#about how they had to get out of their victim mentality

[legalandnotease]

OK, you got me started.

Maybe you didn't know that. Maybe you honestly had no idea that you were saying something that is a direct attack against people who have gone through the exact mental illnesses Tony had and recognize his struggles as their own.

I have PTSD and depression and let me tell you something straight from the start.

Tony Stark does not represent me or anybody like me. Lose this ridiculous idea that Tony Stark has PTSD. He doesn't. He displays zero symptoms of PTSD.

He has anxiety at best, and is probably a narcissist. Yes, his actions and behaviour are very consistent with Covert Narcissism.

His "fear of loss" is the fear of abandonment, of no longer being able to control those around him.

His "my way or the highway" mentality, his inability to listen to or trust others, his paranoia and inability to accept responsibility.

All are massively consistent with narcissism.

...and before the Tony fans shriek, guess what the main cause of narcissism is? Childhood neglect. QUELLE SURPRISE! That said... His daddy being nasty to him does not absolve him being outright abusive to others. That is the excuse real life abusers use btw.

Whatever he has though: let us stop right now blaming mental health for Tony Stark's shitty actions. The idea that "trauma" absolves him is a harmful and dangerous idea which perpetuates negative stereotypes about mental health.

The sheer amount destructive and harmful things Tony does which cause mass death is what prevents him from being "representation" for mental health.

If Tony was anybody else... nobody would be saying he should not take responsibility for things which actively hurt and killed others because *muh trauma*.

Name a time when Tony was in a safe place to heal. I'll wait.

Every time he retired. He retires MULTIPLE times in between moves. Between Iron Man II and Avengers?

2 years.

Between Avengers and Age of Ultron

3 years.

Between AoU and Civil War

1 year

Between CW and IW

2 years

Between CW and Endgame

5 years.

That is a total of 13 years. Tony had 13 years of relative peace and quiet in which to get some self care and healing.

Compare that to Bucky who is confirmed as having PTSD and gets the sum total of 2 years to recover from 70 years of torture abuse, brain damage, trauma guilt and self-hatred. With NO support network. Unlike Tony, who had various people to support him. And Bucky has to contend with a fuckton of victim-blaming that Tony never did.

You literally just ignored the first part of OP's post, in which they noted that people constantly ignore Wanda's and Bruce's parts in Ultron.

These are excuses designed to absolve Tony of his responsibility for Ultron. Wanda did not mind control him: she gave him a vision.A vision he did not have to act opon. He chose to.

Tony was acting of his own free will and with his own agency the entire time. So was Bruce. This is why people blame Tony.

Unlike say,,,, hmmm I dunno Bucky who was literally mind controlled and had the very capacity for free choice and agency taken away from him, who was literally forced and tortured into doing things.... Tony was making a choice

(But isn't it WEIRD how people- usually Tony Fans) still insist on blaming an actual mind control and torture victim for his actions on the ground that "his body did it" - whilst trying to absolve the guy who was not mind controlled and had full bodily autonomy because "muh good intentions" and "muh trauma"

Yes, that's called victim-blaming.

You ignored how OP pointed out that the illegal arms dealing was Stane's actions, not Tony's, and that Tony shut it down as soon as he learned of it, saying "there are lines we don't cross.

Except... that's not what happened. Tony ran the company for 17 years as an adult. In all that time you're telling me he didn't notice his own stock going missing? He didn't notice the protests against his weapons being used on civilians in places like Sokovia?

The fact that it was only when he realized they were being used on *American soldiers* that he considered the line to have been crossed speaks volumes about Tony.

If he took drugs that were stopping him from doing his job as a CEO that is on him, not anybody else. Just like if somebody took drugs and decided to drive a car, you would not blame the car or the drugs.

Would Wanda not have attacked Tony's mind, then?

Since Tony was alreasdy planning to build Ultron even before he met Wanda, this bascailly makes no difference, but carry on.

Would Nick Fury and Black Widow have suddenly left him alone? Would he not have been dying from palladium poisoning?

How are Nick Fury and Natasha responsible for the stupid and reckless things Tony did when he thought he was dying. Did they make him do them? No. Thought not.

Would he have been able to suddenly change the route his company was taking without his friends turning their backs on him (which they did at first) and Stane trying to kill him?

Actually, yes. He's was the CEO, for goodness sake. He was also a grown-ass 38-year-old man, not a little kid.

You know he could in that capacity just fire Stane right? Right? As soon as he had evidence for his activities he could fire him on the spot? That's what CEOs can do? He could fire the whole Board of Directors if he wanted to.

But even if! Even if he went to therapy! Do you think therapy is a magical cure-all? Do you think people who go to therapy for PTSD suddenly don't have panic attacks anymore? That they don't get triggered, or fall back into their personal hells, or have days where they regress to who they'd been before therapy because healing isn't a straight line?

OK. Let;s talk about PTSD triggers.

People who are triggered may go into "fight or flight" mode. They may freeze. They may lash out. They may start having flashbacks. They may become depressed. They may become withdrawn.

What they do not do is take a highly dangerous object and use it to build abother hightly dangerous object despite warnings that it might be dangerous.

What they do not do is attack helpless unarmed people for 10 minutes with multiple weapons, pinning them against walls and attempting to blow their heads off.

What they do not do is ignore clear evidence for **years** of theft in their company, and ignore evidece their stock is falling into the wrong hands.

Nothing *repeat* NOTHING Tony does in the movies can be put down to him just being triggered. Blaming PTSD for Tony's violent and deliberately reckless actions is vile.

Honestly, shame on you for talking about therapy as if it's the cure-all for the world, as if every single problem life throws at people becomes butterflies and rainbows the instant a person talks to a professional about it all. As if Tony was The Main Problem of the MCU, and his capital sin was in not booking an appointment with a psychologist.

No, SHAME ON YOU.

People already think mental illness is an excuse for bad behaviour and Tony Stans are making this far worse with using conditions like mine as an excuse for everything Tony does.

Whether it be sexually harassing women

Building a murderbot

grooming and blackmailing a teenager,

or trying to murder an abuse victim in cold blood because he was upset about his disgusting daddy being killed.

How many people here, in real life, have mocked and derided Tony Stark as a character because he's a cis straight rich white man?

Let me tell you this right now.

Nobody would make excuses for Tony's actions the way they do if he was not a rich white male.

Just like in real life Tony can get away with things that anybody else would be thrown in jail for because he has money and connections.

Do you really think that poor people can get away with murder like Tony on the ground of abuse or trauma? No. They can't. They also can't get support or therapy. THEY will be persecuted and prosecuted, even for things they were driven to by desperation.

I am going to compare him to Bucky Barnes, fandom's favourite punchbag again because it illustrates this well.

One is working- class from a poor immigrant background who never had the power to say "no" or refuse to do what the high-ups told him. He was conscripted into into the army: if he refused to join up he'd have been imprisoned or worse.

He gets captured, experimented on, tortured, mutilated it, has his "brain put into a blender" and is forced to kill against his will?

What is the reaction? "He's still to blame. He chose to join up, he chose to go on that mission.... he could have escaped, he could have said no...."

Or "his body did it" as is the favourite excuse of Tony fans who want to entirely ignore the fact he had no control, autonomy or choice.

The other is a rich, priveleged guy with inherited money who had the best of everything. He is fully able to tell the government to go screw themselves, to refuse to do what he is told, and to buy his way out of any trouble he might get into.

He *chooses* to to drug himself into oblivion and drink himself silly when there are other options available. He chooses to do reckless things. He chooses to ignore the problems in his company. He chooses to go along with it because alternative is too hard.

He chooses to break multiple laws because his girlfriend is kidnapped. He chooses to mess with a highly dangerous supernatural artefact because he fears loss. He chooses to ignore advice, and people die. Over and over and over again because of his reckless actions and bad choices.

The reaction? "Its not his fault, he was manipulated" "its not his fault, he meant well!" "its not his fault, he's just trying to protect the people he loved"/

Its not about shaming: it is just a simple fact that rich white people can and do get away with the most henious things imaginable because of who they are. If Tony was poor like Bucky or black or Asian he would not be able to.

everyone always focuses on Sokovia and Ultron and Tony's involvement but no one ever thinks about how Bruce was also involved completely because they're both scientists. no one thinks about Wanda purposefully going in and digging in Tony's head, amplifying his PTSD and putting visions of all his friends dead in his head with the intent of making Tony create Ultron

Everyone always focuses on blaming Tony for the bomb that killed Wanda's parents but no one thinks about Tony being so shit faced he couldn't see straight at that time bec he was so deep in self-medicating his trauma that he could not even run his company and that it was Obidiah Stane that was the one in charge of the company and illegally selling the weapons that killed her parents

Everyone focuses on Tony selling weapons in the first movie but no one thinks about how it was Howard Starks company and that Tony was groomed from birth to run it and that he had tried multiple times to make something else of the company but was constantly shut down with guilt tripping until he was kidnapped and he forced the manufacturing to end

Everyone focuses on Tony being "conceited" and "arrogant" and not "caring about anyone but himself" but no one thinks about how every single action he makes in his movies are about protecting the people he loves and cares for. His biggest fear is his friends- not himself- dying. he goes into every battle he's in fully prepared to die and does make the sacrifice play many many times

everyone always focuses on what Tony did wrong, but no one thinks about how much he has grown and how he spends every single waking moment trying to be a better and better man who cares so deeply about everyone and is trying to protect everyone the only way he knows how- and that is with the brain and intellect that had been the only thing about Tony that was ever praised about

