme end of that sliding scale in the form of the Comedian and if the narrative doesn’t engage with what makes the protagonist not Edward Blake, it can feel worrisome. If they try and then botch it it can feel alarming.

Steven Universe has a similar thing going on, at least for me. It’s the only unironic, non-parodic children’s series that’s really, seriously unpacked how fucked up and traumatic it would be to grow up as the archetypical All-loving Spirited Saturday Morning Cartoon Protagonist, how warped and dysfunctional a household that enabled that lifestyle could be at its worst, and what the future looks like when your whole childhood was centered on a now-ended conflict. ( a lot of cartoons flirt with that last one but don’t commit.) I’ve seen jokes and intended-as-cracky fan theories about this for years, surrounding lots of other cartoons (Ben 10, Pokemon, Powerpuff Girls) but almost never with the assumption that the creators are on the same page as them. I’ve seen stories that are post-modern reimaginings using the same general archetypes or whatever (Venture Brothers) but that’s not this! SU told an entertaining story earnestly, and then engaged with the emotional fallout of the story it told, with an unheard-of breadth and depth. A whole season of unpacking! No other show has ever been allowed to sink that much effort into closure. That’s usually what Fanfic is for.

I think it’s great, and that shows like Infinity Train and The Owl House are able to go as hard as they do largely because of Steven Universe’s precedent- but no matter how good a cartoon is, I can’t watch them without having this voice in the back of my head going “Oh, these children are going to grow up to be broken wrecks, bar an extensive and harsh healing process that kinda hurts to watch, huh.”

The issue is that not every cartoon can be Steven Universe, where the project was to thoughtfully and sensitively unpack this stuff. It’s a fair bet that we’ll probably never see a show with that exact project again (not least because of the loss of novelty value.) You’ve got your own stories you wanna tell that’ll run their own course, mostly aimed at children, there objectively isn’t narrative or financial room for most stories to unpack these assumptions if that wasn’t the goal going in. For example, Gravity Falls had pretty tight storytelling and a narrative that absolutely had room for a post-script "where-do-we-go-from-here” plot- it sped-run the “oh no, childhood’s ending” thing- and it’s pretty telling that the aftermath, healing process, interpersonal relationships and so forth are one of the things that that fandom heavily fixates on. The narrative had such a clean ending that it made people go looking for the mess. That’s not bad! It’s how most storytelling works! But now I look at any cartoon with kid heroes that’s meant to be taken even marginally seriously and go, Oh. Win the battle, lose the war. Then I feel sad. The contrast, of course, is that most superhero works actually can be, and in fact benefit from trying to be like Watchmen, because all the questions Watchmen raises about the ethics of power are also just.... like.... the most interesting storytelling hooks if you want to write a cape thing with real themes. They’re the kind of stories we’d have gotten years prior naturally if not for the CCA boondoggle. Admittedly it kinda creates a different problem where most “good” cape media is inescapably self-referential and draws on picking apart the conventions of a 60-70-year old canon that hasn’t been in wide circulation in years. But! I also think there’s a stronger obligation there to keep superhero fans in check- if your superhero thing isn’t making the reader question the ethics of violence and individual heroism in the face of systemic injustice, you wind up with people who unironically think Frank Castle is a role model to be emulated. We all know that guy. Children’s media doesn’t really produce that guy the same way, although it can draw them in from other corners. Superhero media often needs to be self-critical in a way children’s cartoons don’t always have to be.