[kiefbowl]

wait ok genuinely kind of interested in your opinion on porn now......... if only because those big 3 you mentioned are always the reasons i see people throwing out so id love to hear a deeper take than that

I'm genuinely surprised anyone could follow me and not know my stance on porn, but that's okay. simplified and in no particular order and in no means exhaustive:

porn creates perverse incentives

porn normalizes the purchase of women as sexual objects for men to use

porn is often called "rape on tape" by feminists, which I mostly agree with in the sense that if a woman would otherwise not have had sex except that she is being paid, then she is not consenting. you cannot purchase consent, the consent is not meaningful then.

additionally, you can not verify if you are watching people be raped in any other way. porn sites are filled with stolen videos, coerced videos, actual minors, aggressive rape that was filmed with or without the victim's knowledge, and other videos of this nature. there is no way to verify this at all from videos that are somehow not these things. things like "amateur" are often just marketing by the porn company or pimp, or they're stolen videos.

porn creates a social script for sex. this social script is least of all - boring and predictable. it also reinforces the long standing conservative gender understanding (see 2). porn also reinforces ideas of homophobia and racism under the guise of "taboo." porn is literally so conservative, but because it's considered "shocking" to "puritans" (religious men watch porn all the time), people talk like it's this liberal fantasy. porn is constantly reestablishing the status quo in the most perverse ways.

it's been demonstrated that people who are porn addicts very quickly escalate to more violent porn, and that this plays out in their sex lives with their (often vulnerable) sex partners.

the violence that happens in porn is real. the idea that it's a "fantasy" is marketing by porn website and pimps. if a man slaps a woman across the face, that really happened. why does it matter if she says "yes" to it - that's her "job" so how can she say no? (see 3 and also 4).

there is so much evidence and testimony by porn stars of the absolutely awful and terrifying conditions in which they work, even in the quote unquote "real" industry. drugs, alcohol, violence, coercion, exposure to STIs, homelessness, pimping, prostitution, mental illness, suicide, lack of benefits. It's bananas that anyone would be surprised by this when it's pointed out, we're talking about an industry that films sex on video. The majority of people in the sex industry want out. It ruins their lives, and once in it's very hard to leave and lead a normal life. The idea that the industry needs regulation to be "fixed" is bizarre and just seems like pimp and porn industry marketing to get people to look the other way.

Poverty creates porn. Social welfare for the poorest of our women would prevent them from entering the industry in the first place. Women go into porn out of need, not desire. social media pushes that porn stars loooove their jobs is 1. porn site and pimp propaganda 2. literally marketing because men want to believe this.

I am not religious, I don't believe in god. I love sex and masturbation. it's the most natural thing in the world and people don't actually need to "learn" how to do it - it's innate within us. Porn is just one more way to humiliate women in a misogynist society that requires women to be fearful of sex and rape constantly, and uneducated in their own sexual desires and boundaries.

[traumasurvivors]

Here’s a reminder that even if your parents had their own trauma, it doesn’t mean it was okay for them to treat you the way they did.

It’s valid if you’ve forgiven them or whatever else, just please don’t invalidate your own feelings because they were also hurting.

[letherightonein]

"Whether they don't put any effort to socialize with women doesn't matter."

The majority of the time, men get partners by approaching the opposite sex. So, of course it does matter if they put effort in dating women.

"Male initiation of dates, which aligns with the initial stage of traditional dating scripts, represents 89.1 percent of the total analytic sample while female initiation of dates, which aligns with alternative dating scripts, represents only 10.9 percent of the total analytic sample." (study)

"It's most likely a symptom of their incel condition, not wanting to try because they know nothing will come of it."

How do they know that nothing will come out of it if they don't even talk to women around them?

This is a thing I constantly see on young blackpillers, they claim that since no woman approach them, they are incels. Or since they were rejected in high school or a relationship just didn't happen to them as teenagers, they are doomed to a life of isolation. One of them claimed to know that approaching would be useless only out of "vibes" from women.

Ironically, those exact same men who tell me that, question my loneliness asking me "oh, how many times have men approach you? and why don't you approach first?" That's why I'm asking what I'm asking to begin with.

I'm holding them as the same standards people hold women when saying they are lonely. You don't approach, you are not lonely. You choose to not approach, your loneliness is a choice. And when saying this, the excuses come. "Well, but if I approach and put effort and pay for dates, women may use me, or not really desire me, women only desire men they themselves approach", bla bla bla. Meanwhile, if women refuse to open a dating app and get treated as a fleslight by a stranger, they are not lonely. Bo-hoo, poor me, I have to do the same thing the majority of men do to date women! Cry me a river.

I don't think it's part of the incel condition to be brainwashed by a dumb ideology and downright thinking that your life is over because a woman doesn't fall on your lap when you are a teenger/young adult. Plenty of men in the past were single and celibate past their mid twenties, because marriage -where men had to work and pay for everything- after a couple weeks of courtship was the norm.

Not having sex as a young adult is perceived as a crisis nowadays because the social script changed, and men's expectations of their sexual lifes changed.

"So they can still be valid truecels."

According to incel standards, female incels don't exist because they can open a dating app and have painful orgasmless sex with a stranger. By the same bar of measure, incels don't exist because they can pay for it.

The main traits of the "incel condition" seems to be poor agency, external locus of control and autism.

Autism delays your normal development, and most autists would reach young adulthood without milestones that teenagers achieve effortlessly, they may even reach adult age without being completely aware that they lost vital opportunities for their development. Their lack of agency/attempts come from low awareness.

Low agency and external locus control leads to beliefs like there isn't such thing as a personal choice, that one is victim constantly of people whims and circumstances. That leads to adopt ideologies like the blackpill and reject any attempt to improve or change their lifes.

Another trait seems to be mental illness or personality traits like neuroticism, and that leads to negative beliefs about oneself and other people, making you perceive as threats things that are neutral or easily to overcome.

That makes, at a level, the "involuntary" label useless. By normal standards, they are not even trying and sabotaging themselves. But also, validates it. They just happen to have a less effective personality/mental health/neurology. But again, remains ambiguous since those conditions can be treated/worked on, and, after all, most men have to approach women to date them.

Testing a male bullshit story #1

[mars-ipan]

so fucking annoying having a “common” disorder sometimes i’m sick of being fucking dismissed

[unityrain24]

is tumblr stealing my information SPECIFICALLY so they can attempt to trigger me

[blackvahana]

christ it hits me a lot how shit I was treated by lull and how much I thought that was normal. Lev set up a study room in my house, and... he said I can come in because I was sort of obviously asking the question without even knowing I was asking, like I wanted to ask the question but knew it'd be a no. Why did I know itd be a no? Well a study space is a serious space for actual academic and general people who do work to use, full of books and journals that both aren't my business and will be easily messed up if I touch them, and there's no reason for me to be in there anyway because I don't do work, a study is only a space for normal people and not people who mess everything up and - how do i know this? Oh I mean because lull - yeah

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

i have been in community with profoundly developmentally disabled peers and peers with brain damage my whole life, bc i had a childhood diagnosis. i have also been leftist my whole life; my mother was a marxist and raised me that way, and while their politics were absolute dogshit, they were lefty dogshit.

my entire life, i have seen leftist educators throw mentally disabled people away as "lost causes" because they couldn't engage with the material the way it was being presented. leftist outreach and education does, genuinely, have a massive lack of accessible material. to be blunt, people are not interested in retrofitting their leftist outreach to be accessible to people who learn best through episodes of sesame street.

as in, i have repeatedly faced outright laughter and cruelty over the idea that this could be a priority. or even something that we consider doing at all.

"people who are that mentally disabled don't need to know about these things," the kindest interpretation goes. ("people who are that mentally disabled don't interact with the world, anyway, they're all in institutions or monitored 24/7 by their parents," the uncharitable underlying assumptions go. "they wouldn't be a worker who needs a union. or a library attendee. or a member of the community garden. or a volunteer at the food bank. or or or")

the people i have seen this hurt the worst, over and over again, are profoundly mentally disabled people of color whose lack of access to accessible antiracist education is causing real danger in their lives. institutionalized disabled people of color who have learned racist ideology and behaviors from white authority, whether they were adopted by white families or incarcerated in care institutions run by white staff. who are treated lower than garbage by leftist educators, who view them as "lost causes," as unworthy of time and effort and attention, as deserving of their abuses because they... what... internalized the abuses that make up every aspect of their lives since birth?

i see people saying things in this conversation like "disability isn't an excuse for racism or transphobia or whatever, people have the obligation to improve themselves." oh, believe me, i have seen again and again how many privileged disabled people utilize their disabilities to punch down on others, try to escape accountability for their punching down by citing disability. but individual weaponization of identity is just that: weaponization of identity.

the power structures at play are what they are. it is a noble and admirable goal to want leftist outreach and education to be more accessible to all. if that is truly your goal, you must eventually reckon with the existence of people who do, actually, really need it presented in a picture book. or an episode of bluey. or a conversation where you only use examples of people they know in real life, using things that happened to them personally. the existence of people who cannot grasp forms of abstract reasoning, who need information presented as rules, or as guidelines, or as categories. the idea that yes, fully grown adults who need daniel tiger to explain racism to them are human beings who not only deserve access to that very thing, but who also deserve to be a part of leftist spaces and benefit from leftist organizing. are people for whom it might be INTEGRAL they get to be a part of leftism. are victims of racism themselves and suffering without access to antiracist spaces and community and support.

and you will need to reckon with the abject cruelty of your peers who laugh and mock the very idea of this. you need to reckon with the fact that a lot of people you respect, a lot of leftists doing genuinely good work, will respond to this by making fun of the people you're serving, even outright telling you their violent fantasies about these people. that is the experience of organizing in leftist spaces for profoundly disabled people. that is why so many of us burn out so fast. there IS a structural problem with mentally disabled people being seen as disposable and not a part of community. and it is EXTREMELY present in leftist organizing and outreach efforts.

[autistichalsin]

In retrospect, four years later, I feel like the Isabel Fall incident was just the biggest ignored cautionary tale modern fandom spaces have ever had. Yes, it wasn't limited to fandom, it was also a professional author/booktok type argument, but it had a lot of crossover.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a writer, whether fan or pro, publishes a work. If one were to judge a book by its cover, something we are all taught in Kindergarten shouldn't happen but has a way of occurring regardless, one might find that there was something that seemed deeply problematic about this work. Maybe the title or summary alluded to something Wrong happening, or maybe the tags indicated there was problematic kinks or relationships. And that meant the story was Bad. So, a group of people takes to the Twittersphere to inform everyone who will listen why the work, and therefore the author, are Bad. The author, receiving an avalanche of abuse and harassment, deactivates their account, and checks into a mental health facility for monitoring for suicidal ideation. They never return to their writing space, and the harassers get a slap on the wrist (if that- usually they get praise and high-fives all around) and start waiting for their next victim to transgress.

Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?

Isabel Fall's case, though, was even more extreme for many reasons. See, she made the terrible mistake of using a transphobic meme as the genesis to actually explore issues of gender identity.

More specifically, she used the phrase "I sexually identify as an attack helicopter" to examine how marginalized identities, when they become more accepted, become nothing more than a tool for the military-industrial complex to rebrand itself as a more personable and inclusive atrocity; a chance to pursue praise for bombing brown children while being progressive, because queer people, too, can help blow up brown children now! It also contained an examination of identity and how queerness is intrinsic to a person, etc.

But... well, if harassers ever bothered to read the things they critique, we wouldn't be here, would we? So instead, they called Isabel a transphobic monster for the title alone, even starting a misinformation campaign to claim she was, in fact, a cis male nazi using a fake identity to psyop the queer community.

A few days later, after days of horrific abuse and harassment, Isabel requested that Clarkesworld magazine pull the story. She checked in to a psych ward with suicidal thoughts. That wasn't all, though; the harassment was so bad that she was forced to out herself as trans to defend against the claims.

Only... we know this type of person, the fandom harassers, don't we? You know where this is going. Outing herself did nothing to stop the harassment. No one was willing to read the book, much less examine how her sexuality and gender might have influenced her when writing it.

So some time later, Isabel deleted her social media. She is still alive, but "Isabel Fall" is not- because the harassment was so bad that Isabel detransitioned/closeted herself, too traumatized to continue living her authentic life.

Supposed trans allies were so outraged at a fictional portrayal of transness, written by a trans woman, that they harassed a real life trans woman into detransitioning.

It's heartbreakingly familiar, isn't it? Many of us in fandom communities have been in Isabel's shoes, even if the outcome wasn't so extreme (or in some cases, when it truly was). Most especially, many of us, as marginalized writers speaking from our own experiences in some way, have found that others did not enjoy our framework for examining these things, and hurt us, members of those identities, in defense of "the community" as a nebulous undefined entity.

There's a quote that was posted in a news writeup about the whole saga that was published a year after the fact. The quote is:

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A paranoid reading focuses on what’s wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn’t the reader. This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings. “[You might tweet], ‘Well, they didn’t discuss X, Y, or Z, so that’s bad!’ Or, ‘They didn’t’ — in this case — ‘discuss transness in a way that felt like what I feel about transness, therefore it is bad.’ That flattens everything into this very individual, very hostile way of reading,” Mandelo says. “Part of reparative reading is trying to think about how a story cannot do everything. Nothing can do everything. If you’re reading every text, fiction, or criticism looking for it to tick a bunch of boxes — like if it represents X, Y, and Z appropriately to my definitions of appropriate, and if it’s missing any of those things, it’s not good — you’re not really seeing the close focus that it has on something else.”

A paranoid reading describes perfectly what fandom culture has become in the modern times. It is why "proship", once simply a word for common sense "don't engage with what you don't like, and don't harass people who create it either" philosophies, has become the boogeyman of fandom, a bad and dangerous word. The days of reparative readings, where you would look for things you enjoyed, are all but dead. Fiction is rarely a chance to feel joy; it's an excuse to get angry, to vitriolically attack those different from oneself while surrounded with those who are the same as oneself. It's an excuse to form in-groups and out-groups that must necessarily be in a constant state of conflict, lest it come across like This side is accepting That side's faults. In other words, fandom has become the exact sort of space as the nonfandom spaces it used to seek to define itself against.

It's not about joy. It's not about resonance with plot or characters. It's about hate. It's about finding fault. If they can't find any in the story, they will, rest assured, create it by instigating fan wars- dividing fandom into factions and mercilessly attacking the other.

And that's if they even went so far as to read the work they're critiquing. The ones they don't bother to read, as you saw above, fare even worse. If an AO3 writer tagged an abuser/victim ship, it's bad, it's fetishism, even if the story is about how the victim escapes. If a trans writer uses the title "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" to find a framework to dissect rainbow-washing the military-industrial complex, it's unforgivable. It's a cesspool of kneejerk reactions, moralizing discomfort, treating good/evil as dichotomous categories that can never be escaped, and using that complex as an excuse to heap harassment on people who "deserve it." Because once you are Bad, there is no action against you that is too Bad for you to deserve.

Isabel Fall's story follows this so step-by-step that it's like a textbook case study on modern fandom behavior.

Isabel Fall wrote a short story with an inflammatory title, with a genesis in transphobic mockery, in the hopes of turning it into a genuine treatise on the intersection of gender and sexuality and the military-industrial complex. But because audiences are unprepared for the idea of inflammatory rhetoric as a tool to force discomfort to then force deeper introspection... they zeroed in on the discomfort. "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"- the title phrase, not the work- made them uncomfortable. We no longer teach people how to handle discomfort; we live in a world of euphemism and glossing over, a world where people can't even type out the words "kill" and rape", instead substituting "unalive" and "grape." We don't deal with uncomfortable feelings anymore; we censor them, we transform them, we sanitize them. When you are unable to process discomfort, when you are never given self-soothing tools, your only possible conclusion is that anything Uncomfortable must be Bad, and the creator must either be censored too, or attacked into conformity so that you never again experience the horrors of being Uncomfortable.

So the masses took to Twitter, outraged. They were Uncomfortable, and that de facto meant that they had been Wronged. Because the content was related to trans identity issues, that became the accusation; it was transphobic, inherently. It couldn't be a critique of bigger and more fluid systems than gender identity alone; it was a slight against trans people. And no amount of explanations would change their minds now, because they had already been aggrieved and made to feel Uncomfortable.

Isabel Fall was now a Bad Person, and we all know what fandom spaces do to Bad People. Bad People, because they are Bad, will always be deserving of suicide bait and namecalling and threatening. Once a person is Bad, there is no way to ever become Good again. Not by refuting the accusations (because the accusations are now self-evident facts; "there is a callout thread against them" is its own tautological proof that wrongdoing has happened regardless of the veracity of the claims in the callout) and not by apologizing and changing, because if you apologize and admit you did the Bad thing, you are still Bad, and no matter what you do in future, you were once Bad and that needs to be brought up every time you are mentioned. If you are bad, you can NEVER be more than what you were at your worst (in their definition) moment. Your are now ontologically evil, and there is no action taken against you that can be immoral.

So Isabel was doomed, naturally. It didn't matter that she outed herself to explain that she personally had lived the experience of a trans woman and could speak with authority on the atrocity of rainbow-washing the military industrial complex as a proaganda tool to capture progressives. None of it mattered. She had written a work with an Uncomfortable phrase for a title, the readers were Uncomfortable, and someone had to pay for it.

And that's the key; pay for it. Punishment. Revenge. It's never about correcting behavior. Restorative justice is not in this group's vocabulary. You will, incidentally, never find one of these folks have a stance against the death penalty; if you did Bad as a verb, you are Bad as an intrinsic, inescapable adjective, and what can you do to incorrigible people but kill them to save the Normal people? This is the same principle, on a smaller scale, that underscores their fandom activities; if a Bad fan writes Bad fiction, they are a Bad person, and their fandom persona needs to die to save Normal fans the pain of feeling Uncomfortable.

And that's what happened to Isabel Fall. The person who wrote the short story is very much alive, but the pseudonym of Isabel Fall, the identity, the lived experiences coming together in concert with imagination to form a speculative work to critique deeply problematic sociopolitical structures? That is dead. Isabel Fall will never write again, even if by some miracle the person who once used the name does. Even if she ever decides to restart her transition, she will be permanently scarred by this experience, and will never again be able to share her experience with us as a way to grow our own empathy and challenge our understanding of the world. In spirit, but not body, fandom spaces murdered Isabel Fall.

And that's... fandom, anymore. That's just what is done, routinely and without question, to Bad people. Good people are Good, so they don't make mistakes, and they never go too far when dealing with Bad people. And Bad people, well, they should have thought before they did something Bad which made them Bad people.

Isabel Fall's harassment happened in early 2020, before quarantine started, but it was in so many ways a final chance for fandom to hit the breaks. A chance for fandom to think collectively about what it wanted to be, who it wanted to be for and how it wanted to do it. And fandom looked at this and said, "more, please." It continues to harass marginalized people, especially fans of color and queen fans, into suffering mental breakdowns. With gusto.

Any ideas of reparative reading is dead. Fandom runs solely on paranoid readings. And so too is restorative justice gone for fandom transgressions, real or imagined. It is now solely about punitive, vigilante justice. It's a concerted campaign to make sure oddballs conform or die (in spirit, but sometimes even physically given how often mentally ill individuals are pushed into committing suicide).

It's a deeply toxic environment and I'm sad to say that Isabel Fall's story was, in retrospect, a sort of event horizon for the fandom. The gravitational pull of these harassment campaigns is entirely too strong now and there is no escaping it. I'm sorry, I hate to say something so bleak, but thinking the last few days about the state of fandom (not just my current one but also others I watch from the outside), I just don't think we can ever go back to peaceful "for joy" engagement, not when so many people are determined to use it as an outlet for lateral aggression against other people.

[de8thm8rt]

[caffeinewitchcraft]

AITA for divorcing my vampire husband because he lied to me about his human job?

I (542 vampire) and my husband (260 vampire) have been together for a little over two centuries. There’s a saying in the vampiric community that it takes a century for a tryst to become an enduring partnership and another century to become soulmates. I thought that was true and that Matthew (using his real name because fuck you, Matthew) and I would be together forever…until this week.

First, let me explain a few things to the mortals here. I don’t mean that negatively – I came here specifically to get the opinion of those with a finite lifespan. However, I want to be fair to Matthew as much as possible and some of his decisions are very immortal-minded.

Both Matthew and I are vampires who have chosen to forsake some of our powers in exchange for the ability to daywalk. We made the transition together on our 100th anniversary almost 115 years ago. It wasn’t an easy transition for me. I was very dependent on human blood and I spent the first twenty years in almost constant sleep as my body adjusted to running off of less lunar magic and more solar magic.

It really felt like I was losing everything. My body got physically weaker and my powers began to disappear one by one. It felt like every time I woke, another part of me was missing. One day I could turn into a wolf, the next I could barely turn into a vapor. I could command a legion of undying servants, and then I could barely convince the mailman he didn’t see me levitate down from the second floor.

Matthew, however, took to daywalking like a werewolf to a sheep farm. He barely seemed to feel the pain of losing his power, maybe because he was so much younger than me. Whatever the case, he was out all the time once he stabilized. He would be gone for days sometimes and when he came back it was with fantastic stories about the humans’ new inventions or the new structures being built in whatever town we were in.

I’m not saying I regret transitioning. Just that Matthew and I had very different experiences. It felt like he barely changed at all while my entire being got rewritten. Being immortal makes you comfortable in your own skin. I never doubted myself or my power after I turned 100. But becoming a daywalker made me feel like I was being born as a human again. It was humiliating and vulnerable. I have to admit there were times I resented how easily Matthew did it. I blamed him for not supporting me like I thought he should. I would daydream about draining a human in front of him, showing him what I thought of his fascination with them. I had all sorts of vile and vengeful thoughts. I’m not proud of the person I was and now I’m grateful Matthew wasn’t there to see the lows I sunk to.

Despite all my awful thoughts, I didn’t quit. I don’t know why, but I didn’t. I stuck with it and, day by day, things got easier.

After 26 years I began to stabilize. The benefits of being a daywalker slowly blossomed before me.  Now I can say that I am completely happy with my daywalker status and all the changes it’s brought.

I am the most mentally stable I have been since my Turning in 1482. It’s like I’m awake. The fits of rage that used to consume me for months at a time have completely disappeared. I don’t experience the same level of obsession I used to which has freed up a lot of my time that I used to spend stalking my victims.

However, that drastic of a change would be challenging in any relationship. Matthew and I ended up together because of my obsessive nature. Our relationship became strained when that part of me went dormant. He expected me to follow his immersion into the human world just as I had followed him in his revenge quest against his Master. He expected me to support him wholeheartedly and with everything I was. He wanted sacrifices from me that I used to not even flinch at before making. But something was just…different. We wanted different things. I wanted different things.

Matthew was obsessed with being the perfect human. He craved full immersion. He still makes it a point to get a human job every twenty years or so. Me? I’m happy to live off our investments and some mild mind control while enjoying the art and theater community the humans have evolved.

It got bad. Some years, we spent like ghosts in our own house, drifting by each other without a glance. Other years, it was like we were spies behind enemy lines. He would do whatever he could to thwart me and I would go out of my way to ridicule him. Our vitriol poisoned the earth. Matthew didn’t speak to me for a full decade when that poison killed off an entire town.

About twenty years ago, it all came to a head. We had a serious sit-down talk about our relationship. It wasn’t easy. What they say about teaching an old dog new tricks is sometimes true. Matthew wanted me to be as involved with the humans as he was. He wanted me to care about them like he did. I wanted him to travel with me like we used to and not just hop from town to neighboring town (which he did to maintain a human identity with references so he could keep working). When it became clear that we were at an impasse, I brought up the idea of separation.

Separating in the vampiric world isn’t easy. There are a lot of alliances and blood oaths to be considered. Over the two centuries we spent together, we became known as a unit to a number of supernatural entities that we maintain an uneasy truce with. Separating would mean creating new oaths and alliances with the same individuals. And there was no guarantee that those individuals would make new pacts with both of you. A LOT of vampire couples end up in blood feuds while separating. Neither of us wanted that.

There was also, of course, the emotional side of things. While a lot of immortals tend to only feel muted emotions (especially vampires as old as me), Daywalking had made both of us more sensitive than we’d been before. We were both attached to the memories we shared and neither of us could imagine life without the other. After 200 years together, it felt like Matthew was my right arm, and I his. When I brought up separation, we both felt it like we were discussing an amputation.

After about a year of talking, we finally reached an agreement. We didn’t want to separate, and so we would compromise. I wouldn’t interfere with any of Matthew’s human jobs for the 15-17 years if he could hold them without arousing suspicion. In exchange, he would take a year off to go traveling with me before finding another town for us to live in. In between my trips, he would go to plays and galas with me to enjoy human artistry at least once a month.

Maybe our deal was in his favor. At the time, it felt practical and fair. A year of traveling wouldn’t undo Matthew’s string of connections. We would still see each other frequently by going on dates that I liked. Matthew would get to stay immersed in the human world at the level he wanted, and I could stay within my comfort zone.

Which brings me to my current problem.

We are currently at the start of one of Matthew’s work cycles. He’s been everything from a fireman to a politician to a subway worker to a barista. He craves knowledge and connection to a terrifying degree. If it weren’t for how we move every 20 years and he goes without protest, I’d call it obsession.

This cycle, Matthew told me he was going to be a teacher. I was hesitant. While the humans have become more tolerant and less violent over the years, that doesn’t mean they will tolerate us near their young. Enough humans know about vampires that staking in the modern era is a real possibility. Matthew could incite an angry mob against us or, heaven forbid, get a vampire hunter on our tail. I have yet to be shot, but I hear that they have silver bullets that hurt like Hell.

When I voiced my protests, Matthew reminded me about our agreement. He said that I wouldn’t interfere with his jobs and he’d go to all the plays I liked. He even pointed out that, as a teacher, he could get us into high school plays and expositions. I was uneasy, but agreements are penultimate to immortals. I silenced my objections and let him get a job as a science teacher at a local high school.

When Michael has had jobs in the past, I’ve never really paid attention. One time he was a state senator for ten years and I never even heard him speak. I didn’t consider it worth my time to hear whatever his facsimile of a human would say. Real humanity is in the art they create, not in the parody Michael enacts.

But this one…I couldn’t ignore this one. Maybe it was because I was still uneasy about his proximity to human young or maybe I could sense his lies even at the beginning. Whatever the case, I watched him.

The first thing I noticed was the hours. He would go to work early and would often come home when it was time for us to sleep. When I asked him about it, he said that he wasn’t used to grading and that he had underestimated what it took to put a good lesson plan together. I visited some online forums and that’s apparently reasonable for first year teachers.

He would also sometimes go in on the weekends. He missed one of our dates because there was a “grading emergency” that needed his immediate attention. Something about a student’s test getting lost and then found and he needed to input their grade before the deadline which was on Saturday. Humans like silly rules like that so I didn’t even look that one up. I just reminded him that he couldn’t miss our dates again or else he was breaking our deal. He apologized and said it wouldn’t happen again.

Then about three months into his new job, the phone calls started. We have a private room in our house for when we need to talk without any visitors overhearing. Michael moved all his school supplies in there, saying that he needed a silent space to concentrate on his grading. Whenever he got a call, he would never answer it in front of me. Instead, he’d say “Sorry, work” and just go into his office.

I also noticed that he didn’t dress very professionally. Human fashion changes quickly so it didn’t register at first. A sweatshirt here and there slipped past me, and also the Gucci slides. When he started wearing baggy jeans and jerseys to work, I noticed. I may not be up to date on all the newest fashions, but I do go to classy events. I know what a slob looks like and it didn’t sit right with me that he was wearing that to school. When I asked him about it, he always had an excuse. “This is what everyone wears” and “It’s a theme day” or, bafflingly, “It’s spirit week!”

I tried to leave it alone. The reason we have stayed together for so long is because of our agreement to not interfere in each other’s lives. But between his hours, the phone calls, and his appearance, something didn’t add up.

Then, last Thursday, he missed another one of our dates. We were supposed to go to the Nutcracker together. Even though I prefer matinees (when the cast is fresh), I agreed to get us tickets for the evening show so that he wouldn’t have to leave work early. When he wasn’t there at 7pm, I called him and he didn’t answer. Then, when I called him again, his phone was switched off.

I was furious. I spend nearly two decades in these tiny towns so he can live his human fantasy and he can’t even show up for one two hour show? It was the first time since becoming a daywalker that I felt that angry. I was scared about what I might do, so I made myself go home to wait for him.

Only, he never came home that night. At 3am, he sent me a text apologizing and promising to make up our date on Saturday. But the Nutcracker was only playing until Friday and that would be too little, too late. To be honest, it already was. I texted him that and he never responded.

He never ended up coming home last weekend. I texted and called him probably a dozen times and he never responded. I got angrier and angrier as the days dragged by. Did he think I was someone to be taken lightly? Did he not realize that the fragile agreement between us was all that was keeping us from separation?

Yesterday (Monday), I couldn’t take it anymore. If he wasn’t going to come home or respond to my messages, then I would go to him. If he was so obsessed with this new job that he would ignore me for it, then I knew exactly where to find him.

I arrived at his school at 10am. I researched enough to know how to go to the office and sign myself in. I asked the office assistant which room Mr. Duetto was in.

The lovely young woman looked confused. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give that information out to anyone but family,” she said.

“I am his only family,” I said.

She clicked a few more keys and looked more confused. “His paperwork only shows his mother, Delilah Duetto.”

That’s right. His mother. But I still didn’t understand then.

“That’s me,” I said.

“You are not the mother of 17-year-old.”

“I’m his wife,” I said.

She was upset by that. I won’t bore you with every detail, but I had to alter her memories so she wouldn’t call the police. I may not look like someone who has a teenager, but I also don’t look like a teenager. I ended up having to alter her memories so she wouldn’t call human CPS on an apparent adult swearing she was married to a minor.

I went home and broke into his office. There weren’t any lesson plans. There were no graded papers. There were syllabus from different classes, homework with his name on it, and a few polaroids taped to the bottom of his desk of him at a party with children.

Human children. I don’t honestly know which is worse.

(EDIT: I know the child part is the worst part. I misspoke because of my anger. It’s not the humans’ fault that my husband is a pervert.)

I broke into his laptop and used that to check his text messages. He’s been texting like a high schooler. He’s been to parties with them, listened to their problems and even fabricated a few of his own. He’s caught in some sort of weird love triangle where a freshman girl likes him but his “best friend” likes her. He has texted both of them about it, promising his “bro” that nothing is happening and then turning around and leading this girl-child on.

Some choice quotes: I should know better than to get close with you. You and I come from very different worlds

To which she replied, lol maybe we should let our worlds collide

!!!!

I find the entire situation disgusting. Matthew is several centuries older than them and he definitely knows better. He’s literally wearing the sheep’s fleece amongst the flock. He has no business forming relationships with human children and even less pretending to be one of them. He’s not a baby. He is over two centuries old!

What is he doing flirting with a child? It’s vile and disgusting and I was set to kill him for it.

I confronted him about it when he came home last night. I told him that he was sick and dangerous and if he loved humans then he needed to stop immediately. I told him we either left town today or I would make sure he never set foot back in that school in a way he really wouldn’t like.

 He threw a huge tantrum over my invading his privacy. He shouted at me that I had broken my promise to never interfere in his job. He called me controlling and crazy.

I told him he was the crazy one for chatting up a child. He told me he wasn’t, she was just his friend. I asked him to read their texts out loud if he was being so friendly. I also pointed out that there was no way a 260-year-old vampire is a child’s friend.

He told me I was a hypocrite because I basically cradle robbed him (we’re almost 300 years apart.) He said if anyone was disgusting, it was me for taking advantage of him.

I pointed out that he wasn’t a child, he was over 60 and had already been a vampire for four decades. He argued that that was basically being a child in vampire terms.

I was so angry at that point that the house was shaking. I told him if he felt that way, then we could get divorced right then and there. That that was what I wanted to do anyway because I couldn’t be married to a pedophile.

He asked me if I was seriously going to start a blood feud over him immersing himself in human society. I said no, I’m starting a blood feud because he’s become every predatory stereotype humans have of vampires.

He called me a hypocrite again and told me he was leaving. He said not to call him unless I was ready to apologize. I told him that the next time he sees me, he’d better run before I showed him the real difference between us. And it wasn’t just 300 years.

When I calmed down, doubt started creeping in. From an immortal perspective, what he’s doing isn’t really wrong. I hate to say it, but most immortals don’t view human lives as significant. I know a few vampires who would say that divorcing because he’s playing with his food is idiotic.

Plus, there’s the agreement to consider. During our fight, Matthew pointed out that being a student is a job to humans. So therefore I didn’t have the right to interfere. A big part of me thinks that’s bullshit, but a small part of me wonders if he’s maybe right about that?

I also have to ask myself why this even bothers me. I’m the one in the relationship that is aloof from humans. I’m the one that’s always saying we are from different worlds (Yeah, he stole that from me) and for good reason. 

But over the years, I’ve become fond of humans. No immortal makes art like them. I may not remember my time as a mortal, but there are works that give me a sense of nostalgia. Sometimes I think I can remember being a child myself, standing in a field like in Monet painting, staring at the wheatstacks and waiting for the miller to come. 

The thought of Matthew playing with them makes me sick. It’s like even after all the years of him living amongst them, he thinks of them as props in his twisted play. It’s even worse that he’s doing this to children. 

I can’t help but think something went really wrong with my husband when I wasn’t looking. At the very least, I’m planning on divorcing him. But would I be the asshole if I killed him too?

 Separating from him will be violent and messy. There will likely be human casualties. But I don’t see any other way. So, I ask.

AITA for divorcing my husband for lying to me about his human job?

----

Thanks for reading! I loved answering some of the responses I got when I first posted this over on my Patreon (X)!

These collaborative story telling pieces are the highlight of my week. Next week's story is about a witch who wants to know if she should attend her high school reunion even though she's responsible for stripping two former classmates of their magic...

Please check that out here (X) if you''d like early access! Otherwise I'll see y'all next week :)

[threewaywithdelusion]

I wish more people liked Canon Nicky. Like yeah, he sucks a little bit, but that’s the point.

All the Foxes suck a little bit. They’re not perfect victims, they use slurs, they do bad things to each other. Seth’s a selfish homophobic asshole, but he saves Allison. Kevin’s a one-track-minded alcoholic who hears his teammate died and wonders how the team will keep playing, but he also gives Andrew a chance before anyone else does. Wymack’s lucky they didn’t have cancel culture in 2006, because some of the things he says are horrifically not PC. But he’s not some perfect savior of a coach. He’s a guy with a terrible past who decided to make it his life’s mission to help troubled kids. And if he gets it wrong sometime, it’s because absolutely no one in these books is 100% mentally well and they’re definitely not coming across mental health tips on TikTok or reading books about how to do better.

Nicky is terrible at boundaries and consent. It’s probably a trauma response to his upbringing and conversion therapy, but that doesn’t make it okay. He makes creepy comments all the time and he assaults Neil in Columbia.

I’m not excusing any of that. But Nicky isn’t only that, and that’s why he’s interesting.

He’s the one who texts Neil a million times a day, until Neil stops looking frightened every time his phone beeps. He gave up Erik and Germany to raise two angry teenagers who never reciprocated his affection. He had a relatively normal upbringing (religious trauma aside) and then got thrown into dealing with the twins and having to navigate 1) Andrew locking Aaron in the bathroom to get clean (is he being a good or bad guardian by letting that happen?) 2) working two jobs to pay for the house 3) Andrew being arrested 4) Andrew being put on meds that made him manic and unreliable 5) Aaron’s homophobia 6) Andrew’s violent threats and so much more.

When exactly did he find out Andrew had killed Tilda? Which of the twins told him? And did he ever wonder if Andrew would kill his newest guardian if Nicky messed up?

Nicky is incredibly selfless, brave, and patient. And he’s also pushy, kinda creepy, and incapable of understanding boundaries. He’s both. And I wish the fandom wouldn’t sanitise him, because I think that’s part of the point.

[trans-axolotl]

also in regards to that last article about varied ways of thinking about psychosis/altered states that don't just align with medical model or carceral psychiatry---I always love sharing about Bethel House and their practices of peer support for schizophrenia that are founded on something called tojisha kenkyu, but I don't see it mentioned as often as things like HVN and Soteria House.

ID: [A colorful digital drawing of a group of people having a meeting inside a house while it snows outside.]

"What really set the stage for tōjisha-kenkyū were two social movements started by those with disabilities. In the 1950s, a new disability movement was burgeoning in Japan, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that those with physical disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, began to advocate for themselves more actively as tōjisha. For those in this movement, their disability is visible. They know where their discomfort comes from, why they are discriminated against, and in what ways they need society to change. Their movement had a clear sense of purpose: make society accommodate the needs of people with disabilities. Around the same time, during the 1970s, a second movement was started by those with mental health issues, such as addiction (particularly alcohol misuse) and schizophrenia. Their disabilities are not always visible. People in this second movement may not have always known they had a disability and, even after they identify their problems, they may remain uncertain about the nature of their disability. Unlike those with physical and visible disabilities, this second group of tōjisha were not always sure how to advocate for themselves as members of society. They didn’t know what they wanted and needed from society. This knowing required new kinds of self-knowledge.

As the story goes, tōjisha-kenkyū emerged in the Japanese fishing town of Urakawa in southern Hokkaido in the early 2000s. It began in the 1980s when locals who had been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders created a peer-support group in a run-down church, which was renamed ‘Bethel House’. The establishment of Bethel House (or just Bethel) was also aided by the maverick psychiatrist Toshiaki Kawamura and an innovative social worker named Ikuyoshi Mukaiyachi. From the start, Bethel embodied the experimental spirit that followed the ‘antipsychiatry’ movement in Japan, which proposed ideas for how psychiatry might be done differently, without relying only on diagnostic manuals and experts. But finding new methods was incredibly difficult and, in the early days of Bethel, both staff and members often struggled with a recurring problem: how is it possible to get beyond traditional psychiatric treatments when someone is still being tormented by their disabling symptoms? Tōjisha-kenkyū was born directly out of a desperate search for answers.

In the early 2000s, one of Bethel’s members with schizophrenia was struggling to understand who he was and why he acted the way he did. This struggle had become urgent after he had set his own home on fire in a fit of anger. In the aftermath, he was overwhelmed and desperate. At his wits’ end about how to help, Mukaiyachi asked him if perhaps he wanted to kenkyū (to ‘study’ or ‘research’) himself so he could understand his problems and find a better way to cope with his illness. Apparently, the term ‘kenkyū’ had an immediate appeal, and others at Bethel began to adopt it, too – especially those with serious mental health problems who were constantly urged to think about (and apologise) for who they were and how they behaved. Instead of being passive ‘patients’ who felt they needed to keep their heads down and be ashamed for acting differently, they could now become active ‘researchers’ of their own ailments. Tōjisha-kenkyū allowed these people to deny labels such as ‘victim’, ‘patient’ or ‘minority’, and to reclaim their agency.

Tōjisha-kenkyū is based on a simple idea. Humans have long shared their troubles so that others can empathise and offer wisdom about how to solve problems. Yet the experience of mental illness is often accompanied by an absence of collective sharing and problem-solving. Mental health issues are treated like shameful secrets that must be hidden, remain unspoken, and dealt with in private. This creates confused and lonely people, who can only be ‘saved’ by the top-down knowledge of expert psychiatrists. Tōjisha-kenkyū simply encourages people to ‘study’ their own problems, and to investigate patterns and solutions in the writing and testimonies of fellow tōjisha.

Self-reflection is at the heart of this practice. Tōjisha-kenkyū incorporates various forms of reflection developed in clinical methods, such as social skills training and cognitive behavioural therapy, but the reflections of a tōjisha don’t begin and end at the individual. Instead, self-reflection is always shared, becoming a form of knowledge that can be communally reflected upon and improved. At Bethel House, members found it liberating that they could define themselves as ‘producers’ of a new form of knowledge, just like the doctors and scientists who diagnosed and studied them in hospital wards. The experiential knowledge of Bethel members now forms the basis of an open and shared public domain of collective knowledge about mental health, one distributed through books, newspaper articles, documentaries and social media.

Tōjisha-kenkyū quickly caught on, making Bethel House a site of pilgrimage for those seeking alternatives to traditional psychiatry. Eventually, a café was opened, public lectures and events were held, and even merchandise (including T-shirts depicting members’ hallucinations) was sold to help support the project. Bethel won further fame when their ‘Hallucination and Delusion Grand Prix’ was aired on national television in Japan. At these events, people in Urakawa are invited to listen and laugh alongside Bethel members who share stories of their hallucinations and delusions. Afterwards, the audience votes to decide who should win first prize for the most hilarious or moving account. One previous winner told a story about a failed journey into the mountains to ride a UFO and ‘save the world’ (it failed because other Bethel members convinced him he needed a licence to ride a UFO, which he didn’t have). Another winner told a story about living in a public restroom at a train station for four days to respect the orders of an auditory hallucination. Tōjisha-kenkyū received further interest, in and outside Japan, when the American anthropologist Karen Nakamura wrote A Disability of the Soul: An Ethnography of Schizophrenia and Mental Illness in Contemporary Japan (2013), a detailed and moving account of life at Bethel House. "

-Japan's Radical Alternative to Psychiatric Diagnosis by Satsuki Ayaya and Junko Kitanaka

[abandonedandforgottentimes]

Many of the younger ccs speaking up about Wilbur's manipulation is INCREDIBLY concerning, and I don't think they'll be the last. I think it's also a big indication that it happened to Tommy too, and that he'll take a while to respond. People demanding an immediate response need to remember that he was likely a victim of it too, he just may not have been aware of it.

I mean, Wilbur's ADMITTED he relied on Tommy for his mental health when he was still a minor. That is NOT something adults should ever do and it has always been odd to me. It also makes it very hard for the minor involved to leave the friendship, since they see themselves as responsible for the older person. I don't think I need to really go into how unhealthy that sort of thing is, it isn't an uncommon occurrence and lot of people will have a better explanation than me. But it is something to keep in mind, that Tommy may feel responsible or have been groomed to excuse the behavior.

The library stream is another example of the manipulation, and I'm surprised no one is talking about it. Tommy literally talked about how uncomfortable he was at Wilbur's house. It was cold, he had no blanket, he didn't want to keep staying there, he would rather be out in public at night in a strange place. Then Wilbur just shows up out of nowhere and tells Tommy he's misremembering/being dramatic and pretty much shuts him up, gets him to stop talking shit about him. Everyone's exasperation with Tommy in the situation (being a minor alone and uncomfortable and uncertain of what to do, far from home with nowhere to go), helped Wilbur pull Tommy back in and convince him to go back to his house, especially since it was passed off as Wilbur being caring.

It was obvious to me during the stream that Tommy was telling the truth and Wilbur was the one lying, but I figured he was just being defensive because he didn't want all that online. Now we know that he had a LOT more to hide about his living situation that he didn't want being spilled, and manipulators/abusers don't tend to like it when someone goes and starts talking about the truth. They want to downplay it as much as possible, and Wilbur showing up in person to shut Tommy up and make fun of him for not wanting to stay with him, make it more lighthearted, is incredibly telling and I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone point that out.

There are so many other things I found odd throughout the years that finally have a proper explanation to them, but that's just a few examples. I'm not going to get too much further into it. Wilbur isn't who we should be focusing on, I just needed to get that out to move on from it.

I do think pointing out that Tommy has openly been manipulated is important because it may cause him to take a while to respond openly to all this while he processes. If Wilbur treated so many of his ex-friends badly it's safe to assume he did it to all of them, and we need to give everyone involved time to stop and think about the situation. A lot of people want Tommy to respond immediately, but he will need time to do that and it's only fair we give him the space to do that properly.

I also think it is so, so incredible that Shelby has given so many people the space and bravery to come forward. I believe there will be more people speaking up soon, they just need time. Support her and other victims!

[cherry-pop-elf]

Your Own Happy Ending

Mouthwashing gang X Reader

AN: Can be read as platonic, and can be implied to be any/multiple characters. Except Jimmy. Fuck you Jimmy

Sum: Enough was enough. Time to get off this stupid Rock

Warnings: 18+, violence, sexual assault, revenge fic, talks about rape, gore, happy ending don’t worry, trauma, mouth wash, graphic violence, written by a victim of sexual assault and giving all of us that need to get revenge on our abusers. I see you, guys gals and nonbinary pals. I see you

This had to stop. He was going to just hurt more and more people. There will be more victims. You can’t become a victim, you can’t have the ones you love be under his hands. No. No one deserved this.

No one except him.

Curly was at deaths door, Anya is going to reach a point of no return in her pregnancy, Daisuke is on the edge of a mental break down, and even Swansea is shattering apart. One bottle of mouthwash at a time.

You didn’t know what will happen next. You were crashed in god knows where, but maybe there is a chance of hope. Maybe there is a way to get home. Maybe. Maybe maybe maybe.

The cockpit is full of foam, but who says you can’t just cut away at it enough to access a transmitter? What’s else is left to do? Not like waiting and praying is helping.

Would explain why Jimmy refused to let anyone have the keys to the pit.

He didn’t want his sins to escape.

You’ll make them escape out of his damn body.

There was no way Anya was going to tell you where the gun was. Guess that means you’ll need to improvise. Had a ax. A ax can do it, but getting it away from Swansea is going to be troubling. He was keeping it as much for self defense at this point as you would have to.

You needed a weapon.

Your hands couldn’t handle it. Jimmy was able to do so much harm already. Anya was most likely not his only victim. He’s certainly done this before. Meaning he knows how to fight, and get someone pinned under him. There to do whatever he wanted.

You had to get him before he got you.

What else could be a weapon?

A knife? A knife!

You ran into the kitchen, much to the confusion of Swansea and Daisuke, only to start tearing the drawers out. Utensils flying everywhere as you tried to find something. Anything sharp.

To your horror there was no knives.

“He took all the knives….”

You looked over, same for Swansea, as it had been Daisuke who said it.

Daisuke said it.

“They are all in Curly’s old room. Since he’s the new captain now he has the ability to lock down that door. No one gets in, and no one gets out. Whatever he wants to hide is there. Noticed him hoarding things there. Was so confused…..Now I’m not anymore.”

Swansea looked ready to start swinging his ax at the nearest body of organs. He couldn’t believe this was real. That this was some shining bullshit.

This couldn’t go on.

“Swan, Daisuke, you guys gotta grab Anya and hide out in the med-bay. I’ll find something. I’ll find something-“ You rambled on, before Anya had poked her head in. Seeing Swansea holding Daisuke, and trying to keep that ray of sunshine from finally snapping.

“What’s going on?” She would whisper. Ever afraid if she spoke to loud that Jimmy would find her. Find her and do something else. Didn’t matter where she was. He was always breathing down her neck. One way or another.

“Little junior adventurer over there wants to finish the job.” Swansea would grit his teeth, as you still kept hunting down for something. Willing to tear apart cushions. You had to find SOMETHING. Maybe you could break a chair leg, maybe you could use some wires. Maybe maybe maybe-

That’s when Anya held your shoulder. Her tired eyes pulled you away from the incoming insanity. Brought you back to reality, and had you listen. Listen for just a moment.

“This is where the jugular vein is-“ She begun, as she pointed to her neck. Then started to name off more vital arteries, before pulling a scalpel from her pocket. Into your hands they went, as she kept listing off every vital vein possible. Weak points every body had.

Even a man like him.

“Last I saw him he was exploring the lower decks. Please…..Just make it quick.” As much as she hated him, she just could only bring herself to be only so cold. She could never be as cruel as Jimmy. To wish death onto someone. Never would she.

That’s what made her forever better than him.

“Come on, kid. You ain’t gonna wanna see this. Get over here, Anya. Come on. Let’s go have a sleepover with Captain Curly.” He would motion her over, and she would snuggle under his arm. The two safe in his arms, as he would walk them to the med-bay.

Was wise for him to keep the ax. That thing was what kept Jimmy from doing his own finishing of the job. You can’t over power him. No you can’t. There was also the fact Anya made sure to keep the gun hidden. You wouldn’t deny the idea it was in the med-bay somewhere. Just more protection if anything.

They’ll be safe. If you didn’t make it, at least you’ll make sure Jimmy is too weak to try anything more to hurt them. Weak enough for someone else to finish the job. What mattered now was them staying away until the job was done, and for you to figure out what to do next.

You needed that damn key.

You would stuff your hands in your pockets, grip tight on the scalpel, and started walking. Walking, thinking, listening. Eyes glued to anything that could offer an opportunity to be jumped. You had to be vigilant.

As you walked you would notice the door that was once Curly’s. How Jimmy didn’t deserve the luxury of what a Captain gets. Made you wonder what else he was also hoarding in that room. Maybe he was hoarding resources that should have been shared with the rest of you. There could be the slimmest chance that he was hiding away a transmitter even. Not having the guts to destroy it, and maybe even as far as to what for the rest of them to kill each other before he called for help.

That coward.

You had to get his keys. You needed those keys for those you love. They deserved to live. YOU deserved to live. No way in hell will Jimmy keep getting away with this. Never again. Never more.

Your nerves were getting tighter and tighter now. Even the sound of your own heart beat was painfully loud in your head. The sweat on your skin, the itch of your skin being too tight, the pounding of drums, the feeling of air pushing at your ribcage. So much as your eyes blinking was to loud.

Everything was to loud.

That’s when a bang of metal hitting metal alerted you. You spun around, and was just met with nothing. Just an empty, dark, hallway. No source of the noise. Maybe there was none to begin with. Just your nerves.

“Deep breaths. Deep breaths. You know you have to do this. There is no other option. You can do this. For Anya, for Daisuke, and for Swansea.”

A wipe to your brow and you returned to hunting him down.

Felt like an eternity. Just endless hallways in red lights of emergency. Hallways blocked off by foam. Was a scarlet bouncy castle of horror. Never did the ship feel so endless yet so tight. Maybe the ship itself was breathing to.

Never did you think you would be happy to see his ugly face.

He was down in the lower decks, seeming to be trying to access a door that Swansea had managed to block off. Swansea was stronger than he looked, and was a mechanic no less. Jerry rigged a makeshift lock for the door. If you recall correctly that was where the cryo-sleep pods were. He had been working to try and fix them up, but you doubt they survived. Guess it’s better to pretend you are doing something useful than do nothing at all.

“Hey Jim, whatcha doing?” You tried your best to act casual, as you watched him trying to get the lock off. A mixture of locking mechanics and bent metal that kept things in place. Jimmy just didn’t have the body weight to unbend them. Who ever said being fat wasn’t useful?

“Trying to get into this damn room. Be useful and help me, won’t you?” He grumbled, as he kept trying to pull the metal.

This was your chance.

This almost felt to perfect. He was distracted, hyper focused on something, and was crouching. You would have the upper hand. You can pull this off. You just had to fight your nerves.

“Yeah yeah yeah. I’m coming.” You would say, as you would walk closer to him. Flashes crossed your vision with each step. Was like blurs of a shadow puppet show. Visions of his talle outline pinning Anya to the ground, another of him pinning Daisuke to a wall. Even Swansea wasn’t free from the concept of being pinned to a surface and abused.

No one was safe with Jimmy still around.

You would soon be standing behind him, as he focused on the lock. He was right there. You just had to do it. Do what Anya showed you. His neck was exposed. It was right there. You just had to do it.

You pulled your weapon out, and took in a deep breath.

Just as you brought your arm to swing, Jimmy turned around.

Happened in a flash. You made contact with his skin, but it was his cheek instead. He would tumble over, and was quick to kick your legs out from under you. Had you slam your back to the ground. Knocked the wind out of you.

“I fucking KNEW IT-! YOU GOD DAMN BITCH-!” Was like he wasn’t even human anymore. Just as much of an animal on the outside as he was on the inside. You had to run. You had to get out of there. You fucked up your perfect chance. Your messed up and he’s going to remind you that you did.

You attempted to get up, but Jimmy was just that much faster than you. Your ankle was grabbed, and he was yanking you closer. You couldn’t stop yourself from screaming, as he would try and pry the medical tool from you.

“GET OFF OF ME YOU RAPIST PIECE OF SHIT-!” You nearly sobbed, as he stared down at you. Your wrists pinned above your head, as he just gawked at you. Was like he never even heard the word before.

“Rapist? You think I’m a fucking rapist? You little fucking bitch. I’m no such damn thing. What happened between us was nothing of the sort. It was just what happens when someone gets in my way. Reaching your goals isn’t a crime. Is it?” He asked you, as you kept struggling under him. Trying to get away.

“Fuck. YOU-!” And you slammed your face into his. Gave you a blinding headache instantly, but the shock of contact was enough to make him let go. You were soon crawling, and now running, away.

“IM GOING TO KILL YOU! IM GOING TO KILL ALL OF YOU LIKE IVE BEEN TRYING TO DO WITH CRASHING THIS STUPID SHIP!” His voice echoed like the demon from hell he was.

You never thought such fear like this could be in your body.

Your vision was a blurry mess from the head bang, but you just used the walls to offer you guidance. To try and find a place to breathe, and wait. To try again. You won’t give up. You refused to give up.

“COME BACK HERE-! YOU CANT RUN FOREVER! THERES NOWHERE ELSE FOR YOU TO GO-!” He would threaten you. His voice just seeming to be coming from everywhere. Was like he was inside of your own head. Like he was all of your insecurities crawling through your skull, and turning your brain into a mushy puddle of doubt and fear.

You still kept going.

You would find yourself back into the dinning hall, and took your chance in hiding in the kitchen area. Ducking down and hiding yourself by the elevated counters. If he kept running he shouldn’t notice you.

You would hold your knees, recollect yourself, and breathed.

The echoes of his running foot steps were like alarm bells in your ears. To hear them get closer, more distant, then closer again. Clearly having lost where you went, but still keeping up chance. How did he have so much energy? He must have been indeed hoarding resources. No way should someone surviving off mouthwash have this much stamina.

Your confused thoughts were cut short by the quickening pace of the foot steps. From banging on metal to proper flooring. He had entered the kitchen. He was breathing hard, and just boiling in anger.

“Where’s that fucking bitch? Where did that fucker go?” He would pant, as you would hear something sharp run over the counter marble. Must have grabbed a knife from his bedroom. Maybe that meant he left the door unlocked as well.

That could be your chance to get a proper weapon.

You just had to wait. Wait and pray he didn’t look over the counter.

You couldn’t tell where he was looking, but you needed to risk it. You would grab for one of the spoons off the ground, and threw it as far as you could. Into the hallway to the next part of the ship. You managed to get enough distance. The sound of metal hitting on the grates was loud. You swore you could feel the head thwip of Jimmy turning towards it.

“Found you-!” He shouted cockily, as he ran into that direction.

“Dumbass.” You muttered, as you soon ran the opposite way. Trying to find his room before he realized he was had.

You even went as far as to take off your shoes, so your feet made much less noise. Harder to be tracked and followed. Never did you think listening to Daisuke ramble about horror movie logic would come in handy. Gave some weird morbid hope that maybe Anya will be a final girl and make it out of here alive.

You would hear the foot steps echoing around you, as you tried to stalk quieter towards the dorm hallways. Was so hard to make out where they were going and coming from. The distant shouts of annoyance weren’t helping either. Was just making you more aware of your own mortality.

Luckily you managed to find the door. He snuck inside, and closed the door. Maybe he would think he locked it behind himself and not even think of checking in there. Maybe he was dumb enough to be fooled.

When in the room you couldn’t help but be disgusted by the sight. He really was hoarding food! The knives were also laid all out on his desk. Organized like he was planning to use them. There was also a trans communicator. Just as you thought there was. You thought it was suspicious there wasn’t a means to transfer information in case of an emergency. Even Pony Express had to have THAT. Suppose believing it was just consumed by foam was easier. Maybe it was and he dug it out himself.

No matter. You had hope.

You quickly grab the device, and turned it on. By god it WORKED!

“Hello? Hello?! This is the Tulpar for The Pony Express! We’ve been crash landed for months! Pony express has laid us off and hasn’t sent any rescue by proxy! Can you hear me?!” You couldn’t help but shout, as the transmitter would crackle.

“We read you loud and clear. How many are on the ship?” You were sobbing. No way. Someone was actually hearing you!

“Five! We have five people here! One in critical condition! Captain Curly! He’s alive! Alive but having suffered the most from the crash. We are running lower on medical supplies, we have very little food, we’ve been drinking fucking mouth wash to survive!” You weeped, as the person on the other end was taking in the information.

You said five for a reason.

“Keep on the line with us as we track your signal. Are you in any immediate danger?” The person asked.

“YES YOU ARE-!” Jimmy would shout behind you, before stabbing you right in your shoulder. You screamed bloody murder, as the person on the line gasped. Despite the pain, you were keeping your grip on the communicator. You weren’t letting go. No you fucking WONT.

“STUBBORN BITCH-!” He shouted at you, as you used your body to protect that communicator with all your body and life. You didn’t care if he was going to kill you now. You were getting everyone home. You were and you fufilled your mission.

“Just get it over with already you coward! How many people did you rape?! Huh?! Was Anya the first?! Like hell! She’s your most recent! Was Daisuke next?! Was I next?!” You called out, as you had nothing to lose anymore. You were going down with your own ship, unlike him.

“If you have to know, Anya wasn’t my last at least. She really thought leaving me alone with Curly was smart. Dumb whore-“ He would yank out the knife, making you bleed and scream. The hot searing pain was just beyond words. You were seeing stars, and not the kind you wanted.

“Was figuring how many I could get away with. Didn’t think she would actually tell anyone. Didn’t think much about her at all. Guess you live and learn. You live and l-“

Bang.

Silence.

Silence, the crackle of a communicator, and the ever breathing ship.

With a thud to the ground you were able to finally gain some vision to look over. Over to see Jimmy was dead on the ground, with a bullet hole through his forehead. Those terrifying eyes were now glsssy and empty. Looked almost relaxed. The only time he seemed to rest.

He was dead.

Your vision was blurring, and noise around you was muffled. All you could hear was muffled noise. Was like you were underwater. Your vision was starting to blur again as well. Couldn’t make out shapes.

You thought you saw someone with black hair above you. Seeming to grab something and speak into it. Was there something yellow to? Yellow and shaking you? There was also this almost pinkish blur as well. Came to you, and you swore you heard someone saying ‘you’re a hero’ before it all went to black.

One Month After The Call.

“Morning sunshine.”

You would groan, as you rubbed at your eyes. What happened? Was it all some bad dream? Where were you? This place didn’t look like the med-bay. Was so clean and white. There were windows too. Holy shit was that daylight? REAL daylight?

“Over here.”

You turned your head, and you saw him. Captain Curly. Looked so much better than when you last recalled him. His skin wasn’t as red, proper bandages were on him, and his lips even seemed to be healing back. Skin graphs? Was still laying in a bed, but far more cared for. Proper bedding, clean, IV bags, and…Wait…..Did he speak?!

“Been out a while. Don’t worry not much to catch you up on. You kinda went into a medical coma, from what Anya tried to explain to me. Everyone agreed to put you in the Cryo-Pod until help arrived. Was the only way to keep us both alive. All the resources had to go to me, sorry about that, so they had to pretty much freeze you in time. Big Swan had managed to make it function enough to work until the rescue team came for us. Welcome to the land of the living, hero.”

Even with his messed up complexion, and voice so hoarse you thought he himself was speaking through a communicator, you smiled. A hero huh? Wait. That meant….

“Did Anya pull the trigger?” You asked, with your own voice rasp from lack of use.

“Yeah. Yeah she did. We heard you screaming and she just….Couldn’t let you be his next victim. You gave her some bravery. I already knew she was brave, but damn. Who needs a Captain when you have her?” His laughter was painful, but you knew it was worth it.

“How’s everyone else?”

“Anya has been working with staff here. They took her in to be a doctor with them when they saw that the likes of me was still alive and functional. They really didn’t want to lose someone as smart as her. Daisuke has been glued here as much as us-“ He would weakly raise his arm, what’s left anyway, towards the sleeping solider. Curled up on a spare cot that was brought in for him. The staff having been understanding that he deserved to be around you both. His parents most likely were the ones to bring in all the video games for him to play with and show Curly as well. Even after so much he was still taking care of the ones he loved.

“Swansea?” You worried the most, since you wondered where he could be.

“Sueing the ever living fuck out of Pony Express for whatever damn dime they have left. Daisuke’s parents, and him, have been at the forefront on it all. He will come visit us soon. Get some rest, sunshine. You’ve earned it.” But you couldn’t help but worry. A worry that one person wasn’t accounted for.

“He’s dead. I do mean dead dead. By the time help arrived he had already well started decomposing. Swansea even went the extra mile and cut his head off from his body. Kinda overkill, but hey….Can’t take risks with monsters. Right?” You nodded at that, as you were able to rest.

No more Jimmy.

No more space ships.

Time to finally be a princess and get your beauty sleep.

“Sleep well, sunshine.”

“You to, Captain.”

A deep breath in of that sterilized air, fresh cut grass, and clean cotton.

You were free.

[fucktoyfelix]

This is actually a useful thing to understand how to spell out. What exactly is wrong with puritanical attitudes towards sexuality? TW: Discusses body image issues, suicide, STIs, sexual assault etc

1. It fosters fear, disgust and loathing of our bodies. By hiding the human body as soon as we are born, and treating it as an object of inherent shame: THAT creates trauma. Shame is one of the primary sources of trauma, its the fuel and lets trauma burn. Those raised in nudist societies, and children raised in households where nudity is treated in a neutral and non-sexual tend to have a much more positive relationship with their bodies as adults. This makes complete sense when you think about it. Going through puberty not knowing if your body is "normal" terrifies children in ways that stick with them for life. In fact, most cultures outside of the Unites States aren't as strange about non-sexual nudity actually...and are healthier for it. We can't have body positivity as long as we are literally criminalized for having an uncovered body. 2. It creates fear, shame and disgust about sex. Most people have sex at some point in their lives. No one would be here at all without it. Most people have sexual desires which lie outside their control. When people are ashamed of those desires, it leads to self hatred, and depression and anxiety. This shame is just as traumatic as bodily shame. When sex is normalized, and treated with the same candor as any other hobby: it becomes less apt to traumatize people.

3. Puritanical attitudes towards sex limit sex education. When people are too ashamed to talk about sex, people don't learn about pregnancy, stis, or consent. All of these things can and do kill people when they aren't addressed with an open dialogue.

Sexual shame leads to people too ashamed to buy condoms, to talk to their doctor about birth control, to ask their partner to use protection, to get tested...the negative health impacts of sexual puritanism have a massive negative effect on society.

4. Sexual shame leads to poorer communication in relationships. Ohh if I had a dime for every person i knew who ruined their relationship because they felt too guilty to talk to their partner about their sexual feelings...Not just that, but the general body shame that comes with puritanism blocks people from connecting to one another too. Have you ever avoided getting close to someone because you were ashamed of your body? If not, I guarantee you know someone who has.

5. Misogyny! Puritanical sexual believes hold that women are not capable of sexual agency. That only men should initiate sex. That women should only ever want babies and not pleasure from sex. All of this rolls right into the next one:

6. Victim blaming in sexual assault. When women are the gatekeepers of sex, its easy to blame them when they 'fail' to protect their chastity when someone violates their trust. This isn't something that just effects women: as the same attitudes hold that men are not capable of experiencing sexual assault. The lack of education and discussion about sex in a sex-negative world inherently prevent the open dialogues necessary for creating and maintaining consent culture.

7. Suppression and marginalization of the queer community. If we're too ashamed to talk about sex, we'll be too ashamed to talk about sexuality. Puritans can't accept any deviation from gender norms either. Anything other than sex between a cis man and a cis woman for the purpose of making a baby is a deviant kink, a mental illness, and needs to be wiped out. Its important to point out that many queer people hold puritanical values about sex: believing that they can achieve sex negativity and queer liberation at the same time. However, sex negative movements always rise with censorship and discrimination of queer people...because queer people are inherently considered deviant by the vast majority of sex negative "allies". It's very dangerous to forget this.

8. Censorship of art. Who decides what is sexual and what is not? Its easy to agree that sex needs to be hidden...but it never takes long before the definition of what is "sexual" expands. Even women's breasts are considered sexual in the United States. Its so normal for Americans to think of them that way that women can't feed their children in public. Drag queens face violence for reading at libraries. Books get taken off the shelves. Artists are bullied offline.

9. Censorship of scientific exploration. Scientific research into reproductive health, sexual behavior, gender identity and more are often hindered due to the "moral objections" of puritans, delaying progress and understanding. That's just off the top of my head. I think its time for people to take how problematic 'puritanism' is more seriously. As we see fascism rear its ugly head all over the world, we're going to see a lot more talk about 'degenerates'...and we know where that kind of talk leads.